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Whose Credentials Matter?
Looking at some Christian magazines recently, John and I were struck by the increasing tendency to put people on a pedestal. Conference speakers, evangelists, prominent pastors and church leaders are presented in glowing terms. Verbally air-brushed, titivated and spruced up, they often seem to be given celebrity treatment.
One magazine’s announcement of a conference stood out: its list of the main speaker’s achievements ran to over half a page. His degrees, his many leadership roles, the books he has written, the conferences and church events at which he’s spoken, the magazines to which he contributes, the number of countries throughout the world he has visited… the list goes on. It’s a fantastic C.V.
Good for him! His zeal, his energy and dedication are no doubt admirable, and it’s not his fault that the conference organizers have presented him in that way.
But is all that promotion really necessary? Yes, it’s right that we should have some information about speakers, but do we need such extensive coverage of their success?
Have we forgotten what John the Baptist said about Jesus? “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30.
This morning I was reading one of my favourite psalms – Psalm 103.
The thought came to me that here, so beautifully expressed, is God’s C.V.
My New King James Version says that He forgives sins, He heals, He redeems, He crowns us with lovingkindness, and He satisfies us with good things.
The psalm goes on to tell us of His mercy, His slowness to anger, His father-like pity and of His rule and dominion.
Veronica
April 14th 2010
Ancient and Modern
A few days ago, I went outside to saw some logs; a handsaw was adequate for the relatively small amount of timber I had recently cut down.
Not long after I began, a chainsaw burst into noisy life nearby. Its user was invisible and I had no idea what was being sawn, but it set me thinking; comparing.
How different could two saws be? Mine was a simple bow saw; a thin steel blade tensioned on a metal frame cutting the logs with minimum effort. In addition, I was having healthy exercise – and time to think.
My saw produced no ear-damaging noise; I was not inhaling poisonous exhaust gasses; there were no masses of wood chips; no disturbance to neighbours or wildlife; no need for protective clothing and no fossil fuel was being consumed.
It is easy to be so impressed with a chainsaw that the humble muscle-driven handsaw is discarded as being behind the times.
Yet the handsaw has been around for 1000s of years: chainsaws for less than a 100.
It set me thinking about church.
In the last 20 years or so, the IT revolution has captivated much of the UK church and some products and techniques certainly have been a great help. Using the Internet, for example, can be a great tool for good in God’s hands.
However, church technology can be so impressive that the priceless simplicity of prayer can become ‘surplus to requirements’.
Prayer has been around for 1000s of years, IT for a few decades.
The chainsaw can deprive a man of healthy exercise in the open air.
Technology can deprive the church of insufficient exercise in prayer.
Gene Jackson, Superintendent of the Tennessee District Assemblies of God, USA, made this comment about his denomination’s weakness, “We have PowerPoint in our computers to enable us to get fancy in our singing and ‘current’ in our preaching. But let me tell you, if you don’t have power in your soul, PowerPoint in your projector is not going to be worth a hoot.”
In the mid-20th century in the Scottish Hebrides, God began a mighty work of salvation and revival.
However, the church at Barvas had no organ, no guitars, no orchestra, no choir, not even a hymnal. The church had no organisations, no coffee mornings, no special young people’s meetings, no church staff, no seminars or any elaborate programmes.
Apart from its Sunday services, there was the weekly prayer meeting and other spontaneous prayer meetings here and there.
Yet people came in their crowds, and many people were converted.
Some of God’s children prayed, and that was sufficient.
John
February 7th 2010
For the full text of Gene Jackson’s “God is not Surprised” go to Gene Jackson
The comments about the church in Barvas are based on an account in ‘Sounds from Heaven’ by Colin and Mary Peckham. It is published by Christian Focus
Someone Else’s Holy Ground
‘And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”
So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”
And he said, “Here I am.”
Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” ’
Exodus 3:2-5 NKJV
Years earlier, Abram had his holy place of meeting with God – Bethel, and later on, he returned to Bethel and communed with God again. See Genesis chapters 12 and 13.
Many years later, God appeared to Abram’s grandson, Jacob, at the same place. Jacob had his dream of the ladder to heaven, and he set up his stone headrest as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it, and called the place Bethel.
He was also commanded by God to go back there. See Genesis chapters 28, 31 and 35.
Much later, Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, also met God in a holy place, and God told him, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” See Joshua chapter 5. God appeared to King David at a particular place, as he did also to Solomon and a few others.
In the New Testament, there are numerous places where people met with God. Every one of those whom Jesus healed must have remembered the exact site of their miracle. Every location of Jesus’ teaching sessions must have been special to some whose hearts were opened by his word.
Beyond the obvious places of Gethsemane, Calvary, the tomb, the upper room, ‘holy places’ for individuals would have been distributed throughout much of the Roman Empire.
James and Peter and John had an encounter with God on a mountain. Paul had his Damascus Road. John had his Patmos.
