Encouragement
The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear
Feb/24/10 07:37
The following is excerpted from Charles Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students:
Having often said in this room that a minister ought to have one blind eye and one deaf ear, I have excited the curiosity of several brethren, who have requested an explanation; for it appears to them, as it does also to me, that the keener eyes and ears we have the better. Well, gentlemen, since the text is somewhat mysterious, you shall have the exegesis of it.
A part of my meaning is expressed in plain language by Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes (7:21): "Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee." The margin says, "Give not thy heart to all words that are spoken"--do not take them to heart or let them weigh with you, do not notice them, or act as if you heard them. Read More...
How to Make Wise Decisions in God's Will
Feb/10/10 08:25
February 10, 2010 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
Many young people have spoiled their Christian lives because of bad decisions made apart from God’s will for their lives (e.g., wrong job, wrong friends, wrong marriage partner, mistakes in the pursuit of education, mistakes made in moving to the another place). Following are some foundational Bible principles for how to make wise decisions in God’s will:
1. Be sure that you are converted.
“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
We have dealt with this extensively in an earlier chapter of the book, but until a young person is born again he cannot serve God acceptably and cannot know His will.
A Time to Frown and a Time to Smile
Jan/05/10 08:23
December 29, 2009 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by William Arnot, Studies in Proverbs:
"The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue." Proverbs 25:23
There is a use for everything. There is a use for the north wind, and for an angry countenance. Rough visaged, ungainly messengers both are; but when sent on necessary errands, they fulfil their mission well. When David wanted a weapon, Ahimelech, the peaceful priest of Nob, having no other than the sword of Goliath, which he kept as a relic, apologized as he offered it, thinking it not sufficiently slim and fashionable for a soldier from the court. "There is none like that," said David; "give it me." The man of war had seen hard service, and expected more: The sword that could deal a heavy blow was the sword for him.
According to the translation in the text, it appears that in the climate of Palestine the north wind carries the rain clouds away, and prevents them from discharging their burden on the land. The same phenomenon is to some extent observed in our own island [Britain]. This meteoric fact is framed into a proverb, and employed to describe an analogous feature in the action of moral forces in human life: "An angry countenance driveth away a backbiting tongue."
There is a place for anger as well as for love. As in nature a gloomy tempest serves some beneficial purposes for which calm sunshine has no faculty; so in morals a frown on an honest man's brow is, in its own place, as needful and useful as the sweetest smile that kindness ever kindles on a human countenance. A gentle, loving character is much admired, and, where it is genuine, deserves all the admiration it has ever gotten yet. These features, however, constitute only one side of a man, and we must see the other side err we can pronounce an intelligent judgment on his worth. If he has not another side, he will not leave his mark on the world. Read More...
The following is by William Arnot, Studies in Proverbs:
"The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue." Proverbs 25:23
There is a use for everything. There is a use for the north wind, and for an angry countenance. Rough visaged, ungainly messengers both are; but when sent on necessary errands, they fulfil their mission well. When David wanted a weapon, Ahimelech, the peaceful priest of Nob, having no other than the sword of Goliath, which he kept as a relic, apologized as he offered it, thinking it not sufficiently slim and fashionable for a soldier from the court. "There is none like that," said David; "give it me." The man of war had seen hard service, and expected more: The sword that could deal a heavy blow was the sword for him.
According to the translation in the text, it appears that in the climate of Palestine the north wind carries the rain clouds away, and prevents them from discharging their burden on the land. The same phenomenon is to some extent observed in our own island [Britain]. This meteoric fact is framed into a proverb, and employed to describe an analogous feature in the action of moral forces in human life: "An angry countenance driveth away a backbiting tongue."
There is a place for anger as well as for love. As in nature a gloomy tempest serves some beneficial purposes for which calm sunshine has no faculty; so in morals a frown on an honest man's brow is, in its own place, as needful and useful as the sweetest smile that kindness ever kindles on a human countenance. A gentle, loving character is much admired, and, where it is genuine, deserves all the admiration it has ever gotten yet. These features, however, constitute only one side of a man, and we must see the other side err we can pronounce an intelligent judgment on his worth. If he has not another side, he will not leave his mark on the world. Read More...
Ten Tips for Daily Bible Reading
Dec/15/09 07:42
It is the Word of God that has the power to sanctify the believer and build him up in Christ. It imparts conviction, enlightenment, spiritual strength, faith, wisdom, repentance. Consider the following Scriptures:
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Joshua 1:8).
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” (Psalms 1:1-3).
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Psalms 119:9). Read More...
Knowing God's Will
Dec/08/09 12:17
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness” (Romans 12:1-8).
We see here that God has a great work in this world and He has called on His people to participate. There is a perfect will of God for each believer. If you are saved, you are called.
We see that the will of God must be proven. Salvation is a gift but God’s will is a prize to be sought.
REDEEMING THE TIME
Aug/26/09 08:08
August 26, 2009 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
“LOST YESTERDAY: somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.”
The Bible exhorts us to redeem the time because life is short (Ephesians 5:16), but the average person wastes vast amounts of time that could be spent profitably.
The book of Proverbs has many warnings about slothfulness. The sluggard “deals with a slack hand” (Prov. 10:4) and loves to laze around (Prov. 20:13; 26:14). He likes to “fold the hands” (Prov. 6:10; 24:33). This phrase could refer to conversing about things of no value, watching television, endlessly collecting pop CDs and MP3 files, playing video games, being consumed with professional sports, fishing, golfing, snowboarding, surfing the Internet, you name it. The sluggard is diligent toward folly but he is lazy toward wisdom. He wastes time and opportunities and doesn’t plan ahead and work hard to fulfill wise objectives (Prov. 6:6-8). He is not self-motivated and diligent in the important issues of life, but he must have someone ruling over him and telling him what to do. When out from under this authority and when left to himself he puts off and neglects the important things. The sluggard uses many excuses to get out of work (Prov. 20:4; 22:13). While the diligent man finds a way to work regardless of the circumstance, the sluggard is busier finding an excuse not to work than to find a way to accomplish the work. The sluggard thinks success is 99% genius and 1% sweat, whereas it is more like 1% genius and 99% sweat. Success makes it own way through diligence and persistence, but the sluggard would rather hope for a jackpot. The sluggard has many desires and plans and covets many things, but he will not work hard to attain these things and thus he is frustrated (Prov. 21:25-26). It’s not that the sluggard doesn’t have any ambition; he is going to do a lot of things whenever he finally gets around to it! Read More...
“LOST YESTERDAY: somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.”
The Bible exhorts us to redeem the time because life is short (Ephesians 5:16), but the average person wastes vast amounts of time that could be spent profitably.
The book of Proverbs has many warnings about slothfulness. The sluggard “deals with a slack hand” (Prov. 10:4) and loves to laze around (Prov. 20:13; 26:14). He likes to “fold the hands” (Prov. 6:10; 24:33). This phrase could refer to conversing about things of no value, watching television, endlessly collecting pop CDs and MP3 files, playing video games, being consumed with professional sports, fishing, golfing, snowboarding, surfing the Internet, you name it. The sluggard is diligent toward folly but he is lazy toward wisdom. He wastes time and opportunities and doesn’t plan ahead and work hard to fulfill wise objectives (Prov. 6:6-8). He is not self-motivated and diligent in the important issues of life, but he must have someone ruling over him and telling him what to do. When out from under this authority and when left to himself he puts off and neglects the important things. The sluggard uses many excuses to get out of work (Prov. 20:4; 22:13). While the diligent man finds a way to work regardless of the circumstance, the sluggard is busier finding an excuse not to work than to find a way to accomplish the work. The sluggard thinks success is 99% genius and 1% sweat, whereas it is more like 1% genius and 99% sweat. Success makes it own way through diligence and persistence, but the sluggard would rather hope for a jackpot. The sluggard has many desires and plans and covets many things, but he will not work hard to attain these things and thus he is frustrated (Prov. 21:25-26). It’s not that the sluggard doesn’t have any ambition; he is going to do a lot of things whenever he finally gets around to it! Read More...
DREAD OF CONTROVERSY
Jul/14/09 06:55
July 14, 2009 (Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following was written by Robert Haldane in 1874 --
Many religious persons have a dread of controversy and wish truth to be stated without any reference to those who hold the opposite errors. Controversy and a bad spirit are, in their estimation, synonymous terms. And strenuously to oppose what is wrong is considered as contrary to Christian meekness. Those who hold this opinion seem to overlook what every page of the New Testament lays before us. In all the history of our Lord Jesus Christ, we never find Him out of controversy. From the moment He entered on the discharge of His office in the synagogue of Nazareth till He expired on the cross, it was an uninterrupted scene of controversy. Nor did He, with all the heavenly meekness which in Him shone so brightly, treat truth and error without reference to those who held them or study to avoid giving its proper appellation to those corruptions in doctrine or practice that endangered the interests of immortal souls. His censures were not confined to doctrine but included the abettors of false principles themselves. Read More...
The following was written by Robert Haldane in 1874 --
THE BLIND EYE AND THE DEAF EAR
Jun/30/09 16:19
July 1, 2009 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is excerpted from Charles Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students:
Having often said in this room that a minister ought to have one blind eye and one deaf ear, I have excited the curiosity of several brethren, who have requested an explanation; for it appears to them, as it does also to me, that the keener eyes and ears we have the better. Well, gentlemen, since the text is somewhat mysterious, you shall have the exegesis of it.
A part of my meaning is expressed in plain language by Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes (7:21): "Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee." The margin says, "Give not thy heart to all words that are spoken"--do not take them to heart or let them weigh with you, do not notice them, or act as if you heard them.
You cannot stop people's tongues, and therefore the best thing is to stop your own ears and never mind what is spoken. There is a world of idle chit- chat abroad, and he who takes note of it will have enough to do. He will find that even those who live with him are not always singing his praises, and that when he has displeased his most faithful servants, they have, in the heat of the moment, spoken fierce words which it would be better for him not to have heard. Who has not, under temporary irritation, said that of another which he has afterwards regretted? Read More...
The following is excerpted from Charles Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students:
A part of my meaning is expressed in plain language by Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes (7:21): "Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee." The margin says, "Give not thy heart to all words that are spoken"--do not take them to heart or let them weigh with you, do not notice them, or act as if you heard them.
You cannot stop people's tongues, and therefore the best thing is to stop your own ears and never mind what is spoken. There is a world of idle chit- chat abroad, and he who takes note of it will have enough to do. He will find that even those who live with him are not always singing his praises, and that when he has displeased his most faithful servants, they have, in the heat of the moment, spoken fierce words which it would be better for him not to have heard. Who has not, under temporary irritation, said that of another which he has afterwards regretted? Read More...
THE WAY OF VICTORY IN TRIALS
Jun/10/09 06:08
June 10, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
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“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways” (James 1:2-11).
James mentions five things that are necessary in order to have victory in trials.
1. Count it joy (Jam. 1:2).
Read More...
THE POWER OF GOOD CHRISTIAN BOOKS
Apr/16/09 08:04
Enlarged April 16, 2009 (first published May 23, 2007) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.” (2 Timothy 4:13)
“The man who doesn’t read isn’t any better off than the man who cannot read.”
“Five years from now you will be the same person except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
“Gentlemen, either read or get out of the ministry” (John Wesley). Read More...
“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.” (2 Timothy 4:13)
“The man who doesn’t read isn’t any better off than the man who cannot read.”
“Five years from now you will be the same person except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
“Gentlemen, either read or get out of the ministry” (John Wesley). Read More...
MINISTERING WHILE MAMMON MELTS DOWN
Mar/11/09 05:38
March 11, 2009 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith, Grace Baptist Church, Malanda, Queensland, smiletex@bigpond.net.au:
_____________________________
Elijah ministered while Mammon melted down.
Enigmatic Elijah.
He sprang onto the pages of Scripture without introduction, a man of great discernment and perception. He saw clearly not only the wickedness of his king, he saw also the desperate spiritual condition of his people. Israel had stagnated into a state of indecision. They, the redeemed slaves of Egypt, could not even decide which god to worship, Baal or Jehovah. He saw the idolatry of their king's covetousness and he saw the bondage of Mammon. He discerned the mind of God regarding his nation and prayed accordingly. James 5:17, 18 describes his prayer that it might not rain, “...he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.” What an example he is to the men of God in this generation! Here is a man who was so bold as to pray for the meltdown of Mammon so that his people might have a spiritual awakening. He prayed for the loss of the material wealth of his people so that they might obtain true riches.
THE VIRTUOUS WOMAN
Jan/08/09 12:41
January 8, 2009 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is an excerpt from the Advanced Bible Studies Series “PROVERBS,” which is available from Way of Life Literature.
THE VIRTUOUS WOMAN (Proverbs 31:10-31)
This book, which has warned frequently of the danger of the strange woman and the foolish wife (e.g. Prov. 2:16-19; 5:3-14; 6:24-35; 7:5-27; 9:13-18; 11:22; 14:1; 21:9; 23:27-28; 25:24), concludes with the glory of the virtuous wife.
It is a wonderful token of grace that this description of the virtuous woman was written by Bathsheba (assuming, as we do, that it was). She writes that the husband of the virtuous woman can safely trust in her, yet she betrayed the trust of her first husband by responding to David’s sinful invitation. Of course she might have put herself and her husband in jeopardy by refusing David’s lust, but she would have kept God’s Law and maintained her honor. Yet God forgave her sin and she became a prophetess of truth and righteousness and a spokeswoman for virtue!
Bathsheba exhorts her son to find a virtuous woman. This was probably taught to him as he was growing up. That he disobeyed his mother’s counsel resulted in his terrible backsliding and the loss of most of the kingdom (1 Kings 11:1-13).
This lengthy description of the virtuous woman teaches us the immense importance of the godly wife. She is mentioned in many passages of the New Testament as well (Ephesians 5:22-33; Colossians 3:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-15; 3:11; Titus 2:3-5; 1 Peter 3:1-6). “And with good reason is so much stress laid upon it, since it contributes as much as any one thing to the keeping up of religion in families, and the entail of it upon posterity, that the mothers be wise and good; and of what consequence it is to the wealth and outward prosperity of a house every one is sensible. He that will thrive must ask his wife leave” (Matthew Henry). “In choosing a wife, fools will follow their fancy, and the wise will act according to reason and the word of God” (George Lawson).
In the Hebrew language Proverbs 31:10-31 is an acrostic. Each verse begins with a different character in the Hebrew alphabet, beginning with Aleph and ending with Tau. This facilitated memorization by Jewish children.
OUR GREATEST FAILING
Aug/07/08 10:18
OUR GREATEST FAILING
August 7, 2008 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia
It was in a missions conference almost forty years ago that a dear old missionary planted a seed in my heart that has grown into a very fruitful tree. In fact the older it gets the more fruit it bears. He told all of us young preachers about a question he asked every preacher he met. He asked it of pastors, and missionaries, and evangelists, and mission board directors and college professors, and retired pastors. He asked them all the same question. And he got the same answer every time. If I didn't know him to be a godly and honest man, I would question his results. I think he told me the truth.
The question? It went like this, “In your opinion, what is your greatest failing? What aspect of your life as a Christian is most in need of improvement?”
The answer? Time and time again, his preacher friends would search the archives of their hearts and then a look of great solemnity would come over their faces. And they would confess their universal failure, “My greatest shortcoming is my prayer life. That is where I am most inconsistent.”
I feel I must add my vote to theirs. Read my Bible? Witness to others? Study God's Word? Preach the truth? Live a clean life? All of these poll well. But my prayer life? It's a nice day today, isn't it?
