All Categories - THEOLOGY FOR THE SANCTIFIED

THEOLOGY FOR THE SANCTIFIED

"BACK TO THE NEW TESTAMENT" - Rolfe Barnard

11/24/2020

"Recently I read a book on 'The Radical Reformation' - a tremendous book - 'The Radical Reformation,' in which the battle between the 'Magisterial Reformers' - Calvin, and Zwingli, and Luther - the battle that raged between them and the 'Radical Reformers' - Huss, and Hubmair, and Menno Simons - and all of that long list of men and women who absolutely forced Calvinists, Lutherans, and Catholics to kill 'em. Somebody tore up the little common place that a certain spirit of a certain age will martyr a reformer. That's not so! But a reformer that God's using so conducts himself that his age has to kill him! He creates the atmosphere of his own martyrdom. And every person hearing me tonight, your spiritual ancestors were that kind of people, whose blood in Europe stained God's earth at the hands of Lutherans, Calvinists, and Catholics, because they were extremists.

Now you'll get in a lot of trouble reading history if you claim kin with folks too quickly. But there was one thing about the precursors of our brand of Baptist life today - we've about run out of it - but they were our precursors. Whatever they believed - they believed all over - and they believed it with such a terrible intensity, that they were drowned, they were quartered, that their tongues were pulled out, so moved that they literally watered Europe with their blood. And it's some comfort to a people like us that you can find ten thousand things wrong with the theology and the practice of every one of 'em, but you can find ONE THING dead right: they didn't want to stop with Calvin, and Luther, and Zwingli and their immediate successes, they wanted to get clear BACK TO THE NEW TESTAMENT." - Evangelist Rolfe Barnard (1904 - 1969)

The Doctrine of Persecution

11/17/2020

Bury a good man in infamy,
& God will raise him from the dead.

Persecuted by the Church

12/5/2019

Have you ever heard the phrase, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed-bed of the Church?" This was the victorious declaration of an overcoming Church in the midst of horrendous tribulations, but was it only for them? These Early Church Christians experienced the promises and prophecies of the Bible because they obeyed the Bible. Those who walk in the ways of Christ experience the suffering and glory of Christ, just as He promised! What promises and prophecies, you wonder?

Promises & Prophecies Which Must be Fulfilled --- John 12:23-28 (Lk. 6:40 (1 Jn. 2:6, Heb. 2:10, Acts 14:22), Jn. 7:6-7 (1 Jn. 3:1, 13, 1 Pet. 4:1), Jn. 12:35-36 (Matt. 5:14-16, Eph. 5:7-17, Heb. 13:12-13), Jn. 15:18-25 (1 Jn. 3:1, 1 Thess. 1:6, 2:1-4, 13-16, 2 Tim. 3:12)

Not just anybody can become a God-sent missionary, no! One must be chosen and sent by God Almighty in Spirit and truth, like the apostles, prophets, and evangelists of the New Testament. The Gospels and the Book of Acts - as one witness - entrusts to all Christians "The Instruction Manuel of Mission Work", the one and only. We have no other standard of normal "Christianity" or normal "Missions" except the testimony of inspired scripture. Let's be honest, what has our own methods and missions done for God or man? Very little in comparison to the testimony of scripture, this is for sure. God's Missions done God's way will never lack God's blessings! But are we prepared to walk in "God's way"?

The Book of Acts does historically and factually chronicle the missionary exploits of Christ-possessed men who turned the world upside down and suffered martyrdom, this we know... but what was the secret of the Early Church? Has the world changed? Has God's Missionary Method changed? Is all of this really relevant to 21st century Christians, "American Christians"? Should we really compare ourselves to apostolic missions? My reader, our example is Jesus Christ, the Living Lord, and the apostles commanded us to walk in their ways which were "in Christ". The real question is, has Christ changed?

Leonard Ravenhill made the right comparisons when he said, speaking of Christ, "And there's no room for Him [Christ] in the inn. He got a bit older, there was no room in His family, His family turned on Him. He went to the temple, no room in the temple, the temple turned on Him. And when He died there was no room to bury Him, He died outside of the city." What do Christ's sufferings have to do with 21st century "American Christians", according to Ravenhill? He went on to say, "Well why in God's Name do you [American Christians] expect to be accepted everywhere? How is it that the world couldn't get on with the holiest Man that ever lived and can get on with you and me? Are we compromised? Are we compromised? Have we no spiritual stature? Have we no righteousness that reflects on their corruption?" Ravenhill spoke the truth! No matter the century or generation, Satan hasn't changed, the world hasn't changed, and Jesus Christ hasn't changed ("the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" - Heb. 13:8) - that's the truth of the matter!

