The True Emphasis of the Gospel Ministry Part One

Posted on June 3, 2012 by brothershawn

“For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” I Corinthians 1:17-19

“And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” I Corinthians 2:1-5

I. Things Mistakenly Emphasized in Christianity

A. Education – Great emphasis is often put on education. Paul said he was sent to preach the gospel “not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect” “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” {Acts 4:13}

Anything that draws attention away from the cross of Christ is a hindrance, not a help. Leonard Ravenhill said of modern-day preaching “we have men with degrees but no heat”

B. Ritualism – Today many put the emphasis on ritualism, things or rites that men perform. Some think Christianity is made up of ornate, beautiful services with candles and incense and priestly garb. Some put the emphasis on baptism but the Apostle said, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” {some were evidently bragging over who baptized them} Baptism does not save. Rituals do not save. Rituals are only a substitute for the simplicity of the preaching of the cross of Christ.

Ritualism allows unbroken, proud sinners to be religious…to put on fair show of the flesh. I think it would be fair to say that in Fundamental Baptist circles our ritual has developed into coming to an alter or repeating a prayer.

C. Wealth – Many today put the emphasis on wealth. The health and wealth gospel is very popular today. Many think that that gain is godliness. The gospel is not about being rich…not in material things. Many think a ministry must be of God or is successful because it has wealth. The greatest gospel preacher that ever lived, the Apostle Paul, said he didn’t have enough clothes to keep him warm and often didn’t have anything to eat or drink.

The other Paul {sic} Paul Crouch, the founder of Trinity Broadcasting Network, isn’t doing so badly. Jan and Paul took in 93 million in donations in 2010. It is reported they spend $300,000 a year on meals. They have his and her mansions in Newport Beach California one of them worth 5.6 million dollars, but Mrs. Crouch mainly stays in her mansion near Orlando Florida….not too shabby for a couple of religious hucksters. {source- article New York Times by Erik Eckholm May 4th, 2012}

The Bible says; “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” {II Peter 2:1-3}  These are Things Mistakenly Emphasized in Christianity”

D. Crowds- Just because you have a large crowd does not mean that God is blessing. There are many ways to draw a crowd. “What a perversion of the one true gospel is this modern “gimmick gospel.” Give-aways, gadgets, and games are weekly emphasized to keep the crowds coming. It’s “Balloon Sunday” one week, “Ice cream Sunday” another week, and “Bo-Zo-the-Clown Sunday” the next week. On and on the “gimmick gospel” goes, going so far as to have “karate preachers” performing their stunts, and “cut-off-your-tie” days. Some churches have such a carnival-like atmosphere about them, that now their members no longer talk about going to “church,” but to the “circus.” from The Gimmick Gospel by W. F. Bell

E. Emotion – A lot of emphasis is put on emotion these days. High powered music is used to stir up the crowd. Often cheerleader like “worship leaders” are used to “get things going” I am not against emotion. I am an emotional person…but a lost person can be emotional in a high powered church service. I heard a young Christian say not long ago “if that singing group doesn’t ‘crank me up’ tonight I’ll be getting up and leaving”

A lot of churches today are built on entertainment. The problem is…next week has to be more exciting than last week. Racket doesn’t mean revival.

Education, Ritualism, Wealth, Crowds, Emotion, Things Mistakenly Emphasized in Christianity

Shawn

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“Great Men are Almost Always Bad Men?”

Posted on June 3, 2012 by brothershawn

“Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” John 13:13-17

He is Lord and Master but He has given us an example. The famous quote by Lord Acton “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” did not apply to our Lord. I am sure that you have watched power and authority make seemingly decent people “bad”. Jesus Christ was the greatest, yet He was good personified. Power makes men proud and heavy-handed. Christ was perfectly humble.

Our Lord told His disciples, “whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.”

