Archive for the ‘Kingdom Teaching’ Category

Can we not control our tongue?

Posted: May 9, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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In chapters 1-2 we have seen how James explains the two characteristics of the mature Christian: patient in trouble (James 1) and practicing the truth (James 2). In chapter 3 he shares the third characteristic of the mature believer: power over the tongue.

The power of speech is one of the greatest powers God has given us. With the tongue, we can praise God, teach God’s Word and lead lost sinners to Jesus Christ. But with that same tongue we can tell lies that can ruin a reputation or break someone’s heart. The ability to articulate truth is one of the most powerful ways we influence others; and yet so often we take this ability for granted. In order to impress on us the importance of controlled speech, and the great consequences of our words, James gave us six pictures of the tongue: the bit, the rudder, fire, a poisonous animal, a fountain, and a fig tree. You can put these six pictures into three meaningful classifications that reveal the three powers of the tongue.

1. Power to Direct : The Bit and the Rudder (James 3:1-4)

“Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.” (James 3:1-4)


Apparently, several people in the assembly wanted to teach and lead, for James has to warn them: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers” (James 3:1).This is because those who teach the Word face the stricter judgement. Teachers must use their tongue to share God’s truth, and it is terrible when those appointed to teach God’s Word, sin with their tongue. Furthermore, teachers must practice what they teach; otherwise, their teaching is hypocrisy. But teachers are not the only ones who are tempted and sin; every Christian must admit that “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). And sins of the tongue seem to head the list. Control of the tongue is a sign of spiritual maturity.  Is James making a mistake connecting sins of the tongue with sins of “the whole body”? No, because words usually lead to deeds. During World War II there were posters that read ‘Loose lips sink ships’.  But loose lips also wreck lives. Make an unguarded statement and you may find yourself involved in a conflict. Our tongue may force the rest of our body to defend itself.  In selecting the bit and the rudder James presented two items that are small of themselves, yet exercise great power, just like the tongue.

A small bit enables the rider to control a horse, and a small rudder enables the pilot to steer an entire ship.
The tongue is a small member in the body, and yet it has the power to accomplish great things. Both the bit and the rudder must overcome contrary forces. The bit must overcome the wild nature of the horse, and the rudder must fight the winds and currents that would drive the ship off its course. The human tongue also must overcome contrary forces. This means that both the bit and the rudder must be under the control of a strong hand. When Jesus Christ controls the tongue, then we need not fear saying the wrong things—or even saying the right things in a wrong way! “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” warned Solomon (Prov. 18:21). No wonder David prayed, “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. Incline not my heart to any evil thing” (Ps. 141:3-4). The bit and rudder have the power to direct, which means they affect the lives of others. A runaway horse or a shipwreck can mean injury or death to pedestrians or passengers. The words we speak affect the lives of others. A judge says “Guilty!” or “Not Guilty!” and those words affect the destiny of the prisoner, his family, and his friends. Never underestimate the guidance you give by the words you speak or do not speak.  The power to direct: The bit and the rudder.

2. The Power to Destroy: The fire and the animal (James 3:5-8)

“Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” (James 3:5-8)


On the night of September 2, 1666, a small fire broke out in the premises of a baker’s shop in Pudding Lane, London, perhaps started by the carelessness of a maid.  In the close-packed streets of London, where buildings jostled each other for space, the blaze soon became an inferno. Fanned by an east wind, the fire spread with terrifying speed, feeding on the tar and pitch commonly used to seal houses. Our best account of the Fire comes from the diaries of Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty. He watched the course of the destruction from a safe position across the Thames, and called it,
“a most malicious bloody flame, as one entire arch of fire… of above a mile long. It made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruin …Over the Thames with one’s face in the wind you were almost burned with a shower of firedrops.”

 

After four days while helpless citizens stood by and watched the destruction of their homes, the wind mercifully died and the fire was stopped. When a dazed populace took stock of the damage, 80% of the city was destroyed, including 13,000 houses, 89 churches and 52 Company (Guild) Halls. The spiritual hub of the city, Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, was nothing but rubble. It was a disaster of unprecedented proportions. Our words can start fires just as terrifying.

 

“Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down. As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife”. (Prov. 26:20-21).

 

Have you ever had that experience? Of course you have! A hot head and a hot heart can lead to burning words that later we will regret. David had a temper, and he had to have God’s help in controlling it. No wonder Solomon wrote, “A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.” (Prov. 17:27).  Fire not only starts small and grows, and creates heat; it also defiles. A friend recently suffered a fire in the entrance to her house, and the smoke and fire damage so soiled the house that she has had to move out while the house was redecorated. Fiery words can defile a home, a Sunday club, a church. The only thing that can wash away that defilement is the blood of Jesus Christ. Fire burns and hurts, and our words can burn and hurt. One of the sorrows our Lord had to bear when He was here on earth was the way His enemies talked about Him. Because He graciously accepted invitations to dine with people the Pharisees did not like they called Him a “glutton and a drunkard” (Matt. 11:19). When He performed miracles, they said Jesus was in league with Satan. Even when He was dying on the cross, His enemies could not let Him alone but threw vicious taunts into His face. Fire spreads, and the more fuel you give it, the faster and farther it will spread. The tongue “sets the whole course of his life on fire” (James 3:6). James suggests that all of life is connected, and therefore, but for the grace of God, we cannot keep things from spreading.

Sunday was VE day – the day we celebrate 60 years ago that the Nazi leaders surrendered and war ceased in Europe. For every word in Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, 125 lives were lost in World War II. Our own words may not have caused wars or wrecked cities, but they can break hearts and ruin reputations. How important it is for us to let our speech “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:6).

 

Not only is the tongue like a fire, but it is also like a dangerous animal. Some animals are poisonous, and some tongues spread poison. On Monday on our walk we came across this adder – the only indigenous poisonous snake in Great Britain. A couple of folk on the walk stood between the other walkers and the snake as we all passed by safely.

 

The deceptive thing about poison is that it works secretly and slowly, and then kills. How many times has some malicious person injected a bit of poison into your conversation and you didn’t notice initially? James reminds us that animals can be tamed; and, for that matter, fire can be tamed. When you tame an animal, you get a worker instead of a destroyer. When you control fire, you generate power. The tongue cannot be tamed by man, but it can be tamed by God. Your tongue need not be “set on fire of hell” (James 3:6). Like the Apostles at Pentecost, it can be set on fire from heaven! If God lights the fire and controls it, then the tongue can be a mighty tool for the winning of the lost and the building up of the church. The important thing, of course, is the heart; for it is “out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34). If your heart is filled with hatred, Satan will light the fire. If your heart is filled with love, God will light the fire.

1. Power to direct : The bit and the rudder
2. Power to destroy : the fire and the animal

3. Power to Delight: The Spring & the Tree (James 3:9-12)
“With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig-tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.” (James 3:9-12)


In hot countries like Palestine the natural spring provides beautiful cool refreshing water people need to stay alive. Water is life-giving, and our words can give life too. “The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters, and the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook” (Prov. 18:4). The tongue is also delightful because it is like a tree. In Bible lands, olive trees are vitally important to the economy: they help to hold down the soil; they provide beauty and shade; and they bear fruit. Our words can help to shelter and encourage, and can help to feed a hungry soul. “The lips of the righteous feed many” (Prov. 10:21). Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

1. Power to direct. 2. Power to destroy. 3. Power to Delight. I don’t think any of us would deny that we have problems with our tongues. Some of us struggle more than others, but each of us needs to find a way to tame that beast. Let me give you five practical steps to consider in this process:

1. Be quick to listen and slow to speak
“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” (James 1:19)
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” (Abraham Lincoln).

2. Bite your tongue more often
”If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.” (James 1:26)

3. Refuse to tear other people down
”Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another… Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged.” (James 4:11, 5:9)

4. Speak only what is true
”Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No”, no, or you will be condemned.” (James 5:12)

5. Surrender your tongue to God
”but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” (James 3:8) We cannot tame our tongues without supernatural help. To help you surrender your tongue to God, let me encourage you with a little speech therapy. Before you speak something that may be harmful ask yourself these five questions:

Is it true? Is what I’m going to speak the truth? If not, stop. If it is, second ask,
Is it necessary? Jesus said we are going to be judged for every careless word. There are so many things that we say that are not necessary. Third ask,
Is it beneficial? Is what I’m going to say going to build someone up or tear them down?  Fourthly,
Do I have permission to share it?
Before you speak think about what kind of friend you’re being. Finally, ask yourself,
Is my motive pure? Why am I saying this? We all struggle with our tongues to varying degrees. There’s something we can all do about gossip. Remember gossip is when I share with you something about a third person and neither you or I are part of the problem or the solution.

Will you listen more, bite your tongue more, refuse to tear others down, and surrender your tongue to Jesus Christ? This is not some extra thing that God is requesting of us. This is a mandate for being a Christ-follower. Yes, the tongue may be the smallest and largest troublemaker in all the world. It has the 1. Power to direct. 2. the Power to destroy, but also 3. the Power to delight. God can use our tongues to guide others into the way of life, and to sustain them in the trials of life. Give God your tongue each day and ask Him to use you to be a blessing to others.

A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE YOU

Posted: May 6, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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The NEW COMMANDMENT
as compared to the OLD ONES
Are they really the same?
John 13:34

John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

As I wrote this paper, I asked myself whether anyone would understand this. Especially given the fact of my diminished level of ability to communicate in writing. The answer came back that anyone with the Spirit would understand. Well of course, but then why write something for those who already understood? As I typed these thoughts, this was my dilemma.

