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Irresistible Grace
A lecture given by George Ella at the Protestant Reformation Society, August 27th, 2009, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England Irresistible grace represents the traditional ‘I’ in the acronym ‘TULIP’. So now I shall tease you a little. The name ‘Tulip’ comes from the same Turkish root as ‘turban’ and the flower of that name was introduced by the Turks to Europe as a symbol of the spreading Ottoman Empire, or the TULIP ERA as the Islamising of Europe was called. The popular strains Tulipa turkestanica and Tulipa kurdica point to this. Why the Turkestan turban-shaped talismanic Tulip and Turkoman black merchants robes were chosen as Christian symbols of faith and ministry by post-Reformation parties, must be the subject of another lecture. The T-U-L-I-P, beautiful as it…
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John Collet Ryland (1723-1792) And The Restructuring Of Baptist History
A number of modern writers who preach common-grace and duty-faith as redemptive means in evangelisation, view John Collet Ryland as a Hyper-Calvinist. Such a person, a recent BOT article tells us, does not appeal to sinners, “directly encouraging them to trust him (Christ), and appealing to them to do so now.” Obviously, given such criteria, Ryland’s critics know nothing of his extensive gospel ministry or are deliberately introducing a new conception of what ‘directly encouraging sinners’ means. Most of their ‘encouragement’ is found in their slogan ‘God’s provisions and man’s agency’ which stresses the need for man to use all his supposed natural abilities and duties to grasp out and take God’s provisions in Christ. Ryland affirmed that salvation was all of grace. Only then…
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Duty Faith Denounced
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I Am Pure From The Blood Of All Men
Some of the points covered in this sermon: Many believe the Apostle Paul was “pure from the blood of all men” because he offered the gospel (Free-Offer) to everyone he met and exhorted them to believe on Christ (Duty-Faith). This view is propagated by freewill religionists belonging to the Arminian and Moderate-Calvinist persuasions. This study: (1) Explains the meaning of Duty-Faith and the Free-Offer (2) Provides an expositional overview of the text (3) Points out the term (and idea) of an ‘offer’ does not appear in the text, although seven other words do appear—show (announce), teach, testify, preach, declare, feed, show (reason/argue) (4) Explains how Paul’s declaration of “all the counsel of God” is a reference to the Framework of Sovereign Grace (5) Explains how…
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A Feeling Religion, Not A Mere Brain Religion
My dear Brother in the great Head of Zion,—I hope you and your spouse are well, and that the dear Lord is leading you more and more into the deep things of God. Remember, if a man is to be taught much of the depths of God's eternal love, he must wade in the depths of his own enmity. If he is to be well instructed in the depths of the glorious atonement of Christ, he must feel and sicken at the awful and damnable depravity of his own nature. And so on in every respect; for we can only feelingly and experimentally know the glory of Christ, but as God the Holy Ghost reveals him to our hearts, and reveals him there as just…
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Life Before Confession
If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. But before we can so confess our sins, the Holy Spirit must impart life into our souls; for the dead know not anything.
