Lessons from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Cathy Mickels & Audrey McKeever, in their book, Spiritual Junk Food, have these excellent citations by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book, Knowing the Times.  I recommend reviewing these thoughtfully.

There has been a marked tendency in the last years or so to divide up Christian work according to age groups.  I have never been very enthusiastic about these divisions in  to age groups - old age, middle age, youth, children, and so on.  By that I mean that we must be careful that we do not modify the gospel to suit various age groups.  There is no such thing as a special gospel for the young, a special gospel for the middle-aged, and a special gospel for the aged.  There is only one gospel, and we must always be careful not to tamper and tinker with the gospel as a result of recognizing these age distinctions.  p.2

...you must be constant students of the Word of God, you must read it without ceasing.  You must read all good books that will assist you to understand it, and the best commentaries you can find on the Bible.  You must read...biblical theology, the explanation of the great doctrines of the New Testament, so that you may come to understand them more and more clearly, and may therefore be able to present them with ever increasing clarity....  p.12

There have been periods in history when the preservation of the very life of the church depended upon the capacity and readiness of certain great leaders to differentiate truth from error and boldly to hold fast to the good and to reject the false; but our generation does not like anything of the kind.  It is against any clear and precise demarcation of truth and error.  p.39

What we must do is to educate the masses of the people up to the Bible, not bring the Bible down to their level.  One of the greatest troubles in life today is that everything is being brought down to the same level; everything is being cheapened.  The common man is made the standard and the authority; he decides everything, and everything has got to be brought down to him.... Everywhere standards are coming down and down.  Are we to do this with the Word of God?  I say, No!  p.112

We must not mind being thought “narrow”...This charge of intolerance is a compliment.  For, surely, if our position is that in which God has ordained His elect should stand, we must necessarily be intolerant of all that would divert us from it.  p.321

I have discovered over the years that subtraction from the truth is something that members of churches are very, very slow to observe.  I have almost come to the conclusion that the acid test to apply, to know whether a preacher is evangelical or not, is this: Observe what he does not say!  p.321

Tolerance?

In the world of modern evangelicalism, it is allowable to advocate the most unconventional, unbiblical doctrines - as long as you afford everyone else the same privilege.  About the only thing that is taboo nowadays is the intolerance of those who dare to point out others’ errors.  Anyone today who is bold enough to suggest that someone else’s ideas or doctrines are unsound or unbiblical is dismissed at once as contentious, divisive, unloving, or unchristian.  It is all right to espouse any view you wish, but it is not all right to criticize another person’s views - no matter how patently unbiblical those views may be.  When tolerance is valued over truth, the cause of truth always suffers.  

John MacArthur, Reckless Faith: When the Church Loses Its Will to Discern, p. 51

The Church Needs Uncompromising Shepherds

The church cannot survive another generation of weak, fearful, compromising ministers who will continue to foster the weaknesses that could end in her retrogression into another period comparable to the dark ages.  She needs men who not only will preach the truth of the Scriptures and all of the doctrines contained in them (thankfully, there seems to be a resurgence of concern for this), but men who (as fearlessly as they preach) also will apply that truth in the hard concrete situations of life to which it is directed.  It is one thing to win the Lord’s battles verbally from the pulpit; it is another to win them experientially in the everyday affairs of pastoral work.  Sadly, there are all too few who exhibit the courage to exercise church discipline, to say “no” in practical matters of judgment and to evangelize in counseling when they know (all too well) that this is exactly what is needed by the persons to whom they speak.  Instead, there are all too many who rationalize, and in the name of love, sympathy, compassion, etc., compromise God’s truth in actual practice.  There is too much of the fear of men.  The Church needs men who fear God more and, therefore, fear men less.  Only such pastors can remain faithful to Him and effectively minister the Word in love both to the saved and unsaved sinners.

Dr. Jay E. Adams, Shepherding God’s Flock, p.246

Disassociate From False-Teaching Denominations

Apprising Ministries had this great quote, which we should all take to heart.

“For Christians to be linked in association with ministers who do not preach the gospel of Christ is to incur moral guilt. A union which can continue irrespective of whether its member churches belong to a common faith is not fulfilling any scriptural function. The preservation of a denominational association when it is powerless to discipline heretics cannot be justified on the grounds of the preservation of ‘Christian unity.’ It is error which breaks the unity of churches, and to remain in a denominational alignment which condones error is to support schism.” The Forgotten Spurgeon, Murray, 164-165.

Now, where are those with the courage to leave such apostate and heretical denominations as the ELCA, Episcopal Church, PCUSA, UCC, et al?

PCUSA Digs Their Pit Deeper

The PCUSA church constitution says that church officers must “live either in fidelity with the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers.”

That seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Regardless of where one stands on the issue of same-sex unions, if a person is a member of the PCUSA, and is a church officer, then they could not “marry” their same-sex partner without violating the constitution and being subject to being defrocked.

The Rev. Erwin Barron, a minister of the PCUSA, “married” his same-sex partner in California in 2008. For whatever reason for the delay, the case finally came to a conclusion this past Monday as he was acquitted of the charges of violating the church constitution.

