Josh King

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 & Weeds Gone Wheat

The kingdom of heaven – it’s here, it’s in breaking, it’s moving!

The King is the Sower of the seed of salvation. The seeds are the sons of the kingdom. But if the kingdom is here, what is with the weeds?

Jesus’ answer – the kingdom has been inaugurated, but it is yet to be consummated; the kingdom will come in full glory, the weeds will be removed and the sons will shine like the sun, but not yet.

It is good that the kingdom does not come instantly in its fullness for naturally we are all weeds.

In Adam we are wheat gone wild, wheat gone weeds. But Jesus plucks weeds, recreates them, and sows us as sons of the kingdom. In Jesus we are weeds gone wheat. Sown by the Sower of salvation, we are being renewed in His image to one day shine like the sun.

“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Daniel 12:2-3).”

The Pugilist: Christianity

We hear of Christianity without dogma, Christianity without miracle, Christianity without Christ. Since, however, Christianity is a historical religion, an undogmatic Christianity would be an absurdity; since it is through and through a supernatural religion, a non-miraculous Christianity would be a contradiction; since it is Christianity, a Christless Christianity would be- well, let us say lamely (but with a lameness which has perhaps its own emphasis), a misnomer. People set upon calling unchristian things Christian are simply washing all meaning out of the name. If everything that is called Christianity in these days is Christianity, then there is no such thing as Christianity. A name applied indiscriminately to everything, designates nothing. – B.B. Warfield, “Redeemer” and “Redemption”

Matthew 13:10-17 & Revealing and Concealing

Jesus’ speaking in parables both conceals and reveals. In the same act, Jesus reveals the mystery of the kingdom to his disciples, though He will have to explain the meaning later, and conceals the mystery of the kingdom from the crowd. So while this revealing and concealing is simultaneous, it is not symmetrical. Jesus reveals by giving, He conceals by withholding. If light is present, God is to be praised. If darkness is present, self is to be blamed.

The Pugilist: The Death Bed of a Word

You see, that what we are doing today as we look out upon our current religious modes of speech, is assisting at the death bed of a word. It is sad to witness the death of any worthy thing, — even of a worthy word. And worthy words do die, like any other worthy thing — if we do not take good care of them. How many worthy words have already died under our very eyes, because we did not take care of them! Tennyson calls our attention to one of them. “The grand old name of gentleman,” he sings, “defamed by every charlatan, and soil’d with all ignoble use.” If you persist in calling people who are not gentlemen by the name of gentleman, you do not make them gentlemen by so calling them, but you end by making the word gentleman mean that kind of people. The religious terrain is full of the graves of good words which have died from lack of care — they stand as close in it as do the graves today in the fiats of Flanders or among the hills of northern France. And these good words are still dying all around us. – B.B. Warfield, “Redeemer” and “Redemption”

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 & The Pew or the University?

When you think of the seed falling on the path, hard hearts, deaf listeners – who comes to mind?

Agnostics?

Atheists?

Doubters?

Cynics?

Skeptics?

Yes, they have hard hearts, but that isn’t the most vivid and immediate illustration we have in our context – the Pharisees. The hard hearted believed in Yahweh. The hard hearted loved the Old Testament. The hard hearted were zealous worshippers and tithers. The hard hearted were teachers and leaders. The heard hearted were ardently moral and religious.

Beware! The pew may be the best place to bake and harden.

Beware if you think this has never been the condition of your soil (Ephesians 2:1-3).

The hardest of hearts as easily belongs to the legalist in pew as the relativist in the university.

The Miracle Creating Power of the New Birth Accomplished and Applied.

The new birth is a miracle. From where does this miracle creating power come? How is one born again? Here is my answer:

The miracle creating power of the new birth explodes out of Christ’s death and resurrection and is channeled toward us by the Spirit in the preaching of the gospel of Christ.

Both answers are seen in 1 Peter. First, the explosion:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… (1 Peter 1:3)

Second, the channeling of that power to us by the Spirit in the preached word:

[Y]ou have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God… And this word is the good news that was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:23, 25)

In other words we are born again by the gospel accomplished (the explosion) and the gospel applied (the explosion being channeled to us).

The Pugilist: The Trinity and Redemption

Accordingly, the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of redemption, historically, stand or fall together. A Unitarian theology is commonly associated with a Pelagian anthropology and a Socinian soteriology. – B.B. Warfield, The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity

Matthew 12:46-50 & Jesus’ Blood Is Thicker Than Ours

For Jesus, regeneration trumps generation, that is the new birth is bigger than natural birth.

Blood may be thicker than water, but Jesus’ blood is thicker than ours, creating a newer, truer, eternal family. By blood we are all related to Adam, and in Adam we are all guilty and polluted. By His own blood we are now related to Jesus, and in Jesus we are justified and cleansed. In Christ we are adopted. Our primary identity and allegiance is no longer to any earthly family, but a heavenly one.

Tolle Lege: The Hole in Our Holiness

Readability: 1

Length: 146 pp

Author: Kevin DeYoung

The free grace of Jesus frees us. Fruitless salvation makes as much sense as cold lava. It is a legit fear that in the midst of recovering the gospel against legalism we may fall into antinomianism. We must not forget that the law is good and that holiness is necessary. Our consciences are numb and desensitized. Kevin DeYoung gives sensitizing Biblical truth in The Hole in Our Holiness. Why read this book? Because it will encourage you with God’s Word to pursue holiness. If that does not persuade you, I leave you with the words of John Owen, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

The hole in our holiness is that we don’t really care much about it. The hole in our holiness is that we don’t really care much about it. Passionate exhortation to pursue gospel-driven holiness is barely heard in most of our churches. It’s not that we don’t talk about sin or encourage decent behavior. Too many sermons are basically self-help seminars on becoming a better you. That’s moralism, and it’s not helpful. Any gospel which says only what you must do and never announces what Christ has done is no gospel at all. So I’m not talking about getting beat up every Sunday for watching SportsCenter and driving an SUV. I’m talking about the failure of Christians, especially younger generations and especially those most disdainful of “religion” and “legalism,” to take seriously one of the great aims of our redemption and one of the required evidences for eternal life—our holiness.

J. C. Ryle, a nineteenth-century Bishop of Liverpool, was right: “We must be holy, because this is one grand end and purpose for which Christ came into the world. …Jesus is a complete Saviour. He does not merely take away the guilt of a believer’s sin, he does more—he breaks its power (1 Pet. 1:2; Rom. 8:29; Eph. 1:4; 2 Tim. 1:9; Heb. 12:10).” My fear is that as we rightly celebrate, and in some quarters rediscover, all that Christ has saved us from, we are giving little thought and making little effort concerning all that Christ has saved us to. Shouldn’t those most passionate about the gospel and God’s glory also be those most dedicated to the pursuit of godliness? I worry that there is an enthusiasm gap and no one seems to mind.

WTS Books: $10.79 Amazon:$10.04

The Pugilist: The Fundamental Proof of the Trinity

The fundamental proof that God is a Trinity is supplied thus by the fundamental revelation of the Trinity in fact: that is to say, in the incarnation of God the Son and the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. In a word, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are the fundamental proof of the doctrine of the Trinity. – B.B. Warfield, The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity