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Archive for the ‘Quotes’ Category

Pastor John has gotten disability right for a long time

Posted in Quotes, Sermons on October 30, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes I search the DG website for terms related to disability and find interesting things Pastor John preached or wrote years or even decades ago, like this from his 1982 sermon, Calling All Clay Pots:

Your ordinariness is not a liability; it is an asset, if you really want God to get the glory. No one is too common, too weak, too shy, too inarticulate, too disabled to do what God wants you to do with your gift.

He comes back to this idea as he concluded the sermon:

(B)eing ordinary or disabled is not a liability in the kingdom, but may be an asset if your aim is to glorify God and not yourself in the use of your gift. Therefore, no one is excluded from the call to all clay pots.

No one is excluded.  All have gifts.  Disability can be an asset to glorify God.  Pretty radical stuff for a 36-year-old preacher with healthy, typically-developing children in his home!

Of course, the Bible is full of radical stuff like that.  So my title for this blog post is probably inaccurate and should read something like: God has ALWAYS gotten disability right and Pastor John helpfully points me to God.

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J.C. Ryle on why those who suffer should persevere in Christ to the end

Posted in Quotes on October 28, 2011| 2 Comments »

Normally I put things in bold or capitals to highlight something I found particularly helpful.  In this case, the emphasis at the end was made by the author himself!

The time is very short. A few more years of watching and praying, a few more tossings on the sea of this world, a few more deaths and changes, a few more winters and summers, and all will be over. We shall have fought our last battle, and shall need to fight no more.

The presence and company of Christ will make amends for all we suffer here below. When we see as we have been seen, and look back on the journey of life, we shall wonder at our own faintness of heart. We shall marvel that we made so much of our cross, and thought so little of our crown. We shall marvel that in “counting the cost” we could ever doubt on which side the balance of profit lay. Let us take courage. We are not far from home. IT MAY COST MUCH TO BE A TRUE CHRISTIAN AND A CONSISTENT BELIEVER; BUT IT PAYS.

J.C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, p. 158.

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“And Jesus knows exactly how to comfort His afflicted people.” J.C. Ryle

Posted in Quotes on October 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

J.C. Ryle has been dead for more than a century.  But he is still relevant for suffering people today!  Paragraph formatting is mine.

A saved soul has many sorrows. He has a body like other men–weak and frail. He has a heart like other men–and often a more sensitive one, too. He has trials and losses to bear like others–and often more. He has his share of bereavements, deaths, disappointments, crosses. He has the world to oppose–a place in life to fill blamelessly–unconverted relatives to bear with patiently–persecutions to endure–and a death to die.

And who is sufficient for these things? What shall enable a believer to bear all this? Nothing but “the consolation there is in Christ.” (Phil. ii. 1.)

Jesus is indeed the brother born for adversity. He is the friend that sticketh closer than a brother, and He alone can comfort His people. He can be touched with the feeling of their infirmities, for He suffered Himself. (Heb. iv. 15.) He knows what sorrow is, for He was a Man of sorrows. He knows what an aching body is, for His body was racked with pain. He cried, “All my bones are out of joint.” (Ps. xxii. 14.) He knows what poverty and weariness are, for He was often wearied and had not where to lay His head. He knows what family unkindness is, for even His brethren did not believe Him. He had no honour in His own house.

And Jesus knows exactly how to comfort His afflicted people. He knows how to pour in oil and wine into the wounds of the spirit–how to fill up gaps in empty hearts–how to speak a word in season to the weary–how to heal the broken heart–how to make all our bed in sickness–how to draw nigh when we are faint, and say, “Fear not: I am thy salvation.” (Lam. iii. 57.)

We talk of sympathy being pleasant. There is no sympathy like that of Christ. In all our afflictions He is afflicted. He knows our sorrows. In all our pain He is pained, and like the good Physician, He will not measure out to us one drop of sorrow too much. David once said, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul.” (Ps. xciv. 19.) Many a believer, I am sure, could say as much. “If the Lord Himself had not stood by me, the deep waters would have gone over my soul,” (Ps. cxxiv. 5.) How a believer gets through all his troubles appears wonderful. How he is carried through the fire and water he passes through seems past comprehension.

