"For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" (1 Corinthians 9:16)
"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)
Please note: This website replaces what was previously THE REFORMED PULPIT. The name change will avoid confusion with other sites using a similar name
__________________________________________
Contra Tyrannos
The name of this website has been taken from the title of the book Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, (A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants). Written in Latin and French, is was thought to have been written by Hubert s Languet, a French Huguenot and Calvinist.
It presents an argument against the politics of Machiavelli (1469-1527). It speaks of there being a “firm bond of human society” and of “an alliance or covenant between the King and the People” with mutual obligations. Should the king or rulers break their promises, the people are released from their promises of obligation to them.
The greatest tyranny there is comes not from outside, imposed by our fellow human beings, but from within ourselves. Sin brings to us the worst of all tyrannies. Martin Luther confessed: “I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great Pope self.” Yet we have this promise:
"For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14)
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2::20)
___________________________________________
Salvation: more than an insurance policy to escape punishment and secure eternal life.
The temptation to which, alas, so many succumb, to continue at the Cross, and on Golgotha to close up their account with Christ, is fatal to the faith. The way it happens is as follows: The conscience wakes up for a moment; the weight of sin burdens the soul; fear of the coming Judgement strikes fear to the heart. In such a moment, the comforting thought of the Cross arises invitingly in the soul. For if the Atoning Sacrifice is but accepted, one is saved. Nothing needs to be done for it save to believe. One lets himself be persuaded to do this. And to say it as sharply as the case deserves, one closes the bargain. And now one deems himself saved. Now he accepts the fact that he assured of eternal life. He finds the Atoning Sacrifice to be glorious. It brings perfect salvation. Thus to such a one, Christ has become the Saviour. But of a more intimate, tenderer tie that binds his soul to Christ, nothing is learned from his conversation, nothing suggests it in the utterances of his religious life. He is now saved and that ifs the end of it.
Yet this is nothing but self-deceit. Nothing stirs in it save spiritual egoism. Escape is sought from eternal punishment. One wants to insure himself for eternal salvation. But nothing in this suggests thirst after the living God; nothing of the child’s home-sickness after the Father’s house; nothing of holy jealousy for the honour of God’s Name.
From this no spiritual power can go out. No religion can operate in it, nor come out from it. And what is more, it can not be true that in this wise Golgotha can bring propitiation for the life of the soul.
So the Gospel does not speak like this. It does not interpret the Atoning Sacrifice in this way. Never in Scripture is the power of redemption attributed to Golgotha, except as the mystical union binds our inner life to the life of Christ.
It must be a being buried with Christ in His death in order to rise with Him unto life. They alone who have become one planting with Christ share in the grace which He has obtained.
They alone who have become sheep of His flock can follow the great Shepherd of souls.
It is not the Cross that saves us, but He who saves us is the Christ who died on the Cross
You must be one with Christ, member of His Body, accepted and incorporated under Him as your Head before one single drop of His grace can be sprinkled upon you.
You must have been given in the Father to the Christ in order that His glory may become manifest in you.
The mystical union must have laid the tie of love forever between Christ and your soul.
Yes, it must become Christ in you, in order that, through this middle link, your life near unto your God may become a reality.
For so prayed your Saviour Himself in His High Priestly prayer: “Holy Father, I in them, and Thou in Me!” (John 17:23)
Yet, if our mystical union with Christ shall preserve its truly religious character, and not degenerate into sentimental Christolatry, this tie that binds us in Christ must never find its final end in itself.
The Christ is your Mediator, and there can be no Mediator save for the one purpose of causing you to approach God.
To be near to God, with a child’s confidence; to feel yourself close by God; here on earth to abide in the nearness of God through faith, and once after your death, to serve God eternally in the Father-house above ― that is and remains the final end; and all that the Scriptures reveal unto us regarding the Mediatorship of Christ must result in this, and can never rest within itself.
Abraham Kuyper, To Be Near Unto God
____________________________________________
Tyranny today
THE NEW TOTALITARIANISM & THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Life and history without God lack the triumph that gives meaning to what we do and how we live. Christian believers have a sense of destiny denied to others. This is because God’s created time is a realm of action moving towards the certain victory and triumph of our Saviour. By contrast the godless humanist has no such certainty giving meaning to past or present deeds, or to future events. It is an article of faith for the humanist, agnostic, and atheist that God has no more to do with the unfolding of history than He does with science. The man without God will be of no certain origin and without certain hope to give any sense to the present. They seek at every turn to destroy history or escape it and they show nothing but contempt for the future.
