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May TRI Update From Jim

May 26, 2010 by ADMIN

I just returned from Ukraine where I spent 2 weeks teaching Research and Critical Thinking to a class of 41 students. Everything went very well. The materials were all translated into Russian which made teaching the class much smoother. The students did very well and some progressed from being frustrated with writing to turning out some good papers. I’ll be teaching the second part of this class in January. Thanks for Praying!

Also, continue praying for me about decisions about Ukraine. I spent some of my time there with other missionaries exploring the possibilities, needs and costs of me moving to Ukraine and teaching there on a regular basis. This summer, I will be evaluating the information to see if this is a good idea. There are three main reasons for considering this: 1) Language… while my Russian is improving, I will not be able to use it like I need to without some time in language immersion; 2) Teaching … the seminary there is expanding its programs to include a Masters in Biblical Counseling and they need me to teach some additional classes; 3) Church … I would like to be more involved with a local church in Ukraine and be able to help churches and pastors in a practical way. Right now, I am limited to going to church there 1-2 times when I am teaching. It would help to be more directly connected with Ukrainian pastors and churches.

All of this is still in the exploration stage. I am assessing costs (as well as “counting the cost” of what I would need to give up to move to Ukraine!) and trying to determine the best course of action. I appreciate your prayers for me about this decision. Thanks for Praying!

Posted in Jim Ehrhard, Ministry Updates |

Lessons from Jacob’s Prayer (Genesis 32:9-12) by A. W. Pink

March 20, 2010 by ADMIN

Jacob’s Prayer A. W. Pink

There is not a little in the prayer of Jacob which is worthy of close attention, the more so as it was a prevailing prayer, and that it is the first recorded real prayer in the Bible.

“And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee; I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I am become two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.” (Genesis 32:9-12.)

First, the God to whom he prayed. He approached God not merely as God the Creator, but as “the God of his father Abraham and the God of his father Isaac.” It was God in Covenant relationship. This was laying hold of the Divine faithfulness; it was the prayer of faith. It means much to approach God thus; to appeal to Him on the ground of a sure and established relationship. We come before God not as the God of our forefathers, but as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore our “God and Father.” It is as we plead this relationship He is pleased to bless us.

Second, Jacob cast himself on the sure Word of Jehovah, pleading before Him His promise. He humbly reminded the Lord how He had said, “Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.” Here again we do well to learn from Jacob. The Scriptures contain many promises given to believers in general, and it is our individual privilege to plead them before God in particular, the more so when, like our patriarch, we encounter difficulties and opposition in the way wherein He has directed us to walk. Jacob pleaded a definite promise; so must we. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 we read, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Come to the Throne of Grace at the beginning of each day, reverently and believingly remind the Lord of this declaration of His, and then say with one of old, “Do as Thou hast said” (2 Samuel 7:25). Again, we read in Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply all your need.” Tell the Lord of this in the hour of emergency, and say, “Lord, do as Thou hast said.”

Third, Jacob fully acknowledged his own utter lack of desert [worthiness]. He confessed that the Lord was in no wise his debtor. He took a lowly place before the Most High. He owned that “he was not worthy of the least of all God’s mercies.” Mark this well, dear reader, for very little teaching is heard in these days that leads to self-abasement. It has become a rarity to hear a saint of God confessing his unworthiness. There is so much said about living on a high plane of spirituality, so much Laodicean boasting, that many are afraid to acknowledge before other believers that they are “not worthy of the least of God’s mercies.” One sometimes wonders if this is the chief reason why so few of us have any real power in prayer today. Certain it is that we must get down into the dust before God if we would receive His blessing. We must come before Him as empty-handed supplicants, if He is to fill us. We must own our ill deserts, and be ready to receive from Him on the ground of grace alone if we are to have our prayers answered.