Say, I wonder how our churches would answer if it were possible to ask them this question? If we could obtain an accurate answer to that question, what would it be? Would it be, “We don't pray enough. We don't pray with power. We don't storm the gates of Hell on our knees. We don't rattle the gates of Heaven with our prayers. We don't intercede for our missionaries and bring their burdens to the throne of grace.”
Take the average Wednesday night prayer meeting for an example. We sing too many songs. We read no missionary letters. We preach too long. We listen to a list of Who's Who In the Hospital. And then Pastor calls on one or two men to pray. And we call it a prayer meeting. For shame. We could be sued for false advertising. Call it Sunday Nite Lite, but don't call it a prayer meeting.
I suspect that we are not aware of the weakness of our churches' prayer ministries. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy this wise counsel, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Tim. 2:1-4).
The apostles knew that prayer is priority! “First of all!” First of all...pray!
We suppose we pray enough, but we do not. We pretend we are rich and increased in our petitions and have no need of change, and know not the poverty of our prayerlessness. What if we were to add up all the manhours of real praying we do in our churches in one week (or should we call it ladyminutes?). Would all the prayers offered in all our meetings add up to an hour a week? Two hours? Three, if we speak evangelistically?
Charles Spurgeon once advised his students not to pray for more than 15 minutes in the prayer before the sermon. 15 minutes! Today it is more like 15 seconds! He once took Moody down to the basement to show him a group of several hundred prayer warriors who met each Sunday to intercede for their pastor WHILE HE PREACHED UPSTAIRS!
And what about the old fashioned all night prayer meetings we used to have? Where did that idea ever come from? Ahem, have you ever read Acts 12:5? “Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.” Prayer was a priority for the churches in the book of Acts.
No church knows everything there is to know about prayer. But every pastor can implement changes in the prayer life of his church. Like what?
Well, we can have men's prayer breakfasts, and when your men get blest with them, change it to Men's Prayer Fasts and leave off the food. That'll sort the men from the boys.
And we can set aside enough time between Sunday School and Church to have a time of prayer.
And we can meet half an hour before church on Sunday night to pray for the service.
And set aside some Wednesday nights to do nothing but pray. And read all the missionary letters and be sure every request gets prayed for.
And stop being afraid of what people will think if Pastor kneels with a brother to pray for his needs in the middle of the congregation before or after a service.
In closing, let me share with you a letter I received the other day about the prayers of a brand new Christian. Here's what his mum relayed to me after talking to him on the phone:
“But the thing he was MOST excited about was their all-night prayer meeting on Friday night. The young adults prayed from 10:00pm - 3:00 am. He said he realized for the first time how important it is to pray as the Spirit directs you. He had several things on his list to pray about but could not see how he could have enough to pray about for 5 hours. He said that he just kept thinking of more and more things to pray for and by 3:00am he realized he needed MORE time to pray for all the things that the Lord had brought to his mind. He commented that it was the Holy Spirit directing him to pray for things that he had not previously thought about, things just kept popping into his mind!”
Ah yes, there is hope for the man who prays. And for the church which prays.
First, pray!
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NEHEMIAH'S TOOLBOX
Jun/18/08 10:18
NEHEMIAH'S TOOLBOX
June 18, 2008 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia --
Men with a vision are builders. Noah and the ark, Abraham and his family, Moses and Israel, Solomon and the temple. Men who see what God gives them to see, men who have a real vision from God are builders. The Lord Jesus Christ said that He would build His church. When He rose from the dead he commissioned His disciples to carry on the work of construction. Pastors, missionaries, evangelists, in fact, every obedient disciple is in the building trade. We build the house(hold) of God with lively stones (I Pet. 2:5). Paul describes himself in I Cor. 3:10 as a wise masterbuilder. The word chosen by the Holy Spirit here is the word "arkitecton". We are to pray and prepare (and perspire) to become the best builders we can for the Lord.
One of my favourite "architectural visionaries" is Nehemiah. What an example he is to the men of God in our generation! His heart was broken by the desperate situation of his nation. His calling was to build among the remnant. Most of his building material was rubble. His ministry depended on his prayer life and his knowledge of the Word of God. He faced strong criticism and opposition from his neighbours. He was beset by discouragement, ridicule, ecumenism, compromise, and indifference. But he had a vision from God. And he had a few willing workers who caught his vision and made it an historical reality.
A dear old pastor friend who is in Heaven once told us of a conversation he had with the boss of a demolition crew. Bro. John asked him how much skill was needed to demolish a building. The expert said, "Not much. Anybody can tear things down." Bro. John then asked him, "If you were to build the building you just knocked down, how much skill would be required?" The builder replied, "Well, that's a different story. If we built this building we would need men with a lot of skill." There are demolition experts around today who tear down the work of the Lord. Some are in the ministry. Some just warm the pew. Some are "hit and run" experts. Some, like Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem, stand off at a distance and, using the catapults of their hatred, they sling their bitter words against the walls of God's work. Ah, but men with a true vision actively build up the work of the Lord.
It is the example of Nehemiah that provokes me to examine his toolbox. Nehemiah's tools are the perfect tools for men of vision. Nehemiah's first tool was his soft heart for the things of God. He was moved by the plight of his people. His second tool was his knowledge of God's Word. Almost every phrase of his prayer in chapter 1 is a direct quote from Holy Scripture. He knew his Bible by heart. His third tool was his prayer life. He knew to pray first. He knew to pray much. He knew to pray desperately. He knew to pray urgently. He knew to pray in every situation. He knew to pray scripturally. (Now that's a power tool!) His fourth tool was his submission to authority. He had learned that, in order to be IN authority, he had to be UNDER authority. His fifth tool was his calling to make the vision of God a reality. He had the divine blueprint, knew how to read it, and was committed to bring the walls and gates to completion. His sixth tool was his conviction that God's work is to be done by God's people God's way. The Samaritans need not apply. Their ecumenical appeals fell on deaf ears. Tobiah was not welcome in the Temple. Intermarriage with pagans was not tolerated.
There is one more tool I see in Nehemiah's toolbox, and that is his wisdom. It is the doublehanded wisdom found in Neh. 4:17. Every one of his labourers had a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. The vision is never accomplished without the trowel, but the trowel will be smitten from our hand if it is not defended with the sword. What an unusual combination of tools! Both are sharp edged, but one is for mortar and one is for keeping the enemies at bay. The enemies stood afar off and gnashed their teeth in frustration as they observed the twohanded wisdom of Nehemiah. This is a most solemn lesson for the Lord's builders in our generation.
If we lay down the Sword, if we cease to oppose the ancient heresies in modern guise, if we are no longer "set for the defence of the gospel" (Phil. 1:17), if our hearts shrink from the polemic epistles and the solemn warnings of the Captain of our salvation, if the Sword is dulled by being immersed in reformed theology, or if it is softened to putty in a new evangelical scabbard, then all the other weapons will be stolen from us and the vision will fail. It is the Sword that holds the Enemy at bay while the trowel does its work!
Let us remember that all the business manuals written by all the church growth gurus can never replace the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God! The Sword and the trowel! Set for the defence of the gospel! Militant Truth! Error exposed and opposed without fear or favour! When the Sword is militant, the trowel is triumphant! We can only build in proportion as we battle!
One of Winston Churchill's quotes is a very fitting description of the churches of our day that have traded in their swords. He said, "They (the pre-war nations) go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, (and) all powerful for impotence." So it is with the churches that are no longer militant for truth, no longer set for the defence of the gospel, no longer holding the Sword in one hand and the trowel in the other.
The Sword defends our right to use the trowel and fulfill the vision of building for God.
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
June 18, 2008 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia
Men with a vision are builders. Noah and the ark, Abraham and his family, Moses and Israel, Solomon and the temple. Men who see what God gives them to see, men who have a real vision from God are builders. The Lord Jesus Christ said that He would build His church. When He rose from the dead he commissioned His disciples to carry on the work of construction. Pastors, missionaries, evangelists, in fact, every obedient disciple is in the building trade. We build the house(hold) of God with lively stones (I Pet. 2:5). Paul describes himself in I Cor. 3:10 as a wise masterbuilder. The word chosen by the Holy Spirit here is the word "arkitecton". We are to pray and prepare (and perspire) to become the best builders we can for the Lord.
One of my favourite "architectural visionaries" is Nehemiah. What an example he is to the men of God in our generation! His heart was broken by the desperate situation of his nation. His calling was to build among the remnant. Most of his building material was rubble. His ministry depended on his prayer life and his knowledge of the Word of God. He faced strong criticism and opposition from his neighbours. He was beset by discouragement, ridicule, ecumenism, compromise, and indifference. But he had a vision from God. And he had a few willing workers who caught his vision and made it an historical reality.
A dear old pastor friend who is in Heaven once told us of a conversation he had with the boss of a demolition crew. Bro. John asked him how much skill was needed to demolish a building. The expert said, "Not much. Anybody can tear things down." Bro. John then asked him, "If you were to build the building you just knocked down, how much skill would be required?" The builder replied, "Well, that's a different story. If we built this building we would need men with a lot of skill." There are demolition experts around today who tear down the work of the Lord. Some are in the ministry. Some just warm the pew. Some are "hit and run" experts. Some, like Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem, stand off at a distance and, using the catapults of their hatred, they sling their bitter words against the walls of God's work. Ah, but men with a true vision actively build up the work of the Lord.
It is the example of Nehemiah that provokes me to examine his toolbox. Nehemiah's tools are the perfect tools for men of vision. Nehemiah's first tool was his soft heart for the things of God. He was moved by the plight of his people. His second tool was his knowledge of God's Word. Almost every phrase of his prayer in chapter 1 is a direct quote from Holy Scripture. He knew his Bible by heart. His third tool was his prayer life. He knew to pray first. He knew to pray much. He knew to pray desperately. He knew to pray urgently. He knew to pray in every situation. He knew to pray scripturally. (Now that's a power tool!) His fourth tool was his submission to authority. He had learned that, in order to be IN authority, he had to be UNDER authority. His fifth tool was his calling to make the vision of God a reality. He had the divine blueprint, knew how to read it, and was committed to bring the walls and gates to completion. His sixth tool was his conviction that God's work is to be done by God's people God's way. The Samaritans need not apply. Their ecumenical appeals fell on deaf ears. Tobiah was not welcome in the Temple. Intermarriage with pagans was not tolerated.
There is one more tool I see in Nehemiah's toolbox, and that is his wisdom. It is the doublehanded wisdom found in Neh. 4:17. Every one of his labourers had a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. The vision is never accomplished without the trowel, but the trowel will be smitten from our hand if it is not defended with the sword. What an unusual combination of tools! Both are sharp edged, but one is for mortar and one is for keeping the enemies at bay. The enemies stood afar off and gnashed their teeth in frustration as they observed the twohanded wisdom of Nehemiah. This is a most solemn lesson for the Lord's builders in our generation.
If we lay down the Sword, if we cease to oppose the ancient heresies in modern guise, if we are no longer "set for the defence of the gospel" (Phil. 1:17), if our hearts shrink from the polemic epistles and the solemn warnings of the Captain of our salvation, if the Sword is dulled by being immersed in reformed theology, or if it is softened to putty in a new evangelical scabbard, then all the other weapons will be stolen from us and the vision will fail. It is the Sword that holds the Enemy at bay while the trowel does its work!
Let us remember that all the business manuals written by all the church growth gurus can never replace the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God! The Sword and the trowel! Set for the defence of the gospel! Militant Truth! Error exposed and opposed without fear or favour! When the Sword is militant, the trowel is triumphant! We can only build in proportion as we battle!
One of Winston Churchill's quotes is a very fitting description of the churches of our day that have traded in their swords. He said, "They (the pre-war nations) go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, (and) all powerful for impotence." So it is with the churches that are no longer militant for truth, no longer set for the defence of the gospel, no longer holding the Sword in one hand and the trowel in the other.
The Sword defends our right to use the trowel and fulfill the vision of building for God.
THE POWER OF GOOD CHRISTIAN BOOKS
Jun/02/08 10:18
THE POWER OF GOOD CHRISTIAN BOOKS
Enlarged June 2, 2008 (first published May 23, 2007) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.” (2 Timothy 4:13)
“The man who doesn’t read isn’t any better off than the man who cannot read.”
“Five years from now you will be the same person except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
“Gentlemen, either read or get out of the ministry” (John Wesley).
“What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps by neglecting it you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep: there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it any more than a thorough Christian. O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or no; read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a petty, superficial prayer” (John Wesley to John Trembeth, August 1760).
“I’ve devoted my life to the distribution of books, Bibles and tracts and anything that will help to further the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reading of good Christian books is one of the best ways to challenge and encourage Christians” (Larry Harrison).
“Only Heaven will determine which was the most important in my earthly ministry--my preaching or the distributing of books.” (Peter Cartwright, circuit riding preacher)
“If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end” (Daniel Webster, 1823).
The following is from Charles Spurgeon’s comments on 2 Timothy 4:13 entitled “Paul: His Cloak and His Books,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 9, year 1863:
“Even an apostle must read. ... He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, ‘GIVE THYSELF UNTO READING.’
“The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.
“Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. YOU need to read. ... We are quite persuaded that the best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, ‘Bring the books’ -- join in the cry.
“Our second remark is, that the apostle is not ashamed to confess that he does read. He is writing to his young son Timothy. Now, some old preachers never like to say a thing which will let the young ones into their secrets. They suppose they must put on a very dignified air, and make a mystery of their sermonizing; but all this is alien from the spirit of truthfulness. Paul wants books, and is not ashamed to tell Timothy that he does; and Timothy may go and tell Tychicus and Titus if he likes--Paul does not care.
“Paul herein is a picture of industry. He is in prison; he cannot preach: What will he do? As he cannot preach, he will read. As we read of the fishermen of old and their boats. The fishermen were gone out of them. What were they doing? Mending their nets. So if providence has laid you upon a sick bed, and you cannot teach your class--if you cannot be working for God in public, mend your nets by reading. If one occupation is taken from you, take another, and let the books of the apostle read you a lesson of industry.
“He says, ‘but especially the parchments.’ I think the books were Latin and Greek works, but that the parchments were Oriental; and possibly they were the parchments of Holy Scripture; or as likely, they were his own parchments, on which were written the originals of his letters which stand in our Bible as the Epistles to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and so on. Now, it must be "Especially the parchments" with all our reading; let it be especially the Bible.
“Do you attach no weight to this advice? This advice is more needed in England now than almost at any other time, for the number of persons who read the Bible, I believe, is becoming smaller every day. Persons read the views of their denominations as set forth in the periodicals; they read the views of their leader as set forth in his sermons or his works, but the Book, the good old Book, the divine fountain-head from which all revelation wells up--this is too often left.
“You may go to human puddles, until you forsake the clear crystal stream which flows from the throne of God. Read the books, by all manner of means, but especially the parchments. Search human literature, if you will, but especially stand fast by that Book which is infallible, the revelation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Charles Spurgeon, 1863).
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 24th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org ]
Enlarged June 2, 2008 (first published May 23, 2007) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
“The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.” (2 Timothy 4:13)
“The man who doesn’t read isn’t any better off than the man who cannot read.”
“Five years from now you will be the same person except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
“Gentlemen, either read or get out of the ministry” (John Wesley).
“What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps by neglecting it you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep: there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it any more than a thorough Christian. O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or no; read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a petty, superficial prayer” (John Wesley to John Trembeth, August 1760).
