Evangelizing the Church

Does The Christian Church Need To Be Evangelized?
The visible Christian church is no longer a sanctuary for the people of God. Instead, it has become a huge mission field that needs to be evangelized. Churches are now filled with professing Christians who say they have faith but have never been born of God. This should not surprise us because of the parable Jesus gave describing the last days in Matthew 13:25-43. He spoke of a landowner who sowed good seed [sons of the kingdom] in his field, but while his men were sleeping, the enemy came and sowed tares [sons of the devil]. Jesus said the landowner is the Son of Man and the enemy is the devil.

Continue reading "Does The Christian Church Need To Be Evangelized?" here.

Spurgeon on the Trinity

Acquaint now thyself with Him - Job 22:21

If we would rightly "acquaint ourselves with God and be at peace", we must know Him as He has revealed Himself, not only in the unity of His essence, but also in the plurality of His persons. God said, "Let us make man in our own image" - let not man be content until he knows something of the "us" from whom his being was derived. Endeavor to know the Father; bury your head in His bosom in deep repentance, and confess that you are not worthy to be called His son; receive the kiss of His love; let the ring which is the token of His eternal faithfulness be on your finger; sit at His table and let your heart make merry in His grace. Then press forward and seek to know much of the Son of God who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and yet in unspeakable condescension of grace became a man for our sakes; know Him in the singular complexity of His nature: eternal God, and yet suffering, finite man; follow Him as He walks the waters with the tread of deity, and as He sits upon the well in the weariness of humanity. Be not satisfied unless you know much of Jesus Christ as your Friend, your Brother, your Husband, your all. Forget not the Holy Spirit; endeavor to obtain a clear view of His nature and character, His attributes, and His works. Behold that Spirit of the Lord, who first of all moved upon chaos, and brought forth order; who now visits the chaos of your soul, and creates the order of holiness. Behold Him as the Lord and giver of spiritual life, the Illuminator, the Instructor, the Comforter, and the Sanctifier. Behold Him as, like holy unction, He descends upon the head of Jesus, and then afterward rests upon you who are as the skirts of His garments. Such an intelligent, scriptural, and experimental belief in the Trinity in Unity is yours if you truly know God; and such knowledge brings peace indeed.

This devotion was taken from Morning and Evening by C.H. Spurgeon.

God is God

God is the decider and the determiner of every man's destiny, the controller of every detail in every individual's life, which is another way of saying, "He is God."

- John MacArthur

Spurgeon on Sanctification

Thou art my hope in the day of evil (Jeremiah 17:17)

The path of the Christian is not always bright with sunshine; he has his seasons of darkness and of storm. True, it is written in God's Word, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and it is a great truth, that religion is calculated to give a man happiness below as well as bliss above; but experience tells us that if the course of the just be "As the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day," yet sometimes that light is eclipsed. At certain periods clouds cover the believer's sun, and he walks in darkness and sees no light. There are many who have rejoiced in the presence of God for a season; they have basked in the sunshine in the earlier stages of their Christian career; they have walked along the "green pastures" by the side of the "still waters", but suddenly they find the glorious sky is clouded; instead of the Land of Goshen they have to tread the sandy desert; in the place of sweet waters, they find troubled streams, bitter to their taste, and they say, "Surely, if I were a child of God, this would not happen." Oh! Say not so, thou who are walking in darkness. The best of God's saints must drink the wormwood; the dearest of His children must bear the cross. No Christian has enjoyed perpetual prosperity; no believer can always keep his harp from the willows. Perhaps the Lord allotted you at first a smooth and unclouded path, because you were weak and timid. He tempered the wind to the shorn lamb, but now that you are stronger in the spiritual life, you must enter upon the riper and rougher experience of God's full-grown children. We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotton bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope.

The Devil's Apostle

"The Pope is the very Antichrist who has exalted himself above and opposed himself against Christ because he will not permit Christians to be saved. It is nothing else than the devil himself because above and against God he urges and disseminates his Papal falsehoods concerning Masses, Purgatory, the monastic life, one's own works, fictitious divine worship which is the very Papacy and condemns, murders and tortures all Christians who do not exalt and honor these abominations of the Pope above all things, therefore just as little as we can worship the devil himself as Lord and God, we can endure his apostle the Pope. For to lie and to kill and destroy body and soul eternally, that is wherein his Papal government really consists." - Martin Luther

Excerpt from The Pope and The Papacy by John MacArthur.

Salvation is of The Lord

"Salvation is of the Lord." That is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and substance of it. If anyone should ask me what I mean by a Calvinist, I should reply, "He is one who says, Salvation is of the Lord." I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. "He only is my rock and my salvation." Tell me anything contrary to this truth, and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rock-truth, "God is my rock and my salvation." What is the heresy of Rome, but the addition of something to the perfect merits of Jesus Christ—the bringing in of the works of the flesh, to assist in our justification? And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer? Every heresy, if brought to the touchstone, will discover itself here. I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor. —C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Excerpt taken from a sermon titled "A Defense of Calvinism" by C. H. Spurgeon

HAT TIP: The Bororean

The Compromise of Ravi Zacharias and the "NDP Committee"

Below is an e-mail exchange that was prompted by Ingrid Schlueter's coverage of the upcoming "National Day of Prayer", and specifically upon the "National Day of Prayer Committee" which is headed by Shirley Dobson, wife of James Dobson. This group is supposedly "Christian", and supposedly "evangelical", but in practice it is evidently neither.

