Top Ten Books of 2013 - #2 - The Church Awakening - Charles Swindoll
We are at the number two spot in my book reviews of the
best books that I read in 2013. This
book is one that published in 2010 and I got around to working with it in
2013. Chuck Swindoll has been around for
a long time and the majority of his books are primarily devotional in nature
and it is rare that he would take on a subject like this concerning the need
for revival in the church.
I noticed something about my reading patterns in 2013 and
that they were mostly concerned with personal revival and corporate revival
among the church. Anyone who is involved
in ministry has to understand the reality that when a church is in a state of
revival and devotion that things in churches go much smoother. Churches that aren’t experiencing a climate
of revival often turn inward and over the course of time will ultimately
die. We cannot afford for the local
church to collapse even though it is under a very heavy attack both socially
and spiritually in our day. On the other
hand, it is clear that when a church has well-defined boundaries and encourages
its members to have a high input that the Lord can do great things with
it.
Author: Charles Swindoll
Publisher: Faith Words, 2010
He wrote a very provoking story about the erosion of land
near his grandfather’s cottage that would bear repeating on a regular
basis. In fact there is probably some
value in using it as a sermon illustration if you are minister. In Swindoll’s assessment of the church, he
noted three things that can put it back on track which I found great agreement
with:
·
Clear, biblical thinking must override secular
planning and a corporate mentality.
·
Studied, accurate decisions must originate from
God’s Word, not human opinions.
·
Essential changes must occur to counteract any
sign of erosion.
Swindoll also deals with the prickly subject of rapid
growth of a church and how that it really diminishes the overall impact that a
real church seeks to encourage. He noted
that when churches are overwhelmed with new converts that there becomes an
uncertainty of purpose, blurred vision, fuzzy priorities, compromised values,
and replacing volunteerism with professionalism. Discipleship takes time and holiness requires
sacrifice. However if either of these
are missing, a church is on its way to needing an awakening. We also have to strongly consider the fact
that every church that stands by the truth will always be in a zone of
spiritual warfare.
Overall, the best chapter in the book is Chapter 5—What
Must the Church Realize? As I revisit it
again from earlier in the year, it is highly marked up with all sorts of
comments written in the margins of the book.
Swindoll puts in a quote by G. K. Chesterton on the preceding page of
the chapter that sums up where we are today:
Tolerance is the virtue of the man
without convictions. Swindoll writes
that there are warnings that we cannot ignore and all of them come from
Scripture. The world will hate anything
that stands for righteousness and is a follower of Jesus Christ so we cannot be
surprised or even offended by this.
Factor that warning into your thinking when you get up in arms about the
political and moral direction of our country.
There is one driving force behind it all which is to remove any and all
influence of the righteousness of Christ from our world, by the way don’t be
offended or surprised at this. Another
warning is concerning the enemy of our soul and the tone of spiritual
warfare. Another warning comes with an
admonition not to love this world. I
quote Swindoll as to why we need the church needs the warnings:
Because the world
wants to do our thinking for us. The
enemy of our souls wants to tap into our own sinful natures so that he can
drive a wedge between God and us. And that
is why we in the church need a strong warning to awaken us to the reality that
characterizes our times.
In this chapter, Swindoll also notes that there dangerous
times and people that we must be prepared to face. The times we face come from the relentless
pressure that pours through every media outlet that man has available. Culture will form your convictions for you
but only if you will allow it. On the
other hand a constant exposure to the Bible and biblical preaching has the
capacity to change the way we think.
Increasingly I want my own preaching to become more biblically driven
and biblically focused than it ever has!
The difficult men are those who Paul wrote to Timothy about (2 Tim.
3:1-5). They are lovers of self, money,
and pleasure. If it has been a while
since you read that description of men, take an opportunity to revisit it and
you will see what we are contending with in modern times. This chapter also has an ominous warning
about the danger that comes from within the church which is often motivated by
gossip. But there are also necessary
warnings about the things that come from our own hearts. Lastly Swindoll talks about the deception that
has a tendency to get overlooked because every brand of Christianity has a
tendency to think they are right. I
would highly encourage you to forget about the thousands of voices and books
(blogs?) and get down to some serious theology and fact-checking as to what the
Bible has to say. At the end of the day,
no other standard has any meaning except God’s Word!
Swindoll then starts working toward some helpful
directions as to how we are to combat the dangers that we are facing. There is a very simple answer to what we need
but men aren’t often interested in such an easy solution. That encouragement is both very simple and
very hard. At the end of the day it will
take pastors who do what God has called them to do! I commend this volume to you.
Thanks for reading. . .
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