A Father Who Keeps His Promise (God’s Covenant Love In Scripture) Order Printed Copy

Author: Scott Hahn
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About the Book

"A Father Who Keeps His Promise" by Scott Hahn explores God's covenant love as revealed in Scripture. Hahn delves into the rich theological teachings found in the Bible, highlighting how God's fidelity to His promises is a central theme throughout salvation history. The book offers insights into the nature of God's covenant relationship with His people and how it continues to be relevant and transformative for believers today.

Jerry Bridges

Jerry Bridges entered into the joy of his Master on Sunday evening, March 6, 2016, at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs, the day after he suffered cardiac arrest. He was 86 years old. Childhood Gerald Dean Bridges was born on December 4, 1929, in a cotton-farming home in Tyler, Texas, to fundamentalist parents, six weeks after the Black Tuesday stock market crash that led to the Great Depression. Jerry was born with several disabilities: he was cross-eyed, he was deaf in his right ear (which was not fully developed), and he had spine and breastbone deformities. But given his family’s poverty, they were unable to afford medical care for these challenges. The separatist church in East Texas where the Bridges were members had an altar call after every service. Jerry walked the aisle three times, at the ages of 9, 11, and 13. But he later realized that he had not been born again. His mother Lillian passed away in 1944 when he was 14. Conversion In August of 1948, as an 18-year-old college student right before his sophomore year began, Jerry was home alone one night in bed. He acknowledged to the Lord that he was not truly a Christian, despite growing up in a Christian home and professing faith. He prayed, ”God whatever it takes, I want Christ to be my Savior.” The next week in his dorm room at the University of Oklahoma he was working on a school assignment and reached for a textbook, when he noticed the little Bible his parents had given him in high school. He figured that since he was now a Christian, he ought to start reading it daily, which he did (and never stopped doing for the rest of his days). The Navy After graduating with an engineering degree on a Navy ROTC scholarship, he went on active duty with the Navy, serving as an officer during the Korean conflict (1951-1953). A fellow officer invited him to go to a Navigator Bible study. Jerry went and he was hooked. He had never experienced anything like this before. When stationed on ship in Japan, he got to know several staff members of the Navigators quite well. One day, after Jerry had been in Japan for six months, a Navy worker asked him why he didn’t just throw in his lot with the Navigators and come to work for them. The very next day, December 26, 1952, Jerry failed a physical exam due to the hearing loss in his right ear, and he was given a medical discharge in July 1953, after being in the Navy for only two years. Jerry was not overly disappointed, surmising that perhaps this was the Lord’s way of steering him to the Navigators. When he returned to the U.S., he began working for Convair, an airplane manufacturing company in southern California, writing technical papers for shop and flight line personnel. It was there that he learned to write simply and clearly—skills the Lord would later use to instruct and edify thousands of people from his pen. The Navigators Jerry was single at the time, living in the home of Navigator Glen Solum, a common practice in the early days of The Navigators. In 1955 Jim invited Jerry to go with him to a staff conference at the headquarters of The Navigators in Glen Eyrie at Colorado Springs. It was there that Jerry sensed a call from the Lord to be involved with vocational ministry. He was resistant to the idea of going on staff, but felt conviction and prayed to the Lord, “Whatever you want.” The following day he met Dawson Trotman, the 49-year-old founder of The Navigators, who wanted to interview Jerry for a position, which he received and accepted. Jerry was put in charge of the correspondence department—answering letters, handling receipts, and mainly the NavLog newsletter to supporters. When Trotman died in June of 1956 (saving a girl who was drowning), Jim Downing took a position equivalent to a chief operations operator. A Navy man, Jim Downing knew that Jerry had also served in the Navy and tapped him to be his assistant. Jerry struggled at times in his role, unsure if this was his calling since his position was so different from the typical campus reps. After ten years on staff he told the Lord, “I’m going to do this for the rest of my life. If you want me out of The Navigators you’ll have to let me know.” Beginning in 1960, Jerry served for three years in Europe as administrative assistant to the Navigators’ Europe Director. In January of 1960, he read a booklet entitled