Drunken Hearted Man

Im a drunken hearted man
my life seem so misery
Im the drunken hearted man
my life seem so misery
And if I could change my way of livin
it twould mean so much to me

I been dogged and I been driven
eve since I left my mothers home
I been dogged and I been driven
eve since I left my mothers home
And I cant see no reason why
that I cant leave these no-goods womens alone

My father died and left me
my poor mother done the best that she could
My father died and left me
my poor mother done the best she could
Every man likes that game you call love
but it dont mean no man no good
Now, Im the drunken hearted man
and sin was the cause of it all
spoken: Oh, play em now
Im a drunken hearted man
and sin was the cause of it all
And the day that you get weak for no-good women
thats the day that you bound to fall

5
Mar

Prayer for the Third Sunday of Lent

   Posted by: RobY   in Poetry

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

-Book of Common Prayer

If you ever find your way to the Desiring God resource page, I recommend that you click on the poetry tab.  Each year, John Piper writes and reads a poem for his congregation as a gift for each week of Advent.  The poem usually focuses on a Biblical character around which Dr. Piper creates a story of what he thinks would have taken place.  The portion that I have posted below comes from the poem, Peter, Ananias, and Sapphira.  It takes place after both Ananias and Sapphira are dead and buried.  As Peter sits beside the graves, he knows that his sin of denying Christ was far worse than the sin that brought such a harsh judgement upon Ananias and Sapphira.  Peter asks, “Why did I not drop dead?”  The following is God’s reply:

And then the Lord replied, “It’s true,
My friend, your sin was worse, and you
Deserved the countenance of wrath
Far more than these two here. Your path
Led straight to hell, and if I would
Have let you go, no power could
Have kept you from the flames. I did
Not owe you this, nor is it hid
From open sight that you, my friend,
Are saved by grace, and in the end
Are chosen unconstrained by good
Or evil deeds that would or could
Be made the root of my decrees.
In heaven and on earth I please
The counsel of my wisdom first.
For centuries my name has burst
The chains laid on my will by man,
When he presumes to shape my plan
Around his self-defining will-
A futile thing, for I fulfill
The purposes I formed before
The world was made. Do not make war
Against my freedom, Peter. All
That I have ever done to call
And carry you is free. Receive
This gift and tremble as you grieve
Beside these graves. If it were not
For grace, this would have been your lot.
They fell before your feet depraved,
That you might know how you were saved.”

Then, speechless, Peter rose and set
His face to follow Christ, and let
Each breath and trace of faith display
The way that sovereign grace holds sway.

And now as we light candle two,
May Christ illumine me and you,
To see that we deserve no good
From him, and sovereign justice would
Be served, if all of us fell dead
At Jesus’ feet. But if, instead,
We live and stand before his throne,
Let thanks be given for grace alone.
And let the one who doubts say this:
“It is my everlasting bliss
To know that God elects not by
Our works, but his decree, and I
Dare not use my iniquity
To prove that he rejected me.
O precious promise, sweet command:
Trust Christ alone, and you will stand.”

Listen to John Piper read the whole poem here.

3
Mar

The Gospel-Driven Life – Michael Horton

   Posted by: RobY   in Books, Gospel

“Only the Spirit, working through the gospel, has [the] kind of power to bring about a new creation in the midst of the old.  Gradually, we discover that the world outside is more interesting than the inner world of narcissistic preoccupation.  It is a liberation that we never expected, much less achieved for ourselves.  It’s a gift.  It is the marriage supper that is promised in the gospel and of which the Spirit gives us a foretaste in this present age.  While our consumer culture offers instant gratification in drive-thru spiritualities, the gospel seats us at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as the Triune God serves us with his heavenly gifts.”

From christianaudio.com:

This month is a special free offer, something we’ve never done before! Yes, TWO FREE audiobooks, all in preparation for the Easter celebration of the cross and resurrection.

“When Christ calls a man, he bid him come and die.” This sentence from The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the beginning of his teachings on what it means to truly follow Christ. He also speaks to cheap grace in that it’s the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance; baptism without church discipline; communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

His short life was full of obedience and radical testimony to God’s calling on his life, even up to the day he was martyred in a German prison camp on April 9, 1945. The book focuses much on the Sermon on the Mount with its call to discipleship, and on the grace of God and the sacrifice it demands. A true Christian classic!

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper gives 50 purposes for the death of Jesus. Why did Jesus come to die, and how do those reasons and purposes challenge us in our thinking of God and right relationship with Him?

Blessings!
christianaudio
Listen Enjoy Think Grow

The Cost of Discipleship
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, read by Paul Michael

Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived a testimony of his thoughtful and engaging writers. Focusing on the most treasured part of Christ’s teaching – the Sermon on the Mount with its call to discipleship, and on the grace of God and the sacrifice which that demands. At the same time, it shares with many great Christian classics a quality of timelessness, so that it has spoken, and continues to speak powerfully, to the varied concerns of the contemporary world.

 

Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die
by John Piper, read by Robertson Dean

WHY? The most important questions anyone can ask are: Why was Jesus Christ crucified? Why did he suffer so much? What has this to do with me? Finally, who sent him to his death? The answer to the last question is that God did. Jesus was God’s Son. John Piper has gathered from the New Testament fifty reasons. Not fifty causes, but fifty purposes—in answer to the most important question that each of us must face: What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending his Son to die?

