A couple of snippets from Spurgeon in his sermon Ripe Fruit: We always look back at the 1800's as an innocent, better time. But I see here the same struggles we deal with today in the church.
“What misery is mine! I am like one who gathers summer fruit at the gleaning of the vineyard; there is no cluster of grapes to eat: my soul desired the first ripe fruit." Micah 7:1
The nation of Israel had fallen into so sad and backsliding a condition, that it was not like a vine covered with fruit, but like a vineyard after the whole vintage has been gathered, so that there was not to be found a single cluster. Not one righteous man could be found, not one to be trusted or found faithful to God. The whole state had become like a field that has been closely reaped, in which nothing remains but the stubble; like a vineyard that has been completely stripped, in which there remains no vestige of fruit. The prophet, speaking in the name of Israel, desired the first ripe fruits, but there were none to be had. The lesson of the text, as it stands, would be that good men are the best fruit of a nation, they make it worth while that the nation should exist, they are the salt which preserves it, they are the fruit which adorns it and blesses it. Pray then for our country, that God will continually raise up a righteous seed, a faithful band, who, for his name’s sake, shall be a sweet savor unto God, for whose sake he may bless the whole land. But I mean to apply our text in another connection, and use it as the heading of a discourse upon ripeness in grace. I think we can all use the words of Micah in another sense, and say, “My soul desired the first ripe fruit.” We would not be merely the green blade; we desire to be the full corn in the ear. We would not merely show forth the blossoms of repentance and the young buds of struggling faith; but we would go on to maturity, and bring forth fruit unto perfection, to the honor and praise of Jesus Christ. This morning, then, I speak about ripeness in grace, maturity in the divine life, fruit ready to be gathered. The church wants in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more decided, thoroughgoing, well-instructed, and confirmed believers.
Many an aged Christian is not an experienced Christian, for all his experience, though it may be the experience of a Christian, may not have been Christian experience of an advanced kind. An old sailor who has never left the river is not an experienced mariner. An old soldier who never saw a battle is no veteran. Remember it is in the kingdom of God very much as it is with God himself, one day may be as a thousand years. God can, as Solomon tells us, give wisdom to the simple, and teach the young man knowledge and discretion. Years with grace will produce greater maturity, but what I want to say is, that years without grace will produce no such maturity. The mere lapse of time will not advance us in the divine life. We do not ripen necessarily because our years fulfill their tale. Grey hairs and great grace are not inseparable companions. Time may be wasted as well as improved, we may be petrified rather than perfected by the flow of years.
Here it may be well to note that there is no reason why a young Christian should not make great advance towards this maturity, even while young. The Lord’s grace is independent of time and age; the Holy Spirit is not limited by youth, nor restrained by fewness of days. Young Samuel may excel aged Eli; a holy babe is riper than a backsliding man. Timothy was more mature than Diotrephes. Jesus can lead you, my youthful brother, to high degrees of fellowship with himself; he can make you to be a blessing even while yet you are young; I pray you aspire to the nearest place to Jesus, and like young John, lie in the Master’s bosom.
Truly, the aged have the help of experience, and in any case they deserve our reverent esteem, but let neither old nor young imagine that the merely natural fact of age has any influence in the spiritual life. God’s work is the same in old and young, and owes nothing to the merely natural vigor of youth, or equally natural prudence of age.
The church needs in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more decided, thoroughgoing, well-instructed, and confirmed believers.We are assailed by all sorts of new doctrines. The old faith is attacked by so-called reformers, who would reform it all away to ruin. I expect to hear tidings of some new doctrine once a week. So often as the moon changes, some 'prophet' or other is moved to propound a new theory, and believe me, he will contend more valiantly for his novelty than ever he did for the gospel...They may muster a troop of raw recruits, and lead them whither they would, but for confirmed believers they sound their bugles in vain.
Children run after every new toy; any little performance in the street, and the boys are all agog, gaping at it; but their fathers have work to do abroad, and their mothers have other matters at home; your drum and whistle will not draw them out.
For the solidity of the church, for her steadfastness in the faith, for her defense against the constantly recurring attacks of heretics and infidels, and for her permanent advance and the seizing of fresh provinces for Christ, we want not only your young, hot blood, which may God always send to us, for it is of immense service, and we cannot do without it, but we need also the cool, steady, well-disciplined, deeply-experienced. hearts of men who know by experience the truth of God, and hold fast what they have learned in the school of Christ.
May the Lord our God therefore send us many such; they are wanted.
