Author Archives: adminjohnshields

As we look around the Western world today, there is very little to encourage anyone on the moral or spiritual level. Iniquity no longer hides its face for shame; immorality is assumed to be normal; violent crime is increasing. The Churches generally are becoming weaker, many of them no longer prepared to make any stand […]

As leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) navigate the shoals between Christ and culture, artful dodgers craft statements that sound Scriptural while giving license to those who have no use for the Word of the Lord. The resulting duplicity has often left those who love the Bible in a quandary: Are the words, policies, and […]

Exodus 20:8-11. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, […]

Colossians, an Exposition by John Davenant, (hardback, 956 pages),is the latest addition to the Banner of Truth’s Geneva Series of commentaries. With nearly 1000 pages, it may be viewed as a particularly daunting challenge. This fact, together with the amount of profound learning in the footnotes, may discourage the Christian public from purchasing it. It […]

How long will it be before Christianity becomes illegal in Britain? This is no longer the utterly absurd and offensive question that on first blush it would appear to be. An evangelical Christian campaigner, Stephen Green was arrested and charged last weekend with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour. So what was this […]

The previous article focused on the awakening under Edwards in Northampton in 1735. Notwithstanding the work of the Spirit in Northampton and elsewhere in New England in 1735, Samuel Blair of New Londonderry was not alone in bemoaning the dismal state of religion in early 1740: it ‘lay as it were a-dying and ready to […]

Sixteen years had passed since the last revival in Northampton under Solomon Stoddard when, at the end of 1734, there were again the beginnings of a work of grace; five or six people ‘were to all appearances savingly converted’. By early 1735, people throughout the town where speaking about ‘the great things of religion, and […]

In April 1723, Edwards left New York. He was called to the new settlement of Bolton, just 16 miles from his birthplace. However, he spent the summer at home in East Windsor. There he finished the thesis for his MA degree and immersed himself in other studies, while taking occasional services. Eventually, in November, he […]

Augustus Montague Toplady was born at Farnham in Surrey on 4th November 1740. His father, Major Toplady, died in May 1741 of yellow fever at the siege of Cartagena. Toplady was baptised at Farnham Church on the 29th November of that year. We can pass over his childhood for there is little of importance for […]

In the eyes of B. B. Warfield, ‘Jonathan Edwards stands out as the one figure of real greatness in the intellectual life of colonial America’. Most commentators would agree on the greatness of Edwards’ contribution to America’s intellectual life, but Warfield is more specific: ‘From the first he was recognised as a remarkable preacher, as […]

Masters of the English Reformation, is a book written by Sir Marcus Loane, and published by the Banner of Truth Trust. This book was originally published in 1954 for the Church Society to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of the martyrdoms of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley and others, who “laid down their lives in loyalty […]

There have been men who made the most profound impression upon their own generation, yet whose very names are well-nigh forgotten by posterity. Man ‘fleeth as a shadow and continueth not,’ and another generation takes his place upon the stage of life. Such is the shortness of life that few find time to obey that […]

We learn from Jonathan Edwards that the inner spiritual life of the minister is the most important part of his life. The scriptural proof of this statement is plain. It is found, for instance, in our Lord’s examination of Simon Peter before the disciple is commissioned again to serve Christ: ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do […]

Clare Asquith has written a book, Shadowplay: the Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare (384 pp, Public Affairs, £18.99). Her thesis is not simply that Shakespeare was a secret practicing Roman Catholic, but that he was trained at Oxford and perhaps at an English seminary abroad and that he devoted his career to […]

Extracts from WILLIAM GURNALL on Ephesians 6:14 What is here meant by loins that are to be girt with this girdle? Peter will help to interpret Paul: ‘Gird up the loins of your minds’ (1 Pet. 1:13). It is our minds that must wear this girdle of truth, and very fitly may our mind be […]

Martin Luther was born on November 10th, 1483. He was a young man of great abilities so his poor father put him to the study of law, intending him to be a lawyer. And he might very well have been a lawyer were it not that on July 2 in the year 1505 he was […]

Scanning through much of what has been written and said about the Puritans – even by evangelicals – it is plain to see they tend to get a pretty bad press. Indeed, the name ‘Puritan’ was originally intended as a smear from the start and it remains so for many to the present. In one […]

The Back to God Hour is our favourite Christian Radio broadcast. For half an hour each week a message in agreement with the standards of the Heidelberg Catechism is broadcast across America and in many other parts of the world. For many years its brilliant speaker was Peter Eldersveld, followed by Joel Nederhood who once […]

Paul was a man who could stand without any fear and without any apology in Athens on Mars’ Hill. There he is confronted by a congregation of Stoics and Epicureans, and he can speak to them with authority. Ah, but when the same man visits Galatia, where they belonged to a rather primitive type of […]

John Elias (1774-1841) was one of the eminent preachers of Wales, greatly used by God. Amazing are some of the accounts of his ministry. This fine biography of Edward Morgan first appeared in 1844 and was first reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust in 1973, and has recently been reprinted. Nothing but good can […]

SAMUEL DAVIES AND THE POWER OF REFORMED PREACHING On November 1, 1755, a killer earthquake destroyed Lisbon, Portugal. The quake was a monster- one of the worst in history. Some 60,000 people died, and, according to estimates, the earthquake would have registered a whopping 7.85 on the Richter scale. Special circumstances made the earthquake even […]

Dr Joel Beeke, Grand Rapids. Puritan literature has been a major resource for my devotional reading for thirty-five years. I believe there is no group of writers in church history that can feed our minds and souls with spiritual truth as effectively as do the Puritans. With the Spirit’s blessing, here’s how Puritan writings can […]

We are to preach the Word, and if we do it properly, there will be a call to a decision that comes in the message, and then we leave it to the Spirit to act upon people Early in the 1970s Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones was the speaker at a ministers’ conference in the USA and […]

A Kingdom Which Cannot be Shaken Are you surprised that we have had two world wars already in this century? Are you surprised at the piling of these horrible armaments? Are you surprised at the confusion, the collapse, of so many institutions at this present time? [This sermon was preached by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones on […]

There are 7 characteristics that qualify Spurgeon as a helpful guide to preachers who need strength to preach through adversity. At five minutes past eleven on Sunday night, January 31, 1892, the prince of preachers, CH Spurgeon, died. The following useful summary of his ministry was written by John Piper. SPURGEON WAS A PREACHER He […]