Matthew Henry in his commentary stated, “We must learn of our Master to be lowly in heart (Matt. 11:29), and walk with all lowliness; we must think meanly {lowly} of ourselves and respectfully of our brethren, and deem nothing below us but sin…Christ had often taught his disciples humility, and they had forgotten the lesson; but now he teaches them in such a way as surely they could never forget.”

“If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” May our Lord knock the pride out of us.

“Every Christian has a choice between being humble or being humbled.” – C. H. Spurgeon

Shawn

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“Lowest, Filthiest and Vilest”

Posted on May 24, 2012 by brothershawn

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” Luke 17:28-30

Vance Havner {1901-1986} in his book “Moments of Decision” said the following…

“It shall not be as in the days of Solomon, but as in the days of Sodom. Solomon’s day was a time of peace, progress, and prosperity; Sodom is a synonym for the lowest, filthiest, and vilest in human degradation. Sodom was a moral cancer and God cauterized it. , burned it out. No account of divine judgment is mentioned more in the Bible.”

It is indeed a sad day when the President of our country condones and promotes homosexual marriage. As my Pastor, Jeff Arthur has pointed out, this does not indicate that judgment is coming, it indicates that judgment is already here.

Pray for our nation. Pray for its leaders. Pray for our children.

Shawn

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All Things

Posted on May 20, 2012 by brothershawn

“Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. Titus 1:15

“All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” I Corinthians 10:23

We live in an ever changing world. Technology has advanced to unbelievable state. Along with those advances has been a decline in morality. Technology can be used for good or for evil. Cell phones and computers are not going away. You may deny these to your children but do not be surprised if their first stop after leaving your home is to purchase a cell phone and a computer.

I am sorry people use cell phones to do wicked things. I am sorry people look at things on computers they shouldn’t look at. But unless you decide to be one of the Amish and never leave your farm, technology is an issue that you are going to have to deal with. Technology can be a blessing or a bane…its up to you.

Shawn

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Are You A Critic?

Posted on May 6, 2012 by brothershawn

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Matthew 23:24

Several years ago I discovered the writings of G.D. Watson. First in a tract entitled “Others May, You Cannot”. Later I purchased his book Pure Gold.

G.D. Watson was an old time Methodist “holiness” preacher. So I am sure you will have to spit out a few seeds in his writings. He was converted in the Southern army, near Richmond,Virginia in 1863

Human nature doesn’t change so his chapter on a critical spirit is still relevant today. I have selected some excerpts for your enjoyment {or annoyance}. I have also highlighted some of his more disturbing comments. All I can say is “been there, done that” and trying to do better – Shawn

“A critical spirit “deems itself gifted from God with particular genius to detect and correct evil in others.”

“There is an inveterate {deep-seated} frailty in human nature to assume the throne of God in judging others. Because God gives religious persons the power to discriminate, a great many misinterpret the gift and conclude that they have a special mission to detect defects and to exercise a police authority in correcting others, and hunting down wrong-doers. So much is this true that some eminently religious people think that all the religion on earth would go to wreck if they did not diligently exercise their gift in setting others right

“The critical spirit hunts for defects in non-essentials. Like the Pharisees, it puts annis and cumin above the weightier matters of mercy and life. A critical person is disposed to eye you from head to foot, and scan carefully your clothing, your eating, your facial expression, your voice, and gesture. He is on the hunt for something wrong and is bound to find it and sooner than miss his prey…”

“Such persons will go out of their way to investigate the sins of others, they love to inquire into the shortcomings of their neighbors, they think it a great stroke of piety to unearth evil.”

“The most awful thing about it is the satanic delusion that such a horrible spirit is a part of holiness. It is a proof of a weak mind or weak spirituality, to get the attention absorbed upon a collateral {secondary} or non-essential, and this is always a significant trait of a critical spirit.”