When the Savior speaks of a “New Commandment,” what does He mean? Is it really just a refurbishing of the old ones? Is His New Commandment simply the Ten Commandments gussied up in a new fashion? Is there really anything new about the New Commandment? Perhaps its man’s renewed attempt to keep them that makes them so new.

Or perhaps He calls them “New” because He intends to make the old ones more presentable now? Having somehow lost their original luster, they need to be made more attractive. Salesmen understand this principle. Every year they offer the same old product by advertising it as NEW AND IMPROVED. Was this the ploy the Savior used?

Was it the Savior’s mission to help man bear a burden that our Father’s had never been able to bear—the keeping of the commandments? Acts 15:10.

The New Commandment to love one another was not part of the old law. It would only come with the Spirit—the “law of the Spirit” Romans 8:2.

The Savior explained it this way. John 16:7 “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” When the Spirit would come to them, then it was that they would experience the New Commandment to love. Without the indwelling Spirit, this is impossible.

The disciples had long had the commandments of course, but this was to be something new. Something entirely new—the New Commandment. They didn’t have the Spirit. If His disciples already had the Spirit, He would not have told them of the necessity of His going away. They had the commandments, but if they had the Spirit He would not have had to “go away.”

What would it mean to have His Spirit? He explained to them what this would mean. “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.” He would come to them in a way in which He could not come to them while physically present here on earth. How was that? While walking with them on earth, He could not indwell them. The indwelling as He described it, would be far more “expedient,” for them.

All this was part of the “new commandment” that he would give them. These He said were “My Father’s commandments.” And these were what He said He kept. This is what the Savior intended that man would enjoy when he had received the Spirit of His Father. It would be the law of the Spirit, Romans 8:2. Not something a little better than what man already experienced. Not a reworking of the old, but something new altogether. It was to be so great a difference as between light and darkness. It was so new that it would be the difference between life and death.

The new commandment was to love one another. The reason it was so new was because the old one did not have this ability. Wonderful principles that they were, they lacked this quality. This was to be no magnifying of the old. The old commandments were helpless in this regard. This is why the old were to be abolished for the believer, not renewed. The old ones had no life giving power whatsoever.

Thus we see there is no comparison between the old commandments and the new one. Just as there is no relationship between the new covenant and the old one. The one was to replace the other. In 2 Cor. 3, we see them compared, the one written in tablets of stone (the Ten) was called the “ministration of death.” The law (ministration of death) cannot be changed (to make it give life.) The Savior’s new commandment to love had a ministration to life. Big difference. So we see then that the two commandments are not compatible.

Further, we are told that the commandments written in tablets of stone had a ministration of condemnation. And this particular quality could not be changed or improved upon. The new commandment ministers freedom from condemnation. It provides the “justification of life eternal to every man.” The old commandments could only provide death. Death was their ministry.

The Savior often made comparison of the two commandments. Whenever He did so, it was not to magnify the old ones, beautify them or to change their ministry. It was always to show their vast deficiency, by comparison.

When He spoke of the seventh commandment for instance (adultery,) He did not say how wonderful it was. He did not claim to magnify it, deepen its level, nor heighten it as many imagine. No, but instead of that, He showed how awful it was. He showed that those with the “good intention” of keeping it were really breaking it.

Mat. 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

With this, He ruined it. For those keeping it, it was now ruined. Why did He say this? In His day as in ours, there are many who go long periods without committing the act of adultery with one of their neighbors. Some have never “broken” the letter of this commandment. How comfortable they are with their performance. They feel no guilt in their keeping the Ten Commandments this way. They figure it’s the fornicators who are failing and lost. With this saying, the Savior dashed their hope. He ruined their religion. And He said it with that purpose in mind—the dashing of their commandment keeping hope. Why would He do such a thing?

Everybody knows that keeping the commandments is considered good religion, especially if you have heard a sermon on TV or in person. The Savior came to destroy the TV evangelist’s old theme. Peter says it this way:

Acts 15:10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

The apostles had to decide what to require of the new converts. Paul is referring to the yoke of commandment keeping which the other apostles (to the Jews) wanted to place on the gentile converts. (The other apostles intended to require the new converts to be circumcised and keep the commandments. They came to the Galatians 2 meeting for instance with that in mind.) But Paul knew that the Savior’s intention was “to break every yoke.” This of course would include the Ten Yokes to which Paul referred–the ones “written in tablets of stone.”

When the Savior spoke of the old law and law keeping, he did not mean for man to keep the letter of it. Though He never sinned, He didn’t keep it to the letter. Instead, He obeyed the Spirit of God that indwelt Him. For instance, the old law says that on the Sabbath, “Thou shalt not do any work.” How many know of this plain injunction? Is there any room here for equivocation? “Not Any Work” does not leave any room for “any work.” But the Savior worked. John 5:17, 18. And so does His Father work on the Sabbath. This is what Jesus and John say. Read the two texts carefully. Don’t read your own ideas into it.

So we see plainly that neither He nor His Father are concerned with the letter. This means they are not concerned with what is written in the old law. The reason they are not concerned with the letter is because they have something better. According to the letter, they both break the Sabbath commandment, just as John and the Savior describe it.

We see this breaking of the commandment (without sin) all through the Saviors ministry. For instance, with regard to the seventh commandment again (about looking at women) said the Savior, Mat 5:29, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

This is another plain statement. How many really understand it? Its just as plain as “the seventh day is the Sabbath.” Men do not understand it because they are legalists. They teach that men should keep the law, but then they don’t keep this law. Strange. It says if your eye offends you pluck it out. Is there a question about how it is stated? No, any child can understand what He said to do.

Expert law keepers should obey this commandment. Just as they teach others to obey the other plainly written laws. This reveals the failure and hypocrisy of their good intentioned religion. They don’t keep this law and they don’t really keep the others either. And this was the Savior’s message to them.

The commandment to pluck out your eye is no different than any other. To keep it to the letter will blind you. Those who have obeyed it spend the rest of their days blind in that eye. Gal 5:3,4. Paul says to keep any of the law written in stone will kill you. The letter blinds. The letter kills. The letter is not just one thing of many that kills, it is the only thing that kills. But without the new commandment, the letter is the only option men have. And those that don’t pluck out their eye are guilty of disobeying the commandment as they teach it should be kept.

The Savior came to destroy the popular and legalistic teaching to keep the commandments. His message is the good news that through love, the commandments have been kept now. By love, He fulfilled every one of them for us. Love is the fulfilling of the whole law. The attempt to keep one of the commandments puts one under obligation to keep the whole letter of the law which not even the Savior tried to do. Love, upon this commandment hang all the law and the prophets. And this is how He kept them all. Not by the letter.

If men are not going to obey to pluck out their eye, and then the other eye when it too offends, they should confess their religion has failed them and keep the new commandment instead—to love.

The Savior did what we could not do for ourselves. He did not come to help us do what was impossible, (old law keeping that had never worked). He did not come to help us bear a burden that neither we nor our Fathers could bear. He came to free us of that burden by replacing it with His new commandment.

It is the good intention to keep the commandments that makes Christ of none effect and destroys the blessing of the cross for such a person. In the new commandment, the intention is to obey the Spirit, every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. They proceed today. Today, moment by moment.

The Spirit may tell us to do something against the letter of the law as in the Savior’s case. How many times this happened.

His accusers were correct in their charge against Him, He had broken the Sabbath commandment and others on occasion, yet without sin. And He never challenged those charges. But He did challenge the idea that He and His disciples had committed a sin thereby.

It is by faith that we are to “keep the new commandment,” in other words, not by a good intention. And it is by love that faith works. How many understand this? How many realize the meaning of the cross? All those who are indwelt moment by moment and kept by the Spirit. We don’t keep anything, the Spirit keeps us. And how many are still in the old covenant, law keeping mode–the one so prominent before the coming of the Savior.

~David Mead

A Critical spirit is a deadly room mate!!!

Posted: May 3, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, Prophetic, teaching, wilderness
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Definition of Critical – Inclined to find fault, or to judge with severity

Quote: It is impossible to help anybody after they have developed a critical spirit.

“Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all? (Ezek 14:3)

One of the quickest ways to shut up the Heavens over ones life and stop receiving the blessings of God is to allow entrance of a critical spirit. Even worse are those who have welcomed this spirit in and actually made room in their hearts for it to stay. Sadly the room was made via the eviction of the love of God from their lives, for they now are worshiping the spirit of the deceiver, the accuser of the saints, Satan himself.

 Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.  And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.”

 The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite![a] Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it?  So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”  And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him. (Luke 13:10-17)

I. The Causes of a Critical Spirit

A. An Unhealthy Appreciation of Self – vs. 14 the ruler of the synagogue

  • Romans 12:3  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.

A critic is one that considers themselves an authority or a master of a subject which qualifies them to point out the good and the bad.  Their own knowledge and expertise is their authority; not a defined standard.

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary: A person skilled in judging of the merit of literary works; one who is able to discern and distinguish the beauties and faults of writing. In a more general sense, a person skilled in judging with propriety of any combination of objects, or of any work of art; and particularly of what are denominated the Fine Arts. A critic is one who, from experience, knowledge, habit or taste, can perceive the difference between propriety and impropriety, in objects or works presented to his view; between the natural and unnatural; the high and the low, or lofty and mean; the congruous and incongruous; the correct and incorrect, according to the established rules of the art.

We ought to wake up every morning singing, “I’m not worthy to be here, but THANK GOD I belong!”

B. An Unbiblical Adherence to a System – vs. 14

Where did this rule come from? Where did he come up with this?? You can only be healed on certain days?

  • Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Truth is, he made this rule up.  Since he had never had a person healed in his synagogue on a sabbath, surely God cannot be in it!

A critical spirit will come when you are always thinking you know what OUGHT to be done when the truth is, you don’t have a clue!

