Josh King

Tolle Lege: A God-Sized Vision

Readability: 1

Length: 187 pp

Author: Colin Hansen and John Woodbridge

Burnt on revival? Does the word conjure up images of a planned event that failed to produce the thing longed for?

If you are not longing for revival may I submit to you that it is because you don’t know what one is? It isn’t something we schedule. It isn’t something we pull down from heaven; rather it is heaven graciously coming down to us. Revival is God doing what He is always doing redemptively for His church, but in a concentrated manner. God is always saving and sanctifying His people, but in revival He does so in a marvelous way. We should long for this.

Here Colin Hansen and John Woodbridge help us in A God-Sized Vision. They show us that revival is both a Biblical and historical truth and reality. History is God’s story. The Bible is His inspired Word, but God has also spoken through church history for our edification. Church history is not infallible, but nonetheless, we like the ancient Israelites, would do well to remember what God has done in our past, so that we may anticipate His mighty redemption yet to come.

Here is a book of revival stories that will bring joy and inspiration, but best of all, that will move you to pray and long for God to do it again.

WTS Books: $11.38 Amazon:$11.55

The Sweet Dropper: Comfort Is Nothing But Digested Doctrine

As in plants and tree, what is the fruit of the tree? nothing but the juice of the tree applied and digested into fruit; so, indeed, doctrine is that that runs through the whole life of a Christian, and the strength of doctrine is in comfort. Comfort is nothing but doctrine sweetly digested and applied to the affections. He will never be a good comforter, that doth not first stablish the judgment in some grounds of doctrine, to shew whence the comfort flows. – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1

Tolle Lege: Do Hard Things

Readability: 1

Length: 232 pp

Author: Alex and Brett Harris

Adolescence is a myth, and Alex and Brett Harris do an excellent job of exposing it. They defied the norm as teenagers and now call you to do so as well in Do Hard Things. Don’t just read this book, do it, do hard things!

In order to understand the modern “teenager” concept, we have to go back in time only a hundred years. At that time, right around the year 1900, a cascade of labor- and school-reform laws were passed in an attempt to protect kids from the harsh conditions in factories. These laws were good because conditions had been brutal, and children’s health and education suffered. Unfortunately, the laws had some unintended and far-reaching consequences. By completely removing children from the workplace and mandating school attendance through high school, teen’s once-established role as key producers and contributors came to an end. Suddenly their role was almost exclusively that of consumers.

Young people were suddenly stuck in a poorly defined category between childhood and adulthood. …Instead, the “teenager” was invented – a young person with most of the desires and abilities of an adult but few of the expectations or responsibilities.

WTS Books: $10:58 Amazon:$9.81

The Sweet Dropper: Knowledge of Spiritual Things vs. Spiritual Knowledge

For, beloved, the knowledge that must save us must not only be of divine things, but it must be divine; it must not only be of spiritual things, but it must be spiritual. The light that we have of spiritual things must be answerable to the things; we must see them by their own light. We cannot know spiritual and heavenly things by a human light; but as the things themselves are spiritual, so we must have the Spirit of God, that by it we may come to know spiritual things spiritually. – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1

Tolle Lege: Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart

Readability: 1

Length: 160 pp

Author: John Ensor

One of the most frequent and necessary areas of counseling teens and single adults is in the area of relationships. Culturally, they swim in a pool of insanity, so Biblical wisdom is essential. John Ensor reminds us what it means to be male and female, to have distinct roles. Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart is a great book for older teens, young singles, and married adults.

In the same way that hunger alone tells us nothing about eating nutritionally, our passions and urges do not teach us about loving well. We can be driven by the chemistry of creation to meet and greet but that is not the same as having a grasp on who we are meeting and what their needs are. Hormones and oxytocin bond us to those with whom we share a bed, but what it means to love beyond merely making love does not come from chemistry; it comes from theology. It comes from parenting. It comes by learning. Proverbs 19:2 says, “Desire without knowledge is not good.”

I once had a lively discussion with a brother who insisted that in his relationship everything was equal, and that this was the hallmark of their marriage. To him equal meant same and therefore interchangeable. He proudly rejected the idea of male initiation and female response. And what is more, he thought he was serving the cause of women in this.

I responded by saying that in my marriage, my wife and I never think about equality, though if forced to think about it we would affirm our mutual worth before God. Instead, I see my wife as better and more precious than I–of greater worth. And I told him my wife took no offense in this matter. Indeed she gets upset with me precisely at the point when I start treating her as my equal. To her it feels like a step down.

WTS Books: $9.47 Amazon:$9.59

The Sweet Dropper: Testimonium Internum Spiritus Sancti

Quest. How shall we know the doctrine of the gospel concerning Christ to be yea, undoubtedly true?

