Ian Hamilton Resources

Let me begin with a question (not a trick one!): ‘What is the principal exercise of faith?’ It is a straight-forward question and a very important question. For John Owen, the great English Puritan divine, the answer was instinctive: ‘The contemplation of the glory of Christ.’ Saving faith unites the believer to the Lord Jesus […]

In his masterful commentary on Second Corinthians, James Denney warned against ministers of the gospel becoming diplomatists and strategists, rather than heralds. This warning, issued by Denney in 1894, needs more than ever to be heeded and acted upon by Christ’s ministers today. Over the past twenty or so years, there has been a pressing […]

This year is the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth. For some people, the very name ‘Calvin’ conjures up images of a tyrannical despot who ruled the city state of Geneva, and its church, with a rod of iron during the middle decades of the sixteenth century. For others, who know their history a little […]

‘Man is an enigma, whose only solution can be found in God.’ So wrote Herman Bavinck, the great Dutch theologian. What Bavinck wrote is immediately applicable to fallen men and women. Science cannot explain who we are and what we are. Science cannot tell us what will ultimately become of us. It cannot explain the […]

It is a constant surprise to me that many Christians are worried about guidance. Please don’t misunderstand me. I do not mean that Christians should not be concerned about doing God’s will. But why is it that many (and I think ‘many’ is the appropriate word) Christians get worried, confused and at times even spiritually […]

Every Christian is called by God to be faithful. Whatever else we are called to be, we are called to be faithful, unyielding, kindly but uncompromising believers. I don’t suppose any right-thinking Christian would disagree. I wonder, however, if you have made faithfulness an excuse for the absence of spiritual usefulness and fruitfulness in your […]

The Christian life is to be a life of constant, unhindered joy – or at least, so says the apostle Paul: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!’ According to Paul, joy is not to be an occasional feature in the believer’s life, it is to be a constant reality, a […]

The Tyranny and Necessity of Narrowness The story is told of a Puritan who was asked, ‘Why are you so precise?’ He replied: ‘Because I follow a precise God.’ I very much like the old Puritan’s answer. The God of the Bible, the living God, is indeed a precise God. When the Lord instructed Moses […]

How did awareness of heavenly councils between him and his Father shape Jesus’ sense of earthly mission? Every phase of our Saviour’s life was shaped and styled by his self-conscious sense that he had come from heaven ‘not to do (his) will but to do the will of him who sent (him)’ (John 6:38). Indeed, […]

God’s will for all believers is unmistakable: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification’ (1 Thessalonians 4:3). This is priority number two in God’s eternal agenda (his first priority being his own glory). Again and again in the New Testament this great priority is impressed on God’s people. It is the omega point […]

At a time when Reformed churches are taking the celebration and frequency of the Lord’s Supper more seriously, the question ‘How should I benefit from Communion?’ is timely. I want, however, at the outset to change the title I was given. The change appears minimal, but it is actually profound. I would like to substitute […]

The life of faith is not immune from the disappointments and heartaches of what Paul calls ‘the sufferings of this present age’ (Romans 8:18). God does not exempt his children from unexpected, sorely wounding providences. In 2 Corinthians 1:8, Paul tells us that the hardships and pressures he and his friends were experiencing were so […]

Sin is a corrupting, spoiling, God-dishonouring disease. It manifests itself in a defiance of God’s Law, a rejection of God’s Son, and a dismissal of God’s church. Sin is multi-faceted. It betrays itself essentially by its self-oriented, earth-bound perspective on life. Its horizon is the stars, not the Creator of the stars. Its desire is […]

Over the past weeks I have been reading through The Letter to the Hebrews. It has, as ever, been a fascinating, sobering and richly encouraging read. The Letter, as you will know, was written to Hebrew Christians who had become influenced by false teaching and were under pressure to give up on Christ and return […]

When Augustine found himself in controversy with fellow believers, he remarked on more than one occasion to his friend Alypius, ‘Remember, we are washed in the same blood.’ The great Church Father was not downplaying the importance of accurate doctrine. Rather, he was highlighting the foundational truth that, whatever their differences, believers are one in […]

Alexander Whyte, an eminent Scottish minister in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, wrote of Christians who lived as if sanctification were by vinegar. I was reminded of this when preparing recently to preach on Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. As Luke concludes his account of this eunuch’s conversion, he […]

The Bible, God’s own Word, can be deeply disturbing to read. It has a ‘knack’ (being inspired by the Holy Spirit this should never surprise us) of unsettling us, and deeply humbling us. This has been the case with me these past few weeks in particular. Let me explain. I am trying (and trying is […]

I am constantly amazed how quickly and easily I forget that ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph. 6:12). This does not mean that indwelling sin is not […]

Has it ever struck you how often the New Testament defines the life of faith in terms of the words we speak and the way we speak them? Writing to the Christian church in Colossae, Paul urged God’s people to rid themselves of “anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from (their) lips.” John warned […]

The covenanted consistency of God’s character is a wonderful encouragement to every Christian. His pledged love for us in Christ is an “everlasting love.” He can no more stop loving us than he can stop loving his Son, for he loves us “in him.” God’s consistency of character towards us, however, is double-edged. Let me […]

Obadiah, Ahab’s chief civil servant (not the minor prophet), was a remarkable man. We know very little about him, but what we know is deeply instructive and hopefully deeply humbling. Obadiah lived at a time of wholesale national apostasy. Ahab, beguiled by his heathen, Baal-worshipping wife Jezebel, had sought systematically to destroy the Lord’s prophets. […]

Sitting in a plane travelling at 600 miles an hour at an altitude of 35,000 feet gives you time to think (I am en route home from the States). The focus of my thinking has been “do” or “done?” This is the title of an address I was to give in the following week at […]

The recent arrest of Stephen Green, the director of Christian Voice, for handing out tracts containing verses from the Bible relating to homosexuality at a so-called “Gay Pride” event, is surely a sign of the times. Although Stephen was later released and all charges dropped for “lack of sufficient evidence,” it can hardly be doubted […]

Six times in 1 Corinthians 6 Paul writes, “Do you not know …?†He is reminding God’s people of basic, very basic, Christian truths that they are in danger of forgetting. One of these “Do you not knows†states, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not […]

The longer I am a Christian, the more my heart and mind are gladdened by the truth of God’s unassailable sovereignty. Far from being a forbidding doctrine that fills me with a sense of dread, it is a doctrine that breathes security and sweetness to my soul. It is nothing less than tragic, however, that […]