Here he was telling people when they OUGHT to come get healed, and he had never healed anybody!  In essence, He was limiting God – trying to cram God in his own little test tube!!

He was an expert in a system that didn’t even exist except in his own mind.

C. An Unreasonable Attitude toward the Sovereignty of God – vs. 14

NOTE: He was upset with what God did, so he took it out on the people.

God can do what He wants to, when He wants to, however He wants to.  Deal with it!

He mistook GOD working for MAN working.  (there are six days in which men ought to work)  It wasn’t man working – it was GOD.

You say – “I just don’t understand it.”  If you understood everything, you’d be God.

His ways are past finding out.

  • Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

Keep your mind open to this possibility: God might work in a way you never thought possible or have never seen before.  God might use somebody you didn’t think He could, He might save somebody you never thought could be saved.  He might manifest Himself in a manner that you’ve never seen before.  He might be trying to teach you something!  Quit criticizing and learn!!!

II. The Curses of a Critical Spirit

A. It will Belittle the Positive – vs. 14 (because that Jesus had healed…)

Positive things such as:

  1. Jesus is in the midst – vs. 10 (theirs wasn’t the only synagogue; they were honored)
  2. Jesus was teaching them things – vs. 10 (many people never learn anything or grow)
  3. There were people in the place that were there in spite of their infirmities – praise God!
  4. Jesus was still calling hurting people to himself – vs. 12 that’s a blessing!
  5. Jesus was still laying his hands on people and touching people – vs. 13
  6. People were still getting straightened out after years of being wrong – vs. 13
  7. New converts were praising and glorifying God – vs. 13

Did any of this matter?  NO!!  The man with the critical spirit saw NONE of the positive things

B. It will Badger the People – vs. 14 …and he said unto the people…

Interesting NOTE: We find no record that this ruler of the synagogue ever badgered or criticized this woman UNTIL she got STRAIGHT!

For 18 years, she had been in a mess, and he never helped her.

Now she’s right with God and he gets mad!

If somebody bothers you, just imagine how bad it would be if you’d known them before they met Jesus!

C. It will Buck the Praising – vs. 13, 14 they glorified; he answered with indignation

  • A critical spirit will cause you to pout when others are praising.
  • A critical spirit will make you mad when others are magnifying.
  • A critical spirit will make you tense when others are testifying.
  • A critical spirit will cause you to hinder people when God is trying to help people.
  • A critical spirit will cause people to ask “What’s wrong with him or her?”

Do excited Christians get on your nerves?

Do people that brag on the Lord and the church and their pastor irritate you?  You’re critical!

D. It will Broadcast the Poison – in vs. 10, Jesus is teaching; where is the ruler then?

He let EVERYBODY know where he stood on the subject.  Notice that nobody asked him.

Watch out for this line – “Well, if you ask me…”  Nobody will.  They don’t care as much about what you think as you do!

Critical spirits are not happy until they’ve poisoned everybody they meet with their criticism.

Question: Do the excited, testifying, praising Christians stay excited, keep testifying and are they still praising after you’re done with them?

Do you find yourself more comfortable around those that are uncomfortable?

  • Ever noticed that the people that are most critical are the one’s that’s not doing anything?
  • Ever heard a soul winner complain about too many visitors?
  • Ever heard a bus worker complain about the mess that bus kids make?
  • Ever heard a grass cutter complain about how the grass was cut?
  • Ever heard a friendly hand shaker complain about not getting their hand shaken?
  • Ever heard a shouter and testifier complain about a service being dead?
  • Ever heard a servant criticize another servant’s way of doing something?
  • Ever noticed that the one’s that never bring anybody to church can tell you how it’s done?

III. The Cures for a Critical Spirit

A. Admit your Hypocrisy – vs. 15 “Thou hypocrite!”

Most of the things that people criticize in others are things they are guilty of themselves.

  • Illustration: The beam and the mote in the eye.
  • Start judging people by the same standard you judge yourself!  You’ll be more longsuffering.

Even if you had ALL YOUR DUCKS in a row and all your own personal issues resolved, you still wouldn’t have the right to have a critical spirit, but your own shortcomings and faults and failures make your critical spirit even that much more hypocritical!

B. Be Ashamed that your Heart is not 100% right with God – vs. 16, 17

God’s will was not their will.  Their will always will contradict what God wants to do.

God’s will was all about this woman’s problem getting healed.

The critic’s will was all about his position being honored.

God’s was concerned about sinners; they were preoccupied with standards.

C. Acknowledge all the glorious things that are being done by Him – vs. 17

Stop looking for the negative and the problems and start seeing what God is doing.

There’s many faults and failures in the lives of everybody you come in contact with.

  • Philippians 2:3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
  • I Cor. 13  Charity thinketh no evil…

Spend your time planting grass instead of pulling weeds.

You don’t have to elaborate on everything that you see wrong.  Why not elaborate on what you see RIGHT and what God is doing?

  • Colossians 4:6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt,…

http://www.pleasantview.org/2011/a-critical-spirit-what-the-bible-says-series

Leadership in the middle of a divorce?

Posted: May 1, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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Should a person in a leadership position going threw a divorce be left in leadership?

I do not believe so in fact I believe it is out of Biblical order. Yet today like so many scriptural teachings we have become user friendly and only apply the scriptures that suit us rather than using the scriptures as a Biblical outline of Church government. I also believe that the emotional stress of a divorce can hinder a person discernment and have found in such instances that they fall for many loose doctrines to support their position. It’s time that the Church gets back to scriptural leadership and do away with the opinions of men.

Over the past 50 to 60 years divorce has swept through our nation and churches are filled with people who had been divorced. As so often happens, the doctrines and convictions of the church conveniently changed to reflect the new culture of divorce. We developed a man-centered, therapeutic faith that was more about making people happy than making them holy. Gradually, divorced people took more and more significant places in the church. As the moral slide continued, divorce turned into a minor issue. Some denominations today are discussing whether to marry and ordain unrepentant homosexuals. In that kind of culture, divorce seems like a much less crucial issue.

Sadly we see that the Church in America has a long history of being led more by our culture than by the Scriptures. When Southern culture approved and defended slavery, so did Southern Christians. As the feminist agenda took hold of our national mindset, women in pulpits became more common. As homosexuality has become more acceptable in culture, it has become more acceptable to Christians. Is this what has happened with divorce? Has the prevalence of divorce caused us to sacrifice biblical moral standards for the sake of convenience? Or, perhaps, did the prevalence of divorce cause us to reexamine beliefs that were long-held and traditional, but not biblical?

I believe that God is a God of forgiveness while at the same time He is a God of order.

I believe in a redemptive view which is based on the transforming power of Jesus Christ and the Cross. This view upholds the biblical standard of lifelong marriage and recognizes that divorce is the result of sin on the part of one or both partners. What this view refuses to do is put divorcees into a special category of sin. And it emphasizes the transformational, renewing power of Christ.

Jesus came to forgive sin and redeem sinners. A murderer can be forgiven and redeemed. An adulterer can have his sin washed white as snow. So can a thief, a drug addict, a prostitute, even a homosexual. In the same way, those who are divorced are forgiven and redeemed by the power of Christ.

Leadership in the church is a matter of character and integrity. Those who lead the church must have spiritual integrity in their walk with Christ and must have demonstrated character to the church and community in their public walk. We are all sinners, though that sin takes different forms. God is working to conform us to the image of Christ. Those who lead the church are those who are farthest in the process of Christlikeness.

What matters is not what I did 20 years ago, but what I am today. Maybe 20 years ago I was a drug dealer. But today I am walking with Christ and people can see what I am. Maybe 20 years ago I robbed a bank. I did my time, got right with God and began to grow. If I have demonstrated that I am a new man in Christ, and have reliable character, I can be a leader in God’s church.

Why is divorce any different? If I am in the middle of a divorce, I am certainly not ready to be a pastor, elder or deacon in the church, even if I am the “innocent” party in the divorce. But if I was divorced 25 years ago, remarried, and have been a faithful husband to my wife for all these years, should that divorce forever eliminate me from significant service?

I believe that blanket elimination of a person who has been divorced from service in the church is a denial of the redemptive power of Christ. Jesus came to redeem sinners and to make them like Christ. To continually throw a sin of the past in the face of someone who has repented and has been renewed in Christ is, to me, an unintentional but real denial of Christ’s transformational work.

Yet I believe that a person who is presently going threw a divorce should not be left in a leadership position. Whether it be their error which is causing the divorce, the spouses error or a combination of the two is mute. That can be handled in regard to restoring one to ministry if the Lord so reads. When we have a culture in the Church with the condoning of leaders getting divorced and maintaining their leadership role I believe that it establishes a very bad moral culture for our younger generation.

But that is my position and I would be glad to hear yours and what scriptures you have to support your position.

Having the Mind of Jesus

Posted: April 30, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching
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1 Corinthians 2:16 ‘For who hath known the mind of Yahweh that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.’

Christ being the head of the body knew His Father’s mind, but as the question asks, who can instruct Him? The answer and the truth is no one instructs the Lord God. He is the Father. We all were made to conform to His will. Any other behavior is rebellion. The world is in a state of constant rebellion. We cannot think like the world thinks.

1 Corinthians 2:12 ‘Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of the Creator; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of the Creator.’

Like Jesus, we as Christians can have the mind of Christ, a mind anointed by the spirit of the Creator God the Father. We cannot instruct Him with this mind but we can learn how to be in accord with His will, work in harmony with His Holy Spirit – content in His desire.

John 5:30 ‘I can of Mine own self do nothing. . . I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.’