“I’ve devoted my life to the distribution of books, Bibles and tracts and anything that will help to further the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. The reading of good Christian books is one of the best ways to challenge and encourage Christians” (Larry Harrison).
“Only Heaven will determine which was the most important in my earthly ministry--my preaching or the distributing of books.” (Peter Cartwright, circuit riding preacher)
“If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end” (Daniel Webster, 1823).
The following is from Charles Spurgeon’s comments on 2 Timothy 4:13 entitled “Paul: His Cloak and His Books,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 9, year 1863:
“Even an apostle must read. ... He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, ‘GIVE THYSELF UNTO READING.’
“The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.
“Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. YOU need to read. ... We are quite persuaded that the best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, ‘Bring the books’ -- join in the cry.
“Our second remark is, that the apostle is not ashamed to confess that he does read. He is writing to his young son Timothy. Now, some old preachers never like to say a thing which will let the young ones into their secrets. They suppose they must put on a very dignified air, and make a mystery of their sermonizing; but all this is alien from the spirit of truthfulness. Paul wants books, and is not ashamed to tell Timothy that he does; and Timothy may go and tell Tychicus and Titus if he likes--Paul does not care.
“Paul herein is a picture of industry. He is in prison; he cannot preach: What will he do? As he cannot preach, he will read. As we read of the fishermen of old and their boats. The fishermen were gone out of them. What were they doing? Mending their nets. So if providence has laid you upon a sick bed, and you cannot teach your class--if you cannot be working for God in public, mend your nets by reading. If one occupation is taken from you, take another, and let the books of the apostle read you a lesson of industry.
“He says, ‘but especially the parchments.’ I think the books were Latin and Greek works, but that the parchments were Oriental; and possibly they were the parchments of Holy Scripture; or as likely, they were his own parchments, on which were written the originals of his letters which stand in our Bible as the Epistles to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and so on. Now, it must be "Especially the parchments" with all our reading; let it be especially the Bible.
“Do you attach no weight to this advice? This advice is more needed in England now than almost at any other time, for the number of persons who read the Bible, I believe, is becoming smaller every day. Persons read the views of their denominations as set forth in the periodicals; they read the views of their leader as set forth in his sermons or his works, but the Book, the good old Book, the divine fountain-head from which all revelation wells up--this is too often left.
“You may go to human puddles, until you forsake the clear crystal stream which flows from the throne of God. Read the books, by all manner of means, but especially the parchments. Search human literature, if you will, but especially stand fast by that Book which is infallible, the revelation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Charles Spurgeon, 1863).
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 24th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org ]
HOW GOD PRESERVES HIS WORD
May/19/08 11:01
HOW GOD PRESERVES HIS WORD
May 19, 2008 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Buddy Smith, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Malanda, Queensland --
The Anvil of God's Word
Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
"How many anvils have you had," said I,
"To wear and batter all these hammers so?"
"Just one," said he, and then, with twinkling eye,
"The anvil wears the hammers out, you know."
And so, thought I, the anvil of God's Word,
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed--the hammers gone.
--John Clifford
Broken hammers! Those two words sum up the entire history of men's attacks on the Word of God. The anvil of God's Word has for centuries suffered countless hammer blows from its enemies, yet it bears not a dent or scratch from all their spite! I see inscribed upon the broken hammers the names of those who wielded them! I see Sennacharib's name. Jehoiakim's name is there (Jer. 36). Diocletian, Voltaire, Paine, Hegel, Hume, Griesbach, Semler, Lachmann, Strauss, Baur, Ingersoll, Fosdick, and a thousand others have wielded their infidel arguments against the Word of God, and yet it endures. The floor of history is littered with the broken hammers of critics, but the anvil is unharmed!
THE ANSWER TO A GREAT MYSTERY
There is a great mystery here. How is it possible that the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament and the Received Text of the Greek New Testament, and so very many of the faithful translations of the Bible have survived the enmity of wicked men so that we have the very Word of God in our possession today? The Scriptures give us the answer, God has preserved His Word for us. He told us in His Word He would do so, "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." Psalm 12:6,7 "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matt. 5:18 "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Matt. 24:35 Add to these verses Psa. 33:11; 100:5; 105:8-10; 111:7,8; 117:2; 119:89, 152, 160; Isa. 40:8;, and I Tim. 6:14 Our Lord Jesus stated this truth when he said, "...the Scripture cannot be broken." Without a doubt, God has preserved His Words for us in English in the King James Bible.
When I was a young Christian it used to trouble me that men were forever attacking the Word of God. Since I came to understand the doctrine of preservation, I no longer fear that we will ever lose the Word of God or see the King James Bible displaced by the modern mistranslations. As a little boy fifty years ago, I remember listening to our dear old pastor as he preached on the Inspiration of the Bible, its Inerrancy, its Authority, and its Preservation. At the time, the doctrine of Inspiration was under attack. Faithless men hammered away at the Holy Scriptures with their pompous words while sceptics laughed and applauded, but they all passed away, and the anvil was unharmed. Some years later, the Inerrancy of the Scriptures came under attack. For many years now the Authority of the Word of God has been under attack. And over the past twenty or thirty years "scholars" have angrily attacked the doctrine of the Preservation of God's Word. Without exception, these "scholars" have held to what is called Modern Textual Criticism.
THE ORIGINS OF MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM
We must remember that the men who devised the basic principles of Modern Textual Criticism earned their degrees at the feet of the early modernists. In the eighteenth century modernists were known as German Rationalists. Using the "scientific" methods of the Renaissance, they sat in judgment on the Word of God and dispensed with everything supernatural in the Bible. This view came to be called Higher Criticism. The students of the Higher Critics carried their modernism one step farther and devised theories of modern textual criticism to hammer away at the Inspiration, the Inerrancy, the Authority, and the Preservation of the Bible. Over the past century most Bible colleges and seminaries have embraced modern textual criticism and, as a result, have jettisoned the doctrine of Preservation.
They seem to have forgotten that God has always preserved certain things.
THE DOCTRINE OF PRESERVATION
Holy Scripture tells us in II Peter 3:7, "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Two separate words are used here to describe God's preservation of the cosmos for the day of judgment. "Kept in store" is from the Greek word "thesaurus" . It carries the meaning of something being laid up as a treasure. "Reserved" is from the word "teereo" and means to keep, to preserve, or to hold fast. This verse agrees with Col. 1:17, "And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." God is always actively preserving and keeping and holding together the heavens and the earth. He has a plan for them and will not allow them to be destroyed until his plan is fulfilled.
God has, for thousands of years, preserved the nation of Israel. Surely the words of God to Jacob in Gen. 28:15 " And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest..." were not to Jacob alone, but to all his seed. Again and again, God promised to Israel that He would preserve them. Exodus 23:20 reads, "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared." And the Jews were instructed to bless one another with the words of Num. 6:24, "The LORD bless thee and keep thee..." History bears solemn witness to the keeping power of God. He has preserved His covenant people in the face of bitter enmity and will yet bring them to faith in His Son. God has a plan for Israel and will not allow the Adolph Hitlers of the past, present, or future to destroy them.
God keeps His own children so that they can never be lost. Jude addressed his epistle to those who are "sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called." We are preserved and kept and held fast. Oh, brother, if you are washed in the blood of the Lamb, you can swing over the pit of Hell on a rotten cornstalk singing Amazing Grace and never fear that you will fall in! We are assured in Romans 8:38,39 that no created thing or circumstance can "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." My dear Saviour gave this poor little lamb all the assurance he would ever need when He said, " And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than I, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." (John 10:28,29 ) In Ephesians 4:30 we are told that we are "sealed with the Holy Spirit." What could be clearer than the fact that every member of the Trinity is involved in keeping us. God has a plan for us and will keep us all the way to Heaven. We are preserved!
HOW GOD PRESERVES HIS WORD
It should not surprise us then, to read the verses on the preservation of the Bible. It is God's way to preserve those things for which He has a great purpose and plan. In simple faith we say a loud "AMEN" to every text that tells us God will preserve His Word. Church historians agree (often very reluctantly, I fear) that God HAS preserved His Word. Many preachers who should boldly preach this great truth (and don't!) will nod their heads ever so timidly and sheepishly admit that it seems to be true, but then they will qualify that admission by saying that there are no verses in the Bible that specifically state the doctrine of Preservation. And then they will say that there are no verses that tell us how God preserves His Word.
We Baptists used to believe that everything in life is basically theological. By that we mean that we believe that every subject, every issue, and every doctrinal controversy MUST be looked at from God's perspective, and we believe that His perspective is to be found in His Word. If you still hold that as a conviction, you will find that you are out of step with a great many Bible college professors and their graduates. And you wouldn't be able to pass some of the courses in their learned institutions. Why do I say this? Simply because it is now taboo in many circles for you to approach the subject of textual criticism from the perspective of faith. That is the perspective which believes that God has revealed in His Word how to discern which Greek text is reliable and which is not. We believe God has laid out for us in the Bible all the guidelines we need. If you hold to this position, you are pleading guilty to having a biblical bias. Most Bible "scholars" tell us that this perspective is not "neutral." (Say, that sounds a lot like straddling the fence to me. I thought "neutralism" was something that new evangelicals were into.) When the "scholars" say they can find no verses in the Bible that teach that God has preserved His Word or how He does it, we are reminded of the three reasons a burglar can't find a policeman. 1) He isn't really interested in looking. 2) He tends to look in the wrong places. 3) And he would be in deep trouble if he did find one.
A KEY WORD
Now I would like to propose a little challenge for the scholarly gentlemen who tell us that the Bible has nothing to say about preservation. Since God uses the word "preserve" in the Bible, why not take the time to look up all the verses in the Bible that use the Greek word translated "preserved" ( as in I Thess. 5:23 and in Jude 1)? It is the word, "teereo". It is translated "preserved" twice, "reserved" eight times, "hold fast" once, "hold" once, "watch" twice, "observe" four times, "prison" once, and "keep, keepers, kept, keepeth, and keeping" almost sixty times. The overall definition we perceive through the Holy Spirit's uses of the word "teereo" is that of someone exercising a protective, custodial, watchful care over someone or some thing. The Spirit used it to describe the soldiers watching Jesus on the cross (Matt. 27:36, 54) It is used to describe those who watched the tomb of our Lord (Matt. 28:4) The ruler of the feast accused the bridegroom in John 2:10 of keeping back the best wine till last. In Acts 12:5,6 and 16:23, Peter and Paul were kept in prison. In I Cor. 7:37 and I Tim. 5:22 a man is told to keep his body free from immorality. The Ephesian church was exhorted to keep the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3) Paul faces death in II Tim 4:7 with the confidence that he has kept the faith. James writes that we are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. The truth of preservation is very clearly taught in all these verses. In each case someone or some thing is being watched over protectively. If we believe that "every word of God is pure" (Prov. 30:5), if we believe in the Verbal Inspiration of Scripture, then we believe that God very carefully chose this word to convey to us the fact that men commonly exercise a custodial and careful watchfulness over things that have value and importance.
THE SURPRISING USES OF THE WORD
So what does this word have to do with the preservation of God's Word? Simply this, the word, "teereo", is used 28 times in the New Testament to describe men "keeping" the sayings of Christ, His commandments, His words, and God's law. See, for example, John 8:51, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never die." and John 8:55 "...I know him and keep His saying." John 14:15 is the best known of these verses, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Verses 21, 23, 24 emphasize the same truth, "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me...", " If a man love me, he will keep my words...", and "He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings..." I John 2:3, 4, 5 add these words, "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whose keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby we do know that we are in him." For over forty years I have been reading those verses and assuming that they were only describing the simple obeying of God's Word, but that is not all that is in the word "keep". (It should be emphasised that there are three basic words for "obey" in the Greek New Testament, but this word "teereo" is never once translated "obey".) The Holy Spirit's consistent use of the word "teereo" in the New Testament shows that it means to exercise a protective, watchful, custodial care of the thing kept. That is the basic meaning of the word. The verses which use the word "teereo" in reference to keeping our Lord's commandments teach us that God would have His children to preserve His Word. So have we been altogether wrong in supposing that we are to obey the words of Christ? I think not. God intended for us to lovingly exercise a protective watchcare over His Words, and in doing so, to obey them. If God's people have a grasp of the importance of standing guard over the purity of God's Word, and having a loving watchfulness over the Bible, they will also "keep" it in obeying it. Obedience to the Bible and Preservation of the Bible are inseparable. When the Lord Jesus said to His disciples in John 14:15, "If ye love me, keep my commandments," He was instructing them to lovingly preserve His commandments from corruption by obeying them without alteration. That makes sense to this old hillbilly preacher. I will preserve God's Word so I can obey it carefully and I will obey it carefully so I can preserve it unchanged for the next generation of God's children. If I become careless in obeying it, I will become careless in preserving it. Say, have you noticed that those who are so opposed to the doctrine of preservation also become increasingly careless in obeying the Bible? And those who are most vocal in their support of the preservation of the Bible tend to be most concerned about simple obedience to it? It stands to reason that carelessness in preserving God's Word goes with carelessness in obeying it, and diligence in preserving it goes with diligence in obeying it.
SIMPLE STEPS OF PRESERVATION
Now, I think I hear someone saying, "You still haven't told us how God's Word is preserved."
First, we should recognise that when the Lord told men to keep His words He was addressing His disciples. This charge is given to the Lord's disciples not only individually but collectively. In the simplest analysis churches are gatherings of disciples of Christ. It was the churches' task then and it is the churches' task now to "keep His commandments!" The little church I pastor has been given a divine mandate to preserve the Bible. It is not the task of parachurch organisations such as denominations, Bible societies, Bible colleges, seminaries, Christian universities, or museums to preserve God's Word. It is the work of the local church. This is how God has preserved His Word since the time of the apostles, through local churches standing guard over it. Read the history of the primitive churches in every land. They preserved the Word of God without anyone's help but God's. Roman emperors and Roman popes tried their hardest to take the Bible away from the churches, but they would not give it up.
Churches in this century must realise that no group of people in the world has the right to tell a local church that it is exceeding its mandate when it stands guard over the purity of the Bible. No author, no Baptist pope, no fellowship of churches, no university, and no seminary has the right to overrule our Saviour's charge to the local church to preserve God's Word. Second, any church that sets out to preserve their Saviour's sayings commits itself inevitably to obey it in the letter and the spirit. The Great Commission of Christ to His disciples contains the words, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt. 28:20) "All things" teaches preservation. "Observe" teaches obedience. Preservation and obedience are forever joined together.
We need to read with discernment the histories of the churches. When the "scholars" of the 19th century discovered the mangled and mutilated manuscripts of the Alexandrian Greek text they should have exercised discernment as to the places they found them. The Vaticanus manuscript was discovered unused, unpreached, and unloved among the papists who had no desire to preserve it or obey it. Its credibility is immediately suspect because of the lawless obscurantism of its hosts. The Sinaitic manuscript was discovered in no better company. Godless priests were using it to kindle a fire. One of the rooms of the monastery was filled with the skulls of deceased priests. Dead rituals, dead prayers, dead doctrines, dead priests, and a dead text, they all belong together.
A live text, the Received Text, should be found in a live church, filled with live doctrines, with a live preacher and live saints. It should actively worship the living God. It should be empowered by the Spirit of life. When the Spirit of God spoke through the apostle Paul, he described the local church as being "the pillar and ground of the truth." (I Tim. 3:15) A church which trembles at the Word of God (Isa. 66:2,5) will preserve it in the very fullest sense, lovingly obeying it.