This sermon series surveys the Early Church as it began, progressed, and matured in Jerusalem and in the Gentile world, through the instrumentality of the apostle Peter and the apostle Paul. Part # 1 of this series reflects upon Acts Chapters 1-15 (approximately) comparing the Church in Jerusalem among the Jews with the Church in the Gentile world among all nations (revealed through Paul's First Missionary Journey). What is the foremost discovery unveiled by this simple comparison? The answer is also simple: the capability and predictability of depravity.

Paul's First Missionary Journey

Depravity is capable of lying and slandering to advance its cause against the Gospel and its Ministers. Any time depraved men are faced with a circumstance of men preaching the truth with a witness of Christ-like stature, depravity is predictable. The only way to stop Spirit-filled Christians who hazard their lives with relentless zeal and fearless boldness is murder, and the only way to accomplish a murder is to frame it to appear just and right to the public through lying, slander, and false-incrimination. My reader, do you believe that sinners in the 21st century will predictably do this just like the sinners of the 1st century did? Prophecy doesn't say that the world will get better as time goes on but worse, right? What saith the scripture?

If we are ever going to see "Pentecostal Power" return to the Church, we must prepare our hearts to walk-out the biblical testimony of post-Pentecost persecution. Power was with the preaching and persecuted, not the popular. Martyrs must exist because of the capability and predictability of depravity.

My reader, think about what happened in Jerusalem! The disciples denied Christ, forsook Christ, and were scattered from Christ, and consequentially they were confused, overwhelmed, and depressed. Albeit with two moves of Christ's omnipotent hand, the City which killed Christ was turned to Christ! 8,000 souls were swept into the Kingdom and a good 15,000 to 40,000 (approximately) were utterly astonished with wonder at the 8,000 converts to Christianity who were transformed into New Creatures right in front of their eyes! In this circumstance, now, the Sanhedrin became confused, overwhelmed, and depressed! Slander did not hinder or overcome the witness of Christ and the Gospel, no! Slander and persecution did but provide a circumstance of evangelistic impossibility whereby the Lord Jesus converted people by the methods which He did always ordain, as Paul confessed, "My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Cor. 2:4-5).

Slander did not pervert the Gospel witness, it established it! Therefore, is persecution localized to a certain race, language, or culture of humanity, or is it common among all depraved humanity in every century? Paul's missionary journeys do conclusively answer such a question. If Satan is the same, sinners are the same, and Christ is the same, the persecution that broke-out in Jerusalem will predictably break-out everywhere else when the same witness is manifest! The capability and predictability of depravity demonstrated in Jerusalem among the Jews, was repeated among the Gentiles when they encountered the ministry of Paul and Barnabas in all nations - Christ-conflicting-Depravity everywhere and in everyone, no exceptions!

Indeed there is a senselessness of satanic fury which works through depraved men in persecution of Gospel preaching… so what can be said? It is just sin. It is just hate. It is Satan's fury against Christ-in-men! Let us take heed therefore, brethren! Let us face the biblical facts! Persecution progresses alike in all depraved humans when and if a biblical witness is being manifest: Light – Moderate – Strong! This very same pattern is proven predictable in Paul's second and third missionary journeys (covered in part #2 of this series).

Paul's Second Missionary Journey

Paul's Third Missionary Journey

Hell spawned heresy which fueled a worldwide torrent of slander and persecution against the apostle Paul, the most loving man in the Gentile world. This slander and persecution led to a perpetual and predictable manhunt. Jews would travel city-to-city, nation-to-nation, and Church-to-Church wreaking havoc on the name and reputation of the apostle Paul until he was put behind bars and killed. The Second and Third missionary journeys of the apostle Paul reveal the chaotic unanimity whereby the Gentiles and Jews were, through depravity, one in Satan. There is no rhyme or reason to it except that Satan was out to get the apostle Paul, and God allowed it. The methods of Satan have not changed today, and we need to reckon with this biblical fact. We are approaching a perilous time - which now is! - when these methods of Satan shall triumph in their cause with far greater speed and subtlety than in the 1st century, and if we don't understand how and why the Jerusalem Christians were eventually bewitched to forsake the apostle Paul, then we may end up forsaking our very own brethren in this our day. If we don't understand how and why all the Churches of Asia (generally speaking) forsook the apostle Paul, we may end up forsaking our very own brethren in this our day.

Look straight-on at the sober reality which Paul faced, my reader. He told Timothy in one of his last letters before his martyrdom, "This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes" (2 Tim. 1:15). How did it happen? Why would all of Asia forsake the primary instrument God used to plant Churches in that region? I entreat the reader to listen to the sermons and follow along in the scriptures so as to find out why. What did happen must happen, then and now... only may God open our eyes so that we will hear what His voice is speaking through inspired scripture. May God open our eyes to see "the signs of the times" which are upon us in this late hour. May God have mercy and wake up the sleeping virgins as it was prophesied in Matthew Chapter 25. May God raise up biblical Christians and biblical Churches who suffer with and glorify Christ in this our day.