Finally, notice the motive which actuated Jacob in presenting the petition he did. That for which he made request was expressed as follows: “Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.” At first glance, it would appear that our patriarch was moved by nothing higher than the natural affections of the human heart. It would seem that this was the petition of a kind husband and a tender father. But as we re-read this request of Jacob in the light of the closing words of his prayer, we shall discover he was prompted by a far worthier and higher motive. He at once added, “And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.” In this conclusion to the prayer, we may see not only a further pleading of God’s promise, but an eye to God’s glory. Jehovah had promised to make Jacob’s seed as the sand of the sea, but if his wife and children were slain how then could God’s promise be fulfilled! Now it is natural, and by no means wrong, for us to be deeply concerned over the salvation of our loved ones; but our chief concern must center itself not in the well being of those who are united to us by the ties of blood or intimate friendship, but for the glory of God. “Whatsoever ye do (in prayer, as in everything else) do all to the glory of God” — to this everything else must be subordinated. Here, then, is a searching test: Why am I so anxious to see certain ones saved? — Simply because they are near and dear to me? Or that God may be glorified and Christ magnified in their salvation? May Divine grace purge us of selfishness and purify our motives in prayer. And may God use these few words and cause both writer and reader to cry, with ever increasing fervor, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Posted in A. W. Pink |

Our Duty and His Strength by C. H. Spurgeon

March 20, 2010 by ADMIN

Our Duty and His Strength by C. H. Spurgeon
“And they say unto him, ‘We have here but five loaves, and two fishes.’ He said, ‘Bring them hither to me.’” — Matthew 14:17-18
Our line of duty begins, first of all, in immediate obedience to Christ’s first command: “Bring ye them to me.”  “Five loaves, Master, it is all we have; two fishes.”  “Bring ye them to me.”  “Master, they are barley loaves; only five.” “Bring them to me.”  “There are two fishes; they are only two; they are not worth thinking of; let us keep them for ourselves.”  “No, bring them to me.”  “But they are such little fishes.”  “Bring them to me,” saith he, “bring them to me.”  The Church’s first duty is, when she looks to her resources and feels them to be utterly insufficient for her work, still to bring all that she has to Christ.  But how shall you bring them?  Why, in many ways.

You must bring them to Christ in consecration.  There is a brother yonder who says, “Well, I have but little money to spare!”  “Never mind,” says Christ, “let what you have be brought to me.”  “Ah,” says another, “I have very short time that I can spare in laboring to do good.”  “Bring it to me.”  “Ah,” says another, “but I have small ability; my stock of knowledge is very slender; my speech is contemptible.”  “Bring it to me.”  “Oh,” saith one, “I could only teach in the Sunday school.”  “Bring it to me.”  “Ah,” says another, “and I do not know that I could do that; I could but distribute a tract.”  “Bring it to me.”  Every talent that the Church has is to be brought to Christ, and consecrated.  And mark you this – I speak a strong thing which some will not be able to receive – anything which you have in this world, which you do not consecrate to Christ’s cause, you do rob the Lord of.  Every true Christian, when he gave himself to Christ, gave everything he had.  Neither calls he anything that he has his own, but it is all the Master’s.  We are not true to the Master’s cause unless it be so.

Bring ye them to me – not only in consecration, but also in prayer.  I think our prayer-meetings should be the seasons when the Church brings up all her barley loaves and fishes to Christ.  To get them blessed, here we come together around the altar.  We are weak and feeble, we come to be made strong; we have no power of ourselves, we come that we may receive power from on high; and we wait in the prayer-meeting, as thy disciples did in the upper room at Jerusalem, till the Spirit be poured out.  It is marvelous how a man with one talent can sometimes do ten times more than a man with ten talents, for he has ten times the grace.  A soldier, after all, is not always useful according to his weapon.  Give a fool an Armstrong gun [an early machine gun], and perhaps he will destroy himself with it.  Give a wise man but the poorest piece of fire-arms, and you shall find, with good and steady aim, and bold advance, he shall do more service with his small weapons, than the other with far better arms.  So there are men, who seem as if they might be leaders in God’s house, that are laggards, doing nothing, while there are others who are but little in Israel, whom God through his grace makes to be mighty.  Bring ye hither, O ye servants of the Lord, all that ye have kept back, pour ye all the tithes into his storehouse, that his house may be full.

“Prove me now,” saith the Lord of hosts, “if I do not open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”  Let us bring all we have to Christ, likewise in faith, laying it all at his feet, believing that his great power can make little means suffice for mighty ends.  “Lord, there are only five loaves,” – they were five loaves only when we had them in our hands, but now they are in thy hands, they are food for five thousand men.  “Lord, there are two fishes,” – they were paltry to insignificance while they were ours, but thy touch has ennobled them, and those little fishes shall become food for that vast multitude.  Blessed is that man who, feeling that he has truly consecrated all to God, can say, “There is enough. I do not want more talent; I do not need more substance; I would not wish to have more, there is enough for my work; I know it is utterly insufficient in itself, but our sufficiency is of God.”