And third, God has given us the very simplest instructions for the preserving of His Words. He tells us again and again not to add to it or take away from it. This is preservation in all its simplicity. Deut. 4:2 is the first text that warns us not to add to, nor take away from the Word of God, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." (Note how preservation and obedience go together in this and the next text!) Deut. 12:32 states this truth again, "What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." The wise man of Proverbs 30:6 warns, "Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." God's commission to Jeremiah in chapter 26:2 is, "...(S)peak all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word." Rev. 22:18, 19 are possibly the best known verses on the preservation of the Bible. They come at the close of the canon, and warn men most solemnly not to add to nor take away from the words of this book. What is not commonly known is that the 22nd chapter also contains two verses that speak of our part in preservation. Verse 7 promises a blessing on the man that "keepeth the sayings of this book." And verse 9 identifies the angel who spoke with John as being the fellowservant of them which "keep the sayings of this book." The word, again, is "teereo". There is a blessing on the man who preserves the Word of God and avoids every alteration to the Bible. And a curse on those who add to or take away from it.
So God tells us how His Word is preserved. It is kept by those who love it and obey it. Down through the centuries He has kept his Word through His people. Wherever we find a church, large or small, that is committed to walking in the light of the Bible, we will find a church that takes its stewardship of the purity of God's Word seriously. And we will find that they measure everything, including Modern Textual Criticism, by the Word of God.
Many years ago, I pastored a church near an aboriginal mission. There was a missionary living and working there who told me one day that someone had donated copies of a modern translation for the church in the settlement. He said that after a few weeks, the people came to him and said, "Brother ________, we don't like this new Bible. We want the old one back again." When he asked why, they said, "This Bible got no teeth!" In simple faith, with barely enough education to read, they knew the difference between the true Scriptures and the mangled thoughts of men. They knew that the Holy Scriptures have "teeth", and they had discerned that the new "bible" didn't. They discerned that somebody had pulled the teeth of their Bible when they left verses out and added in the words of men.
They also knew that they should "keep" the sayings of Jesus by asking for their old Bibles back. Those old Bibles were the King James Version. One of the saddest statistics of our generation is that more and more Bible colleges and seminaries have become hammer factories for sceptics. But we should also be greatly encouraged to know that there are more and more faithful churches who believe in God's preservation of His Word . Many good books on preservation are being written and sermons preached and research done, so that there is an ever increasing body of Scriptural evidence that proves clearly that God is keeping His Word through His people.
I hear a new sound in the world today. It is the sound of hammers breaking as they beat themselves to pieces against the Word of God. It is music to our ears.
But it is not the hammers that make the music.
It is the anvil.
God is preserving His Word.
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May 19, 2008 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Buddy Smith, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Malanda, Queensland
The Anvil of God's Word
Last eve I paused beside a blacksmith's door,
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
Then, looking in, I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
"How many anvils have you had," said I,
"To wear and batter all these hammers so?"
"Just one," said he, and then, with twinkling eye,
"The anvil wears the hammers out, you know."
And so, thought I, the anvil of God's Word,
For ages skeptic blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed--the hammers gone.
--John Clifford
Broken hammers! Those two words sum up the entire history of men's attacks on the Word of God. The anvil of God's Word has for centuries suffered countless hammer blows from its enemies, yet it bears not a dent or scratch from all their spite! I see inscribed upon the broken hammers the names of those who wielded them! I see Sennacharib's name. Jehoiakim's name is there (Jer. 36). Diocletian, Voltaire, Paine, Hegel, Hume, Griesbach, Semler, Lachmann, Strauss, Baur, Ingersoll, Fosdick, and a thousand others have wielded their infidel arguments against the Word of God, and yet it endures. The floor of history is littered with the broken hammers of critics, but the anvil is unharmed!
THE ANSWER TO A GREAT MYSTERY
There is a great mystery here. How is it possible that the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament and the Received Text of the Greek New Testament, and so very many of the faithful translations of the Bible have survived the enmity of wicked men so that we have the very Word of God in our possession today? The Scriptures give us the answer, God has preserved His Word for us. He told us in His Word He would do so, "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever." Psalm 12:6,7 "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Matt. 5:18 "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Matt. 24:35 Add to these verses Psa. 33:11; 100:5; 105:8-10; 111:7,8; 117:2; 119:89, 152, 160; Isa. 40:8;, and I Tim. 6:14 Our Lord Jesus stated this truth when he said, "...the Scripture cannot be broken." Without a doubt, God has preserved His Words for us in English in the King James Bible.
When I was a young Christian it used to trouble me that men were forever attacking the Word of God. Since I came to understand the doctrine of preservation, I no longer fear that we will ever lose the Word of God or see the King James Bible displaced by the modern mistranslations. As a little boy fifty years ago, I remember listening to our dear old pastor as he preached on the Inspiration of the Bible, its Inerrancy, its Authority, and its Preservation. At the time, the doctrine of Inspiration was under attack. Faithless men hammered away at the Holy Scriptures with their pompous words while sceptics laughed and applauded, but they all passed away, and the anvil was unharmed. Some years later, the Inerrancy of the Scriptures came under attack. For many years now the Authority of the Word of God has been under attack. And over the past twenty or thirty years "scholars" have angrily attacked the doctrine of the Preservation of God's Word. Without exception, these "scholars" have held to what is called Modern Textual Criticism.
THE ORIGINS OF MODERN TEXTUAL CRITICISM
We must remember that the men who devised the basic principles of Modern Textual Criticism earned their degrees at the feet of the early modernists. In the eighteenth century modernists were known as German Rationalists. Using the "scientific" methods of the Renaissance, they sat in judgment on the Word of God and dispensed with everything supernatural in the Bible. This view came to be called Higher Criticism. The students of the Higher Critics carried their modernism one step farther and devised theories of modern textual criticism to hammer away at the Inspiration, the Inerrancy, the Authority, and the Preservation of the Bible. Over the past century most Bible colleges and seminaries have embraced modern textual criticism and, as a result, have jettisoned the doctrine of Preservation.
They seem to have forgotten that God has always preserved certain things.
THE DOCTRINE OF PRESERVATION
Holy Scripture tells us in II Peter 3:7, "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Two separate words are used here to describe God's preservation of the cosmos for the day of judgment. "Kept in store" is from the Greek word "thesaurus" . It carries the meaning of something being laid up as a treasure. "Reserved" is from the word "teereo" and means to keep, to preserve, or to hold fast. This verse agrees with Col. 1:17, "And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." God is always actively preserving and keeping and holding together the heavens and the earth. He has a plan for them and will not allow them to be destroyed until his plan is fulfilled.
God has, for thousands of years, preserved the nation of Israel. Surely the words of God to Jacob in Gen. 28:15 " And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest..." were not to Jacob alone, but to all his seed. Again and again, God promised to Israel that He would preserve them. Exodus 23:20 reads, "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared." And the Jews were instructed to bless one another with the words of Num. 6:24, "The LORD bless thee and keep thee..." History bears solemn witness to the keeping power of God. He has preserved His covenant people in the face of bitter enmity and will yet bring them to faith in His Son. God has a plan for Israel and will not allow the Adolph Hitlers of the past, present, or future to destroy them.
God keeps His own children so that they can never be lost. Jude addressed his epistle to those who are "sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called." We are preserved and kept and held fast. Oh, brother, if you are washed in the blood of the Lamb, you can swing over the pit of Hell on a rotten cornstalk singing Amazing Grace and never fear that you will fall in! We are assured in Romans 8:38,39 that no created thing or circumstance can "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus." My dear Saviour gave this poor little lamb all the assurance he would ever need when He said, " And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than I, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." (John 10:28,29 ) In Ephesians 4:30 we are told that we are "sealed with the Holy Spirit." What could be clearer than the fact that every member of the Trinity is involved in keeping us. God has a plan for us and will keep us all the way to Heaven. We are preserved!
HOW GOD PRESERVES HIS WORD
It should not surprise us then, to read the verses on the preservation of the Bible. It is God's way to preserve those things for which He has a great purpose and plan. In simple faith we say a loud "AMEN" to every text that tells us God will preserve His Word. Church historians agree (often very reluctantly, I fear) that God HAS preserved His Word. Many preachers who should boldly preach this great truth (and don't!) will nod their heads ever so timidly and sheepishly admit that it seems to be true, but then they will qualify that admission by saying that there are no verses in the Bible that specifically state the doctrine of Preservation. And then they will say that there are no verses that tell us how God preserves His Word.
We Baptists used to believe that everything in life is basically theological. By that we mean that we believe that every subject, every issue, and every doctrinal controversy MUST be looked at from God's perspective, and we believe that His perspective is to be found in His Word. If you still hold that as a conviction, you will find that you are out of step with a great many Bible college professors and their graduates. And you wouldn't be able to pass some of the courses in their learned institutions. Why do I say this? Simply because it is now taboo in many circles for you to approach the subject of textual criticism from the perspective of faith. That is the perspective which believes that God has revealed in His Word how to discern which Greek text is reliable and which is not. We believe God has laid out for us in the Bible all the guidelines we need. If you hold to this position, you are pleading guilty to having a biblical bias. Most Bible "scholars" tell us that this perspective is not "neutral." (Say, that sounds a lot like straddling the fence to me. I thought "neutralism" was something that new evangelicals were into.) When the "scholars" say they can find no verses in the Bible that teach that God has preserved His Word or how He does it, we are reminded of the three reasons a burglar can't find a policeman. 1) He isn't really interested in looking. 2) He tends to look in the wrong places. 3) And he would be in deep trouble if he did find one.
A KEY WORD
Now I would like to propose a little challenge for the scholarly gentlemen who tell us that the Bible has nothing to say about preservation. Since God uses the word "preserve" in the Bible, why not take the time to look up all the verses in the Bible that use the Greek word translated "preserved" ( as in I Thess. 5:23 and in Jude 1)? It is the word, "teereo". It is translated "preserved" twice, "reserved" eight times, "hold fast" once, "hold" once, "watch" twice, "observe" four times, "prison" once, and "keep, keepers, kept, keepeth, and keeping" almost sixty times. The overall definition we perceive through the Holy Spirit's uses of the word "teereo" is that of someone exercising a protective, custodial, watchful care over someone or some thing. The Spirit used it to describe the soldiers watching Jesus on the cross (Matt. 27:36, 54) It is used to describe those who watched the tomb of our Lord (Matt. 28:4) The ruler of the feast accused the bridegroom in John 2:10 of keeping back the best wine till last. In Acts 12:5,6 and 16:23, Peter and Paul were kept in prison. In I Cor. 7:37 and I Tim. 5:22 a man is told to keep his body free from immorality. The Ephesian church was exhorted to keep the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3) Paul faces death in II Tim 4:7 with the confidence that he has kept the faith. James writes that we are to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. The truth of preservation is very clearly taught in all these verses. In each case someone or some thing is being watched over protectively. If we believe that "every word of God is pure" (Prov. 30:5), if we believe in the Verbal Inspiration of Scripture, then we believe that God very carefully chose this word to convey to us the fact that men commonly exercise a custodial and careful watchfulness over things that have value and importance.
THE SURPRISING USES OF THE WORD
So what does this word have to do with the preservation of God's Word? Simply this, the word, "teereo", is used 28 times in the New Testament to describe men "keeping" the sayings of Christ, His commandments, His words, and God's law. See, for example, John 8:51, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never die." and John 8:55 "...I know him and keep His saying." John 14:15 is the best known of these verses, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Verses 21, 23, 24 emphasize the same truth, "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me...", " If a man love me, he will keep my words...", and "He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings..." I John 2:3, 4, 5 add these words, "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whose keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby we do know that we are in him." For over forty years I have been reading those verses and assuming that they were only describing the simple obeying of God's Word, but that is not all that is in the word "keep". (It should be emphasised that there are three basic words for "obey" in the Greek New Testament, but this word "teereo" is never once translated "obey".) The Holy Spirit's consistent use of the word "teereo" in the New Testament shows that it means to exercise a protective, watchful, custodial care of the thing kept. That is the basic meaning of the word. The verses which use the word "teereo" in reference to keeping our Lord's commandments teach us that God would have His children to preserve His Word. So have we been altogether wrong in supposing that we are to obey the words of Christ? I think not. God intended for us to lovingly exercise a protective watchcare over His Words, and in doing so, to obey them. If God's people have a grasp of the importance of standing guard over the purity of God's Word, and having a loving watchfulness over the Bible, they will also "keep" it in obeying it. Obedience to the Bible and Preservation of the Bible are inseparable. When the Lord Jesus said to His disciples in John 14:15, "If ye love me, keep my commandments," He was instructing them to lovingly preserve His commandments from corruption by obeying them without alteration. That makes sense to this old hillbilly preacher. I will preserve God's Word so I can obey it carefully and I will obey it carefully so I can preserve it unchanged for the next generation of God's children. If I become careless in obeying it, I will become careless in preserving it. Say, have you noticed that those who are so opposed to the doctrine of preservation also become increasingly careless in obeying the Bible? And those who are most vocal in their support of the preservation of the Bible tend to be most concerned about simple obedience to it? It stands to reason that carelessness in preserving God's Word goes with carelessness in obeying it, and diligence in preserving it goes with diligence in obeying it.
SIMPLE STEPS OF PRESERVATION
Now, I think I hear someone saying, "You still haven't told us how God's Word is preserved."
First, we should recognise that when the Lord told men to keep His words He was addressing His disciples. This charge is given to the Lord's disciples not only individually but collectively. In the simplest analysis churches are gatherings of disciples of Christ. It was the churches' task then and it is the churches' task now to "keep His commandments!" The little church I pastor has been given a divine mandate to preserve the Bible. It is not the task of parachurch organisations such as denominations, Bible societies, Bible colleges, seminaries, Christian universities, or museums to preserve God's Word. It is the work of the local church. This is how God has preserved His Word since the time of the apostles, through local churches standing guard over it. Read the history of the primitive churches in every land. They preserved the Word of God without anyone's help but God's. Roman emperors and Roman popes tried their hardest to take the Bible away from the churches, but they would not give it up.
Churches in this century must realise that no group of people in the world has the right to tell a local church that it is exceeding its mandate when it stands guard over the purity of the Bible. No author, no Baptist pope, no fellowship of churches, no university, and no seminary has the right to overrule our Saviour's charge to the local church to preserve God's Word. Second, any church that sets out to preserve their Saviour's sayings commits itself inevitably to obey it in the letter and the spirit. The Great Commission of Christ to His disciples contains the words, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt. 28:20) "All things" teaches preservation. "Observe" teaches obedience. Preservation and obedience are forever joined together.
We need to read with discernment the histories of the churches. When the "scholars" of the 19th century discovered the mangled and mutilated manuscripts of the Alexandrian Greek text they should have exercised discernment as to the places they found them. The Vaticanus manuscript was discovered unused, unpreached, and unloved among the papists who had no desire to preserve it or obey it. Its credibility is immediately suspect because of the lawless obscurantism of its hosts. The Sinaitic manuscript was discovered in no better company. Godless priests were using it to kindle a fire. One of the rooms of the monastery was filled with the skulls of deceased priests. Dead rituals, dead prayers, dead doctrines, dead priests, and a dead text, they all belong together.
A live text, the Received Text, should be found in a live church, filled with live doctrines, with a live preacher and live saints. It should actively worship the living God. It should be empowered by the Spirit of life. When the Spirit of God spoke through the apostle Paul, he described the local church as being "the pillar and ground of the truth." (I Tim. 3:15) A church which trembles at the Word of God (Isa. 66:2,5) will preserve it in the very fullest sense, lovingly obeying it.