This is the most difficult part of being a Christian – and yet the most powerful part. Knowing what has been freely given to us by Jesus frees us from understanding and caring about the wisdom and spirit of the world.

1 Corinthians 2:14 ‘But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of the Creator: for they are foolishness unto them. . .’

When you read Scripture, you have to learn to look beyond the natural man. Those who choose to mock, doubt and condemn Scripture are doing so according to the yearnings of the flesh – and often times it is hard to admit but they are correct because what Scripture states is hardly ever conducive to the flesh, it is not beneficial to its pleasure or existence.

John 6:63 ‘It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.’

Mysterious Glory

By staying in the natural mode of thinking and reasoning, the Bible will always appear foolish and cold. You can’t make the Bible make sense to anyone who wants the Word to benefit their flesh man. Romans 8:7 tells us that the carnal mind is enmity against the Creator and to think and reason with it and live according to it, is death.

This is such a hard confession to embrace but as Christians, we have to come to the conclusion that all life under the sun is truly vain. Our carnal mind does not want to accept such a foolish notion and it struggles every day to convince us that there is some importance to what we as humans accomplish.

1 Corinthians 2:6-7 ‘Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of the Creator in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which the Creator ordained before the world unto our glory:’

Remember, we want the mind of Christ and not the wisdom of the world. As Christians we have to see clearly that the things scientist, politicians and nations accomplish are vain and come to nought. They are all the result of the wisdom of this world, and of the princes of this world.

When anointed, we as Christians speak the wisdom that is a mystery and utter foolishness to them. Technology and advancements in science, medicine, education, engineering and history are all that matter to worldly people, the evolution of the human species. The Lord warned us that the accomplishments of worldly wisdom and worldly works are no different than the bread Moses gave. (John 6:27-35) It is temporal fodder and not conducive to eternal life.

1 Corinthians 2:3 ‘And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.’

Do you find that the biggest preachers and noblest teachers, the bastions of education, science and politics walk amongst the common people?

As Christians we choose – either the apple or the orange – but we cannot have both
Apples and Oranges

When anyone preaches from a pedestal, from a place of success and prosperity, they are doing so from a place of carnal strength, confidence and security. It is easy for them to tell people who have nothing to have faith in “God” because they can go out in the world and buy and sell as they wish, the mark of the beast is upon them; and they are part of the beast system. To them, the beast system can be used for the good of “God.” To them, people should not oppose the beast system but rather enter it and conform to it – take the Mark and use it. To them, the Lord lets the beast breathe for the good well-being and health of the carnal Christian.

1 Corinthians 2:1-2 ‘And I brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or wisdom, declaring unto the testimony of the Creator. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Yahshua the Messiyah, and Him crucified.’

Jesus was crucified by the world and the worldly.

How many Christian preachers have branched out into other avenues of worldly life wisdom? How many Christian preachers produce tapes and sermons that talk about worldly finances and prosperity, about entering politics and introducing change? How many of them want to convince you that you that there can be peace and you can be part of the carnal world and the spirit world at the same time?

1 Corinthians 2:13 ‘Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.’

We don’t compare spiritual things with worldly things, nor worldly things with spiritual things – it is apples and oranges.

Romans 8:5 ‘For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.’

What is the result of walking spiritually and not carnally?

1 Corinthians 2:4-5 ‘And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstrations of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of the Creator.’

The Creator gave us incredible power, so much more than we know. Our carnal minds have blinded our spiritual minds. We walk and touch with our hands while our spirits grope and bump about in darkness. We stand confused and unsure how to use our spiritual eyes, how to open our minds to the possibilities of the things we cannot see. It is only by faith, by closing our worldly eyes that we can begin to see the truth and trust that He is.

1 Corinthians 2:9 ‘But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which the Creator hath prepared for them that love Him.’

Right now, many are looking darkly into the mirror, and their spirit is still straining to see. We have to die to our fleshly understandings. The carnal eye, ear and heart will never see, hear or understand.

1 Corinthians 1:27 ‘But the Creator hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. . .’

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, evidenced by things not seen. As Christians, our power comes from believing more in a world to come, then the world that is.

The mind of Christ knows without a doubt, the wisdom of the world is vain and everything accomplished amounts to nothing. With that anointed belief, we can be Christ-like and love our neighbors as ourselves and meet the needs of people who have needs without counting any cost as loss.

1 Corinthians 2:7-8 ‘But we speak the wisdom of the Creator. . .which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.’

The world will crucify anyone who speaks with too much power of the righteous things to do. When your actions, your power in Christ, become louder than your words, you become a threat to their worldly prosperity and their foolish vanity like Jesus did to the Pharisees and Sadducee s.

Matthew 4:23-24 ‘And Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria. . .’

We see Christian preachers gain fame today but the worldly are not threatened by them and in fact, the worldly flock to them. I wonder if you would ever hear a prosperity preacher tell a rich man to sell all he has and follow him. If anything, he’d probably tell him to donate more to their church and that’s about it.

Matthew 5:11-12 ‘Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.’

If you have the mind of Christ, the world thinks your reasoning and faith is foolish. They will speak evil and accuse you falsely of being almost inhumane. Don’t forget, many believe the Bible is a book of hate. As a Christian, you have to put your faith in a higher court than man’s court. As it stated in 1 Corinthians 2:7 & 9, the worldly princes can’t even begin to fathom the things the Creator hath prepared for us unto our glory.

1 Corinthians 2:15 ‘But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.’

When we have the mind of Christ, we can judge all things ‘spiritually’ and the world may disagree with our conclusions but we are not judged by man and we know it. We have no fear of what man can do to us when we walk in the Spirit. We shall be justified on that great day of judgment and so we rejoice and are exceedingly glad when we are reviled for our faith. The truth truly does set us free.

Amen

A true disciple is following Jesus and eager to learn and change.

Posted: April 24, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. [19] And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. (Matt 4:18-22)

The first requirement to be a disciple—a Christian—is to follow Jesus.

To follow involves three elements: belief, life-change, and submission.

Following Jesus requires belief in who he was and what he came to do. Simon Peter and Andrew weren’t asked to follow someone they didn’t know. They had spent time with Jesus previously (John 1:35-42), and even believed he was the Messiah. When Jesus approached them in Matthew 4, they had already known Jesus for some time, scholars say a year. So we understand that the first requirement of a disciple of Jesus Christ is to believe.

Of course, the Simon Peter and Andrew didn’t know a lot about Jesus. But they believed he was the Messiah, even though they didn’t entirely understand. And this is the beauty of following Jesus—you don’t have to be a genius to figure it out. Your understanding of Jesus doesn’t have to complete. In fact, usually it’s the simple ones who get it best. “God chooses the foolish to shame the wise.” You can’t follow someone you don’t believe.

What you do have to know is that you have a sin problem that has earned you punishment and Jesus alone can save you. There are more details—a glorious and beautiful treasure trove of details—but the essentials of following Jesus today remain quite simple. God made you. You rebelled. Faith in Christ saves those who repent and believe. Those who believe those things are saved.

Following Jesus also implies life change. When Jesus says “follow me” the underlying directive is stop following that. If he says follow me, he means give up on your ways. If he says live for me, he means stop living for yourself. Simon and Andrew got it—they left their nets and followed him. Following Christ meant giving up their careers in fishing. James and John were mending their nets, trying to fix them so they could catch more fish. And suddenly when Jesus called them, they left the nets in the boat. They weren’t important anymore—following Jesus meant leaving behind old ways.

That’s what following Jesus is—not literally following him around, like the original disciples did. For us, following him has a much broader meaning: we are to follow his way of life, his teachings, his priorities, his goals.
Following Jesus also indicates submission. Jesus says follow me, and that means we give up the rights to run our lives. This is called repentance. We have handed over the title deed of our lives. We gladly submit to Jesus as our lord, master, leader, and guide.

Some try to make Jesus’s call easier than it actually was. They like to accept Jesus as Savior but not as Lord or Master. And so they think they’ll can be saved without submitting to Christ. This isn’t so—the truth is that if Jesus ain’t your Master he ain’t your Savior. If you haven’t submitted you haven’t been saved. It’s the blunt truth that Scripture is careful to repeat over and over again.

So let me recap quickly: When Jesus says “follow me” this is what he means: believe me, make a change in direction, and submit completely.

When Jesus said “I will make you” the offer was out on the table. Jesus was being straightforward. His intention was to make them into something they were not. Jesus wanted to fundamentally change their priorities, their desires, their goals, their dreams, their purposes—and he was clear about it. It was like he said, “I know you’ve spent your life catching fish. Not anymore. I’m going to change you.” To our modern ears, that sounds offensive. What right does he have? We shouldn’t try to change people, that’s rude. Let them be, man. Tolerate.

Jesus didn’t fit it then and he probably wouldn’t fit in now. His goal—and he was absolutely unashamed of it—was to change people. To make them into something they weren’t. From the beginning, this was laid out on the table. A disciple, then, is something who is being changed by Christ.

If you are to start following Christ—by believing, by changing, and by submitting—you must understand what you’re agreeing to. Almost everything you sign up for these days has a long tedious document with terms and conditions. Does anyone actually read those? Well, Jesus has terms and conditions that we must agree to if we are to follow him. But they’re not long, hard to read, annoying and complicated. They’re actually simple. He says” if you follow me, understand this: I am going to change you. That means you must be eager to learn and eager to change.”

True disciples are learners. People who think they have nothing else to learn aren’t good disciples. The best disciples are the best learners. They are hungry for knowledge, hungry for information, hungry for insight, hungry for wisdom, hungry to acquire skill, hungry to hone their talents, hungry to practice what they’ve been taught. Part of what it means to follow Jesus is admitting you not only have the deep-seated problem of sin, but the deep need of being taught.