______________________________________________
THE COVENANTS OF SCRIPTURE AND CIVIL GOVERNMENT
Covenants in Scripture
God’s dealings with men in all matters are always expressed in terms of a covenant or compact. Such a covenant is an agreement between God and a chosen group, but is always one initiated by God. Covenants are, of course, also made between men and other men. The root idea of a covenant is to bind together or to obligate the parties involved. There are numerous examples in the Scriptures of such covenants. A covenant will as a rule contain the following elements.
1. A promise - a reward from God to man
2. A condition - obedience to the will of God or faith in Him.
3. A penalty - for violation of the terms of the compact.
______________________________________________
Just uploaded
The last of my three messages on the parables in Luke 15
THE LOST SON
THE BIBLICAL USE OF PARABLES
In Mediterranean countries to this day, when someone wants to convey some information or make a point, they will often tell a story. This indirect approach may be for reasons of safety and security so that the teller of the story can always say that he never said such and such a thing. Generally, those intended to know the meaning of the tale will fasten onto what is being said and to whom it is directed. For those not party to the purpose, it may just seem to be a story and nothing more. Sometimes these stories are like a riddle and the hearers will be left to puzzle out the meaning, or they will miss the whole point and need to have everything explained to them clearly.
more here
Video messages on
THE LOST SHEEP
THE LOST COIN
THE LOST SON
See also
THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES
THE RICH FOOL
______________________________________________
Gems from William Romaine (1714-1795)
“A sinner will not seek after nor desire Christ farther than he feels his guilt and his misery; nor will he receive Christ by faith till all other methods of saving himself fail; nor will he live upon Christ’s fulness farther than he has an abiding sense of his own want of Him.”
“Do not say when thou wantest anything, I know not where to get it; for whatever the God-man has of wisdom, righteousness, holiness, power, and glory, He has it, as Head of the body, for thee, as one of His members, for thy use and benefit, and He has promised it to thee in His Word. Make free with Him then. Go to Him with confidence. Thou canst not do Him greater honour than to receive from Him what He has to give. That is glorifying Him.”
From The Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith.
(I have begun reading my late wife’s copy of this book only to find it covered from the first page to the last with pencil scribbles and underlining! I believe she must have read it through several times. What a blessing is to be had from these authors!)
_____________________________________________
THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CREED OF BISHOP RYLE
In the Preface to his book Coming Events and Present Duties, Bishop J. C. Ryle with marvellous simplicity and power has given us his expression of the true faith with respect to the Second Coming of Christ in the following Pre-Millennial Creed, which he believed the Scriptures require.
Apart from one or two of the finer points, I find myself in broad agreement with the good bishop and commend his observations to your further study.
______________________________________________
BLESSED WITH ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS
Unless we encounter the Person of Christ in this life, we are without hope in the next. Unless we have a soul knowledge of the Saviour, salvation is still beyond us. We need to be very clear: it is not enough simply to know or even to believe the truth of the Gospel. Something more than a simple mental acceptance of the truth of the Gospel is required. It must reach our hearts and extend to our whole being.
...
All present blessings stem from what God has already given us in His Son. God has done all there is to do in Christ, and all we need to know about Him is in Scripture!
"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."(Matthew 12:39-40)
...
Martin Luther said that he would rather obey than work miracles. Longing for more than is found in Scriptures is not a sign of spirituality and faith, but of apostasy and unbelief. This is as true of those who demand miracles, signs and wonders as it is of those who expect God to somehow step into our age and do something more than is to be found in the Gospel given in Scripture. There is nothing we can possibly need that is not already ours in Christ.
______________________________________________
A VALLEY FULL OF DEAD BONES
“It is upon a field of the dead that the Sun of righteousness has risen, and the shouts that announce His advent fall on deaf ears; yea, even though the morning stars should again sing for joy and the air be palpitant with the echo of the great proclamation, their voice could not penetrate the ears of the dead. As we sweep our eyes over the world lying in wickedness, it is the valley of the prophet’s vision which we see before us: a valley that is filled with bones, and lo! they are very dry. What benefit is there in proclaiming to dry bones the greatest of redemptions? How shall we stand and cry, O, ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! In vain the redemption, in vain its proclamation, unless there comes a breath from heaven to breathe upon these slain that they may live.”
Benjamin Warfield, Studies in Theology, p.9
_____________________________________________
IF GOD IS SOVEREIGN...
“If God is sovereign, then His Lordship must extend over all of life, and it cannot be restricted to the walls of the Church or within the Christian orbit. The non-Christian world has not been handed over to Satan, nor surrendered to fallen humanity, nor consigned to fate. God’s sovereignty is great and all-dominating in the life of the unbaptized world as well. Therefore, Christ’s Church on earth and God’s children cannot simply retreat from this life. If the believer’s God is at work in this world, then in this world the believer’s hand must take hold of the plough, and the Name of the Lord must be glorified in that activity as well.”