And third, God has given us the very simplest instructions for the preserving of His Words. He tells us again and again not to add to it or take away from it. This is preservation in all its simplicity. Deut. 4:2 is the first text that warns us not to add to, nor take away from the Word of God, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." (Note how preservation and obedience go together in this and the next text!) Deut. 12:32 states this truth again, "What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." The wise man of Proverbs 30:6 warns, "Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar." God's commission to Jeremiah in chapter 26:2 is, "...(S)peak all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word." Rev. 22:18, 19 are possibly the best known verses on the preservation of the Bible. They come at the close of the canon, and warn men most solemnly not to add to nor take away from the words of this book. What is not commonly known is that the 22nd chapter also contains two verses that speak of our part in preservation. Verse 7 promises a blessing on the man that "keepeth the sayings of this book." And verse 9 identifies the angel who spoke with John as being the fellowservant of them which "keep the sayings of this book." The word, again, is "teereo". There is a blessing on the man who preserves the Word of God and avoids every alteration to the Bible. And a curse on those who add to or take away from it.
So God tells us how His Word is preserved. It is kept by those who love it and obey it. Down through the centuries He has kept his Word through His people. Wherever we find a church, large or small, that is committed to walking in the light of the Bible, we will find a church that takes its stewardship of the purity of God's Word seriously. And we will find that they measure everything, including Modern Textual Criticism, by the Word of God.
Many years ago, I pastored a church near an aboriginal mission. There was a missionary living and working there who told me one day that someone had donated copies of a modern translation for the church in the settlement. He said that after a few weeks, the people came to him and said, "Brother ________, we don't like this new Bible. We want the old one back again." When he asked why, they said, "This Bible got no teeth!" In simple faith, with barely enough education to read, they knew the difference between the true Scriptures and the mangled thoughts of men. They knew that the Holy Scriptures have "teeth", and they had discerned that the new "bible" didn't. They discerned that somebody had pulled the teeth of their Bible when they left verses out and added in the words of men.
They also knew that they should "keep" the sayings of Jesus by asking for their old Bibles back. Those old Bibles were the King James Version. One of the saddest statistics of our generation is that more and more Bible colleges and seminaries have become hammer factories for sceptics. But we should also be greatly encouraged to know that there are more and more faithful churches who believe in God's preservation of His Word . Many good books on preservation are being written and sermons preached and research done, so that there is an ever increasing body of Scriptural evidence that proves clearly that God is keeping His Word through His people.
I hear a new sound in the world today. It is the sound of hammers breaking as they beat themselves to pieces against the Word of God. It is music to our ears.
But it is not the hammers that make the music.
It is the anvil.
God is preserving His Word.
TRUE FELLOWSHIP
May/13/08 10:00
TRUE FELLOWSHIP
May 13, 2008 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia --
Fellowship is a word we often use and seldom understand. It is a relationship word. It describes a two way street. If we make it a one way street it becomes a dead end street. Fellowship really only exists between people who are each contributing something useful to the relationship. It must be so in order to be true fellowship.
Some Christians mistakenly call it fellowship when they receive multiplied kindnesses from others, but contribute nothing to the relationship. That is not fellowship. That is being on “religious welfare.” That's being "on the dole" in church.
Others think it is fellowship when they are the givers, always contributing the lion's share to the relationship, but receiving nothing in return. They are to be commended for their gracious generosity, for their longsuffering, for their perseverance. These are the "parents" of fellowship. They are "striking a match" that they hope will kindle the love of God in the other's heart. But let's be honest, one sided generosity is not true fellowship. It could be called "evangelism" or "compassion" or "mercy,” but it should not be called fellowship.
Fellowship is that blessed sharing, that sweet partnership of hearts and hearths in which each person strives to be always investing his treasures in the other person. It is one of the purest expressions of love.
The example of the blind man and the cripple is an old one, but so illustrative of Christian fellowship. I saw it in action at the nursing home not long ago. A dear old brother in the Lord who lost his sight when his bomber was hit by flack over Europe was pushing his crippled friend in a wheelchair around the nursing home. One man's feet and the other man's eyes were invested in a joint venture. They enjoyed their "fellowship" enormously. Isn't that what true fellowship is? My strengths combined with your weaknesses and your strengths combined with my weaknesses make for growth and progress in this pilgrimage we call life.
After all, if we strip away all the pious sounding words of men, what is a church but a lot of cripples helping each other along the way to Heaven? In essence, that's what true fellowship is. It is me and you each contributing something to our relationship. It means we are both too mature to be sponges. It means we are too wise to be welfare providers. Modern churches are full of "welfare" recipients, always sitting around, hoping for a hand out, but never contributing anything. These churches always have a few "welfare providers" who contribute almost everything, and do almost everything, and receive virtually nothing back from the "welfare recipients." Whatever they have in these churches, it should not be called fellowship.
Once I realized these simple facts about fellowship, I decided I would do two things. I would take myself by the scruff of the neck, give myself a good shaking and tell myself, "Don't be a welfare recipient! Do your part! Make sure you are contributing generously in every relationship." And I would stop pretending that those are "fellowshipping" who never contribute to the relationship. Maybe I should take them by the scruff of the neck and.... No, wait. Maybe I should try one more time to light a fire in their heart. Now, let's see, what was that kind deed a brother did for me this week?
Maybe I could pass it on...
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
May 13, 2008 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia
Fellowship is a word we often use and seldom understand. It is a relationship word. It describes a two way street. If we make it a one way street it becomes a dead end street. Fellowship really only exists between people who are each contributing something useful to the relationship. It must be so in order to be true fellowship.
Some Christians mistakenly call it fellowship when they receive multiplied kindnesses from others, but contribute nothing to the relationship. That is not fellowship. That is being on “religious welfare.” That's being "on the dole" in church.
Others think it is fellowship when they are the givers, always contributing the lion's share to the relationship, but receiving nothing in return. They are to be commended for their gracious generosity, for their longsuffering, for their perseverance. These are the "parents" of fellowship. They are "striking a match" that they hope will kindle the love of God in the other's heart. But let's be honest, one sided generosity is not true fellowship. It could be called "evangelism" or "compassion" or "mercy,” but it should not be called fellowship.
Fellowship is that blessed sharing, that sweet partnership of hearts and hearths in which each person strives to be always investing his treasures in the other person. It is one of the purest expressions of love.
The example of the blind man and the cripple is an old one, but so illustrative of Christian fellowship. I saw it in action at the nursing home not long ago. A dear old brother in the Lord who lost his sight when his bomber was hit by flack over Europe was pushing his crippled friend in a wheelchair around the nursing home. One man's feet and the other man's eyes were invested in a joint venture. They enjoyed their "fellowship" enormously. Isn't that what true fellowship is? My strengths combined with your weaknesses and your strengths combined with my weaknesses make for growth and progress in this pilgrimage we call life.
After all, if we strip away all the pious sounding words of men, what is a church but a lot of cripples helping each other along the way to Heaven? In essence, that's what true fellowship is. It is me and you each contributing something to our relationship. It means we are both too mature to be sponges. It means we are too wise to be welfare providers. Modern churches are full of "welfare" recipients, always sitting around, hoping for a hand out, but never contributing anything. These churches always have a few "welfare providers" who contribute almost everything, and do almost everything, and receive virtually nothing back from the "welfare recipients." Whatever they have in these churches, it should not be called fellowship.
Once I realized these simple facts about fellowship, I decided I would do two things. I would take myself by the scruff of the neck, give myself a good shaking and tell myself, "Don't be a welfare recipient! Do your part! Make sure you are contributing generously in every relationship." And I would stop pretending that those are "fellowshipping" who never contribute to the relationship. Maybe I should take them by the scruff of the neck and.... No, wait. Maybe I should try one more time to light a fire in their heart. Now, let's see, what was that kind deed a brother did for me this week?
Maybe I could pass it on...
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
WINDOWS AND DOORS
Apr/16/08 13:31
WINDOWS AND DOORS
April 16, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia --
When King David was crowned in Hebron there were many who came to his coronation. Among them were the men of Issachar, "men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment." (I Chron.12:32) The new king had need of such men. Men with clear heads and sharp eyes. Men that were alert and awake. Men that knew the times. Men that made practical application of what they knew and led their brethren. King David needed such men. In fact, we could do with some of them just now.
There is a tendency among fundamentalists to build churches without windows or doors. Oh, we have high walls and they are very strong, but we seem to have forgotten we need windows and doors in our churches. (Altogether too often, the windows have been scrapped for structural integrity. Modern wisdom says that too much glass weakens the church.) We need to rethink the loss of windows in our churches. Windows give the lost an opportunity to inspect the quality of the saints before they come in the door. Windows help us to "provide things honest in the sight of all men." (Romans 12:17b) Windows let the Wind of the Holy Spirit blow away our stale sermons, our lifeless worship, and the cobwebs off the pews. We need that Divine Wind to give our churches a breath of fresh air. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 3: Last of all, windows let us observe our world and gain an understanding of our times.
Of course, once we make proper use of the windows of our churches we can begin to use the doors of our churches. Doors are our access to a lost world, sinners' access to the gospel, and others' access to our fellowship.
Altogether too many of us who do have windows and doors have closed the curtains and locked the doors. Could anything be worse than indoor churches? Many years ago we had an evangelist to speak for us in Victoria. While he was there we walked downtown so he could have a look at the quaint little shops. In front of the Post Office the local Anglican ladies had set up a stall selling jam and tea towels. When the evangelist saw the sign telling which church they were from he asked them, "I suppose all of you ladies are born again, aren't you?" One of them looked down her nose at him and asked in reply, "What are you doing, taking religion out into the streets?"
The irony of her question, of course, is that many fundamentalists are doing the very thing the Anglicans have done for centuries. We are taking our religion indoors, closing the curtains and locking the door.
It seems to be as true in churches as it is in creation, if you don't use it you lose it. Windows made dark by curtains will soon disappear. Doors that are locked will be bricked up before long.
So what say we begin again to build windows and doors in our churches and then look out the windows and go out the doors? True evangelism dies when churches lose their windows and doors.
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
April 16, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia
When King David was crowned in Hebron there were many who came to his coronation. Among them were the men of Issachar, "men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment." (I Chron.12:32) The new king had need of such men. Men with clear heads and sharp eyes. Men that were alert and awake. Men that knew the times. Men that made practical application of what they knew and led their brethren. King David needed such men. In fact, we could do with some of them just now.
There is a tendency among fundamentalists to build churches without windows or doors. Oh, we have high walls and they are very strong, but we seem to have forgotten we need windows and doors in our churches. (Altogether too often, the windows have been scrapped for structural integrity. Modern wisdom says that too much glass weakens the church.) We need to rethink the loss of windows in our churches. Windows give the lost an opportunity to inspect the quality of the saints before they come in the door. Windows help us to "provide things honest in the sight of all men." (Romans 12:17b) Windows let the Wind of the Holy Spirit blow away our stale sermons, our lifeless worship, and the cobwebs off the pews. We need that Divine Wind to give our churches a breath of fresh air. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 3: Last of all, windows let us observe our world and gain an understanding of our times.
Of course, once we make proper use of the windows of our churches we can begin to use the doors of our churches. Doors are our access to a lost world, sinners' access to the gospel, and others' access to our fellowship.
Altogether too many of us who do have windows and doors have closed the curtains and locked the doors. Could anything be worse than indoor churches? Many years ago we had an evangelist to speak for us in Victoria. While he was there we walked downtown so he could have a look at the quaint little shops. In front of the Post Office the local Anglican ladies had set up a stall selling jam and tea towels. When the evangelist saw the sign telling which church they were from he asked them, "I suppose all of you ladies are born again, aren't you?" One of them looked down her nose at him and asked in reply, "What are you doing, taking religion out into the streets?"
The irony of her question, of course, is that many fundamentalists are doing the very thing the Anglicans have done for centuries. We are taking our religion indoors, closing the curtains and locking the door.
It seems to be as true in churches as it is in creation, if you don't use it you lose it. Windows made dark by curtains will soon disappear. Doors that are locked will be bricked up before long.
So what say we begin again to build windows and doors in our churches and then look out the windows and go out the doors? True evangelism dies when churches lose their windows and doors.
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
VISION AND VOICE
Mar/12/08 13:31
VISION AND VOICE
March 12, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia --
One of the old Scottish theologians said, “A prophet is a man who sees what others cannot see, and so he says what others cannot say!”
Vision and Voice! These are the marks that show us who are God's prophets! I doubt if we could describe a real preacher much better than that. God’s men are those whose eyes and mouths are open. God shows them His perspective on their world so that they can preach to their peers.
Enoch's eyes were opened by his faith and God showed him the return of Christ, so he preached it (Jude 14-15)! Noah was given the vision of God's judgment on a sin crazed world and became a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5). Moses beheld the Lord’s lesser glory and came down from the mount to deliver the Law of God (Exodus 33 & 34). Nehemiah wept and mourned and fasted and prayed over the remnant in Jerusalem until God gave him the vision of rebuilding the walls. Once he had the vision, he shared it with others and the wall was built in 52 days.
Over and over we see this truth in Holy Scripture. When men catch the vision of what God would do and then preach that vision, the world is changed. What was the amazing ministry of the apostles, but them getting from their Lord His vision, making it their own, and then preaching it all over the world?
Vision and Voice, that’s it in a nutshell!
Sadly, the flip side of the coin is equally true. False prophets are men who do not see what they should and therefore cannot say what they should. Jeremiah warned his people of the false prophets of his day with these words, “Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart” (14:14). “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD” (23:16).
God had given Jeremiah keen insight into the hearts of the false prophets that preached peace to Jerusalem. He perceived their lack of the vision that comes from God and the lies that resulted from their spiritual blindness. The disastrous result of sitting under false prophets is revealed in the last verse. Men without God's vision “make their hearers vain.”
Our prayer, then, must be, “O God give me the true vision of your own heart according to your Word and a voice to preach it without fear of man”!
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
March 12, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith of Malanda, Queensland, Australia
One of the old Scottish theologians said, “A prophet is a man who sees what others cannot see, and so he says what others cannot say!”
Vision and Voice! These are the marks that show us who are God's prophets! I doubt if we could describe a real preacher much better than that. God’s men are those whose eyes and mouths are open. God shows them His perspective on their world so that they can preach to their peers.
Enoch's eyes were opened by his faith and God showed him the return of Christ, so he preached it (Jude 14-15)! Noah was given the vision of God's judgment on a sin crazed world and became a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5). Moses beheld the Lord’s lesser glory and came down from the mount to deliver the Law of God (Exodus 33 & 34). Nehemiah wept and mourned and fasted and prayed over the remnant in Jerusalem until God gave him the vision of rebuilding the walls. Once he had the vision, he shared it with others and the wall was built in 52 days.
Over and over we see this truth in Holy Scripture. When men catch the vision of what God would do and then preach that vision, the world is changed. What was the amazing ministry of the apostles, but them getting from their Lord His vision, making it their own, and then preaching it all over the world?
Vision and Voice, that’s it in a nutshell!
Sadly, the flip side of the coin is equally true. False prophets are men who do not see what they should and therefore cannot say what they should. Jeremiah warned his people of the false prophets of his day with these words, “Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart” (14:14). “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD” (23:16).
God had given Jeremiah keen insight into the hearts of the false prophets that preached peace to Jerusalem. He perceived their lack of the vision that comes from God and the lies that resulted from their spiritual blindness. The disastrous result of sitting under false prophets is revealed in the last verse. Men without God's vision “make their hearers vain.”
