Dale Ralph Davis is well known for his masterful ability to preach the Old Testament historical texts. He has written commentaries in the Focus on the Bible series covering the historical books from Joshua and 2 Kings. In 2010 he delivered this message at the Trinity Baptist Pastor’s Conference in New Jersey.
Nuts & Bolts in Preaching Old Testament Texts >>>
Alistair Begg, Sinclair Ferguson and John Shearer joined forces in 2010 to bring A Return to the Basics Conference, and what an incredible powerhouse this was.
This was my first time listening to John Shearer, an Irish pastor with 40 years of ministry experience, and a gift to preach. I was deeply touched, encouraged and instructed by his messages, and plan to revisit them again.
And Sinclair Ferguson needs no introduction. His messages were powerful. He raised one memorable question that has stuck with me: Why is it that we read Paul’s instruction from Scripture, but we run to the book store to find a book to teach us how to apply that instruction? If we would but spend time dwelling in Paul’s writings long enough, we would see that he gives us the application how to for his instructions.
He also reminds us that the mortification of our sin is not accomplished by mortification of sin in our own power. Christ is a necessary component. Christ is at work to change our affections. And the new affections that are grown within us are the vehicle that will mortify sin. It happens at the level of desire.
From the website:
As we gather for the eleventh year, we’ve chosen to return to the basics of our daily ministry. We desire to have our minds engaged and souls stirred as we consider God’s call upon our lives as ministers of the Gospel. In his book, The Priority of Preaching, Christopher Ash reminds us that, “…to be a preacher is one of the most deeply humbling experiences in the world. Preaching drives us to our knees, puts gigantic butterflies in our stomachs, and makes us cry out, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’”. We pray that through these messages, we may be renewed in our desire to preach God’s Word and in our trust on Him.
John Piper and Conrad Mbewe presented three messages and one Q&A to a pastors conference in Zambia. Piper’s messages were titled “Feel” and “Think”, two messages he has given at a previous Desiring God Pastors Conference, but nonetheless, wonderful to hear them again. And Conrad is an absolute pleasure to listen to, and his message “Christ and Him Crucified” is timeless.
All of the Spring Conferences of GPTS dating back to 1998 have been made available online.
The full messages posted for these conferences:
1998 Southern Presbyterian
1999 Did God Create in 6 Days
2000 Written for our Instruction: The Sufficiency of Scripture for All of Life
2001 Sanctification: Growing in Grace
2002 Reformed Spirituality: Communing with our Glorious God
2003 The Worship of God
2004 The Covenant
2005 The Doctrine of the Church
2006 The Triumph of Christ: The Missionary Enterprise of the Church
2007 The Christian Worldview: Thinking God’s Thoughts
Only a sampling of messages posted for these conferences:
2008 A Reformed View of End Times
2009 John Calvin: 500Years in Retrospect
2010 The Nature and Sufficiency of Scripture
Johannesburg, South Africa, John Piper and Conrad Mbewe reflect on the conviction of Jonathan Edwards in keeping his famous resolutions.
Piper opened the conference with a message on “For His Name’s Sake” which considers the sweep of redemptive history which demonstrates God’s zeal and love for himself.
Piper’s second sermon was vintage Piper, and was fitting, as Piper talked about one of the most significant things Edwards said that had a tremendous impact on Piper’s life. “God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.” If you’ve never heard Piper on this subject, then this is one you will want to hear.
Conrad’s messages surrounded Romans 12:1. In his first message he asked 2 questions: 1. What keeps Edwards resolutions from being mere legalism? 2. What motivated him to define and keep these resolutions? The answer is that the fountain of grace brought in a fresh supply to him.
In Conrad’s second message he asks 1 question: What should have Edwards resolved to do in the light of the mercy God showed toward him? Bringing it home to us, he asks if we as Christians are merely giving God a contribution from our lives, or have we completely sacrificed our lives for him. Conrad considers that most of us, if we are honest, are Christian contributors rather than living sacrifices. A phenomenal message.
