Social Security.....for example....can be a....means of support. With a lot of people it's their only means of support. Well....theologians have a job to tell us everything in the Bible that we can't see on our own....and one of those things is that listening to a preached sermon....is a means of grace.
Let's go back to those people where Social Security is their only means of support. They are not going to eat very well without it....consequently they are not going to get the nutrition that they need....but I heard an infomercial just today that said that obese people can and usually are....malnourished....because they become obese eating a lot of food....but its the wrong kind of food!
Folks....it's the same in our Christian walk. We can get all kinds of sermons....and yet be totally malnourished. That is what we have today in evangelicalism. You see the reason I know this is that at about the age of forty-five or so I was just walking the concourse of a shopping center....the Northern Lights Shopping Center in Baden, Pennsylvania actually...and I stopped into this restaurant that had food that I had never eaten before.....(actually it was a Christian bookstore that had books that I had never seen before....and the name of the store was....It Is Written.) All the energy in these three-thousand-some posts over seventeen and half years....and the pleading and the warnings and the hopefully encouraging....all of it....comes from the preached sermons that those books in that bookstore over time led me to. I overeat....I admit it. I listen to on average two to three sermons each and every day....each and every week....each and every year....(for quite a number of years anyway)....of my life! I binge sermons from these men who God has used so mightily.
And because of this sermon binging....or binging the means of grace....I cannot stop telling people so many things....that Jesus gave us the greatest gift that any man could ever be given....and that God is loving and merciful....but also just and righteous....and that we are like sheep....always going astray....and that Jesus keeps His sheep....with either His rod or His staff if necessary....and that this world has run its course....and we are Noah all over again....the following few sentences are from an earlier post...."If you read the Genesis account in chapter six you will find that...."[men]....took wives for themselves of all whom they chose." In the next verse we see God's response in...."And the Lord said, 'My Spirit shall not strive with man forever...'." A few verses later we read "for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth." (This is transgenderism....this is everything today folks....and avoiding our culpability...and blaming everything on the Democrats....will not get God's ear!) And once again a few verses later "....the earth is filled with violence."....but no one will see any of this if their passions are on things of this world....things that withereth as the grass....and fadeth as the flower!
Here is a verse of God's Word that should make our hair stand on end....from the prophet Amos....eighth chapter....eleventh verse....this from the ESV...." 'Behold....the days are coming'....[they are here folks!]....declares the Lord God....'when I will send a famine on the land-not a famine of bread....nor a thirst for water....but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD'."
I do not even know you so I can't take you by the hand....and that is good....because we live in an evangelical age where everyone demands to be led by the hand....'won't you please come to this Bible study'....or....'Won't you please join this cell group'....but it's long past time for each of us to take the bull by the horns....or put our nose to the grindstone....and push everything else away....and find out once and for all what all the fuss is about with some Christians!
I have posted so many times on this over the years....and I usually use this phrase...."preachers of the past....[such as Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones]....or preachers today who preach like preachers of the past....[such as John MacArthur and R. C. Sproul and David Wilkerson]....this is what you need.....and it would be easy to do....it just takes a passion....a passion to finally know what all this is about when some talk about...."the preciousness of Christ!" "Preciousness".....who uses words like that today. Well Christians who are fed by His Word....by....preachers of the past....or preachers today who preach like preachers of the past....they use this word....and other humble and joyful words like it!
I have offered this wonderful movie many times. Take the bull by the horns....finally address this nagging that you must have....and watch it....