Our prayer, then, must be, “O God give me the true vision of your own heart according to your Word and a voice to preach it without fear of man”!
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
A WINDOW ON THE WORLD
Mar/04/08 13:31
A WINDOW ON THE WORLD
March 4, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith, Malanda, Queensland --
Churches ought to have windows. That makes sense, doesn't it? But we are not thinking here about the windows in the buildings that we use for our meetings. We are thinking of the windows in the real churches, the assemblies of people that belong to the Lord. The gatherings of the saints need windows.
Of all the legitimate uses for windows, surely one of the most important is the view they give us on the world outside. With our Bibles in our hands and a prayer on our lips we can look outside our fellowships and not only see the world we live in, but actually see through it. Our perspective is a biblical perspective and our eyesight is sharpened through prayer and meditation on the Word of God.
Everyone of us looks out on our world without realising it. We do it when we read the newspaper, or catch the news on the wireless. We do it when we subscribe to an email news service. We do it when we read the Biblical Fundamentalist.
And we have a choice what we see from our windows.
I once had a newspaper boy who liked to throw my morning paper in the front door and hit the metal filing cabinet beside my desk. (He was the first person we saw come to Christ in that city.) Today it seems that somebody is throwing The International Rag straight through my window several times a day.
Surely it is wise to close the window (and pull the curtains) when our faith and morals are threatened by a 50 kg dirt sheet that is delivered at warp speed from Sodom. The media is full of that sort of thing. The wise man of Proverbs admonished his son with these words, “Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge.” Proverbs 19:27
So is it biblical to be an informed Christian, and to attend a church that is aware of its world? Well, yes, it is, but with limitations. A word ought to be said about the size of the windows in our churches. Windows that are too large weaken the church. Too much knowledge of the world results in structural failure. Windows that are too small limit our understanding. There ARE times when we need to pull the curtains and shut out the sights the world wants us to see. “But I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.” (Romans 16:19b) It would have been better for Lot's daughters to have never seen what their father's covetousness exposed them to.
On the other hand, Noah knew why God told him to build the ark. He knew because God told him and he knew because he had eyes in his head. Joseph knew something of the coming international consequences of the seven years of drought. He knew because God gave him understanding of Pharaoh's dream and because he reasoned by faith. Moses observed the misery of his people in Egypt and understood their plight, even before he heard the call of God from the burning bush. The apostles discerned many of the political and spiritual intrigues of the Roman Empire, without any help from the conspiracy theorists of their day. They knew because they had windows to see through.
We would be unwise if we chose to always keep the curtains closed, or to board up the windows of our churches, or worse yet, to have no windows at all. I Chron. 12:32 tells us of the men of Issachar who had “understanding of the times.” They looked out of their windows and discerned their world. It is only fitting then that pastors of churches should keep their people informed of men and movements that help or hinder the work of the Lord. We dare not build ivory towers without windows, though they be ever so straight and ever so narrow and ever so denominationally correct.
Maybe we could understand the importance of having windows if we had a few questions to ponder. As a pastor, should I be aware that the old theological liberalism (call it modernism, if you like) is enjoying a renaissance? Should I know what this neo-liberalism is called? Should I be learning who the leaders of the Emergent Church are before my church members begin buying their books? Should I be alert to the false gospel (that Christ's death upon the cross has no saving power) that is preached by every health, wealth, and prosperity tele(fraud)gelist? Should I know where my people can get good books for free on the net? Should I know where to look for thought provoking articles on the preservation of God's Word? Should I be interested in the Repentance Blacklist? Should I be alert, awake, and vigilant? Or should I pull the curtains on the windows in my church, and hope that no error will ever come knocking at our door?
It is no exaggeration to say that the watchman of Isaiah 21:11, were he alive today, might be totally ignorant of the threats to his city. We might call out to him, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” And his reply could come back to us, “I know not, for there are no windows for me to see if it is our enemies or our friends who are standing at the gates.
Vigilance is a word seldom heard these days. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your enemy the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world...” I Peter 5:8,9
It may be time to build some windows in your church.
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
March 4, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith, Malanda, Queensland
Churches ought to have windows. That makes sense, doesn't it? But we are not thinking here about the windows in the buildings that we use for our meetings. We are thinking of the windows in the real churches, the assemblies of people that belong to the Lord. The gatherings of the saints need windows.
Of all the legitimate uses for windows, surely one of the most important is the view they give us on the world outside. With our Bibles in our hands and a prayer on our lips we can look outside our fellowships and not only see the world we live in, but actually see through it. Our perspective is a biblical perspective and our eyesight is sharpened through prayer and meditation on the Word of God.
Everyone of us looks out on our world without realising it. We do it when we read the newspaper, or catch the news on the wireless. We do it when we subscribe to an email news service. We do it when we read the Biblical Fundamentalist.
And we have a choice what we see from our windows.
I once had a newspaper boy who liked to throw my morning paper in the front door and hit the metal filing cabinet beside my desk. (He was the first person we saw come to Christ in that city.) Today it seems that somebody is throwing The International Rag straight through my window several times a day.
Surely it is wise to close the window (and pull the curtains) when our faith and morals are threatened by a 50 kg dirt sheet that is delivered at warp speed from Sodom. The media is full of that sort of thing. The wise man of Proverbs admonished his son with these words, “Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge.” Proverbs 19:27
So is it biblical to be an informed Christian, and to attend a church that is aware of its world? Well, yes, it is, but with limitations. A word ought to be said about the size of the windows in our churches. Windows that are too large weaken the church. Too much knowledge of the world results in structural failure. Windows that are too small limit our understanding. There ARE times when we need to pull the curtains and shut out the sights the world wants us to see. “But I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.” (Romans 16:19b) It would have been better for Lot's daughters to have never seen what their father's covetousness exposed them to.
On the other hand, Noah knew why God told him to build the ark. He knew because God told him and he knew because he had eyes in his head. Joseph knew something of the coming international consequences of the seven years of drought. He knew because God gave him understanding of Pharaoh's dream and because he reasoned by faith. Moses observed the misery of his people in Egypt and understood their plight, even before he heard the call of God from the burning bush. The apostles discerned many of the political and spiritual intrigues of the Roman Empire, without any help from the conspiracy theorists of their day. They knew because they had windows to see through.
We would be unwise if we chose to always keep the curtains closed, or to board up the windows of our churches, or worse yet, to have no windows at all. I Chron. 12:32 tells us of the men of Issachar who had “understanding of the times.” They looked out of their windows and discerned their world. It is only fitting then that pastors of churches should keep their people informed of men and movements that help or hinder the work of the Lord. We dare not build ivory towers without windows, though they be ever so straight and ever so narrow and ever so denominationally correct.
Maybe we could understand the importance of having windows if we had a few questions to ponder. As a pastor, should I be aware that the old theological liberalism (call it modernism, if you like) is enjoying a renaissance? Should I know what this neo-liberalism is called? Should I be learning who the leaders of the Emergent Church are before my church members begin buying their books? Should I be alert to the false gospel (that Christ's death upon the cross has no saving power) that is preached by every health, wealth, and prosperity tele(fraud)gelist? Should I know where my people can get good books for free on the net? Should I know where to look for thought provoking articles on the preservation of God's Word? Should I be interested in the Repentance Blacklist? Should I be alert, awake, and vigilant? Or should I pull the curtains on the windows in my church, and hope that no error will ever come knocking at our door?
It is no exaggeration to say that the watchman of Isaiah 21:11, were he alive today, might be totally ignorant of the threats to his city. We might call out to him, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” And his reply could come back to us, “I know not, for there are no windows for me to see if it is our enemies or our friends who are standing at the gates.
Vigilance is a word seldom heard these days. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your enemy the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world...” I Peter 5:8,9
It may be time to build some windows in your church.
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES
Feb/06/08 19:56
I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES
Updated February 6, 2008 (first published March 19, 2002) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) –
When we warn that God does not promise always to heal and when we teach that certain sign gifts ceased with the apostles, we are consistently charged with not believing in God’s miracle working power. I can’t speak for others, but I know that for me that accusation is not true. I believe in a miracle-working God.
My God can do anything He pleases. He created the world in six days. He destroyed the ancient world by a great flood. He parted the Red Sea so the millions of the children of Israel marched through on dry ground. He brought Jesus into this world through the womb of a virgin. He died on the cross for my sins, and He rose from the dead the third day! He poured out the Holy Spirit on Pentecost with mighty signs and wonders.
My God can do ANYTHING, but my God also does what He wants when He wants! And He isn’t flooding the world today, nor is He parting the Red Sea, nor is He dying on a cross or rising from the dead. And He is not giving a new Pentecost today. That part of His glorious plan has been accomplished, and He is marching on gloriously toward the End.
My friends, I want to march in step with God. We must be satisfied with that which He IS doing, not carnally seeking after that which He has done in the past and that which we WISH He would do!
Faith is not forcing God to do what I want Him to do; it is believing God’s Word and accepting His will. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). The Lord Jesus warned, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign” (Matthew 12:39).
I can still hear the protests, though, saying, “Yea, you just believe in miracles for the past, not for today,” but that’s simply not true. I have experienced all sorts of miracles since I was converted in 1973. I can’t count the miraculous answers to prayer I’ve witnessed from the hand of God. The nearly 20 missionary years we have spent in South Asia have been absolutely filled with miracles. Our evangelistic work was illegal for 10 years and for at least three years, the government had a warrant out for my arrest, yet God protected us and kept us there to see a strong national church established. The churches that have been established are great miracles. In the first one, we began holding meetings in our house each week in the early 1980s, but many weeks went by and no one was saved. Many showed an interest in the gospel, but they were Hindus and they knew that if they were to reject their idols and follow Christ alone they would be persecuted by their friends and relatives. They might lose their jobs. Further, they could have been persecuted by the government, as well, in those days. Weeks went by and not one person repented and turned to Christ. Finally, we had a time of fasting and prayer, and almost immediately one man was saved. Then another man, then that man’s sister. Then another and another. The second man who was saved is a pastor today, and his sister is a pastor’s wife. God does miracles! Since then we have seen many people delivered from Satan’s power.
I could also tell of the miracles I saw in bringing Bibles and Christian literature into that land at a time when it was illegal. One time I brought 1,000 New Testaments into the country overland from northeast India all by myself, and the Lord miraculously opened the way for me through the customs -- without any bribing.
Our literature ministry for the past 30 years has been one long miracle of God’s protection, provision, and power. When I wanted to print our first book, which was a warning about the dangers of rock and roll music, I didn’t have any money for printing or any means to have it printed. I went to a commercial printer in North Carolina to see how much it would cost, and when I learned how expensive it was, I went out to my car, drove down the street a couple of blocks, parked under a tree, and poured out my heart to the Lord. I said, weeping, “Lord, I want to print this book. I want to exhort your people about this danger, but I don’t have any money. You see all of that printing equipment back there (at the commercial print shop). You see that they have the capability to print anything, but instead of using it for your glory, they are printing all sorts of worldly junk. Please open a door for me to have this book printed.” The next week I was in Brooksville, Florida, for a missionary deputation meeting, and after I preached, I was introduced to a church member who owned a commercial print shop. His name was Bobby Meadows. I told Bobby about my situation and my desire to print the book, and he said, “You are welcome to use my print shop. If you want to come in after we close at 5:30 each afternoon, you can use any of the equipment, and I will supply all of the materials.” What a miraculous answer to prayer! I had experience working as a commercial printer, so I gathered some volunteers from the church, and for about two weeks we worked from 5:30 each day through most of the night, printing the first books under the name Way of Life Literature. That was the miracle door the Lord opened. It has been like that ever since.
One time I went all the way around the world without any money. We were missionaries in South Asia, and I felt the Lord leading me to expand our publishing ministry in America. I wanted to travel to the States with the goal of visiting several places across the country, conferring with some pastor friends, in search of the Lord’s will. The problem was that I did not have the money even to reach my first destination, which was Florida, and if I were somehow to reach there, I didn’t have a car to drive on my desired trip across the States, and even if I were somehow able to obtain all of that, I didn’t have any money to return to our home in Asia. Believing the Lord was leading me to go anyway, I purchased a ticket as far as I could, which was New York City. As I was flying from London to New York, I learned that the man sitting next to me was a Christian man, a printer who was returning from a printing convention in Germany. We talked about the things of Christ, but I didn’t tell him anything about my situation. Before we landed in New York, though, he gave me $300 in traveler’s checks. When I landed in New York on Monday or Tuesday, I called a preacher in upper state New York. We had never met, but we had briefly corresponded a year or so before that. He had no idea I was coming through New York at that time, but he invited me to come up and preach for him that Wednesday night, so I took the money the printer had given me and purchased a ticket on a commuter flight. After I preached, the church gave me a nice love offering, which enabled me to fly on to Florida. Within three days of arriving there, a Christian man gave me the keys to a beautiful car with the insurance and everything already paid. The late model car was mine free and clear, and I headed out on my trip across the full length of America from Florida to Washington State! I didn’t have any meetings scheduled and no one knew I was coming, but the Lord provided step by step all the way across the country and then back to South Asia. This is only one of many such experiences I could describe.
I have personally experienced physical healing in answer to prayer. On a trip to the States in the 1980s, I experienced a wonderful healing. I had contracted a severe amebic dysentery in Calcutta just before embarking to the States. (Having spent a few years in that part of the world by that time, I had become something of an “expert” on stomach problems, and I knew that what I had then was not something that would go away on its own!) My first meeting was in Cody, Wyoming, and those first two days were miserable and as the dysentery was showing no sign of abating and I was very sick. I was planning to go to a doctor as soon as I could reach the next city. I stopped that night at the home of a pastor friend, Bill Redmond, in Thermopolis, Wyoming, and we talked into the wee hours of the morning. Before we retired, he prayed for me to be healed of my sickness. He didn’t rebuke the devil or demand that God heal. He simply prayed for me and we submitted ourselves to His will. When I woke up after a few hours of sleep to continue my trip, I discovered to my great joy that the Lord had completely healed me, and I felt like I had slept a full night’s sleep.
Another example of miraculous healing was experienced by our friend Paul Timmerman, a pastor in the mountains of New York State. A few years ago, he told me of a healing he experienced when he was co-piloting seaplanes in the Coast Guard, and I asked him to write it down so I could share it with others:
Updated February 6, 2008 (first published March 19, 2002) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) –
When we warn that God does not promise always to heal and when we teach that certain sign gifts ceased with the apostles, we are consistently charged with not believing in God’s miracle working power. I can’t speak for others, but I know that for me that accusation is not true. I believe in a miracle-working God.
My God can do anything He pleases. He created the world in six days. He destroyed the ancient world by a great flood. He parted the Red Sea so the millions of the children of Israel marched through on dry ground. He brought Jesus into this world through the womb of a virgin. He died on the cross for my sins, and He rose from the dead the third day! He poured out the Holy Spirit on Pentecost with mighty signs and wonders.
My God can do ANYTHING, but my God also does what He wants when He wants! And He isn’t flooding the world today, nor is He parting the Red Sea, nor is He dying on a cross or rising from the dead. And He is not giving a new Pentecost today. That part of His glorious plan has been accomplished, and He is marching on gloriously toward the End.
My friends, I want to march in step with God. We must be satisfied with that which He IS doing, not carnally seeking after that which He has done in the past and that which we WISH He would do!
Faith is not forcing God to do what I want Him to do; it is believing God’s Word and accepting His will. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). The Lord Jesus warned, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign” (Matthew 12:39).
