Preach the Word.. NOT the World!

This is such a timely quote and every man who dares enter the pulpit or embarks to step on the platform should check himself for the properness of his heart and humbleness of spirit.

"When a man steps into the pulpit more interested in telling us about his week so that he can 'relate' to his people - he is not preaching the Word. When a man seeks to be funny behind the sacred desk rather than faithful with the text - he is not preaching the Word. When a man claims to have a 'word from the Lord' a part from the divine revelation of Scripture - he is deceived and is not preaching the Word. When a man designs his sermons to attract a target audience, appeal to the culture, and has as its primary goal a thirst to be relevant - he is not preaching the Word. When a man strives to change the world through politics, representing America as the new Israel, seeking to bring a societal morality through legislation, and honors the flag equally with the cross - he is not preaching the Word. When a man fails to tremble at God's Word privately before ever preaching it publicly - he is not preaching the Word. And when a man treats the pages of holy writ with a cavalier, seeker-friendly, watered down, cream of wheat irreverence - he is not preaching the Word."

- John MacArthur Jr.

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. - 2Ti 4:1-4


May we, who dare, tremble at the very thought of our tremendous and frightening responsibility and never take it lightly, rather respectfully, humbly, fearfully and with reverence for the Creator God who called His creation to preach His Word, Jesus!

1Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;
3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.

1 John 4:1-3 (NASB)

In Response to..."Here Is Your Sign"

This post is my thoughts on a post from the site "My Front Porch"

I can understand how you feel. It reminds me of a time driving back from Mo. after a visit, the wife and I saw a Lincoln Town Car fly by with a bumper sticker that said Clergy, however it also had an inverted cross on it and in the window another, which said the church of Satan. This person dressed all in black, driving his black car, drove in front of us for nearly eighty miles, we were in TN, when we saw this guy. The thing that struck me as I drove behind him was the presence of evil. I could feel it in my bones before I saw the sticker in the window. The difference between our two experiences is that with most people they put these bumper stickers on their cars thinking they are cute. This guy had this as a proud proclamation that he is a child of the devil and that he is a servant of Satan, and an enemy forthright of our GOD.
It is not just a matter of we need to reach out, we are commanded to share the good news to those who do not know the Lord. For today they may just have what they see as a cute little bumper sticker, soon they may not just have a cute little sticker, but may have a mark that will identify them forever with the damned. The scriptures tell us that we are not guaranteed a moment here on this Earth, for those of us who know The Messiah, we have no other choice but to tell others of His mighty work in our lives and throughout history, so they too may have the opprotunity to become His. Evil is real! Far to many people, and even Christian play these little games with the culture and by entertaining evil, by opening themselves up to vile vision through the movies and television shows they watch. To grotesque mental images by the music that they listen to, or by what they read, all along saying I am a Christian, this stuff is not real, it is only make believe, when the Lord has forbid it. They look on these things as acceptable because that is what the culture does, make no mistake that as we open the door , Satan will have his way as he only need a crack to enter in and far too soon we will be no different than the culture but we will be nothing like our GOD. The enemy is real and he does prowl like a lion seeking who he can destroy, and the duty is ours to expose his lie and his way, so the veil can be lifted, so that the scales might be removed from the eyes of those who are blind, so they may see the SON and know His love and light.

Do not delay, in doing today what the Lord called you to do yesterday! For the destiny of many hang in the balance!

Lullaby, lullaby,

Lullaby, lullaby,
Do not wake and weep;
Softly in the cradle lie,
Sleep, O sleep!
Softly in the cradle lie,
Sleep, my darling, sleep.

This seems to be the clamor of the emergent church; it would appear that they want you to be comfortable, to wear your facade, to be never changing, to be comfortable in the darkness of your sins. With statements like “We don't teach from Books of the Bible because it gets in the way of evangelism.” No wonder Christianity is in such a way, such a perverse way.

Let it be known, let this be proclaimed from the highest peak, with the loudest voice! Scripture never gets in the way! It leads the way, it lights the way, it is our schoolmaster. It should be taught, it should be loved, adored, and respected and it should be the prominent in our personal library’s and be the book most worn. While this is “of my opinion” it for the most part is a command of Christ. In Matthew 28:18-20 (NASB95)
¹⁸ And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (emphasis mine).

How can we go and make disciples and teach them to observe all that is commanded, if we do not use the Bible? We must teach! What must we teach, what Christ taught and what the apostles taught!

