Salvation

The Coming Revolution in Global Missions: The Worth of Christ

February 19, 2012 By daltonthomas 4 Comments

Since my conversion I’ve been a student of Church history; particularly of reformers and reformations. I’ve always been stirred by those who ushered in new seasons of redemptive history and wrought revolution; especially with regard to frontier missions. While I love domestic ministry (i.e. ministry connected to an established local church) and consider it indispensable to God’s global purposes, frontier missions (i.e. ministry among unreached and unengaged peoples) has always been my passion. Apart from the Word of God, nothing stirs me like the stories of pioneers who laid down everything to preach Christ where He has never been named (Romans 15:20). Among the pioneer revolutionaries that have impacted me most is Hudson Taylor. Of his ministry Taylor said,

“My work is a very peculiar [and unique] one; in many respects it has, and can have no precedent. It may be called an experiment; to a certain extent it is so. And by God’s help it shall be, as it is being, faithfully made.” [1]

Going against the grain of conventional wisdom Taylor embarked on a lifelong journey of changing the face of global missions. Church historian Ruth Tucker described the impact of his consequential “experiment” in these terms:

“No other missionary in the nineteen centuries since the Apostle Paul has had a wider vision and has carried out a more systematised plan of evangelising a broad geographical area than Hudson Taylor.” [2]

What Taylor did was not a passing fad. What he did and how he did it still serve as a standard today. The methods and models pioneered by the likes of men such as William Carey, Adoniram Judson, and Samuel Zwemer have decisively shaped the face and trajectory of frontier ministry. These men wrought reformation. And they instigated revolution.

I believe that we are currently on the cusp of the next revolution in global missions. This revolution however, won’t have much to do with methods or models. While these will have their place and are sure to be in the mix, they will not be the primary prophetic emphasis. The coming revolution will have everything to do with motive–not what we do or how we do it but rather, why we do it. And more importantly, why we go in the first place.

As with all true apostolic revolution in Church history, [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Martyrdom, Ministry, Missions, Most Recent, Philippians, Recommended, Salvation Tagged With: David Sitton, Frontier Missions, Hudson Taylor, Jim Elliot, Missions

Why “Working Out Your Salvation” Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

August 25, 2011 By Dalton Leave a Comment

A few years ago a string of words in Philippians 2 (the passage below) had a deep impact on me.

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13).

I had often heard people quote the phrase “work out your salvation.” But I had never heard the words that follow it ever mentioned. And then one day, it hit me like a freight train. The ground clause that “it is God who works in you to will and to work” changed everything as I realized “working out my salvation” didn’t mean what I thought it meant. What I once read as a warning (like those found in the book of Hebrews about falling away) I now understood as encouragement not only to boast in my weakness, but to revel in the might and kindness of God.

Let me explain.

Theologians often make the distinction between INDICATIVES (what God has DONE) and IMPERATIVES (what we must DO). Paul grounds the imperative (“work out your salvation”) firmly in the indicative of God’s sovereign grace (“for God works in you”). When He works WITHIN, we are able to work it OUT. Or, to say it another way, we can only work OUT what God has worked WITHIN. This apostolic logic of Paul’s must be grasped to properly understand the appeal.

Note the word “for” that joins the two propositions together. God’s willing and working is the ground clause (or ‘reason’) for our subsequent willing and working. Yes, we work. Yes, we will. We sweat. We bleed. We cry. We strive. We labor. But our willing and our working is not first or decisive. God’s is. In other words, as followers of Jesus, divine grace is the decisive “first cause” of all our willing and working. He moves, and then we move. He wills, and then we will. He works, and then we work.

Another important component of this commonly misunderstood command is the definition of the word “work” that Paul uses twice in vs. 12-13. The word “works” in the phrase “…God who works in you…” literally means “to exert overwhelming force” or “to act effectively.” Thus, elsewhere Paul could say:

“I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

We must trace our willing and working back to God’s willing and working. He wills IN US that we might will as we ought. He works IN US that we might work as we ought. This must be the theological foundation upon which we stand as we labor to work out our salvation.

“Turn [grk: "shub"] us unto Thee O Lord and we shall be turned [grk: shub]…” (Lamentation 5:21)

Filed Under: Blog, Free Will, Most Recent, Philippians, Salvation, Sanctification

Paul’s Teaching on the End-Times in 2 Thessalonians 2 – Ten Foundational Truths

August 15, 2011 By Dalton

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NOTES | MP3

Filed Under: 2 Thessalonians, Blog, End-Times, Eschatology/End-Times, Forerunner Ministry, Judgment, Knowledge of God, Ministry, Most Recent, Prayer, Prophetic Ministry, Rapture, Recommended, Salvation, Second Coming, Spiritual Warfare

Why I Don’t Believe in Free Will Part 4: The Will is Always MOVED and Never the MOVER

August 4, 2011 By Dalton 7 Comments

One of the primary reasons I reject the doctrine of free will is because the human will is never the first cause in any act of sin or righteousness. It is secondary. It is never the mover. It is always, and without exception, the moved. It is subject. It is governed. It is subdued. It is not free. It is not the trigger. It is triggered. It is not the catalyst. It is catalyzed. It is not the initiator. It is acted upon. It does not move without being told how.

