This past Sunday, Christians around the world celebrated the empty tomb and the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ. We worshiped by singing lyrics such as:

(Robert Lowry)

How many of us are living AS IF GOD WERE DEAD?

How many of us become fearful, fretful, and frozen when faced with changing, perplexing, challenging, and trying circumstances all because we live as if God were dead? (Can we really call that living? ...) When storms come our way, how quickly do we forget that God's covenant mercies and love for His elect in Jesus Christ are everlasting, that His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, that His government has no end, and that our God is working all things for our good, and our Father delights to give us the Kingdom and to shower out upon us and to load us up daily with His unsearchable, inexhaustible, incorruptible, undefiled riches, and that our inheritance in Christ is a good and pleasant and blessed inheritance ~ He is our great reward and is altogether lovely! ... that there is none that compares to our Beloved! How often do we pray to our Father in heaven for earthly bread for our bodies (or how often do we pray for other earthly blessings) –– and yet how seldom do we ask, seek, and knock for the gift of the Holy Spirit to renew, restore and revive our souls when we are dry and weary? (See Luke 11:1-13 and Isaiah 44:1-5; see also here.) 

William Roberts... "had lost sight of providence... had slipped in his mind ... as if God was dead."

William Roberts was a friend of the Welsh Calvinistic minister John Elias (1774-1842). When faced with a time of trial and great loss, Mr. Roberts was discovered to be a Christian who was living as if Christ were dead...

    Mrs Elias dealt in drapery and millinery, it was her name 'Elizabeth Elias' – which appeared above the door of the shop. The goods for sale came from the wholesale merchants in Liverpool and were shipped from the to the little harbour of Porth Amlwch Elias' s kinsman, William Roberts of Amlwch, and his wife were engaged in the same trade. In April 1818 the new ship, Marchioness, carrying goods from Liverpool to Anglesey was driven by a storm and was wrecked on Dulas beach. Pirates and thieves ran to the wreck, and completed the work of the storm, by taking away everything moveable from the ship and numbers of small business people of the island – including Mr and Mrs Roberts, and Mrs Elias suffered great losses.

    William Roberts, who was newly married, was distracted, and in his desperation went to Llanfechell to consult with his kinsman; but Elias was not at home. The nature of Roberts’ visit is made clear in the following playful yet penetrating letter which Elias wrote to his kinsman after returning home.

Llanfechell I8 April 1818

My dear brother, I am sorry that I have to make a complaint against a kinsman of mine, who lives a short distance from me to the east, who one day visited my family, who were beset by a little trial. I would have thought that my pious kinsman would have given them good counsel, cautioning them against grumbling, and exhorting them to submit to the wise vicissitudes of providence; comforting them, and showing them that all things work for good, etc. But my kinsman, too, was in a misfortune of the same nature; he had lost sight of providence in what had happened to him, and had slipped in his mind as if God had forgotten him, or that God was dead; and that no one could sustain him any more, and prosper him in his circumstances and give him a bite of bread. He had forgotten Job’s example; he had forgotten the 6th of Matthew and the 12th of Luke, or else he had cast doubt on the veracity of these chapters. Thus, instead of giving my family a good example, and good counsel suitable for the occasion, he behaved as one who had no belief in God, knowing not how to trust him under his chastisement, looking up to him through clouds hid him from sight. He spoke like the Gentiles who know not God, and threw my family into a deeper despondency. If you know my kinsman, and if you are conversant with the state of his mind these days, please endeavour to convince him; try to turn his face towards God’s rule over all things; that he at all times orders matters for the best purpose; that in tribulations and crosses one must exercise trust and submission; and must avoid thinking, in the midst of the darkest night, that God cannot change it into shining daylight, causing the light to chase away the blackest darkness. Say, also, to my kinsman (if you find opportunity to meet him), to beware of killing the new kind and tender wife that he has been presented, through his dissatisfaction; and remember to quote these words to him: ‘Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest not thou thyself?' Please also inform him that I have not written this as a Stoic, but with my eye fixed on God’s providence, believing that he makes all things good, and that it is possible to be joyful in him though bereft of the things of this world.

    Yet, in spite of all this, I would gladly welcome my kinsman here as often as he likes!