And so it has been down through the Christian centuries. Every believer has known unique experiences of God in particular places. To them it is entirely appropriate to think of those places as special, though not necessarily to return to that place and expect a repetition of the blessing.
No one else can access or benefit from the blessing which another person experienced by visiting their ‘holy ground.’.
For example, visiting Israel to ‘walk where Jesus walked,’ offers no increased likelihood of obtaining a personal encounter with God. That is because a particular geographical location never guarantees any such spiritual advantage.
Plenty of well-meaning Christians visit the chapel at Blaenannerch in West Wales to sit where Evan Roberts sat when God met with him.
No doubt, the Isle of Lewis has its visitors in similar pursuit of the Revival experiences of its past generations; similarly Kells in Northern Ireland, Azusa Street in the States, and many other places.
The pulpit of Daniel Rowlands at Llangeitho in mid Wales, or that of Joseph Jenkins at Newquay on the coast, or the chapel at Loughor in south-west Wales are special sites for visitors from all over the world.
However, neither in the Old or New Testament is there any warrant for visiting such places to obtain the ancient blessing of some past believer.
The burning bush of Moses became no holy shrine for succeeding generations. No one in the Old Testament obtained blessing by visiting the holy place of Abram and Jacob. To associate spiritual power with particular places was in fact, a characteristic of idolatry.
Bethel itself eventually became a site of obscene idolatry.
So why is there the idea that the land of Wales is somehow invested with special spiritual potential? No doubt the question is valid in respect of other places worldwide where God has come down in the past. Why is there this yearning to recapture the past through places? As I see it, the New Testament provides no evidence to validate such activities or ideas.
Most of us would love to experience those blessings our predecessors knew, but let us avoid the temptation to tread paths for which God himself gives no warrant.
We all need to get our hands clean and our hearts pure if we want that experience in which we ‘ascend into the hill of the Lord.’
And that can happen without regard to geography.
John
August 5th 2009
Winter Without End?
The UK winter of 2009/2010 was long and cold; it seemed endless.
Even on our official first day of Spring, March 21st, there were very few green shoots on our native vegetation.
Months ago, in the depths of Britain’s financial crisis, a politician claimed to detect ‘the green shoots of recovery.’ No-one else could.
In the British church today, some Christians claim to see the green shoots of recovery; preachers declare that revival is almost here; ‘words from the Lord’ are pouring out like floods, ‘pictures,’ ‘visions’ and ‘revelations’ of miracles just about to happen.
In mercy, God may dramatically bless an individual Christian, but until a more widespread spiritual work becomes apparent, we cannot assert, “The winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth.” Song of Songs 2:11-12 NKJV.
Without doubt, we are in the grip of a spiritual winter: the relentless decline of our society is proof enough.
‘The Land of Revivals’ – Wales, was our home for eight years around 1970, and many of its churches and chapels we visited were in serious spiritual decay.
Around 2006 we were in Wales again.
One day, we visited the village of Abbeycwmhir in mid-Wales, where, many years earlier, we had shared fellowship with some of the Lord’s people in its little chapel, Cefnpawl. Some had been converted there around 1920 in a mini-awakening; they had a solid experience of Gospel grace.
There was no little chapel of Cefnpawl; it was a grass paddock.
Similarly, in the small village of Llansadwrn in West Wales, there were three Nonconformist chapels no longer used for worship, similar to thousands more throughout that ‘Land of Revivals.’
Those Christians of a few years ago might well cry out with the ancient prophet, “All that we treasured lies in ruins.” Isaiah 64:11 NIV.
Spiritual poverty stares us in the face throughout Britain: there can be no valid cry, “Lo, the winter is past.”
We need reviving.
Revival is a renewing of life that already exists. When our Peace Lily was drooping in its pot, water revived it. Nothing could revive our frosted orchid. It was dead.
Revival is a resurgence of existing spiritual life as God comes amongst his people; an overwhelming surge of that life which his Son obtained for us at Calvary.
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10.
Revival is that abundance of spiritual life in Christ Jesus.
1. Revival Is Necessary because of the Condition of our Nation.
Look what is happening to our children in the UK!
1. In 2008, the Government announced that there would be ‘compulsory sex education in all English schools for children from five to sixteen years old. Children would receive instruction about body parts from the age of five, and about sexual intercourse from the age of seven.’
2. Girls as young as 10 are becoming pregnant.
3. In 2008, there were over 200,000 abortions in England and Wales. One child destroyed every 3 minutes.
Can you tell me more reasons for crying out urgently to God to revive us?
2. Revival is Necessary because of the Condition of the Church.
“Righteousness exalts a nation,” the Bible declares, and the church is supposed to exhibit that righteousness. The nation should be able to see and hear the righteousness of God in the church.
“Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life.” Philippians 2:14-16 NKJV.
