Sunday.....Christianity.....Fathers Day

I know that I have related this story before, it was quite a number of years ago that we visited a Presbyterian Church (OPC) on Mother's Day. A gentleman took the pulpit in place of the teaching elder who was away and preached a sermon on Fathers. I am one of those who believe that Christ must be preached each and every Lord's Day, from the Old Testament...or the New Testament...from the latest Christian magazine received in the mail if need be, as long as He is preached accurately in His person, His office and His redemptive work accomplished for us on the cross. All of the scriptural application you want can be added and will be appreciated, but first and foremost, Christ must be preached! Having said this, it was no surprise to my family that upon leaving the church I made a firm comment to the gentleman who took the pulpit that day. Now this man could have rebuked me for having the audacity to criticize while attending their church in passing through, or he could have given a perfunctory nod and looked quickly to greet the next person in line leaving the church.  He did neither. His humility provided all the rebuking necessary. He failed to preach Christ and apologized. My personal repentance was to Christ of whose Gospel I so ineptly attempted to defend. I may be the last person qualified to tell pastors how to preach, but I am on equal footing with all believers in my right to request to hear Christ preached for it is as insulin to a diabetic, oxygen to one suffering from emphyzema or bourbon to an alcoholic if you will.  It is the great weakness of the church in America today that by simply mentioning the name Jesus Christ our pulpits are then permitted to go on at length in any direction, fully confident that they are preaching Christ. If I had but one prayer, it would be to have Christ preached to us that we might thereby have the strength to go on. That particular church we visited probably preaches Christ on a regular basis for it is a sound denomination. That gentleman most assuredly loves and serves Christ, and probably much better than I do. I should have made my comments to him in the way that I am writing this blog. I've also told the story of a young Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who when unsaved, remembered of the day of his salvation this way: I sometimes think that I might have been in darkness and despair until now had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm, one Sunday morning, while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street, and came to a  little Primitive Methodist Chapel. In that chapel there may have been a dozen or fourteen people...The minister did not come that morning, he was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker, or a tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach...His text was, 'Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth.'  When he managed to spin out ten minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Seeing this young man to be miserable in his countenance, he looked to Spurgeon and said, Young man look to Jesus Christ! Look! Look! You have nothing to do but look and live. Spurgeon related I saw at once the way of salvation.  In short order, Spurgeon was ordained and later preached to both  Prime Ministers and shoemakers. On a winters day, nine years later, he preached a sermon on Psalm 44: 1 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers, have told us, what work thou didst in their eyes, in the times of old. He concluded his sermon with this.....when the Romans used to attack a city, it was sometimes their custom to set up at the gate a white flag, and if the garrison surrendered while the white flag was there, their lives were spared. After that the black flag was put up, and then every man was put to the sword. The white flag is up today; perhaps tomorrow the black flag will be elevated upon the pole of the law and then there is no repentance or salvation either in this world or in that which is to come..... To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation. Oh, to-day lay hold on Christ: 'Kiss the son. lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.