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USER COMMENTS BY THOMAS SULLIVAN |
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Page 1 | Page 2 · Found: 184 user comments posted recently. |
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6/29/14 7:12 AM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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The Scientist for Studying the Christian Heart This month I have begun narrating this whole book once again. Certainly because a better digital recording is helpful to have. But more importantly because it makes me meditate on it. Owen wrote, "Where prayers are effectual, they will bring in spiritual strength. But the prayers of many seem to be very spiritual, and to express all conceivable supplies of grace, and they are persisted in with constancy, — and God forbid we should judge them to be hypocritical and wholly insincere, — yet there is a defect somewhere, which should be inquired after, for they are not so answered as that they who pray them are strengthened with strength in their souls. There is not that spiritual thriving, that growth in grace, which might be expected to accompany such supplications...how persons should continue in prayer in general according to the mind of God, so far as can be outwardly discovered, and yet thrive not at all as unto spiritual strength in their souls, is hard to be understood. And, which is yet more astonishing, men abide in the duty of prayer, and that with constancy, in their families and otherwise, and yet live in known sins. Whatever spiritual thoughts such men have in and by their prayers, they are not spiritually minded. puritanaudiobooks.net |
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3/27/14 4:30 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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We need this kind of preaching today. A friend got me to looking through these Thomas Boston narrations because he said he was so fond of Thomas Boston that he sleeps with a volume of his works under his pillow. I told him I agreed, that this is what our country needs a Boston T. party. Back about 1985, I found my first copy of Fourfold State in a used book store in Alexandra, VA. I narrated from that book, which I suppose is about from 1850, on cassettes at least two times and parts of it a third time. Boston, calling natural man a spiritual monster wrote," his heels are lifted up against heaven--which his heart should be set on, Acts 9:5. His face is towards hell, his back towards heaven; and therefore God calls to him to turn. He loves what he should hate, and hates what he should love. He joys in what he ought to mourn for, and mourns for what he should rejoice in. He glories in his shame, and is ashamed of his glory." |
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3/14/14 7:18 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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Why believers NEED this Psalm When businesses face litigation because they will not cater to what in our day are labeled civil-rights, we feel like Asaph. PS 73:3 I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.4 For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.5 They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. But this Psalm shows that God takes notice. v. 11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. 12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. V. 11 "God is angry." The original expression here is very forcible. The true idea of it appears to be, to froth or foam at the mouth with indignation. Richard Mant, D.D., 1824. So when Asaph considered their end he concluded, " Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. 22 So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee." Or as Edwards wrote that the wrath of God will utterly undo the subject of it. And though now we think God is too silent, the day is coming when even rocks and mountains won't be a refuge to those who are His enemies. We must pray that God MERCIFULLY interpose, or as Edwards wrote, unhappy man that shall understand His wrath by feeling it. |
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3/11/14 6:14 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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Puritan Applications Abounding This title caught my eye because my pastor is writing a dissertation on the sin of Judas. Written in 1634, this sermon has 8 doctrinal applications. But the puritans would explain that this act of Judas was the fruit of impenitence from small sins. So as I write this, I looked up a quote from William Taylor and his searching comments on the sin of "irritability" Taylor wrote," There is no sin for which we are more ready to excuse ourselves than irritability. I am bold to say that the loss of self-control has its origin in lack of faith, for the time being, in God. We bear a great calamity with composure, because we see God's hand in that; but when it comes to the upsetting of a tea-urn, or the breaking of a valuable ornament by an inexperienced servant, we act as if there was no providence. The leader who is calm in a great crisis, is thrown off his guard by a little breach of discipline; and the Christian who can stand in quiet composure beside the grave of a child, is excited into terrible anger by the removal of an article from its right place on his desk. He thinks it is temperament; but he ought to learn that it is lack of faith in God, and he should be on his guard lest it shut him out from some promised land of usefulness, into which he would otherwise have entered."1879 |
