Street Preaching Boldness or Pride Puffing Flesh?

You sap headed thug street preachers out there, and people who have come in contact with them, this just has to be said! So listen up and suck it up, and go on for God! 

As thoroughly stated in previous sections on this blog, I do not disagree with street preaching, and I do not mind anyone doing so as long as it is true preaching of the gospel for the express purpose to win men and women to Christ and not vain showmanship and civil disobedience masquerading as boldness. 

If I do proclaim the word publicly, I do it out of a desire and a preference.  I don’t publicly preach to be in line with any NT mandate or the scriptures.  I don’t do it to fulfill some dead commission. I don’t stand publicly with the word of God in my hand quoting scripture for any other reason other than the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and things pertaining to that and that alone.  No pet peeves, no pet sins that are just easy targets for preachers to have there fulfilling moment of fleshly battles with the world, beating the devils horde back to the gates of hell. 

If I quote the word of the Lord, I don’t do it to prove anything to any man or to align myself with these men in practice.  I don’t do it because I have some mystical call or command from the holy spirit. I do it at  an opportune moment, like what we see in Acts, but not as a doctrinal command that I see in the word of God to follow.  

As a preacher of the word of God, I may be compelled or constrained from time to time to publicly proclaim the word of God concerning the Lord Jesus Christ for the intended affect of opening dialogue to lead men to the saving knowledge of his gospel of grace and the power of his blood and resurrection.  This is expected of any preacher, to have the discernment to know when the holy spirit is working, other wise, it’s just “loud noises.”

Sunday Rant #1

Bible truth and Biblical worship has been replaced with hermeneutics, sermons, showmanship, outlines, theatrics, and the preacher, the man behind the sacred desk, the pulpit of power.  The central part of the service is no longer the unity of spirit, reasoning out of the scriptures, fellowshipping, and bonding together.  It is now, “what the preachers have to say”.  And “thank God for good preaching!” Having said that, I do not under value the true help biblical preaching and teaching provides, so understand my perspective a moment.

This dependency problem is paramount in explaining our fundamental core problems in churches today.  We say things like, “We have to have preaching!”, or we egg the preachers on like they are some athlete.  We just use different words.  Instead of “go, go!” or “rah rah!”, it’s “amen preacher!” or “preach it, preacher!”

Services are held, sermons are preached, and church is just SO good.  That’s all you hear.  We all just kinda keep lying to ourselves don’t we?  There is no real growth but only a surface growth.  How can there be growth?  How can there be? You grow from receiving milk and meat from the Word.  You grow from receiving encouragement, exhortation, teaching of his word and edification.  

Paul’s Wisdom on Offense and Offending.

Unintentional most times, our Christian leaders, whether pastors, evangelist, and missionaries, place a emphasis on these types of works as evidence of fruits of salvation or fruits of “I am living for God”.  

Paul tells us to bring forth fruits of repentance.  Repentance is NOT salvation.  The fruit we bring forth is because of our repentance! We  absolutely should bring forth works that meet it’s expectations.  

Our works should meet the demand of our repentance.  The love of Christ, not our repentance, should constrain us to witness and to be a testimony of the gospel.  It should be natural to us.  There is a big emphasis on should here.  The Bible uses this terminology as well.

The Lord is not willing that any SHOULD perish, but that all SHOULD come to repentance.  

Now with this in our minds what about offense?  Paul brought offense as Christ did.  Jesus Christ himself was the offense!  But Paul did not seek out occasion to offend or mock. That is the difference today between the public ministry of these great men of character from the Bible in contrast to the bully pulpit baboons we see today. 

Cognitive Dissonance in Believers

Do you ever just get sick of lying to yourself?  There are so many questions we have that are never answered because of the greater good or pragmatic traditional positions, not  to mention the much work being done 24/7 building the Kingdom of the Lord, socializing and reforming all society!  At what point is the body of Christ allowed to discuss our divisive matters openly?  When do men just get together to plod through the scriptures on a subject that comes up continually?  I don't care how long something has been happening or who says we should keep doing it.  

Paul laid down specifics on sound doctrine and church discipline (withdrawing) with the intention to establish truth and put down heresy and false gospels, not to just to cast the sinners out or the ignorant heretic. Heresies are a work of the flesh like anything else (Gal 5:20).  Heresies must be for the word of God to be established as the authority. You're approved by sticking to the Book, and those things left to the body of Christ, not by hanging around in the OT, the prophets, the gospels, and early Acts.

