I've done this before....I am going to ask the regular readers of these posts....to kindly leave. I do not have that much to offer....other than mostly being a messenger....with messages like....you have to be...Born Again....(if you do not know what that is....you must find out!)....flee the City of Destruction....flee the megachurch if it is no more than a bible social event....flee the sham of the political Christian patriot that replaces trust in and dependence upon Christ....or....go to these ministries that we do need....listen to these men from the past and these men today who preach like those men from the past.
I am forty years into observing the Christian community....and I do not want to be a part of one of its most serious illnesses....that of essentially doing nothing but passing time....showing a peripheral interest in the mysteries of God and His Word....but not enough to lead us away from the world....or wake us up from a deep sleep. It is a great danger....to get a taste of the gospel....and then devour it only as a dessert....after the main meal of earthly entertainments.
If these messages hit home with you....then you may already be changed....on a new path....and aware of the dangers all around....and you surely do not need me anymore! If they haven't changed you....then I do not want to perpetuate the wasting of time any longer....for one can stay in this perpetual state of....interest but no determination....forever. I'll still hope for new visitors....Lord willing....around long enough only to hear the warnings....and then running to the only safe harbor in this coming storm....Jesus Christ....and His preached word!
God has blessed us with great ministries out there....Piper's would be one....MacArthur's another....but even here they have to be very careful....and often they are not. God does not need them....not in the slightest! Some of these men have been teaching for a half century....the same teachings! So using common sense and logic....they are either teaching the same people....the same doctrines....over and over again....only with different words....or there is a constant turnover in their listening audience? I hope and believe that it is primarily the latter! We need teaching....and we can praise our God for providing these ministries....Lord knows I recommend them all the time....but we need more the preached Word. What happens all too often....is that we become professional students....glorying and satisfied in our learning. Unless these men are seminary professors without a pulpit....they need to be preaching....it needs to be the primary focus of their ministry....not twenty-three minute programs....with cookie-cutter stock radio show audio intros....and announcers with voices as if from heaven itself!
How many times can I either come right out and say it....or strongly infer it....time is short! We all will stand before Jesus Christ....before long....and have to answer for what our interests are right now....and what the main object of our love is! We won't be able to claim ignorance. We all seem to think that in God's timing....we will all at once somehow know that Jesus is right here at the doorstep....and then we can all of a sudden become serious. Well...it doesn't work that way....and if we were thinking with any kind of discernment....we wouldn't even want it to be that way....because it would make no sense....and would not give glory to God....for that would be a god who doesn't fill His children will wonder and awe....but merely gathers the technically saved.
So if I have helped in any way....then I thank God for using the least of the least. I will continue to pray for you....may God lead you to Christians of like mind....and empower the preaching of the shepherd that you find....and provide for you a lighted path....lined with souls for the plucking for Jesus....and please pray for me. Maranatha....Lord Jesus come!
An example....John Piper has a new book out right now....Come, Lord Jesus....Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ. It is an awesome book....very profound....but you cannot read it as you would a Jonathan Cahn book....oohing and awing at all the mysterious 'facts.' You would have to...meditate...on this book...as the title suggests. It may sell well...and pastors may read it and be affected....but even these 'meditations'....need preached! We need these thoughts in sermons....for therein is the....means of grace...and therein is our God extolled to the uttermost....and thereby would we be given the grace of an unction for continuously praising our God....and a great desire for the return in power and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Addendum: I have in our basement over twenty-five years of R. C. Sproul's Tabletalk magazine. I have a hundred sermons on cassette by David Wilkerson from my first years as a believer. I think that my wife and son and I listened to every White Horse Inn radio program...(that's Michael Horton)....over a ten year period. I could go on about other ministries....and am so very thankful for these blessings....but the time is coming when we most likely will not have MacArthur or any of the others to guide us....so we had better prepare now for relying on where our sure strength is....and that is the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. We may not be able to search to see what John MacArthur is saying about this event....or what Michael Horton....or John Piper or Ligonier is saying about that event. We have today the resources for a Charles Spurgeon or a John Piper sermon or an R. C. Sproul teaching video on holiness or a John MacArthur series on God's will....but we may not always have those resources.
Note: I added the above video simply because I love the music of the Imperials! Their music takes me back to the early and mid 80s....when there was still something called being born again....and Christians actually....witnessed about their Lord and Savior....and Christian bookstores were everywhere....where unsuspecting window-shoppers might stop in....and walk out with a book that would change their lives....just as what happened to me....and Christians might stumble across the many sound and challenging Christian books published at the time...instead of just having their church bookstore carry what the pastor likes....and evangelical pastors by and large warned about God's judgment on America....where today we are a hundred times worse in our rebellion to God....but pastors don't warn at all....unless they are warning about losing an election!
Update: The following is from the transcript of a Charles Spurgeon sermon that I listened to just this morning....Wednesday. It relates to the topic of the above post. It was preached on March 8, 1891...the last year of Spurgeon's pulpit ministry....and the title of the sermon was....Three Decisive Steps. "Some teachers attract attention to themselves, and are like the moon, ; when it shines everybody says, 'What a beautiful moon!'....The true prophet of God shines like the sun, and people do not say, 'What a beautiful sun!' but 'How lovely is the landscape!' Let it be your ambition so to declare the Word of God, that people will not say, 'What a splendid preacher!' but 'How glorious is his Christ!'. No man must come between the seeker and God, for the best of men are men at their best." The word 'prophet' here points to the preacher....the man speaking for God. You can easily listen to this sermon in its entirety by Googling it.
