The work of Christ on the cross

Recently someone asked my whether the new church I attend, Limerick Reformed Fellowship, holds the cross of Christ as central. I wrote this to try explain why my conscience does not permit me to become a member in a church that teaches the Free Will of man and Universal Atonement (that Christ shed His precious blood for every person). I pray you will give me a hearing.

I've been thinking about your question regarding the centrality of the cross and I wanted to try quickly explain to you why the doctrines of grace are so important and why I love the work of Christ on the cross and why it is the center of my life. Nearly every Protestant denomination claims to be biblically faithful and cross-centred. Many known heretics claim this, such as Joyce Meyer and Benni Hinn. The question is, are they telling the truth or are they paying lip-service? I don't have time to go into all the crazy things these people teach (e.g. Jesus paid for sin not on the cross but in hell when the demons were torturing him). What I mean is just because someone says "I'm Christ-centred and all about God's glory" doesn't mean it's true.

The doctrines of grace are extremely important to the work of Christ on the cross. Let me explain by way of comparing what the doctrines of grace teach about Christ's work on the cross to what "Free-willism" teach about it (those who believe in Free Will would vehemently deny some of the below because they know those things are false, but yet they are the clear implications of Free Will):

• Free-willism: Jesus shed His blood for every single human, most of whom go to hell. As a result, Jesus' blood does not actually save anyone! (if 20 people cheat for an exam, but only 10 people pass the exam, then clearly cheating itself does not cause someone to pass, but something else, e.g. intelligence)
  Doctrines of Grace: Not a single drop of the blood of Christ is wasted. Not one person for whom Christ died will go to hell. As a result, Jesus' blood actually and fully saves those to whom it is applied. (Mat 1:21, John 10:15,27-30, John 6:39, 1Pe 1:5, etc etc)
  
• Free-willism: God the Father counts the blood of Jesus as worthless by sending millions of people to hell for whom Christ died and pouring out His wrath upon some of those for whom His Son shed His blood.
  Doctrines of Grace: God the Father values the blood of His Son so highly that not one for whom Christ shed His blood will experience even the smallest drop of His wrath. (Rom 8:1,17,28-39, 1Jo 4:18, John 17:2-3 etc etc)
  
• Free-willism: Since Christ did exactly the same for every single person, what is the difference between those who go to hell and those who are saved? It certainly is not Christ or the cross. It is their own choice. Therefore, they cannot truthfully say "I am what I am by the grace of God", 1Co 15:10, but should, to be true to their belief regarding Christ's work, say "I am what I am by the grace of God and by my own choice". Note, that most Free-willists (except Roman Catholics) would vehemently deny this and would say they are what they are by the grace of God alone, but they do so in spite of their belief regarding the (uneffective) work of Christ on the cross.
  Doctrines of Grace: The only difference between a hell-bound sinner and a heaven-bound sinner is grace: Even though I am just as wicked as all others, I am saved by the sovereign choice of the Father who sent His Son to die on the cross for me. What is the difference between those who are saved and those who are not? Christ died for those who are saved. Therefore, I can fully and with all my heart, in accordance with what I believe regarding Christ's work, say "I am what I am by the grace of God". See also 1Co 4:7.
  
• Free-willism: By the same reasoning as the previous point, Free Willists cannot truthfully say "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ", Gal 6:14. Instead, they must admit that although they should only boast in the cross, they also have grounds for boasting in their own decision/faith. Note, that Free Willists would vehemently deny this and would say they glory only in the cross, but they do so in spite of their belief regarding Free Will.
  Doctrines of Grace: In full accordance with my belief regarding the work of Christ on the cross I can, from the bottom of my heart, say "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" because the cross is the only thing that makes me, a sinner, different from those who perish justly for their sins. Jesus says "not that you chose me, but I chose you", John 15:16.
  
