Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK)

God (2LBCF). Family (@gathoni_mutisya). Country (🇰🇪).

[Anthony | Reformed Dogmatika @SolaDogmatika]

Where the Arminian says, “I owe my election to my faith,” the Calvinist says, “I owe my faith to my election.”

—JI Packer

[Jeff Wiesner @JeffreyPWiesner]

There is no Scriptural support for Pastor-as-event-planner or Pastor-as-CEO. His actual Scriptural duties are more than enough:

1. Shepherd church members (1 Pet. 5:1-3; Acts 20:28)
2. Teach & guard sound doctrine (Tit. 1:9; Acts 20:29-31)
3. Manage church resources (1 Tim. 3:4-5; Acts 11:29-30)
4. Settle doctrinal disputes (Acts 15:2-6; 16:4)
5. Lead congregational ministry (Heb. 13:17; esp. its discipline - cf. Matt. 18:17)

[Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK) @DanielMMutuku]

@theblaze @BarackObama should have let @HillaryClinton win in 2008.

[Terri Green @TerriGreenUSA]

“If you’re going to be a man, work hard, that’s manly. Manage your money. Stewardship of money. A very, very significant test of one's maturity. Chapter 3:9. Honor the Lord from your wealth and the first of your produce. So your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. Honor the Lord with your money. Not only the money you give to the Lord, but the money that you use for your family.”

“Fear your God. Guard your mind. Obey your parents. Select your companions. Control your body. Enjoy your wife. Watch your words. Pursue your work. Manage your money. And serve your neighbor. That's how you live your life as a man. That's a father's task. That's what a father teaches his son. That all comes out of this section that fathers teach their sons. Fail to teach your son to fear God, and he'll learn to hate God. Fail to teach your son to guard his mind, and his mind will be corrupted.” — John MacArthur: 2012 Resolved Conference: Masculinity and the Church

[Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK) @DanielMMutuku]

@MuthisyaMwalimu They are lazy. No motivation to advocate for electricity, tarmac roads, water systems etc. and generally develop the area because they know they will be elected anyway because of Wiper. As long as you show loyalty to Wiper you are good.

[Buruburu Baptist Church (BBC) @BuruBaptistC]

Greetings all,

May the men be reminded of their Bible Study tomorrow, Saturday, from 9 AM till 11 AM.

Topic of Study: The Limits of God's Law | Romans 7:14-25.

[Virgil L. Walker @virgilwalker]

This way, young man.

[DrJackHughes @DrJackHughes]

C. H. Spurgeon speaks of those who are troubled by the doctrine of election and says: "Many burdened souls have been greatly troubled concerning the doctrine of election. It is part of the craft of Satan to take a truth which is more precious than fine gold, and to turn it into a stumbling-block in the way of a sinner who is coming to Christ. The doctrine of election is like a diamond for brilliance; but the devil knows how to use its sharp edge to the grievous wounding of many a poor sinner.

“You are not elect,” says Satan; “you were never chosen by God: your name is not in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” How easily the sinner might answer the accuser if he were but in his wits! He might say, “How do you know that I am not elect, and that my name is not in the Book of Life? God has never authorized you to convey to me this doleful news, therefore I shall not distress myself about it.”

Why should we let such a fear as this keep us from Christ, when we do not let it keep us from other actions? A man is very ill, and his wife says that she will fetch a physician. “No, my dear wife,” says he, “it is no use fetching a physician, for I am afraid I am predestined to die.” Here is a man who is travelling, and suddenly he meets with an accident. Of course, he endeavours to extricate himself; but if he were to talk, as some do in spiritual matters, he would say, “I do not know whether I am ordained to escape, and therefore I shall not try.”

Does a shipwrecked sailor give up swimming because he does not know whether he will ever reach the land? Do you give up working because you do not know whether you will get your wages? Do you cease eating because you do not know whether you are ordained to live another day? Do you refuse to go to sleep because you do not know whether it is decreed that you are to wake any more?

Nay, but you go about the affairs of life independently of any thoughts about the Divine decree, and in that way the Divine decree is realized in you. You are bidden, in God’s Word, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and I will tell you one thing, that is, if you do believe in Christ, that is proof positive that you are one of the elect, and that your name is in the Book of Life.

I have never seen that Book, but I know that no soul ever did believe in Jesus whose name was not already recorded there. If thou comest to Christ, repenting of thy sin, I know that God has chosen thee unto eternal life, for repentance is God’s gift, and it is a token of His everlasting love. He says, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.”

God draws us to repentance and faith by the bands of His love because He has loved us from eternity. So, let not that blessed word “election” ever trouble you. The day will come when you will dance at the very sound of it; and, then, nothing will fill your heart with such music as the thought that the Lord has chosen you from before the foundation of the world to be the object of His special grace."

