This video has been around for a while, but it’s well-worth posting it again here for anyone who hasn’t seen it. It’s an extraordinary challenge to Christians. This young man has uncommon clarity – he understands what a life consistent with a profession of faith in Christ must mean. Watch it:
Why don’t so many Christians get it so plainly?
What’s in a day? Have you ever really thought about it? What did we do with the time we were given by the Lord yesterday? We all were allocated the same amount; 24 hours, 1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds, and in that time we needed to take care of sleeping, working, eating, shopping, etc. Oh yeah, and 150,000 people will have to take care of dying today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, well, you get the idea. That boils down to about 104 per minute!
What can WE do about it? It is a shocking reality that most of those who went off into eternity yesterday went down the broad road to destruction. We can’t stop the onward march of souls that perish, but we can do something about where they go to spend eternity when they perish. We can follow the example of one the great evangelists in American history …
When I start talking about a ship called the R.M.S. Carpathia, a lot of people look at me blankly. “The Car.. what?”
Never heard of it.
On the other hand, if I say “Titanic” there is immediate recognition. Probably the most famous, or infamous, ship in history. What if I told you that the story of the Titanic can never be fully told without talking about the Carpathia?
Come back with me to that fateful night when the Titanic, the ship that had been claimed “unsinkable”, went down in the freezing waters of the Atlantic Ocean. April 14th, 1912 …
This October, we’re challenging everyone at our church (First Assembly of God, Brookfield, CT.) to come on a thrilling, fulfilling, adventurous, dangerous, liberating campaign. If you’re not a part of First Assembly, keep reading anyway because we challenge YOU to join us as well. If you’re the leader of a church or other Christian group, why not bring your people along.
Every Christian knows that we have been commissioned by Jesus to go and preach the gospel as the main calling and priority of our lives (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus sent the Holy Spirit specifically to empower us for this one task (Acts 1:8). And yet the percentage of professing Christians who actually share their faith on a regular basis is pitifully low.
Last Summer, 4 guys from our church hit the streets of New York City with Change Collegian Network’s “Repent And Witness (R.A.W.)” They had a great experience for 4 straight days witnessing, and open air preaching on the streets and subways of the Big Apple.
Well, this year they’re going even BIGGER … and YOU’RE invited to join them! New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC and Baltimore.
I caught up with Paul Cortese and Dave Hawkins to find out what’s driving them, and how others can get involved.
Each Sunday we post a short classic piece from someone signally used by God down through the history of the church. Today it’s a challenging call to soulwinning by William Booth (1829-1912), Founder of the Salvation Army.
By William Booth
On one of my recent journeys, as I gazed from the coach window, I was led into a train of thought concerning the condition of the multitudes around me. They were living carelessly in the most open and shameless rebellion against God, without a thought for their eternal welfare. As I looked out of the window, I seemed to see them all… millions of people all around me given up to their drink and their pleasure, their dancing and their music, their business and their anxieties, their politics and their troubles. Ignorant– willfully ignorant in many cases– and in other instances knowing all about the truth and not caring at all. But all of them, the whole mass of them, sweeping on and up in their blasphemies and devilries to the Throne of God. While my mind was thus engaged, I had a vision.
It’s been quoted so often in Christendom that it has achieved the status of a proverb, almost as though it were part of Scripture: “Preach the gospel at all times, when necessary use words.” (I can almost hear the Amens!) The popular saying is usually attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, although he almost certainly did not say it.
At the risk of offending Christians who have accepted this as some profound truth, I have to say that I cannot agree with it at all. The way it is used is very unbiblical, and is just one more thing used to justify many Christians’ unwillingness to obey the Great Commission.
Like all such false teachings, the statement has a little kernel of truth to it. Obviously the testimony of our lives ought to be consistent with the gospel we have believed, and even ought to be remarkable to the point that it arrests people’s attention in a sinful world.
But let me point out what is wrong with the saying.
Oswald J. Smith was the Pastor of The People’s Church in Toronto, Canada.
He had a burning passion for evangelism, and over the course of his ministry raised millions of dollars for the cause of world missions. He popularized the Faith Promise system of prioritizing missions giving that is still used in thousands of local churches.
“The Madhouse of the Universe” is an evangelistic sermon he preached on the subject of hell. Based on a simple idea and outline, Smith’s imagery is vivid and compelling. CLICK HERE to download this classic sermon from my download page.