The Early Church and a Survey of Biblical Missions - Part 1
The Early Church and a Survey of Biblical Missions - Part 2

"So Send I You" - Jesus (Jn. 20:21)

9/5/2018

So send I you to labour unrewarded
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing
So send I you to toil for Me alone

So send I you to bind the bruised and broken
Over wandering souls to work, to weep, to wake
To bear the burdens of a world a-weary
So send I you to suffer for My sake

So send I you to loneliness and longing
With hart a-hungering for the loved and known
Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one
So send I you to know My love alone

So send I you to leave your life's ambition
To die to dear desire, self-will resign
To labour long, and love where men revile you
So send I you to lose you life in Mine

So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred
To eyes made blind because they will not see
To spend, though it be blood to spend and spare not
So send I you to taste of Calvary

"Get Off the Sinking Ship" - A.W. Tozer

9/3/2018

“Let me go out on a limb a little bit and prophesy.

I see the time coming when all the holy men whose eyes have been opened by the Holy Spirit will desert Worldly Evangelicalism, one by one. The house will be left desolate and there will not be a man of God, a man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, left among them…

I hear Jesus saying… Mat 23:37-38: 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to her, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate'.

As the Church now stands, the man who sees this condition of Worldly Evangelicalism is written off as somewhat fanatical. But the day is coming when the house will be left desolate and there will not be a man of God among them. I would like to live long enough to watch this develop and see how things turn out. I would like to live to see the time when the men and woman of God – holy, separated and spiritually enlightened – walk out of the evangelical church and form a group of their own; when they GET OFF THE SINKING SHIP and let her go down in the brackish and worldliness and form a new ark to ride out the storm.”

– A.W. Tozer

"The Gift of Prophecy" - A.W. Tozer

8/29/2018

A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times. Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits. It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God's position, and to tell us what is actually going on.

Where is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly, who is riding up front in the seat of honor?

What is needed desperately today is prophetic insight. Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present. Learning will enable a man to pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass sentence on our own day. One hundred years from now historians will know what was taking place religiously in this year of our Lord; but that will be too late for us. We should know right now. If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath. We need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the church, and it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.

- A.W. Tozer, from "Of God and Men"

"God, Send Us Prophets!" - Leonard Ravenhill

8/28/2018

"There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist.

Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant "churchianity."

Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.

Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do."

Let him reject ecclesiastical favors.

Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous, nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting.

Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God.

Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day.

Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism.

God, send us PROPHETS!"

- Leonard Ravenhill

“In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin Sparks once said, “has almost always been that of recovery”. The prophet is God’s detective seeking for lost spiritual treasures. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by the measure of his unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him. He has no price tags. He is totally “otherworldly”. He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile. He marches to another drummer!” - Leonard Ravenhill

"Seriously Count the Cost" - George Whitefield

8/23/2018

"What say you?

Are you resolved to live godly in Christ Jesus, notwithstanding the consequence will be, that you must suffer persecution?

You are beginning to build; but have you taken the Lord's advice, to "sit down first and count the cost?" Have you well weighed with yourselves that weighty declaration, "He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me;" and again, "Unless a man forsake all that he has he cannot be My disciple?" Perhaps some of you have great possessions; will not you go away sorrowful, if Christ should require you to sell all that you have! Others of you again may be kinsmen, or some way related, or under obligations, to the high priests, or other great personages, who may be persecuting the Church of Christ: What say you? Will you, with Moses, "rather choose to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season?"

Perhaps you may say, "my friends will not oppose me." That is more than you know: in all probability your chief enemies will be those of your own household. If therefore they should oppose you, are you willing naked to follow the naked Christ? And to wander about in sheep-skins and goats-skins, in dens and caves of the earth; being afflicted, destitute, tormented, rather than not be Christ's disciples? You are now all following with zeal, as Ruth and Orpah did Naomi, and may weep under the word; but are not your tears, crocodile tears?

And, when difficulties come, will you not go back from following the Lord, as Orpah departed from following Naomi? Have you really the root of grace in your hearts? Or, are you only stony-ground hearers? You receive the word with joy; but, when persecution arises because of the Word, will you not be immediately offended?

Be not angry with me for putting these questions to you. I am jealous over you, but it is with a godly jealousy: for, alas! how many have put their hands to the plough, and afterwards have shamefully looked back? I only deal with you, as our Lord did with persons that said, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you will. The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man, (says he) has not where to lay His head." What say you? Are you willing to endure hardness, and thereby approve yourselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ? You now come on foot out of towns and villages to hear the word, and receive me as a messenger of God: but will you not by and by cry out, Away with him, away with him; it is not fit such a fellow should live upon the earth?

