I've been reading C. H. Spurgeon's autobiography for a while now, and I just came across this great paragraph.

The setting is shortly after Spurgeon relates the first sermon he ever preached. He delivered an address of unknown length to a group of poor farmers and tradesman in a thatch-roofed cottage, in Teversham, a village about 6 miles from his home in Cambridge. A lowly beginning indeed!

"Are there not other young men who might begin to speak for Jesus in some such lowly fashion--young men who hitherto have been mute as fishes? Our villages and hamlets offer fine opportunities for youthful speakers. Let them not wait till they are invited to a chapel, or have prepared a fine essay, or have secured an intelligent audience. If they will go and tell out from their hearts what the Lord Jesus has done for them, they will find ready listeners. Many of our young folks want to commence their service for Christ by doing great things, and therefore do nothing at all; let none of my readers become the victims of such an unreasonable ambition. He who is willing to teach infants, or to give away tracts, and so to begin at the beginning, is far more likely to be useful than the youth who is full of affectations, and sleeps in a white necktie, who is aspiring to the ministry, and is touching up certain superior manuscripts which he hopes ere long to read from the pastor's pulpit. He who talks upon plain gospel themes in a farmer's kitchen, and is able to interest the carter's boy and the dairy-maid, has more of the minister in him than the prim little man who keeps prating about being cultured, and means by that--being taught to use words which nobody can understand. To make the very poorest listen with pleasure and profit, is in itself an achievement; and beyond this, it is the best possible promise and preparation for an influential ministry. Let our younger brethren go in for cottage preaching, and plenty of it." C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, 184.

Quote de Jour

"Let us not aim at being original thinkers, but at being witnesses and heralds of what God says to men." C. H. Spurgeon

Hebrews 3:12-15

12 Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, 15 while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when the provoked Me."

These are some sobering/encouraging words. I pray that today you would continue to hold fast to the assurance of your salvation, Jesus the Christ, and that you would encourage your brothers and sisters to do the same. He is WORTHY, live like it!

Upcoming...

I received my advance copy of Dr. David Alan Black's newest book The Jesus Paradigm, due to be released sometime in mid July. I will be reviewing the book here as soon as a finish it. So far it has been a great read and I look forward to putting down some thoughts to share with you all!

Idolatry and Preacher Worship

I attended the Advance '09 conference last weekend in Durham, NC thanks to the good folks over at Journey Church in Raleigh who provided me with a free ticket 2 days before the conference started! At that conference Mark Driscoll spoke a scathing message against idolatry in every corner of the human heart. I can honestly say that I agreed with just about everything he said in that message. It was so cutting that John Piper declared himself to be "wobbly" when he took the pulpit just minutes later, "wobbly" to the point that he felt he could be "attacked from almost any direction right now." So, Mr. Driscoll had a lot of good things to say about idolatry in the heart and in the church.

So I'm here to add one to the list of his 11 or 23 points: PREACHER WORSHIP.

It seems to me like a no-brainer that you probably shouldn't set yourself or your ministry up as an idol for your people, no matter the size of your church. So, why are so many men ignoring Mark Driscoll's call to cast down the idols in their ministry? Why all the polity and ecclesiology that makes men say, "I am the only qualified elder/pastor/brother,etc. to preach on Sunday mornings"? Why not allow the body of Christ to be edified by many different men who are able to teach or who may be seeking to discover IF they are, in fact, able to teach? It seems to me that the only explination for such pulpit hoarding is preacher worship, whether it be in the heart of the preacher or the people.

I believe the worst manifestation of this sin of preacher worship-idolatry is multi-site video casting.

So I turn to a blog post I read recently, entitled "How to Be in More Than One Place at a Time." The post begins by saying, "This Sunday, June 14th, by God’s grace and enabled by technology, I will be simultaneously preaching four sermons in eight locations scattered across two states. As I prepared these various sermons it dawned on me what a truly amazing day we live in for the proclamation of the gospel."

In order to accomplish said feat of being in more than one place at one time, this pastor isn't even going to be using technology to fly or drive him to multiple locations on the same day. Rather he will be video broadcasting his sermon to several different sites. Did I say sermon? I meant sermons. That's right, 4 different sermons to 8 different locations at the same time. So, scratch broadcasting. Two of these sermons will be pre-recorded. One a week old. The other two will be live.