Oh! do not tell me, sirs, that we, as a denomination, are too feeble to do much good.  Do not tell me that the Christianity of England is too weak for the evangelization of the whole world.  No such thing: there is enough, there is plenty if the Master pleases it.  If there were only six good men living, and these six were thoroughly consecrated to God, they would be enough for the world’s conversion.  It is not the multiplication of your means, it is not the complication of your machinery, it is not the organization of your societies, it is not the qualification of your secretaries that God cares for a whit; it is your consecrated men who are wholly his and only his.  Let them believe that he can make them mighty, and they shall be mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.  I hesitate not to say that there are some pulpits that would be better empty than occupied; that there are some congregations to whom it would be far better if they had no preacher at all; for, having a minister who is not ordained of God, and not speaking by faith, they content themselves with things as they are, and grow listless.  Were the sham taken away, they might cry out for a real ministry.  God would bestow on them one taught of the Holy Ghost, who would speak with a tongue of fire, with inward witness and with spiritual energy, resting his confidence in God’s promises and his Word.  Oh dear friends, we ought to believe that there is enough means if Christ do but bless them, enough to bring in God’s chosen ones.

“Bring ye them to me,” once more, in active service.  That which is dedicated to Christ in solemn covenant, and in earnest prayer, and in humble faith, must be dedicated in active service.  Are you all at work for Christ?  Are you all doing something for Christ?  I think there should not be a single member of this Church who is not somehow occupied for the Master.  Shall I except any? – except the weak upon their beds; and they can speak a good word for him when they are visited: except the dying upon their couches, and they can bear a blessed testimony to his faithfulness when they are going through the river: except the dumb, and they can act religion, when they cannot speak it: except the blind, and they can sing his praises: except the utterly incapacitated, and these can magnify the Lord by their patience.  Still we ought, everyone of us, if we be Christ’s, to be serving him.

Now dear friends, if you want any inducements to lead you to bring all that you have to Christ, let me urge this.  In bringing it to him, you put your talent into his hand, whose hand was pierced for you.  You give to him who is your dearest friend; you give to him who spared not the blood of his heart that he might redeem you.  Do you not love him?  Is it not an honor to be permitted to show your love to so notable and noble a personage?  We have heard of women that have worked and all but starved themselves to bring food for their children; and as they put the precious morsels into the little ones’ mouths, they felt their toil to be nothing, because they were giving it to those they loved.  And so with the believer – he should feel that he most blesses himself when he blesses Christ.  And, indeed, when the Christian doeth ought for Jesus, it more blesses him that gives than him that takes.

Besides, when you give to him, you have another inducement, that you are thus giving to the multitude.  I know people think, when they are doing something for the Church that they are pleasing the minister; or pleasing the deacons.  Oh! dear friends, it is not so.  What interest have I in all the world but the love of poor souls.  There is a man, I think, present now, who I remember, some two or three winters ago, came to me to join the Church.  And when I sat down in the room to talk to him, I saw by the look of the poor man’s face he wanted bread natural as well as bread spiritual.  So I said, “Before I talk to you, I should like to see you a little refreshed;” and we fetched him something to eat.  I looked at him for a minute, for I saw his eyes glisten, and I left the room, for fear he should not eat so much when I was there.  This though I can tell you, when I saw the great pleasure with which he ate, it would have been sufficient compensation to me if that little had cost ten thousand pounds.  And when you see the poor sinner lay hold of Christ so greedily, and yet so joyfully, when you see his gleaming eye, and the tear as it runs down his cheek, you will say, I am too well paid to have done good to such a poor heart as this.  Lord, it is enough; I have fed these hungry souls.

Then to close this point.  “Bring ye them to me, and ye shall have as much left as ye had when ye brought them.”  They took up of the fragments more than ever they gave.  Christ will never let any man die in his debt.  What ye have done unto him is abundantly repaid, if not in temporals, yet in spirituals.  The fragments shall fill the baskets that are so liberally emptied.  You shall find that while watering others you are yourself watered.  The joy you impart shall be mutual.  To do good is to get good, and to distribute to others for Christ is the surest way of enriching one’s self.