C. H. Spurgeon, Pictures from Pilgrim’s Progress: A Commentary on Portions of John Bunyan's Immortal Allegory .

[Min. of Youth Affairs, Creative Economy & Sports @moyasa_ke]

It's Nairobi to host World Athletics Championship in 2029. We welcome to the World to Kenya.

[BBC Sport @BBCSport]

The World Athletics Championships is heading to Africa for the first time. 🇰🇪

Nairobi beat competition from London, Rome and Munich to be awarded the 2029 event.

Munich will host in 2031.

[Biblical and Reformed @reformedhg]

If you knew how quickly people would forget about you after your death, you would not seek in your life to please anyone but God.

John Chrysostom, circa 387

[Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK) @DanielMMutuku]

@DineshDSouza What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
— Romans 9:22

[Mike Riccardi @MikeRiccardi_]

Some theologies speak very optimistically of the unregenerate man’s “free will” or “moral ability” or “natural liberty.” But Scripture’s assessment of the unregenerate is not nearly as optimistic. The Bible overwhelmingly testifies to what the unregenerate man is morally and spiritually unable to do.

· In Job 14:1, Job says, “Man, who is born of woman, Is short-lived and full of turmoil.” Then in verse 4 he asks, “Who can make the clean out of the unclean? No one!” That is, no one is capable of making clean those who are unclean.

· In Jeremiah 13:23, Jeremiah says to the people of Israel, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil.” In other words, sinners can no more reform themselves than a man can change his skin color, or than a leopard can change the pattern of his skin.

· In Matthew 12:34–37, Jesus says to the Pharisees, “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good?” The unsaved man is no less evil than the Pharisees, and Jesus takes it for granted that those who are evil cannot speak what God counts as good.

· In John 3:3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. In verse 6, He explains that “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” In other words, unless man is first born again—regenerated—by the work of the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God by faith. Until man’s nature is changed in regeneration, he is nothing but flesh. And flesh can only produce flesh. The only way any spiritual life is possible is if man’s nature is changed and his will is freed in regeneration.

· In John 6:44, Jesus states this same truth even more plainly: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Later in verse 65, Jesus says, “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” Man is unable to come to Jesus unless he drawn by the Father through the work of the Spirit in regeneration.

· In John 8:43, Jesus tells the Pharisees that the reason they don’t understand His teaching is because they cannot hear His Word. And the reason they cannot hear His Word is because their nature remains unchanged, verse 44: they are still of their father the devil, and so they “want to do the desires of [their] father.” Why can’t they hear? Because they don’t want rightly. They are morally unable. Their heart is enslaved to want what their father, Satan, wants.

· In John 14:17, Jesus says that the world—that is, human beings apart from a saving union to Himself—cannot receive the Holy Spirit of truth.

· Paul says the same in 1 Corinthians 2:14: the natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit. It’s impossible. The natural man cannot spontaneously decide to believe the Gospel; he must be a supernatural, spiritual man—enlightened by the grace of regeneration, 2 Corinthians 4:6—before he can receive the Gospel in faith.

· In Ephesians 2:1, Paul says that man in his natural state is dead in trespasses and sins. This is not spiritual sickness. We are not morally wounded. Spiritual death speaks of a total inability to make oneself alive. A corpse cannot will himself to life. He must be raised from the dead by a power external to himself. He must be born again.

· In Romans 8:7–8 Paul says, “The mind set on the flesh”—which is to say, the human mind in its natural state—“is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Apart from regeneration, our minds, hearts, and wills are so corrupted by sin that we are not even able to submit to God’s law. We cannot please Him.

· In fact, our best efforts are doomed to failure. Isaiah 64:6 says that even “all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.” The Hebrew phrase béged ‘iddim refers to a woman’s used menstrual cloth. This is what God thinks of the natural man’s most righteous deeds: they are offensive to the God of supreme holiness.

· In Hebrews 11:6, it says that “Without faith it is impossible to please” God. That clearly implies that faith—believing the Gospel—does please God. God is pleased when a sinner repents and believes (Ezek 33:11). Now, if faith does please God, but the natural man cannot please God (Rom 8:8), then the natural man cannot have faith apart from having his nature renewed in regeneration.

So, because of his fall into sin, man is totally unable to will any spiritual good—especially unable to exercise the repentant, saving faith that is required in order to receive salvation.

———

Certain streams of theology aim to sidestep Scripture’s terribly pessimistic view of unregenerate humanity by positing what they call the doctrine of “prevenient grace.” This is the idea that by His death Jesus has granted to all people without exception what could be called a blend of common grace and special grace, which neutralizes the effects of man’s total depravity, bringing him to a state in which his mind is not entirely darkened, his heart not entirely corrupted, his will not entirely enslaved, so that he is able to respond to the Gospel using his free will.

