White Horse Inn is Taping in Front of a Live Audience

Here's the scoop:

Greetings Friends,

Have you ever wanted to join the conversation? On Friday, February 12, 2010 White Horse Inn is taping in front of a live audience and you are invited.

We trust you are benefiting from the 2010 series "Recovering Scripture" and we hope to see you soon.

White Horse Inn Live Taping in La Mirada

When - Friday, February 12, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. (Seating begins at 7:00 p.m. and is first come first serve).

Who - Mike Horton, Ken Jones, Kim Riddlebarger, Rod Rosenbladt and you.

What - Live taping and Q&A regarding the topic of "Contending for the Faith" – How did the apostles contend for the faith in the book of Acts?  Did they appeal to the practical benefits of living life Jesus’ way?  Did they share their testimonies or inner experiences?  Did they encourage bland faith?  On this special live edition of White Horse Inn, the hosts will walk through the apologetic sermons in the book of Acts in order to discover the proper way to both defend, and contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.

Where/Sponsor – Calvary Chapel at Biola University sponsored by Associated Students of Religious & Academic Relations – 13800 Biola Ave. La Mirada, CA  90639 (562.903.6000)

Registration - no registration required (free event) 

"Gospel music is the purest thing there is on this earth"

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How does one qualify for God's heavenly inheritance? Does it come by obedience to the law, or by trusting the promise? In their continuing survey of Paul's letter to the Galatians, the hosts further outline the distinctions between the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, and point to Christ alone as the ground of our acceptance before a righteous and holy God.

http://www.whitehorseinn.org/

Lecture Title:  "The Suffering Church"

Lecture Contents:  Does the New Testament anticipate a golden age on the earth for Christ's church before the Lord's return?  How does the presence of persecution by the state, the warnings regarding schism and division, as well as the ever-present danger of heresy impact our understanding of the course of this age?

Instructor:  Dr. Kim Riddlebarger

Textbooks:  A Case for Amillennialism (Baker 2003), The Man of Sin (Baker, 2006)

About the Academy:  The Academy meets at Christ Reformed Church in Anaheim.  The lectures begin at 7:30 p.m., are free of charge, and are followed by a time for questions and answers, as well as a time for fellowship and refreshments.

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Talk about strict church discipline!  Here's a story about a pastor who pulled a gun on his son because of the son's poor church attendance.  People in circles like that ought to be careful.  The son might just draw on pa, and I'll bet the son is quicker.  Packin' heat

The Archbishop of Canterbury was recently in New York near Wall Street.  Given the proximity to money and power, Rowan Williams was asked, "what does the good life look like according to Jesus?"  His answer:  “The Gospels give us a good picture of what the good life looks like,” Archbishop Rowan said.  It resembles, he said, the disciples, extended family and devoted followers who surrounded Jesus during his ministry — a group of people united by “a common identity shaped by the fact that each depends on all others.”  That's about what I would expect from Williams--nothing remotely related to the actual content of the four gospels.  Why can't we just all live together in harmony and sing Lennon's Imagine?  Williams on the "good life"

Here's another lame attempt to reach out to people during the Super Bowl.  An L.A. megachurch (Mosaic) catering to twenty-somethings, many of whom are in the film-making industry, tries a bit of light-hearted humor centering on Dorritos and the resurrection.  What am I missing?  Christianity is not "cool" and it never will be.  Megachurch commercial

In Second and Third John, we actually get to read an apostle’s mail.  The Second Epistle of John was written to a church with which John was intimately familiar, some time in the last decade of the first century.  Very likely, this was a congregation located near the city of Ephesus, where John was an elder and the last living apostle.  John personifies this church as the “elect lady” and speaks of its members as her children.  The Third Epistle of John was written to a man named Gaius.  Since Gaius was the most common name in Asia Minor at that time, and since there are several men with that name mentioned in the New Testament, it is impossible to identify this person with any specificity.  But in any case, these two short letters tell us a great deal about both the apostolic church and the apostle John.  The contents of Second and Third John remind us of the importance of sound doctrine, as well as the role of Christian charity in the lives of God’s people.

We now conclude our series on the epistles of John by turning our attention to the two shortest letters in all of the New Testament, 2 and 3 John.  These letters contains less than 300 hundred words each, and from their contents, it is clear that John composed each of them on a single sheet of papyrus.  Since the ink of that period was made of soot and water thickened with gum (resin made from tree/plant sap), John filled up a page, and then quit so that it could dry before being folded and then sealed with wax.  A number of the same issues John has addressed in his first epistle reappear in these two epistles, although in greatly abridged form.  Both are typical of letters from this period–they follow the classic epistolary style–in which John introduces himself through the use of his title–elder–not his name.

I debated about whether or not to even preach on these letters.  I concluded that since God saw fit to include them in the canon, it is important that we treat them as Scripture–and they do have several interesting and important points for us as a church.  Given the brevity and nature of these personal letters–there are no Old Testament citations or echoes in either of them–I thought it best to treat both of them in one sermon–hence, a first lesson and second lesson, as opposed to our usual practice of an Old Testament and a New Testament lesson.  We’ll go through each of these letters rather quickly, and then we’ll draw some conclusions as we wrap up.

The immediate context in which these letters were written reflects the typical problems associated with traveling missionaries in the apostolic era.  If nothing else, the Romans were great civil engineers.  They managed to connect much of their empire through a series of well-constructed roads which made travel much easier than it had been previously.  Christian missionaries took full advantage of that infra-structure provided them by Rome–a common language and a network of good roads.  In fact, Christianity had spread throughout most of the Roman empire by the end of the first century.  In the providence of God, Roman roads and the Greek language had much to do with the rapid spread of the gospel. 

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Q. What is sanctification?

A. Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness. 

(Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 35)

Several times I have heard Christians recite the following formula: “Christians are saved by grace, justified by faith, and sanctified by works.” On first hearing, this sounds right as the slogan attempts to capture three important biblical emphases. Yes, we are saved by grace and not by our works (Rom. 6:14; Eph. 2:8). Yes, the ground of our justification is the merit of Christ, which becomes ours through faith alone (Rom. 3:28; Gal. 2:16). And yes, good works will be found in the lives of those who are saved by grace and justified by faith (Eph. 2:10). But — and here is where the slogan takes us in the wrong direction — we are not sanctified by our good works.

This is a very important point and is often misunderstood by many. The reason why the last part of the above formula is incorrect (“sanctified by works”) is because when discussing sanctification, the formula confuses the cause (God’s grace) with the effect (good works). To put it another way, while the process of sanctification inevitably leads to the production of good works, good works do not produce our sanctification.

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Leave your guess in the comments section below.  Please, no google searches or cheating.  Answer to follows next week.