A Mighty Fortress is Our God!!

A Mighty Fortress is our God was the great cry of the Reformation and resonates just as powerfully today as it did then. Just to utter these words in song of praise propels us to worship the Lord all the more! He is and forever will be the King of kings and Lord of lords! Amen!

Northchase Beginning ESL Graduation #1 6-23-09

The First Beginning ESL Graduation was a wonderful evening. We gave out certificates to those who stuck it out regularly week in and week out.  They were joyous to receive the certificates, and we were honored to hand them out.  We had a great meal together when the graduation was complete, and our fellowship with them during the meal was excellent.  

We continue to pray for God's leading in this ministry.  Lord willing, we will begin another Beginning Class on August 4th and an Intermediate class as well.  The logistics will be difficult, and the manning will be a stretch, but it is in these times that God is glorified most because we are relying on Him for even the minute things. We ought to always have this attitude of worship, and may these stretching and exhausting times expand our faith as we fall at His feet all the more.  May the Lord raise up more people to labor for Himself in this ministry. Atlanta lay before us in anguish, by His grace, we shall answer the call! Amen!

Above all, pour forth Your Spirit O God, and draw Your Beloved sheep to Yourself.  Humble us O Lord that we may enjoy You without the disgust of pride and arrogance.  Let us pray for those who hate us and persecute us, and let us pray for those who have hurt us in the past.  O Lord may we bless men and not curse them, for we are but men as well.

To Him be the glory forever! Amen!

Northchase ESL/Bible Study 6-9-09 Week 14

Everything went well at the ESL last night.  There were about 15 people there for the ESL, and they all stayed for the Bible study as well, so praise God for that.  Many folks are out working at this time now, so that it is good; we hope that what we have taught them will come in useful. Ultimately, may the God of all grace transform their hearts as He has transforms ours.

The Great Divorce Remarried Part 4: Counseling

When the Church compromised Biblical Authority, Biblical Sufficiency quickly went by the way side as well.  Why is this so important?  Biblical Sufficiency is critical because if the Bible is not sufficient as a groundwork for life application, then it becomes useless.  

However, it is sufficient. ¹⁶All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;¹⁷so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

The Church must reclaim counseling for the glory of God.  We must stop referring lost (and saved for that matter) souls to secular sources for guidance.  The fundamental answers to life abide in the Scriptures and not in the Halls of Babylon! Amen!  True Christians, especially pastors/elders, must stand in the gap and boldly declare that the Word of God is what transforms hearts.  

The vain philosophies of men lead only to destruction and greater idolatry.  We need not refer people out to those who espouse secular psychologies as means for transformation, for these 'experts' are not equipped to go to the heart of the matter: the sinful rebellious heart.  On the contrary, the Christian who is trained and armed with the Word of God is a powerful instrument in the Hands of a Holy God who can bring down strongholds in anyone's life! Amen!

To Him be the glory alone! Amen!

How to use Evidences in a Presuppositional Framework

First of all, what is Biblical presuppositional apologetics? This is basically defined as starting with the authority of Scripture instead of human autonomy and then building our worldview from the basis of Scripture in all fields of study. This is to say that we start from the Bible. It is self-attesting, which means that it declares itself to be the Word of God so we take it to be that as God has empowered us to presuppose its authority through the Sovereign work of God by the Spirit in being born-again. In the same way, the yellow pages are self attesting; it declares to be a book of phone numbers, and we find exactly that within them. The difference is that the unregenerate man will reject the self-attestation of the Bible because it conflicts with his sinful desire for autonomy--which is to say his desire to be sovereign and authoritative. The Bible magnifies sin and rejects any works-based righteousness, which is unlike any other writing in human history, and sinful man hates this.

How then do we use evidences like every effect needs a cause, intelligent design, etc.? We explain that we cannot make sense of cause and effect, intelligence, etc. apart from a Biblical worldview. The Biblical worldview makes these things intelligible. All else makes nonsense out of everything and reduces all things to absurdity. Intelligibility ceases to exist outside of the Biblical worldview.

Ultimately, only the work of the Spirit can create a new heart (John 3). However, God is a Rational Being and uses rationality that He has implanted in man for His glory to communicate to man the absurdity of his worldview apart from God. In this way, God has a means by which the Spirit regenerates the heart. As we are pressing the Biblical worldview from a Biblical worldview we show sinners the absurdity of their humanly autonomous worldviews. The Holy Spirit uses this to convict hearts and expose them for all the wretchedness that they are. The reality is that the flesh detests God in spite of the the fact that human autonomy reduces all things to absurdity, and this testifies to how sinful the heart is. The rejection of the reality that only the Christian worldview can make evidences intelligible magnifies the reality of the unregenerate man being dead in trespasses in sin (Eph 2). He is in dire straights without the work of a Sovereign God to yank him out of his slumber by His grace alone.