1 Cor 11:18-19 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.

For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

If there is division, there is heresy.  The body is meant to be unified. It's a work, and it  won't happen overnight. Dealing with false doctrine is how a church comes to a unified position, established in the faith.  The gospel being confirmed, and defended. When Paul talks of dealing with a man that is a heretic, it is an admonition (gentle reproof, counseling against a fault, instruction in duties, direction, to caution).  It is one thing if a man is openly subverting, seeking preeminence, drawing sheep away, but for a brother in Christ to bring valid arguments to some long-standing traditions, he is not attempting to teach heresy, he is attempting to understand the present conditions of things as they relate to the scriptures, more specifically for us living today, parts of the NT to keep himself from losing his marbles!

Fundy Fantasy Land

Hundreds before myself have asked a pastor, “Pastor, why do we do things this way?”  They have a verse ready.  We think it is sufficient, because surely a preacher would not take something out of context.  And furthermore, they would never lie to us to keep a line of thinking or a so- called doctrine intact.  A man of God who is called of God would never  keep senseless traditions just for the sake of keeping people?  Not our pastors!  Right?

They give you scripture to have a form of godliness, some half-twisted, half-quoted, totally distorted scripture and that is it!  They love God and many of them love His book.  They just only see things in a certain light and with a certain light.  

And then we dumb milk-fed Christians go “Ohhh, thanks pastor!”  They will never sit across a table from you and let you show them anything.  They have to maintain the illusion of preeminence.  See, you are not yet learned, and they have to teach you slowly.  

They are afraid their little delusional world will come crumbling down if they allow discussion or make any changes to the machine that is running smoothly. I mean, “look at all that God is doing!”.  The fundamentalists and corrupted Christendom are just plodding along now, going through the motions like the law-keeping Jews of the NT.  They have no idea things were well off the tracks before we ever received HIM.  We just joined ranks with more people who claim to have it all down.  

Fade to Black ~ Part 2

Evolution is the ruling, and commonly held thought of man and even some Christians.  Everything is examined in IT’S light first.  It is why we examine and search the stars through NASA and why we do our research to find other habitable planets for future colonization.  This is heresy at it’s largest scale. It is the truest, deepest form of humanism and paganism there is.  The Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the Planets and the stars are all His and were all made by Him. But if there are other earths, as is the burning subject today, then it is also plausible that there are other gods, or no gods at all, and God is rejected or blasphemed and the word of God is complete waste!  Hence, the Earth is God’s, and is HIS footstool, for this is the only acceptable conclusion for any believer today.   

The system of stars and planets we can chart may be 15 billion years old with the Gap theory at the  center of the debate, but human civilization from Adam in Genesis 1 to today 2011 is approx. 6,000 to 8,000 years. Now, don’t bark at me about being un-specific, and leaving a possibility for thousands of years, you evolutionist, and atheist bark wrong numbers all the time, 15 billion years, 123 trillion years, etc.  You ask me, “How do you really know there is a God?”  I ask you “How do you REALLY know it’s 153 billion years since the big bang.  Who taught you that atheist?!  Where you there.  Did you have a front row seat, a early showing? Oh, your mind and brilliance gave you the where withal to hypothesize God right out of the equation, so now YOU are your OWN authority.  

The constellations were meant for man and their uses, set in their courses, for times, and seasons, but not for their devotion, inordinate observations, and worship.  Jerusalem's and Egypt’s location on the globe were not mistakes.  The heavens were by grand design.  Much can be learned of the skies, especially in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.  It is why human civilization began there. 

You reject God and Christ just like the philosophers and Sabeiest from ancient days who worshipped mythological beings and stars! Sabeism - Worship of the Stars.  Philosophers believe that our actions are determined upon the stars. Or the gods.  Many Philosophers thought the stars and ruling constellations demanded mans sway.

Call a Spade a Spade!

“We are an independent, fundamental, Bible believing Baptist church!”  You may have seen an advertisement like that for a church on a tract, a website, or the phone book.  All the lingo and talk is used: pre-millennial, missions-minded, sin-hating, King James Bible-preaching church.  It has all the persuasion and influence that all religions use.  It’s why we are so aggressive in getting people to come.  We believe we have it, hook, line, and sinker.  We follow the fundamentals of the faith, we preach the truth.  We are not as they, we do things right.  We have order, our statements of faith and the beloved fundamentals.  Which I guess that is all fine.  Other denominations can make erroneous claims, why not the IFB?

I just want you to understand, my mindset and my view is not about starting a revolution, making everyone see my point of view, or to get all the churches to change their format and so on.  I just want others to be aware of the fact that we are no different from the other vain religions who have a great many things wrong at their core.  

It’s just being honest.  Wake up! We are not some special class of Christian that God has called in these last days to stand in the gap and show everyone else their faults and traditions.  In fact, we have many similarities to the religious that we preach against.