True disciples want to change. This goes right along with being a learner, but it takes it to the next level. Being a true disciple means not only learning but practicing what you’re learning. True disciples aren’t about acquiring information for information’s sake. They want to change. They hate their sin and they want to grow. That’s why Jesus’s call must have been so appealing. I love it—Jesus promises to change them. “I will make you.” Perk up whenever Jesus makes an “I will” statement. He said to his disciples that he would make them fishers of men. He would set out to change them and he wouldn’t fail. This is great hope for us, because the promise we receive is that Jesus will change us to make us useful for his service as we follow him.

So a true disciple is following Jesus and eager to learn and change. And he is also someone being changed by Christ. He is radically in love with Jesus and willing to submit to whatever and wherever the Master commands him

Is the Church Full of Hypocrites?

Posted: April 9, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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About thirty years ago, my close friend and colleague, Archie Parrish, who at that time led the Evangelism Explosion (EE) program in Fort Lauderdale, came to me with a request. He indicated that on the thousands of evangelistic visits the EE teams made, they kept a record of responses people made to discussions of the gospel. They collated the most frequent questions and objections people raised about the Christian faith and grouped these inquiries or objections into the ten most frequently encountered. Dr. Parrish asked if I would write a book answering those objections for evangelists to use in their outreach. That effort resulted in my book Objections Answered, now called Reason to Believe. Among the top ten objections raised was the objection that the church is filled with hypocrites. At that point in time, Dr. D. James Kennedy responded to this objection by replying, “Well, there’s always room for one more.” He cautioned people that if they found a perfect church, they ought not to join it, since that would ruin it.

The term hypocrite came from the world of Greek drama. It was used to describe the masks that the players used to dramatize certain roles. Even today, the theatre is symbolized by the twin masks of comedy and tragedy. In antiquity, certain players played more than one role, and they indicated their role by holding a mask in front of their face. That’s the origin of the concept of hypocrisy.

But the charge that the church is full of hypocrites is manifestly false. Though no Christian achieves the full measure of sanctification in this life, that we all struggle with ongoing sin does not justly yield the verdict of hypocrisy. A hypocrite is someone who does things he claims he does not do. Outside observers of the Christian church see people who profess to be Christians and observe that they sin. Since they see sin in the lives of Christians, they rush to the judgment that therefore these people are hypocrites. If a person claims to be without sin and then demonstrates sin, surely that person is a hypocrite. But for a Christian simply to demonstrate that he is a sinner does not convict him of hypocrisy.

The inverted logic goes something like this: All hypocrites are sinners. John is a sinner; therefore, John is a hypocrite. Anyone who knows the laws of logic knows that this syllogism is not valid. If we would simply change the charge from “the church is full of hypocrites” to “the church is full of sinners,” we would be quick to plead guilty. The church is the only institution I know of that requires an admission of being a sinner in order to be a member. The church is filled with sinners because the church is the place where sinners who confess their sins come to find redemption from their sins. So in this sense, simply because the church is filled with sinners does not justify the conclusion that the church is filled with hypocrites. Again, all hypocrisy is sin, but not all sin is the sin of hypocrisy.

When we look at the problem of hypocrisy in the New Testament era, we see it most clearly displayed in the lives of those who claimed to be the most righteous. The Pharisees were a group of people who by definition saw themselves as separated from the normal sinfulness of the masses. They began well, seeking a life of devoted godliness and submission to the law of God. However, when their behavior failed to reach their ideals, they began to engage in pretense. They pretended they were more righteous than they were. They gave an outward facade of righteousness, which merely served to conceal a radical corruption in their lives.

Though the church is not filled with hypocrites, there is no denying that hypocrisy is a sin that is not limited or restricted to New Testament Pharisees. It is a sin with which Christians must grapple. A high standard of spiritual and righteous behavior has been set for the church. We often are embarrassed by our failures to reach these high goals and are inclined to pretend that we have reached a higher plateau of righteousness than we’ve actually attained. When we do that, we put on the mask of the hypocrite and come under the judgment of God for that particular sin. When we find ourselves enmeshed in this type of pretense, an alarm bell should go off in our brains that we need to rush back to the cross and to Christ and to understand where our true righteousness resides. We have to find in Christ, not a mask that conceals our face, but an entire wardrobe of clothing, which is His righteousness. Indeed, it is only under the guise of the righteousness of Christ, received by faith, that any of us can ever have a hope of standing before a holy God. To wear the garments of Christ in faith is not an act of hypocrisy. It is an act of redemption.

by R.C. Sproul

Original Article

Preaching Christ

Posted: April 8, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching
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The church of the twenty-first century faces many crises. One of the most serious is the crisis of preaching. Widely diverse philosophies of preaching vie for acceptance among contemporary clergy. Some see the sermon as a fireside chat; others, as a stimulus for psychological health; still others, as a commentary on contemporary politics. But some still view the exposition of sacred Scripture as a necessary ingredient to the office of preaching. In light of these views, it is always helpful to go to the New Testament to seek or glean the method and message found in the biblical record of apostolic preaching.

In the first instance, we must distinguish between two types of preaching. The first has been called kerygma; the second, didache. This distinction refers to the difference between proclamation (kerygma) and teaching or instruction (didache). It seems that the strategy of the apostolic church was to win converts by means of the proclamation of the gospel. Once people responded to that gospel, they were baptized and received into the visible church. They then underwent a regular, systematic exposure to the teaching of the apostles, through regular preaching (homilies) and in particular groups of catechetical instruction. In the initial outreach to the Gentile community, the apostles did not go into great detail about Old Testament redemptive history. That knowledge was assumed among Jewish audiences, but it was not held among the Gentiles. Nevertheless, even to the Jewish audiences, the central emphasis of the evangelistic preaching was on the announcement that the Messiah had come and ushered in God’s kingdom.

If we take time to examine the sermons of the apostles that are recorded in the book of Acts, we see a somewhat common and familiar structure to them. In this analysis, we can discern the apostolic kerygma, the basic proclamation of the gospel. Here the focus in the preaching was on the person and work of Jesus. The gospel itself was called the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is about Him; it involves the proclamation and declaration of what He accomplished in His life, in His death, and in His resurrection. After the details of His death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God were preached, the apostles called the people to be converted to Christ — to repent of their sins and receive Christ by faith.

When we seek to extrapolate from these examples how the apostolic church did evangelism, we must ask: What is appropriate for the transfer of apostolic principles of preaching to the contemporary church? Some churches believe that a person is required to preach the gospel or to communicate the kerygma in every sermon preached. This view sees the emphasis in Sunday morning preaching as one of evangelism, of proclaiming the gospel. Many preachers today, however, say they are preaching the gospel on a regular basis when in some cases they have never preached the gospel at all, because what they call the gospel is not the message of the person and work of Christ and how His accomplished work and its benefits can be appropriated to the individual by faith. Rather, the gospel of Christ is exchanged for therapeutic promises of a purposeful life or having personal fulfillment by coming to Jesus. In messages such as these, the focus is on us rather than on Him.

On the other hand, in looking at the pattern of worship in the early church, we see that the weekly assembly of the saints involved a coming together for worship, fellowship, prayer, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and devotion to the teaching of the apostles. If we were there, we would see that the apostolic preaching covered the whole of redemptive history and the sum of divine revelation, not being restricted simply to the evangelistic kerygma.

So, again, the kerygma is the essential proclamation of the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and rule of Jesus Christ, as well as a call to conversion and repentance. It is this kerygma that the New Testament indicates is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). There can be no acceptable substitute for it. When the church loses her kerygma, she loses her identity.

by R.C. Sproul
From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul

Sevenfold Sin of Not Winning Souls

Posted: April 7, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, teaching, wilderness
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My message is on the “Sevenfold Sin of Not Winning Souls.” I said sin! If you are a Christian and don’t win souls, it is a sin like getting drunk, lying, hate, murder or adultery. It is a wicked, terrible sin! Every preacher and every Christian ought to win souls. Any Christian who does not win souls is sinning. And we who win a few are sinning if we don’t do our best all the time to win more souls.

A man running for office said to his business manager, “Do you know what my opponent said about me? He accused me of lying.”

“He ought not to have done that. That’s bad.”

“He did worse than that.”

“What’s that?”

“He proved it!”

That is what I plan to do tonight—not only to preach that it is a sin not to win souls, but to prove it by the Bible, the precious Word of God.

“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”—Matt. 28:18–20.

We call this the Great Commission, and it contains three teachings. First, go and teach all nations the Word—that means make disciples of men in all nations by teaching them how to be saved. Second, baptize them. Third, teach them to observe all things that Jesus commanded us.

Soul winning is the main thing with God. If it isn’t first with the preacher, the preacher isn’t right. If soul winning isn’t the first thing with the church, the church isn’t right. If soul winning isn’t first for a Sunday school teacher, he or she is not a good Sunday school teacher. If soul winning isn’t the main reason for a Christian school, it is not a very good Christian school. If soul winning isn’t the main thing for a Christian newspaper like the SWORD OF THE LORD, then it is off the track and not what a Christian paper ought to be. The first and main thing with God is soul winning.

In I Timothy 1:15, Paul said, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation.…” That sounds like it was a saying often repeated among New Testament Christians. What was the saying? “…that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Jesus came to save sinners.

Jesus said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).

Again, He said, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). This is what Jesus came for, what Jesus died for. That is why the Bible was written, why churches are organized, why preachers are called to preach.

Some preachers say, “But I don’t feel led to win souls.” That means you are not led of the Lord. If God were leading you, He would lead you to do what the Bible says. A Christian ought to win souls. That is the most important thing with God.