But the true account of it is just this–that Christ is not only justification and sanctification, but consolation also.

Oh, you who want unfailing comfort, I commend you to Christ! In Him alone there is no failure. Rich men are disappointed in their treasures. Learned men are disappointed in their books. Husbands are disappointed in their wives. Wives are disappointed in their husbands. Parents are disappointed in their children. Statesmen are disappointed when, after many a struggle, they attain place and power. They find out, to their cost, that it is more pain than pleasure–that it is disappointment, annoyance, incessant trouble, worry, vanity, and vexation of spirit.

But no man was ever disappointed in Christ.

J.C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, p. 262.

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A German response to the health and wealth prosperity gospel?

Posted in Quotes on October 23, 2011| 1 Comment »

I stumbled across a summary of German theologian Ulrich Bach’s view of God, disability and the Bible in a recent edition of the Journal of Religion, Disability and Health.  Pastor Bach lived with the consequences of polio his entire adult life.  If the summary is correct, he understood something important about God’s sovereignty in light of his disability:

I believe in a God who still has the ability to heal if he thinks it is right. However, I point out that I also believe in a God who allows people to remain ill or disabled if he thinks it is right. While successful healing can comply with God’s will, non-healing can comply with God’s will, just as well (Bach, 1988, p. 13).

I’m hoping to find an English translation of his last monograph, Without the Weakest, the Church Is Not Complete.  Doesn’t that sound biblical?

On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable . . . (1 Corinthians 12:22 ESV)

I don’t know enough about him to comment any further.  But I found that quote above encouraging and helpful.

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“God did not make this feast for those that were excellent and worthy to be invited” – Jonathan Edwards

Posted in Quotes on October 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

Hence we learn what exceeding great reason we have to admire the grace of God towards us, that he should so lay out himself to provide such a feast for our souls. God hasn’t provided this feast for those that are rich, that are able to recompense him by inviting him again, nor for them that are able to make any recompense at all; but those that are poor and have nothing to pay. We were in a famishing miserable condition when the King invited to the marriage feast of his Son, and not only so, but to be his bride.

God did not make this feast for those that were excellent and worthy to be invited to such a royal feast, but for those that [were] filthy, that were loathsome creatures clothed in rags, or rather naked, and defiled with filth. He did not invite those that were happy already, but poor beggars that were scattered, wandering in the highways and dwelling under hedges, those that were halt and lame and blind. Such all naturally are, but God sends forth his messengers, and calls many such to his houses, and washes them from their filthiness and clothes them with white raiment, adorns [them] with robes as king’s children and makes them to sit down at his table.

O, what reason have we [to] admire the wonderful grace of God herein!

Jonathan Edwards, Sermons and Discourses: 1723-1729, Ed. Kenneth P. Minkema

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“We are no judges at all” Oswald Chambers

Posted in Quotes on October 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, for August 10

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“There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good health except it be sickness.” Spurgeon

Posted in Quotes on October 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good health except it be sickness; and that has often been a greater mercy to me than health.

It is a good thing to be without a trouble; but it is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it.

I am not so much afraid of the devil when he roars, as I am when he pretends to go to sleep. I think that, oftentimes, a roaring devil keeps us awake; and the troubles of this life stir us up to go to God in prayer, and that which looks to us ill turns to our good.

“We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28 KJV).

C.H. Spurgeon, The Simplicity and Sublimity of Salvation, delivered June 5, 1892.

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“Adoption is about taking on risk as cross-bearing love.” Russell Moore

Posted in commentary, Quotes on October 13, 2011| 12 Comments »

Recently, Brenda Fischer, our coordinator for the disability ministry at Bethlehem, sent me statistics on the numbers of children with disabilities God has brought to Bethlehem.  She ended with this statement:

At Bethlehem we have a disproportionately high number of the last three mostly because of so many adopted children in our church body.

The ‘last three’ she is referencing are fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and reactive attachment disorder.

Each of those disabilities carries heavy, lifelong burdens on the children and families.

