William Wilberforce

I am very inspired by this great saint as I reread his story from a book, part of the "Swans are not silent" series written by John Piper. Below is the collection of quotes from the book.

Wilberforce admitted that his conversion was hugely influenced after reading a book that his friend, Isaac Milner had introduced "The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" by Phillip Doddridge. But, his intellectual assent was not transformed to profound conviction until his hours of conversation about Greek New Testament with Milner.

Simplicity and generosity were the mark of his life. Much later, after he was married, he wrote, "By careful management, I should be able to give away at least one quarter of my income to the poor." He wrote that riches were, "considering them as in themselves, acceptable, but, from the infirmity of [our] nature, as highly dangerous possessions; and [we are to value] them chiefly not as instruments of luxury or splendor, but as affording the means of honoring [our] heavenly Benefactor, and lessening the miseries of mankind." This was the way his mind worked: Everything in politics was for the alleviation of misery and the spread of happiness.

He was tormented about what his new Christianity meant for his public life. [He said,] "The first years I was in parliament I did nothing-nothing that is to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object."

One year after his conversion, God's apparent calling on his life had become clear to him. On October 28, 1787, He wrote in his diary, "God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners [morals]." In May 1789 he spoke to the House about how he came to his conviction: "I confess to you, so enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for Abolition...Let the consequences be what they would, I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition."

When John Wesley was eighty seven years old (in 1790) he wrote to Wilberforce and said, "Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of man and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you." In 1800, on his forty-first birthday, as he rededicated his life, he prayed, "Oh Lord, purify my soul from all its stains. Warm my heart with the love of thee, animate my sluggish nature, and fix my inconstancy, and volatility, that I may not be weary in well doing." God answered that prayer, and the entire western world may be glad that Wilberforce was granted constancy and perseverance in his labors, especially his endurance in the cause of justice against the sin of slavery and racism.

Of course the opposition that raged for these twenty years was because of the financial benefits of slavery to the traders and to the British economy, because of what the plantation in the West Indies produced. They could not conceive of any way to produce without slave labor. This meant that Wilberforce's life was threatened more than once. When he criticized the credibility of slave ship captain, Robert Norris, the man was enraged, and Wilberforce feared for his life. Short of physical harm, the was the painful loss of friends. Some would no longer fight with him, and they were estranged. Then there was the huge political pressure to back down because of the international political ramifications. For example, if Britain really outlawed slavery, the West Indian colonial assemblies threatened to declare independence from Britain and to federate with United States. These kinds of financial and political arguments held Parliament captive for decades.

But the night - or should I say early morning - of victory came in 1807. the moral vision and the political momentum for abolition had finally become irresistible. At one point "the House rose almost to a man an dturned towards Wilberforce in a burst of Parliamentary cheers. Suddenly, above the roar of 'Hear, hear,' and quite out of order, three hurrahs echoed and echoed while he sat, head bowed, tears streaming down his face." At 4:00 A.M., February 24, 1807, the House divided-Ayes, 283, Noes, 16, Majority for the abolition 267. And on March 25, 1807, the royal assent was declared.

Of course, the battle wasn't over. And Wilberforce fought on until his death twenty-six years later in 1833. Not only the implementation of the abolition law controversial and difficult, but all it did was abolish the slave trade, not slavery itself.

The decisive vote of victory for that one came on July 26, 1833, only three days before Wilberforce died. Slavery itself was outlawed in the British colonies. Minor work on the legislation took several more days. "It is a singular fact," Buxton said, "that on the very night on which we were successfully engaged in the House of Commons, in passing the clause of the Act of Emancipation-one of the most important clauses ever enacted...the spirit of our friend left the world. The day which was the termination of his labors was the termination of his life."

How shall we fight for joy?

1. Realize that authentic joy in God is a gift
2. Realize that Joy must be fought for relentlessly
3. Resolve to attack all known sin in your life
4. Learn the secret of gutsy guilt: how to fight like a justified sinner
5. Realize that the battle is primarily a fight to see God for who He is
6. Meditate on the Word of God day and night
7. Pray earnestly and continually for open heart-eyes and an inclination for God
8. Learn to preach to yourself rather than listen to yourself
9. Spend time with God-saturated people who help you see God and fight the fight
10. Be patient in the night of God seeming absence
11. Get the rest, exercise, and proper diet that your body was designed by God to have
12. Make a proper use of God's revelation in nature
13. Read great books about God and biographies of great saints
14. Do the hard loving thing for the sake of others- witness and mercy
15. Get a global vision for the cause of christ and pour yourself out for the unreached

by John Piper

It is just too much :S

I am not sure why but I don't seem to be able to handle things very well these days. I just think too much, I can't take small responsibility. All things seem to be very overwhelming and I can't rest. I worry about everything and anything under heavens. I have given it all to God but things are just the same. I am way tired and frustrated. Some things are just not genuine worries. I felt I have just been worrying too much and I can't help myself. Tried to calm myself and relax but it just won't work. May be this is just a sudden change of lifestyle but the worry is taking its toll on me.