Phil
He was a prisoner. He was a debtor. He saw their faces when he was lying down at night trying to sleep. He was haunted by the sound of their footsteps marching toward the precipice of hell without Christ, and therefore with no hope.
God is always looking for the man or woman that He can yoke His passion for souls to. Such people have changed time and eternity by their prayers and preaching.
“I care not where I go, or how I live, or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep I dream of them; when I awake they are first in my thoughts…no amount of scholastic attainment, of able and profound exposition of brilliant and stirring eloquence can atone for the absence of a deep impassioned sympathetic love for human souls.” (David Brainerd)
“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.” (Charles Spurgeon)
These men had caught a glimpse of the lake of fire; they had smelled it’s rising sulphur. Do WE have any idea what an eternity in hell will be like?
Listen to the words of Jonathan Edwards:
“Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty. Isa. 66:23,24. ‘And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.’
“It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For ‘who knows the power of God’s anger?’”
(Excerpted from “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”)
If we would only shake off our apathy and stupor, and get this same vision before our eyes, it would drive us to 2 certain things:
Many will scoff and call this “alarmist”. But if the flames are real (and God’s Word leaves us in no doubt that they are), we will very shortly wish that we had screamed ourselves to the last breath raising the alarm.
Phil
I began to share my heart on some of this in our Sunday night prayer meeting this past weekend, in a message entitled “What’s wrong with the gospel” (Part 1).
When you consider the days we are living in, and look into the Scriptures for light to understand the times, several facts are self-evident. I am not claiming any prophetic authority for these things; they are my observations.
1. America is under the judgment of God.
I am not referring to the outcome of the recent election here at all. Time will reveal whether the new government is a blessing or curse to the people. Our role as Christians, according to Romans chapter 13, is (1) to accept that God, Who is sovereign, has superintended the appointments, and (2) to submit to their laws and leadership in all matters that do not require us to break the higher law of God. (3) We must continually pray for the President, and all others in office, in order that “we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” (1 Timothy 2:2)
Some of President-elect Obama’s policies are clearly anti-Christian. His willingness to condone the continuing wholesale slaughter of the unborn through a Freedom of Choice Act (which he is on record stating he will sign as his first order of business in office), and his enthusiastic support of same-sex marriage legislation are just two of the most blatant examples. For Christians these are not political issues that we can be divided on in good conscience. These are moral issues that we must be united on because we are bound by the plain teaching of God’s Word and the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
But let us be clear. Barack Obama is NOT the instigator of these blights; he himself is the product of a morally decayed society that has been headed down this road for some years. I am not at all convinced that his opponent would have offered any godlier leadership (although his policies on the two issues above would have been more palatable for Christians). John McCain is also the product of a society morally adrift. His personal life sadly bears the marks of that.
The politics aside, though, there are clear evidences of God’s judgment against America. The present financial crisis is just a part of it – the result of years of greed and covetousness. Some have pointed to the recent increase in natural disasters, which quite possibly are the hand of God. To scoff at that possibility, as I’ve heard church leaders in this country doing, shows an ignorance of Biblical teaching.
But in the end, how do we know the judgment of God is already here? Because we are seeing flagrant immoral perversions not only commonplace now, but celebrated and boasted about. What the Bible calls “vile affections”, men and women leaving natural relations and “burning in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error.” (Romans 1:27) Disease will not stop, or even slow, them in their pursuit of sin.
But then, secondly, there is (if you can imagine it) an even WORSE predicament:
2. The American CHURCH is under the judgment of God.
(Please note: I am using the term “the American church”, but having lived in both Britain and Australia also, I know that I could just as easily use the term “the Western church”. The problems are not restricted to the USA, although she has been the source of much of the rot.)
“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, And from north to east; They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, But shall not find it.” (Amos 8:11-12)
Amos prophesied to the Northern Kingdom of Judah just about 30 years before they were carried off into captivity. It is a warning that because the people continued to reject God, they were about to face His hand of judgment. The captivity they would endure, with all its deprivations, would be terrible, but the greater loss would be the ensuing silence from Heaven. A “famine of THE WORD OF GOD”.
