Series: Romans

Topic: Perseverance of the Saints (Eternal Security, Once Saved Always Saved)

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HT:Justin Buzzard

If God has already willed to send rain, then why pray for it? Or if God has chosen to save you, then why fight so hard against temptation?

Edwards gives his answer to questions like these in Miscellanies #29 (reformatted for readability):

God decrees all things harmoniously and in excellent order; one decree harmonizes with another, and there is such a relation between all the decrees as makes the most excellent order. Thus God decrees rain in drought because he decrees the earnest prayers of his people; or thus, he decrees the prayers of his people because he decrees rain.

I acknowledge, to say God decrees a thing "because," is an improper way of speaking, but not more improper than all our other ways of speaking about God. God decrees the latter event because of the former, no more than he decrees the former because of the latter.

But this is what we [mean]: when God decrees to give the blessing of rain, he decrees the prayers of his people; and when he decrees the prayers of his people, he very commonly decrees rain; and thereby there is an harmony between these two decrees, of rain and the prayers of God's people.

Thus also,

• when he decrees diligence and industry, he decrees riches and prosperity;
• when he decrees prudence, he often decrees success;
• when he decrees striving, then often he decrees the obtaining of the kingdom of heaven;
• when he decrees the preaching of the gospel, then he decrees the bringing home of souls to Christ;
• when he decrees good natural faculties, diligence and good advantages, then he decrees learning;
• when he decrees summer, then he decrees the growing of plants.

Thus, when he decrees conformity to his Son, he decrees calling; and when he decrees calling, he decrees justification; and when he decrees justification, he decrees everlasting glory.

Thus all the decrees of God are harmonious; and this is all that can be said for or against absolute or conditional decrees. But this I say, it's improper to make one decree a condition of another, any more than the other a condition of that; but there is a harmony between both.

"If the church is central to God's purpose, as seen in both history and the gospel, it must surely also be central to our lives. How can we take lightly what God takes so seriously? How dare we push to the circumference what God has placed at the center?"

-John Stott

HT: Justin Buzzard

(By the way, if you have a Kindle, or if you have the Kindle app for your phone you can download this for free from the Kindle store.)

About a quarter of the way in, Bunyan is recounting how God softened his heart toward Christ and made him long to be a Christian, but for sin's sake, he still felt cut off from the grace of Christ and the fold of God's people.

Check out the following quote from Grace Abounding, and listen to how Bunyan thought about the church (and what he compared it with). I wonder how you think of the church?

About this time, the state and happiness of these poor people at Bedford [his local church] was thus, in a kind of a vision, presented to me, I saw as if they were on the sunny side of some high mountain, there refreshing themselves with the pleasant beams of the sun, while I was shivering and shrinking in the cold, afflicted with frost, snow and dark clouds: methought also, betwixt me and them, I saw a wall that did compass about this mountain, now through this wall my soul did greatly desire to pass; concluding, that if I could, I would even go into the very midst of them, and there also comfort myself with the heat of their sun.

About this wall I bethought myself, to go again and again, still prying as I went, to see if I could find some way or passage, by which I might enter therein: but none could I find for some time: at the last, I saw, as it were, a narrow gap, like a little door-way in the wall, through which I attempted to pass: Now the passage being very strait and narrow, I made many offers to get in, but all in vain, even until I was well-nigh quite beat out, by striving to get in; at last, with great striving, methought I at first did get in my head, and after that, by a sideling striving, my shoulders, and my whole body; then I was exceeding glad, went and sat down in the midst of them, and so was comforted with the light and heat of their sun.

Now this mountain, and wall, etc., was thus made out to me: The mountain signified the church of the living God: the sun that shone thereon, the comfortable shining of His merciful face on them that were therein; the wall I thought was the word, that did make separation between the Christians and the world; and the gap which was in the wall, I thought, was Jesus Christ, Who is the way to God the Father.  John xiv. 6; Matt. vii. 14.  But forasmuch as the passage was wonderful narrow, even so narrow that I could not, but with great difficulty, enter in thereat, it showed me, that none could enter into life, but those that were in downright earnest, and unless also they left that wicked world behind them; for here was only room for body and soul, but not for body and soul and sin.

This resemblance abode upon my spirit many days; all which time I saw myself in a forlorn and sad condition, but yet was provoked to a vehement hunger and desire to be one of that number that did sit in the sunshine: Now also I should pray wherever I was: whether at home or abroad; in house or field; and would also often, with lifting up of heart, sing that of the fifty-first Psalm, O Lord, consider my distress; for as yet I knew not where I was.