“The spirit of criticism is invariably a legal spirit. It takes the technical law side of every thing instead of the love side. It magnifies systematic theology above the Bible, it puts doctrinal statement above the very essence of God’s life in the soul. It will spend a great deal more zeal in hunting heresy than it will in secret prayer. It has a strong propensity to pitch into people and things generally. It scans with eagle eye the writings of others, not to get spiritual nourishment, but ferret out any trace of false teaching. It matters not how holy or useful a person may be, if they make any statement by voice or pen which does not fit in with the critic’s cast iron theology, the offender is at once pounced upon, and his supposed inaccuracies are peddled to the world, while the real worth of the life and service are ignored.”

“They are disposed to criticize any one’s experience which either does not fit in with their own, or which seems to fall below it, and especially are they vehement against experiences which go beyond their own.”

“Again, the critical spirit eats out, like a burning acid, the very sweetness of spiritual life…

“There is a mysterious quality of heart-gentleness and mental and soul-sweetness in a truly crucified believer, which cannot be defined.”

“…the critical spirit invariably poisons other persons. It is satanically contagious. Other persons feel our spirit far more swiftly and accurately than they do our words or our deliberate actions.”

“A critical spirit can be felt by others in spite of all effort to conceal it. Our only safety against this malady is to live in the very heart of Jesus.”

“Many such persons, before they die, pass through ordeals of experience which show them the utter foolishness of their self-appointed mission, for a critical spirit is always a proof of a raw {green or immature} experience.”

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God Working

Posted on May 6, 2012 by brothershawn

“O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.” Habakkuk 3:2

“For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring…” Isaiah 44:3

What would it be like if around a quarter of the people in your town were suddenly overwhelmed with conviction and converted?  That is what happened in the spring and summer of 1735 in Northampton, Massachusetts. In a town of around 1600 people, over 300 were saved. Jonathan Edwards was a Congregational preacher in that town and gives a narrative of the events of what many consider the beginnings of the First Great Awakening in America.

I would like to give you a few excerpts from his narrative concerning the awakening 277 years ago.

“There was scarcely a single person in the town, old or young, left unconcerned about the great things of the eternal world.”

“This work of God, as it was carried on, and the number of true saints multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town: so that in the spring and summer following, anno 1735, the town seemed to be full of the presence of God: it never was so full of love, nor of joy, and yet so full of distress, as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of God’s presence in almost every house.”

“I am far from pretending to be able to determine how many have lately been the subjects of such mercy; but if I may be allowed to declare any thing that appears to me probable in a thing of thin nature, I hope that more than 300 souls were savingly brought home to Christ, in this town, in the space of half a year, and about the same number of males as females.”

Out of a town of around 1600 people, over  300 people were saved in a space of about 6 months!

How did this Great Awakening affect the Baptist denomination in America? “In 1740, when the Awakening was just getting underway, there were only 60 Baptist congregations in the American colonies. By 1790, the new republic could claim 67,000 baptized believers worshiping in nearly 1,000 Baptist churches.”

O Lord, revive thy work!

Shawn

Recommended Listening: Jonathan Edwards: The Great Awakening

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Revival?

Posted on April 29, 2012 by brothershawn

“O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy.” Habakkuk 3:2

Today, churches will place a sign along the road advertising a “revival”. But in the truest sense of the word the western world has not seen a true regional revival since the revival on the Island of Lewis over 60 years ago.

Please consider the following statements by Leonard Ravenhill concerning Revival.

 “Whatever else we say about revival we have to recognize this, that revival is an act of mercy in the sovereignty of God.”

‘There is a vast difference between revival and evangelism. When we speak of revival in America we think of church advertising, “Our revival will begin next Sunday night at a certain time and it is going to finish the next Sunday night at a certain time.” Obviously this is something purely mechanical; it is something which men have engineered.”

“I think that one of the offenses of revival, in the historic sense, is that it cannot be organized. As Doctor Tozer said, “When revival comes it changes the moral climate of a community.”
You can have revival that covers a church — Spurgeon had that.
You can have a revival that covers a city.
You can have a revival that covers the whole nation — and I am thinking in this context more than in the other contexts (though sometimes revival spreads from here to there — like fire spreads.)”

