Good and Angry - Book Review

  Ephesians 4:26 tells us to be angry, but not to be sinfully angry. The exhortation and the warning is often given, but rarely explained. David Powlison's excellent book digs deep into anger, and helps us to see the difference between godly and ungodly anger. There are many ways anger is manifested and can affect us, and Good and Angry does a great job of highlighting how you may have an issue with anger and not even realize it. Even those who never get upset at anything have an anger problem; an apathy towards things we should be angry at but just shrugging the shoulders is just as wrong as flying off the handle at the slightest provocation. 

Good and Angry doesn't stop with teaching us about anger, but  to flesh out what we've learned in our lives. Chapter 13 "Eight Questions: Taking Your Anger Apart to Put You Back Together" takes a typical case study of a traffic jam to help us think through our own angry emotions to find out where it is coming from and then deal with the true source of anger. This excellent chapter helps you see that anger isn't something that is happening to you, but you are angry at something, or someone. Taking deep breathes, counting to ten, picturing yourself on a beach somewhere are typical techniques that may help lower the blood pressure but does not deal with the root of the anger problem. Without an understand of God, of sin, and the fallen human heart, the secularist cannot properly diagnose or deal with anger, especially in those difficult cases of extreme hurt. Wisely, Powlison explains that while we might never "get over" some pain, God will help us "get through it". Pointing the reader to the Christ who will judge the Earth and set all things right, he orients us to think Biblically and with an eye toward the justice of God and rest in His sovereignty. 

Powlison writes that anger is tricky because "anger is always good or bad (or a mix of both)" and it takes prayerful thought and Scriptural orientation to sort it out and change. Anger exists because evil exists and as long as there is evil, there will be a good place for anger. To be angry at injustice, to be angry at evil, to be angry at the consequences of sin is a motivating force to do what is right, to protect, or to stop evil in its tracks. Good anger is concerned foremost with holiness and the glory of God and His will. Because we are sinful, the emotion of anger often turns inward and we are more concerned with our comforts, our will, and our glory and get angry when anything crosses our path. The book will help you sort out anger in your own heart,  or the lack of anger, so that you can live with peace, and when the time comes, get really good and angry, for the glory of God.

Thanks to Cross Focused Reviews for the review copy

Born Again

You must be born again. You can reform your life. You can turn things around. You can stop drinking and start being nicer to your wife. But that is reformation. If you will be saved, you need regeneration. If you will go to Heaven, you must be born again, and the Holy Spirit must do that work (John 3:5). He opens the eyes of the spiritually blinded so they can  perceive the things of God and realize their sinfulness and then see the glory of Christ. The blessed Holy Spirit then draws the sinner to Jesus in repentant faith.

Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:3 "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God". If you go to Heaven, God must perform this supernatural work of grace in your heart. It is not a matter of convincing someone the Bible is true. Even if a person could perceive the things of God naturally – he still wouldn’t believe because he would have no desire for the things of God. We don’t need help, we need to be saved. We need to be changed.  God must come to us in grace or we would never come to Him. This is why Jesus said in John 6:44  "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him".

In the new birth, we receive spiritual life. It is a heart of stone being replaced with a heart of flesh.

(Ezekiel 11:19). God makes us new, with new loves, different desires, and a new will (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Holy Spirit  gives spiritual life to a sinner, that he may be made able to receive the gospel, repent and believe. God’s love is so powerful that it conquers and subdues us. It arrests and binds our hearts. It smashes our idols and replaces it with a new heart and makes us willing to come to Him. We love God because He loved us first.

In Acts 16:13-15, Paul went to a riverside and preached to a woman's prayer group. The word of God was spoken to Lydia and God opened her heart. Paul didn't say to those women "with every head bowed and every eye closed" or did he start singing Just as I am. Paul didn't even give an invitation to an old fashioned altar. Paul expounded God's Word on a river bank. God opened Lydia’s heart so that she was attentive to the words of God.  For the first time, she really HEARD the gospel. For the first time, she saw herself for what she was, a sinner. For the first time, the Word became real to her and for the first time, she saw the beauty of Christ and she then willingly and joyfully trusted in Jesus. The Holy Spirit uses the instrument of the Word of God in regeneration and then gives the sinner faith to believe in Christ and receive salvation. Paul opened the word, God opened the heart.