I worry that there are so many people today that are "true believers on dead fig trees," as my pastor calls it. So many churches today don't teach doctrine at all. Some don't even feel the need to teach doctrine. They think it's divisive, or unimportant. If the leadership in those churches could only see how easily so many people can go from one church to another without really understanding what the core beliefs of each church is, all because the church has a great praise & worship band. Or because the church is involved in some great service projects, so they MUST be a GOOD church.
Those who guide this people mislead them,
and those who are guided are led astray.
Isaiah 9:16
Our pastor included a note of encouragement in this past week's church bulletin. It's so good, I wanted to share.....
May I share with you a word of encuragement - encouragement in a day when many are afraid at what the future may hold, fear at what the Bible calls the "roaring of the waves."
Christians are born (or reborn) for adversity. We are the ones with invisible means of support. We are the ones who bear fruit in times of drought. We know the perspective as to why our nation needs to be shaken to its foundations. We alone have the true God who is found through prayer.
The people of God flourish in adversity. It is prosperity that far more often has proved the weakening of the church. We may be brought back to the things most important. We may have to open our homes and means and tables to brethren in need. But remember...we cut our infants' teeth in the fires of Roman persecution and medieval crucibles.
So fear not, bring on the coming day...
We welcome the match and will call all men to observe our mettle...
So..."screw thy courage to the sticking place."
Our Prince runs full bore to hills of skulls.
"All things belong to You...things to come...all things belong to You..."
-1 Corinthians 3:22
First and Only Husband went to Krygyzstan back in 2004 for two weeks to teach some computer classes. While he was there, one of the men in his class told him that 9/11 was a spiritual blessing for Afghanistan. He said that when the U.S. went into Afghanistan and got rid of the Taliban, there was a freedom in that country that hadn't been felt for years. With that freedom came God's good news. Before 9/11, the Christians in that country could have been counted on one hand. Today, there are thousands of believers in Christ. It is truly an example of how God can take something that's bad and make good from it.
I came across a recent post (3/23) by Joel Rosenberg on his blog, The Joshua Fund. He continues with the good news:
The God of the Bible is moving powerfully in the Middle East to draw men, women and children to His heart and adopt them into His family in record numbers. More Muslims have come to faith in Jesus Christ over the last thirty years -- and specifically over the last seven to ten years -- than at any other time in human history. There is a revival going on among the ancient Catholic, Coptic, and Chaldean churches. Today, the Church is being truly resurrected in the lands of its birth.
....
In December 2001, Sheikh Ahmad al Qataani, a leading Saudi cleric, appeared on a live interview on Aljazeera satellite television to confirm that, sure enough, Muslims were turning to Jesus in alarming numbers. "In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity," Al Qataani warned. "Every day, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Every year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity." Stunned, the interviewer interrupted the cleric. "Hold on! Let me clarify. Do we have six million converting from Islam to Christianity?" Al Qataani repeated his assertion. "Every year," the cleric confirmed, adding, "a tragedy has happened."
One of the most dramatic developments is that many Muslims throughout the Middle East and even in the United States are seeing dreams and visions of Jesus. They are coming into churches explaining that they have already converted and now need a Bible and guidance on how to follow Jesus. This is in fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Hebrew Prophet Joel told us that "in the last days, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days....And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved." (Joel 2:28-32)
So KEWL!!!!!!!!! :-) God is good.
If you want to get involved in what's going on over in the 10/40 window, a great resource is Praying Through the 100 Cities of the 10/40 Window. There are daily prayer requests for each of the 100 cities, and I can say from personal knowledge that at least one of the prayer requests has been answered through some of the people my husband met during his trip to Kyrgyzstan. So my post about that HERE.
I came across a short article written by Michael Horton on the Touchstone Mag site. He wrote about what our society clamors for in their pastor these days. I've seen exactly what he wrote about, and really, I'm sure just about everyone has. He writes:
Never mind Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to submit to elders and pastors as official ambassadors of Christ. These days, even in more confessional denominations, it seems that instead of being the Lord’s servant, ambassador, and minister of reconciliation, a pastor is supposed to be the community’s quarterback, class president, or the one voted “most likely to succeed.”
It used to be that the pastor had an office and worked in his study, but today the pastor has a job and works in his office. Whereas Peter organized the diaconal office so that the apostles could devote themselves to the Word and to prayer, ideal ministers seem increasingly to be managers, therapists, entertainers, and entrepreneurial businesspeople.
Open up the average issue of Christianity Today to advertisements for pastoral positions and you’ll find descriptions like “team builder,” “warm and personal style,” “outgoing,” “contagious personality,” and “effective communicator.” (Catholic friends tell me that something like this affects Catholicism, too.)
