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Monday, 23 July 2012
Parental Evangelism - C H Spurgeon
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Do You Use Downloaded Sermons?
I have been reliably informed that there are ministers, and given the circle of ministers my friend moves around, evangelical ministers who have become so lazy that instead of preparing their sermons from the text of Scripture, they download pre-prepared sermons and then serve these up for their congregations.
If you re-call a post I inserted a few weeks ago, I made the point that listening to some preachers you'd be excused for thinking that they were reading someone else's sermons rather than preparing their own. My informant assured me that this is happening today.
If this is now starting to be the norm amongst preachers, then theological colleges and training are at serious risk. These are the men who will encourage other younger men to do likewise. Book sales will plummet, and time spent in the study preparing God's message for the congregation will be greatly reduced. Then the minister can perfect his golf swing, or conduct his postgraduate research, or just skive about doing as little as possible.
If this becomes common-place, then may God have mercy on us.
If you re-call a post I inserted a few weeks ago, I made the point that listening to some preachers you'd be excused for thinking that they were reading someone else's sermons rather than preparing their own. My informant assured me that this is happening today.
If this is now starting to be the norm amongst preachers, then theological colleges and training are at serious risk. These are the men who will encourage other younger men to do likewise. Book sales will plummet, and time spent in the study preparing God's message for the congregation will be greatly reduced. Then the minister can perfect his golf swing, or conduct his postgraduate research, or just skive about doing as little as possible.
If this becomes common-place, then may God have mercy on us.
Planning Your Wedding
Every year, young, and not so young, couples get married - a somewhat stressful time for them. I have discovered this ebook that gives many helpful hints and tips on organising your marriage, and if you visit this site you find useful ideas and suggestions that will help take much of the stress out of organising your wedding.
This ebook is not written from a Christian perspective, but the advice it gives will be helpful to you.
Oh, and by the way, if you get your copy within the next 30 days, I will give you 50% discount off the cover price of $17.00. When you land on this website just enter the coupon reference RK43B and you will buy the ebook for half price.
Also, feel free to tell your friends about this offer. remember, it ends on 22nd August 2012.
This ebook is not written from a Christian perspective, but the advice it gives will be helpful to you.
Oh, and by the way, if you get your copy within the next 30 days, I will give you 50% discount off the cover price of $17.00. When you land on this website just enter the coupon reference RK43B and you will buy the ebook for half price.
Also, feel free to tell your friends about this offer. remember, it ends on 22nd August 2012.
Confessionitis
It is almost suffocating how committed some evangelical ministers to man's word rather than to God's Word. In liberal denominations, attempts are still being made to hold fellow ministers, not to God's unchanging Word and Gospel, but to man's fallible and imperfect words in confessions, etc. Confessions appear to take up the time of church ministers who believe that if he can get his colleagues to adhere to the words of man, and thereby be orthodox, they will then be faithful to Scripture. How facile an approach!
These are the men who at their ordination to the Christian ministry confessed the Scriptures to be the Supreme standard by which every other doctrine is to be assessed. They also said that all and every man-made document is merely a subordinate standard; such are useful as guides but they are not infallible.
Therefore to try to get ministers to stick more closely to the confession of faith in a bid to get them to stick more closely to the Scriptures is a much longer route to true orthodoxy than to get them to go straight to Scripture and try to ensure faithfulness to its teaching.
Fallen mankind is always prone to find and take the longest route to a particular destination than to take the most direct route there. Souls are perishing while ministers fiddle about with inconsequential matters. Get men to the Gospel and insist that they preach it with passion and faithfulness, and many of the churches problems will then have been solved.
Subordinate standards, while useful, are just that - subordinate standards. But the Holy Scriptures are the SUPREME STANDARD for all matters of faith and practice. Let it be so in deed and in fact.
These are the men who at their ordination to the Christian ministry confessed the Scriptures to be the Supreme standard by which every other doctrine is to be assessed. They also said that all and every man-made document is merely a subordinate standard; such are useful as guides but they are not infallible.
Therefore to try to get ministers to stick more closely to the confession of faith in a bid to get them to stick more closely to the Scriptures is a much longer route to true orthodoxy than to get them to go straight to Scripture and try to ensure faithfulness to its teaching.
Fallen mankind is always prone to find and take the longest route to a particular destination than to take the most direct route there. Souls are perishing while ministers fiddle about with inconsequential matters. Get men to the Gospel and insist that they preach it with passion and faithfulness, and many of the churches problems will then have been solved.
Subordinate standards, while useful, are just that - subordinate standards. But the Holy Scriptures are the SUPREME STANDARD for all matters of faith and practice. Let it be so in deed and in fact.