The rest of the believer’s duty I will briefly sum up.  When you have brought your talents to Christ and have a conscientiousness of your great mission, your next duty is to look up.  Thank God for what you have got: look up!  Say, “There is nothing in what I do; there is nothing in my prayers, my preachings, my goings, my doings, except thou bless the whole.  Lord, bless it!”  Then, when you have blessed, break.  Go abroad and actively serve the Master, and when you have thus broken and have thus distributed to others, mind that you only distribute from Christ’s own hand.  You are to put your talents and abilities into Christ’s hand.  He gives the blessing on it; then he gives back to you: afterwards, you give it to the people.  If I give you bread from this pulpit to eat that is my own, it will be of no use to you.  But if, having gotten it in my study, I put it in the hand of Christ and come up here, and Christ hands it back to me and I give it to you, you shall be fed to the full.  This is Christ’s way of blessing men; he does not give the blessing first to the world; it is to his disciples, and then the disciples to the multitude.  We get in private what we distribute in public.  We have access to God as his chosen favorites.  We come near to him.  He gives to us, we give to others.

Now I want to end by making you say, “We can.”  Yes! Christ is with us, and we can.  God is for us, and we can.  The Holy Ghost is in us, and we can.  God the Holy Spirit calls us, Jesus Christ the Son of God cheers us, God the Father smiles upon us; we can, we must, we will.  The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.  But have we believed in Christ ourselves?  If not, we can do nothing.  Come to Jesus first, then work for Jesus.  Give him your own heart first, then give him all that you have.  So shall he accept your offering, and bless your soul for his name’s sake.
Excerpted and edited from Spurgeon’s sermon, “Compassion for the Multitude.”

Posted in Uncategorized |

The Means of Atonement by C. H. Spurgeon

March 20, 2010 by ADMIN

The Means of Atonement – C. H. Spurgeon

“This shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year.”—Leviticus 16:34
The Jews had many striking ceremonies which marvelously set forth the death of Jesus Christ as the great expiation of our guilt and the salvation of our souls.  One of the chief of these was the day of atonement, which I believe was pre-eminently intended to typify that great day of vengeance of our God, which was also the great day of acceptance of our souls, when Jesus Christ “died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.”  That day of atonement happened only once a year, to teach us that only once should Jesus Christ die; and that though he would come a second time, yet it would be without a sin offering unto salvation. The lambs were perpetually slaughtered; morning and evening they offered sacrifice to God, to remind the people that they always needed a sacrifice; but the day of atonement being the type of the one great propitiation, it was but once a year that the high priest entered within the veil with blood as the atonement for the sins of the people.  And this was on a certain set and appointed time; it was not left to the choice of Moses, or to the convenience of Aaron, or to any other circumstance which might affect the date; it was appointed to be on a peculiar set day, as you find at the 29th verse: “In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month;” and at no other time was the day of atonement to be, to show us that God’s great day of atonement was appointed and predestinated by himself. Christ’s expiation occurred but once, and then not by any chance; God had settled it from before the foundation of the world; and at that hour when God had predestinated, on that very day that God had decreed that Christ should die, was he led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers he was dumb.  It was but once a year, because the sacrifice should be once; it was at an appointed time in the year, because in the fulness of time Jesus Christ should come into the world to die for us.
Let us consider THE MEANS WHEREBY THIS ATONEMENT WAS MADE.  You read at the 5th verse, “And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.”  And at the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th verses, “And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.  And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.  And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord’s lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.  But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.”  The first goat I considered to be the great type of Jesus Christ the atonement: such I do not consider the scapegoat to be.  The first is a type of the means whereby the atonement was made, and we shall keep to that first.

Notice that this goat, of course, answered all the pre-requisites of every other thing that was sacrificed; it must be a perfect, unblemished goat of the first year.  Even so was our Lord a perfect man, in the prime and vigor of his manhood.  And further, this goat was an eminent type of Christ from the fact that it was taken of the congregation of the children of Israel, as we are told at the 5th verse.  The public treasury furnished the goat.  So, beloved, Jesus Christ was, first of all, purchased by the public treasury of the Jewish people before he died.  Thirty pieces of silver they had valued him at, a goodly price; and as they had been accustomed to bring the goat, so they brought him to be offered: not, indeed, with the intention that he should be their sacrifice, but unwittingly they fulfilled this when they brought him to Pilate, and cried, “Crucify him, crucify him!”  Oh, beloved! Indeed, Jesus Christ came out from the midst of the people, and the people brought him.  Strange that it should be so!  “He came unto his own, and his own received him not;” his own led him forth to slaughter; his own dragged him before the mercy seat.

