Pulpit Magazine

Pulpit has been integrated with the Shepherds’ Fellowship website. As a result, we’ve moved to a new location. (WordPress has been good to us, but it’s time for a change.) 

Soon, this URL will simply roll over to the new site. In the meantime, you can access our new articles by clicking here.

(And our RSS Feed is working over there too!)

(By Nathan Williams) 

 Rick Warren is launching a new quarterly magazine called The Purpose Driven Connection. Read about it here.

 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi commented on Sunday that family planning, which includes abortion, will act as a “stimulus” and help the economy.

 I’m sure many of you have read about President Obama’s statement concerning abortion on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. John Piper responds in this video. (HT: Denny Burk)

 Here is one way to save on fuel costs during a recession.

(By Matt Waymeyer)

Today’s post concludes our series on this important topic, with a fifth and final reason why believers should pray in light of God’s sovereignty.

5. God has ordained prayer as a means by which He accomplishes His eternal purposes.

At this point, some may wonder how it is that Scripture can teach both that God providentially brings all things to pass in conformity with His eternal purpose and that the prayers of men can have a significant affect in the unfolding of world history. The seeming contradiction between these two truths vanishes, however, when one realizes that “the same God who has decreed the end has also decreed that His end shall be reached through His appointed means, and one of these is prayer” (The Sovereignty of God, 167). In other words, God in His infinite wisdom was pleased to ordain prayer to be a means through which He accomplishes His good pleasure in and through His creation. As A.W. Pink writes, Continue Reading »

(By Nathan Williams) 

 This has to be one of the saddest stories I have read in some time. It discusses Ted Haggard and his reflections on the scandal that cost him his ministry two years ago. Here is one of the saddest lines in the whole piece:

“And I call it my sin,” he says. “That’s my sin. I’m not saying everybody is a sinner that does it. I’m just saying with my standards and my values, it was a sin against me and God. For me.”

 That’s right. That is a church and that is a car in the roof of the church. Watch this video.

 A Christian school in Dallas fired it’s girls basketball coach because his team beat another school 100-0. He is not apologizing.

(By Matt Waymeyer)

So far, we have considered two reasons to pray in light of God’s sovereignty. Today we will consider two more.

3. God is able to respond to our prayers.

Rather than hindering the prayers of believers, the sovereignty of God ought to motivate them to pray, for “prayer grows from the certainty of God’s omnipotence and sovereignty” (The God Who Hears, 47). Put another way, if God does not reign in sovereignty over His creation and is not able to accomplish whatever He desires in and through it, why bother requesting of Him what He is unable to deliver?

To illustrate, if a five-year-old boy repeatedly asks his mother to make it stop raining on a Saturday morning, this may create a precious memory, but in the final analysis the boy’s request is misguided. As much as his mother might like to alter the weather, she simply lacks the ability to do so, and therefore to request this of her makes little sense. But when the children of God come before the throne of grace, they come with the full assurance that their heavenly Father is able to accomplish whatever He is pleased to do, for nothing is too difficult for Him. And this ought to motivate them to pray. Continue Reading »