Undefined Worship at Portstewart Convention
When I started attending Portstewart convention some 40 years ago, one of the outstanding characteristics of the week was the praise. The accompaniment was by Mrs Marrie Millar on the piano, and that was just what it was - accompaniment.
This has continued for the Bible Readings when a lady plays the keyboard and accompanies the praise. The praise is dignified, reverent and respectful of the God Who is being praised.
Nowadays, for the evening meetings there is a 'worship band' and a 'worship leader.' And their purpose? To do what they can to smother the praise and drown out the words that are sung in praise of God.
Sadly, this new way of praising God has been brought in by the new generation of committee members who want to attract the younger Christian to the meetings. But if this worldly-imitating music is what it takes to attract young Christian to hear the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, then that is an eloquent commentary of where young people are at spiritually. It tells me that so accustomed are they to rock music in their everyday lives that they cannot live without it when they come into God's house. Such music reminds me of the 1960s when contemporary music reflected the rebellion against authority that was common in that age. They cannot tolerate quietness or even silence - there must be npoise everywhere, and the louder the better.
Is this worldliness or what? Is this not the church imitating the godless age in which we live?
Indeed, the almost repetition of songs and choruses, the jumping back and forth to earlier and later verses, the man-centredness of the lyrics and the almost romanticised expressions describing and/or facilitating their devotion of Christ, are not God-honouring at all. The older generation of attendees at Portstewart are not in the least impressed by the noise and the lack of reverence that is exhibited in the evening meetings. In fact, the praise presents a contrary 'message' to that delivered by the evening preacher.
What will happen when the targetted youths become less than enamoured of the current music style at Portstewart? One of two things will happen: either the committee will follow the Keswick in Cumbria and hype up the music to become inmdistinmguishable from Top of the Pops in order to retain these mal- contented young people; or they will leave and go tyo the various Vineyard fellowships that are darting up around the country. I fear that when Portstewart is no longer noisy enough for this constituency, it will follow its elderly mother and go down the rock road.
May God have mercy on us all.
This has continued for the Bible Readings when a lady plays the keyboard and accompanies the praise. The praise is dignified, reverent and respectful of the God Who is being praised.
Nowadays, for the evening meetings there is a 'worship band' and a 'worship leader.' And their purpose? To do what they can to smother the praise and drown out the words that are sung in praise of God.
Sadly, this new way of praising God has been brought in by the new generation of committee members who want to attract the younger Christian to the meetings. But if this worldly-imitating music is what it takes to attract young Christian to hear the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, then that is an eloquent commentary of where young people are at spiritually. It tells me that so accustomed are they to rock music in their everyday lives that they cannot live without it when they come into God's house. Such music reminds me of the 1960s when contemporary music reflected the rebellion against authority that was common in that age. They cannot tolerate quietness or even silence - there must be npoise everywhere, and the louder the better.
Is this worldliness or what? Is this not the church imitating the godless age in which we live?
Indeed, the almost repetition of songs and choruses, the jumping back and forth to earlier and later verses, the man-centredness of the lyrics and the almost romanticised expressions describing and/or facilitating their devotion of Christ, are not God-honouring at all. The older generation of attendees at Portstewart are not in the least impressed by the noise and the lack of reverence that is exhibited in the evening meetings. In fact, the praise presents a contrary 'message' to that delivered by the evening preacher.
What will happen when the targetted youths become less than enamoured of the current music style at Portstewart? One of two things will happen: either the committee will follow the Keswick in Cumbria and hype up the music to become inmdistinmguishable from Top of the Pops in order to retain these mal- contented young people; or they will leave and go tyo the various Vineyard fellowships that are darting up around the country. I fear that when Portstewart is no longer noisy enough for this constituency, it will follow its elderly mother and go down the rock road.
May God have mercy on us all.
Saturday, 21 July 2012
Portstewart Convention 2012
The final meeting of this year's convention was the call to service meeting. Dr Steve Brady spoke eloquently and from the heart on the matter of being available to God to use the gifts, natural and supernatural, that He has given us. His 'scouser' humour laced his exposition of Eph.2:8-10 and Eph.4:8ff.
Some straight-laced Christians might have had difficulty with his illustrations and humour, but with DMLJ, he certainly gave me a sense of the presence of God. He said that we must not merely be taught the Word of God but be transformed by it.
That is challenging. How many 'sermon tasters' attend such conventions is impossible to say, but that they are there is proved by the fact that transformation of life and attitude does not follow the preaching of the Word. Men can say all the right words in public but what is the real spiritual result in their lives - nay, in our lives? They can say what is thought to be the right thing to say in such situations, but what is the end result in their, nay, our, lives? Will the local and regional church know any difference as a result of sitting under a full diet of expository sermons? Or will men defer once again, as is their custom, to the final authority of the church or denomination? Time will tell.