• Free-willism: God is unjust because He punishes some sins twice: First, by pouring out His wrath toward those who go to hell on Christ, then by pouring out His wrath again on those people themselves (by sending them to hell).
  Doctrines of Grace: God is perfectly just because He punishes all sins once: His wrath toward the sins of the elect is poured out on Christ, His wrath toward the non-elect ("reprobate") is poured out on them. (Rom 3:21-26)
  

In summary, the Christ of Free-willism only makes salvation possible; their Jesus does not actually save anyone. Christ is unable to save because it is up to the Sinner whether the Sinner allows Christ to be effective. Free Will churches teach that salvation is by grace plus the choice of man, by Christ's work plus man's work of faith (this faith being a work of the unregenerate man), to God's glory and the glory of the person who made the right choice.The Christ of the Bible fully and actually saves those for whom He died. His blood makes full atonement for those it was shed. Christ is everything. It is Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone (this faith being a gift of God, Eph 2:8), to the glory of God alone. This is the teaching of Limerick Reformed Fellowship.
From my experience, Limerick Reformed Fellowship is the only church in Limerick that teaches the Christ of the Bible. That is the main reason I wish to be a member there. I really hope this makes sense and shows clearly that the Doctrines of Grace are not a nice add-on but are, in fact, the Gospel. The Doctrines of Grace are all about the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Retractions

It's been a long, long time since I last blogged here. One reason has been that I am now quite ashamed of what I had previously written, especially the post entitled "A great Tragedy". I think I will leave it here as a reminder that once I was deceived by the social action fad that is sweeping the evangelical world.

When I get a chance I will post a small biblical explanation of why I no longer support the previous post. Suffice for now to say that I was more concerned for people's physical/worldly needs than for their spiritual need (Jesus Christ) - although I would have vehemntly denied this!

Though I guess I better place a disclaimer here since people seem to always misunderstand this: I still think what I described in that post is horrible, wicked and hated by God, and as we have opportunity we should fight against it.

"Fix your eyes on things above, not on things below."

A great Tragedy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Worshipping God in the darkness of a student pub

Last night, Monday 26^th March, after our regular Christian Union meeting (which reached a record length of 2.5 hours), Sam asked me did I want to perform a Christian song in the Stables, the on-campus student pub, which is right beside where the CU is held. The Stables had an open mic night, so this was the perfect opportunity.

Of course, I being a man of little faith, spend two minutes trying to think of excuses not to do it – I was very tired, my voice was slightly gone, and there probably wouldn't be any slots for me to sing in any way. Praise God, I somehow realised that I was just trying to think of excuses, so I eventually said, "ok, let's go".

So we basically headed over to the Stables, where about 10 others from the CU joined us. Just to set the scene, there were over 100 students in the pub, all of them drinking and “having a laugh”. Eventually, after a half hour wait, I got on stage, my friends from CU formed a small crowd in front of the stage, I plugged in my guitar, and sang Chris Tomlin's Enough to all the students in the pub. Then we did Marvelous Light by Charlie Hall, finishing with Matt Redman's Blessed be Your Name.

In the midst of the darkness of a student pub, God's people gathered to worship and praise our mighty Father with song. I am convinced nothing like this has ever happened at University of Limerick. There is an open mic night every Monday night, so God-willing, we will continue worshiping in the Stables every Monday night. We have faith that by the power of God, our worship will draw students to the life and forgiveness of sin that can only be found in Christ Jesus our Lord.

May this inspire you to think big, to have dreams, and to truly believe that God can do the impossible. Five weeks ago, we began talking to people about Jesus in the Stables, this Monday we sang worship songs with a PA system to over 100 students socialising in a pub. God is waiting for people to step up and humbly say, "Lord, here I am. I will do whatever you ask, no matter how impossible it may seem. Send me." With those people, He will change the world and draw men unto Him.

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

You are my supply
My breath of life
And still more awesome than I know
You are my reward
worth living for
And still more awesome than I know

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough

You’re my sacrifice
Of greatest price
And still more awesome than I know
You’re the coming King
You are everything
And still more awesome than I know

More than all I want
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me
More than all I know
More than all I can say
You are more than enough for me

Does He Exist?

This is a poem a good friend of mine at college wrote. Up until five months ago, she was a stout atheist. Then God began calling to her, and after three months of searching, she wrote this:

He has no alpha
He has no omega
So you say ‘No’
But
No alpha
And no omega
Mean Yes!!!
Mean absolute
Mean infinite
Mean eternal

I know my logic is flawed
Sure I’m only a child
But My Lord loves me
And I know He is there

My logic:
We only know it is dark
because the light is gone
Our bones know the chill of cold
because they miss the heat
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Let me explain, the best that I can.