The Call of God

During one of Paul's missionary journey's,  the apostle made his way to the city of Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-5). When he arrived in a new city, it was his custom to begin his missionary work in a synagogue and it was no different in Thessalonica. Three Sabbaths in a row, Paul explained, expounded, and systematically set before the Jews the truth of Christ. He laid out from the Old Testament why Christ came and showed how Jesus died as the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world. Paul preached and proved that it was necessary for Jesus to rise victoriously from the grave for our justification, and while he preached, some believed and some believed not.
  
The auditorium was full of listeners. One man begins to weep receiving this glorious message of salvation while one man becomes angry. One person trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of his soul, while another laughs at what seems to him to be a foolish proposition. One man forsakes all that he knows concerning his old religion of works for salvation and leaves it behind, yet another man hardens his heart.

 Why did one repent of his sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and the other reject him?  They both heard the same message, sitting in the same building by the same preacher.  What was it that brought some to unite with Paul and Silas while others of the multitude assaulted with envy? What made the difference? The gospel is the greatest message in the world. God will forgive you, completely, of all your sins and you can stand before Him complete, clean, and have everlasting life! Why do some believe this great news, but others reject it? The answer: grace.

Some of the confusion concerning God's grace in salvation comes from a misunderstanding of what happens when a person is saved and confounding what is known as the general call and the effectual call. When Paul preached in the synagogue, he openly called all men to repent and come to Christ. The Bible says that " whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." When the gospel of Jesus is preached and sinners are urged to come to Christ, they have been called by the preacher, based on the authority of Scripture. The promises are sure – come to Christ in repentant faith, and you will be saved. That's the general call of the gospel and week after week, some believe and some reject.

There is another call in the Scripture – not a call by a man, but by God. This effectual, or powerful call, is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. In an act of sovereign grace, God the Holy Spirit resurrects the spiritually dead sinner to life, and this is called the new birth. The Holy Spirit uses the instrument of His preached Word, to call sinners unto salvation. When the Spirit calls the sinner, the sinner comes to Christ.

It Is Finished

 J. Gresham Machen wrote, “Christ died" – that is history; "Christ died for our sins" – that is doctrine. Without these two elements…there is no Christianity." We know the time when Jesus died, where he was crucified, and how many hours he was suffering on the cross. These are all historical facts. What was happening on the Cross in that time and place? There is more to the story than the Romans nailing Jesus to cross.

The ancient prophesy of Isaiah concerning Jesus gives us insight to what was happening between the Godhead at Calvary. Written hundreds of years prior to the Lord's arrival, we have both the aim of the cross and the accomplishment of the cross detailed for us. Isa 53:10-11  "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.  He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities."

Jesus took the sins of his people and then as their sin bearer, offered Himself as a substitute – a sacrifice. The Father crushed the Son, the sin offering. The Father was both pleased and satisfied with the sacrifice. Christ, in this work, saved many because he bore their sins (I Peter 2:24) and paid their sin debt; the price of redemption being His own precious blood. The result was justification, a declaration of innocence based upon the work of Jesus. This was a specific work of redeeming a particular people. Right before Jesus died he said "it is finished". The work was accomplished and fulfilled. It was the will of Christ that those the Father gave Him would have eternal life and behold His glory (John 17:24). Did He accomplish that? Will those He die for be with Him in Heaven?

The purpose of the cross was to save sinners from sin, redeem them, to deliver them from the curse and guilt of the law, reconciling sinners to God, and giving eternal life. Note the victorious language as Jesus "obtained eternal redemption for us" (Hebrews 9:12) and we are "now justified by his blood and we shall be saved from wrath through him (Romans 5:9).  He did not merely make it possible, but actually saved, redeemed, and justified those He came to deliver.

Jesus, while on the cross, made a full sacrifice for the sins of His people, satisfying God’s justice. All that Christ redeemed shall be saved because of what happened in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago.  The work on Calvary was not a general atonement, but a judicial work; a specific work accomplishing a predetermined purpose for a particular people. The Bible is unmistakable that the end of the work was successful.  Christ accomplished what He came to achieve, the eternal salvation of His people.