ChristianPreacher.net url address now becomes christiantyexplained.wordpress.com
This site is not intended to be a replacement for regular weekly attendance at a local church. It is intended to augment and supplement the work of regular ministry in local churches. Such includes reproof and correction, as well as biblical doctrine and instruction in righteousnesss [2 Timothy 3.16]
Let’s remember these fundamentals:
- SUPPLICATION
- SANCTIFICATION
The church assembled is called first and foremost to pray for God’s kingdom to come and to preach doctrine which causes us to live out the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is not to build up head knowledge alone; or find grounds of conflict with others; or mimic the world’s rock festivals; or treat God as some sort of talisman.
When the church recovers its God ordained role to pray, and pray, and to preach sound doctrine which causes us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, we will again see the blessing of God upon churches and so ultimately in the nations.
Evangelism will then become both normal and a direct challenge to the wickedness of human hearts. Until a person understands they are a hell bound sinner who can do nothing to save themselves, they are not yet ready to submit to Jesus Christ. God preserve us from the heresy of “come to Jesus and all will be wonderful” ! That is not the biblical message and it is not the biblical Jesus Christ.
As individual believers, our task is to wage the spiritual warfare in our own evil hearts, to love and forgive others. It is to learn dependance upon God, to grow in depending on his grace, and so gain the knowledge of Christ for ourselves. It is to understand that all that happens in our lives is God’s way to sanctify us and cause us to grow ever nearer to him.
Church elders need to avoid the twin temptations of doing nothing on one hand and of over intervention on the other. God forbid that mere men try to play God in the lives of others. Church leaders must give leadership, that is they must first and foremost live the example and speak from hard won experience. They must speak the truth plainly and clearly. In their dealings with believers they must follow the example of the chief shepherd who taught and warned; who lived the life; who understood that we are as dumb sheep who can take quite some time to get the message and get their act right. The priority is to speak the truth in love, and that being the entire truth – Paul was guiltless of the blood of those he preached to because he had not failed to declare ALL the counsel of GOD.
We are witnessing today the triumph of a spirit of fanatical atheism. It is destroying our humanity and our civilisation. The only recourse is to cry out to God, confess the sin of our communities and nations, and plead for his intervention in mighty power. Of ourselves we can do nothing but submit to God and refuse the godless ways of the world, whatever the personal cost.
Ending this series of weekly messages in the book of Judges is therefore apt. The context concerned the first centuries of God’s people possessing the promised land. They failed time and again. They only succeeded when they understood that disobedience brings oppression and failure; that in their failure they needed God to whom they therefore cried out; that when they understood their rebellion and inadequacy and their need of God himself – then God intervened and did the miracle. He provided the man, the method, the timing. Above all, God was in charge and God was at work.
Today we desperately need God to restore the knowledge and fear of Jesus Christ. And he will do so when we as individuals and as churches in the English speaking nations recognise our compromise with Materialism and this world’s ways; when we realise that this makes us God’s enemies not his co-workers; when we confess our foolishness and cry from the heart to see him restore the biblical Jesus Christ as our true God, our true Lord and Saviour.
Amen.
Christianity 