I think they’re looking for a Director of Sales and Marketing, whom they may (or may not) call “Pastor.” I’m not against directors of sales and marketing; I just don’t think that this is what we should be looking for in the way of shepherds.
Like I said, I've seen this before. The last church we were members of, our pastor was the Executive Pastor. And everyone loved (and still does, I'm sure) him because he was so "edgy." It would not be unusual for him to show up wearing some snazzy green shoes, or his hair dyed white blonde. Once he pulled onto the stage in a car. What an impact he made on all of us congregants. (Oh. Sorry. I mean customers. That's what the leadership in that church call their members.) As I look back, I wonder if he was making the best kind of impact. While he was long on wowing us all with the kewl things he did, he was short on teaching doctrine - the meat and potatoes of the Christian faith. This church that we went to was heavily influenced by Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. Recently, Bill Hybels, the Executive Pastor of that church has gone on the record to say,
Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.
We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.
It's hard to put too much blame on these pastors. I look at my own home and think about the times when I've thought that the kids needed some neat-o kid's devotional book so they would be interested in their own quiet times. I bought one of those devotional books once for my oldest son, and we got about halfway through it before I realized I was throwing eye-candy at him, in the hopes that it would draw him to God. Since then, we've been sticking with, of ALL things, the BIBLE. The word of God is enough! I wish the church would make peace with that thought so we could do away with green shoes and mega-church programs that don't fill our need for communion with God.
I love Ruth Beechick, and I'm sure most of you get The Homeschool Minute from TOS. I love what she wrote in the latest edition and have to include it here so I can read it over and over.
The early Christians were strong on discipleship. A historian, Eusebius, wrote a history of the first 300 years of the church, and much of it tells how carefully they guarded the great truths of the faith. Heresies arose often, teaching doctrines such as claiming that Jesus had not existed from all eternity, thus was not fully God.
Church leaders taught and wrote letters against the errors. One writer of truth, Clement, said that "the apostles of the devil have filled [Clement's letters] with tares, exchanging some things, and adding others." They also "attempted to adulterate the sacred writings of the Lord." Many of the Christians in those days suffered martyrdom, bravely and even gladly. The true doctrines were worth dying for.
Through those early centuries, they preserved the sacred truths and the very words of scripture in order to disciple the young and the next generations. We today still benefit from their faithful guarding of true doctrines. Those early Christians discipled not by pop psychology, not by entertainment, but by the true, unadulterated words of God.
I knew a woman who went an entire school year without teaching her son any school subjects because she was waiting on a leading from God on which curriculum to use. It kinda wigged me out. I kept wondering if I was not as godly as she was since I didn't sit around waiting to hear the voice of God tell me to go the way of Charlotte Mason or The Well-Trained Mind. I prayed about it, did some research, then made a decision based on the research and how I "felt" God leading me. My decision wasn't perfect, but God led me along the way, and I've tweaked things here and there to make our homeschooling experience as good as can be. I've learned along the way, and I realize that for the most part, a lot of my learning was aquired through lessons learned and wisdom gained along the path. There's really, REALLY something good in that process, I believe. I think that God takes us slowly along the path He wants us to be on because while on that path, we become sanctified. We can't just all of a sudden "be there." God has given us a freedom to make choices which naturally lead to consequences for good or bad, but absolutely for His ultimate glory and our ultimate sanctification.
Till this very day - even to this very hour - I've often wondered about that woman's approach versus my approach. A few minutes ago, I read a blog entry that one of our pastors at church forwarded along and a light bulb went on for me! You've got to read it! ;-)
For me, this is the crucial paragraph from the post: A subjective sense of leading--when we've asked for it (as in James 1:5 we ask for wisdom) and when God freely gives it--is wonderful. The desire for such a subjective sense of leading, however, is too often, in contemporary evangelical piety, binding our brothers and sisters in Christ, paralyzing them from enjoying the good choices that God may provide, and causing them to wait wrongly before acting.
This will be brief. The way many Christians practice seeking God's will before they make a decision amounts to spiritual and emotional bondage. Christ has died to give us liberty and freedom (Rom. 6; Gal. 5; I Peter 2). We can only know the truth about God's will by what His Spirit reveals to us. He has revealed God's mind authoritatively in His Word. We should give ourselves to study what He has revealed. Personal reading, meditation, sermons, friends and books are all available to us to help us to better understand God's revealed will.
