I insist that if we are burdened with genuine concern, we have the responsibility of examining the true spiritual condition of men and women within the Church’s ranks. We do live in a time of soft, easy Christianity. It is an era marked by a polite “nibbling” around the edges of the Word of God. There is a mindset within present day Christianity that supposes one should get into trouble or suffer embarrassment for Christ’s sake!
View MoreScience declares that nature abhors a vacuum. It should be happy knowledge to us, then, that the same principle is true in the Kingdom of God. When you empty yourself, God Almighty rushes in! The Creator God who fills the universe and overflows into immensity can never be surrounded by that little thing we call our brain, our mind, our intellect. Never can we rise to face God by what we are and by what we know!
View MoreIt is sad indeed to know that there are Christian leaders among us who are too timid to tell the people all the truth. They are now asking men and women to give to God only that which costs them nothing! The contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles. Christ calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name! He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords! He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers! When will believers learn that to love righteousness it is necessary to hate sin? That to accept Christ it is necessary to reject self? That a friend of the world is an enemy of God? Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ!
View MoreIt is a fact in human history that men and women have never in any great numbers sought after truth. The young people who stream from our halls of learning each year confess to having no more than a passing and academic interest in truth. The majority admits to attending college only to improve social standing and increase earning power. So the average American will confess that he most wants success in his chosen field, and he wants success both for prestige and for financial security. The ominous thing about all this is that everything men and women want can be bought with money, and it would be difficult to think of an indictment more terrible than that! Real seekers after truth are almost as rare as albino deer! Why? Because truth is a glorious but hard master. Jesus said, “I am the Truth,” and followed Truth straight to the Cross. The Truth seeker must follow Him there and that is the reason few men seek the Truth!
View MoreOur Lord Jesus Christ called men to follow Him, but He plainly taught that “no man can come unto me, except it were given him of my Father” (John 6:65). It is not surprising that many of His early followers, upon hearing these words, went back and walked no more with Him. Such teaching cannot but be deeply disturbing to the natural mind. It takes from sinful men much of the power of self-determination.
View MoreMen and women who read and study the Scriptures for their literary beauty alone have missed the whole purpose for which they were given. God’s Word is not to be enjoyed as one might “enjoy” a Beethoven symphony or a poem by Wordsworth. The reason: the Bible demands immediate action, faith, surrender, and committal. Until it has secured these, it has done nothing positive for the reader, but it has increased his responsibility and deepened the judgment that must follow. The Bible was called forth by the fall of man. It is the voice of God calling men home from the wilds of sin; it is a road map for returning prodigals. It is instruction in righteousness, light in darkness, information about God and man and life and death and heaven and hell. Further, the destiny of each individual depends upon the response to that Voice in the Word!
View MoreThere are many compelling lessons to be drawn from the Scriptures, and one of the clearest is that sinful and rebellious people can never be forced into repentance. The same act that may cause one person to repent and believe will cause others to hate and despise God! The same Bible sermon that brings the person to tearful submission at an altar of prayer will send others out with pride and a resolve to have their own human way.0
View MoreWe need not be afraid of a genuine visitation of the Spirit of God! Blaise Pascal, the famed 17th-century French scientist and philosopher, experienced in his lifetime a personal, overwhelming encounter with God that changed his life. Those who attended him at his death found a worn, creased paper in his clothing, close to his heart, apparently a reminder of what he had felt and sensed in God’s very presence. In Pascal’s own hand it read: From about half past ten at night to about half after midnight—fire! O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob—not the God of philosophers or the wise.
View MoreI must take issue with those in the churches who insist that the worshiping saints do not get anything done but worship! Such an attitude reveals that they have not done their homework. The beautiful part of worship is that it prepares you and enables you to zero in on the important things that must be done for God. Listen to me! Practically every great deed done in the Church of Christ all the way back to the apostles was done by people blazing with the radiant worship of their God!
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