And they are coming to our church because families are pursuing the good of others in obedience to Christ.  Families are intentionally taking the risk that their adopted child will have a significant disability which could change the entire family.

So I particularly appreciated Dr. Russell Moore’s blog post from yesterday, Don’t Adopt! 

Anyone even remotely familier with him or his book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches, would immediately recognize that he’s trying to say something important through that provocative title.  And he delivered:

Love of any kind brings risk, and, in a fallen world, brings hurt. Simeon tells our Lord’s mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, that a sword would pierce her heart. That’s true, in some sense, for every mother, every father. Even beyond that, every adoption, every orphan, represents a tragedy. Someone was killed, someone left, someone was impoverished, or someone was diseased. Wrapped up in each situation is some kind of hurt, and all that accompanies that. That’s the reason there really is no adoption that is not a “special needs” adoption; you just might not know on the front end what those special needs are. . . 

We need a battalion of Christians ready to adopt, foster, and minister to orphans. But that means we need Christians ready to care for real orphans, with all the brokenness and risk that comes with it. We need Christians who can reflect the adopting power of the gospel, which didn’t seek out a boutique nursery but a household of ex-orphans who were found wallowing in our own blood, with Satan’s genes in our bloodstreams.

Yes and amen!

So, if a church is serious about adoption, it will either already be serious about disability in the lives of its members or it will soon need to become serious about it.  And every church should be serious about adoption, because we know that God is:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:3-6 ESV).

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“Behind the law of heredity is the Law giver.” A.W. Pink

Posted in commentary, Quotes on October 10, 2011| 1 Comment »

Daniel (my middle son) and I walked up to the local seminary library on Saturday to check out the recent edition of a quarterly journal on religion and disability that is unavailable online.  Let’s just say that most of what we found wasn’t that helpful.  Generally the articles aren’t helpful for just two reasons: scripture doesn’t have any authority (if it is referred to at all); and God’s love is defined by human desires and ‘wisdom.’  The glory of God is rarely even considered!

On the other hand, A.W. Pink is usually helpful and God-centered!  I found this in the Bethlehem library on Sunday:

“And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? Or who maketh the (mute) or deaf, or the seeing or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?” (Exodus 4:11)  It seems evident from this that, in the previous verse, Moses was referring to some impediment in his speech.  In reply, the Lord tells him that He was responsible for that. The force of what Jehovah said here seems to be this: As all the physical senses, and the perfections of them, are from the Creator, so are the imperfections of them according to His sovereign pleasure. Behind the law of heredity is the Law giver, regulating it as He deems best.

A.W. Pink, Gleanings in Exodus, p. 38.

“As He (the omnipotent, omniscient, loving, wise, just creator and sustainer of all things) deems best ” – now there’s reason for hope, comfort and joy!

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God deliberately does what is counter-intuitive

Posted in Quotes, Scripture on October 8, 2011| 1 Comment »

I have been reading a little treasure of great thinkers and preachers and writers on the subject of death – and experienced wonderful encouragement!  O Love that Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God is a fantastic collection of works by names like Piper, Keller, Owen, Edwards, Luther, Spurgeon and Calvin, all brought together by Nancy Guthrie.

It is full of God-centered gems of truth, helping put language to things my family has experienced and probably yours has as well.

Like this one on why God deliberately calls weak, hurting people to reach out to other weak, hurting people:

One of the great lessons I learned through my illness is that God will frequently call us to come alongside others who are facing the same circumstance we are.  I call it “incarnational illness.” God deliberately intersects our lives with the hurting at the very moment when we hurt. Why does he do this? Because he knows that weakness is the perfect soil for growing dependence in him.  Stripped of our own gifts and resources, we are perfectly positioned to trust him.

John Eaves, “A Witness in the Way We Die,” in O Love that Will Not Let Me Go, edited by Nancy Guthrie, p. 75.

John Eaves’ God-centered illustration drew me back to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, and encouraged me to rejoice in a wonderful truth – our weakness allows Christ to look even more glorious!

But he (the Lord) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ESV).

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