Israel had experienced this in her history before. Leading up to the days of the prophet Samuel, “the word of the Lord was rare” (1 Samuel 3:1). There was a lack of true spokesmen for God. We know there were those who held the office of priests, and presumably there were those that claimed to be prophets, but something was terribly wrong with the ministry of God’s word.
Such seasons of spiritual famine are God’s judgment on His people when they ignore His word and live carelessly.
The American church for some years has been experiencing a famine of the word, and the scandalous fact is that we have not even realized it! Our Christian bookstores are jammed with countless resources, our television and radio airwaves are flooded with preaching and teaching, all with the grand result that our people have never been more spiritually malnourished and STARVING for the word of God. If you want evidence of that fact, just look at how easily false teaching is swallowed today. Every novel idea, no matter how banal or heretical, is welcomed with audience “oohs” and “aahs”. What is that but proof of spiritual malnourishment? Listen to the word of God: “To a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet” (Proverbs 27:7).
The most terrible result of this famine of the word that we have been enduring is that we have, in large part, lost the very core of our Christian truth – the gospel itself. We have mangled it until it has degenerated into “come to Jesus and He’ll give you a better life”. The law of God, sin, judgment, hell, repentance, and holiness are all out of vogue, and the result is a half-gospel that is robbed of its power to save.
But this is where there is great hope.
3. When God has chastised His people in the past it has been for the purpose of ultimately delivering them.
Whenever the church has experienced the grace of God in revival, it has followed on the heels of spiritual dearth and declension. The history of awakenings shows that, in the providence of God, it is always allowed to become darkest just before His dawn.
Some Biblical examples of this principle:
(1) Romans 8:20 says that, “the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;” Here is the big picture of human history. God has cursed the very ground of this world, allowing the ravages of sin to run their course, for the ultimate purpose of redemption.
(2) In the Old Testament we read about God allowing Israel to be carried off into exile, not because He was finished with them, but for their discipline so that He might yet bring them back and fulfill His purposes through them.
(3) God works by this principle right down to individual persons. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about the immoral member, and told them to “deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 5:5). The church’s discipline, even to the point of excommunication, was designed in the hope of ultimately seeing the sinner humbled and restored. (And evidently he was – 2 Corinthians 2:6-8).
The point I would make is that God’s judgment on the Church in America is not the signal that He has determined to cast us away, but rather that He is disciplining us for our restoration. When we recover our desperation for Him, the light will flood in again for our revival.
Which brings us to the moment at hand.
4. A largely unnoticed reformation is underway in the Church.
I realize there are several groups that have made a claim like this in recent years. The so-called “Emergent Church Movement” talk about a revolution, but what they are preaching (regurgitated liberalism) simply does not have the power to revolutionize anything. Thankfully!
Before he died, revivalist Leonard Ravenhill said in a radio interview that he was quite sure there would be another revival in America. He believed that there would be no superstars at the helm of it, but rather that it would come about through local churches, in answer to fervent prayer, and in the normal course of pastoral preaching. (He referenced the ministry of Jonathan Edwards and other New England ministers of the Great Awakening as a model of this.)
God is raising up a corps of faithful gospel preachers in this land. Paul Washer, in his recent sermon “Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church in America” said,
“There is a great awakening going on in this country. And not only in this country, but in Europe where I have been, and in South America, and in many other places, I see young men going back to the rock from which we were cut. They are reading Spurgeon, and Whitefield; they’re still listening to Ravenhill and Martyn Lloyd Jones and Tozer and Wesley. And it’s a great, incredible movement! Just because popular media and Christianity Today haven’t discovered what’s going on, I want you to know that I would never have dreamed fifteen years ago that I would see the awakening that I’m seeing.”
This reformation must be a movement back to God’s truth at all costs. The true gospel delivered unto us once for all time by the apostles.
The signs of the return of Jesus are all about us; there cannot be any question about it any longer. I see two things on the horizon: HOSTILITY and HARVEST. I expect things are going to get so much harder – and at the same time, so much more wonderful for true followers of Jesus Christ. Let the Word of God loose in the power of the Spirit, and it will bring about a purifying of God’s people. False converts / lukewarm Christians will either fall away OR GET SAVED AND ON FIRE.
Are you ready? We must every day expect the return of our Lord Jesus, and He is coming for a spotless bride. To that end, and for His glory alone … Viva la reformacion!
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