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16 NKJV.
Do our neighbours and friends praise God because they have seen his righteousness in us?
Too often, alas, we have an ambiguous testimony.
That is useless to God.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites repeatedly compromised their testimony by sinning like the pagan nations around them. Consequently, God brought calamities upon them to bring them to their senses and to repentance.
Similarly, the UK church is publishing a misleading picture of God; an unclear message about right and wrong. No wonder our nation is confused about right and wrong.
The church must regain a clear witness to a holy God: only a holy church can bless our nation.
Our serious spiritual condition demands serious action.
It is not enough to organise conferences, conventions, evangelistic initiatives and all the rest: they are impotent compared to the power of the Holy Spirit in revival.
The spiritual recovery of the UK is in the hands of a serious church.
Revival is Vital.
We must take an honest look at ourselves. God deals only in truth.
Jeremiah understood that. “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord …… and say, ‘We have sinned and rebelled and you have not forgiven.’ ” Lamentations 3: 40-42 NIV.
It is not God’s fault that we remain in spiritual winter.
“Look, the Lord’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” Isaiah 59:1-2 NRSV.
There can be no significant reunion with the Lord unless we return to him in truth.
Jesus told a parable about two sons. The younger one demanded his inheritance and “set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.”
Eventually “he came to his senses,” and reasoned that it would be best to “go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.”
Luke 15:11-19 NIV.
Famine made him take an honest look at himself.
David was unrepentant of his horrendous sins until the prophet Nathan made him face up to the depths of his own heart. He confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord.” 2 Samuel 12:13 NKJV.
The Bible urges us to be honest with ourselves.
“Don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself.” Philippians 2:3, NLT.
That is a heart-searcher.
When times are tough, God’s people need to be honest together.
Under threat from the Philistines, the Israelites knew they had sinned, so under the leadership of Samuel, they fasted and confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.”
1 Samuel 7:4-6 NIV.
That confession was a precondition to God giving them the victory.
Much later on, God’s people had been seventy years in captivity in Babylon because of their idolatry. On their behalf, Daniel confessed to God, praying four times, “WE have sinned.” Daniel 9.
Collective responsibility.
In ordinary life, every business must make a collective assessment of its performance over the past year, and consider improvements for the next. Any dishonesty in such an appraisal would only do long term damage.
The church similarly needs to take stock.
If we do nothing about wrongdoings in the church, our acquiescence contributes to that collective wrong.
1. We Hinder Revival by our Lack of Concern for God’s honour and glory.
The evangelical church has largely forgotten the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: ‘What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.’
We have largely rejected the wisdom of the Psalmist, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your mercy, because of Your truth.” Psalm 115:1 NKJV. Too often, man’s chief end seems to be to glorify himself.
Paul denounced the Jews of his day for their self-exaltation.
“You brag about your relationship to God……you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants. ……You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonour God by breaking the law?
As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’ ” From Romans 2:17-24 NIV.
God’s honour did not have first place on their agenda.
Transpose Paul’s argument into our own evangelical scene. Could he address the UK church in similar terms, including some of its leadership?
If you question my line of thought, look at Christian magazines or periodicals and websites; look at the listed qualifications of people involved in various ministries, writing reviews or articles.
The world parades its ‘experts’, its ‘professors’, its ‘international’, its ‘widely travelled’, its ‘much-in-demand’, its ‘world-renowned’, its ‘best-selling’, its ‘popular’, its ‘award-winning’, and all the rest.
The church should not parade the ‘qualifications’ of those to whom God has given special ministries. Many of those people would not want such publicity and acclaim.
We all do well to consider him whose glory was and is infinite. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation.” Philippians 2:5-7, NKJV.
We need to be very wary of doing that which Dafydd Morgan warned about in Wales in 1859, ‘Stealing God’s glory.’
Isaiah 48:11 NKJV.
2. We Hinder Revival by our Reluctance to Believe God.
Abraham believed God.
Abraham believed God who promised.
Abraham believed God would fulfil his promise.
Consider God’s classic revival promise.
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7: 13-14 NIV.
Relating to that promise, there are two major components of our unbelief:–
a. We fail to believe God’s assessment of our spiritual state.
God defines our spiritual condition as “wicked ways,” but we will not admit we have wandered that far from him into “wicked ways.”
We have over-emphasised the love of God and adapted Him to suit our sensual natures. We have lost our concept of his holiness and have consequently become insensitive to our sin. We have dismissed the law of God as an anachronism.
We say we long for revival, but do not believe we have “wicked ways” which need to be dealt with. We reject the solemn truth: “Your sins have hidden his face from you!” and in so doing, we block the path to revival.
b. We fail to believe God’s remedy is our only hope.
The church is highly skilled at inventing strategies to get the world’s attention and solve its problems. It is inundated with meetings, conferences, missions, social evangelism, special events, house-parties, ministries geared to this, that and the other.