    Give my kind regards to Mrs Roberts. I hope she finds support to live far more devoutly than the person mentioned above.

    I am, your afflicted friend and brother and fellow-labourer.

~ from "John Elias: Life, Letters and Essays" by Edward Morgan (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973, revised edition published in one volume), 77-78, emphasis mine.

Thou bruised and broken Bread,
My life-long wants supply;
As living souls are fed,
O feed me, or I die.
(John Samuel Bewley Monsell, Jr.)

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but Thou art mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven,
Feed me till I want no more;
Feed me till I want no more.
(William Williams, tr. by Peter Williams)

Do you doubt the veracity of Jesus' own words in Matthew 6 and Luke 12, and stagger at His promise to provide all-sufficient and overflowing spiritual sustenance to you through Himself?

John 6:35  Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst....  47  Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48  I am the bread of life. 49  Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50  This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51  I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

John 7:37  On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

John 4:13  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

When was the last time you fervently sought to experience and enjoy the birthright that is already yours as a child of God and pleaded His promises to Him to give you this water?

Rather than standing firm in faith, do you find yourself reacting like Roberts –– as if you have "no belief in God, knowing not how to trust him under his chastisement"?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

7  It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9  Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10  For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

* * *

He [Robert Murray M'Cheyne] came to Edinburgh on the 11th, to attend the meeting of ministers and elders who had come together to sign the Solemn Engagement in defence of the liberties of Christ's Church. He hesitated not to put his hand to the Engagement. He then returned to Dundee; and scarcely had he returned, when he was laid aside by one of those attacks of illness with which he was so ofted tried. In this case, however, it soon passed away. "My health," he remarked, "has taken a gracious turn, which should make me look up." But again, on September 6th, an attack of fever laid him down for six days. On this occasion, just before the sickness came on, three persons had visited him, to tell him how they were brought to Christ under his ministry some years before. "Why," he noted in his journal, "Why has God brought these cases before me this week? Surely he is preparing me for some trial of faith." The result proved that his conjecture was just. And while his Master prepared him beforehand for these trials, he had ends to accomplish in his servant by means of them. There were other trials also, besides these, which were very heavy to him; but in all we could discern the husbandman pruning the branch, that it might bear more fruit. As he himself said one day in the church of Abernyte, when he was assisting Mr Manson, "If we only saw the whole, we should see that the father is doing little else in the world but training his vines."

~ from "Memoir & Remains of Robert Murray M'Cheyne" by Andrew A. Bonar, 137

May the God of all grace make all grace abound to us,
so we might not live as if God was dead,
so we might not grumble, doubt, and languish in times of trial and loss,
but rather be strengthened in faith and thrive through Him
as we enter into a true and lively knowledge of God as
the Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to us!

Related:

My other letters on assurance and fighting for joy here, including:

• Letter 11 on assurance and fighting for joy (the Lord is at hand! - Philippians 4)
• Letter 15 on assurance and fighting for joy (Joy is a gift of God, more than a feeling)
• Letter 16 on assurance and fighting for joy (our prayers, His wise denials and joy)
• Shall we not drink the cup the Father has given us? (Letter 53 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• our Father's discipline, William Cowper on trials & sufferings (letter 61 on assurance & joy)
• Are you a radiant Christian or a drunken old woman? (letter 82 on assurance & fighting for joy)
• Rejoicing here on the Potter's Wheel (Psalm 66) | Letter 96 on assurance & joy
• disappointment ~ appointment | letter 119 on assurance & fighting for joy
• Three Years Later: Dancing & Skipping with Mrs. Durham | Letter 147 on fighting for joy

Other related posts:

• What is your attitude toward trials and sufferings? ~ Whitefield's Journals
• Her Eyes Were Still Restrained ~ "When it looks like he is buried for good..."
• Lent I.–Suffering and Glory
• Our Twisted View of God
• Kingdom-Obsessed People don't keep looking in the rear view mirror at past hurts, # 5
• All things (even bad things) work together for good...
• The story of Job: bad luck, God's sovereign will or ?
• praying cancer is for the glory of God
• some reflections about prayer
• Bible Reading: II Corinthians 1-Blessings out of buffetings (Alan Redpath)
• God's sovereign grace & care in Genesis (the story of Joseph)
• To take whatever thy Father's pleasure | "May adversities uninterrupted be my lot" ~ Edward Griffin
• "you would begin by blowing out all his lamps..." ~ Edward Payson
• Are you keeping calm & carrying on? Do you react or respond? ~ Isaiah 7:1-9
• Bible Reading-Isaiah: When We Think the LORD Has Forsaken and Forgotten Us
• "Ah! But the Comforter!" (Pentecost's Peace and Rest ~ John 14:1, 23-27)
• Why not pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

HT for the M'Cheyne text:  http://books.google.com/books?id=JIY6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caravaggio_-_La_Deposizione_di_Cristo.jpg / {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}} / CC BY-SA 3.0.

In a couple recent posts (see here and here), I mentioned Calvinism, a.k.a. TULIP, a.k.a. the doctrines of grace. For those of you who aren't familiar with Calvinism, or for those of you who are, or for those of you who think you are, but really aren't, I'd like to share with you the links to a series of sermons on The Five Points of Calvinism which the Rev. Geoff Thomas gave in the year 2008. Rev. Thomas has been serving as pastor of  Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, Wales, UK since 1965.

Total Depravity - Romans 3:23:  http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=33008155319

Unconditional Election - I Peter 1:1-2:  http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=46081752349

Limited Atonement - Ephesians 5:25-27:  http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=41408836543

Irresistible Grace - Ephesians 2:8-9:  http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=420081726541

The Perseverance of Saints - John 10:28-30:  http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=4280884674

You can also find all the links to the entire sermon series by clicking here.

    In the latter years of Elias’s life, there was a noticeable withdrawal of the powerful operations of the Spirit from the land in general. Writing in 1837, he says, "The light, power, and authority, formerly experienced under the preaching of the word, are not known in these days! The ministry neither alarms, terrifies, nor disturbs the thousands of ungodly persons who sit under it . . . No experimental, thoughtful Christian, can deny but that God has withdrawn Himself from us, as to the particular operations of His Spirit, and its especial manifestations of His Sovereign grace." The explanation Elias gives of this declension illustrates his doctrinal position, and his consciousness that the preservation of the favour of God depended upon their maintenance of the Word in its purity. He believed that nothing so ruined churches or dishonoured God as erroneous teaching:  "It is an awful thing to misrepresent God and His mind in His holy word!" "The Lord," he wrote, "hath favoured us, poor Methodists, with the glorious truths of the gospel in their perfection. Alas! Errors surround us, and Satan, changing himself into an angel of light, sets these pernicious evils before us, as great truths!" These evils, as the following quotation from his diary shows, were the appearance of Arminian errors in Wales in the nineteenth century. "The connexion" (that is, the church, which arose in Wales in the eighteenth century awakening) "was not called Calvinistic Methodists at first, as there was not a body of the Arminian Methodists in the country." But when the Wesleyans came amongst us, it was necessary to add the word Calvinistic, to show the difference. There were, before this, union and concord, in the great things of the gospel, amongst the different denominations of Christians in Wales. The Independents agreed fully with the Methodists in the doctrines of grace. They used to acknowledge the Westminster Catechism, as containing the substance of their doctrine.... All from the least to the greatest, preached very clearly and plainly. The chief subjects of their discourses were these: the fall and total corruption of man; his miserable state under the curse, and the just indignation of God; his total inability to deliver and save himself; free salvation, by the sovereign grace and love of God...." It was a departure from these truths that caused his deep concern. "The great depth of the fall, and the total depravity of man, and his awful misery, are not exhibited in many sermons in scriptural language; it is not plainly declared that all the human race are by nature, 'the children of wrath,'-that none can save himself––that no one deserves to be rescued, and that none will come to Christ to have life. There are but few ministers that fully show that salvation springs entirely out of the sovereign grace of God."