For this reason, we declare the authority of the Scripture presenting God in Christ based on what God has revealed to us in the Bible. Regeneration is brought about through the Spirit working through the preached Word (Romans 10). Essentially, when we declare the Word of God, we are commanding men everywhere to repent (turn from sin to God) and worship God as He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. John Piper says it rightly, "Missions exist because worship doesn't."

Therefore, evidences are used to leave man without excuse and to show the absurdity of his position in rejecting God. Man will always challenge this in his rebellion, yet they testify to the foolishness of his position in starting with himself instead of with God. They magnify the gravity of his sin and just how blind he is in sin.

Let us therefore, boldly declare the Word of God, and pray that God would work upon the minds and hearts of the unbelieving. To Him be the glory alone! Amen!

The Great Divorce Remarried Part 3: Philosophy--Anti-theism presupposes theism

Anti-theism presupposes theism. Now what does that mean? Van Til explains this with a useful illustration: a child can only slap his father in the face if the father first puts him on his knee. All arguments against Biblical Christianity have to borrow from Christianity to then oppose it. For example, only from Biblical Revelation can we account for 'reason'. God has revealed Himself through the Bible and given us knowledge of Himself and of man. Because this has occurred, we can account for reason and justify our belief that reason is not just an evolutionary glitch of some kind. Even more so, the very fact that we can even make that statement is based on the fact that we can logically make that conclusion.

When the anti-theist tries to attack Christianity, what is he doing? What he is really doing is stealing from the Biblical worldview to then argue against it. When pressed, the anti-theist admits this problem and has to then appeal to the absurd to attack Christianity. Essentially, he acknowledges this dilemma of his inability to account for 'reason' (among other things) and what it leads to but then blindly believes that reason exists, though he has not accounted for it. Man wants to believe in reason because he cannot cope otherwise, but he wants to do this apart from God so that he can be autonomous, which is to say that he wants to determine truth from himself apart from God. This is problematic because only belief in the Biblical God accounts for reason itself. Everything else leads to absurdity.

Nietchze went insane because he tried to live out his evolutionary presuppositions which lead to the absurdity of reason from a non-theistic base. The ironic thing is that he had to assume the absurdity of reason from an evolutionary worldview to then argue against the reality of it. This nihilism, which is commonly called the zero point--the point of unknowing, is what he tried to reach, but in trying to reach it he created a purpose, which does not exist in a purely materialistic chance universe. It was impossible for him not to create some kind of purpose because in doing that very thing a purpose is created. Words then become meaningless and all is vanity. This is why he is called the post-modern prophet because so many today deny purpose, being, and the usefulness of words. In reality, most people refuse to accept the end of evolutionary philosophy which is nihilism, so they invent a reality in which to live and cope even though they know it is absurd to create purpose and use reason when neither can be accounted for in a non-theistic worldview.

Man would rather appeal to the absurd that he knows is absurd rather than repent and believe the good news of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible. This magnifies the horrific nature of sin and why God must intervene to save man and open his blind eyes. Let us therefore pray for the lost people around us that God would graciously open their eyes to see the reality of who He is as revealed in Divine Scripture. Let us also be thankful with all humility that He has opened our eyes.

To Him be the glory alone! Amen!

Norchase ESL/Bible Study 6-9-09 Week 13

Week 13 and Still There!!

The ESL and Bible Study went great tonight. We had about 25 for the ESL and 14 adults remained for the Bible Study yet again! Several people had to leave to cook and such, so we certainly understand that. We are truly blessed and privileged to take part in this ground breaking ministry each and every week. Their English is improving, and they are consistently coming, which is a marvelous praise. The people who come never complain about the environment we teach in, and we are humbled because Americans tend to whine when things aren't up to par with regard to modern comforts.

Small Groups

We continue our trek through Romans, and our focus tonight was on circumcision of heart: Romans 2:25-29. Needless to say, I didn't go into great detail about physical circumcision. The ultimate point of the text is being honored by God from a circumcised heart. May the Lord continue to use us as instruments in His hands to bring His Word to these people.

Bible Study

501c3 Status

By the Lord's grace, we have gained 501c3 Status for The Jeramy Anderson Evangelistic Association, Inc.  It has been a very long process, but the Lord has blessed.  All donations are now tax deductible.  We use these donations to fund projects like the ESL, literature distribution, etc.  If you would like to make a donation to the ministry, please send a check to: The Jeramy Anderson Evangelistic Association, Inc. 5307B Weyden Trail Norcross, GA 30071.

northchase ESL & English Bible Study 6-2-09

I was out all last week for Dispatch Training in Forsyth.  For that reason, I was not there for the ESL and Bible Study this past.  Nonetheless, everything went off with a hitch.  Roberto led the ESL and Chris led the Bible Study.  Everything went fantastic, and we had about 20 people there for both the ESL and English Bible study.  May the Lord continue to work on these people's hearts as we share the good news of Christ with them.