What a challenge to the church of Christ today! I wonder if those on the outskirts of God's grace are looking envyingly at the bride of Jesus and longing to soak up the same rays of Christ's joy?

So I believe we had just settled in West Virginia when I left you. Tom directed me from D.C. to our next campsite, and for some reason he took me on the windiest mountain road known to man. I'm driving through the night in a borrowed mini-van through the hills of Virginia constantly alternating between 55 mph and 15 mph on tight switchbacks. Anyway, we got there exhausted but in one piece.

Unfortunately, the campground we planned to stay at was booked. Anyway, upon further investigation, the tent sites were puny and they were only feet from the lake (not the best place for a one year old to sleep). So we drove on. My iPhone directed us to a nearby (one hour) state park.

It was nestled in a deep and narrow valley, the camp sites following the mountain stream. By this time I forgot about taking pictures so I don't have any evidence for this site.

Vibrant green moss covered the ground and thick trees gave a dark canopy. The deep, crisp creek provided a constant background noise. This was definitely the sweetest sleep of the trip!

Basically, we did nothing except set-up, take showers, make meals, sleep, and then take the tent back down. It wasn't actually time to leave, but Corban was clearly not feeling well (missing home and his stomach was upset) so we decided to head towards home.

We broke up the trip by spending several hours in Charleston West Virginia. We hit the mall where Corban enjoyed riding barn animals:

Then it was time to head for Cincinnati. Answers in Genesis built a Creation Museum just across the river in Kentucky. We'd heard a lot of good things about it and it was only an hour out of our way. We stayed at a cheap hotel that night, and then hit the museum the next morning.

Verdict: check it out! It's expensive but worth it. It's a unique experiencing walking through a professional museum reading about Christ! The highlight for me was seeing the reproductions of Adam and Eve living life. It was very real.

The next two days were spent in Louisville at our alma mater, Southern Seminary. We hit the horse races at Churchill Downs.

We also hit a horse show (hey, when in Rome...) We lounged in the hotel. Note to self: don't leave the phone book lying around!

We toured the Frasier History and Arms Museum where they displayed a thousand years of British history and warfare. Awesome!

Finally we made it back to St. Louis where we stayed with my mom. She babysat Corban all day Saturday while Jessica and I finally got some one-on-one time. We decided to hit Cahokia Mounds, a historical Indian dwelling site. We also caught a movie before going to church (yes, we went to church Saturday night).

Corban got to hang out with his cousin, my brother's daughter. They're to that age now where they love chasing each other around squealing.

And that was that. It was incredibly exhausting. Very refreshing. Family renewing. And hopefully Christ-exalting. Thanks for caring enough to follow along with us.

Dad, where in the world is my bed? My toys? My house!?

At one point Jessica and I were taking down the tent (one of many times) and Corban just started bawling. It was his constant from site to site and now we were taking it away from him.

We felt pretty sorry for him actually and ended up adjusting our plans to set us on a homeward course sooner than we had planned.

After we left our first site (where I ended the previous post), we journeyed to the home of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States. He called his 5,000 acre Monticello (meaning little hill/mountain). It was gorgeous! This was my favorite historical stop of the trip. The house and the surrounding grounds have been spectacularly preserved.

From underground iceboxes, indoor toilets and plumbing, 18th century copy machines, and real stories of historical cover-ups, this was an intriguing (even if very expensive) stop.

After Monticello, we seriously didn't know where we were going. This is the great thing about doing this sort of trip. We pulled into a Panera and hopped online for a few minutes. We were only a few hours from Washington DC. It sounded fun. Neither of us had been there for several years. One of my favorite churches meets in downtown DC. There was a nice looking state park just south of DC where we could camp. Sold!

Prince William State Park (okay, Corban at Prince William State Park 45 minutes south of DC). Some more relaxing. A nice hot fire on an already ridiculously hot day/night. An insane squirrel with an insatiable appetite for peanut butters crackers. A hard plastic case on our stroller was no match for his vicious teeth:

On day two at Prince William, we had a hankering for swimming. Tom told us that we were close to the Chesapeake Bay. People swim there right? So we asked Tom to direct us to the nearest beach on the bay. And folks, I'm sorry to say that Tom failed us.