The church panel concluded in a 3 to 3 vote, and they needed a 2/3 majority to convict. And believe it or not, they took three hours of deliberations! The claim from Barron is that it was only a civil ceremony and that in the eyes of the church he isn’t really married.

Okay, I must be dense or something, but we first have to look at Scripture, which says homosexual behavior is a sin, which immediately makes Barron ineligible for church leadership according to 1 Timothy and Titus. But we all know the PCUSA as a denomination approves of homosexual behavior, so they disagree with the Bible anyway. But their own constitution says Barron was to either be married to a woman or remain chaste. So the question is, how can he have NOT violated the church constitution.

The ruling will be appealed to the synod and then higher if necessary, but the issue should have been settled in 2008 when Barron “married” his same-sex partner. In fact, since he wasn’t practicing chastity before then, he had already violated the church constitution and should have been defrocked prior to his “marriage.”

The PCUSA is an apostate organization, seeking man’s approval rather than God’s.

Stealing Sheep or Rescuing Them?

“Sheep stealing” has been the persistent cry of liberals, cultists and others who were preaching “another gospel.”  But the cry is hollow if the sheep is “stolen” from such a fold.  As a matter of fact, “stealing” is an altogether inappropriate word to describe what is happening.  The fact, in such cases, is that the sheep has been rescued from a “wolf” in shepherd’s clothing.  He has been enabled to see that the devil’s servants often come as “angels of light.”

Dr. Jay E. Adams, Shepherding God’s Flock, p.206

Who Does Evangelism?

It is not shepherds, but sheep that make more sheep.  Shepherds care for them.  It is the job of a pastor/teacher to equip, train and feed the flock.  But as one of the sheep of God which he is too, he also must evangelize; and as an example to the flock he is to take the lead in evangelizing.  But he cannot, and must not attempt to, do the evangelistic work of the congregation for them.  He, as one man limited in time, space and energy, cannot be where they are with all of the opportunities that are afforded to each one of them alone.  Indeed, as he serves as a teaching model of the evangelist and as he concentrates on helping to equip all of the saints for their work of ministry (Ephesians 4:11, 12) as God intended, ultimately more evangelistic activity will take place than he possibly could engage in on his own.  In addition, the blessings of participation and personal growth for each member of the congregation that this will bring will be incalculable.

Dr. Jay E. Adams, Shepherding God’s Flock, pp.24-25

Perverting the Bible for Homosexuality

Great quote from Walter Martin today on Apprising Ministries:

The time has come to take off the velvet glove with these jokers, and tell people what they are really up to, and this is what they are up to: They are up to the perversion of the text of the Holy Scriptures.

We are more concerned in the United States about the rights of homosexuals than we are about Who Jesus Christ is and what He did.

We’re more concerned with social issues in the United States in the Christian church denominationally than we are with those who are dying in their sins without the Gospel. We are very concerned about everything except the things that really matter.

…the only way you can deal with this is to bring it out in the open and let people see it for what it really is: It’s filth, because it is attacking at the very core the character and nature of holy Scripture, and making the Scripture say what the Scripture does not say…

What Is Good for the Market Isn’t Good for the Church.

I was cleaning off one of my book shelves today and came across a pamphlet by David F. Wells titled, “The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church.”  The point of the pamphlet was that the whole market-driven, seeker-sensitive movement was wrong and leads people to a false Christianity.  I had highlighted three quotations when I read this pamphlet back when I acquired it in 2001, and I am sharing these citations here, so as to give some food for thought.

“The Church is sanctioning the idea that when someone comes in its doors its okay to view that person as a consumer, somebody who is going to attempt to hitch up a product to their own felt needs.”

“Consumers in the market place are never asked to commit themselves to the product they are purchasing, as a sinner is to the Christ in whom belief is being invited.”

“For what succeeds in this world is not necessarily what is true or what is right.”

Unity in Truth

I just finished reading an excellent book by Norman Geisler & Ron Rhodes titled, “Conviction Without Compromise.”  I highly recommend it.

One of the lessons at the end of the book is, “There is no true unity without unity in the truth.”  I think that says a mouthful, and should be heeded by those in the Emergent church movement, not to mention everyone else.  Too many people are willing to have “unity” at the expense of solid doctrine.  It can’t be done.

An illustration used by the authors was about worship:

“Jesus instructed us to worship God ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24).  So there is no true worship without worship in the truth.  Because worship means ‘honor’ or ‘worth-ship,’ one cannot truly worship God without speaking the truth about Him.  Surely parents would not be honored by a child who spoke falsehoods and lies about them.  Neither can God be truly worshiped by songs consisting of words that are not doctrinally sound or that speak falsehoods about Him.  Likewise, no matter how good one may feel about a so-called worship or spiritual experience, if it is not based on and does not express truth, it is not a true experience of God.  We conclude, then, that there is, in truth, no true unity without unity in the truth.”

This reminds me of those who claim to be Christians while at the same time claiming that God is okay with homosexual behavior and abortion.  They are telling lies about God.  God is not honored by such people who refuse to tell the truth about Him.  Of course there are many other lies supposed Christians tell about God, but these two seem to be the most prevalent among those who are liberal in their belief system.

Remember, God is not honored by worship when those who worship him tell lies about Him.