Dr Brady structured his final message around the following headings: God will ask his servants on the last Day, that great and terrible Day of the Lord,
(1) What did you do with the talents;
(2) What did you do with the time; and
(3) What did you do with the treasure;
I gave you?
The message gave me a sense of God's presence, and as we left the tent, we had a lot to process and act upon.
All in all, a good convention and excellent ministry.
Some straight-laced Christians might have had difficulty with his illustrations and humour, but with DMLJ, he certainly gave me a sense of the presence of God. He said that we must not merely be taught the Word of God but be transformed by it.
That is challenging. How many 'sermon tasters' attend such conventions is impossible to say, but that they are there is proved by the fact that transformation of life and attitude does not follow the preaching of the Word. Men can say all the right words in public but what is the real spiritual result in their lives - nay, in our lives? They can say what is thought to be the right thing to say in such situations, but what is the end result in their, nay, our, lives? Will the local and regional church know any difference as a result of sitting under a full diet of expository sermons? Or will men defer once again, as is their custom, to the final authority of the church or denomination? Time will tell.
Dr Brady structured his final message around the following headings: God will ask his servants on the last Day, that great and terrible Day of the Lord,
(1) What did you do with the talents;
(2) What did you do with the time; and
(3) What did you do with the treasure;
I gave you?
The message gave me a sense of God's presence, and as we left the tent, we had a lot to process and act upon.
All in all, a good convention and excellent ministry.
Friday, 20 July 2012
Serving Two Masters?
The meeting this morning at Keswick at Portstewart emphasised that "No man can serve two masters." It is either Christ or mammon (money).
Yet this impossibility is being attempted on a massive scale within conservative evangelicalism. Some Christians try to have it both ways. But it cannot be done successfully without dire spiritual consequences.
But this principle is attacked in a much more subtle way, and with the very same consequences. Ministers and other Christians and also church members are trying to ride both horses - the Gospel and the church. But no man can serve two masters - so said Jesus then and He still says it now. Ministers have to choose whom it is they will serve unreservedly.
And it does not seem to matter what the church does, says, thinks or believes, Christian men will still serve her best interests before those of the Gospel.
Why is this? Answer: the Gospel costs, but the church recognises and rewards. Faithfulness to the Gospel demands sacrifice, but faithfulness to the Church gets you a DD. Serving the church gets you on to all kinds of influential boards and committees, but serving the Gospel is guaranteed to block any such appointment. Serving the Gospel will lead inexorably to a Cross, but serving the church will get you promoted.
It ought to be that Gospel men are welcome within the Christian church, but that is not necessarily the case. Especially in theologically mixed and compromised denominations, they are only tolerated because they give their first allegiance in practice to the church in which they serve. With a Chairman's position up for grabs, who in his (or her) right mind will jeopardise that!
There is great need for an in-depth re-appraisal of our priorities as Christians and as Christian ministers, an in-depth re-appraisal that will bring the ministry and church back to the Bible, not just to the embracing of an orthodox theology (important that that is), but to a living and vital relationship with Christ that will not be ruptured even by the church and her demands.
Yet this impossibility is being attempted on a massive scale within conservative evangelicalism. Some Christians try to have it both ways. But it cannot be done successfully without dire spiritual consequences.
But this principle is attacked in a much more subtle way, and with the very same consequences. Ministers and other Christians and also church members are trying to ride both horses - the Gospel and the church. But no man can serve two masters - so said Jesus then and He still says it now. Ministers have to choose whom it is they will serve unreservedly.
And it does not seem to matter what the church does, says, thinks or believes, Christian men will still serve her best interests before those of the Gospel.
Why is this? Answer: the Gospel costs, but the church recognises and rewards. Faithfulness to the Gospel demands sacrifice, but faithfulness to the Church gets you a DD. Serving the church gets you on to all kinds of influential boards and committees, but serving the Gospel is guaranteed to block any such appointment. Serving the Gospel will lead inexorably to a Cross, but serving the church will get you promoted.
It ought to be that Gospel men are welcome within the Christian church, but that is not necessarily the case. Especially in theologically mixed and compromised denominations, they are only tolerated because they give their first allegiance in practice to the church in which they serve. With a Chairman's position up for grabs, who in his (or her) right mind will jeopardise that!
There is great need for an in-depth re-appraisal of our priorities as Christians and as Christian ministers, an in-depth re-appraisal that will bring the ministry and church back to the Bible, not just to the embracing of an orthodox theology (important that that is), but to a living and vital relationship with Christ that will not be ruptured even by the church and her demands.
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