Sermon: 2 Cor. 9:6-15

Pastor Zach Keele has given an excellent sermon on 2 Cor. 9:6-15 recently, which can be heard here. A key mark of pastor who loves the flock is to preach a text which deals with money without pressuring the congregation to give more, and I think my pastor has done that well.

VFT book review: Faith Unfeigned

The Valiant for Truth blog has recently put up my book review of Faith Unfeigned, which is a collection of four sermons by the Reformed John Calvin. An excerpt:

The 500th birthday of John Calvin (AD 1509-1564) has passed. Recently, the Banner of Truth Trust has re-published a new translation of a work by John Calvin comprising four of his sermons reworked for publication, an exposition of Psalm 87, and three letters from John Calvin on the necessity of an open and sincere profession of faith (p. ix). This theme of an unfeigned faith, its honest confession evident through practice, is one that permeates all of the texts in this re-published work.

[more]

James White: Woe to those who call Evil, Good

Dr. James White has posted a good sermon from the book of Isaiah reflecting on the collapse of American culture.

Huaizhi's Easter sermon

Yes, I know Easter is sometime back, but anyway Easter is merely a remembrance of the event of Christ's resurrection; there is nothing really special about that date. Anyway, here is my friend Huaizhi's sermon on Easter Sunday on the significance of the Resurrection. It was remarked in teasing that he sounded a bit like Paul Washer at a certain part of his sermon — you be the judge.

My only quibble is that he should have just name the heretical archbishop, who said that it matters little whether the resurrection was disproven because Jesus had risen in his heart, and mentioned it was the Anglican Archbishop of Perth. The Apostle Paul and even the "Apostle of love" John name names (cf 2 Tim. 4:10, 2 Tim. 2:17, 3 Jn. 9) so naming heretics is a biblical given.

James R. White's critique of Peter Enns' "Incarnational" model of inspiration

In this talk at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (GPTS), Dr. James R. White spoke on Peter Enns and the authority of Scripture, and refuted Enns' idea of the Incarnational model of the inspiration of Scripture.

[HT: AOMin]

The background of Paul Washer's shocking message

Paul Washer has recently done a video interview whereby he reveals to us the background behind his shocking sermon preached in 2002 to a conference of stunned youths, about 5000 strong.

An interesting quote from Pastor Washer here:

"We are living in a time when billions of people are dying without Christ. We are living in a time when millions of so-called Evangelicals do not even understand the Gospel. We are living in a time when some of the greatest "Evangelical" heroes, if they were simply critiqued in light of historic Christianity, they would be proven heretics. Shouldn't somebody be disturbed? Shouldn't someone be broken and shouldn't someone stand up and say: "This is wrong" This IS wrong" — Pastor, Evangelist and Missionary Paul Washer

Just in case it was missed, Pastor Washer's shocking youth sermon can be seen here.

[HT: Isaiah Chua]

Simon Murphy on the Gospel and your money

My friend Simon has preached a very good sermon etitled The Gospel and Your Money, which can be heard here. If you are sick about hearing sermonettes about money that sound like a fund-raising speech, this is a sermon you would not want to miss.

Sermon: Tim Keller on Idolatry

I have just finished Tim Keller's sermon on The Gospel and Idolatry which he gave at the recent 2009 Gospel Coalition conference, and it was indeed a good sermon. Keller exegeted the text well and expounded it for our benefits, and it would do us good to examine our lives to see if there are indeed any idols we still harbour in our hearts.

[As it can be seen, I give credit when credit is due. Just because Keller compromised the Gospel in the area of Creation and Apologetics does not mean he is the Devil incarnate. I also respect him more than the other prominent New Calvinist pastor, Mark Driscoll. At least Keller is biblical here and exegeted the text he based his sermon on.]

Sermon: Psalm 2

Here is a good sermon of Psalms 2 entitled Rejoicing with Trembling from Pastor Simon Murphy of Redemption Hill Church, a new church plant in Singapore which is properly Gospel-centered and part of the global resurgence in Calvinism.

Phil R. Johnson on the Pornification of the Church

Phil R. Johnson aka the Pyromaniac has given a message at the Shepherds' Fellowship Conference on the topic of the pornification of the Church, based upon the primary text Titus 2:7-8. You can hear the excellent sermon here.

Living out Sola Fide

Dr. James White giving the conclusion of the Sola Fide Conference at Countryside Bible Church in Dallas

Truly an excellent sermon indeed.