Perhaps some of you, like Hazael, may say, "Are we dogs, that we should do this?" But, alas! I have met with many unhappy souls, who have drawn back unto perdition, and have afterwards accounted me their enemy, for dealing faithfully with them, though once, if it were possible, they would have plucked out their own eyes, and have given them unto me.

Sit down, therefore, I beseech you, and seriously count the cost, and ask yourselves again and again, whether you count all things but dung and dross, and are willing to suffer the loss of all things, so that you may win Christ, and be found in Him."

- Whitefield's Sermons: "Persecution, Every Christians's Lot."

"Slanders & Reproaches" - John Bunyan

8/23/2018

“But when Satan perceived that his thus tempting and assaulting me, would not answer his design, to wit, to overthrow the ministry, and make it ineffectual, as to the ends thereof, then he tried another way, which was, to stir-up the minds of the ignorant and malicious to load me with slanders and reproaches: now therefore, I may say, that what the devil could devise, and his instruments invent, was whirled up and down the country against me, thinking, as I said, that by that means they should make my ministry to be abandoned.

It began therefore to be rumored up and down among the people, that I was a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman, and the like. – To all which I shall only say, God knows that I am innocent. But as for mine accusers, let them provide themselves to meet me before the tribunal of the Son of God, there to answer for all these things, with all the rest of their iniquities, unless God shall give them repentance for them, for the which I pray with all my heart.

But that which was reported with the boldest confidence, was, that I had my misses, my whores, my bastards, yea, two wives at once, and the like. Now these slanders, with the other, I glory in, because but slanders, foolish or knavish lies, and falsehoods cast upon me by the Devil and his seed. And should I not be dealt with thus wickedly by the world, I should want one sign of a saint, and a child of God. “Blessed are ye,” said the Lord Jesus, “when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

These things, therefore, upon mine own account, troubled me not; no, though they were twenty times more than they are. I have a good conscience, and whereas they speak evil of me, as an evil-doer, they shall be ashamed that falsely accuse my good conversation in Christ.

So then, what shall I say to those that have thus bespattered me? Shall I threaten them? Shall I chide them? Shall I flatter them? Shall I entreat them to hold their tongues? No, not I. Were it not for that these things make them ripe for damnation that are the authors and abettors, I would say unto them “Report it,” because it will increase my glory.

Therefore I bind these lies and slanders to me as an ornament; it belongs to my Christian profession to be vilified, slandered, reproached, and reviled; and since all this is nothing else, as my God and my conscience do bear me witness, I rejoice in reproaches for Christ’s sake.

Now, as Satan endeavored, by reproaches and slanders to make me vile among my countrymen, that, if possible, my preaching might be made of none effect; so there was added hereto, a long and tedious imprisonment, that thereby I might be frightened from the service of Christ, and the world terrified and made afraid to hear me preach. Of which I shall in the next place give you a brief account.” - John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

"The Most Fearful Slander" - C.H. Spurgeon

8/21/2018

“There has been no single Church of God existing in England for these fifty years which has had to pass through more trial than we have done…scarce a day rolls over my head in which the most villainous abuse, the most fearful slander is not uttered against me both privately and by the public press; every engine is employed to put down God’s minister – every lie that man can invent is hurled at me… They have not checked our usefulness as a Church; they have not thinned our congregation; that which was to be but a spasm – an enthusiasm which it was hoped would only last an hour – God has daily increased; not because of me, but because of that gospel which I preach…” - Charles Spurgeon

My reader, can you relate? Think of C.H. Spurgeon when he was lonely and maligned during the downgrade controversy. The man was not only persecuted in the early parts of his ministry but much more in the latter! Reflecting on these things, think of what he wrote while commenting on Psalm 7:1-2 in the Treasury of David, saying: “the wounds of a sword will heal, but the wounds of the tongue cut deeper than the flesh, and are not soon cured. Slander leaves a slur, even if it be wholly disproved. Common fame, although notoriously a common liar, has very many believers. Once let an ill word get into men's mouths, and it is not easy to get it fully out again. The Italians say that good repute is like the cypress, once cut, it never puts forth leaf again; this is not true if our character be cut by a stranger's hand, but even then it will not soon regain its former verdure. Oh, 'tis a meanness most detestable to stab a good man in his reputation, but diabolical hatred observes no nobility in its mode of warfare. We must be ready for this trial, for it will surely come upon us. If God was slandered in Eden, we shall surely be maligned in this land of sinners. Gird up your loins, ye children of the resurrection, for this fiery trial awaits you all.” And again at another time, Spurgeon said, “When we are slandered it is a joy that the Lord knows us, and cannot be made to doubt our uprightness he will not hear the lie against us, but he will hear our prayer against the lie.”