- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9)
These days are getting more and more evil. A Christian in an area like ours, the Southern United states, is so far spared the persecution many are experiencing abroad, praise the Lord. However, attitudes toward Christians from secular people are shifting rapidly even here in the so-called 'bible belt.' Though we are not persecuted from the outside, many local churches are dying from the inside.
Just as Britain is grappling with the reality that they are a post-Christian nation, a clear look at the US will show that we are too.
Apostasy is rising, which means that people who have called themselves Christians are behaving less and less like our Master and more and more like the world.
I used to think that discernment ministries, such as the ministry the Spirit gave me to perform online and in the real world, was the hardest. I was wrong to think so. Plus, I was in error. It is hard for everybody. I'm nobody special.
The tendency is to excuse themselves because at some time or other they have been victimized.~Charles Spurgeon
For example, I was talking with a sister in the faith who serves in a helps ministry. She has been given a strong desire to serve. Even when people who call themselves Christian ask for help from churches where a sweet women like my sister serves, the seekers of help often display the worst of human attitudes; entitlement, greed, laziness, ingratitude, and anger.
Paul warned Timothy to:
"understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
"Having the appearance of godliness"...Christians who look like they are Christians aren't really, but will at some point be found to never have known the Lord. (Matthew 7:21-23). This is one of the saddest verses in the entire bible, to me.
Discernment ministries arise within a church and online when a person has been spiritually gifted with a supernatural ability to distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, between holiness and evil. It comes from 1 Corinthians 12:10.
Because it is getting toward the end of the end of the age (we have been in the end of the age since Jesus ascended (1 John 2:18), there are a good many people who succumb to tickled ears, heaping up teachers for themselves, and won't endure sound doctrine. As I read on Challies' website, not that they don't know what sound teaching is, but that they WON'T ENDURE it.
People still refuse to accept such and such is a false teacher, or that a particular doctrine is aberrant, or an activity founded on a scripture is actually a twisted use of that scripture.... Discernment is seen as something unnecessary to a vibrant Christian life. So many people display an attitude of "let's just agree Jesus is the only thing we need to agree on and leave the rest to God. But that's not all there is, and still the gift of discernment isn't adhered to much.
Back to the Galatians verse, Charles Spurgeon said in his exhortation about not being weary in the doing good, as related to teaching Sunday School
"It is true, my Brothers and Sisters, that you are not to save yourselves by doing good. Your motive is not selfish, but because you are saved already, you desire to manifest the power of gratitude and to prove to all the world that those who receive a free salvation are the very men who most cheerfully labor to please God and to bring glory to His name. O you who are debtors to infinite mercy, “Be not weary in doing good.” ...
Now, secondly, it appears from the text that in your service YOU WILL MEET WITH EVILS common to Christian workers of all descriptions. You will especially be liable to weariness and faintness. Take the first word as it stands in our version—you will be tempted to grow weary. ...
Do you not think that, at times, our getting lax in Christian work arises from our being very low in Grace? As a rule, you cannot get out of a man that which is not in him. You cannot go forth, yourself, to your class and do your work vigorously if you have lost inward vigor. You cannot minister before the Lord with the unction of the Holy One if that unction is not upon you. If you are not living near to God and in the power of God, then the power of God will not go forth through you to the children in y our care! Therefore I think we should judge, when we become discontented and down-hearted, that we are out of sorts spiritually. Let us say to ourselves, “Come, my Soul! What ails you? This faint heart is a sign that you are out of health. Go to the Great Physician and obtain from Him a tonic which shall brace you! Come, play the man! Have none of these whims! Away with your idleness! The reaping time will come, therefore thrust in the plow.”
"Sometimes, too—I am ashamed to mention it—I have heard of teachers becoming weary from lack of being appreciated. Their work has not been sufficiently noticed by the pastor and praised by the superintendent. Sufficient notice has not been taken of them and their class by their fellow teachers. I will not say much about this cause of faintness because it is so small an affair that it is quite below a Christian. Appreciation! Do we expect it in this world? The Jewish nation despised and rejected their King and even if we were as holy as the Lord Jesus we might still fail to be rightly judged and properly esteemed. What does it matter? If God accepts us, we need not be dismayed though all should pass us by.
Perhaps, however, the work itself may suggest to us a little more excuse for being weary. It is hard work to sow on the highway and amidst the thorns—hard work to be casting good seed upon the rock, year after year. Well, if I had done so for many years and was enabled by the Holy Spirit, I would say to myself, “I shall not give up my work because I have not yet received a recompense in it. I perceive that in the Lord’s parable three sowings did not succeed and yet the one piece of good ground paid for all! Perhaps I have gone through my three unsuccessful sowings and now is my time to enjoy my fourth, in which the seed will fall upon good ground.”