Note, again, that though this goat, like the scapegoat, was brought by the people, God’s decision was in it still.  Mark, it is said, “Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.”  I conceive this mention of lots is to teach that although the Jews brought Jesus Christ of their own will to die, yet, Christ had been appointed to die; and even the very man who sold him was appointed to it—so saith the Scripture.  Christ’s death was fore-ordained, and there was not only man’s hand in it, but God’s.  “The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.”  So it is true that man put Christ to death, but it was of the Lord’s disposal that Jesus Christ was slaughtered, “the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.”

Next, behold the goat that destiny has marked out to make the atonement.  Come and see it die.  The priest stabs it.  Mark it in its agonies; behold it struggling for a moment; observe the blood as it gushes forth. Christians, ye have here your Savior.  See his Father’s vengeful sword sheathed in his heart; behold his death agonies; see the clammy sweat upon his brow; mark his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth; hear his sighs and groans upon the cross; hark to his shriek, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” and you have more now to think of than you could have if you only stood to see the death of a goat for your atonement.  Mark the blood as from his wounded hands it flows, and from his feet it finds a channel to the earth; from his open side in one great river see it gush.  As the blood of the goat made the atonement typically, so, Christian, thy Savior dying for thee, made the great atonement for thy sins, and thou mayest go free.

But mark, this goat’s blood was not only shed for many for the remission of sins as a type of Christ, but that blood was taken within the veil, and there it was sprinkled.  So with Jesus’ blood, “Sprinkled now with blood the throne.”  The blood of other beasts (save only of the bullock) was offered before the Lord, and was not brought into the most holy place; but this goat’s blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat, to make an atonement.  So, O child of God, thy Savior’s blood has made atonement within the veil; he has taken it there himself; his own merits and his own agonies are now within the veil of glory, sprinkled now before the throne.  O glorious sacrifice, as well as High Priest, we would adore thee, for by thy one offering hot hast made atonement forever, even as this one slaughtered goat made atonement once in a year for the sins of all the people.

I have now an interesting fact to tell you, and I am sure you will think it worth mentioning.  Turn to Leviticus 25:9, and you will read: “Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall yet make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.”  So that one of the effects of the atonement was set forth to us in the fact that when the year of jubilee came, it was not on the first day of the year that it was proclaimed, but “on the tenth day of the seventh month.”  Ay, methinks, that was the best part of it.  The scapegoat is gone, and the sins are gone, and no sooner are they gone than the silver trumpet sounds,
“The year of jubilee is to come,
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.”

On that day sinners go free; on that day our poor mortgaged lands are liberated, and our poor estates which have been forfeited by our spiritual bankruptcy are all returned to us.  So when Jesus dies, slaves win their liberty, and lost ones receive spiritual life again; when he dies, heaven, the long lost inheritance is ours.  Blessed day!  Atonement and jubilee ought to go together.  Have you ever had a jubilee, my friends, in your hearts?  If you have not, I can tell you it is because you have not had a day of atonement.

One more thought concerning the effects of this great day of atonement, and you will observe that it runs throughout the whole of the chapter—entrance within the veil.  Only on one day in the year might the high priest enter within the veil, and then it must be for the great purposes of the atonement.  Now, beloved, the atonement is finished, and you may enter within the veil: “Having boldness, therefore, to enter into the holiest, let us come with boldness into the throne of the heavenly grace.”  The veil of the temple is rent by the atonement of Christ, and access to the throne is now ours.  O child of God, I know not of any privilege which thou hast, save fellowship with Christ, which is more valuable than access to the throne.  Access to the mercy seat is one of the greatest blessings mortals can enjoy.

Precious throne of grace!  I never should have had any right to come there if it had not been for the day of atonement; I never should have been able to come there if the throne had not been sprinkled with the blood.

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon |

The Folly Of Using God – Jim Ehrhard

March 8, 2010 by ADMIN

The Folly Of Using God

Power Point Link

Posted in Audio Resource, Jim Ehrhard |

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