    The Arminian teaching was that Christ has purchased redemption for all, but that the effectual application of that redemption is limited and determined by the will of man. To Elias such teaching involved a denial of the completeness of Christ’s work and offices, it led to an underestimation of the effects of the fall upon man, and therefore to correspondingly low views of the necessity of the Spirit’s Almighty work in conversion. "I do not know," he writes, "how those that deny the total corruption of the human nature, and that salvation as to its plan, its performance, its application, is of grace only, can be considered as faithful ministers... Unsound and slight thoughts of the work of the Holy Spirit are entertained by many in these days, and he is grieved thereby. Is there not a want of perceiving the corruption, obstinacy, and spiritual deadness of man, and the consequent necessity of the Almighty Spirit to enlighten and overcome him? He opens the eyes of the blind; subduing the disobedient, making them willing in the day of His power; yea, He even raises up the spiritually dead! It is entirely the work of the Holy Ghost to apply to us the free and gracious salvation, planned by the Father in eternity, and executed by the Son in time. Nothing of ours is wanted to complete it... Man, under the fall, is as incapable to apply salvation to himself, as to plan and to accomplish it."

     No one saw the dangers which threatened the visible church from these errors more clearly than Elias. Towards the end of his life he writes, "It is a dark night on the church, the depth of winter, when she is sleepy and ready to die.

It is still more awful, if while they are asleep they should think themselves awake, and imagine that they see the sun at midnight!... The watchmen are not very alert and observant. The multitude of enemies that surround the castle walls, bear deceitful colours; not many of the watchmen know them! They are for opening the gates to many a hostile regiment! Oh let it never be said of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, 'Their watchmen are blind.'" He knew of no remedy for such a situation save a restoration of the truth in its purity. "If people are anxious for the favor of God’s presence, as the early fathers in the connexion were blessed with, let them take care that they be of the same principles, under the guidance of the same Spirit.... When the Spirit is more fully poured on people, those precious pillars of truth will be raised up out of their dusty holes; then the things of God shall be spoken in 'words taught by the Holy Ghost,' and the corrupt reasonings of men will be silenced by the strong light of divine truth. May the Lord restore a pure lip to the ministers, and may the old paths be sought, where the road is good, and may we walk in it; there is no danger there."

~ Source:  Iain H. Murray's "John Elias (1774-1841)," included as a Biographical Introduction to "The Experimental Knowledge of Christ and Additional Sermons of John Elias (1774-1841)," ed. by Joel R. Beeke; trans. by Owen Milton (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 10-12. Murray's article was original published in The Banner of Truth, no. 5 (1955), 5-14, and can be found on The Banner of Truth Trust website here: http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?940. (Italics original, boldface mine.)

I Samuel 2:6  The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. 7  The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up. 8  He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S, and he hath set the world upon them. 9  He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. 10  The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of his anointed.

Deuteronomy 32:39  See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

• C.H. Spurgeon's "A Defense of Calvinism"
• John Piper's sermons on unconditional election in Romans 9:6-13, Romans 9:14-18, and Romans 9:23-24, which can be found here:  http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/by-series/romans-the-greatest-letter-ever-written.html?page=2
• John Piper's sermon "I Will Be Gracious to Whom I Will Be Gracious" (Exodus 33:12-19)
  
• John Piper's sermon Faith: Unique & Fruitful Effect of the New Birth
  
• John Piper on the sovereignty of God and human responsibility
• John Piper's article, "Summary of the Sovereignty of God in Salvation"

For more on Welsh Calvinistic Methodism, please visit:  http://www.misterrichardson.com/calvinistic.html

Related posts:

• Silent Night - Not! ~ "Prayer also will be made for Him continually" ... day and night
• "Brother, we are only half awake" ~ Legh Richmond
• Are you storming heaven – or are you sleeping?

• true Calvinism is not
• I can't keep walking on eggshells here (more on Revelife, Calvinism, the Body of Christ and self
• Letter 7 on assurance and fighting for joy (remember His love for us while we were sinners)
• we did not choose, He chose us, worthy the Lamb, solus Christus
• no glory to me, o my Savior ~ only because You chose to favor | a spiritual birthday celebration
• Outcast vine, faithless bride ~ What beauty? What did you see?
• Why preach the Gospel? # 1: Bad men need Good News!
• Why preach the Gospel? # 2: Dead men need Life!

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Photo credits:

Work found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kauriinpuisto.JPG  / CC BY-SA 3.0 / author Ximonic, Simo Räsänen
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