Shockingly, I believe that much of that activity distracts Christians from focusing on the fundamental need of a Holy Spirit revival.
In his classic work, Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan succinctly described the curse of ‘By-Path Meadow’: it looked an easier route.
There is no comfortable route to revival; God’s route is paved with humility, prayer, seeking his face, and repentance. Yes, it will be disagreeable to the flesh, but there is no other effective remedy for our condition.
2 Chronicles 7:14 is the only recipe that can put the church right.
Every Christian agrees that verse is a vital pronouncement, yet we are strangely reluctant to accept its terms. We delude ourselves into thinking some merely average effort will gain God’s response, foolishly imagining that somehow he will meet us halfway.
In so doing, we deceive ourselves.
In 1949 in the Isle of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland, some church officers met in an old thatched cottage. Kenneth MacDonald, John Smith, Roderick Alex MacLeod, and Donald Saunders were some of the great prayer warriors at that time, burdened for revival; they had experienced great blessing in revival ten years previously.
These four men normally prayed twice a week, often into the night; they did this for several months.
One night the four men were waiting on God in the cottage, when Kenneth MacDonald rose, opened his Bible at Psalm 24 and read,
“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who shall stand in His holy place?
He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” Psalm 24:3,4 KJV.
He said, “It seems to be worthless to be gathered here night after night seeking God as we are doing if our hands are not clean and our hearts are not pure.
“O God, are my hands clean? Is my heart pure?”
Immediately, the presence of God flooded the place; there was an overwhelming awareness of the Eternal.
Later, John Smith said that at that moment they all became aware that the holiness of God and revival were inextricably linked.
“God came, and when He came it was in a revelation of His holiness.”
2,700 years earlier, the prophet Isaiah experienced the same revelation. Isaiah 6:1-6.
No wonder Isaiah later issued God’s great command, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins.” Isaiah 58:1 KJV.
“MY people,” God said, “Show MY people their transgressions.”
The root of the problem lies with us, my friends.
The answer to the problem lies with us.
Fulfilment of God’s unchanging preconditions would set in motion the fulfilment of that unchanging promise –
“THEN will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Then we would see green shoots. Then the winter would have an end.
The Isle of Lewis quote is an adaptation from “Sounds from Heaven” by Colin and Mary Peckham.
It is available from your local Christian Bookshop, and is published by Christian Focus Publications
You might find this hymn to be a helpful prayer
Search Me
Does it matter who wins?
Every political party claims to be able to get Britain out of recession.
Financial fiasco, employment crisis, the immigration issue and a host of other problems – they all have the perfect answer.
But those problems are not the real causes of our situation; they are only symptoms of a greater problem that no British political leader would ever have the courage to address, a problem that has gnawed away at the heart of our nation for at least 50 years.
Our problem in Britain is spiritual. Human life has a spiritual dimension and we are incomplete without that spiritual dimension.
Material provision is not the answer to our problems.
We have been seduced into believing it is; getting what we want has blinded us to the increasing poverty of our souls.
Many centuries ago, another nation wanted more than what they already had. What was God’s response to that? He “gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.” Psalm 106:15 NKJV.
Yes, it would be so easy to lay the blame for our situation at the Government’s door, but no way can you blame governments for spiritual problems.
That blame lies firmly at the door of the church!
So how has this sad situation come about? How can we blame the church for the state of our nation?
The blame lies there because we have done exactly what the ancient Israelites did so many times. God set apart the ancient nation of Israel to be his witness to the ungodly nations around them, and he instructed them clearly how to live their lives, holy and distinct from their neighbours. Yet they repeatedly disregarded God’s lifestyle pattern and failed to be his witnesses.
“They mingled with the Gentiles and learned their works; they served their idols, which became a snare to them.” Psalm 106: 35-36 NKJV
The church in the UK has also mingled in wrong ways with society around it.
Take just one of those diversions.
Television. Over the last 50 years, it has been the most devastating tool to get the people of God to ‘mingle with the world and learn its works.’ 300 years before television, in his book ‘The Holy War’, John Bunyan well described the vulnerability of Eye-Gate to admit the enemy into the city of Mansoul.
Watching television has seduced multitudes of God’s people. Which is harder – to miss the next episode of ‘East Enders’ or to miss the Prayer Meeting?
Some years ago, a young person urged an elderly Christian to have a television set. “It will bring the world into your home,” was the persuasive argument.
“If that’s the case,” the older man answered, “I don’t want it.”
Television is only one of many enticements for Christians to line up with this world. Even church leaders have asserted that to win the world, Christians have to become like the world.
WE DO NOT. We win the world by being different! The New Testament describes Christians as ‘saints’. And the Greek word translated into ‘saints’ means holy ones, sanctified ones, separated ones. Recognisably different.
