A month or so ago I received an email from Desiring God Ministries....the ministry of John Piper. It was one of those emails that get sent to every email address that they have. In it they asked for my advice....any ideas I might have to offer? I described it to my wife and then said they will probably regret sending one to me.
In my long response I said all of the wonderful things about them that I put in these posts....and I meant it....leave my posts....and go to desiringgod.org....where you can be discipled by a wonderful ministry....but I did then make a request....a request that as of today it appears that they do not agree with.Let me describe a few things to you....I am going to desiringgod.org right now as I type this. There it is....and on top is an article titled....Sin Won't Comfort You....by Marshall Segal....and also voice recorded by the author....and below that are a few more articles and audio 'episodes' of John Piper sermons. I have either read or listened to them all....the most recent I listened to twice.
Tomorrow morning....Lord willing....will be more of the same....and I will probably read or listen to them sometime. Here is the problem as I see it....
Let me segue with this. Do you remember the 1972 movie/musical....Oliver? Well in it there is a scene where the new boy in the workhouse....Oliver....after his first meal of....thin gruel....he is still hungry....as are all the other boys....and as they are after every meal of thin gruel. So the boys egg him on....and he walks right up to the headmaster....a daring and courageous thing in itself to do....and says...."Please Sir....May I have some more food?" Well that audacious question set off the fireworks.
That's all I'm doing with these posts folks. Every week....week after week....year after year....all across America....we trudge to church....and get fed thin gruel....and heaven help us if we complain! That is what you are probably going to get tomorrow in your church....only you have been on a vegetarian diet....only milk.....no meat....for so long that you cannot remember what a good meal tastes like!
Now John Piper has a fifty year ministry of feeding the sheep....and he still does....but if you go to desiringgod.org tomorrow morning....you will get a box lunch....a twenty-two minute 'episode'....or sample of a means of grace....full sermon. So that was my request....brothers.....(they couldn't see but my head was bowed in deference.....and they cannot see the rags I'm wearing....or the coal soot on my face)....please sirs....if just on the Lord's Day....may I please have some more food....(a full sermon)....so that I can get the means of grace minerals?
Nothing is stopping any one of us....if after our church service we do not feel as though we were fed....(I thank God that I am not in that situation)....for we all can go to Google.....and Google up any one of hundreds of Charles Spurgeon or Martyn Lloyd-Jones or John Piper sermons....and there are many other faithful pastors out there.....but we have to know who they are....and most of us would have to look in the mirror and recognize that there is something wrong with a grown man or woman with a body that looks like a medical school skeleton!
I'm not asking for myself....I can navigate the Desiring God web enough to find the sermons....but the majority of us out here have no idea that they are famished and malnourished.