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3/7/14 7:49 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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A Lancet and Heart Surgery Today I was told by a "professing Christian" that "I was really out there". He meant that I was too strict that I was too narrow. I am narrating part two of this sermon. Not for him, FOR ME. He may not listen to it, I need it. Edwards said,"There are some that make a pretense to religion and will do many things; but when religion comes to pinch hard, they will shift it. If it comes to that, that there is occasion for any great degree of self-denial, or suffering consciously, or running any great venture of their worldly interest, a putting themselves much out of the way, they will excuse themselves. They never consented to be religious upon such terms; they never intended to hurt themselves by being religious. They intended to escape going to hell by it, but they never purposed to undergo any great matter in this world with it." Alexander Allen said that if you can read Edwards' Treatise on the Religious Affections,and still believe in your conversion, you may well have the highest assurance of your faith's reality. So it is in these sermons, the lancet is sharp and it is going to cut. |
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3/4/14 6:33 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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About This Sermon: Rare Edwards sermons are kept at the Beinecke Rare Book Room and Manuscript Library, Yale University. The Yale Jonathan Edwards site is at edwards.yale.edu and this is sermon 232. I have not attempted to narrate his sermons on the Parable of the 10 Virgins, but they are also available there as well. Some of these sermons, such as The Shutting of the Door of Mercy, Edwards preached more than once. To properly understand THIS sermon here it would be helpful to add the words, Sinners {Who Remain Unconverted) Are Ordinarily Harder than the Heathen. Some of Edwards's sermon titles alone are very frightening, such as, "When Christ comes, wicked men's hopes of salvation, and seeming evidences of conviction, will at once totally vanish and disappear." |
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2/28/14 9:14 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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So much to ponder I always enjoy these round table discussions. When I think of the foolishness surrounding the scandal of AZ Senate Bill 1062, I listen to how Christians answer a fool according to his folly, Prov. 26:5, and then realize only our Lord could so answer that it is written, " And no man after that durst ask him any question." Mark 12:34.. But there is ANOTHER problem, there will always be a double standard used against the Christian. Ethically it would be wrong to ask this question of someone asking us, against our conscience, to bake a cake for them..."You want me to bake you a cake, but how do you know that cake I bake for you will be safe for you to eat?" But whether it is legally wrong because it is a veiled threat too often depends on if the question is being asked of a Christian or of a lesbian who claims she needs it for her wedding. As our nation appears to be under God's wrath and being "given up" justice will side more and more against us. My only hope is that as a historian I can point to many historical epics where a genuine revival followed during such a low spiritual ebb in a nation's history. But we have no guarantee, and I doubt God will bless us unless we who profess His name cry out mightily. see SID=225141216282 |
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2/25/14 4:46 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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Preached April 1679, Totally Relevant for US Today Owen preached: There is a particularly ruining provocation, when men set their tongues against the Lord. It a great sign, of he approaching, ruin of a people and nation 1. By blasphemy 2. By mocking at judgments
What are the sins that have a special opposition unto the eyes of God’s glory? All sorts of uncleanness, — adultery, fornication. 2.2. When men are bold in sin.3. The last aggravation whereby men provoke the eyes of God’s glory is when they declare their sin as Sodom.”How is it to “declare their sin as Sodom?” (1.) When men will confer and talk together about the vilest sins and wickednesses.(2.) When they will come unto that impudence, not only to confer about their sins, but so as to make them a scoffing and a laughing matter. Prepare to meet the Lord in the way of his judgments. God is righteous in all his ways, when he shall bring the scourge upon the nation, and it “shall be spoiled as Shalman spoiled Betharbel in the day of battle,” Hos. x. 14.Let us consider whether there be not those abominations among us against which the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. - John Owen 1679 |
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2/17/14 5:20 AM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
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Great Sermon! Sermons like this are always relevant. I needed this warning myself. I have been online since before that term had much meaning, starting in 1991 before their was much of an internet. But there are also gold mines online. The Post Reformation Digital Library is my greatest discovery this year. www.prdl.org This weekend I finished a journey looking through the titles of every Puritan work that is cataloged. The addition by Princeton Seminary alone is incredible. I have found names I never knew existed and narrated many on my own web site. Last night I was still affected by this preface, Parable of the Ten Virgins, Benjamin Stonham, 1676. He wrote, " As in all ages it has been Satan's design to blind the minds of men even from our first parents, whom he soon rocks into a dead sleep, with all their posterity, in which they have lien until now, had not Christ awakened them: so ever since and more eminently in the last times is he so employed, all things concurring to the accomplishment of his design. This is the critical hour, and the last application, those that do not then recover, perish forever. Were we sensible of the present danger of such nature, we should not be offended at plain dealing." And Thomas Taylor, Parable.. Sower, "How far a hypocrite may go in the way to heaven... |
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