We have to be a holy contrast to an unholy world. “Unspotted from the world” is the way James puts it. James 1:27
An old song expressed that truth well, ‘You can’t run with the Devil and walk to the Promised Land.’
Jesus commanded the church to be the salt of the earth. The UK is in its sad moral state because that salt has lost its taste. The church has little influence in our society, while the devil laughs all the way to the pub, arm-in-arm with the tasteless salt.
What does it matter which UK party wins responsibility to rescue Britain from recession?
The Bible declares that only “righteousness exalts a nation,” and that principle has never been revoked. Proverbs 14:34.
Righteousness should be the foremost characteristic of the church, and that is why the church should lead the way in getting Britain out of its crisis.
But first of all, we need to put our own house in order. The church itself needs to take the Word of God to heart.
“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God.
……Therefore, ‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.’ ” 2 Corinthians 6: 14-18 NKJV
The mingling has to stop.
We have to become recognisable examples of the holiness of God.
“Dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” 2 Corinthians 7:1 NIV
John
March 14th 2010
For some searching questions about our everyday lifestyle, read the old poem
If Jesus Came
“Oh, that you had heeded my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river…” Isaiah 48:18 NKJV
Who does not want peace? Inward peace and contentment is a great prize in this troubled world and society. Money cannot buy it, education cannot gain it, research cannot discover it, nor is it in the power of anyone to get it by any effort or strategy.
Some religions offer a type of peace, but it cannot be the peace of which the old Hebrew prophet spoke.
God’s peace is a pure gift. Jesus Christ promised that peace in the context of hearing God’s voice and obeying his word. See John chapter 14.
That is consistent with what God said through Isaiah, “Oh, that you had heeded my commandments!
THEN your peace would have been like a river…”
We do well to take that on board. The promise is always there. The condition for its fulfilment is unchanging.
“My son, do not forget my law,
But let your heart keep my commands;
For length of days and long life
And peace they will add to you.
Proverbs 3:1-2. NKJV
I will listen to what God the Lord will say;
he promises peace to his people, his saints –
but let them not return to folly.
Psalm 85:8 NIV
Right back in October, the commercial world was already well geared up for Christmas.
Christians generally feel uneasy about the world’s takeover of their traditional celebration of the birth of Jesus. However, I guess that before October many churches had their own Christmas plans and programmes well under way to use the season for spreading the Gospel. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Micah’s prophetic words about Bethlehem are read countless times every Christmas, and rightly so.
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
One who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
Micah 5:2 NIV.
The prophetic picture of the future infant Jesus is conveyed clearly to all who hear. The problem is that for the majority of people, Christmas goes no farther than the appealing baby in a manger.
A couple of verses on in Micah’s prophecy about Bethlehem, the Lord Jesus Christ is described as the victorious One who saves and guards his people.
The prophet was speaking of a Bethlehem that was the beginning of Jesus’ route to Calvary to save his people from their sins. At that point, 2000 years ago, God’s preparations were in place. The scene was set for Jesus’ victory over sin and death.
“He will stand and shepherd His flock
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God.
And they will live securely, for then His greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.
And he will be their peace.”
Micah 5:4-5 NIV.
Today, that ancient predicted security and peace is experienced by those
who repent of sin and believe on the Shepherd who gave his life for his sheep.
John
October 20th 2009
The Wilderness stretched out for mile after mile after mile. Over 3,000 years ago, the Israelites had just escaped from generations of slavery in Egypt, and under the leadership of Moses, were on their way to the Promised Land. But the route to that land “flowing with milk and honey” lay across a vast and inhospitable desert – the Wilderness.
Not long into that journey, God met with Moses on Mount Sinai. While 2 million Israelites waited on the plain at the foot of the mountain which “burned with fire to the midst of heaven,” God gave Moses the Ten Commandments as well as his detailed Moral Law.
That law was to remain valid for all time. See Exodus chapters 20 – 23.
Many centuries later, John the Baptist emerged from his wilderness retreat to fulfil a brief ministry. To explain who he was, he quoted the prophet Isaiah, “I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” ’ ”
John’s arrival was the climax of God’s revelations through the prophets. That is why he rejoiced to announce the perfect earthly ministry of the spotless Lamb of God, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
See John chapter 1.
However, the end of the prophets did not mean the end of the Law. Jesus himself said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.” Matthew 5:17.
That unchangeable law was John’s warrant to command his hearers to repent and live holy lives. Jesus did exactly the same. “Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ ” Matthew 4:17.
The Scripture makes it clear that everyone has broken God‘s Law. “They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.” Psalm 14:3
And God demands perfect obedience. “Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” James 2:10.
Today, however strongly we may determine to obey God’s law, the strength of our natural feelings and appetites dooms us to failure. We can never completely obey God’s laws and thus fully please him.