I can still hear the protests, though, saying, “Yea, you just believe in miracles for the past, not for today,” but that’s simply not true. I have experienced all sorts of miracles since I was converted in 1973. I can’t count the miraculous answers to prayer I’ve witnessed from the hand of God. The nearly 20 missionary years we have spent in South Asia have been absolutely filled with miracles. Our evangelistic work was illegal for 10 years and for at least three years, the government had a warrant out for my arrest, yet God protected us and kept us there to see a strong national church established. The churches that have been established are great miracles. In the first one, we began holding meetings in our house each week in the early 1980s, but many weeks went by and no one was saved. Many showed an interest in the gospel, but they were Hindus and they knew that if they were to reject their idols and follow Christ alone they would be persecuted by their friends and relatives. They might lose their jobs. Further, they could have been persecuted by the government, as well, in those days. Weeks went by and not one person repented and turned to Christ. Finally, we had a time of fasting and prayer, and almost immediately one man was saved. Then another man, then that man’s sister. Then another and another. The second man who was saved is a pastor today, and his sister is a pastor’s wife. God does miracles! Since then we have seen many people delivered from Satan’s power.
I could also tell of the miracles I saw in bringing Bibles and Christian literature into that land at a time when it was illegal. One time I brought 1,000 New Testaments into the country overland from northeast India all by myself, and the Lord miraculously opened the way for me through the customs -- without any bribing.
Our literature ministry for the past 30 years has been one long miracle of God’s protection, provision, and power. When I wanted to print our first book, which was a warning about the dangers of rock and roll music, I didn’t have any money for printing or any means to have it printed. I went to a commercial printer in North Carolina to see how much it would cost, and when I learned how expensive it was, I went out to my car, drove down the street a couple of blocks, parked under a tree, and poured out my heart to the Lord. I said, weeping, “Lord, I want to print this book. I want to exhort your people about this danger, but I don’t have any money. You see all of that printing equipment back there (at the commercial print shop). You see that they have the capability to print anything, but instead of using it for your glory, they are printing all sorts of worldly junk. Please open a door for me to have this book printed.” The next week I was in Brooksville, Florida, for a missionary deputation meeting, and after I preached, I was introduced to a church member who owned a commercial print shop. His name was Bobby Meadows. I told Bobby about my situation and my desire to print the book, and he said, “You are welcome to use my print shop. If you want to come in after we close at 5:30 each afternoon, you can use any of the equipment, and I will supply all of the materials.” What a miraculous answer to prayer! I had experience working as a commercial printer, so I gathered some volunteers from the church, and for about two weeks we worked from 5:30 each day through most of the night, printing the first books under the name Way of Life Literature. That was the miracle door the Lord opened. It has been like that ever since.
One time I went all the way around the world without any money. We were missionaries in South Asia, and I felt the Lord leading me to expand our publishing ministry in America. I wanted to travel to the States with the goal of visiting several places across the country, conferring with some pastor friends, in search of the Lord’s will. The problem was that I did not have the money even to reach my first destination, which was Florida, and if I were somehow to reach there, I didn’t have a car to drive on my desired trip across the States, and even if I were somehow able to obtain all of that, I didn’t have any money to return to our home in Asia. Believing the Lord was leading me to go anyway, I purchased a ticket as far as I could, which was New York City. As I was flying from London to New York, I learned that the man sitting next to me was a Christian man, a printer who was returning from a printing convention in Germany. We talked about the things of Christ, but I didn’t tell him anything about my situation. Before we landed in New York, though, he gave me $300 in traveler’s checks. When I landed in New York on Monday or Tuesday, I called a preacher in upper state New York. We had never met, but we had briefly corresponded a year or so before that. He had no idea I was coming through New York at that time, but he invited me to come up and preach for him that Wednesday night, so I took the money the printer had given me and purchased a ticket on a commuter flight. After I preached, the church gave me a nice love offering, which enabled me to fly on to Florida. Within three days of arriving there, a Christian man gave me the keys to a beautiful car with the insurance and everything already paid. The late model car was mine free and clear, and I headed out on my trip across the full length of America from Florida to Washington State! I didn’t have any meetings scheduled and no one knew I was coming, but the Lord provided step by step all the way across the country and then back to South Asia. This is only one of many such experiences I could describe.
I have personally experienced physical healing in answer to prayer. On a trip to the States in the 1980s, I experienced a wonderful healing. I had contracted a severe amebic dysentery in Calcutta just before embarking to the States. (Having spent a few years in that part of the world by that time, I had become something of an “expert” on stomach problems, and I knew that what I had then was not something that would go away on its own!) My first meeting was in Cody, Wyoming, and those first two days were miserable and as the dysentery was showing no sign of abating and I was very sick. I was planning to go to a doctor as soon as I could reach the next city. I stopped that night at the home of a pastor friend, Bill Redmond, in Thermopolis, Wyoming, and we talked into the wee hours of the morning. Before we retired, he prayed for me to be healed of my sickness. He didn’t rebuke the devil or demand that God heal. He simply prayed for me and we submitted ourselves to His will. When I woke up after a few hours of sleep to continue my trip, I discovered to my great joy that the Lord had completely healed me, and I felt like I had slept a full night’s sleep.
Another example of miraculous healing was experienced by our friend Paul Timmerman, a pastor in the mountains of New York State. A few years ago, he told me of a healing he experienced when he was co-piloting seaplanes in the Coast Guard, and I asked him to write it down so I could share it with others:
“Hello, I’m Paul Timmerman. I give the following as testimony of the great power that our God has to heal a person. I personally have had several instances of divine healing in my life that were just plain miracles, that could be explained no other way. These were attested to by federal medical personnel and flight surgeons, and the healings that I have had are a matter of my own military record.
“The one that I would like to share for this moment happened in 1971, when I was serving with the United States Coast Guard. I was stationed at Port Angeles, Washington, [at the] Coast Guard Air Station there, flying sea planes and single engine helicopters at that time. While stationed there, I developed a very sore wrist condition, whereby the use of my hands was badly impaired, and I had growths on the insides of my wrists that started growing up and came about a half an inch high or so on each wrist. It would keep my wrist from moving, became very painful, and the doctors checked it out, and, after X-raying and all, said that it was a tissue growth called a ganglia. They tried several different medical ways to remove them, and to stop the growth of them, and to give me back the use of my wrists, and these methods failed. So they sent me to a specialist at the Army hospital, Madigan General Hospital, Fort Lewis, Washington. There the medical staff again X-rayed and examined my wrists and set up the date for surgery because there was no other alternative that they had at that point to remove the growths that were quite visible, and very sore, and hindering the use of my hands. They set up the surgery date, and the day before my surgery I had to report in to the hospital for prepping, for pre-surgery examination. And the surgeons examined again the X-rays and my wrists, and saw the extent of the damage, and prepared me for surgery for the following day.
“However, that evening, after the doctors left, I was in my hospital bed there waiting, studying my Bible, and just relying on the promises of the Lord, and I turned sincerely to the Lord and asked Him--knowing full well He had the power to heal through surgeons or through divine healing--and I just asked Him to work a miracle, and take these away, that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ would be magnified and glorified throughout that hospital, due to the miracle that had been worked.
“In the morning, much to the surprise of the doctors when they came in, the growths were completely gone from my wrists. I had full use of my hands, my wrists. And to this day, almost 20 years later, I have never had a reoccurrence of this phenomena on my wrists. The doctors then were totally baffled by what happened, thinking perhaps they had the wrong patient or whatever. I simply witnessed for the Lord Jesus Christ and told them that I had asked the Lord to work a miracle a night before if it be His will, knowing full well that He could, and that He had decided that it was for the glory and honor of Jesus Christ that He did. And He healed me that night, and like I say, it has never reoccurred. I went about the hospital just praising the Lord Jesus Christ and glorifying His name, telling others about Him, witnessing to the great miracle that took place there. And the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ went throughout that hospital to many military men, and the doctors, of course, had nothing to say but that they certainly had done nothing to change that, but that condition was totally healed.”
Isn’t that a blessing! Let me give you another healing testimony from an independent Baptist preacher who believes in the miracles of God today but not the sign-miracles of apostolic times. The following is the testimony of evangelist Al Lacy, which he gave on May 8, 1996, at the Bible Baptist Church in Oak Harbor, Washington. At the time this miracle healing occurred, Lacy was a pastor:
“My wife had a rare disease which destroyed her kidney and it had to be removed. Eight years later the same symptoms were discovered in her remaining kidney. The doctors said that two-thirds of the kidney was dead. They said she had one year to live. One and a half maximum. She was too weak for a transplant. (That was in the early days of kidney transplants.) I called the 27 deacons of the church, and they anointed her with oil and prayed over her. The Lord stopped the disease right there and she has lived 21 years as of this telling.”
I should mention that Bible-believing Baptists of old have believed in and prayed for divine healing, though they knew that God does not always heal and His people must be willing to bow to His sovereign purposes even in sickness. There are several of these accounts in the old Baptist histories in my library. One example is the ministry of Owen Thomas, who pastored the first Baptist church in Delaware. Thomas was born in Wales in 1676 and came to America in 1707. He took the pastoral care of the Welsh Tract church in 1740 and continued in that office until 1748, when he resigned it, to go to Yellow Springs, where he died, November 12, 1760. Pastor Thomas left behind the following note: “I have been called upon three times to anoint the sick with oil for recovery; the effect was surprising in every case, but in none more so, than in the case of our brother Rynallt Howel: he was so sore with the bruises which he received by a cask falling on him from a wagon, that he could not bear to be turned in bed: the next day he went to meeting” (David Benedict, A General History of the Baptists in America, 1813, Vol. 2, Chapter 1).
You don’t have to follow Charismatic error to believe in the power and blessing of God. I believe in miracles for today, but friends, I also believe in the Bible, and I refuse to force the Bible to say what I want it to say. The Bible tells me that the miracles of Christ and the apostles were unique and were not something that will be duplicated by Christians in general. If the sign miracles were something that were done by Christians at large in the first century, how could they have been the “signs of an apostle” (2 Cor. 12:12)? If you go through the book of Acts and examine the various miracles, you will see that the apostles performed them in the overwhelming number of cases. There is one or two exceptions of miracles performed by non-apostles, but they did so after being ordained by the apostles and through working closely with the apostles.
Furthermore, the Bible tells me that God often heals but he does not always heal. The Bible tells me that sickness and trouble can be a blessing from Him. The Bible says that faith is more important than miracles. The Bible says that kingdom power and glory is yet future, and will flow through the world when Christ returns--not before. The Bible warns that the end times will be characterized by deceiving signs and wonders (Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-10), and Jesus warned, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign” (Matthew 12:39).
We close with the words of Fanny Crosby about the matter of health. This godly woman, one of the most greatly beloved hymnists of the church age, was blind all her life, yet she did not demand that God heal her; she did not believe that the devil had afflicted her with the blindness; she did not rebuke the devil for her affliction; she did not doubt God because He chose not to heal her. She had a different testimony:
O what a happy soul am I!
Although I cannot see
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy,
That other people don’t.
To weep and sigh because I’m blind,
I cannot, and I won’t.
--Fanny Crosby
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
THE WORLD KNEW HIM NOT
Jan/30/08 13:31
THE WORLD KNEW HIM NOT
January 30, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith, Malanda, Queensland --
The world knew him not.
That’s what the Holy Spirit said in John 1:10, “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.”
The world knew Him not.
That is an amazing fact. At face value, this Scripture teaches that creation did not recognise its Creator.
Have you ever pondered how complete was the humility of Christ in His incarnation? The Holy Spirit has described the humiliation of our Lord Jesus with these words, “...being in the form of God (He) thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Phil. 2:6-8
We know from this text that He came incognito into our world, unrecognised by His own creatures. This Scripture text raises several questions, “How well cloaked was the glory of the Son of God? How completely did He hide the transcendence of His nature from His creatures? How perfectly did He conceal His glorious attributes when the Infinite God became an Infant Man?” Our text declares that He was totally successful. He cloaked His glory in human form.
The world knew Him not.
It was not always so. Before His Incarnation all His creatures knew Him. The stars in their courses, the sun in its strength, the earth in its orbit, all these sprang forth at His Word and marched at His command. The Red sea stood up for ramparts and Jordan uncovered its pebbly bed when He required. Fire fell from a cloudless sky upon Elijah’s altar, the great fish swallowed the errant prophet, and the fiery furnace lost its heat when He said so. His creation knew Him from the beginning, and rejoiced to do His will.
And it will recognise Him in the end. The elements shall melt with a fervent heat and pass away with a great noise at the unveiling of His full glory. All the dusty, ashy atoms of all the dead will hear their Maker’s voice and reassemble at His command. Without exception they will stand before Him at the judgment.
But our text says the world knew Him not in His Incarnation. This is an amazing truth! Is it not amazing that when He came into His world the habiliments of His humanity concealed the glory of the Son of God so completely that no created thing knew Him? Concealed at least until He began to speak the Words His Father gave Him to speak, until He began to work the works the Father gave Him to work, until He began to fulfill the Will of His Father? And when He did, His creatures awoke to His true identity. The scales fell off their eyes. Water became wine gladly at His will. Blind eyes blinked seeingly against the light of day under His care. Atrophied limbs heard His Word and moved with strength. Deaf ears and dumb tongues broke their restraints and resumed their proper functions. The atoms of a lad’s lunch multiplied at His blessing and fed a multitude. The fish in the sea heard His call and rushed to fill the nets. The stormy waves of the sea lay down at His command and licked the sides of the boat. The bodies of the dead felt new life at His touch and arose to serve Him.
If atoms and red blood cells and every other created thing had possessed the ability to speak, they would have lifted their voices again and again and shouted, “Our Master has come! Our Creator has come down to walk among us! Let us do His will!” Did not our Lord Himself tell us that the stones themselves would cry out if His praise was hindered by the religious mutes of Jerusalem?
There was only one of His creatures that did not leap up in joyful recognition when they heard His Words, when they saw His Works. Man only, with granite heart and flinty mind received Him not. John the Baptist exposed the blindness of their unbelief when he told them, “There standeth One among you whom ye know not;” (1:26) They didn’t know their Creator. Man, the one creature made in his Creator’s likeness, did not recognise Him!
So God sent them a man, a prophet, a witness. He bore witness of the Light they could not see. And God blessed His Word to their salvation so that John testified, “We beheld His glory! We recognised our Creator! We have discovered who He is! He is the Word! He is the Eternal God! He is the Light of the world! He is the Lifegiver! He is the only begotten Son of God! He is the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world! He is the Water of Life! He is the Good Shepherd and the Door of the sheepfold! He is the Vine and we are His branches. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life! He is our risen Lord!”
There is a day coming when all creation will recognise its maker. Though the wicked will mourn at His appearance, the return of Christ will also be a time of great joy. “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh...” Psa 96:11-13a
Ah, yes, all creation will recognise its Maker and rejoice at His coming.
And we will join our voices with theirs. One of our hymns will be, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” We who know Him long for our new bodies with their new voices and hope for the day when we will joyfully praise Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. Hasten the day, Lord.
In fact, we need not wait. Today would be a good day for choir rehearsal.
We need not wait for His coming. Let His praises begin.
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http:/wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
January 30, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following is by Pastor Buddy Smith, Malanda, Queensland
The world knew him not.
That’s what the Holy Spirit said in John 1:10, “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.”
The world knew Him not.
That is an amazing fact. At face value, this Scripture teaches that creation did not recognise its Creator.