We wouldn’t know despair
unless our deepest soul knew peace beyond peace
We couldn’t fear
unless our spirit knew hope beyond hope
Pain wouldn’t hurt so much
if our inner heart didn’t secretly know,
secretly hold, secretly feel love beyond love

Our deepest soul
Our spirit
Our inner heart
All know He is there

I know my logic ain’t perfect
It’s nowhere near perfect
But it is one outlook
I don’t know if it’s right
I don’t know if it’s wrong
But I know the conclusion
And I know the conclusion
Is real,
Is true,
Is beyond doubt
I know He is there
I know He loves me, imperfect me.

I know that He holds
Peace beyond peace for me, for us
I know that He keeps
Hope beyond hope for me, for us
I know that He has
Love beyond love for me, for us

He is there
He is here
He is everywhere
And He is good
He is forgiving
He is merciful
He does exist

But
You cannot blame Him
for disasters, for evil,
Anymore than your cells
can blame you for illness, for disease
because just as each of your cells
affect your health
Each act by each person
affects the world

Peace, Hope and Love
He has them for each of us
Some say ‘All He asks is that you believe’
Response: ‘Sure,
lets see you jump off an
unimaginably high cliff
with no safety net’
More of my logic:
True belief comes with time, take small steps but remember
You’ve gotta take a risk, you gotta jump at some point
Yeah, it’s scary, it’s petrifying
But you gotta remember and this is beyond important,
Believing in Him
Following Him
Is worth it.

He does exist
He is powerful
And He loves you!!!

by Tracy Slevin - 6th March '07

Beyond48 - Teenstreet Ireland

Introduction
I'm trying not to use my typical language to describe how incredible Teenstreet (TS) Ireland was, but I think I'm failing. Quite simply, God's glory, might, goodness, mercy and love were powerfully on display during this weekend!

For those of you who don't know (shock-horror!), Beyond48 happened 17th - 19th February '07. It was a Christian Irish youth conference run by OM (Operation Mobilisation), and is an off-shoot of the famous Teenstreet Germany (a review of which is here).

An incredible 350 teens, youth leaders and volunteers packed out Kilkenny College for what was to be an exciting, God-filled weekend (for those of you not living in Ireland, 350 Christians at an event in the south is quite a big deal!).

The weekend can be divided into four parts: main sessions, breakout sessions, NET groups, free time.

Main Sessions
Firstly, the teaching. Wow. It was, as TS tradition has it, by Dan & Suzie Potter, the founders of the TS movement. They are incredibly gifted at keeping the attention of a bunch of rowdy teenagers, and do so through various means. For example, Dan is a talented magician/trickster who uses various wow-effect tricks relating to something they are trying to teach the teens. On stage, they take turns speaking, carrying the plot on from each other every 2 minutes or so, which really keeps you awake.

As the title of TS Ireland, Beyond48, suggests, the theme was all about getting "beyond" - beyond yourself and the limitations/falsehoods that the world and Satan try to convince you exist, beyond the conference (48 hours). We were taught three steps we need to take:

1. Stepping back into ourselves, to see the people we have become when Christ set us free;
2. Stepping upward to see everything from God's perspective, and
3. Stepping forward into God's plan, and surrendering your own to His.

I came as a coach, nonetheless, I found the teaching very challenging and encouraging. I felt it had a very good balance between biblical exegesis and explanations/demonstrations relevant/understandable for teenagers. Although once or twice Dan performed a trick which took very long and became slightly boring:(

There was also a strong emphasis on social justice, both nights they had several speakers and videos encouraging us to demonstrate God's love by standing for justice in this world. For example, Stop the Traffik, which is a movement for the freeing of the 27 million people in slavery today, you can read more about it here.

The music: It is such an amazing experience to worship God together with other saints! Especially doing so alongside teenagers from your own church. The band itself, Epiphany Project were supposedly all under 20 and were very talented and God-focused.

Breakout Sessions
There were two breakout sessions in total, where different workshops and seminars were offered, dealing with issues such as sexuality, radical Christian living in a school, and standing for social justice.
The one session I went to, sexuality, was very average, although the other two were apparently very challenging and relevant.