When he lived on earth, the Lord Jesus Christ was “the radiance of God’s glory.” Hebrews 1:3 NIV. His life was the perfect and unique expression of that holiness of God which was set out in the Old Testament moral law.
Simply to stand beside him would convict us of our utter sinfulness.
Therefore, our moral imperfection consigns us to wander in a spiritual wilderness separated from a holy God.
The Law is God’s instrument to define sin. “I would not have known what sin was except through the law,” Paul said. Romans 7:7 NIV.
The Law is the instrument that the Holy Spirit uses to convince the sinner of his or her sin, and it is a sobering experience to be thoroughly convinced that in God’s sight you are totally wrong. However, God does not leave us there. The Holy Spirit goes on to enable the convinced sinner to obey the command to repent. He then reveals the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect Saviour from our sin.
The great evangelist of the 18th century, John Wesley, understood that process. Here is an extract of a letter he wrote to a Methodist friend, Ebenezer Blackwell, on December 20th, 1751:
‘I think the right method of preaching is this. At our first beginning to preach at any place, after a general declaration of the love of God to sinners and His willingness that they should be saved, to preach the law in the strongest, the closest, the most searching manner possible; only intermixing the gospel here and there, and showing it, as it were, afar off.’
He goes on to say that he would mix in more of the gospel as more people became convicted of their sin. He would not be too quick to omit the law entirely, because he feared that some people might ‘heal their own wounds slightly.’
He insisted that it was ‘only in private converse with a thoroughly convinced sinner that we should preach nothing but the gospel.’
He also asserted that it was essential to maintain the preaching of the Old and New Testament laws to believers, so that their conviction and subsequent obedience would open their hearts to the joy of the Lord.
And Wesley was absolutely right that the Moral Law of God is fundamental to His purifying both unbelievers and believers.
Most Christians deplore the moral decline in our nation. We abhor its relentless slide into corruption. We resent the constant pressure to abandon the standards of God’s word.
There are some churches where the law of God is carefully and consistently expounded, but today that does not seem to be the norm.
It is obvious that such a failure to set out God’ standards of behaviour has contributed to a moral decline in some parts of the Church.
If, in many of our churches, we have no clear definition of sin, are we hindering the Holy Spirit from doing his convicting and purifying work? Logically, and Biblically, the Holy Spirit can only “convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”(John 16:8), by applying the law to the heart of a sinner. Therefore, without a Biblical setting out of the Old and New Testament commands, surely we deprive the Holy Spirit of the means by which he convinces both believer and unbeliever.
Throughout their history, the Israelites enjoyed God’s blessing as long as they lived according to His laws. God had made his conditions plain to them in the beginning – obedience brought the blessing – disobedience brought the curse. Simple. See Deuteronomy 30.
Jesus said, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.” John 15:10 NIV.
Nothing has changed. The conditions still apply, but I wonder if we have to some degree lost sight of them and become complacent and presumptuous.
In the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus Christ exposed the complacency of the church of Laodicea. “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing,” they said.
They believed they were in the full blessings of the Promised Land.
Jesus’ diagnosis was razor-sharp: “You do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
They were not in the Promised Land at all! They were in the Wilderness!
Are we in danger of wandering in a spiritual wilderness which our neglect of the law has created?
Do we need the Holy Jesus of Revelation to break into our wilderness, calling us to “Repent!”?
“Return, O Lord! How long?
And have compassion on your servants.
Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!” Psalm 90:13-14.
John
August 25th 2009
All quotes from New King James Version unless otherwise stated.
Some claim that the church is ‘Like a mighty army marching unto war,’ as the old hymn puts it.
They point to fast-growing urban churches, huge crowds gathering at venues all over the UK for celebrations, conferences, conventions, missions, seminars and suchlike. Some will point to a host of other indications of God’s blessing being poured out on a victorious church.
However, it seems to me that few of the evil strongholds in our nation bears wounds from the church’s attempts to pull them down. In fact, it seems that new strongholds of evil rise up every day.
The dedicated enemies of truth and righteousness rub their hands with glee. After all, for them, in this ‘enlightened’ 21st century, there is freedom to mock God, blaspheme his holy Name in the vilest of ways, and pour out their crude writings and other so-called art forms and media productions.
Sadly, many of our political leaders seem to be hand-in-hand with those who are determined to destroy the remnants of the Christian standards of our land.
Surely the continuing increase in evil in the UK testifies that the church is more impotent than militant. Why is the church weak?
I read in Scripture that the weapons of the church are ‘mighty through God’ to enable us to ‘pull down evil strongholds.’ See 2 Corinthians 10:4.
So why is the church virtually powerless to combat this tide of insistent evil?
Why do so many efforts to address the pressures against the church dwindle to nothing?
Victories against the demands of new legislation from our own Parliament and from Europe are achieved, but they are mostly minimal.
I read recently that in 3 out of every 5 brave efforts to establish a church plant as a witness in our corrupt society fails.
