Josh King

2 Timothy 2:1 & I Need the Water with which I Am to Flow

True gospel ministers are just buckets and pipes.

Imagine you are traveling through a desert and your water runs out. Soon your lips are cracked, your mouth is dry, your throat is parched, your stomach is in knots, and your skin is blistered – you are dehydrated and dying. If you see a bucket lying in the sand, or a pipe lying horizontally in the sand you do not get excited about them, no matter how pretty they may be. But if the bucket is attached to a rope that is attached to a well, or if that pipe is standing out of the sand vertically with a faucet on top then you might begin to get excited. And as you investigate to find that the well is indeed full of clean, clear, cool water then you celebrate. Your joy wouldn’t terminate on the bucket or the pipe, but climax in the drinking of the water.

Only the insane would just stare at the bucket or pipe rest content. Spiritually we are insane. Sin is an insanity; it makes no sense. We are more enamored with the plate than the feast of Christ. We judge the meal by the plate, rather than the plate by the meal. We pass by heavenly delicacies to gorge ourselves on earthly refuse because of the plate.

Demand water from pipes or deem them useless. Better a cracked pipe that preaches Christ crucified than a pretty pipe that pumps the poison of performance.

I am a pipe that drinks what I flow with. I hope by God’s grace that when I present the feast of Christ, I have already richly dined on the meal, and plan to further do so even in the act of preaching. The grace I preach is the grace I need. I hope to come not just having snacked or licked my fingers in preparing the feast, but already overstuffed, and seeking more. We cannot be gluttonous when feasting on Christ; and there is always more bread and wine.

Pray for me that the flow not cease. The fountain is inexhaustible and infinite. I am sinful, desperately needing the water that is to flow through me. I am not strong, but the fountain is full of strengthening grace.

Tolle Lege: The Five Dilemmas of Calvinism

Readability: 1

Length: 126 pp

Author: Craig R. Brown

This little book is an excellent place to begin if you are wrestling with Calvinism. In my opinion there are books that are better, but none that are so brief, winsome, or simple. Simplicity is the strongest attribute of The Five Dilemmas of Calvinism. Often Brown just hits you with a litany of Scriptures that demonstrate the truth he is advocating for and then calls on the reader to think on them. This I think is the best way to get someone to consider Reformed theology, give them some Scriptures and ask them to read them prayerfully as you pray for them.

WTS Books: $9.00 Amazon:$9.00

The Sweet Dropper: Killing Pride by His Humility

God so hated pride, that he became humble to the death of the cross to redeem me from it, and shall I be proud? – Richard Sibbes, Divine Meditations and Holy Contemplations

Galatians 6:11-18 & No Other Boast

When Paul writes, “far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he writes it in large letters (v.11). What is the meaning of these large letters? Some speculate that Paul is compensating for a degenerative eye disease (Galatians 4:13-15). Paul could very well have some eye problem, but I don’t think that is the best explanation for what Paul means by these large letters.

Paul would normally dictate his letters to an amanuensis, that is, to a professional writer (Romans 16:22). Near the end of his letters Paul would pick up the pen to write a greeting (1 Corinthians 1:21-23, Colossians 4:18). Paul would do this to authenticate his letters (2 Thessalonians 3:17). Here Paul takes up the pen much earlier, and not just to write a concluding greeting, but an emphatic summary of the entire message of his letter; and he does so drawing attention to the fact that it is in his own hand and in large letters!

When Paul says he boasts only in the cross he shouts it in large letters. Paul is trying to overcome the Galatian’s blindness by these large letters, not his own. All of our redemption is found in Christ alone because of the cross.

The cross of Christ isn’t the fine print of Christianity, it is the bold heading under which everything else falls.

Read verse 14 and the surrounding context again then seeing it like this:

“BUT FAR BE IT FROM ME TO BOAST EXCEPT IN THE CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST BY WHICH THE WORLD HAS BEEN CRUCIFIED TO ME, AND I TO THE WORLD.”

O blessed Spirit of Christ, overcome our own blindness to see this truth in large letters.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling

– Augustus Toplady

Tolle Lege: Tell the Truth

Readability: 2

Length: 207 pp

Author: Will Metzger

Too often books or courses on evangelism reduce the gospel down to a few bullet points hoping to make the task of evangelism less daunting. Early Metzger offers no apologies for doing the opposite in his book, Tell the Truth.