The Doctrine of Election, which he first considered heresy but then embraced the following day. In October of 1963, at the age of 34, he married his first wife, Eleanor Miller of The Navigators following a long-distance relationship. Two children followed: Kathy in 1966, and Dan in 1967. From 1965 to 1969 Jerry served as office manager for The Navigators’ headquarters office at Glen Eyrie. From 1969 to 1979 Jerry served as the Secretary-Treasurer for The Navigators. It was during this time that NavPress was founded in 1975. Their first publications began by transcribing and editing audio material from their tape archives and turning them into booklets. They produced one by Jerry on Willpower. Leroy Eims—who started the Collegiate ministry—encouraged Jerry to try his hand at writing new material. Jerry had been teaching at conferences on holiness, so he suggested a book along those lines. In 1978, NavPress published The Pursuit of Holiness, which has now sold over 1.5 million copies. Jerry assumed it would be his only book. A couple of years later, after reading about putting off the old self and putting on the new self from Ephesians 4, he decided to write The Practice of Godliness—on developing a Christlike character. That book went on to sell over half a million copies, and his 1988 book on Trusting God has sold nearly a million copies. Jerry served as The Navigators’ Vice President for Corporate Affairs from 1979 to 1994. It was in this season of ministry that Eleanor developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She went to be with the Lord on November 9, 1988, just three weeks after their 25th wedding anniversary. On November 24, 1989, Jerry married Jane Mallot, who had known the Bridges family since the early ’70s. Jerry’s final position with The Navigator’s was in the area of staff development with the Collegiate Mission. He saw this ministry as developing people, rather than teaching people how to do ministry. In addition to his work with The Navigators, he also maintained an active writing and teaching ministry, traveling the world to instruct and equip pastors and missionaries and other workers through conferences, seminars, and retreats. Lessons In 2014, Jerry published a memoir of his life, tracing the providential hand of God through his own story: God Took Me by the Hand: A Story of God’s Unusual Providence (NavPress, 2014). He closes the work with seven spiritual lessons he learned in his six decades of the Christian life: The Bible is meant to be applied to specific life situations. All who trust in Christ as Savior are united to Him in a loving way just as the branches are united to the vine. The pursuit of holiness and godly character is neither by self-effort nor simply letting Christ “live His life through you.” The sudden understanding of the doctrine of election was a watershed event for me that significantly affected my entire Christian life. The representative union of Christ and the believer means that all that Christ did in both His perfect obedience and His death for our sins is credited to us. The gospel is not just for unbelievers in their coming to Christ. We are dependent on the Holy Spirit to apply the life of Christ to our lives. His last book, The Blessing of Humility: Walk within Your Calling, will be published this summer by NavPress. Legacy One of the great legacies of Jerry Bridges is that he combined—to borrow some titles from his books—the pursuit of holiness and godliness with an emphasis on transforming grace. He believed that trusting God not only involved believing what he had done for us in the past, but that the gospel empowers daily faith and is transformative for all of life. In 2009 he explained to interviewer Becky Grosenbach the need for this emphasis within the culture of the ministry he had given his life to: When I came on staff almost all the leaders had come out of the military and we had pretty much a military culture. We were pretty hard core. We were duty driven. The WWII generation. We believed in hard work. We were motivated by saying “this is what you ought to do.” That’s okay, but it doesn’t serve you over the long haul. And so 30 years ago there was the beginning of a change to emphasize transforming grace, a grace-motivated discipleship. In the days ahead, many will write tributes of this dear saint (see, e.g., this one from his friend, prayer partner, and sometimes co-author Bob Bevington). I would not be able to improve upon the reflections and remembrances of those who knew him better than I did. But I do know that he received from the Lord the ultimate acclamation as he entered into the joy of his Master and received the words we all long to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” There was nothing flashy about Jerry Bridges. He was a humble and unassuming man—strong in spirit, if not in voice or frame. And now we can rejoice with him in his full and final healing as he beholds his beloved Savior face