pastoral ministry

Being About the Father’s Business (Repost)

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Keep about your work. Do not flinch because the lion roars; do not stop to stone the devil’s dogs; do not fool away your time chasing the devil’s rabbits. Do your work. Let liars lie, let sectarians quarrel, let the devil do his worst; but see to it nothing hinders you from fulfilling the work God has given you

He has not commanded you to get rich. He has never bidden you to defend your character. He has not set you at work to contradict falsehood about yourself which Satan and his servants may start to peddle. If you do those things, you will do nothing else; you will be at work for yourself and not for the Lord

Keep at your work. Let your aim be as steady as a star. You may be assaulted, wronged, insulted, slandered, wounded, and rejected; you may be abused by foes, forsaken by friends, and despised  and rejected of men. But see to it with steadfast determination, with unfaltering zeal, that you pursue the great purpose of your life and object of your being until at last you can say, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”–Author Unknown

“Although discipline is painful for a moment…”

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“Although discipline is painful for a moment, it leads to lasting, restorative joy. As members of the church, we are all under church discipline in that we have submitted ourselves to the discipline of the church and attend weekly to the discipline of the preached Word. The first step of discipline is admonition, and we come each week because we know how desperately we need to be admonished, to repent of our sins, to reaffirm our confession of Christ, and to receive our Father’s assurance of pardon and benediction that carries us through the week, reminding us that our loving Father lifts up the light of His countenance upon us and makes His face to shine upon us that we might be blessed and kept to live coram Deo, before His smiling face.” – Burk Parsons

Reasoning from the Scriptures

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“Our apologetic must presuppose the authority and truth of Christ’s Word in Scripture, casting down all reasoning that exalts itself against God. We must use the tools supplied by the Holy Spirit, not the devices of sin. We must seriously recognize that the sinner’s problem in rejecting the Bible is ethical, not intellectual. Only regeneration can bring a man to belief, and apologetic argument must never presume to preempt or in any way take the place of regeneration.” – Greg Bahnsen

The ultimate purpose of the Word of God is so much more…

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“When the Word of God, faithfully taught by the people of God and empowered by the Spirit of God, falls down, people become different. Lusting people become pure, fearful people become courageous, thieve become givers, demanding people become servants, angry people become peacemakers, complainers become thankful, and idolaters come to joyfully worship the one true God. The ultimate purpose of the Word of God is not theological information but heart and life transformation.” Paul David Tripp, Dangerous Calling, 51.

Biblical Reformation that Leads to Biblical Revival, pt. 2

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Bible

On Friday I posted part one of this article that compared the biblical revivals of Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah with the Great Awakening as recording by Jonathan Edwards in his work, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God. You can read that post here. In that post I explained the necessity of godly leadership as a catalyst for effecting revival. This leadership needs to exist in the church and the home. Today I would like to continue by showing that biblical reformation also requires three more elements to set the stage which will allow God to move forward if he wished to bring about true biblical revival.

2.    Respect for the Word of God; 2Chron 17:7-9; 30:1-27; 34:8-21

Second Chronicles 17:7-9 tells us that Jehoshaphat had a high view of the Word of God. In the third year of his reign, having cleared Judah of false worship, Jehoshaphat sent out his officials, along with a group of Levites and some priests to go throughout Judah to teach the “book of the Law of the Lord” to the people. The king knew that change is not merely an organizational or motivational agenda. He didn’t seek to write up a mission statement or cast a vision for the people. Instead, he immediately removed the clear violations of God’s Word and then proceeded to teach the people the Law so that they could see for themselves what God expected of them. 

King Hezekiah understood that a respect for the Word of God is more than a mere reverence for the Book. True respect means to honor God with obedience. In 2 Chronicles 30, Hezekiah took the next step that was necessary after restoring the Temple–celebrating the Passover as prescribed in the Law. This required preparations that had not occurred for many years, including calling all of Israel to join in the feast. The priests were required to consecrate themselves in preparation for the day. With the feast and offerings came a  renewed delight in God and his Word.

Josiah lived in a day when the Law had been lost. The Word of God was nowhere to be found and because of this, it was neither read nor obeyed. When the workmen assigned to restore and cleanse the Temple came across the Book of the Law it was brought before the King. As Shaphan the secretary read the Book before the king he immediately realized how disobedient Judah had been in not keeping the Law. From this reading Josiah could now understand God’s displeasure with His people and why He had poured out his wrath upon them. Straightaway Josiah sought to restore what had not been observed in the Law.

During the beginning of the Great Awakening, the people began to react to the preaching of the Word with intense passion. Societally, people were expected to attend church with the result that nominal Christians filled the pews at times. As Edwards saw the Spirit moving, he saw many of these same people respond to the preached Word with increased power and emotional response. The hard hearts of the people were being softened by the Word.

There is a way to pay lip service to the preaching of the Word–a mechanical way of going through the motions. But do we weep over our Bibles as we see our sinful selves reflected in the pages of Scripture (James 1:22-24)? Are we broken by the Word allowing it to pierce into our hearts and scan our very souls (Heb 4:12-13)?  And the man in the pulpit is no different. Many preachers lack passion in their preaching because they lack a passion in their hearts for God. Cold sermons often times come from a cold heart.

Let me ask you friend, do you think deeply about the Word of God, or do you plow through your Bible reading and devotions, excusing your quick reading as “better than nothing?”Do you think that God subscribes to the “quantity is better than quality” idea behind Bible reading?

At our churches, do we expect the Word to break hardened hearts, or are we timid, never really expecting that the Word will change much in ourselves or others? If we look at the amount of evangelism you do personally, we can see what you expect. 

Opening up ourselves to be revived by the Holy Spirit will take the efforts of those who lead the church and the home. But every believer is called to have a holy reverence for the Word of God that extends beyond mere lip service. In the next blog post I will look at two more steps that our godly trio of Judean Kings took that we can also emulate in our homes and churches.