The extensiveness of this gospel summary may surprise you. I do not apologize for this. I am convinced that God purposes our speaking the truth in love as the predestined means of salvation. If all Christians learned these truths, their witness would be more God-honoring and their spiritual growth enhanced as they daily reexperience the gospel of grace. The gospel is for Christians. God may use a minimal amount of truth to quicken someone; that’s his prerogative. Our privilege is to enter into the depths of the whole gospel, sinking roots into that life-giving water.

A small gospel means small Christians. Every day of your life as a Christian should be one of growing in your understanding of and conformity to the gospel you are meant to preach. How can we commend something we think worth only a fraction of our mind and commitment?

This is the best book on evangelism I’ve read. Here the whole gospel is commended to whole person, by whole people. Don’t miss this book.

This is a book about the scandal of sovereign salvation. In it, I blame God for salvation, in the sense that he is totally responsible. He organized a rescue operation within the Trinity – designing, supplying, accomplishing and restoring those who are in peril. Our triune God is the Author and Fulfiller, the Originator and Consummator, the Creator and Redeemer. It’s all God’s fault – a grace that gives response-ability to the spiritually dead.

WTS Books: $10.71 Amazon:$10.04

The Sweet Dropper: Delivered Not from, but by Trouble

Though God deliver not out of trouble, yet he delivers from the ill in trouble, from despair in trouble, by supporting the spirit. Nay, he delivers by trouble, for he sanctifies the trouble to cure the soul, and by less troubles he delivers from greater. – Richard Sibbes, Divine Meditations and Holy Contemplations

Satan Invented Moving, But Jesus Redeemed It

As we are moving and seeking to sell our house, we had our bathtub reglazed today. The repairman, sympathetic to our plight, said he was pretty sure that Satan invented moving. I don’t like any form of sacrilegious humor, though hypocritically I might laugh or make such a comment, not even Satan is to be joked about. Still this repairman spoke better than he knew, or I knew until a little reflection.

Home was the garden. Satan suggested that moving would be a good idea. It wasn’t. We were driven from our blessed home into the cursed wilderness by loving his lies.

But Jesus “moved” too. He took on flesh and entered our wilderness to make a way home. Jesus redeemed moving. When Jesus ultimately “moves” us we won’t have to bring or pack any of our old baggage, and we won’t want to either. No more renting, we will finally be home.

Tolle Lege: Chosen by God

Readibility: 1

Length: 213 pgs

Author: R.C. Sproul

Chosen by God is one of the greatest introductions to the doctrine of election I have read. Sproul, a master teacher, in his typical manner make the most profound of doctrines clear . He will not handle the topics in depth and cover every area, but it is amazing the breadth of material covered in so small a package, with such power and clarity.

Is there any reason that a righteous God ought to be loving toward a creature who hates him and rebels constantly against his divine authority and holiness? The objection raised by the philosopher implies that God owes his love to sinful creatures. That is, the unspoken assumption is that God is obligated to be gracious to sinners. What the philosopher overlooks is that if grace is obligated it is no longer grace. The very essence of grace is that it is undeserved. God always reserves the right to have mercy upon whom he will have mercy. God may owe people justice, but never mercy.

God is free. I am free. God is more free than I am. If my freedom runs up against God’s freedom, I lose. His freedom restricts mine; my freedom does not restrict his.

WTS Books: $10.15 Amazon: $10.28

The Sweet Dropper: Why Christ Married Our Nature

He married our nature, that he might marry our persons. – Richard Sibbes, Miracle of Miracles

Tolle Lege: Basic Christianity

Readability: 1

Length: 179 pp

Author: John Stott

I really do enjoy reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, and there are some excellent illustrations and arguments that just beg to be used, but as far as communicating the very core, the essence of Christianity it falls short. If you want a little book to take an unbelieving friend through to communicate to them the central message of the Christian faith may I suggest John Stott’s Basic Christianity. Here the gospel isn’t just defended, but shown as necessary and gloried in.

You can never take God by surprise. You can never anticipate him. He always makes the first move. He is always there ‘in the beginning’. Before man existed, God acted. Before man stirs himself to seek God, God has sought man. In the Bible we do not see man groping after God; we see God reaching after man.

In seeking God we have to be prepared not only to revise our ideas but to reform our lives. The Christian message has a moral challenge. If the message is true, the moral challenge has to be accepted. So God is not a fit object for man’s detached scrutiny. You cannot fix God at the end of a telescope and say ‘How interesting!” God is not interesting. He is deeply upsetting.

Jesus never concealed the fact that His religion included a demand as well as an offer. Indeed the demand was as total as the offer was free. If He offered men His salvation, He also demanded their submission.

WTS Books: $6.00 Amazon: $6.00