Grace and Peace! I am thankful to God for the privilege He has graciously given me to serve Him, as well as providing my family with the support and prayers from His people.
Our family is doing very well, although we as parents have our hands full with a toddler and are often tired and sleep-deprived. We are able to spend time outdoors in the summer warmth, enjoying God’s blessing of our work in the garden by making it grow and bring forth fruit. Our son enjoys playing in the yard as it is the first summer where he can run around and have fun exploring everything everywhere. We have to watch him.
The translation of Canons of Dort into Swedish has been completed. In the translation area, I’m now focusing on some works of Charles H. Spurgeon: his “Morning and Evening” devotionals, and the booklet of his sermon “The Heart of the Gospel”, in which he says:
“In peaceful times we may feel free to make excursions into interesting districts of truth which lie far afield, but now we must stay at home, and guard the hearths and homes of the church by defending the first principles of the faith. In this age, there have risen up in the church itself men who speak perverse things. There be many that trouble us with their philosophies and novel interpretations, whereby they deny the doctrines they profess to teach and undermine the faith they are pledged to maintain. It is well that some of us, who know what we believe, and have no secret meanings for our words, should just put our foot down and maintain our standing, holding forth the word of life, and plainly declaring the foundation truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
I believe Spurgeon’s observation of the problem and the remedy is still so true today, if not even more so. Churches and denominations have been taken over by those who preach novel philosophies and hide the plain and true Gospel. I recently heard the testimony from a brother who had been to a Baptist Church in one of the towns here (vastly different from our Baptist Church!) He had asked the Sunday School teacher if he would teach his children the Gospel and ensure that they would hear the message of salvation – the teacher answered no. He then asked if he could tell him the Gospel – how to get saved – and the teacher refused. He knew he had a different gospel that this brother would not accept. The other leaders of this congregation did not take it very seriously either. But the brother was happy that he had now found our Church where we plainly, and clearly declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ, every time in our sermons.
This is because we agree with what Spurgeon is saying. Many people who have gone to Church have never heard the Gospel clearly. Yes, we teach the whole counsel of God, all that the Bible talks about and the Reformed doctrines found in it are profitable for the people of God (and I have translated the Canons of Dort, I am preaching through Ephesians 1 and all those great truths about God’s eternal election that edify the saints), but never get sidetracked from the Gospel. It is the main message we need to preach and defend and repeat in this time so that people can be saved and His truth, the glorious Gospel, may be known and shine out from all the counterfeits. This is why we also want to publish books like this. Even if many of them are just about the same thing – the plain Gospel. It is constantly under attack, constantly perverted, and needs to be constantly published, proclaimed, and defended.
The coming month will be quite busy for me – on top of the translation and publishing work I have sermons to prepare every week, including one sermon at our Five Solas Conference. This brother I mentioned and his family, and another young man, have found our Church is a very direct and clear result of God answering our prayers. God willing, I can get to know them and be of service. Please keep all these things in your prayers.
