|
|
USER COMMENTS BY THOMAS SULLIVAN |
|
|
Page 1 | Page 5 · Found: 184 user comments posted recently. |
| | | |
|
|
6/6/13 9:28 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
|
Add new comment
|
Interesting Discussion I have found the discussion intriguing. I was waiting to see, since the two chapters that lay out the qualifications for an elder, 1 Tim. 3, and Titus 1 speak of him being "the husband of one wife," how the texts will be handled by the female antagonist. I found it interesting that one cries FOUL because 15,000 S.A. speakers have never preached on Huldah. I suppose they haven't preached on Segub in 1 Chron. 2:22 either, so I guess the prejudice works both ways. I think a more important question is how it is that 15,000 speakers who have studied Greek and Hebrew and many graduated from many fine seminaries also fail to see that women are called to be pastors. If I am outnumbered by that many scholars, it would at least, I suppose, make me wonder if my darling doctrine might be wrong. (2)Jesus and God are equal, yet the incarnate God was in a subordinate role as mediator, and if He had not assumed that role, we would all be lost in our sins. There is much more to say on this, but in the case of Pastors Harris and Sturms, who I love dearly and keep being edified by, why preach to the choir? To another, I despair of making a convincing argument anyway. I fear the mind is already made up. T M S puritanaudiobooks.com |
|
|
5/19/13 5:04 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
|
Add new comment
|
Thanks Steven This interview deserves further comment. Steve, you are an example to me of how little you draw attention to yourself, but desire to get good preaching in the hands of others. I remember making duplicate tapes, as many as 300 a year, with just a dual cassette player and handing out messages of my favorite authors one by one. Even this message SID=63003183934, I remember having made many cassettes of and once flinging one through the open window of a car that the owner was obviously a charismatic who was in a store getting groceries, and I landed it on her seat. But Steve is also an example of using his skill to serve the Lord. I can relate. I was trained in computers in 1987-1988, and first got on line in 1991. Even when I only had a service called Prodigy, it gave me a chance to meet Christians and send tapes out. By the time SermonAudio started, I had my own website on the history of the church for four years. I didn't even take notice much in those days, because the selections here were so few. But when I saw the names Jim Savastio, Albert Martin, and Alan Cairns, then it got my attention. When my own narrations were accessed 100 times in a month per sermon, that was a big month. Now I can have 300 downloads of a Spurgeon sermon in a day, and Steve has done us a great service |
|
|
5/19/13 4:53 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
|
Add new comment
|
Sermon Audio History I wasn't aware of this interview until I was searching for reformed podcasts from my IPOD. I suppose I am one of those people that has been addicted to SermonAudio from the beginning, I continually find myself intrigued by how this all started. I know where Steve is coming from when he mentions real audio. I was the first person to ever put an Albert Martin sermon on a website using Real Audio in the days when I had to upgrade my hard drive to one gig and split the sermon in two to have any hope of uploading it before the 56k or less baud connection dropped my input. In those days all I had was Pentium 60mhz computer and a real desire to make it work. I think about the history of leaving comments here. I was the second person ever to leave a comment on a Paul Washer sermon when he was, for the most part, completely unknown here. But my most satisfactory contribution was in putting pressure on churches and brothers to broadcast here, James White and Phoenix Reformed Baptist, I.B.S.J. and Sugel Michelen, George McDearmon. Even though I may have close to 500 narrations myself on SermonAudio, it is not the opportunity to promote my narrations as to alert persons to great names like Stephen Charnock, William Gurnall, Joseph Alleine and more that Christ's name may be lifted up high! |
|
|
5/2/13 6:04 AM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
|
Add new comment
|