to face. Thank you, God, for this man who helped us see and know you more. Jerry Bridges wrote more than 20 books over the course of nearly 40 years: The Pursuit of Holiness (NavPress, 1978) The Practice of Godliness (NavPress, 1983) True Fellowship (NavPress, 1985) [later published as The Crisis of Caring (P&R, 1992); finally republished with a major revision as True Community (NavPress, 2012)] Trusting God (NavPress, 1988) Transforming Grace (NavPress, 1991) The Discipline of Grace (NavPress, 1994) The Joy of Fearing God (Waterbrook, 1997) I Exalt You, O God (Waterbrook, 2000) I Give You Glory, O God (Waterbrook, 2002) The Gospel for Real Life (NavPress, 2002) The Chase (NavPress, 2003) [taken from Pursuit of Holiness] Growing Your Faith (NavPress, 2004) Is God Really in Control? (NavPress, 2006) The Fruitful Life (NavPress, 2006) Respectable Sins (NavPress, 2007) [student edition, 2013] The Great Exchange [co-authored with Bob Bevington] (Crossway, 2007) Holiness Day by Day (NavPress, 2008) [a devotional drawing from his earlier writing on holiness] The Bookends of the Christian Life [co-authored with Bob Bevington] (Crossway, 2009) Who Am I? (Cruciform, 2012) The Transforming Power of the Gospel (NavPress, 2012) 31 Days Toward Trusting God (NavPress, 2013) [abridged from Trusting God] God Took Me by the Hand (NavPress, 2014) The Blessing of Humility: Walk within Your Calling (NavPress, 2016) For an audio library of Jerry Bridges’ talks, go here. Funeral Visitation for Jerry Bridges was held on Thursday, March 10, 2016, from 5 to 8 pm, at Shrine of Remembrance (1730 East Fountain Blvd, Colorado Springs, CO 80910). The memorial service was held on Friday, March 11, 2016, at 2 pm at Village Seven Presbyterian Church (4055 Nonchalant Circle South, Colorado Springs, CO 80917).

saved when the lord appears

Texts: Acts 1:11 — "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 — "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." These two texts of Scripture are plainly presented and there can be no question as to their interpretation; they mean just what they say, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again to this earth, and just as He ascended from the midst of His disciples, clothed with his physical body, and a cloud received Him out of their sight, so He will come again. He left a wondering company of disciples when He was on the slopes of Olivet, and from their midst began to ascend up towards heaven, and strange to say He will come back again to a company of disciples, for notwithstanding the plain statements of Scripture with reference to His coming, many in the Church are apparently unacquainted with the fact of His glorious appearing or else are indifferent to it. This may be because those of us who are in the pulpit have not been faithful in teaching the Word of God, or it may be that the rank and file of Christians have studied the Scriptures indifferently, if indeed they have studied them at all. All evangelical Christians believe that Jesus Christ is coming again sometime. We have said it over and over in our repetition of the Apostles Creed, and there can be no question about the fact at all. The only question is as to when He is coming; some say before the millennium, and they are called pre-millenarians; others expect Him after the millennium, and they are spoken of as post-millenarians. But if He comes after the millennium He will come to a world made ready for His appearing by human effort, righteousness will be asserting its power, and have in its control all things. If this position is accepted, then His coming is far removed from the present time, for just when men thought the world was rapidly growing better, the world-war was upon us and today the world is scarred and marred by its effects. If He comes before the millennium, then He will come to set the world right; He will set up His Throne and establish His Kingdom. He himself will work mightily in all ways and it will be a world worth while living in when it is all under the sway of His Almighty Power. As for myself, I prefer the millennium which He makes ready rather than the one which might be set up or prepared by man himself, therefore I am a pre-millenarian. Just what will it mean to be saved when the Lord appears? To be saved at all is the wonder of heaven and earth. We are saved from sin's penalty by His death on the Cross and our personal acceptance of Him. We are saved from sin's practice by the indwelling of His Spirit strengthening our wills. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." We are saved from sin's presence by His coming again, for when He comes the last enemy shall be overthrown, temptation will be a thing of the past, and our deliverance shall last forever. Let us put it in this way: We have been saved by His death on the Cross and our identification with Him; this has to do with the past. We are being saved by His Spirit who makes Christ real to us and makes the Word of God powerful in the changing of our lives; this has to do with the present. We shall be saved when He appears and the body of this humiliation is made like unto His own glorious body; this has to do with the future. In order to prevent confusion, we must keep in mind the fact that there are to be two appearings of our Lord: First — He comes for His Saints. