Thomas Boston Lecture MP3 Available

The MP3 Audio of the  History Lecture Thomas Boston (1676-1732) anticipates the death of Queen Anne’ is now available.

The more I think about it, the lecture was not only a great encouragement, but also very challenging. This is a major purpose of the lectures. It’s not just an opportunity to stuff our heads full of facts – as useful as that might be. But we do see through the lives of Christian men & woman of the past how God has kept them and how in the case of this lecture stepped in providentially to preserve the Church. To have some knowledge of history is really important. I remember a few years ago inviting Iain Murray to come and lecture – he replied ‘are Christians interested in history?’. Quite an indictment, one wonders sometimes.

The lecture spoke powerfully, I thought, into the present situation of the Church. Powerful people die, sometimes unexpectedly. The death of Queen Anne was hugely significant as you will hear. I commend this and the other lectures to you.

The lecture can be downloaded HERE.

Visit my Website for many other history lectures HERE

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History Lecture on Thomas Boston

Our next History Lecture will be:

Thomas Boston (1676-1732) anticipates the death of Queen Anne’

Bulkington Congregational Church

7:30 pm Monday 31st March 2014

Speaker: John Kilpatrick

Be great to see you if you can make it.

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Lecture Audio Available

Latest lecture audio is now available.

“The Samuels Petto (1624-1711) and Peto (1809-1889)”

Go Here. You know what to do.

Lost History Lecture by Paul Cook

English: Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778)I just started reading Paul Cook’s book Fire From Heaven: Times of Extraordinary Revival (book link) and I recalled a lecture he gave way back in 1980 on Augustus Toplady ‘The Saintly Sinner’. I looked for it on my Website but couldn’t find it. After some searching I realised it was uploaded but the link was missing and it wasn’t even listed. Anyway, it’s now fixed and available for download.

I have great memories of Paul and his ministry. The lecture on Toplady will not disappoint. FYI, Paul Cook is married to the author Faith Cook.

Go here to download. Visit my website for full listing of lectures.

Here’s the first verse of Toplady’s ‘A debtor to mercy alone’

A debtor to mercy alone,
Of covenant mercy I sing,
Nor fear, with God’s righteousness on,
My person and off’rings to bring.
The terrors of law and of God
With me can have nothing to do;
My Savior’s obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view.

 

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History Lecture Monday 3rd March

Just a quick reminder that Gary Brady (Childs Hill Baptist) will  be speaking this coming Monday night on the subject:

“The Samuels Petto (1624-1711) and Peto (1809-1889)”

How Gary will weave these two biographies together we have yet to find out. There could be a bookstall (courtesy of Bethel Bookshop – Wigston) and we hope that you’ll be able to join us – or listen later.

Details of this and other meetings are available on The Bulkington Church Website<bulkingtoncongregational.org/Meetings.php>

Audio will be available a few days after the lecture

Jeremy Walker’s Andrew Fuller lecture – Audio available

To listen to the lecture go here or right-click and ‘save as’ to download. Enjoy.

Andrew Fuller Lecture

Andrew Fuller
Andrew Fuller (Wikipedia)

Last evening we were treated to an excellent lecture by Pastor Jeremy Walker on ‘Wrestling – The Life of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815)’. The lecture was full of appropriate illustrations from Fuller’s life, dripping in theological truth, an eye on the Glory of God and His Gospel and delivered with challenging clarity, concern for truth and with suitable emotion. Just brilliant! It was a real joy to once again meet up and have fellowship.

You really need to listen to the audio (Will post when available) as this brief post is a very poor substitute for the real thing. It was a privilege to be there and once again we are so grateful to extremely gifted, and not to say busy, pastors and teachers prepared to travel to a small, probably unknown, Church in the Midlands, UK.

‘Hyper’ or ‘High’ Calvinism

Andrew Fuller was raised in an atmosphere of ‘Hyper’ or ‘High’ Calvinism and in such an oppressive atmosphere the ‘free offer of the Gospel’ was not to be heard. Unless significant signs of awakening were to be observed or experienced there was no warrant to urge a sinner to call upon Jesus for salvation. This is such an important aspect of the lecture that I need to come back to this. Jeremy very kindly offered to send me his lecture transcript and when that arrives (assuming he remembers) I’ll deal with this more fully then.

Not an Imitator

One aspect that powerfully stood out was Fuller’s individuality. Early on in life he determined to literally ‘follow’ another man’s furrow. This was a disaster, Fuller’s furrow rather than being the straight furrow he anticipated was full of twists and turns. From this he determined never to be an ‘imitator’. This had great significance because in his determination not to be an imitator Fuller went directly to the Scriptures for his doctrine. This meant ‘wrestling’ directly with the text of Scripture rather than relying on another man’s ‘dividing of the truth’. This applied most directly to the preaching of the Gospel offer. Fully persuaded the Bible taught that all people should be urged to repent & believe the Gospel he preached Christ and Him crucified urging sinners to call upon Christ for salvation.

More on this later.