It turns out that just because a street is called Such and Such Beach doesn't mean that they have a public beach. So after driving about an hour and a half, it looked like our day was spoiled with no access to the enticing water.

But thanks to the friendly (even if strangely gullible) woman at the Maryland Visitors Center, we found out that we were only an hour away from a public beach. Why not?

Point Lookout Maryland on the Bay (lighthouse and all). There must have been a million Mexicans swimming that day. And they claimed that the lighthouse was haunted. But the water was warm, salty, and O so refreshing!

The next day was Sunday. We got up very early (although Corban had pretty well established that as the daily custom) and packed up camp. We drove to a DC Metro train station and took the DC subway downtown.

We worshipped at Capital Hill Baptist Church where Mark Dever is senior pastor. The church was spectacular. Literally, while we were still on the steps leading into the church, a young woman (who was not a greeter, just a regular member) took us under her tutelage and showed us the ropes.

Highlight of the morning: some excellent congregational singing of some excellent hymns!

After church, lunch at Q'doba (um-yum-yum...). Passed by the White House.

We hit one of the Smithsonian museums. (Did you know they're free?!) Tried to visit the Holocaust Museum rather unsuccessfully. At this point, our eyes were heavy. Our knees were swollen. And Corban was exhausted. And oh yeah by the way, I was going to be driving through the night once again. Time to go!

Train -> Car -> Road -> West Virginia -> Sleeping in the van in the parking lot of a gas station next to a car of crazy drunk people running around outside with their beer cans.

Whew, I'm tired just writing about it.

...to be continued (again)

A lot of people have asked how the trip went and what all we accomplished. I thought I'd attempt a quick run down of our affairs because there's no way to answer that question adequately face to face.

We pulled out Sunday evening after church. Our friend graciously loaned us his minivan and we were packed in! Corban was not a very good car-rider so the plan was to do most of the long distance driving at night after his bedtime. We ended up driving through the night. One short nap somewhere in eastern Kentucky during a torrential downpour was the only thing that slowed us down. By 7am Monday morning, we were pulling into our camping site near Lynchburg Virginia.

In seminary Jessica and I had befriended a missionary from Romania. He was getting married in Lynchburg on Tuesday (hence this particular stage of our trip) and the rehearsal was Monday evening. In the meantime, we set up camp, took a nice nap, did some grocery shopping, and began the process of relaxation.

Tuesday day we ventured out on our first site-seeing journey. (This was wonderfully simplified by two devices we brought with us: a TomTom GPS navigation system and my iPhone.) Tom (as we affectionately referred to our GPS buddy) led us onto a back-woods gravel country road up into the mountains to catch the famous Blueridge Mountain Parkway. What a beautiful highway! We stopped at a small group of mountains called Peaks of Otter. We decided to stop and grill some brats along side the most scenic mountain stream.

Then we set out on a two mile hike to an old historic homestead in the mountains. The family had maintained a very large farm in the mountains and a park interpreter was there to give us a great, one-on-one tour of the farm place.

It must have been 90+ that day. We were hot and worn out from the hike. Someone told us about a local gas station that sold homemade peach ice cream. Sold! It really hit the spot. As we were eating, we saw a sign that indicated we were only a few miles from the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA. We decided to check it out. It wasn't quite what we expected, but still very educational.

After another torrential downpour cut our memorial visit short, we had to hightail it back to camp to get ready for the wedding. Let's just say that I tried a little too hard to make up some time, and now I owe the state of Virginia a small sum of money.

The wedding was great. I got to speak with and get counsel from a kind of former pastor of ours from our time in Louisville. I even got to visit with Paul Washer for a few minutes.

Wednesday was our last day at that campsite near Lynchburg and so we had to visit actual Lynchburg! What a day! We started by visiting this plantation home of Thomas Paine's doctor.

(And no, that child is not dead on the sidewalk.)

After grabbing some local pizza for lunch, we hit Appomattox Court House. This is the small village that saw the beginning of the end of the Civil War. We toured the old houses and the museum. We even walked through the very house where General Lee and General Grant worked out the terms of the surrender.

Standing in the fields where Union and Confederate soldiers died was an awesome experience, but the day was starting to drag on and we were all very hot! We started back for home, passing through Lynchburg again and visiting a historic Civil War cemetery. We were finally back to camp in time to have a fire, roast some marshmallows, and just begin to get some r&r.

...to be continued...