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, he said, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Second — He comes with His Saints. When the time is up and Scripture has had its fulfillment, he will set up His Kingdom on the earth; His sway will be almighty and His power irresistible. This truth has always been of the greatest possible inspiration to me. I learned it when I was a young minister, and it changed my whole conception of Christ and my interpretation of the Scripture, and filled me with a zeal to attempt at least to do His Will. It has never made me fanatical, and I am sure that it has not made me listless, and from the first day I received the truth until this present time, it has been to me "the blessed hope." In common with other Christians, I believe the Church to be the body of Christ and that as individuals we go to make up that body and as men are won to Christ and they surrender to Him, they are parts of that body. So of necessity, one day the body will be completed — the last member will be added to it — and I have always thought that perhaps the one who comes under the influence of my preaching, might be the last, and the skies would brighten and the Lord return, and I have hardly preached an evangelistic sermon for years without this in mind. It is to me a glorious hope. I have frequently been asked "Would you not be startled, indeed, would you not be afraid, if suddenly the skies should brighten and the Lord appear?" And my answer is "I might be, except for the statement made in my first text of Scripture, 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven,'" it is "this same Jesus" who is coming back; He who was cradled in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes, He who lived in Nazareth as a boy, a youth, and a young man, He who preached in Galilee as never man had spoken before Him, He who suffered in Gethsemane until the blood drops rolled down His face, He who died upon the Cross as my substitute, He who rose from the dead when the time was up and the stone was rolled away from the door, He who ascended up into heaven — He is coming back again. How could I be startled when He appears? So human that He grew weary as He toiled, so human that He fell asleep when He was in the little boat with His disciples, so human that He toiled in the carpenter shop, making this implement and that, and making them well... So divine that the water blushed into wine when He looked at it; so divine that devils feared Him and went rushing into a herd of swine and drove them into the sea; so divine that disease was staid by His presence and His touch; so divine that death was overpowered by Him, and Lazarus, at the sound of His voice, came forth from the tomb bound in his grave clothes. He is coming back again and we shall see Him. "Just to see Jesus once scarred as Redeemer, Jesus, my Lord, from all suffering free, Just to see Jesus transfigured forever, That will be glory, be glory, for me. Just to see Jesus, when saved ones are gathering, Jesus who died upon Calvary's tree, Just to see Jesus with all heaven ringing, That will be glory, be glory, for me." He is surely coming back again and it is well worth while to ask the question as to what this coming will mean to certain classes of people. 1. What will it mean to the saved? 1 Corinthians 15:51-52. — "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." So many times we hear people use the expression, speaking of certain events, "This is as certain as death," but death is by no means certain, it is not at all sure that we shall all die. St. Paul himself tells us we shall not all sleep, and he is speaking of death; some will be alive when the Lord comes back, and perhaps we who are today in health and strength, shall be of the company. (a) Some day the skies will brighten and He will appear, and just as Saul of Tarsus saw what others did not see, so some eyes will be opened to behold Him, while others will be blinded to His coming, and when those who have their trust in Him are taken away, others will remain behind in wonder and in amazement. (b) Families will be separated. In this household a mother was a humble follower of Jesus Christ and all the others were indifferent to Him. She will be taken; the others left. In another household the father was a saint of God. The Bible and Jesus were his constant delight, but he was unable to lead his children to Christ, and with the godly mother he will be taken and the others left. A Christian business man who has been careful in all his business dealings, and consistent in his following of Jesus