My question to this pastor is, aren't there any gifted teachers at these 8 other locations (it's actually more like 11 locations)? Couldn't a real live, flesh and blood man get up and preach a sermon to the people at 10 of those locations you're not physically able to be at? Guess not. Besides, once the buidling gets so big, most folks just look at the jumbo-tron screen anyways, right? So what's the difference?

The gross sin of idolatry in the form of preacher worship is running rampant around America.

I believe the only way to curb this form of preacher idolatry is to get invested in small to small-ish churches that are commited to letting all the gifts be exercised (that means you can still participate on Sunday mornings if you can't play the guitar). It just seems ridiculous to me that a man, any man, would come to believe that only he is qualified to preach the gospel to several locations, even in his absence! At least let some eager young teacher give it a shot when you're out of town.

Sorry this post has been more of a rant than anything else, but sometimes you just need to rant.

Oh, and if you're interested in reading that blog post, you can find it here.

Porn Stars as Sisters?

1 Timothy 5:1-2 Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, 2 the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity.

Ok, I'll go ahead and admit that I'm taking this passage somewhat out of context, but not really. So bear with me.

I saw a video today that was, dare I say, revolutionary to my heart. I know this is a concept that is thrown around a lot in conservative evangelical circles, but I don't think it really sinks in. That concept is the way we are to look at and think about other members of the body of Christ. I know 1 Tim 5:1-2 is talking about rebuking/encouraging, but I think it can also apply as a general model for how we ought to relate to the body. Older men are fathers, younger men brothers, older women mothers, younger women sisters. SO, to get to the point of this post, I want to encourage all my fathers and brothers out there, perhaps even all my mothers and sisters, to think about this video next time you're tempted to lust after another person, and especially if you're tempted to view pornography:



All nit-picking aside, that video blew me away.

NOTHING will help you in your fight against lust and pornography like realizing that the women (and men) involved in that industry are people who desperately need the gospel of Jesus Christ. That video drove that truth home to me. That video burned in my mind the reality that that particular girl, Patrice, formerly Nadia Styles, is now my sister in Christ! Now, more than ever, she is to be viewed as a sister, "in all purity." And she's not alone. Other girls are leaving the sex industry thanks to the mercy of God and the ministry of folks like Shelley Lubben.

In closing, I just want to encourage, exhort, admonish, SCREAM at my brothers in Christ (and perhaps my sisters as well) that people in the sex industry need Jesus Christ, NOT you ogling at them and fulfilling your sinful desires as you watch their lives be destroyed before your very eyes.

So brothers, I say with Paul, "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong." 1 Corinthians 16:13

The Deification of Man

"We readily acknowledge that it is very humbling to the proud heart of the creature to behold all mankind in the hand of God as the clay is in the potter's hand, yet this is precisely how the Scriptures of Truth represent the case. In this day of human boasting, intellectual pride, and deification of man, it needs to be insisted upon that the potter forms his vessels for himself. Let man strive with his Maker as he will, the fact remains that he is nothing more than clay in the Heavenly Potter's hands, and while we know that God will deal justly with His creatures, that the Judge of all the earth will do right, nevertheless, He shapes His vessels for His own purpose and according to His own pleasure. God claims the indisputable right to do as He wills with His own."
-- Pink, A. W. The Sovereignty of God (Carlisle, PA; The Banner of Truth Trust, 1998), p. 48.

I have been tremendously blessed by A. W. Pink's writings both in the past and present. He has an unwavering commitment to the priority of the Scriptures and it really shows when you read him. After reading The Sovereignty of God, or any book of his for that matter, you will really wonder why there is even a debate between Calvinists and Arminians.

The reality that God is the sovereign Potter cannot be denied from Scripture. All those "theologians" who do so many hermeneutical gymnastics in order to preserve "libertarian free will" are simply making themselves God (as Pink describes, "the deification of man"). This is why I despise Arminian, Molinist, and Open Theist "theology." They are simply man's last ditch effort to dethrone God and take His place as the only potentate.

Why not simply let God be God? Why not accept the plain testimony of Scripture? Why not do away with all the philosophizing? Why not humble yourself before your Maker?!?!

Perhaps because "a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. "1 Corinthians 2:14

Or perhaps they just don't want to see...

Just some thoughts.