He gave the Great Commission in each of the four Gospels with slightly different words. The same day He rose from the dead, Jesus entered into the room where the disciples were shut up for fear of the Jews and breathed on them and said, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21).

Another time He came to the disciples as they were eating and said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Again, Jesus met the disciples on a mountain in Galilee and gave the Great Commission to them in the words of our text. Then in Luke He said that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things….but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:47–49).

Forty days after His resurrection when He was preparing to ascend back into Heaven, He gave the Great Commission yet a fifth time: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). He had already given the command four times (and perhaps many unrecorded times during the previous forty days); but in the last minute before He went away to Heaven, Jesus repeated it. These were the last words of Jesus on earth.

When a person is departing, his parting words are likely to be about the thing that is most on his mind, the thing that is most important to him. I’m saying that this is the one main thing Jesus left for us to do in these ages after He went away. This is His Great Commission.

There is a sevenfold sin in not winning souls.

I. Sin of Disobedience to Christ’s Main Command

The first sin is the sin of disobedience to the main command that Jesus Christ ever gave. We have an all-inclusive command for every Christian in the Great Commission. Not to obey that is not to obey Jesus on the one thing He died for, the main thing He gave instructions about.

Jesus told His disciples, ‘All of you go out here and get the Gospel to every creature. Take it into all the world and make disciples in all nations.’ I can imagine they might have thought, Well, we’re only twelve men. We can’t go to every nation. If we put one in Africa, one in South America, one in the continent of North America, one in Eastern Europe, one in the Balkan states, one in Russia, one in China, one in India, one in Indonesia, one in the Philippine Islands, one in Japan and one in Australia, that uses up all twelve apostles. But He said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20).

Now all the original twelve disciples are dead. But let’s see what happened because they obeyed His commission.

He said to Peter, “Go get people saved.”

“All right, Jesus, and then what?”

“Now get them baptized and grounded.”

“All right, Jesus, then what?”

“Then send them out to do just what I am telling you to do—observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

Jesus is saying, “The command I give you today, you pass on to everybody you get saved.” So the Great Commission is as much to everybody here as it was to Peter or any one of the twelve.

But you say, “I’m not called to preach.” You’re called to be a Christian, though, and this is a part of being a Christian. If you were taught what Jesus said, then you were taught you ought to be a soul winner. In Revelation 22:17 we read, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come.” If you’ve heard it, then you are supposed to tell it.

Have you been scripturally baptized? If not, you have missed a joy and a blessing. If you have, then they ought to have told you, “Now, I’m passing on to you the Great Commission that Jesus gave the twelve apostles.”

Somebody says, “The Great Commission is given to the church.” Is that so? Chapter and verse, please! We are to get people saved, and we are to get them baptized, and we are to teach them to do what Jesus told the apostles to do. The Lord Jesus didn’t save church houses or have them baptized or call them to preach.

The Lord Jesus didn’t call denominational headquarters or baptize them or give them the Great Commission. Why doesn’t somebody say “Amen”?

Every preacher, if he is saved, has this Great Commission. If you don’t win souls, you have failed in your Christian life. No one is a good Christian who doesn’t win souls. You are not doing the first things He said you were to do after you got baptized. Those who do not win souls are disobedient in the main command of Jesus Christ, and that is not a small matter.

II. The Sin of Lack of Love for Christ

Sin Number Two is the sin of lack of love for Jesus Christ. You say, “I love Jesus so much.” Oh, do you? Let us see what the Lord says about it. “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Isn’t that a fair, honest statement? He says in verse 21, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” And then verse 23 says, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words.”

So in proportion to your love for Jesus Christ, you will win souls. Not winning souls is proof of the coldness of your heart.

“Brother Rice, I don’t know much Bible.” That isn’t your trouble. “But don’t you use the Bible in soul winning?” Can you learn John 3:16? I have won hundreds of souls with John 3:16. Your real trouble is heart trouble.

You say you don’t have gifts. Well, do the best you can with what equipment you have. When I was called to preach, I said, “Lord, I don’t have a great voice like Dr. Truett, and I don’t have a personality like some other people, but I will do the best I can.” Your trouble is not poor equipment. It is heart trouble. You don’t love Jesus enough to do what He said. The Lord Jesus said three times in this chapter that if we love Him we will keep His commandments.

“Well, I’ve been taught different.” Yes, I know. You are talking about your head, but your trouble is not your head; it is your heart. You don’t love Jesus Christ enough to do what He said.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God would give us such a floodtide of love in our hearts, shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, that we would beg Jesus for power to win souls?

In the letter to the Ephesians in Revelation 2, the Lord said, ‘I know you have worked. You have been patient. I know you have borne burdens and didn’t faint in hard times. But I have somewhat against you because you have left your first love!’

Wouldn’t it be good if you had the honeymoon again—you and Jesus? Wouldn’t it be good if you just came back to the first wonderful love you had when you were first saved?

I remember when I went down the aisle and trusted the Lord and was converted at the First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Texas. My dad was preaching out in the country that day. I went home and told him I wanted to join the church. I didn’t say I had been converted—I didn’t know what you called it.

He said, “Son, when you are old enough to be really convicted of your sins and repent and be regenerated, then there will be time enough to join the church.”

Well, I guessed so. All of those were nice big words—only I didn’t know what they meant. My dad didn’t know I’d gotten saved, and I didn’t know how to tell him. So the next morning as I went to school and crossed the creek, I knelt under a willow tree in the sand and prayed, “Lord, maybe I’m too young to join the church or get saved, but So-and-so is not, and this one is not, and that one is not.” I cried and prayed under that tree for other people to be saved.

I didn’t know it then, but that was mighty good evidence the Lord had done a work of grace in my heart. I had the first love that Christians ought to have. You are backslidden if you don’t have that first love that makes you concerned about lost sinners.

In a campaign in Spearman, Texas, a French girl came night after night. She spoke in very broken English with a French accent. When I would ask, “How many are Christians?” she would hold up her hand. She had gone to mass regularly back in France and said her prayers, “Hail Mary, mother of God,” etc.

One night I preached on “You Must Be Born Again.” That was news to her. When I asked, “How many of you know you have been born again?” she didn’t hold up her hand. Then when I asked, “How many want to be saved?” she did hold her hand up; but when we gave the invitation, she didn’t come.

The next morning her husband brought her to the home where I was. She wanted to be saved, and I showed her how. She said, “There were a lot of churches in France; why didn’t anyone ever tell me I needed to be born again?”

I said, “Are you ready to ask Jesus to save you?”

She said, “I don’t know English very well. Can I pray in French?”

“Yes, God understands French just as well as English.”

I prayed in English, and she prayed in French and trusted Christ. I read to her John 3:36: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” We shook hands and cried and laughed. But I said, “Now, I’m glad that’s settled. I have to go now to see two young men I promised to meet.”

As we parted, she said, “Oh, Brother Rice, I do hope you save those boys!” She had that first love that is normal for a good Christian. She had what the Lord Jesus was talking about.

If you don’t have it, then you don’t love Jesus like you ought. Lack of love for Jesus is one of the sins of not winning souls. God forgive us for a cold heart.

III. The Sin of Not Following Jesus

Those who do not win souls are guilty of not following Jesus. We sing, “Trying to walk in the steps of the Saviour,” and talk about following Jesus, but in Matthew 4:19 Jesus said to Peter and Andrew, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Those who followed Jesus turned out to be soul winners.

Aren’t you glad God makes soul winners? If I were going to make them, I would pick men with real culture, training and personality. But then they would likely speak to the minds, not necessarily to the hearts. But Jesus makes soul winners, and, thank God, He can make a soul winner out of people not fit for much else in the world.

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Isn’t this a short, simple, easy way to get to be a soul winner? I follow Jesus, and He does something wonderful in my heart. It gets to where I love sinners as He does and want to go after them like He does. He puts His power on me to get people saved and makes me a soul winner.

If it is true that when you follow Jesus He makes you into a soul winner, it follows that if you are not a soul winner, you are not following Jesus.

“Brother Rice, I joined a church long ago.”

Yes, the churches are full of dead wood like you. Part of the curse of our churches is we have too many Christians of that kind. I would gladly have just one-tenth as many people, if they were all red-hot for God. Brother, we can’t drag sinners over your dead carcass. But if you follow Jesus, He will make you into a soul winner.

Soul winning costs something. During one blessed revival, a woman said to me, “Brother Rice, religion is like the measles. It’s catching.” I said, “You’re right, but you can’t give someone measles unless you have a fever.” We surely need people with fever. And if you follow Jesus, you will have it. He will make you into a good soul winner.

I started preaching before I knew I was called to preach or surrendered to preach. I was in Baylor University, studying to be a college English teacher, when a country pastor, Brother R. H. Gibson, wrote me a postcard asking me to lead singing for him in several one-week revivals. They ran from Friday evening through Thursday evening, with a baptismal service on Friday morning.

I liked to sing, and I wanted to win souls, so I went with him. We started under a brush arbor with a pump organ and sang the old-time songs. We had a wonderful meeting.

On Wednesday night, Brother Gibson said, “This is wonderful. It would not be right to close this meeting tomorrow night.”

I said, “No sir, I don’t think you ought to quit now. New people are getting under conviction all the time.”

“You go to the next place and start that on Friday night, and I’ll stay here and preach through Sunday afternoon. Then I’ll come over there where you are.”

“What is that?” I asked. “I’m no preacher! I’m not called to preach.”

“That’s all right. Just tell them you’re not a preacher and you’re not called to preach. But go ahead.”

I said, “I can’t do it. I don’t know how to preach.”

He said, “Are you saved? Do you know how to tell somebody how to be saved?”

“Yes. But I can’t preach.”

