The glory of Christ’s rule is not still future; it is already established in heaven. Jesus not only goes to prepare a place for us; He has already built the new Temple by His resurrection and by the union of His people to Himself.

Preaching has always played a central role, if not the central role, in Christian worship. This is because the importance of careful discursive exposition and instruction was not inherited from the Enlightenment but from Judaism.

The Jews studied and memorized the Hebrew Scriptures, not as an idle exercise in gaining information, but as worship. The rabbis were given the task of instructing the people in the ways of the faith, teaching them the laws, conforming, admonishing, and encouraging their listeners. They were preachers.

In the centuries before Christ, the Jews gave their greatest devotion to cultivating the art and science of reading and preaching the Scriptures. They understood growing in scriptural knowledge as not only essential to true piety but as glorifying to God.

Consistency is not a postmodern virtue. And nowhere is this more aptly displayed than in the barrage of criticism leveled against the church.

The "church-is-lame" crowd hates Constantine and notions of Christendom, but they want the church to be a patron of the arts, and run after-school programs, and bring the world together in peace and love. They...

...bemoan the over-programmed church, but then think of a hundred complex, resource-hungry things the church should be doing.

...don’t like the church because it is too hierarchical, but then hate it when it has poor leadership.

...wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to meet in a coffee shop with other well-educated thirty-somethings who are into film festivals, NPR, and carbon offsets.

...want more of a family spirit, but too much family and they’ll complain the church is “inbred.”

...want the church to know that its reputation with outsiders is terrible, but then are critical when the church is too concerned with appearances.

...chide the church for not doing more to address social problems, but then complain when the church gets too political.

...want church unity and decry all our denominations, but fail to see the irony in the fact that they have left to do their own thing because they can’t find a single church that can satisfy them.

...are critical of the lack of community in the church, but then want services that allow for individualized worship experiences.

...want leaders with vision, but don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or how to think.

...want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then they complain the church today is an isolated country club, only interested in catering to its own members.

...want to be connected with history, but are sick of the same prayers and same style every week.

...call for not judging “the spiritual path of other believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people,” and then they blast the traditional church in the harshest, most unflattering terms.

By contrast, Protestants point to what the Bible says very clearly in numerous places about justification – that justification is an event not a process. It’s a once-off declaration by God that the sinner is cleared of all guilt, and is thus completely blameless and righteous in his sight because of – and only because of – the sacrifice of Christ on his behalf. According to the Bible, when God justifies us, he doesn’t do it gradually by infusing righteousness into us; he declares us righteous when we put our faith in Christ.

Death is the mighty conqueror before whom we are all helpless. We can only beat our fists in utter futility against the unyielding and unresponding tomb. But the Good News is this: death has been defeated; our conqueror has been conquered. In the face of the power of the Kingdom of God in Christ, death was helpless. It could not hold Him, death has been defeated; life and immorality have been brought to light. An empty tomb in Jerusalem is proof of it. This is the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Christ has spoken in the Bible, and He holds us responsible to understand, interpret, obey, and teach what He said – as opposed to deconstructing everything the Bible says. Notice that Christ repeatedly rebuked the Pharisees for twisting Scripture, disobeying it, setting it aside with their traditions, and generally ignoring its plain meaning. Not once did He ever excuse the Pharisees’ hypocrisy and false religion by apologizing for any lack of clarity in the Old Testament.

The issue is not lack of evidence, but stubborn unbelief driven by the love of sin. People are unwilling to accept the inescapable consequence of the resurrection; namely, that Christ is God, the God of Scripture, and they are accountable for every violation of His law and in need of His grace. Thus sinful men, in an irrational effort to evade their guilt and accountability to the one true God, have concocted various theories in a futile attempt to explain away the reality of the resurrection.

Preaching is not a mechanism for communication that was developed by preachers who needed something to do on Sunday.

It was not some kind of sociological or technological adaptation by the church in the first century in an effort to come up with something to fill the time between the invocation and benediction.

It was the central task of preaching that framed not only their understanding of worship, but also their understanding of the church.

The nature and being of God is the foundation of all true religion and religious worship in the world. The great end for which we were made is to worship and glorify God; and that which renders this worship our indispensable duty is the nature and being of God himself.

There are, indeed, some acts of religious worship which chiefly respect what God is to us, or has done for us; but the principal and adequate reason of all divine worship, and that which makes it such, is what God is, in Himself.

Because He is; that is, because He is an infinitely glorious, good, wise, holy, powerful, righteous, self-subsisting, self-sufficient, and all-sufficient being; the fountain and author of all being and good; the first cause, last end, and sovereign Lord of all; therefore He is to be worshipped: therefore we are to admire, adore, and love him; to praise, to trust and to fear Him.

This is to glorify Him as God; for as ‘all things are of Him, and through Him, and to Him’, to Him must be the glory for ever.

Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? You must always be at it while you live; do not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin or it will be killing you.

He that stands still and allows his enemies to exert double blows upon him without resistance will undoubtedly be conquered in the end. If sin is subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we are slothful, negligent, and foolish in this battle, can we expect a favorable outcome?

Mind, then, when your text is chosen, that you understand it and see right through it; that you know precisely what you want to prove, what you want to teach, what you want to establish, and what you want people’s minds to carry away. If you yourself begin in a fog, you may depend upon it you will leave your people in darkness.

Place all your trust in the grace of Christ, and it will crucify the old man. Be weak in yourself and strong in the Lord, and by faith you shall be more than a conqueror.

We should hate sin infinitely more than ever we loved it.

You can no more conceal your sin than you can defend it.

Be as speedy in your repentance as you would have God speedy in His mercies.

He who is not resolved to be an enemy of sin is conquered by it.

Whatever is not of God's own appointment in His worship He looks upon as 'strange fire'. And no wonder He is so highly incensed at it, for it is as if God were not wise enough to appoint the manner in which He will be served.

Men will try to direct Him, and as if the rules for His worship were defective, they will attempt to correct the copy, and superadd their inventions. A godly man dare not vary from the pattern which God has shown him in the Scripture.

This is probably not the least reason why David was called 'a man after God's own heart', because he kept the springs of God's worship pure, and in matters sacred did not superinduce anything of his own devising.