Puritan Wit Yesterday I was listening to a narration from Alleine's Alarm to the Unconverted. What a book from someone who never saw his 37th b-day. He wrote, "If the irrational and inanimate creatures had speech and reason, they would cry out under it, as a bondage insufferable, to be abused by the ungodly, contrary to their natures and the ends which the great Creator made them for. It is a saying of an eminent divine, 'The liquor that the drunkard drinks, if it had reason, like a man, to know how shamefully it is abused, would groan in the barrel against him, it would groan in the cup against him, groan in his throat, in his stomach against him; it would fly in his face, if it could speak. And if God should open the mouths of His creatures, as He did the mouth of Balaam's donkey, the proud man's garment on his back would groan against him. There is not a creature, if it had reason to know how it is abused until a man is converted—but would groan against him. The land would groan to bear him, the air would groan to give him breath, their houses would groan to lodge them, their beds would groan to ease them, their food to nourish them, their clothes to cover them, and the creature would groan to give them any help and comfort, so long as they live in sin against God.'" |
|
|
4/2/13 7:35 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
|
Add new comment
|
Romans 9:22 A hypothetical What If? At the end of this discussion Pastor Sturms hinted against leaving comments to try to untangle this paradox, [especially not from a Grand Rapids mailman :)}and Sean "don't tell us to read some author." Well, you dear brothers are provocative. I won't tell you to read authors, I will just say that no solid Roman commentary holds the What If as a hypothetical. Not Haldane, or Hodge: Lloyd-
Jones, John Murray, John Brown, thought Paul was speaking hypothetically. VS 20 says, who art thou that repliest, and verse 22 says WHAT IF God, or SO what if God? He is God, He has sovereignty over - not just clay, but guilty clay. It is a continuation of the previous rebuke in vs. 20. The 1689 confession answers the rest of the perplexity. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of his glorious justice.
( 1 Timothy 5:21; Matthew 25:34; Ephesians 1:5, 6; Romans 9:22, 23; Jude 4 )
4.______These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or |
|
|
3/2/13 7:33 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
|
Add new comment
|
Calvinism, Cornelius, and Theological Grids Cornelius, if unconverted, could not properly be said to "fear God," because all such fear from an unregenerate heart would still consist in enmity against Him. Rom. 8:7 It would have no virtue, nor would God in anyway be obligated to notice it. (See Edwards' Freedom of the Will) It is more logical that he was "called out" by God by grace like Abraham was from Ur of the Chaldees. Acts 10 is the story of his gospel enlightenment, not his conversion. This isn't imposing our theological grid on the text, because we are being consistent with what the Bible says about all men in all ages. In an effort to render the doctrine more palatable, it is not helpful to confuse the matter by supposing Cornelius represents a unique case so we have to redefine the doctrines of man's innate inability and God's absolute sovereignty. The term pre-venient grace has no basis in Scripture. I just narrated a helpful sermon preached in 1755 on this subject. http://puritanaudiobooks.com/2013/02/03/john-blair---the-means-of-grace.aspx
It explains that the means employed by the unregenerate are what God ORDINARILY blesses with salvation, but can never be the cause of it. P.S. I love to listen to you gentleman - Tom - a mailman in Grand Rapids, MI. |
|
|
3/2/13 7:13 PM |
Thomas Sullivan | | Jenison, MI | | | | | |
|
Add new comment
|
Calvinism, Cornelius, and conversion. This was an interesting discussion, but I want to share some helpful comments not aiming to be hyper-critical. It is easier to just admit that Cornelius in Acts 10 was already converted but it pleased God to give him the special light of redemptive revelation in Christ. Pastor Sturms said that in a New Testament, Pauline sense Cornelius was not saved. But this is anachronistic language. Paul hadn't written anything yet, and Cornelius did not yet have redemptive revelation. Sean says that we take our theological grid and impose it on the text. My answer is that my theological grid as a fellow Reformed Baptist is the 1689 confession. If it is counter to my understanding of Acts 10, I am humble enough to suppose I may be misunderstanding the text. It is less problematic. Cornelius did not escape the effects of the Adamic Administration and therefore any inclination or holy affection cannot be prior to regeneration. Man by nature hates God, Romans 8:7, and is not subject to His law and lacks the moral ability to do so. So any volition towards God of any unregenerate man must be mercenary it could not possibly be virtuous let alone move God toward a "praying" man. That God blesses His own means that the sinner employs is pure mercy, and means are a way to that end, not the cause and e |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|