The Saturday night Q&A was wonderful. I love Q&A’s because it’s entirely unscripted and allows me to see how these men think through issues in a candid manner. The questions discussed what their typical day is like, how we should think about some pastors being less gifted than others and the discouragement that might bring. On the issue of dating, Piper believes dating as a matter of having a boyfriend or girlfriend without any intention of marriage is wrong because it is courting danger. But dating (whether you label it courting or not) should be restricted to seeking a marriage partner. On the issue of tithing, Piper said the “tithe” system of 10% that is so prevalent in America is robbing God. If 10% satisfies our sense of giving, we are misled. Giving is to be above and beyond tithing, and to simply set the bar so low that tithing 10% is sufficient for most Christians is Pharisaical.
Piper closed the conference on Sunday morning with another vintage Piper message: “You exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.” He focused his message on 2 Corinthians 8:1-7.
Conrad writes about the conference, and provides photos from it, on his blog A Letter from Kabwata.
Okay, the Think! Conference was in October. It’s almost January and I haven’t posted anything about it. To be honest, I struggled with what I should and should not say about it.
Was it good? It was fabulous. Almost all of the messages were phenomenal: Piper, Sproul, DeYoung, Mohler, Anyabwile and Alcorn were very stong. This was also my first taste of Francis Chan and Tillian Tchividjian and I was very impressed and humbled by their messages. A load of great material from this conference.
The conference opened with Rick Warren, and this is where I struggled. Ricks message was great, in fact excellent, until he got to the end. He discussed the reality that spiritual warfare presents against thinking and the truth of God. But at the end it all seemed to implode. Rick Warren’s view of application is horrific, because it drives him to believe that churches are preaching and teaching believers too much. In his reasoning, the more we preach and teach the more “applications” people have to apply to their lives, and we can only really apply so much in a given week. A pseudo-therapeutic gospel? I also disagree with Warren’s view of “vision”, though that’s an unfair assessment since he didn’t have the platform to engage with Piper’s differing view of vision. Piper does engage these two things in the follow up discussion, which unfortunately Warren was not able to participate in, but I wish he had been much stronger on the application issue. I’ll leave it at that.
My recommendation: get these messages, including Rick Warren’s. The first part was a message I would have been proud to have preached.
This years Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary conference is available online at SermonAudio. Numerous messages by Richard Phillips, James Grier, Iain Campbell, Joel Beeke, Albert Martin and others.
Emmanuel Baptist Church of Coconut Creek, Florida invited Albert Martin to speak at their 2010 Men’s Conference. His subject, Walking the Old Paths.
This years T4G (or T4TG as R. C. Sproul suggests it should be renamed) was a great conference. Powerful and thought provoking messages from almost all the speakers.
Dever’s message on the church putting the Gospel on display was quintessential Dever.
Sproul was phenomenal (even though C.J. didn’t understand it). He looked at how philosophy and the German higher critics deviated from the Gospel, and demonstrated how their mistakes are being embraced today. This was one of the best lectures I’ve ever heard about theological liberalism.
Mohler, as in the last T4G, looks at how our current Christian cultures evangelical zeal often undermines the Gospel itself.
In the same vein, Thabiti unmasks the problem clearly about how the contemporary evangelical fixation with cultural engagement is a disastrous derailment of the Gospel.
MacArthur’s theology of sleep is a theology of the Gospel, because ultimately the salvation of the unbeliever is a work of God, not a work of man, and that allows him to sleep at night. The Arminian gospel so prevalent today, if taken to it’s logical conclusion, should drive us insane because it makes salvation dependent upon us.
Piper, well, what can you say about Piper?
Ligon Duncan makes a great case for why we need to be reading the original sources of the early church fathers, and helps us to navigate the criticisms brought upon them. Quite an eye-opener.
Matt Chandler talks briefly and movingly about how his efforts to prepare his people for suffering was God’s way of preparing him for his brain cancer. Matt, as always, has very amusing ways of getting across solid theology.
C.J., well, is C.J. talking about his favorite subject, ordinary pastors.
The Shepherd’s Conference is one of those conferences that seldom disappoints, if ever. While this years conference didn’t have the “bang” of previous years, it was nonetheless edifying and challenging, with the old standbys in the pulpit: MacArthur, Johnson, Holland and Lawson.
Faith by Hearing 