Preface: John MacArthur's church is planning a "once in a generation" event for early October.....a Puritan conference with speakers including John Piper....Sinclair Ferguson....Steven Lawson....and Michael Reeves....all of whom I highly recommended here in these posts....particularly Piper....who I hope to be listening to today's....Sermon of the Day....in a few minutes. One might think that I am thrilled? I'm not. We have had enough conferences where all the speakers pat themselves on the back....while a thousand pastors come in for the conference....none of them surprised by what they hear....all of them pretending to be doing something when all they did was go to a conference. What particularly bothers me on this is that in the advertising....the great courage of the Puritans is lauded.....a topic that I have posted on so many times in these posts of almost fourteen years.....but these speakers will likely show none of that courage behind the microphone....for they fear addressing the topic that really needs to be addressed....that of a false prophet right smack in the middle of the church....while this new Christian Nationalism is ravaging evangelicalism. Major evangelical leaders had been sucked in to this false prophet's orbit of destruction because we now have placed our hope in politics. "What would the Puritans have said about a false prophet taking away their sheep?"....there is a conference title for you. Will Piper show the courage that he has evidenced in his long ministry....will he make waves....or will he just give another great conference message on the glory of God like he has given for a half century? These men may be surprised.....for there are about six weeks until the conference is scheduled to start....and a lot can happen in the world. They may....should God will it.....be forced to address the issues leading the church away from the gospel....and from trust in the only One who can keep us and guide us through this growing maelstrom. The following is a very recent post.....but below that I'm adding a 2010 post.
We Need More Dissenters In The Pulpits
It was rather stunning.....but not that much was made of it. It was in President Clinton's second term....and he was reeling after the Lewinsky scandal.....and Al Gore.....the Vice President.....told his boss....the President of the United States....forcefully....."Get with the program!" The Democrat Party had essentially lost its soul by then....its political soul....where truth had no meaning at all. The 'program' was all that mattered.
It would be encouraging if even one radio talk show or podcast host or Fox evening cable host.....would at least ask about Trump.....'what is so important with these classified materials that you would go through all this....and put everyone else through the ringer?' Of course this is just one example.....of hundreds....over the past six years.....where one would think that the normal thing to do would be to question the decision making or behavior of Trump....but it never happened....as at first the banner flown was....'let Trump be Trump'.....but now it is the same as that which Al Gore berated Bill Clinton....'get with the program!' Talk radio....'get with the program'.....talk radio to its listeners....'get with the program!' Kevin McCarthey....(to use him as a prime example)....to republicans in congress....'get with the program!' 'Fauci is evil....get with the program! Masks are persecution....get with the program....all truth jetsom overboard to lighten the load!'Truth means nothing anymore in the Republican Party....for whereas it is true to say...."A little leaven leavens the whole lump"....(Galatians 5:9 ESV)....it is not true to say....'a little truth legitimizes the whole lump.'
The Republican Party today has also....lost its political soul. I look at these local state representatives....and federal representatives....and party leaders like McCarthy.... and 'somebody wannabees' like Tucker Carlson or Alex Marlowe....and feel so sorry for them....for they have sunk in the mire of....'truth for truth's sake be damned....get with the program'....as deep as the Clintons and the Gore and the Bidens.
Earlier this morning I was paging through one of my favorite books.....a pictorial tour of Puritan churches and towns in England and the Netherlands. Bunhill Fields was one of the photographs....an old Puritan cemetery in London with the graves of thousands of Dissenters'....those who could not in good conscience follow the dictates of the established Church of England. They lost their pastorates....and essentially their homeland....but they did it....they told the truth against all odds.
We are in dire need today in the church of dissenters.....those who will not take the pulpit and let the congregation be led by a false prophet….driven by ‘Christian Nationalism’ instead of the Word of God. They might indeed lose their pastorates. I ask myself....what would I do....if I were a young second term congressman? Would I so easily throw it away? I don't know the answer to that.....but if I was a seventy-two year old congressman I definitely would. That's not very brave is it.... to be honest....but if I were a young pastor it would have to be a different story.....for if I could not warn the sheep.....then there would be no reason to call myself a pastor.....no matter how big the congregation I might supposedly shepherd.
John Hooper was a bishop in the Anglican church during the reign of Henry VIII and the glorious reign of Edward VI. He lived through the beginnings of the English Reformation and struggled, preaching often three and four times a day, against the forces that worked against the Gospel. He was burned at the stake for his faithfulness in 1555 during the reign of Queen Mary. He is attributed with writing this poetry with a piece of coal on the wall of his jail cell:
Content thyself with patience
With Christ to bear the cross of pain;
Who can or will recompense
a thousand-fold, with joys again.
Let nothing cause thy heart to fail:
Launch out thy boat, hoist up thy sail,
Put from the shore;
And be thou sure thou shall remain
For evermore.
Fear not death, pass not for bonds,
Only in God put thy whole trust;
For He will require thy blood at their hands,
And thou dost know that once die thou must,
Only for that thy life if thou give,
Death is no death, but amens for to live.
Do not despair;
Of no worldly tyrant be thou dread;
Thy compass, which is God's Word, shall thee lead,
And the wind is fair.
Rowland Taylor was a pastor during the same period and was called to account as a villain for preaching the Gospel. When friends advised him not to report, his response was: What will ye have me do? I am now old, and have already lived too long, to see these terrible and most wicked days. Fly you, and do as your conscience leadeth you. I am fully determined, with God's grace, to go to the Bishop, and to tell him, to his beard, that he doth naught. God shall hereafter raise up teachers of His people, which shall, with much more diligence and fruit, teach them than I have done. For God will not forsake, His church, though now for a time He trieth and correcteth us, and not without just cause. Rowland Taylor was also burned at the stake.
Bishop Hugh Latimer wrote: My wish is, that men may write on their hearts that the well-being of England depends not on commerce, or clever politicians or steam, or armies, or navies, or gold, or iron, or coal, or corn, but on the maintenance of the principles of the English Reformation. Before being burned at the stake he turned to another martyr and famously said: Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
In 1552 John Bradford wrote of those days as those in the days of Noah, often forewarning the people of the plagues which would be brought to pass. He also was martyred and wrote: When I consider the cause of my condemnation, I cannot but lament that I do no more rejoice than I do, for it is God's verity and truth.
Nickolas Ridley was a chaplain to Henry VIII and later the Bishop of London and also ran afoul of Queen Mary for preaching the Gospel. In a farewell letter to prisoners he wrote: Farewell, dear brethren, farewell! And let us comfort our hearts in all troubles, and in death, with the Word of God: for heaven and earth shall perish, but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.
I write these things as encouragement to myself as well as anyone else. These stories come from a small paperback book published by Banner Of Truth titled Five English Reformers written by the great 19th century English Anglican preacher J. C. Ryle.