NET groups
NET group are the family units of TS, usually consisting of 7 teens and 1 or 2 coaches, either all guys or girls. NET group times was when things happened. It was such an amazing and humbling experience to see teenagers open up to the love of Jesus and His call on their lives! I know that all the teens in my group went home very encouraged and challenged to live more radically for the cause of Christ!
These times were really great just to pray for each other and to share what God had been teaching us over the weekend. This presents the clear opportunity of keeping in touch after the weekend for accountability and encouragement.

Conclusion
If you are reading this, and you have never been to any Teenstreet, I highly recommend it to you! If you're a teenager, tell your youth leader about it! If you're a youth leader, consider seriously bringing a group along to a Teenstreet event. I know they are lots of money, but they are well worth it. Many youth groups organise fund-raisers.

The next upcoming Teenstreet is TS Germany, 28th July - 4th August '07, information for which can be found here. (A review is here).

To God be the glory, forever and ever!! Amen.

Evangelism

Last Monday night (that being the 12th of February) after the Christian Union meeting, I went to the on-campus student pub by the name of The Stables. Along with my two house mates Samuel (a fellow student) and Berny (an Italian missionary), we spoke to people about the amazing gospel of Jesus Christ.

I am sharing this with you in the hope of inspiring you to use everything at your disposal in order to reach the lost. Also, I hope to convince you that you need only be indwelled by the Holy Spirit (which every true Christian is - Romans 8:9) in order to tell the Good News to strangers.

Frankly, I was quite scared at the prospect of talking to strangers about Jesus, especially as we had not been able to organise tracts. In fact, I was so scared I said to Sam, "hey, we should leave it tonight 'cos we don't have any tracts to hand out." To which he replied, "no way!".

"So how are we gonna approach people?"

"Well, I'm just gonna walk up to people and tell them about Jesus."

That's what he was gonna do. I was gonna follow him around for the night. There's no way I could just walk up to people and start a conversation about the most important thing they'll ever hear!

Before walking to the Stables we prayed to our Awesome God for strength, courage and boldness, for God to accept our offering, and to use it to touch people's lives. So we headed for the Stables, me being quite scared. I had this sudden urge to run home.

Arriving there, Sam walked immediately to a group of people and began talking to them. Reluctantly, I followed. But then, something strange happened; I suddenly knew that I should start a conversation of my own. Wow, that was scary! "No way," I said to myself. Somehow, I turned away from Sam's group and looked around for other prospectives. I spotted one, and immediately Satan attacked. The evil one begun to pour fear upon fear into my heart. I stopped walking for a moment.

Thankfully, the Spirit in me is greater than the spirit that is in the world, and so, by the power and grace of God, I walked up to this person (my legs still shivering out of fear) and said, "hey, can I tell you about Jesus?"

Immediately, all the fear left. This is what Jesus promises us in Luke 21:13-15:

"This will result in your being witnesses to them. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict."

A long conversation ensued. And that's precisely what it was - a conversation. I told him the basics of the gospel, he responded by explaining his beliefs and telling me why he didn't agree with mine. I couldn't answer all his questions, but that was all right.

As soon as the conversation was over, and I began looking for others to witness to, the fears poured in again; when I began another conversation, the fear was immediately replaced with deep peace and joy.

This fear of witnessing to strangers is so powerful because Satan is absolutely scared of it! He will do anything to get us to stay quiet about our beliefs. So let us remember that the evil one has already been defeated!

And finally, you do not need to be gifted in any way (apart from being able to hold a conversation) in order to witness to strangers. And even if it is the case that you will not talk to a stranger, you can simply hand out tracts silently.

Our job in evangelism is to proclaim the gospel; it is only God who can save. And so, as we witness, we do so knowing that the result of it and the extent of the harvest is completely in God's hand (John 6:44). It is the Holy Spirit who softens people's hearts so they might hear and understand the gospel. That is why we can pray with full confidence for the salvation of our friends, our family, and all those to whom we witness.

And so I plead with you to join me in reaching the lost for Christ. Let us stop using "personal evangelism" as an excuse to stay in our comfort zones (although we should by all means continue witnessing to our friends!). Let's proclaim the gospel to as many people in as many ways as possible, so that others would get to share in our salvation and, above all, that God might be glorified.