What is the cause of this weakness in much of the UK church?
Go back to Paul’s ‘strongholds of evil’ passage in 2 Corinthians for the answer.
He declares that the weapons the church possesses to combat such evil ‘are not carnal weapons.’ They are not weapons that the world would use. They are not the natural weapons that human nature would devise.
Undoubtedly, he has one weapon in mind above any other. Prayer. The mighty weapon of prayer.
Go to John Bunyan and see Pilgrim in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. His sword was of no avail to combat the darkness of evil around him, and he at last resorted to the weapon of ‘All-Prayer.’
In Matthew chapter 17, we read of the disciples’ futile efforts to expel a demon from a young lad. Jesus chides them for their lack of faith and impotence against evil, but points out that this kind of problem cannot be resolved except ‘by prayer and fasting.’
Prayer is not a natural weapon. It is not in our human nature to admit that our only hope is in the Lord God Almighty and cry to him alone. Oh no. We can do it our way!
Too readily, we ‘go down to Egypt for help.’ See Isaiah 31:1.
Too easily, we rush to put all our trust in the ark of our church methods, traditions, programmes, meetings, strategies etc. See 1 Samuel chapter 4.
Too quickly, we devise a ‘Plan B’ when we suffer discouragement. See the end of Numbers chapter 14.
Prayer is definitely not a natural weapon.
Prayer is not agreeable to the natural man.
Prayer demands sacrifice.
When will you and I learn that Jesus meant every word he said?
‘Without Me you can do nothing!’ Nothing! Absolutely nothing!
Jeremiah spells out God’s conditions coupled with his absolute promise, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13 NKJV
Why do so many of us find such difficulty in giving ourselves time to wait upon God?
Why are we so unwilling to sacrifice ourselves wholeheartedly to seek his blessing?
The blame for the weakness of the church in the UK lies at our feet.
And surely the blame for the state of the nation lies at our feet also.
Does it lie at my feet?
“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” Mark 1:35 KJV
John
July 21st 2009
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Wales repeatedly experienced God’s Spirit reviving the church and bringing salvation to many thousands through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
However, some would argue that in the latter part of that period, some of those experiences and ‘revivals’ were not as well founded on Scripture as those in the earlier part of the period.
Interspersed with intervals of spiritual decline, from about 1720 to 1870 God repeatedly came amongst his people in various parts of Wales. They were times when joy, hope, peace, faith and Christian love, transformed churches and society under God’s power through the Gospel. Conviction of sin was widespread as preachers and preaching took on a new seriousness. Ministers and lay people preached with increased intensity as fresh movements of God occurred and many were saved from sin.
Praying and prayer meetings gained new impetus as the love of God through the Cross of Jesus was proclaimed. God’s people awoke to pray with new passion.
The message of holiness and mercy took on vast importance as God aroused churches from spiritual slumber. Spiritual issues displaced the normal topics of the day. The forgiveness of sin through the blood of Jesus, atonement, repentance, faith, trust, assurance, sanctification, and many other truths of the Bible dominated conversations in the church, in the home, and on the street. God came with his Word and his grace, churches were strengthened and many people were converted.
The seeds of this phenomenon might be seen when the English national church broke away from the Roman Catholic system in the Reformation of the 16th century. During the 17th century, strong Christian movements and meetings independent of the state church and its doctrine sprang up, despite much persecution. The Puritans led the way, and their massive theological and practical writings helped to supply Protestantism with a strong understanding of the Bible for years to come. The Reformation had on-going benefits for spiritual life throughout Britain.
In the early 18th century in Wales, an important figure was Rev Griffith Jones, at the Anglican Church in Llanddowror, in South Carmarthenshire. He boldly preached the Gospel for many years despite opposition from his fellow clergy. He recognised the need for God to do something to rescue the nation from the godlessness into which it had sunk. He set up Circulating Schools to teach young and old to read, especially so that they could read the Bible.
While Griffith Jones was ministering at Llanddowror, God intervened decisively in Wales and in England. In the decade 1730-1740, Howell Harris was converted under the ministry of the vicar of Talgarth in Breconshire, Daniel Rowland was converted, probably through Griffith Jones, and began a mighty ministry at Llangeitho in Cardiganshire, and William Williams of Pantycelyn near Llandovery in Carmarthenshire began his great ministry of hymn and poetry writing.
Around the same time, George Whitefield was converted, and his ministry later became very beneficial in Wales within the Calvinistic Methodist awakening. John and Charles Wesley had their spiritual eyes opened and the English Methodist revival began.
Farther on in the 18th century, as the ministries of these spiritual giants were ending, God raised up other preachers to carry the Gospel torch.
Thomas Charles of Bala was an influential figure in Wales, and beyond, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Like Griffith Jones, he saw the need for literacy and good reading material. He re-established Circulating Schools that then led to a strong Sunday School movement. Prominent in the establishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he was especially concerned to establish a supply of Welsh Bibles at a price ordinary folk could afford.