[HT: Aomin.org]

Sermon: The Devastating Consequences of Modern Preaching

One of Dr. White's sessions at the Battle for the Truth conference in Durham, North Carolina, 21st Nov 20008.

Sermon: Ten Indictments by Paul Washer

This is a message from Paul Washer that was preached Wednesday, October 22nd at the Revival Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Paul Washer delivers a urgent appeal to the Christians and Churches in North America (which is applicable to many in Singapore and around the world too) that many have been believing a false gospel and have false assurance of their salvation. He lists 10 indictments against the modern Church system. The first 9 that I can catch are:

1. A practical denial of the sufficiency of Scripture.
2. An ignorance of God.
3. A failure to address man’s malady.
4. Ignorance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
5. An ignorance of the doctrine of Regeneration.
6. Ignorance regarding the nature of the Church.
7. A lack of loving and compassionate Church discipline.
8. A silence on Separation.
9. Psychology and Sociology have replaced the Scriptures with regards to the family.

You may download the sermon here

Incidentally, it is heartening to hear of Paul Washer's own testimony of the growing Reformed resurgence. Though it has its flaws, it can be seen that God is moving in the midst of the death throes of Evangelicalism and creating a new movement to advance His Kingdom. This has given me new impetus to start something here even in Singapore. Let us sacrifice our all for the sake of His Kingdom, and count all things but loss for the expansion of the glorious Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. While it is still day, let us work, and may God be merciful to the Visible churches in Singapore and grant us a new reformation and revival — to turn the entire Christendom in this region upside down!

[HT: Word and Verse, Lane's blog]

P.S.: While I do not agree with his assessment of infant baptism, the rest of his sermon is good and a needed indictment against the many false gospels and false doctrines circulating in our times. Also, it is also my opinion that certain forms of Covenantal Theology are more "theological" than the Scriptures. When your view of Covenantal Theology makes you devalue the necessity to call upon children of believers to personally repent of their sins, and devalue the need to call upon them to examine their lives to see if they are truly of the faith (and not they can assume they are Christians because they are brought up and instructed in Covenant homes), then there is certainly something wrong somewhere. It does NOT need a person to be sufficiently conversant with the intricacies of Covenant Theology to realize that such teaching is wrong. In fact anyone with a good grasp of the biblical Gospel can do so, no matter how "logical" it may seem to be when developing the theme of the Covenant. In fact, may I suggest that if your view of the Covenant logically necessitates such a view of children in the Covenant, perhaps you may need to re-evaluate your theology of the Covenant to see whether it actually conforms to Scripture, or it has become an intellectual and "reformed" yet pseudo-biblical framework which you use to eisegete the texts of Scripture? For Scripture DOES NOT contradict itself. If it seemingly does, then one or many parts of your theology is not biblical.

Sermon: Regeneration v. The Idolatry of Decisional 'Evangelism'

An excellent sermon by Paul Washer at the Deeper Conference, speaking about decisional "evangelism" and what really constitutes true regeneration and salvation at the Deeper Conference hosted by Way of the Master.

Especially liked the earlier part about contextualization, something that the Emerging leaning 'reformed' folks are always harping on. Also, the part critiquing the usage of the first law in the 4SL is something that we must hear. Just because our professed theology is evangelical does not give us the right to be anthropocentric and semi-pelagian in our praxis of evangelism.

[HT: Philosophy of Joel]

Don Carson soundbites

I have finally received the MP3s for the D.A. Carson talks held during the Living Word conference 2008, which incidentally raised my opinion of Singapore Anglicanism. So I have been ripping and editing the MP3s to extract some nice soundbites, typically in the beginning at the Q&A session since I am so not going to attempt to find a section in his sermon which can be generally understood without its context of the entire sermon, though I am sure there are such good soundbites around.

Anyway, here are the interesting soundbites by Don Carson:

In this inclusive postmodern age and time, it is certainly sad that the truth that all people are by nature children of wrath needs to be qualified and treated delicately. I would be happier if Carson did not make that qualifier at the end of his answer to the Inclusivist question, as it distracts from the truth of Scripture and adds nothing of value to it.