27
Feb

Who Will Deliver Us? – Paul Zahl

   Posted by: RobY   in Books, Gospel

I believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ because it disarms the law and frees me from the fear of judgment. This judgment would use as evidence against me not only the deliberate sins and conscious moral failures of which I feel most painfully aware, but also the compulsive patterns and imprisoning proclivities the origin of which I scarcely know except they feel like flesh of my flesh. I have often felt judgment not as the condemnation of things about me I can help, but condemnation of my very self and character. Judgment makes me believe that “I,” to the extent that I am able to think of myself as a unity, have no definite, rightful place in the world. Because of judgment, I feel in the position of having to earn this rightful place. I have always worried that the governing truth about my life may be the dark finality of grievous solitude. Do I have a right to exist? The law has judged not only what I do, but who I am. For this reason law is my chief adversary in life.

I am a little like a duck hunter who was hunting with his friend in a wide-open barren of land in southeastern Georgia. Far away on the horizon he noticed a cloud of smoke. Soon he could hear the sound of crackling. A wind came up, and he realized the terrible truth: a brushfire was advancing his way. It was moving so fast that he and his friend could not outrun it. The hunter began to rifle through his pockets. Then he emptied all the contents of his knapsack. He soon found what he was looking for–a book of matches. To his friend’s amazement, he pulled out a match and struck it. He list a small fire around the two of them. Soon they were standing in a circle of blackened earth, waiting for the fire to come. They did not have to wait long. They covered their mouths with their handkerchiefs and braced themselves. The firs came near–and swept over them. But they were completely unhurt. They weren’t even touched. Fire would not pass where fire had passed.
The law is like the brushfire. I cannot escape it. But if I stand in the burned-over place, where law has already burned its way through, then I will not be hurt. Not a hair of my head will be singed. The death of Christ is the burned-over place. There I huddle, hardly believing yet relieved. I believe in the atonement. The law is powerless: Christ’s death has disarmed it. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The Fifth Sunday of Lent:

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly

wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to

love what you command and desire what you promise; that,

among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts

may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with

you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer

25
Feb

Rock of Ages When the Day Seems Long

   Posted by: RobY   in Music, Poetry

Rock of Ages, when the day seems long
From this labor and this heartache I have come
The skies will wear out, but You remain the same
Rock of Ages, I praise Your name.

Rock of Ages, You have brought me near
You have poured out Your life-blood, Your love, Your tears
To make this stone heart come alive again
Rock of Ages, forgive my sin

Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages
Bind your children til’ your kingdom comes
Rock of Ages, Your will be done

Rock of Ages, when in want or rest
My desperate need for such a Savior I confess
Pull these idols out from my heart embrace
Rock of Ages, I need Your grace

Rock of Ages, broken, scorned for me
Who am I that You would die to make me free?
To give me glory, You took the death and pain
Rock of Ages, my offering

Rock of Ages, “It is done,” You cried
The curtain’s torn and I see justice satisfied
Now write Your mercy here on my heart and hands
Rock of Ages, in faith I stand

Rock of Ages, my great hope secure
Your promise holds just like an anchor to my soul
Bind your children with cords of love and grace
Rock of Ages, we give You praise

Sandra McCracken

Download a sampler of Sandra’s most recent album for free here.

20
Feb

The Devotional Life of the Christian

   Posted by: RobY   in Culture, Fundamentalism

R. Scott Clark had a great post about the pietistic law of  “quiet time” on his blog.  Growing up in a fundamentalist church/school, I heard a lot of the same stuff.  It was refreshing to read this paragraph:

In Reformed spirituality the private devotional life of the Christian flows from the public Word, the public means of grace, i.e., the preaching of the Holy Gospel and the administration of the Holy sacraments (HC 65). The private devotional life is not a law, it is a grace. It is not a metaphorical whip with which to prod Christians to godliness, it is the natural outgrowth of union with Christ. It’s important but it’s secondary to the public preaching of the Word.

Justin Taylor inteviews Adrain Warnock about his new book Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything:

 

Justin Taylor Interview: Adrian Warnock from Crossway on Vimeo.

18
Feb

Westminster Confession of Faith 5.5

   Posted by: RobY   in Theology, catechism

Chapter 5: Of Providence

5: The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled;[114] and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.[115]

HT:  Daily Westminster

 

Reformedaudio.org has made available J. Gresham Machen’s well known Christianity and Liberalism in the form of 7 mp3 recordings.  Find it  here.

Washed My Hands In Muddy Water

I was born in Macon Georgia
They kept my daddy over in Macon jail
He told me if you keep your hands clean
You won’t hear them bloodhounds on your trail 

Well I fell in with bad companions
Robbed a man, oh up in Tennessee
They caught me way up in Nashville
They locked me up and threw away the key

I washed my hands in muddy water
Washed my hands, but they didn’t come clean
Tried to do what my daddy told me
But I must have washed my hands in a muddy stream

Well I asked the judge now when’s my time up
He said son, oh you know we won’t forget
If you try just to keep your hands clean
We might just make a good man of you yet

Oh I couldn’t wait to get my time up
I broke out, broke out of Nashville jail
I just crossed the state-line of Georgia
Well I can hear those bloodhounds on my trail

I washed my hands in muddy water
Washed my hands, but they didn’t come clean
Tried to do what my daddy told me
But I must have washed my hands in a muddy stream

 

9
Feb

Transformation

   Posted by: RobY   in Gospel

Mark Galli, Senior Managing Editor at Chrisitanity Today, has written a great article on transformation.  Read it here.  

The Conclusion:

. . . It’s at this point, that we’ve come to the crisis point, the point of crucifixion. We know we’re as good as dead. Condemned to a life of self-centeredness. And thus condemned to a life without God. It is only when all hope is lost, of course, that grace rears its beautiful head. Grace only emerges at the point of utter hopelessness. If there is any taint of will, any notion that there is something I can do to resolve the crisis—be penitent, pray, do good—then we’re no longer talking about grace, but some sort of deal with God.  So the crisis point is not a single point that occurs at the moment when one becomes a Christian. The crisis point is life itself. And thus life itself is a grace point.

HT:  Mockingbird Blog