Dr Paul Allen

A decline in the spiritual life lies in disregarding the Word of God and a lack of attention to prayer. Christians who allow sin to linger “unlamented” are in great spiritual danger. I encourage Christians to develop a habit of dealing with sin promptly, faithfully, and biblically. It is a timely word for our day as it was during his own. I considered how the duty of prayer is attended to as one considerable reason for spiritual declension. In this, I propose considering another cause contributing to the same end: sin lying on the conscience unlamented.[1] When the apostle Paul wrote his First Epistle to the church at Corinth, they were sunk in a wretched condition. With admirable faithfulness, wisdom, patience, and tenderness, he wrote that Epistle to reclaim them. Many of them were reclaimed, but some, it seems, continued insensible, which induced him, when he wrote his Second Epistle to that church, to express himself thus: “I fear lest when I come again, my God will humble me among...

“So God never forsakes his people, but he sometimes withdraws from them the sweetness of communion with him. He hides his face, as the psalmist says in about a dozen places.” His question is, Why would God do that to his own children? God Hides His Face First, let me make the case that he already accepts. He doesn’t need me to make the case. But my guess is some of our listeners are saying, “Really?” There is evidence in our very songs that we sing these days that there’s disagreement about this. For example, Edward Mote wrote this great hymn, which most of us would recognize, 150 years ago: My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’s name. On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand. When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil. That’s what he wrote: “W...

The Way Jesus Answered What was so unusual and so attention-grabbing about Jesus’s teaching? Part of it was that once people began to challenge him and ask him questions, Jesus proved to be a masterful chess player. He simply refused to get caught in verbal or intellectual traps, and in fact, always managed to turn the heat back on the one who posed the challenge in the first place. And even then, he did it in a way that would not only win the argument but also spiritually challenge everyone listening. Let me show you an example. Matthew 22 recounts a time when Jesus was teaching in the temple in Jerusalem and a group of Jewish leaders approached him in order to challenge him. Now, this wasn’t an accidental meeting. These leaders had planned the whole thing; the story even starts by saying that the Pharisees “plotted how to entangle him in his words.”  They also wanted to do it publicly, so they walked up while Jesus was teaching in the temple, probably pushed through a crowd, and ...