But such a doctrine of prevenient grace is nowhere supported by the text of Scripture. It is a mere inference made upon the anti-biblical assumption that ought implies can—that God’s commands imply man’s ability to obey, a notion I refuted in Monday’s post. “God commands us to repent and believe, so we must be able to repent and believe, so God must have overcome the effects of depravity in all people to give them that ability.” That is an unsound inference, because it is grounded upon a false premise: that responsibility implies moral ability. Scripture actually testifies to the opposite. (Link to Monday’s post below.)

In fact, no passage of Scripture speaks of the cross providing a non-saving revocation of the effects of the fall in the hearts of all men. Nor does Scripture ever represent unregenerate man as if he has been restored to some place of moral neutrality by a work of general grace. Instead, as shown above, the consistent testimony of Scripture concerning the nature of sinful man apart from regenerating grace is overwhelmingly pessimistic. He is blind, dead, ignorant, hard-hearted, hostile to God, unable to submit to Him, a slave to sin, and wholly inclined to evil—a state which cannot be overcome without the effectual, regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit.

[Andy DuFresne voice: And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further.]

———

And yet, God in His unbounded goodness rescues man from this sorry state! He employs no half-measures—partially rehabilitating sinners and volleying the determinative act of salvation over to them. Through the very preaching of His Gospel (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23-25), He reaches into the dark caverns of the depraved soul and calls spiritual light and life into being which did not exist (2 Cor 4:6; cf. Rom 4:17). The Spirit of God blows where He wishes (John 3:8), and infallibly brings all of God’s saving purposes to pass.

The Almighty Savior accomplishes all His good pleasure (Isaiah 46:10). No purpose of His can be thwarted (Job 42:2)—least of all His saving purpose, in which all whom He has predestined receive their inheritance (Eph 1:11). Certainly no purpose of His can be thwarted by man, who is “accounted as nothing; but He does according to His will...; and no one can strike against His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

The sovereign God of heaven is no frustrated Savior. He is an almighty Savior. He doesn't try to save anyone. He saves. And every last one upon whom He has set His unconditional love, He will have.

“Now this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” — John 6:39

[Mike Riccardi @MikeRiccardi_]

Ought does not imply can.

“It might be objected that if man has no ability to turn to God or to do good, then he has no free will, and God would not be just to command and judge sinners. … If God does not at least supply what each person needs to be saved if he so chooses, then God is unjust.

“This is an old Pelagian argument.

“In reply, we note that the Word of God teaches both human responsibility and human inability to please God apart from saving grace.”

— Beeke and Smalley, RST, 2:411

Indeed, Scripture repeatedly holds men responsible for that which Scripture says he is morally unable to do.

Inability: “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit” (Matt 7:18).

Responsibility: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt 7:19)

——

Inability: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44).

Responsibility: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden” (Matt 11:28).

——

Inability: “For this reason they could not believe...” (John 12:39).

Responsibility: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

——

Inability: “I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go” (Exod 4:21).

Responsibility: “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may
serve Me” (Exod 10:3).

——

Inability: “For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, That fierce and impetuous people Who march throughout the earth To seize dwelling places which are not theirs” (Hab 1:6).

Responsibility: “Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on. But they will be held guilty, They whose strength is their god” (Hab 1:11).

——

Responsibility: “Why does He still find fault?” (Rom 9:19a).

Inability: “For who resists His will?” (Rom 9:19b).

——

Ought does not imply can. Responsibility does not imply moral ability. God’s commands expound our duty, not our capacity.

“The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

— Romans 8:7–8

[Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK) @DanielMMutuku]

@FrankLets78822 Thank you for this. Unfortunately any opposite view including the one quoted muddles up Scripture till it becomes a web of made up doctrines along the way. Calvinism/Doctrines of Grace are a brilliant, coherent and Biblically constistent view of how the Gospel works out.

[Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK) @DanielMMutuku]

@_fels1 Not a part but three accounts by three different gospel writers recounting the same event. One of the gospel writers was an apostle, two others were associates of apostles. Jesus would teach his disciples. Also Scripture is inspired of the Holy Spirit.

[Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK) @DanielMMutuku]

@DineshDSouza Strawman.

[Daniel Mutisya Mutuku (DMK) @DanielMMutuku]

@WretchedNetwork Good point. Hebrews had a writer but we don't know his name. But it had a writer.

[Phil Johnson @Phil_Johnson_]

Calvinism Is Not a Weird Anomaly.

[Phil Johnson @Phil_Johnson_]

I empathize with believers who instinctively recoil from Calvinism. I had that same reflex once upon a time.

So a here's a gentle message for @DineshDSouza & other brethren who think Calvinism is utterly foreign to their faith: You are actually more Calvinistic than you think.