Unfailing Love

You have my heart
And I am Yours forever
You are my strength
God of grace and power
And everything
You hold in your hand
Still you make time for me
I can't understand

Praise You God of earth and sky
How beautiful is Your unfailing love
Unfailing love
You never change, God, You remain
The Holy One and my unfailing love
Unfailing love

You are my rock
The One I hold on to
You are my song
And I sing for you

written by Chris Tomlin, Gary Pierce and Ed Cash

I really like this song :). Lilis xxx

Messiah's Slaves

A poem written by a friend of mine:

Rejoice rejoice, O slaves of Messiah, rejoice rejoice

Rejoice rejoice, O slaves of Messiah, rejoice rejoice

For you cannot be any higher, rejoice rejoice

For you cannot be any higher, rejoice rejoice.

Rejoice rejoice, kiss the feet of your Master, rejoice rejoice

Rejoice rejoice, kiss the feet of your Master, rejoice rejoice

Hasten His coming, faster faster, rejoice rejoice

Hasten His coming, faster faster, rejoice rejoice.

Rejoice rejoice, all dwelling in Jesus, rejoice rejoice

Rejoice rejoice, all dwelling in Jesus, rejoice rejoice

Tremble in fear, for He does all He pleases, rejoice rejoice

Tremble in fear, for He does all He pleases, rejoice rejoice.

Rejoice rejoice, of His flesh and blood we partake, rejoice rejoice

Rejoice rejoice, of His flesh and blood we partake, rejoice rejoice

From the curse on our sin, the only way to escape, rejoice rejoice

From the curse on our sin, the only way to escape, rejoice rejoice.

Rejoice rejoice, tell the nations He's King, rejoice rejoice

Rejoice rejoice, tell the nations He's King, rejoice rejoice

Some of each nation will sing to Him, rejoice rejoice

Some of each nation will sing to Him, rejoice rejoice.

Rejoice rejoice, march on, do not tire, rejoice rejoice

Rejoice rejoice, march on, do not tire, rejoice rejoice

Blessed are you, O slaves of Messiah, rejoice rejoice

Blessed are you, O slaves of Messiah, rejoice rejoice.

by Mike Butcher

How a Roman Catholic Anti-Calvinist can serve today's Poet-Calvinists

May 28, 2008
By John Piper

May 29 is G. K. Chesterton’s 134th birthday. He was a British journalist and brilliant writer. Nobody exploits the power of paradox like Chesterton.

I celebrate his birthday by recommending his book Orthodoxy.

The title gives no clue as to what you will find inside. It had a huge influence on me forty years ago in ways that would have exasperated Chesterton. He did all he could to keep me from becoming a Calvinist, and instead made me a romantic one—a happy one.

If I thought his broadsides against predestination really hit home and undid true biblical doctrine, I would keep my mouth shut or change my worldview. But his celebration of poetry and paradox undermines his own abomination of the greatest truth-and-mystery-lovers around today, the happy Calvinists.

Nothing in this Calvinism-abominating book came close to keeping me from embracing the glorious sovereignty of God. On the contrary, the poetic brightness of the book awakened in me, along with the works of C. S. Lewis, an exuberance about the strangeness of all things—which in the end made me able to embrace the imponderable paradoxes of God’s decisive control of all things and the total justice of his holding us accountable.

One of the reasons that Calvinism is stirring today is that it takes both truth and mystery seriously. It’s a singing, poetry-writing, run-through-the-fields Calvinism.

It’s the Arminians that are the rationalists. Arminianism trumps biblical sentences with metaphysics: God can’t control all things and hold us responsible. God can’t choose some and love all.” Why? Metaphysics. Out with mystery! It just can’t be!

So Chesterton’s anti-Calvinist shotgun sprays all around today’s poet-Calvinist and misses the mark.

Read Orthodoxy.

A few of you may be swept away into the folly of Roman Catholic sacramentalism. A few others may be confirmed in your tiff with joyless Calvinists. But for many readers, especially the Bible-saturated ones, this book will awaken such a sense of wonder in you that you will not feel at home again until you enter the new world of the wide-eyed children called the happy-Reformed.

Here is a flavor of what to expect in Orthodoxy¹:

• “[This book] recounts my elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious.” (12)

• “It is one thing to describe an interview with a... creature that does not exist. It is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn’t.” (11)

• “Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.” (17)

• “Only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease but the medicine.... He was damned by John Calvin.” (17)

• “The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens in to his head. And it is his head that splits.” (17)

• “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything but his reason.” (19)

• “Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health. When you destroy mystery you create morbidity.” (28)

• “The ordinary man... has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradictions along with them.” (28)

• “When we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened the door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door.” (54)

• “Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live.” (159)

• “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” (48)

¹ Page numbers from Orthodoxy (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1959).

I must try to find this book :). Lilis xxx.

Quote of the day

The carnal person fears man, not God;
the strong Christian fears God, not man;
the weak Christian fears man too much,
and God too little.

John Flavel - The great puritan preacher