Preface: OK....you are a pastor.... in charge of many souls....and I have been listening to your sermons for decades....(I’m speaking a generalization of the American church))....and I either go home malnourished or defenseless every Lord’s Day....and you spend your ‘free’ time doing the lovely things in life God that has blessed us with? Is this harsh? I had a conversation last night with a mature Christian of maybe forty years....and he nonchalantly commented on the next twenty years....this because pastors today have no clue of God’s half century of warnings....and this while we have a genuine false prophet as president that evangelicals are totally blinded to! If one does not believe all the biblical prophesies and exploding evidence of the nearness of the return of our Lord....the least one could do is pretend they desired His return to this fallen world. It has been years since I heard a Christian actually comment on his or her desire for the Lord to return....but in the 80s one could hear it often enough. If this were me with these pastoral responsibilities....with souls under my charge.... I’d be on my knees every moment of my supposed free time....trying to glean from whatever great men of the the past that I could.
I know another man who was quite literally and wonderfully saved only a few years ago. He's already preaching. He was sucked into charismatic theology.....and I know that he's never heard anything but that. Yesterday he was extolling to me the virtues of Rodney Howard Browne....of Holy Laughter fame....and one of Trump's....'advisers.'....a false teacher if there ever was one. The church is awash in ignorance of God.
The following was first posted in June of 2019....and is my Lord's Day post. I listen to on an average of four or five sermons a week from men of the past....and men who preach like men of the past. I don't like to go more than a day without hearing someone such as Martyn Lloyd-Jones or O. Palmer Robertson or D. A. Carson or R. C. Sproul or Michael Horton preach....and that's only a sampling of names....and I'm about as insignificant a layman as you might find....how much more should preachers....who have such a great responsibility....be making it a priority to glean from what God has given these men!
His ministry lasted almost a half century before the Lord called him home rather suddenly in December of 2017....and just a couple months before the Lord called Billy Graham back home. Both had enormous impacts on the Church....not only America but in the entire world. Both had warned us in that we were in rebellion to Almighty God....our Creator and our Benefactor....who had been longsuffering towards us....until He began to lift His hand of protection.
These two men.....R. C. Sproul and Billy Graham....spoke different languages. Billy spoke Southern Comfort....and R. C.....Pittsburghese....which is my primary language......but I'm also fluent in Southern Comfort.
This morning I listened once again....this time on the treadmill....to Sproul's final sermon.....the last sermon that he gave from his pulpit in Sanford, Florida. I've listened to it at least six times so far in the past year and a half. I know people who cannot understand how I can listen to the exact same sermon twice let alone a half dozen times.....or how I can read the same book twice....but the Prince of Preachers....the nineteenth century's Charles Spurgeon....said that he estimated that he read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.....a hundred times! Maybe that's one reason that he was called the Prince of Preachers?
Yesterday I finished an illustrated book of Vincent van Gogh's paintings.....interspersed with various letters he and Theo had exchanged. I might have spent a few solid minutes looking at any one of a number of van Gogh's oils on canvas....even though I had seen them many times before. How many times might the average classical music listener have savored the same Bach or Beethoven composition....hundreds? How many times might someone have slowly digested a poem by Robert Frost? How many times might someone have visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater? So....should a preacher of such a great salvation be given any less attention. I say no.....but even more attention!
This particular sermon by R. C. Sproul......his final sermon.....asks the question that if you really understand salvation then how could you drift away from it....and how dangerous that would be....and if you really know what you are saved from......how can you not continuously rejoice throughout your life? Sproul's voice is gravelly in this his last sermon.....but his passion is like.....or maybe even more.....than those first days way back when in that small teaching center in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
Google if you are interested....R. C. Sproul's final sermon.
I know another man who was quite literally and wonderfully saved only a few years ago. He's already preaching. He was sucked into charismatic theology.....and I know that he's never heard anything but that. Yesterday he was extolling to me the virtues of Rodney Howard Browne....of Holy Laughter fame....and one of Trump's....'advisers.'....a false teacher if there ever was one. The church is awash in ignorance of God.
The following was first posted in June of 2019....and is my Lord's Day post. I listen to on an average of four or five sermons a week from men of the past....and men who preach like men of the past. I don't like to go more than a day without hearing someone such as Martyn Lloyd-Jones or O. Palmer Robertson or D. A. Carson or R. C. Sproul or Michael Horton preach....and that's only a sampling of names....and I'm about as insignificant a layman as you might find....how much more should preachers....who have such a great responsibility....be making it a priority to glean from what God has given these men!
His ministry lasted almost a half century before the Lord called him home rather suddenly in December of 2017....and just a couple months before the Lord called Billy Graham back home. Both had enormous impacts on the Church....not only America but in the entire world. Both had warned us in that we were in rebellion to Almighty God....our Creator and our Benefactor....who had been longsuffering towards us....until He began to lift His hand of protection.
These two men.....R. C. Sproul and Billy Graham....spoke different languages. Billy spoke Southern Comfort....and R. C.....Pittsburghese....which is my primary language......but I'm also fluent in Southern Comfort.
This morning I listened once again....this time on the treadmill....to Sproul's final sermon.....the last sermon that he gave from his pulpit in Sanford, Florida. I've listened to it at least six times so far in the past year and a half. I know people who cannot understand how I can listen to the exact same sermon twice let alone a half dozen times.....or how I can read the same book twice....but the Prince of Preachers....the nineteenth century's Charles Spurgeon....said that he estimated that he read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.....a hundred times! Maybe that's one reason that he was called the Prince of Preachers?
Yesterday I finished an illustrated book of Vincent van Gogh's paintings.....interspersed with various letters he and Theo had exchanged. I might have spent a few solid minutes looking at any one of a number of van Gogh's oils on canvas....even though I had seen them many times before. How many times might the average classical music listener have savored the same Bach or Beethoven composition....hundreds? How many times might someone have slowly digested a poem by Robert Frost? How many times might someone have visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater? So....should a preacher of such a great salvation be given any less attention. I say no.....but even more attention!
This particular sermon by R. C. Sproul......his final sermon.....asks the question that if you really understand salvation then how could you drift away from it....and how dangerous that would be....and if you really know what you are saved from......how can you not continuously rejoice throughout your life? Sproul's voice is gravelly in this his last sermon.....but his passion is like.....or maybe even more.....than those first days way back when in that small teaching center in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.
Google if you are interested....R. C. Sproul's final sermon.