(Abraham Kuyper, (De Gemeene Gratie, vol.i, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii)
Only one King can make the world His Kingdom
And hold it for His own;
God’s ancient covenant His house established,
An everlasting throne;
Majesty, glory, power and dominion
Are His and His alone, Lord of all lords and King of kings, eternal,
Great David’s greater Son.
_____________________________________________
Who then is a believer?
“We have to keep to the rule that we cannot judge of the heart, but only of the external conduct, and even that defectively. Those who, as the human eye sees them, are walking in the way of the covenant must according to the judgement of love be regarded and treated as our fellows in grace. But in the final analysis is not our judgement, but God’s, that determines. He is the Knower of hearts the Trier of the reins. With Him there is no respecting of persons. Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).”
Hermann Bavinck in Our Reasonable Faith
_____________________________________________
THE GOD EVERYONE KNOWS
IS GOD REALLY DEAD?
Recently rewritten and expanded
_____________________________________________
The living Christ, the object of our faith
Herman Bavinck (1854-1921)
Dutch Reformed theologian and churchman.
The peculiarity of the Christian religion as has been shown so often, and acknowledged even by opponents, lies in the person of Christ. All other religions are independent, to a certain degree, of their founders, because those founders were nothing more than their first confessors. But Jesus was not the first Christian; he was and is the Christ. He is not the subject, but the object, of religion. Christianity is not the religion of Jesus, still less of Jesus-worship, but Christ religion. Christianity is now as dependent on him, from moment to moment, as when he trod this earth. For he is not a person who lived and worked only in the past, but he lives and works still, is still Prophet, Priest, and King, and himself upholds the Church, which he established, from age to age, and assures her victory.
_____________________________________________
THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT
By Abraham Kuyper, theologian, reformed pastor and one-time prime minister of the Netherlands
Although the love of God, failing in its purpose, always causes hardening of the heart, yet at times it has a still more terrible effect. For it may lead to the sin against the Holy Ghost.
The results of this sin are especially crushing and terrible. Christ’s words concerning it are startling and penetrating, casting the guilty soul into everlasting despair:
“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” (Matthew 12:30-32)
_____________________________________________
Welcome...
This is the personal website of
David W. Norris
Proclaiming the Gospel of Christ
Promoting the authentic, historic, God-centred and biblical reformed faith
Presenting the Christian faith for all of life
_____________________
Theological Standpoint
The theological standpoint of Contra Tyrannos is that of Protestant orthodoxy. I am thoroughly in accord with the great Confessions of the early Church and of the Reformation. I recognise the words of Holy Scripture as the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.
STATEMENT OF FAITH
"A declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us." (Luke 1:1)
Creeds and Confessions link us with other genuine believers and distinguish us from those teaching error. The rule of faith must always be Scripture itself. Confessions of Faith and Creeds are only of value inasmuch as they embody the true teaching of Scripture as a whole. Many claim to follow the Bible but their teachings deny it. For this reason we are obliged to state clearly what we mean when we say we are 'Bible believers'.
_____________________
“Today we confront a new phenomenon – a generation that has lost God and a whole dimension of life: the spiritual dimension. Half our countrymen are worse than heathen, in that they believe in nothing ― not even themselves.”
C. M. Chavasse, bishop of Rochester (from 1940 to 1960); son of Francis Chavasse, bishop of Liverpool (from 1900 to 1923), who was successor to J. C. Ryle the first bishop of Liverpool (from 1880 to 1890). The Chavasse family was of Huguenot origin.
______________________
"The benefits which Christ has achieved for us by His great love are so rich that they simply cannot be calculated or estimated at their just value. They comprehend no less than a whole and perfect salvation"
“Christ is Himself Christianity. He stands, not outside it, but inside of it. In one word, Christ is the not one who points the way to Christianity, but is the way itself.”
Herman Bavinck in Magnalia Dei
_______________________
“When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him and therefore opposeth us all he can.”
Richard Sibbes
_______________________
"God’s greatness and almightiness do not limit and bind themselves to the narrower domain of the salvation of souls, but permeate the whole of human life; and with every one of us, according to our talents and calling, love for God must express itself in every department of life with equal zeal and power."
Abraham Kuyper in To be Near unto God
_____________________
“A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hands of God”
Robert Murray M’Cheyne
_____________________
THE GREATEST NEED OF THE HOUR
Cry aloud, thou that sittest in the dust,
Cry to the proud, the cruel, and unjust;
Knock at the gates of nations, rouse their fears;
Say wrath is coming, and the storm appears;
But raise the shrillest cry in British ears.
William Cowper
_____________________