John Piper

Karen and I have benefited greatly from the ministries of teachers like John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper, and of course, Paul Washer. In fact, we have benefited so much from the teachings of these God-fearing teachers that very often we wonder how we can contribute to and support their ministries.

Those who know us well will know that when it comes to a monthly donation, we aren’t exactly in the financial position to do so right now.

I’ve therefore been thinking that we can perhaps start small — that instead of just downloading sermons that we have found helpful in understanding God’s Word, we could perhaps actually pay for them (or their MP3 equivalents anyhow) even if the sermon or sermon series was available as a free download.

For example, single sermons at Grace To You, John MacArthur’s ministry, cost just US$2 (S$2.90) and a series of sermons go for about US$6 (S$8.50) so I thought it’d be a good way for us to show our appreciation and support the ministries at the same time.

What do you think? Is it a viable option for us to support the ministries?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. (Source)

Personally, I use Twitter to update my friends and acquaintances on the going-ons in my life. Since some events simply just don’t warrant a blog post or even an email to said persons, tools like Twitter and even Plurk are perfect for doing so. Besides, it’s easy to know what your friends are up to since you can easily “follow” them on their Twitter (yes, stalking has gone digital. I kid! I kid!).

In fact, Twitter has become so pervasive that some ministries now have their own Twitter presence! Ligonier Ministries (R.C. Sproul) just got on, and I also discovered that John Piper’s Desiring God is there too, along with Mark Driscoll.

For those who enjoy his blog and book reviews, you can “follow” Tim Challies of Challies.com on Twitter too.

And, last but not least, if you would like a daily verse with your Twitter feed, you can choose to “follow” the ESV Bible’s daily verse tweets.

If you have a Twitter account, consider adding them to your feed, and if you like, stalk “follow” me on mine as well.

“Prosperity Gospel is no Gospel because what it does is offer to people what they want as natural people. You don’t have to be born again to want to be wealthy and therefore you don’t have to be converted to be saved by the Prosperity Gospel.

When you appeal to people to come to Christ on the basis of what they already want, 1st Corinthians 2 makes no sense! The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit, they are foolishness to him. Therefore if you offer to people what they do not consider foolishness in the natural man, you’re not preaching the Gospel.

And the Prosperity Gospel offers to people what they desperately want as fallen people, gives it to them and grows huge churches … I can’t believe what we tolerate in the Church, so I am on a crusade to crucify the Prosperity Gospel!”

John Piper
“God Is the Gospel: Meditations on the Love of God as the Gift of Himself”
February 18, 2007

What is clear from Jesus’ teaching is that keeping and growing the gift of purity and the righteousness that surpasses that of the Pharisees is a life-and-death battle. We are not passive. Jesus gives the decisive power, as John 15:5 says, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” But we experience that power in the willingness to engage in radical and persistent attacks on our own sinfulness. Jesus pronounced a blessing on “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” They are the ones who “shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). Hunger and thirst are relentless. They never stop. They are signs of life. We will do almost anything in our power to satisfy hunger and thirst. That is how Jesus teaches us to pursue purity.

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I have never had a thing for Christian rap — I just thought that such artistes were simply taking a secular musical format, mixing it up with some reference (no matter how minuscule) to the faith and trying to pass it off as “Christian” when in fact the lyrics still sounded very much secular to me.

For a while, I was quite convinced my observation held true, and I think I might have been right.

However, I recently came across a Christian rap artiste called Shai Linne and his creations gave me a totally new perspective on Christian rap. I am not saying that all that I disliked before have now become appealing, but that this brother has probably single-handedly redefined Christian rap for me.

His pieces are very Biblical, and you can even say that he’s a perfect rapping companion to preachers like Paul Washer, John Piper and John MacArthur in the sense that what he espouses in his music are along the same lines as what these good brothers teach. Moreover, if you like sermon jams, you won’t find his creations too difficult to like.

Might I even go as far to say that he’s a “Puritan rapper”?

This is one of my favorite pieces, The Gospel, from his new album The Atonement (which you can purchase from iTunes Store or directly from Lamp Mode Recordings) which talks about the book of Romans.

I’m going to see how I can get my hands on a copy here (iTunes Store is, unfortunately, not available for this part of the world)!

Foreword: I thought I’d give a little background into how this testimony came about, because it simply demonstrates how often God works wonderfully in us and there’s only goodness when we submit to His will.

For some days now, my wife has told me that she hasn’t been able to sleep well because God has prompted her time and again to write her testimony down.