John Elias, Christmas Evans, Richard Tibbott, Isaac Price, Robert Dafydd, Robert Roberts and Ebenezer Morris were among a number of anointed preachers, some of whom travelled throughout Wales preaching the Gospel powerfully and effectively well into the 19th century.
As a consequence of the American awakening which began in 1857, another visitation of God occurred when Humphrey Jones returned from America to his home district of Tre’rddol in north Cardiganshire in 1858.
Fresh with God’s message of restoration to arouse the churches and church leaders from their apathy and worldliness, his urgent methods stirred up some conflict. Although the Biblical doctrines were known, the Ten Commandments familiar, the language of Zion was habitual, and hymn-singing was a constant feature of chapel life, the life-changing experience of a risen Saviour had become relatively unfamiliar among many church and chapel attenders.
However, when God began by using the enthusiasm of Humphrey Jones to stir up the churches of north Cardiganshire, his theology introduced controversy. Jones had been deeply affected by the Arminian teaching of the American, Charles Finney, believing that revivals were the inevitable result of the strenuous efforts and fervent prayers of God’s people. In less than a year, his ministry faded away, and God replaced his leadership by the more Biblically-based ministry of Dafydd Morgan, a Calvinistic Methodist minister who was born between Devil’s Bridge and Cwmystwyth. He lived for many years at Ysbyty Ystwyth, where he is also buried.
After joining Humphrey Jones in ministry for a while, Dafydd Morgan emerged as the man with God’s special anointing and blessing on him, and he journeyed through every part of Wales, often holding three or four services a day. Prayers for mercy and pardon, and shouts of thanksgiving and praise and victory replaced the cries of church members and sinners under conviction of sin, and thousands were challenged to new consecration to the Cross of Jesus.
Up to this point, most of the ministry which God used so effectively was soundly based on the Bible, and it produced a succession of preachers who remained true to the Reformed faith of the Puritans.
However, following that great and widespread work of God in Wales 1858-1860, there was a relentless drift towards the Finney theology and methods of ministry. The success of the American-style ‘revival’ meetings of D L Moody encouraged replications of that style and ministry in much of the UK.
Today, the best known of the Welsh Revivals is that of the early 20th century – ‘The 1904.’
A few years before 1904, religious concern was stirring many of the churches of South West Wales. Among the ministers longing for a religious revival, was Rev. Joseph Jenkins, minister of the Calvinistic Methodist Church at New Quay.
On a Sunday morning in February 1904, the heartfelt testimony of the young teenager, Florrie Evans, seemed to act as a catalyst to ignite the spiritual fire among the young people in their prayer meeting. This move of God spread to Blaenannerch and Newcastle Emlyn and other nearby places.
Unknown to many at the time, a young coal miner turned blacksmith, Evan Roberts, experienced intense spiritual struggles during 1903/04. Eventually he left his work and his spiritual home, Moriah Calvinistic Methodist Chapel, to prepare for entering Trefecca Theological College to train for the ministry. Improving his education at Newcastle Emlyn Grammar School in September 1904, he came under the helpful ministry of Rev Evan Phillips. However, the School lessons clashed with his fervent longing to preach the Gospel immediately.
During the late summer of 1904, Rev. Seth Joshua of Cardiff, an evangelist of the Calvinistic Methodist Forward Movement, held a mission at Newcastle Emlyn. He had been praying for years that God would raise up a young man from the pits to revive the churches. As far as is known, he did not know that a 26-year-old ex-miner student in the town had been praying for revival for over 11 years.
On Sunday, September 25th, 1904,a conference began at Blaenannerch Chapel near the coast, about 8 miles from Newcastle Emlyn. Rev Joseph Jenkins and the young people at New Quay were involved, and on Thursday, September 29th, 1904, Evan Roberts went there with Mr. Joshua and about twenty others to Blaenannerch.
It was during the 9 a.m. service that Evan Roberts had his famous experience of giving himself completely to God.
That outbreak of the activity of God the Holy Spirit a century ago in Wales spread throughout Britain and to other countries round the globe. According to estimates at the time, 100,000 new converts came into the Church in Wales alone.
With hindsight, the relative lack of consistent Biblical ministry at that time may have contributed to the vulnerability of the churches to the onslaughts of modernism and false doctrine that swept through the theological colleges and pulpits of Wales in the succeeding years.
However, God undoubtedly did a mighty work in Wales at that time. As always happens, in God’s powerful grace, a substantial ministry of the Holy Spirit continued through the following years in many people.
Since that time, there seems to have been no substantial or widespread work of God in the Principality. The reasons for the past century of ‘small things’ may be a subject needing serious exploration in the Word of God and in prayer for today.
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV
THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE!
John
May 26th 2009
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