Spurgeon always has a good word. In addition, the Good Book says to
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, (Philippians 2:14-15)
Spurgeon again,
"If there are a hundred reasons for giving up your work of faith, there are 50,000 for going on with it! Though there are many arguments for fainting, there are far more arguments for persevering. Though we might be weary and do sometimes feel so, let us wait upon the Lord and renew our strength and we shall mount up with wings as eagles, forget our weariness and be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might!"
-------------------------------------
Methodist Church Organist has been playing every Sunday for 73 years
These days are getting more and more evil. A Christian in an area like ours, the Southern United states, is so far spared the persecution many are experiencing abroad, praise the Lord. However, attitudes toward Christians from secular people are shifting rapidly even here in the so-called 'bible belt.' Though we are not persecuted from the outside, many local churches are dying from the inside.
Just as Britain is grappling with the reality that they are a post-Christian nation, a clear look at the US will show that we are too.
Apostasy is rising, which means that people who have called themselves Christians are behaving less and less like our Master and more and more like the world.
I used to think that discernment ministries, such as the ministry the Spirit gave me to perform online and in the real world, was the hardest. I was wrong to think so. Plus, I was in error. It is hard for everybody. I'm nobody special.
The tendency is to excuse themselves because at some time or other they have been victimized.~Charles Spurgeon
For example, I was talking with a sister in the faith who serves in a helps ministry. She has been given a strong desire to serve. Even when people who call themselves Christian ask for help from churches where a sweet women like my sister serves, the seekers of help often display the worst of human attitudes; entitlement, greed, laziness, ingratitude, and anger.
Paul warned Timothy to:
"understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
"Having the appearance of godliness"...Christians who look like they are Christians aren't really, but will at some point be found to never have known the Lord. (Matthew 7:21-23). This is one of the saddest verses in the entire bible, to me.
 |
| Weary traveler by eharsee. reuse allowed |
Because it is getting toward the end of the end of the age (we have been in the end of the age since Jesus ascended (1 John 2:18), there are a good many people who succumb to tickled ears, heaping up teachers for themselves, and won't endure sound doctrine. As I read on Challies' website, not that they don't know what sound teaching is, but that they WON'T ENDURE it.
People still refuse to accept such and such is a false teacher, or that a particular doctrine is aberrant, or an activity founded on a scripture is actually a twisted use of that scripture.... Discernment is seen as something unnecessary to a vibrant Christian life. So many people display an attitude of "let's just agree Jesus is the only thing we need to agree on and leave the rest to God. But that's not all there is, and still the gift of discernment isn't adhered to much.
Back to the Galatians verse, Charles Spurgeon said in his exhortation about not being weary in the doing good, as related to teaching Sunday School
Now, secondly, it appears from the text that in your service YOU WILL MEET WITH EVILS common to Christian workers of all descriptions. You will especially be liable to weariness and faintness. Take the first word as it stands in our version—you will be tempted to grow weary. ...
Do you not think that, at times, our getting lax in Christian work arises from our being very low in Grace? As a rule, you cannot get out of a man that which is not in him. You cannot go forth, yourself, to your class and do your work vigorously if you have lost inward vigor. You cannot minister before the Lord with the unction of the Holy One if that unction is not upon you. If you are not living near to God and in the power of God, then the power of God will not go forth through you to the children in y our care! Therefore I think we should judge, when we become discontented and down-hearted, that we are out of sorts spiritually. Let us say to ourselves, “Come, my Soul! What ails you? This faint heart is a sign that you are out of health. Go to the Great Physician and obtain from Him a tonic which shall brace you! Come, play the man! Have none of these whims! Away with your idleness! The reaping time will come, therefore thrust in the plow.”
.jpg) |
| By Benson Kua from Toronto, Canada. Wiki commons |
Perhaps, however, the work itself may suggest to us a little more excuse for being weary. It is hard work to sow on the highway and amidst the thorns—hard work to be casting good seed upon the rock, year after year. Well, if I had done so for many years and was enabled by the Holy Spirit, I would say to myself, “I shall not give up my work because I have not yet received a recompense in it. I perceive that in the Lord’s parable three sowings did not succeed and yet the one piece of good ground paid for all! Perhaps I have gone through my three unsuccessful sowings and now is my time to enjoy my fourth, in which the seed will fall upon good ground.”
Spurgeon always has a good word. In addition, the Good Book says to
Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, (Philippians 2:14-15)
Spurgeon again,
"If there are a hundred reasons for giving up your work of faith, there are 50,000 for going on with it! Though there are many arguments for fainting, there are far more arguments for persevering. Though we might be weary and do sometimes feel so, let us wait upon the Lord and renew our strength and we shall mount up with wings as eagles, forget our weariness and be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might!"
-------------------------------------
Methodist Church Organist has been playing every Sunday for 73 years
The most difficult part of having an apologetics ministry is the frustration dealing with those who prefer to remain ignorant and deceived -- because it feels good! They don't want to have to think about anything and just let people tell them what to believe. Sigh.
ReplyDelete