Have you ever pondered how complete was the humility of Christ in His incarnation? The Holy Spirit has described the humiliation of our Lord Jesus with these words, “...being in the form of God (He) thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Phil. 2:6-8
We know from this text that He came incognito into our world, unrecognised by His own creatures. This Scripture text raises several questions, “How well cloaked was the glory of the Son of God? How completely did He hide the transcendence of His nature from His creatures? How perfectly did He conceal His glorious attributes when the Infinite God became an Infant Man?” Our text declares that He was totally successful. He cloaked His glory in human form.
The world knew Him not.
It was not always so. Before His Incarnation all His creatures knew Him. The stars in their courses, the sun in its strength, the earth in its orbit, all these sprang forth at His Word and marched at His command. The Red sea stood up for ramparts and Jordan uncovered its pebbly bed when He required. Fire fell from a cloudless sky upon Elijah’s altar, the great fish swallowed the errant prophet, and the fiery furnace lost its heat when He said so. His creation knew Him from the beginning, and rejoiced to do His will.
And it will recognise Him in the end. The elements shall melt with a fervent heat and pass away with a great noise at the unveiling of His full glory. All the dusty, ashy atoms of all the dead will hear their Maker’s voice and reassemble at His command. Without exception they will stand before Him at the judgment.
But our text says the world knew Him not in His Incarnation. This is an amazing truth! Is it not amazing that when He came into His world the habiliments of His humanity concealed the glory of the Son of God so completely that no created thing knew Him? Concealed at least until He began to speak the Words His Father gave Him to speak, until He began to work the works the Father gave Him to work, until He began to fulfill the Will of His Father? And when He did, His creatures awoke to His true identity. The scales fell off their eyes. Water became wine gladly at His will. Blind eyes blinked seeingly against the light of day under His care. Atrophied limbs heard His Word and moved with strength. Deaf ears and dumb tongues broke their restraints and resumed their proper functions. The atoms of a lad’s lunch multiplied at His blessing and fed a multitude. The fish in the sea heard His call and rushed to fill the nets. The stormy waves of the sea lay down at His command and licked the sides of the boat. The bodies of the dead felt new life at His touch and arose to serve Him.
If atoms and red blood cells and every other created thing had possessed the ability to speak, they would have lifted their voices again and again and shouted, “Our Master has come! Our Creator has come down to walk among us! Let us do His will!” Did not our Lord Himself tell us that the stones themselves would cry out if His praise was hindered by the religious mutes of Jerusalem?
There was only one of His creatures that did not leap up in joyful recognition when they heard His Words, when they saw His Works. Man only, with granite heart and flinty mind received Him not. John the Baptist exposed the blindness of their unbelief when he told them, “There standeth One among you whom ye know not;” (1:26) They didn’t know their Creator. Man, the one creature made in his Creator’s likeness, did not recognise Him!
So God sent them a man, a prophet, a witness. He bore witness of the Light they could not see. And God blessed His Word to their salvation so that John testified, “We beheld His glory! We recognised our Creator! We have discovered who He is! He is the Word! He is the Eternal God! He is the Light of the world! He is the Lifegiver! He is the only begotten Son of God! He is the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world! He is the Water of Life! He is the Good Shepherd and the Door of the sheepfold! He is the Vine and we are His branches. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life! He is our risen Lord!”
There is a day coming when all creation will recognise its maker. Though the wicked will mourn at His appearance, the return of Christ will also be a time of great joy. “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord: for He cometh...” Psa 96:11-13a
Ah, yes, all creation will recognise its Maker and rejoice at His coming.
And we will join our voices with theirs. One of our hymns will be, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” We who know Him long for our new bodies with their new voices and hope for the day when we will joyfully praise Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. Hasten the day, Lord.
In fact, we need not wait. Today would be a good day for choir rehearsal.
We need not wait for His coming. Let His praises begin.
A PREACHER’S SON COMES TO CHRIST
Jan/29/08 19:56
A PREACHER’S SON COMES TO CHRIST
January 29, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
I highly recommend Training Your Children to Turn out Right by David Sorenson. This powerful and important book can be ordered from Northstar Ministries, 1820 W. Morgan St., Duluth, MN 55811, 218-726-0209, www.northstarministries.com, dhs.northstar@charter.net.
Following is the section of the book that gives Pastor Sorenson’s own testimony of salvation.
________________________
I believe one problem in many Christian homes is that the children have made professions of faith, but have never actually been born again. ... A child who has a divinely created new nature within his or her heart will be spiritually sympathetic to being trained in righteousness. ... Therefore, it is of utmost importance that we carefully instruct and couch our children about salvation. ...
I have known of many young people who] professed to be saved in their childhood; but in reality, they were never born again. They went through the motions and walked an aisle. They learned the language, but they were never regenerated. ...
As a boy of five, I had gone (or been taken) forward in an evangelistic meeting. I do not know who the preacher was. I do not remember what the sermon was about. In fact, as I recall, I slept through much of the service. I have absolutely no recollection of who prayed with me or how I was dealt with in the prayer room. ... After that meeting, I was coached to tell others that I had gotten saved. Therefore, over the next fifteen years, if someone asked me if I was saved, I would reply, ‘Oh yes. I was saved when I was five years old.’ Now, I believe that five-year-old children can be saved, but I do not believe that I was saved then. If it had not been for faithful parents who continued to pray for me over those years, I may not have been genuinely converted when I was in Bible college. I believe in my case and in many others, there was a lack of conviction about sin and its consequences in both heart and mind. It is a crucial prerequisite to the new birth. ...
In Bible college, I was searching spiritually. I went to a spiritual leader and told him of my heart’s confusion. He dismissed my concern and told me I was just seeking assurance of my salvation. Well, as it turned out, what I really was seeking was salvation. ... If your children come to you and tell you they are not sure that they are saved, treat it as though they have never made any profession of faith. You do not know their hearts; only God does. Beware of saying, ‘Oh, honey, you took care of that a long time ago. Don’t you remember?’ It may be that the Holy Ghost is dealing in his heart. Do not assume that because he has gone through the motions that he is born again. ...
[Saving] faith includes repentance. Repentance is not doing anything. It is not a deed, act, work, or rite. Rather, it is a change of the direction of one’s heart. It basically means an attitude of the heart in turning from sin and self and turning to God. That’s what Paul was referring to in Acts 20:21 when he referred to ‘repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Saving faith is the human heart turning to God and then trusting in Jesus Christ. ... Even as there is the part of trusting Christ, there is also the part of turning to Him. That may seem inconsequential, but I believe that here is a spiritual reason they some go through the motions of believing in Christ but are not really born again. They seemingly want the fire escape but there is no interest in turning to God. There is no interest in repentance. They have the attitude, ‘God, gimme salvation, but I’m gonna keep on doing my own thing.’ ... However, if there is no real turning to God from the heart, they have missed the prerequisite for actually trusting Christ. ...
As a young man in my junior year at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, God convicted me. I had never really been saved though I had been a professing Christian for the preceding 15 years. ... I began to think back over my life to that point. I knew that the Bible taught that ‘if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). I knew that if a person was really saved, there would be an interest in the things of God. There would be some sort of internal aversion to sin. Anyone who knew me during my teenage years would have remembered me as a rebellious preacher’s kid.
I had absolutely no interest in the things of God. I only went to church because my dad was the pastor, and I had to go. I could not have cared less about the Bible. Things like witnessing and having a testimony were about as alien to me as living in Afghanistan. I loved the things of the world. My mind and my vocabulary were as foul as any one else in the world. I thought like the world thought. I liked what the world did, and I wanted to do what the world did. Only the strictness of my upbringing and of the college I was attending prevented me from actually doing a significant amount of it.
I lay there on my bed that morning in November 1966. As I mulled all of this over in my mind, I knew that I had no recollection of conviction when I went forward as a boy. I reflected over the fact that there had never been any change in my life spiritually that I could remember. I knew the sinfulness of my heart as a 20-year-old college student, and I considered the lack of interest in the things of God in my life.
Slowly that November morning, the Holy Spirit convicted me of the fact that I had never really been saved. I had gone through the motions of it as a small boy and had professed salvation all those years. For the first time in my life it was dawning on me that I was not saved, and for someone who had assumed to be saved for the past 15 years, it came as quite some shock. ... As I thought about the situation, it suddenly dawned upon me, ‘If I am not saved, then I am on my way to hell.’ I had never in my entire life given any serious consideration to that fact. It kind of shook me up. ... I realized that I was dealing with a serious matter. After wrestling spiritually with the conviction of the Holy Spirit for some time, I knew I had to settle the matter. I knelt beside my bed and prayed, ‘Dear Lord, I know I am a sinner. I really don’t know what happened when I was five years old. But I don’t think I really was saved then. Oh Lord, please save me and cleanse me of my sins and give me eternal life.’
There were no bolts of lightning or thunder claps, but a peace swept across my soul. I knew I had settled the matter. There no longer was any doubt. I had trusted Christ and I knew it. I claimed Romans 10:13, ‘For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.’ This time there had been a clear understanding of my lost condition, and this time there was a deep willingness to turn to Christ and trust Him. Praise the Lord, He saved me.
Very soon thereafter, my life began to make some radical changes. Even as a student in a Christian college, my interest in serving the Lord had been somewhere between little and none. Witnessing and soul winning were alien to me. Not only did I not know how; I did not care.
Now I suddenly became burdened for the guy I worked with at a TV repair shop in town. Within six weeks of making peace with Jesus Christ, I had led him to Christ and attempted to win my other co-workers there. I began going to a reformatory to help conduct services and then on to the Minnesota State Penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota, for services. Before long I was preaching at the prison myself. Prior to my salvation experience, I honestly could not have cared less about such things.
Something had happened to me. I had been born again (Training Your Children to Turn out Right, 1995, pp 156-167).
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]
January 29, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
I highly recommend Training Your Children to Turn out Right by David Sorenson. This powerful and important book can be ordered from Northstar Ministries, 1820 W. Morgan St., Duluth, MN 55811, 218-726-0209, www.northstarministries.com, dhs.northstar@charter.net.
Following is the section of the book that gives Pastor Sorenson’s own testimony of salvation.
________________________
I believe one problem in many Christian homes is that the children have made professions of faith, but have never actually been born again. ... A child who has a divinely created new nature within his or her heart will be spiritually sympathetic to being trained in righteousness. ... Therefore, it is of utmost importance that we carefully instruct and couch our children about salvation. ...
I have known of many young people who] professed to be saved in their childhood; but in reality, they were never born again. They went through the motions and walked an aisle. They learned the language, but they were never regenerated. ...
As a boy of five, I had gone (or been taken) forward in an evangelistic meeting. I do not know who the preacher was. I do not remember what the sermon was about. In fact, as I recall, I slept through much of the service. I have absolutely no recollection of who prayed with me or how I was dealt with in the prayer room. ... After that meeting, I was coached to tell others that I had gotten saved. Therefore, over the next fifteen years, if someone asked me if I was saved, I would reply, ‘Oh yes. I was saved when I was five years old.’ Now, I believe that five-year-old children can be saved, but I do not believe that I was saved then. If it had not been for faithful parents who continued to pray for me over those years, I may not have been genuinely converted when I was in Bible college. I believe in my case and in many others, there was a lack of conviction about sin and its consequences in both heart and mind. It is a crucial prerequisite to the new birth. ...
In Bible college, I was searching spiritually. I went to a spiritual leader and told him of my heart’s confusion. He dismissed my concern and told me I was just seeking assurance of my salvation. Well, as it turned out, what I really was seeking was salvation. ... If your children come to you and tell you they are not sure that they are saved, treat it as though they have never made any profession of faith. You do not know their hearts; only God does. Beware of saying, ‘Oh, honey, you took care of that a long time ago. Don’t you remember?’ It may be that the Holy Ghost is dealing in his heart. Do not assume that because he has gone through the motions that he is born again. ...
[Saving] faith includes repentance. Repentance is not doing anything. It is not a deed, act, work, or rite. Rather, it is a change of the direction of one’s heart. It basically means an attitude of the heart in turning from sin and self and turning to God. That’s what Paul was referring to in Acts 20:21 when he referred to ‘repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Saving faith is the human heart turning to God and then trusting in Jesus Christ. ... Even as there is the part of trusting Christ, there is also the part of turning to Him. That may seem inconsequential, but I believe that here is a spiritual reason they some go through the motions of believing in Christ but are not really born again. They seemingly want the fire escape but there is no interest in turning to God. There is no interest in repentance. They have the attitude, ‘God, gimme salvation, but I’m gonna keep on doing my own thing.’ ... However, if there is no real turning to God from the heart, they have missed the prerequisite for actually trusting Christ. ...
As a young man in my junior year at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, God convicted me. I had never really been saved though I had been a professing Christian for the preceding 15 years. ... I began to think back over my life to that point. I knew that the Bible taught that ‘if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). I knew that if a person was really saved, there would be an interest in the things of God. There would be some sort of internal aversion to sin. Anyone who knew me during my teenage years would have remembered me as a rebellious preacher’s kid.
I had absolutely no interest in the things of God. I only went to church because my dad was the pastor, and I had to go. I could not have cared less about the Bible. Things like witnessing and having a testimony were about as alien to me as living in Afghanistan. I loved the things of the world. My mind and my vocabulary were as foul as any one else in the world. I thought like the world thought. I liked what the world did, and I wanted to do what the world did. Only the strictness of my upbringing and of the college I was attending prevented me from actually doing a significant amount of it.
I lay there on my bed that morning in November 1966. As I mulled all of this over in my mind, I knew that I had no recollection of conviction when I went forward as a boy. I reflected over the fact that there had never been any change in my life spiritually that I could remember. I knew the sinfulness of my heart as a 20-year-old college student, and I considered the lack of interest in the things of God in my life.
Slowly that November morning, the Holy Spirit convicted me of the fact that I had never really been saved. I had gone through the motions of it as a small boy and had professed salvation all those years. For the first time in my life it was dawning on me that I was not saved, and for someone who had assumed to be saved for the past 15 years, it came as quite some shock. ... As I thought about the situation, it suddenly dawned upon me, ‘If I am not saved, then I am on my way to hell.’ I had never in my entire life given any serious consideration to that fact. It kind of shook me up. ... I realized that I was dealing with a serious matter. After wrestling spiritually with the conviction of the Holy Spirit for some time, I knew I had to settle the matter. I knelt beside my bed and prayed, ‘Dear Lord, I know I am a sinner. I really don’t know what happened when I was five years old. But I don’t think I really was saved then. Oh Lord, please save me and cleanse me of my sins and give me eternal life.’
There were no bolts of lightning or thunder claps, but a peace swept across my soul. I knew I had settled the matter. There no longer was any doubt. I had trusted Christ and I knew it. I claimed Romans 10:13, ‘For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.’ This time there had been a clear understanding of my lost condition, and this time there was a deep willingness to turn to Christ and trust Him. Praise the Lord, He saved me.
Very soon thereafter, my life began to make some radical changes. Even as a student in a Christian college, my interest in serving the Lord had been somewhere between little and none. Witnessing and soul winning were alien to me. Not only did I not know how; I did not care.
Now I suddenly became burdened for the guy I worked with at a TV repair shop in town. Within six weeks of making peace with Jesus Christ, I had led him to Christ and attempted to win my other co-workers there. I began going to a reformatory to help conduct services and then on to the Minnesota State Penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota, for services. Before long I was preaching at the prison myself. Prior to my salvation experience, I honestly could not have cared less about such things.
Something had happened to me. I had been born again (Training Your Children to Turn out Right, 1995, pp 156-167).
[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://www.wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]