From Slice of Laodicea:

Dr. Zacharias’ official prayer on the organization’s website, both in print and in audio form, carefully does not mention the name of Jesus Christ. Instead, the phrase, “In God’s Holy Name, Amen” is substituted. I learned that this was not an accidental slip, an oversight or a mistake. I called the organization in Colorado Springs yesterday and was told that the omission was deliberate so as not to offend Jewish participants at some of the events around the country.

Here is the e-mail exchange between myself and John Bornschein:

From: Coram Deo (axeroot@hotmail.com)
Sent: Thu 4/24/08 12:37 PM
To: correspondence@nationaldayofprayer.org

Greetings,

I would just like to state that I am shocked and appalled that the name of the Risen Savior Jesus Christ does not appear in the prayer by Dr. Ravi Zacharias that's posted on the official NDP website. This is ecumenical madness and in my mind represents at best an ill advised capitulation to the Christ rejecting spirit of this fallen world and at worst an all out attack on the eternal Gospel.

I'm sickened by this shameless, gutless display and believe an apology and an explanation are due for this grossest of omissions. How does the Bible say we are to pray? We are to pray to the Father in the name of His only begotten and eternal Son. What is the only begotten and eternal Son's name? Evidently we ought not seek the answer to this question from Ravi Zacharias or the NDP team.

I'm praying for your organization to find its way in the Name of Jesus Christ.
CD

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Subject: Prayer for our Nation by Ravi Zacharias
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:33:00 -0600
From: John.Bornschein@fotf.org
To: coordinators@nationaldayofprayer.org

It’s been brought to our attention that Ingrid Schlueter, host of the national Crosstalk radio program and chief architect of the SliceofLaodicea.com Web site, has been spreading malicious reports about the National Day of Prayer, NDP Task Force Chairman Shirley Dobson, and Dr. Ravi Zacharias, our NDP 2008 Honorary Chairman. According to Ms. Schlueter, Dr. Zacharias is “refusing to pray in the name of Jesus Christ in his prayer posted on the official NDP Web site,” and is thus liable to the charge of being “ashamed” of Jesus and “capitulating to unscriptural, interfaith ecumenism.” Much as we regret the necessity of countenancing such comments with a response, Ms. Schlueter has left us without a choice. Her scurrilous accusations demand a reply.

There are three things that need to be said in answer to this unfortunate campaign of defamation. In the first place, no one who knows anything about Ravi Zacharias and his fearless defense of the Christian faith could possibly come to the conclusion that he is “ashamed of Jesus Christ.” Dr. Zacharias is one of the most respected, most effective, and most uncompromising Christian apologists in the world today. His love for the Lord is beyond question. His ministry speaks for itself. We can’t possibly add anything to the eloquent testimony of his dedicated service to the Savior.

Second, for those who are aware of the history of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, there can be no doubt about our evangelical perspective. Our Mission Statement and our Vision and Values Statement, as posted on the official NDP Web site (http://www.ndptf.org/about/index.cfm), state that the Task Force represents a Judeo-Christian expression of the national observance, based on our understanding that this country was birthed in prayer and in reverence for the God of the Bible. Calling ourselves a Judeo-Christian ministry does not mean that we see the Jewish and Christian faiths on equal footing. The Task Force was established to represent the Christian expression of the National Day of Prayer – standing firmly for Jesus and His salvation message. We believe in the values, traditions, and moral law of God's Old Testament Bible – but we, unlike those of the Jewish faith – trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Messiah.

Third and last, it is worth adding that, from a scriptural perspective, there is a great deal more to the idea of “praying in Jesus’ name” than Ms. Schlueter seems to recognize. In the culture of the Bible, a person’s “name” was regarded as shorthand for everything the person embodied and represented. To make a request or issue a command “in the name of” a particular individual was to speak with the full backing of that individual’s power, authority, virtue, and integrity. “Praying in Jesus’ name,” then, is not a question of tacking on a few particular words at the end of a prayer, as if they constituted some kind of “magic formula.” It’s a matter of heart orientation. To “pray in Jesus’ name” is to profess that we are authorized to come boldly before the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) not on the basis of our own merits, but solely because of His righteousness, His goodness, and the efficacy of His sacrifice on the cross. You can be absolutely sure that when Dr. Zacharias prays, he prays on the basis of this confidence alone.

In closing, we’d like to say that we deeply regret that this unfounded attack by fellow believers might in any way detract from the importance of Christians praying for their nation on May 1st.

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From: Coram Deo (axeroot@hotmail.com)
Sent: Thu 4/24/08 8:57 PM
To: Bornschein, John (john.bornschein@fotf.org)

Mr. Bornschein,

I almost wish you hadn't responded to my e-mail since in that case there would have remained some lingering doubt in my mind about the scurrilous and scandalous absence of the name of Jesus Christ from this supposedly "evangelical" event. Your reply has removed all doubt about the NDP's position on naming names when it comes to Jesus Christ - it's out of bounds. It's unwelcome. It's shameful. It's "divisive".

Yet as I recall Peter and the other believing ethnically Jewish, born again Christian apostles who comprised the early church were beaten, threatened, harassed, and martyred with the lone exception of the beloved apostle John. Their blood was shed for preaching the name of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Your canned response is excruciatingly unbiblical and the NDP's ecumenical madness remains without excuse. I personally believe the NDP organization is in desperate need of prayer and careful introspection in the light of inspired scripture as it drifts aimlessly toward rank apostasy and spiritual irrelevance.

In Christ,
CD