Genesis 3 demonstrates what I mean:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate…” (Genesis 3:6)

Notice the progression:

First, she “saw that the tree was good.”

Second, she saw that it was “a delight to the eyes.”

Third, she saw that it “was to be desired.”

Fourth, she “took of its fruit and ate.”

After using her senses to observe the tree, she desired it. Her appetite was aroused. And then, after being moved by her desire and appetite, she “took of its fruit and ate.” This is the way our volition functions. It is moved by our members.

Her will–that is, her decision making power–was subjected to her desires. Her will was not free from those desires. It was enslaved to them. Could she have resisted them? Only if an alternative superior pleasure was offered. The tragedy of the Fall is that the fruit was the superior pleasure (not in actuality but in perception).

Thus, believing the fruit to be “good,” “delightful,” and “desirable,” Eve was “deceived” by Satan (2 Cor. 11:1-3). How did Satan deceive her? But awakening desires. Because when our desires are awakened, our will stands no chance. The only way we can will our way out of temptation is because a stronger desire has been awakened in us towards a superior pleasure than that which is being offered.

Filed Under: Blog, Free Will, Most Recent, Salvation

Why I Don’t Believe in Free Will Part 2 – Spurgeon, Edwards, & Whitefield

July 26, 2011 By Dalton 8 Comments

For years I believed in the doctrine of free will. But honestly considering (1) Scripture, (2) Church history, and (3) personal experience forced me to abandon it.

Below are quotes from three of my heroes from Church history that urged me to reconsider what I had so hastily embraced.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892):

“I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will of his own free will return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter. I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will. Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.”

“…it has already been proved beyond [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Free Will, Most Recent, Salvation

Why I Don’t Believe in Free Will Part 1

July 26, 2011 By Dalton 16 Comments

The doctrine of free-will is as widely accepted in the Church as core doctrines of the faith like the incarnation and resurrection. Having embraced it myself for some time (believing it to be indispensable to true Christianity) I’ve since come to abandon it. This is the first of a series of short posts explaining some of the reasons why.

The Definition of Freedom

Before approaching the Biblical basis of the idea of free will we need a working definition of the terms. Here’s how Encarta defines some key words and phrases related to the subject of volitional freedom:

Ultimate self-determination: the ability or right to make your own decisions without interference from others

Free: not regulated: not controlled, restricted, or regulated by any external thing

Freedom: release from captivity or slavery: release or rescue from being physically bound, or from being confined, enslaved, captured, or imprisoned

So when we say “free will” we mean “the ability to make decisions without interference,” while [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, Free Will, Most Recent, Salvation

Both Law and Love Have Triumphed

July 9, 2011 By Dalton

Below is an excerpt from Horatius Bonar’s (1808-1889) incredible book “Everlasting Righteousness.” It’s available on Amazon in paperback and in Kindle format for 99 cents.

It has sky-rocketed into my top 10 list of “best books.” Listen to Bonar explain how in the crucifixion of Jesus “both law and love triumph”:

The reconciliation God has accomplished; and, in the accomplishment, both law and love have triumphed. The one has not given way to the other. Each has kept its ground; nay, each has come from the conflict honored and glorified. Never has there been love like this love of God; so large, so lofty, so intense, so self-sacrificing. Never has law been so pure, so broad, so glorious, so inexorable. There has been no compromise. Law and love have both had their full scope. Not one jot or tittle has been surrendered by either. They have been satisfied to the full; the one in all its severity, the other in all its tenderness. Love has never been more truly love, and law has never been more truly law, than in this conjunction of the two. It has been reconciliation, without compromise. God’s honour has been maintained, yet man’s interests have not been sacrificed. God has done it all; and He has done it effectually and irreversibly.

Man could not have done it, even though he could have devised it. But truly he could do neither. God only could have devised and done it. He has done it by removing the whole case into His own courts of law, that it might be settled there on a righteous basis. Man could not have gone into court with the case, save in the certainty that he would lose it. God comes into court, bringing man and man’s whole case along with Him, that upon righteous principles, and in a legal way, the case may be settled, at once in favour of man and in favour of God. It is this judicial settlement of the case that is God’s one and final answer to man’s long unanswered question, “How shall man be just with God?” “Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God?” (Micah 6:6).

God provides the basis of the reconciliation; a basis which demonstrates that there is no compromise between law and love, but the full expression of both; a basis which establishes both the authority and the paternity of Jehovah, as Lawgiver and Father; a basis which reveals in infinite awfulness the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the spotless purity of the statute, the unbending character of God’s governmental ordinances; and which yet secures, in and by law, the righteous overflow of His boundless love to the lost sons of Adam.

Filed Under: Blog, Justice, Love, Most Recent, Salvation, The Cross