“Haven’t you been speaking some for the Red Cross and raising money for the boys in the army?”

“Well…yes.”

“Weren’t you in the Connally Debate in Baylor University and president of your literary society?”

“Yes. I won a scholarship in oratory.”

“And you gave your high school commencement address, but you can’t talk for Jesus! That’s a funny kind of Christianity!”

That stumped me. He sent me on over there to start the meeting. I walked up and down the creek bottom all day. I didn’t know much Bible. I was studying English; I could tell them about Shakespeare and Tennyson all right. I tried to remember all the Scriptures he had preached on and the things I knew. I preached, and when he got there, we were having people saved, and a revival had broken out. He went on with the revival, and everything went fine.

The next week he did the same thing, and I started the next meeting. It happened that way every week. The whole summer was nearly over before it dawned on me that he had planned it that way.

If you ran with R. H. Gibson, the first thing you knew, you’d be preaching.

And if you run with Jesus, you will be going after sinners. Your trouble is you are not following Jesus. If you were, He would make you into a soul winner.

God, put a burning in the heart of people and made them soul winners!

IV. The Sin of Not Abiding in Christ

Those who do not win souls are guilty of not abiding in Christ. You say, “That sounds like we are not even good Christians.” You’re catching on! Christians who do not win souls are not abiding in Christ.

In John 15 Jesus said,

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”—Vss. 4,5.

But you say you thought the fruit He was talking about is the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Bringing forth fruit is one thing; the Christian graces the Holy Spirit produces in you are another matter.

You may brush the old cow and spray some fly powder on her, but the fruit of the cow is either a calf or milk. The Bible speaks of the fruit of the womb—a woman’s baby. Proverbs 11:30 says, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.” A tree? You mean the fruit of a peach tree is another peach tree? Don’t you mean the fruit of the peach tree is a peach? No. Plant the peach and you get another peach tree. The fruit of a Christian is another Christian, and the fruit of the soul winner is another soul winner. The Great Commission is not only to get one saved but to get him baptized and to tell him to do what Jesus told us to do. So if you don’t bear fruit, you are not abiding in Christ.

There are a lot of false teachings about abiding in Christ—consecration, sanctification, baptized of the Holy Ghost, entered into the rest of God. “Oh, I have found in Him the key for life. I’ve had a testing experience.” A lot of people have been brainwashed. Nobody is sanctified or consecrated who doesn’t do what God wants him to do about soul winning. Any so-called Keswick experience that doesn’t make you a soul winner is a fake. If you don’t win souls, you’re not a good Christian and you are not abiding in Christ. If you were, you would bring forth much fruit.

In a Toronto revival, we had back-to-back services to accommodate the crowds. After a service where fifteen adults had come to Christ, we had a brief intermission. A man came up to me and said, “Brother Rice, have you been baptized with the Holy Ghost?”

“If you mean some holy anointing enabling me to win souls, then, thank God, yes.”

He said, “I didn’t mean that.

I meant, have you talked in tongues?”

I said, “Why didn’t you say what you meant?”

“Well, I meant where you just let go. Something comes on you, and you just feel light as a feather. You don’t know what you are saying, but you feel so good.”

I said, “If I can get enough sinners to come down the aisle; keep people out of Hell; see drunkards made sober, harlots made pure, convicts made into decent citizens and homes reunited, I’ll be happier than if I felt light as a feather with electricity coming in my head and going out my fingers and toes. I was talking in the English tongue tonight. Do you think everyone could understand me?”

“Well, yes.”

I said, “If I have a message from God and everybody understands English, what is wrong with preaching in English? Now let me ask you one. Did you ever win a soul?”

He said, “I’ve witnessed to them.”

I said, “Did you ever win a soul?”

“I’ve prayed for them”

I said, “Quit dodging. Did you ever get your Bible out and show a man he is a sinner and show him how to be saved and get him to trust Jesus and start out to live for Him? Did you or not?”

“I guess I never did.”

“Then don’t you ever again pretend you have something better than some man who preaches the Bible, who weeps over sinners and who in God’s mercy is being used to win souls.”

I’m tired of these deeper-life conferences. The pastor of a church that for years has had only a handful attending, mainly children, wanted me to run several articles in the SWORD OF THE LORD on the deeper life. I wrote that every time we put something in the paper about soul winning, we’re teaching about the deepest life there is. D. L. Moody and R. A. Torrey and Billy Sunday had the deeper life. You can tell, because they bore fruit.

The deeper life is keeping people out of Hell. That is what brings eternal rewards and causes rejoicing and hand clapping and bell ringing and singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” up in Heaven. If you don’t win souls, then you are not abiding in Christ.

V. The Awful Sin of Dishonesty in a Sacred Trust

Those who do not win souls are guilty of dishonesty in a sacred trust. Dishonesty? Brother Rice, that sounds like one is crooked. That is exactly the point. Anybody who does not win souls is crooked.

In Romans 1:14,15 Paul says, “I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.” You are in debt, Paul?

“Yes,” Paul said. “I got salvation which I didn’t earn and couldn’t pay for. I got it on credit, on the mercy of God. I’m going to Heaven when I ought to be in Hell. He called me to preach. I’m not worthy.”

If you are saved like Paul, you got salvation by God’s mercy. You didn’t deserve it. How much in debt you and I are!

Will you admit that you got salvation you didn’t deserve, couldn’t pay for and didn’t earn? Well, you are in debt then, aren’t you? This is a Gospel for the rest of the folks too, and you are dishonest if you don’t pass it on.

Matthew 25 tells of a man who took a far journey and he left his goods with his servants and provided for them.

“For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.…every man according to his several ability” (vss. 14,15). When the man returned, one servant told him, ‘I worked hard. I made five talents into ten.’

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant…enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (vs. 21).

The second servant came and said, ‘I worked hard and made two talents into four.’

The lord said to him also, “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (vs. 23).

Another fellow with one talent returned it, saying, ‘Here is your talent. I knew you were a hard man, so I took your talent and hid it in the earth.’

And the lord said to him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant. If you didn’t want to risk this money, why didn’t you put it in the bank so I could at least have earned some interest on the money?’ He called him wicked and slothful—crooked and lazy! He didn’t bring anything in on the investment made on him.

If you don’t win souls, you are wicked. God has a lot invested in you—the precious blood of Jesus, the wooing of the Holy Spirit, the writing of the Bible, the preaching of the men of God, Mother’s prayers. Shouldn’t God get a little back on His investment? If you do not pay some back to God by spreading the Gospel, then you are dishonest in a sacred trust.

Dr. H. A. Ironside once sent a sermon for the SWORD OF THE LORD with a note on the back of a handbill that was advertising some meetings he was going to have. The note said, “Just trying to pay my debt to my brethren.”

You have a debt to pay too, and you are dishonest if you don’t pay it. God has a right to some soul-winning effort from you. Don’t be dishonest in a sacred trust.

VI. The Sinful Folly of a Shortsighted Fool

You mean a man is a fool if he doesn’t win souls? Yes sir. He is putting his money, his time, his energy where it won’t bring much reward or do much good. Listen to Proverbs 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.” The soul winner is wise, because he is going to reap for eternity.

We read in Daniel 12:3, “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” Who are wise? They that win many souls!

I may be nobody much now, but if God in His mercy be willing, I will be somebody in the next world. Somebody will be at the gate to meet me. When some of you get there, you will have to hire a taxicab and get a map of the city to find your shack out in the suburbs. I want to have a brass band of praise when I get there.

At a filling station in Dallas one day, I asked the attendant, “How are you today?”

He replied, “Well, if you really want to know, I’m the biggest fool in Dallas.”

I asked, “Why is that?”

“I got my pay last night and went on a big bender. I don’t remember a thing, and when I woke up this morning, this was all I had from a week’s wages.” He pulled out a few coins. “I have to pay my landlady today, and I don’t have the money. All I’ve got is a guilty conscience and a dark brown taste in my mouth. Of all the fools in Dallas, I’m the biggest.”

I said, “I’ll say amen to that.”

A lot of you Christians are like that. You think of food for the belly and clothes for the back and a new-model car and wall-to-wall carpeting and four bedrooms and two baths. A heathen has that much sense. You had better put your money and your time where you will have a real reaping someday.

I’m only an evangelist, and everybody knows an evangelist isn’t anybody much. I don’t have money laid aside, and I don’t have life insurance, but I have some put away where thieves don’t break through and steal.

In Japan some years ago, I preached through an interpreter in a revival meeting for a missionary. I preached on the Prodigal Son, and God was there in power. Five people came forward to be saved. Only one of them had ever heard the Gospel before, so we took about half an hour to make sure these five understood it. They had come to the meeting after working for eleven hours in a rice paddy, and now it was late.

As we went outside, the missionary said, “I want you to meet this young man who interpreted for you. He is your grandson in the ministry.”

My booklet “What Must I Do to Be Saved?” had been translated into Japanese, and we had about four million copies of it published in Japan. In the first six months after the first printing, missionaries received letters from 2,800 Japanese who had trusted Christ as Saviour, and they followed them up.

One of those booklets had gotten into the hands of a man who was serving a life sentence in prison. He read that he could be born again and could have a new heart, that God would forgive him, that he could be a Christian and go to Heaven.

He believed it and trusted the Lord and was saved. A wonderful transformation took place. The guard began to say, “You ought not to be in jail.”

It wasn’t long until the warden and the guards all talked about him: “He is a better man than any of us. He shouldn’t be here.” The warden went to the judge and recommended that they turn the man loose, and they did.

One afternoon the former convict came upon a young man in the park who had his head in his hands. He asked, “What is the matter?”