Ans. 1. I answer, how do we know the sun shines? I know it by its own light, and by a light that I have in my eye. There is an inward light joined with the outward light. So it is in this business, how do we know divine truth out of the book of God to be divine? By the light in itself, by the majesty of the Scriptures, by the consent of the Old and New Testament, by the opposition of the enemies, and the confusion of them at the last that have been opposers of it, by the miraculous preservation of it, and the like; but especially by the powerful work of it on the heart, by the experience of this blessed truth. I know this to be an undoubted truth, I find it quelling my corruptions, changing my nature, pacifying my conscience, raising my heart, casting down high imaginations, turning the stream of nature another way; to make me do that which I thought I should never have done, only because I have a strong light of divine truth and comfort. There is this experience of Christ, that a man finds in his soul. It sets him down that he can say nothing, but that it is divine truth, because he finds it so. – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1

Tolle Lege: Erasing Hell

Readability: 1

Length: 197

Author: Francis Chan

I was excited when I learned that Francis Chan would be writing a book that began as a response to Love Wins by Rob Bell. I was excited because I was expecting it to be Biblically faithful, and earnest and broken in tone. I also thought that if there was one author who could write such a response that would also sell on a level on par with Love Wins it might be Chan. I prayed that it would outsell Love Wins. I praise God that in Erasing Hell our prayers were answered.

Biblical clarity and faithfulness often comes in the wake of threatening heresy (i.e. the early church creeds), such is God’s blessed providence. Oh that this would lead to a generation believing the doctrine of hell as Chan articulates.

Still I must add that my one complaint with Chan is his leaving annihilationism as a possible alternative. While Chan thoroughly sees evidence for eternal conscious torment and leans toward that view himself, he doesn’t think the language is crystal clear. I disagree and recommend you read John Piper’s dismantling of annihilationism in Let The Nations Be Glad.

I was excited that this book was being written. I am not, as Chan cautions, excited to read about hell. This isn’t an exciting book, but a necessary book. Hell does not make me glad, but I am glad this book on hell was written.

I really believe it’s time for us to stop apologizing for God and start apologizing to Him for being embarrassed by the ways He has chosen to reveal Himself.

And sending people to hell isn’t the only thing God does that is impossible to figure out. The Bible is bursting with divine acts that done make a lot of sense to us…

Would you have thought to rescue sinful people from their sins by sending your Son to take on human flesh? Would you have thought to enter creation through the womb of a young Jewish woman and be born in a feeding trough? Would you have thought to allow your created beings to torture your Son, lacerate His flesh with whips, and then drive nails through His hands and feet?

I’m almost sure I would not have done that if I were God.

Aren’t you glad I’m not God?

It’s incredibly arrogant to pick and choose which incomprehensible truths we embrace. No one wants to ditch God’s plan of redemption, even though it doesn’t make sense to us. Neither should we erase God’s revealed plan of punishment because it doesn’t sit well with us. As soon as we do this, we are putting God’s actions in submission to our own reasoning, which is a ridiculous thing for clay to do.

[W]e need to stop explaining away hell and start proclaiming His solution to it.

WTS Books: $10.04 Amazon: $8.31

The Sweet Dropper: His Body Will Not Always Rot

Let us often think of our nature in him now exalted in heaven, and that we shall follow him ere long. Our head is gone before, and he will not suffer his body always to rot in the earth. Let us think of his natures, and his offices, and all the blessed prerogatives that we have by him, and all the enemies that are conquered by him, that in him we have God reconciled, and the devil vanquished, we have heaven opened, and hell shut; we have our sins pardoned, and our imperfections by little and little cured; in him we have all in all. – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1

Tolle Lege: What is a Healthy Church Member?

Readability: 1

Length: 120 pp

Author: Thabiti Anyabwile

I still think every person in the pew should read 9 Marks of a Healthy Church, but I am so very glad that Thabiti has taken those marks, plus one, and made them directly applicable and more accessible to the church member in What is a Healthy Church Member?.

Too often we take more time to think through what it means to be a member of some club, or a citizen of a nation, this should not be so. Buy this little book and think through what it means to be a healthy church member.

The 9Marks series of books is premised on two basic ideas. First, the local church is far more important to the Christian life than many Christians today perhaps realize. A book called What Is a Healthy Church Member? might also be called What Is a Healthy Christian? We at 9Marks believe that a healthy Christian is a healthy church member.

Second, local churches grow in life and vitality as they organize their lives around God’s Word. God speaks. Churches should listen and follow. It’s that simple. When a church listens and follows, it begins to look like the One it is following. It reflects his love and holiness. It displays his glory. A church will look like him as it listens to him.

WTS Books: $10:15 Amazon:0.28 0.2 0.2

The Sweet Dropper: There Is Nothing More Terrible Than God…

There is nothing more terrible than God without Christ; but now in Christ we can think of the most terrible thing in God with comfort. – Richard Sibbes, An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 1