She asked me why, and I told her testimonies were a good way for us to glorify God through telling others what He has made anew in us. As to why God is telling her to do so I am not sure, yet we need trust that the Lord has need for her to do something that has not been revealed, but it’s all good.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

We had retired rather late to bed last night. Just 15 minutes later, she was out of bed, and the study light came on while her computer whirred to life. When I popped into the study to ask why she wasn’t in bed, she was quite in tears, telling me that God had admonished her for not submitting to His will, right after prayers.

She had been fighting the burden in her heart to write her testimony down, believing wrongly that it’s rather pointless.

It was the first time she had experienced such a prompting, so I gently told her that that’s what God does with me many, many times over — a feeling so heavy in one’s heart that you go on your knees and cry out saying, “Father, Lord, I’ll obey and do it!”

I made coffee for us and stayed up with her while she completed her testimony which we are now sharing with you. May it encourage and bless you as it has us.

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This article was written by John Piper March 19, 2008.
© Desiring God.

The love of Christ for us in his dying was as conscious as his suffering was intentional. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). If he was intentional in laying down his life, it was for us. It was love. “When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). Every step on the Calvary road meant, “I love you.”

Therefore, to feel the love of Christ in the laying down of his life, it helps to see how utterly intentional it was. Consider these five ways of seeing Christ’s intentionality in dying for us.

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John Piper’s exhortation to constantly make all-out war against temptations that we face, our pride, our fleshly cravings and all-enslaving desires in the sermon featured below definitely spoke to me.

Yes, I am guilty of murmuring and murmuring “oh, how I wish to be free of this” and not do anything concrete about it, much less actually wage war against it!

Perhaps you are a better and more conscientious warrior than I am, but I am sure that there are many like me else we wouldn’t have so much heresy and that many hypocrites in our churches today.

If you are honest about it and have been putting off fighting that giant of a sin — be it pride, sloth, pornography, mean-spiritedness, covetousness, or just about any sin — then I pray you take this as the impetus to begin to make constant war.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God

Ephesians 6:13-17

With reference to the alternate title of this post, it has to do with how the sermon was presented.

If you like how it was set to music, then you might also like how other sermons have been treated in the same fashion by the good folks at 10:31 Sermon Jams. Not all of the treatments are good, but there are gems like the one from John Piper I just linked, aptly titled “WAR”.

There’s another site that does the same thing with some of the better sermons called Relevant Revolution. I haven’t gone through much of their treatments yet, but the one I’ve heard — “Go” by Paul Washer — sounds pretty good.

Shalom Aleichem.

It’s worrying me a little.

I’ve been slow on the adoption of ‘new’ technologies in the past couple of years.

Take, for example, this wonderful technology called a ‘podcast’.

I’ve seen it everywhere, but never really paid any attention to it, nor took the time to find out what it does or how it can benefit me. In times past, I’d have leapt at lapping up every piece of information on how it works and how I can benefit from using it.

No, I don’t know what it is, but for someone like me who’s been in the IT industry for more than a decade, it is a little disconcerting.

Well, as the wise (hmm…) old saying goes “better late than never”, I’ve finally caught up with how useful podcasts can actually be.

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Here are some of my favorite quotes from two of the most faithful and true teachers of God’s Word — John Piper and Paul Washer. I hope that they, too, encourage you and spur you on to examine your Christian walk.

John Piper

“Many people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered”

“One of the reasons we are not as Christ-centered and cross-saturated as we should be is that we have not realized that everything — everything good, and everything bad that God turns for the good of his redeemed children — was purchased by the death of Christ for us. We simply take life and breath and health and friends and everything for granted. We think it is ours by right. But the fact is that it is not ours by right. We are doubly undeserving of it.”

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I get both really riled up and sad at the same time whenever I hear or read of those who profess to be serving God fleece gullible people out of their hard-earned money while giving them false promises.

Oh, you wolves in sheep’s clothing! Woe to you!

Just read about this poor woman — Cindy Fleenor’s a 53-year-old accountant, someone smart by academic standards anywhere in the world, and she’s been conned into writing so many checks to these wolves in the shape of Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer and Paula White that she has to borrow money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries!

And when the promises didn’t come about (of course they didn’t, because they are false!), she learned that it was because her faith wasn’t strong enough.

Is it any wonder that she’s now bitter and angry? And the worse thing is that this episode might just push her away from God and she loses the real promise — salvation — because of the misdeeds of these wolves!

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