“Revival cannot be organized”
“Revival cannot be subsidized”
“Revival cannot be advertised”

Although we often throw the word “revival” around… most, if not all of my readers have never experienced true revival, not even at the local church level.

In the upcoming weeks I would like to write several articles concerning the First Great Awakening. I know people have a short attention span and do not like to read too much so I will try to keep them short and sweet.

Shawn

Recommended Books:

The Surprising Work of God by Jonathan Edwards

Why Revival Tarries by Leonard Ravenhill

Revival Gods Way by Leonard Ravenhill

Recommended Video:

Wind of the Spirit.

Disclaimer – The books and messages I recommend have both meat and bones…you’ll have to spit out the bones.

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Controversy

Posted on April 22, 2012 by brothershawn

“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”    Ephesians 4:1-6

People will not always agree. Sometimes there is controversy. The author of Amazing Grace, John Newton, said the following about engaging in controversy with others. {The excerpts are from one of his letters, the highlighted headings are mine}

What if You’re Neighbors in Heaven?

“The Lord loves him and bears with him; therefore you must not despise him, or treat him harshly. The Lord bears with you likewise, and expects that you should show tenderness to others, from a sense of the much forgiveness you need yourself. In a little while you will meet in heaven; he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts; and though you may find it necessary to oppose his errors, view him personally as a kindred soul, with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.

What if He is Not a Christian?

“But if you look upon him as an unconverted person, in a state of enmity against God and his grace (a supposition which, without good evidence, you should be very unwilling to admit), he is a more proper object of your compassion than of your anger. Alas! “He knows not what he does.” But you know who has made you to differ. If God, in his sovereign pleasure, had so appointed, you might have been as he is now; and he, instead of you, might have been set for the defense of the gospel. You were both equally blind by nature. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes, and not his.”

What if You Lose Your Testimony?

“What will it profit a man if he gains his cause and silences his adversary, if at the same time he loses that humble, tender frame of spirit in which the Lord delights, and to which the promise of his presence is made?”

Recommended reading:

Letters of John Newton

A Tale of Three Kings

Recommended Listening:

The Life of Brokenness

Shawn

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“But I Hate Him”

Posted on April 22, 2012 by brothershawn

“And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might enquire of him? And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.”                       1 Kings 22:7-8

“Yes men” are a dime a dozen, Ahab and Jezebel had a slew of them. A. W. Tozer said; “We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.” True prophets will always be hated by some. As a little boy I remember our family gathering around a television set and watching a man walk on the moon. This generation of children {if the Lord tarries} is going to set down in front of a big screen television one day soon and gaze at a preacher going to jail for preaching against the sin of homosexuality. On that day millions {billions?} of people will see this preacher going to jail and snarl “I hate him”.

Pray for an awakening.

Shawn

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Bloom Where You’re Planted.

Posted on April 15, 2012 by brothershawn

“Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.” Romans 16:3-4

Many years ago Pastor Wayne Henderson from Resaca, Georgia preached a great message entitled, Bloom Where You Are”. He gave the illustration of a flower blooming on a hillside in the forest. The flower may live, bloom and die seemingly without being noticed  by anyone but God. It was a life changing message for me. Pastor Henderson said some Christians were always trying to be “Super Christians” and ended up not being anything. I have tried to serve my Master at whatever capacity He has placed me in. I am not interested in promoting myself. “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” {Psalm 75:6-7}

That doesn’t mean I am just to sit idly by and wait for God to do something but it does mean that I am willing to accept the place where I am at in my life and serve God there. I want to bloom where I’m at. He knows exactly where I’m at. God didnt make us all preachers or teachers. Maybe some of us will be “helpers” like  Priscilla and Aquila. Remember it is Christ you are serving  and if man happens to notice that’s merely secondary. When William C. Burns, the mighty evangelist of Scotland, was leaving his native land for China, a man said to him. “I suppose you are going to China to convert the Chinese.” “No,” Mr. Burns replied, “I am going to China to glorify God.” That should be our goal to glorify our God wherever He plants us.

Brother Shawn

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