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Dr James White reviews the ‘Unbelievable’ Molinism debate

Yesterday, in his own inimitable way, Dr James White began (not quite heard it all yet) his review of the ‘Unbelievable’ Molinism debate between William Lane Craig & Paul Helm. Dr White, I believe, does the Church a great service through his Dividing Line broadcasts.

As far as the debate is concerned, what did it for me was that the Catholic ‘Counter-Reformation’ was looking for a way to answer Luther & Calvin. They did this through a Jesuit scholar. The Catholic Church would otherwise have had to give up its doctrine, as Dr White’ puts it, of Sola Ecclesia rather than the Biblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and the Catholic church was never going to do that! It still holds to that today.

The ‘Dividing Line’ can be downloaded via iTunes or through the Webcast on the Aomin website. His review starts about 30 minutes in but it’s all worth a listen.

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Revival – The disappearance of an Era

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones

On a discussion board one of the recent topics is ‘Unction’ in preaching. The topic came about through Carl Trueman‘s ‘Mortification of Spin’ podcast and the forum were asked for their thoughts on the review. In this MOS podcast the topic or book they were discussing was Dr Lloyd-Jones book Preaching & Preachers. They agreed it was a great book and a helpful book but were perplexed, even calling it ‘bonkers’, when it came to ‘Unction’. The Dr (Dr Martyn Lloy-Jones) discusses this subject at length in the book.

One or two, myself included, found the way Carl was so disparaging of ‘Unction’ quite concerning and even questioned whether he had ever experienced it either in his own ministry or from the pew.

John Knox

This set me thinking about the sort of situation where this ‘Unction’ would be evident. We read about this sort of thing being evident in Revival – especially during the periods of The Reformation, the Puritan era and the the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening in the US and in the British Isles (England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales). The subject of Revival does seem to have fallen out of fashion.

This sent my thoughts back to when I first became a Christian back in 1979. Back then there was constant talk of Revival. There were conferences about Revival, there were prayer meeting for Revival, there were many books and magazine articles published about Revival. The public prayer in many services of worship were full of longing for Revival. It was something to be prayed for, longed for and worked for. But now, all that seems to have gone.

I can see this in part concerning the History Lectures that I help organise – where are the lectures on Revival? Not quite so prominent. This is something I will try to rectify for next year (2015).

I can understand to some extent how as a subject it has gone into decline. There has over the last few years been massive advances in Secularism and really a turning away from the Christian faith while at the same time what the apostle Paul described as ‘a form of godliness, yet a denial of its power’. In other words the State wants to maintain its grip on religion but wants nothing to do with its reality – the true Christian faith (the faith we are charged to contend for Jude 1:3) . The church gets caught up in all this. It forgets its prime mission is to preach the Gospel. We have nothing else and the world does everything else better anyway.

Thoughts of Revival these days seem to revolve around doctrinal precision. This is good and proper but without the Revival emphasis the church has lost something. The adage that Revival is ‘Truth on Fire’ could do with coming to the fore in our thinking. It’s not enough to be precise, though it is necessary. What we need is to be on fire. What preaching needs is to be on fire. This isn’t something you can get from a book, from a Seminary or from a program of study or whatever. Revival it seems to me, is the prerogative of God. And where a Revival is advertised, you can be sure that that revival is false.

To be sure an over emphasis on Revival as the panacea to all our problems is not only unhelpful – it isn’t true. And, I think this was seen as the view. Consequently the pendulum began to swing away from a concentration on Revival. As ever, the Christian life is a life of balance and it’s all too easy to fall off the knife-edge and become unbalanced. So far I’ve not so much as mentioned the Holy Spirit nor Jesus. But make no mistake if you want a Revival in your Church preaching endless stories and anecdotes about yourself or your dog or whatever your favourite hobby is will not cause the Spirit of God to fall upon your ministry. But preaching about Christ, and keeping Him central to your ministry may do. Remember, Revival is the blessing of God as He see’s fit, ‘the wind blows where it will’. Being faithful to the Gospel of Christ, being precise in doctrine, caring deeply about the truth of the Word of God will be blessed by God. He has promised to do so. Revival, that’s another matter, but perhaps the Church of Jesus Christ should begin to seek Him afresh for it, even in these degenerate days.

Update
There was a ‘Concert for Prayer’ (modeled on Jonathan Edwards prayer for revival) held in one of the local churches last week. I’m told it was an encouraging meeting. About 20 people attended with 5 local churches represented. About the size of a man’s hand. The plan is to hold a ‘concert’ quarterly.

 

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Church History Lectures 2014 – Reminder

A reminder of the Church History Lectures for 2014. All lectures take place at Bulkington Congregational Church. Everyone welcome. Bookstall and refreshments.

7:30 pm Monday 3rd February 2014
Wrestling – The Life of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815).
Speaker: Jeremy Walker

7:30 pm Monday 3rd March 2014
The Samuels Petto (1624-1711) & Peto (1809-1889)
Speaker: Gary Brady

7:30 pm Monday 31st March 2014
Thomas Boston (1676-1732) anticipates the death of Queen Anne
Speaker: John Kilpatrick

7:30 pm Monday 28th April 2014
How pure is the church? Augustine and the Donatists
Speaker: Austin Walker

Lectures are available for download shortly after each lecture.

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