And here is Don Carson on the Prosperity 'gospel', which is no gospel at all:

Carson taught on the second day on the topic of the Antichrist that the nature of the two beasts mentioned in Rev. 13 was such that one overly persecuted Christians (the first beast) (cf v. 7) while the second beast 'persecutes' Christians via deceiving them to worship the first beast via heresies and every wind of false doctrines. The question was thus put to him as to whether the Prosperity 'gospel' is a second beast, and he said yes. As you can hear from the clip, I was one of those who applauded, but I did not stand up to applaud him, which my friend Huaizhi did. That said, I similarly think that the qualifier placed at the beginning is totally unnecessary, and serves to confuse more than to enlighten. After all, which prosperity preacher except for the most extreme type would state upfront that they are preaching nothing but prosperity and not Christ? Rather, is it not the nature of deception to play the game of bait-and-switch; to state that they preach Christ yet in practice preach the so-called "benefits" of material prosperity and health?

And onto the last clip:

This was the clip which did not exactly endear themselves to members of FCBC since it was obviously talking about their pastor "Apostle" Lawrence Khong, who incidentally is part of the New Apostolic movement since he calls himself an apostle. Anyway, the question as can be heard wasn't phrased well, and seems to be more of a question of using magic during his services occasionally, plus a tad bit ad-hominem. As I have stated in my review of the talk:

With regards to the first question, the question was rather pointed such that everyone immediately knows who it was referring to – (Apostle) Pastor Lawrence Khong of FCBC. The questioner asked what did Carson thought about the use of magic by a prominent pastor in Singapore, or something to that effect. In my opinion, that was a question that would not really get to the point of contention about Lawrence Khong’s use of magic. After all, with this, it cannot be expected for Carson to know anything of the background information or what this whole issue is about. Furthermore, the question sounded rather personal so it wasn’t a very good question overall. Therefore not only was the basic issue not addressed, but the question was too ad-hominem in nature. From the way that Carson answered, it shows precisely why that was a bad question because Carson probably had in mind a pastor who uses magic occasionally during his sermons. Such magic is thus not occultic in nature, but sleight of hand, and therefore has nothing to do with Scripture’s condemnation of magic. Carson however states that if the doing of magic becomes the primary focus such that it is done to show people how good we are at magic, then he would have a serious issue with that, and with that he ended his answer.

In my opinion, the question should be better worded to focus on the real problem and not on the person. The problem with Lawrence Khong’s focus on magic is not stated here, which is the doing of magic as a semi-substitute for preaching the whole counsel of God, and a distrust of the sufficiency and power of the Word of God to effect salvation apart from his magic tricks. Since Rom. 10:17 proclaims to us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, it is totally unbiblical and inconceivable that anyone can truly comes to faith by just going to one of Khong’s “evangelistic” magic shows, in which no mention is made of the wrath of God, of the sinfulness of Man, and of the necessity of repentance and true faith [mere words do not count], and where magic skills were flaunted This then is the issue and the background information which should be conveyed to Carson, instead of giving a question which assumes as if Carson knows anything about the issues with Lawrence Khong, not to mention Khong is personally irrelevant to the entire issue. A better question to ask Dr. Carson thus is: “What do you think of the using of magic shows by a pastor as a medium for evangelism?”

This then ends Carson's soundbites. For the content of the talks, either go get for yourself a copy of the talks on MP3s somehow, or read mine and various others' reflections on them.

Sermon: The Blessing of Children

Good sermon here. May this be used as a corrective against the anti-children movement among professing Christians around the world. [The liberals can continue to commit demographic suicide for all I care...]

Sermon: Godly Husbands and Wives

Happened to read this four part series by Pastor Justin Neale (The Godly Husband part one and part two, The Godly Wife part one and part two). Good sermons I must say.

Sermon: The Gospel of Accomodation

Here is an excellent sermon by Rev. David Wilkerson entitled The Gospel of Accomodation, and here is a video that applies it legitimately to the seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven movement.

Sermon: What is Christianity

Here is an excellent sermon by Paul Washer...

Sermon: Abandoned by God

Here is a sermon by Pst. John MacArthur given at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (2^nd Nov. 2006) on Rom. 1:18-32 entitled Abandoned by God. I concur with his statement that America as a nation has been abandoned by God. America Evangelicalism in general have also been abandoned by God and given over to every wind of heresy for their destruction as they have forsaken the Lord. Over here in Singapore, we as a nation and as the visible Body of Christ are well following in the footsteps of America. May God have mercy upon us and stop the growing apostasy from taking hold of the (all-too-vulnarable) churches in Singapore.