Christ, taken, and those with whom he is associated, left behind; perhaps the saved children of a household whose parents were worldly and cared not for Christ and His Church are taken. (c) It should be remembered, however, that before these are taken, the dead in Christ shall rise first; their spirits safe with Him from the moment of their death, their bodies have been resting in the tomb, and when He appears, the tombs of the Christian dead shall be opened, and spirit and body united. They shall go up to be with Him. There are some places I should like to be at that wonderful time. I think I should like to be standing here speaking of Him, or I should like to be pleading with an audience to turn to Him, or I should like to be sitting beside some one who is helpless and hopeless and urging them to accept Him, or I should like to be at the grave of D. L. Moody, and behold his tomb open and see him ascend to meet the Lord whom he so faithfully preached; or I should like to be at my mother's tomb where years ago we placed her and said "goodbye" to her with tears blinding our eyes. To sum it all up, however, I think I should like to be just anywhere, seeking to please Him and trying to find out concerning His Will, that I might do it. I stood one day in Wales before the grave of the famous Welsh preacher, Christmas Evans, and was told that he was buried in the same grave with a friend, a brother minister, whom he loved dearly, and this was all because they wanted to be together when the Lord came and they be caught up. They had agreed that hand in hand they would ascend to greet Him. (d) In the Scriptures we read that we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, that is, with our beloved who have gone on before. No more separation, no more fear of the cable's message, no more funerals, no more visits to the cemetery, no more going back to the home that has been made empty because the loved one has departed. "We shall not all sleep, what ineffable bliss, Some living at present may taste even of this, His coming, the rapture, the joyful surprise, One moment a mortal, the next in the skies. Our Saviour will come in the air, He'll descend, The living, the sleeping, to Him shall ascend, Some wait there in heaven, some wait here below, Then raptured in triumph to Him we all go. We shall not all sleep, but changed we shall be, Yes, changed in a moment when Jesus we see, In the blaze of His glory, the flash of an eye, (e) When St. Paul was nearing the end of his remarkable career, he writes, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." The expression "if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead" is literally "the out-resurrection from among the dead"! that is, St. Paul knew that the Lord was coming back, that the Christian dead would rise to greet Him, and he wanted to be of the company, and thus expresses his hope and desire... 2. What will it mean to the unsaved for Christ to appear? (a) If they are dead then it will mean that at His appearing their tombs will not be unsealed, they shall wait longer for another great event which is so startling that one shudders even as he reads of it, that is Judgment. (b) If they are living they will be left behind when others ascend to greet Him with their loved ones in the skies. (c) And when the time comes those who have rejected Jesus Christ will face the Judgment. In Revelation 20:11-13, I read, "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." It is a white throne, to me, at least, it is significant that when the saved greet Him there will be "a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." The emerald is green and green rests the eye. In contrast the full blaze of the white of the throne of God's judgment will be torture indeed. He will be upon the throne; the One whom men have rejected and despised in spite of His mercy, and love. "The dead, small and great, shall stand before God." There can be no favoritism there. The books shall be opened and on the basis of one's record, men will be judged. Those who have accepted Christ need have no fear of the judgment of the Great White Throne. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," but if he has been rejected, and finally rejected, we know what the end must be, for the word of the Lord hath spoken it. Recently the Honorable Elihu Root, in one of his addresses used this expression: THE TIMETABLE OF THE ALMIGHTY. What a striking sentence, how suggestive, how true it is to these days, how it fits in to my subject. (a) The hour has come. Jesus said that as he was nearing the end of his earthly ministry, and when the price of our redemption was to be paid in full. (b)"Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (c) The door of mercy is open; it may close at any moment. "Seek ye the LORD while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near." From Evangelistic Sermons by J. Wilbur Chapman. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, ©1922.