Do I ever get of tired of this particular type of Lord's Day post? No I never get tired. I don't even get frustrated. I know that God will eventually wake all of these shepherds up....or at least all of them that are truly faithful shepherds. And I know that it will be soon. I just do not know if it will be this Lord's Day....June 1....2025.
The pandemic and 9/11 both showed us that catastrophes do not necessarily lead to awakenings. What we do is we change....for a little time....forced to think about serious things....until those concerns just fade away.
We do not choose to be saved. If we did then yes maybe a major catastrophe might bring on an awakening. God does all the saving. If I thought that I personally had anything to do with my salvation back in the early 1980s....then I would think that God owed me something. But I know that God took the lowest of the low....and regenerated my dead heart....and then drew me towards Him....with an....irresistible draw. So much then for God owing me anything....but rather I owe Him everything!
Men will enter their pulpits this Lord's Day....and their mission will be to encourage the saints.....bless them....and comfort them. They will preach a Bible Study. They will take verse by verse and explain what we could see and understand with our own eyes. They took over our own responsibilities to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord....freeing us to pursue other comforts in life....and providing they themselves with....maybe no longer a vocation....but a profession at least.....with the title reverend or pastor or minister so-and-so.
Preaching is believed to be....by many of us....a primary means of grace. Something supernatural is to be happening here! This makes sense when someone is born again through the preaching....as was Charles Spurgeon on that cold winter day in 1850....when an unlearned man was forced into the pulpit.....and he preached as best as he could on a verse in God's Word....and Spurgeon was regenerated right then and there. "Means of grace" does not make sense in a Bible study. There is no miracle in understanding basic Bible doctrine or the efficaciousness of the Sermon of the Mount. There is though a miracle in understanding that we were lost but now we are found. There is a miracle in falling before a Holy God. There is a miracle in having faith and trust and hope.
So again....men will enter their pulpits this Lord's Day....or they will walk behind their plexiglass lecterns....there may be thirty people or there may be thirty thousand before them....instruments and music and even praise may....'raise the roof'....so to speak....but on the whole in America....and for a long time....there has not been....and there generally is not now....no matter how many are falling in the aisles....and how perfect our doctrine may be....and no matter how many good works the church may do....the glory of the LORD descended in the sanctuaries.
Lord willing....and Lord willing only.....we have absolutely nothing to do with it....the Holy Spirit will this Lord's Day have mercy upon all of us....you and I....humble us and strengthen us through this....'means of grace".....and bring us together....and give us discernment....both miracles. Otherwise....if it not be His will to have mercy upon us....maybe it will be next Lord's Day.....June 8.....2025....or in 2026....but it will not be long....for the steady hearing of the preached Word by either men from the past....such as Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones....and those men today who do preach like men of the past....has made it clear to me that not only is the coming of our Lord and Savior and King near....but also that of our great need of His near return!
Afterthought: This is for those readers.....and I am confident that some of you are here....who have attended church many times in your life but just cannot see what all the excitement in some people is all about....I have this advice for you. Google either....hopefully both....Spurgeon sermon YouTube or Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermon You Tube....and listen to a few of these sermons from men who had preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.....so powerfully and so effectually....that not only did they make a mark on the church in their time....Spurgeon in London in the latter half of the nineteenth century....and Lloyd-Jones in the same city in most of the twentieth century....but their ministries to this day....(I am but one example)....bless the entire church in the whole world!
If I haven't yet led you to listen to these men preach....you might try this....for it is tremendously enjoyable....on your computer or on Roku you can watch the 70 minute docu-drama....Charles Spurgeon: The People's Preacher.
