December 2010 – No Other Boast

Hero: 2011

I don’t believe the Bible is a book of heroes. It is a book about the Hero. The Bible does have heroes in it, but that is not what it is about. Nonetheless, I do believe in having heroes, and I believe it is Biblical to have them.

Heroes are not perfect, and thus they point us to Christ in three ways. Their faults (weaknesses and sins) point us to the Savior that they, and we, all need. With this foundation we learn two further truths concerning their strengths. First, they are a result of God’s gifting and working in them such that He gets all the glory. Second, their strengths point us to Jesus, the ultimate curve breaker. All heroes are judged in relation to Him.

Every year I single out one hero to study in particular. This year I will study Richard Sibbes.

Richard Sibbes was born in 1577 at Tostock, Suffolk. This son of a wheelwright loved books and with the help of supporters went to Cambridge at the age of 18. There he would receive his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, but most importantly He would be converted under the preaching of Paul Baynes in 1603.

Sibbes was ordained to the ministry in 1608, chosen as one of the college preachers in 1610, and earned his Bachelor of Divinity in 1611. From 1611 to 1616 he would lecture at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge. In 1617 He would journey to London to be Lecturer for Gray’s Inn. Additionally he became master of St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge in 1626. Finally, while retaining the previous two positions he would serve as vicar of Holy Trinity, Cambridge until his death in 1635.

I was warmed towards reading Sibbes by reading others, notably John Piper and Mark Dever. At the embark of this journey I have only read two titles, which I will reread this year, A Description of Christ and The Bruised Reed. The Bruised Reed is one of the most comforting books I have ever read. I encourage you to get the paperback version and profit deeply from it.

Every week I will post some gleanings from Sibbes. All posts will be marked, “The Sweet Dropper,” a name Sibbes was known by. If you have not already ready him I am sure you will soon see why.

The Doctor: God’s Accountancy

Sometimes God has been gracious on a Sunday and I have been conscious of exceptional liberty, and I have been foolish enough to listen to the devil when he says, ‘Now, then, you wait until next Sunday, it is going to be marvellous, there will be even larger congregations’. And I go into the pulpit the next Sunday and I see a smaller congregation. But then on another occasion I stand in this pulpit labouring, as it were left to myself, preaching badly and utterly weak, and the devil has come and said, ‘There will be nobody there at all next Sunday’. But, thank God, I have found on the following Sunday a larger congregation. That is God’s method of accountancy. You never know. I enter the pulpit in weakness and I end with power. I enter with self-confidence and I am made to feel a fool. It is God’s accountancy…. He is always giving us surprises. His book-keeping is the most romantic thing I know of in the whole world.

Our Lord spoke of it again in the third parable in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel according to St Matthew. You remember His description of the people who will come at the end of the world expecting a reward but to whom He will give nothing, and then the others to whom He will say, ‘Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you.’ And they will say, ‘We have done nothing. When have we seen you naked, when have we seen you hungry or thirsty and given you drink?’ And He will say, ‘Because you have done it unto the least of my brethren you have done it unto me’. What a surprise that will be. This life is full of romance. Our ledgers are out of date; they are of no value. We are in the Kingdom of God and it is God’s accountancy. It is all of grace. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, pp. 131-132

Tolle Lege: The Treasure Principle

Readability: 1

Length: 94 pgs

Author: Randy Alcorn

What if books on giving money were as popular as books on making money?

Randy Alcorn’s The Treasure Principle had been on my wish list for some time when I found it at a local used bookstore. It’s one of those small little books published by Multnomah, think C.J. Mahaney’s The Cross-Centered Life. There were several copies at the bookstore, along with another one of these little Multnomah books, The Prayer of Jabez. I think they were there for two different reasons. People read The Prayer of Jabez, practiced it for a little while, decided it didn’t work and was therefore stupid. People read The Treasure Principle, decided it was stupid, or extreme, and therefore never practiced it. I’m saddened that so many copies of such a book would end up back at the bookstore. I hope as a result of my small efforts here you go buy all the used copies and more to give away.

This little book is stuffed with power, conviction, and joy. Here is the book in summary taken from the last page of the book.

Treasure Principle

You can’t take it with you–but you can send it on ahead.

Treasure Principle Keys

1. God owns everything. I’m His money manager.

We are the managers of the assets God has entrusted—not given—to us.

2. My heart always goes where I put God’s money.

Watch what happens when you reallocate your money from temporal things to eternal things.

3. Heaven, not earth, is my home.

We are citizens of “a better country—a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).

4. I should live not for the dot but for the line.

From the dot—our present life on earth—extends a line that goes on forever, which is eternity in heaven.

5. Giving is the only antidote to materialism.

Giving is a joyful surrender to a greater person and a greater agenda. It dethrones me and exalts Him.

6. God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.

God gives us more money than we need so we can give—generously.

The Doctor: Stop Praying and Think

Let me put this plainly and bluntly in order that I may emphasize it even at the risk of being misunderstood. There is a sense in which the one thing that any believers who are in this condition [spiritual depression due to a particular past sin] must not do is to pray to be delivered from it. That is what they always do, and the more they pray the more they begin thinking about this one sin that they’ve committed in the past, and the more and more unhappy and depressed they become. Now the Christian must always pray, the Christian must ‘pray without ceasing’, but this is one of these points at which the Christian must stop praying for a moment and begin to think. So you must stop praying and think, and work out your doctrine. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, p. 69

The Doctor: The Essence of Sin

The essence of sin, in other words, is that we do not live entirely to the glory of God. – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, p. 31