“I wish I were dead! I slashed my wrists, but they rushed me to the hospital and saved me. I then got out of bed and beat my head on the brick wall. I was put in a straight jacket and strapped in bed until I got well. I’m an alcoholic, but I wish I were dead.”

This former prisoner said, “You need what I got.” He showed him this booklet and began to tell him about how to be saved.

“That doesn’t sound reasonable.”

“Come to the missionary, and he will tell you.”

He talked to the missionary and was saved. That is the man who interpreted for me that night.

While the missionary was telling me that, the young evangelist was talking in Japanese with his hands held high. The only word I could understand was “Hallelujah!” He rejoiced to meet the man who had written the little booklet that won his friend and him to Christ. My spiritual grandson! Bless God!

Many people curse me now. I preach plain and make people mad. But I’m going to have people who will be glad to see me when I get to Heaven!

What a fool anybody is who spends his time making money and on these other things! It is the folly of a shortsighted fool not to win souls.

VII. Not to Win Souls Is the Sin of Bloodguilt—Spiritual Manslaughter

“Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.

“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

“Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”—Ezek. 3:17–19.

If Ezekiel did not warn the Israelites about their iniquity and they died in their sins, God required their blood at his hand. What a staggering thought that God says to a man about sinners, “His blood will I require at thine hand”! But if Ezekiel warned the wicked, even if the wicked did not turn, then God said, “Thou hast delivered thy soul.”

That strange commission was given to Ezekiel for the nation of Israel, but surely it implies that God still holds people to account for the souls of those that they do not warn! Surely we are guilty of the blood of every poor lost soul who goes to Hell if we had a chance to warn him, to weep over him, to woo him tenderly and win him and get him to come to Christ, and we did not!

Paul had this in mind when he came to Miletus and had the elders of Ephesus meet him there. Solemnly facing these preachers, Paul told them that they would see his face no more, and then said, “Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:26,27). Then he said again, “Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears” (Acts 20:31).

Paul could solemnly say, ‘After three years in Ephesus, I have no blood on my hands! I have gone night and day with tears, publicly and from house to house, carrying the whole counsel of God. I am not to blame if anybody goes to Hell!’

O Christian, is there blood on your hands? Are you guilty of the death of immortal souls for whom Christ died, because you did not warn them?

When a boat overturned in a Chinese river, a missionary urged some nearby Chinese fishermen to bring their boat quickly and help him rescue a man who was drowning. The fishermen insisted on a price of fifty dollars before they would come. The missionary gave them all he had and at last persuaded them to help him, but it was too late. The callous hearts of the fishermen took no responsibility for their drowning countryman, but they were guilty of murder, as certain as there is a God in Heaven to hold men to account!

But are you much different, Christian, when you let people near you go to Hell and never warn them, weep over them and see that they have the Gospel?

In Roosevelt, Oklahoma, I promised to go see a dying woman who was distressed about her soul. But I waited until the second day, and she died before I ever saw her.

In Dallas, Texas, an elderly man wrote, saying, “I am dying with cancer, and I am not ready to die. Brother Rice, please come and pray with me.” But I had so many burdens that I postponed it. After two weeks I sent a young preacher to visit the old man, but a neighbor told the young preacher that the old man had died and the family were then gone to his funeral!

I hope that in their extremity these two people turned to the Lord, but I have no certainty at all. What will I say to the Lord Jesus when I see Him, if He asks me to give an account for the souls of these two who sent for me and I did not get there in time?

The sin of not winning souls is the bloodguilty sin of soul-manslaughter. I beg you in Jesus’ name, consider how guilty you must be in God’s sight if you do not put your very best and all your heart’s strength and love into the one precious business of soul winning!

So, Christian, if you do not win souls, you are not right with God. You may be saved, but you are not a good disciple. If you follow the Saviour at all, you follow afar off.

Consider again this sevenfold sin of failing to win souls. It is the sin of disobedience, of lack of love, of failing to follow Christ, of not abiding in Christ, of dishonesty in a sacred trust, of shortsighted folly, and of bloodguilt for which we must give an account.

May God convict us of our sin in not winning the souls who are dying all around us!

By Dr. John R. Rice

Is the “sinner’s prayer” “superstitious.”

Posted: April 5, 2013 in disciples life, Kingdom Teaching, Parents, teaching, wilderness
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It was a three-minute video clip that was shared across the evangelical community. In it, Pastor David Platt famously called the “sinner’s prayer” “superstitious.” A few months later, he still finds himself explaining the heart behind that message.

“I believe we simply need to be as biblical as possible (2 Timothy 2:15). Do I believe it is ‘wrong’ for someone to pray a ‘prayer of salvation’? Certainly not,” Platt maintained in a blog post this week.

The 33-year-old pastor, who leads The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., sparked debate earlier this year when he told attendees at the Verge Conference that there is “no such superstitious prayer in the New Testament,” referring to the popular “sinner’s prayer.”

“I’m convinced many people in our churches are just simply missing the life of Christ and a lot of it has to do with what we’ve sold them as the Gospel, i.e. ‘pray this prayer, accept Jesus into your heart, invite Christ into your life,'” he said. “It’s modern evangelism built on sinking sand and it runs the risk of disillusioning millions of souls.”

While some agreed with him, others couldn’t avoid what they saw as the underpinnings of his remarks – Calvinism. Some thought Platt voiced opposition to the “sinner’s prayer” because as a Calvinist, he didn’t want the hopeless unelect to think they are saved through a simple prayer.

He pushed back in his recent blog post, stating that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
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“Any cautions I have expressed with a ‘sinner’s prayer’ have absolutely nothing directly to do with the doctrine of election, and I definitively don’t believe that certain people ‘actually have no chance for life in Christ,'” the Southern Baptist pastor clarified. “Instead, my comments about the ‘sinner’s prayer’ have been deeply motivated by a concern for authentic conversion and regenerate church membership – doctrines which many Calvinists and non-Calvinists, as well as a variety of Christians in between, would rightly value.”

Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, came to Platt’s defense on Thursday. While noting that Platt could have chosen a better word other than “superstitious” in his talk, Akin said he shared his concern about poor gospel presentations and false professions.
But that doesn’t mean he’s against the “sinner’s prayer.”

“I want it to be known that I shepherded all of my sons in praying a ‘sinner’s prayer’ as an expression of the work of God in their hearts as they repented of their sin and placed their trust in Christ alone for salvation,” Akin stated. “I have also preached more than a dozen graduation messages and in each and every one I have shared the gospel, invited people to receive Christ, and even helped them as they surrender their lives to Christ by leading them in a ‘sinner’s prayer.’

“Handled carefully and wisely, I gladly invite people to repent of sin, trust in Christ, and surrender their lives to Him. David and I, I am quite certain, are in 100% agreement with one another on the issue.”
Platt addressed his controversial statements during the Southern Baptist Convention’s Pastors Conference in New Orleans last week.

“In my youth, I know that I am prone not to be careful with my words (particularly when they can become three-minute youtube clips!), so I want to be very careful with my words today,” he said in his introduction.
He went to the New Testament book of John to show evidence of devout followers of Jesus who were not born-again.
John 2:23-24 states: “Many trusted in his name … Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them.”
“Clearly, from the beginning of the gospel of John – this gospel that revolves around the necessity and centrality of belief in Christ – John makes clear to us that there is a kind of belief, a kind of faith, that does not save,” Platt explained.

“Is it possible for people to say they believe in Jesus, to say they have accepted Jesus, to say that they have received Jesus, but they are not saved and will not enter the kingdom of heaven? Is that possible? Absolutely, it’s possible. It’s not just possible; it is probable.”

Platt, who has a passion for global missions, expressed concern that there are millions of people who are being deceived to thinking they’re saved when they’re not because of a prayer they prayed or decision they made years ago.
At the same time, he made it clear that praying a prayer or making a decision aren’t in themselves bad. In fact, that’s how many believers called out to Christ and became “justified” through faith in Jesus.
But the question, he said, is: “What kind of faith are we calling people to?”

“In a day of rampant easy-believism that creates cultural Christians who do not know Christ, who have never counted the cost of following Christ, we must be biblically clear about saving faith, lest any of us lead people down a very dangerous and potentially damning road of spiritual deception.”

True, saving faith, the Alabama pastor explained, requires first understanding man’s condition before God – that they are dead in sin.

“We cannot dumb it down,” he stressed. “We are morally evil.”
To be born-again, one must repent – turn from sin and self – and believe – “trust in Jesus as the Savior who died for us and the Lord who rules over us.”

“We tell men and women, boys and girls everywhere: repent and believe in Christ. Whether we say, ‘Pray this prayer after me,’ is not the issue,” Platt highlighted. “The issue is that together we say, ‘By the grace of God in the cross of Christ, turn from yourself and trust in Jesus. Come from darkness to light. Come from death to life.’
“Now we can debate all day long how these words are used in what senses, but the testimony of Scripture is absolutely, fundamentally clear: God loves the world, and everyone in the world who trusts in Him will be saved.”
And those who are truly saved, he added, will be compelled to boldly preach the Gospel. They don’t have to be cajoled to do it.

Amid debate on the “sinner’s prayer,” Southern Baptists chose to adopt a resolution this month affirming the prayer as “a biblical expression of repentance and faith.”
Notably, Platt voted for the resolution.

“It was encouraging to see pastors and leaders together say that we need to be wise in the way we lead people to Christ, but such wisdom doesn’t necessarily warrant that everyone must throw out a ‘sinner’s prayer’ altogether,” he stated.

By Lillian Kwon , Christian Post Reporter

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/david-platt-still-addressing-controversy-over-sinners-prayer-remarks-77462/#BX1QdE6gMYrkVqXG.99

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