Maybe there is some confusion… about what a disciple is. Let us look real quick at two definitions for Disciple the first is from “Easton’s Bible dictionary”. It defines Disciple in respect to being a disciple of Christ as follows; “A disciple of Christ is one who (1) believes his doctrine, (2) rests on his sacrifice, (3) imbibes his spirit, and (4) imitates his example (Matt. 10:24; Luke 14:26, 27, 33; John 6:69).”

In the “New Bible Dictionary” it states the following, “A disciple (from Lat. discipulus, ‘pupil, learner’, corresponding to Gk. mathētēs, from manthanō, ‘to learn’) is basically the pupil of a teacher”

And from Strong’s concordance it show us that a disciple was some one who was “learned, or one that was taught”

So, even from the basics we can so clearly see that if one wants to be and do as instructed by Christ Himself, “Go and make disciples” we must also, as Christ commanded TEACH them. And that which we teach them is scripture, we do bible studies, so they can know the real power of God in their lives by seeing a radical change in who they were to who they are to be. God may want them the way they are but He does not want to keep them there!

In 1 Timothy 4:16 Paul admonishes Timothy to” Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. (emphasis mine).

There is the goal, is it not? Put the Bible on the shelf and you will have shelved Salvation, for both yourself and those who hear you.

I heard this quote and do not know who to give credit for it, but it is ever so true. “The world does not need a NEW definition of Christianity, it needs a NEW demonstration of it.”

So, I leave you with final thought and a quote form Ian Paisley, first the thought, when did a preacher become so much smarter than the Author of the book to tell Him we do not need to use it, it gets in the way? When did the messenger become more important than the Message? When did the preacher reign on High, so as to tell the Almighty that he knows better? Friends, life is from and through the Cross of Jesus Christ. There is no other way, to the Father, no other way to teach, than that which is commanded by our LORD. Return to the Scriptures, hold them as they ought to be held, with both hands, in love, wonder and awe, with respect and admiration for the Blood stained pages for which the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords died, so we could know Him and His Glory. For truly that is what it is about… His Glory!

May you be moved, may you be blessed, if needed may you repent and return to your first Love. Now the quote form Ian Paisley,

“The church of Jesus Christ is largely sleeping, like a great bedroom and you have all the Christians in bed and they’re all sleeping ... and they’re saying "Please, don't wake me up! I want to sleep on!" And of course when God starts to operate a revival people cannot sleep, you can't sleep in church when the Spirit of God awakes the people. Look at the 1st verse of this 52nd chapter (Isaiah 52) ..."Awake! Awake! Put on strength!" Wake it up! You're sleepy Christians! Awake thou that sleepeth, Arise from the dead! Christ will give you life!”

-Ian Paisley

May we all by the power of the Lord be awakened to the Power, Relevance and everyone’s need of…The Word of God!

Wanna be Humbled?

As Christians, we from time to time get humbled and for some, from time to time, seek to be humbled. And that, is today’s story.

Friday August 24th, was the second day of class for this semester and our first chapel for this semester. If you do not know me or have not been told I am a 41 year old man, I am a full time student, I am married to a wonderful and godly lady, who is the most incredible mother of our four children. Life is FULL, AMEN!
So, today, I set out for my only two classes for Friday, Life of Christ 1 and New Testament Greek, which was followed by Chapel. As I made my way into the gymnasium, the place was all a buzz with the incoming freshmen and all the returning students, the podium was in the middle of the floor and behind that the praise and worship team. We come in and get settled, have a few announcements and reading of scripture.

The passage came from 1 Peter 1:3-9 “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, 7 so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; 8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” And 1 Peter 1:13-16 “13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, 15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16 because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”

Amazing verses, so we stand and sing our praise of worship to our Divine Lord and this is one of those times, since it is the first Chapel of the semester when it is just amazing. About 500 of us singing praise to our King, it is enough to give (and it did) you chills form your head to your toes.

As we end our time of singing, we are introduced to the speaker today and as always a treat, it is the President of the College, Dr.Oakes. This is a man when you hear him preach you know that God is with him and using him to share His (God’s) heart with you. He has a passion for helping mold us into “real servants and real leaders”. He is one of those men that you could (at least I could) sit for hours and just listen to preach. Very few men fit into this category, but Dr Oakes fits it like a glove. I would try to give you some of the points of his message for us, but I fear that it would never do. So here is a link, please take about 25 minutes of your day today and let the Lord through His messenger Humble you. Christ said in the book of Luke Chapter 18 and verse 14 said "I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

So, I ask, wanna be humbled?