I do believe that God's Spirit will sometimes lead us subjectively. So, for instance, I am choosing to spend my life here on Capitol Hill because my wife & I sensed in 1993 that that is what God wanted us to do. However, I realized then (and now) that I could be wrong about that supposition. Scripture is NEVER wrong. I was free in 1993 to stay in England, or teach at a seminary, either of which would have been delightful opportunities. I understand that I was free to make those choices. But I chose, consulting Scripture, friends, wisdom, and my own subjective sense of the Lord's will, to come to DC. And even if I were wrong about that, I had (and have) that freedom in Christ to act in a way that is not sin. And I understand my pastoring here not to be sin. So I am free. Regardless of the sense of leading I had.
Most decisions I've made in my Christian life, I've made with no such sense of subjective leading. Maybe some would say that this is a mark of my spiritual immaturity. I understand this to be the way a redeemed child of God normally lives in this fallen world before the fullness of the Kingdom comes, Christ returns, and immediate, constant, unbroken fellowship with God is re-established.
A subjective sense of leading--when we've asked for it (as in James 1:5 we ask for wisdom) and when God freely gives it--is wonderful. The desire for such a subjective sense of leading, however, is too often, in contemporary evangelical piety, binding our brothers and sisters in Christ, paralyzing them from enjoying the good choices that God may provide, and causing them to wait wrongly before acting.
I recently read a blog post written by John MacArthur, titled Our Primary Concern about political involvement and a Christian's role in the political scene. A paragraph in the post stuck out at me and has been haunting my thoughts since I read it:
When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelization. Such an antagonistic position toward the established secular culture invariably leads believers to feel hostile not only to unsaved government leaders with whom they disagree, but also antagonistic toward the unsaved residents of that culture—neighbors and fellow citizens they ought to love, pray for, and share the gospel with. To me it is unthinkable that we become enemies of the very people we seek to win to Christ, our potential brothers and sisters in the Lord.
This was very convicting. I have to admit that when I saw John Edward's daughter on t.v., talking about how she wanted to help her Dad campaign because she loved him and wanted to spend the time with him, I was befuddled. I thought, "Really?" I'm ashamed to admit this. :-/ But without realizing it, I have begun to feel "antagonistic" to those that I disagree with politically.
More to pray and work on as God continues to beat out the ugly in me. ;-)
I just finished reading a great series from Pulpit Magazine titled The Flaws of the Fad-Driven Church. This is the link to Part I. Here is Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7. This is a great series that tackles such biggies as The Jabez Prayer, Rick Warren's 40 Days of Purpose, seeker sensitive churches, the emergent church movement....is there anything necessarily wrong with these trends that have popped up in church culture in the last 20 or more years? The author of the article believes so, as many of these fads have taken the place of the teaching of scripture. Take your time to read it. It really helped me to clear things up in my head concerning all these fads.
I just finished listening to my own pastor, Tom Nelson, deliver a message to the students of Dallas Theological Seminary on this subject. He was exhorting the up-and-coming pastors to keep their focus on the real thing - scripture - to stay away from wherever the popular culture happens to be blowing at the time, because popular culture trends never lasts, "but the Word of our God stands forever." (Is. 40:8)
Finally, if you're unsure what the emergent church is and what it stands for, watch these two YouTube videos for a little information. It will make your hair stand on end!
So much goes on in the world that we never see or hear about. As I watched the video below, I imagined things I might have been doing during the trouble that these Iraqi Christians went though, and are still going through. As I think about those things, I feel thankful to God that we aren't facing hard times like these in our own country, ashamed that I don't pray for persecuted Christians around the world enough, and humbled. Humbled because the small irritations that I deal with during a normal week around here are NOTHING compared to the struggle and humiliation that so many others go through.
William J. Murray, Chairman of the Religious Freedom Coaltion made this video while in Iraq: THE DEATH OF AN IRAQI CHURCH - During our fact finding mission to the Middle East , I interviewed Iraqi Christians at the Chaldean Catholic Church in Beirut, Lebanon. In the basement of the church a display had been placed on the walls of photos from the church in Iraq. The display started with average middle class family photos taken before Islamic oppression escalated with our invasion, and they show what the conditions are now.
A couple of snippets from Spurgeon in his sermon 
I worry that there are so many people today that are "true believers on dead fig trees," as my pastor calls it. So many churches today don't teach doctrine at all. Some don't even feel the need to teach doctrine. They think it's divisive, or unimportant. If the leadership in those churches could only see how easily so many people can go from one church to another without really understanding what the core beliefs of each church is, all because the church has a great praise & worship band. Or because the church is involved in some great service projects, so they MUST be a GOOD church. 
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