Gutter Talk

Pay close attention to the words around you. Start listening to what people are saying at the tables next to yours in the restaurants, in the line at department stores, to casual conversations at lunch, and to the words of co-workers, family members, and friends. What are they saying? Are their words clean or has the conversation of America deteriorated toward becoming crass and barbaric?

All of the details of the past election having been coming to light in the last two or three months through multiple books that are being written. The John Edwards story has been detailed by Andrew Young. John Heilemann and Mark Halperin teamed up in Game Change. Karl Rove has written about his tenure with George Bush in the White House and other thoughts on the political landscape of the nation. One of the common themes and terribly disappointing factors of all of these books has been the extreme proclivity toward profanity. The Clintons, the Obama’s, the McCain’s, the Edward’s words have all been quite shocking. Add to that VP Joe Biden's mic gaffe when he dropped a choice word a few months ago and it was broadcast on national networks.

There has always, whether warranted or not, been in my mind the idea that those who served our country at the highest level should have some level of character and nobility about them. But it appears that civility and being a gentlemen has become a lost art. From Bill and Hillary Clinton’s raging about some of Obama’s techniques in the primaries to Obama’s criticism of Hillary and her team about snubbing him, to Ted Kennedy’s antics in the hallways of government, to John McCain’s totally unacceptable language used to staff and subordinates, and John and Elizabeth’s shouting matches filled with some of the rawest language ever heard, it appears from the top end to the bottom end, America’s language is sinful.

Shortly after reading some of these books, Teresa and I took a vacation with our kids to Disney World. I was again shocked at the language that I heard when I was standing in line. It seemed as if both young and old have digressed to a point that the air was fouled about them because of the language. The speech of our society has gone south very quickly. Some might tell me that my ears have been protected for a lot of years from this kind of thing but I can well remember some of the juvenile language of my fellow 7th graders at school. The speech in this day has well exceeded that.

I dare say that if I were to ask any of these people if they were Christians, the majority of them would profess some vague sense of religion but it is obvious that true conversion has not taken place because their speech betrays them. Jesus was clear that when he said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth would speak (Matthew 12:34; Mark 6:45). Whatever is in the heart (mind) will come out in the form of words. That is why that you only need to listen to people talk for about 5 minutes to know where their heart is.

Up until a few months ago, I had no idea who a prominent “comedian” was until he died. When they were eulogizing him, he was cast as a great America who caused us to think. So because of my unfamiliarity with him, I went to Youtube, watched a few clips, and was very sorry that I did. I was shocked that people would pay $35-50 to see this uncouth, angry, and blasphemous fellow go through his routine in the name of comedy and then laugh at his antics. Some of his rants were directed toward God, although the comedian did not seem to believe in God. I have a feeling that 30 seconds after his departure from this life, he was confronted by the very God he did not believe existed. I wonder how that went.

It seems like all forms of “entertainment” has to be filled with inane, smutty, gutter talk that has quite a low-brow appeal. If a person continually exposes himself to this kind thing, it won’t be long before those words are pouring out of him. He will hurt his friends, his co-workers, his family, and most crucially his children because it won’t be long before the little sinners are following the exact same path as he is.

Some random thoughts on gutter talk:

1. We all have a pretty good idea about what is acceptable and unacceptable. If we are to be pleasing to the Lord, our words ought to always be seasoned with grace.

2. We should constantly strive to uphold the concepts of Ephesians 5:4 which as the ESV states: Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

3. We should also find Ephesians 4:29 (ESV) to be a good rule of thumb also: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

4. We need to remember that Colossians 3:8 (ESV) is specifically related to what we say: But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

5. A minister in a pulpit ought to be the last person, in or out of the pulpit, to allow his words to go to the gutter.

George Washington wrote one-hundred and ten rules of civility. Of that number, four are directly related to the content of speech and many others are indirectly related to what and how it is to be said. Here are the four:

49th Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.

61st Utter not base and frivilous things amongst grave and Learn'd Men nor very Difficult Questians or Subjects, among the Ignorant or things hard to be believed, Stuff not your Discourse with Sentences amongst your Betters nor Equals.

73d Think before you Speak pronounce not imperfectly nor bring out your Words too hastily but orderly & distinctly.

108th When you Speak of God or his Atributes, let it be Seriously & wt. Reverence. Honour & Obey your Natural Parents altho they be Poor.

You think we can get out of the gutter?

Reading the Classics -- The Count of Monte Cristo

School is officially out and summer has begun. One of the highlights for the summer for my younger brother and I was the trips to the library where we got involved in the summer reading programs. This was back in the early to late seventies and most libraries had very structured reading programs. Additionally they would give away awards for those who read the most. They also encouraged readers to move out of their age groups and go above to higher reading categories.

I can well remember while I was still riding the bus having a book to read both on the way to school and on the way home. Before you throw me under the bus and put me in the geek (or nerd) category, it was fairly common for boys to read. The sorry substitutes today are video games and other things that will cause your brains to turn into mush. I can remember reading massive amounts of good clean western fiction by Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, and Elmer Kelton. I read through William Manchester’s book about Douglas MacArthur when I was in high school. That was where I came into contact with his speech about honor, duty, and country. It was incredibly inspiring.

Another book that I read in high school was a book about physicians. It was called White Coat, Clenched Fist and even though some of it was over my head, I was still inspired by it (it has since been republished). That book led me to Robin Cook’s The Year of the Intern which led me to the old books written by Franklin Slaughter who was also a physician. Slaughter’s books are filled with nobility and honor of the medical profession. One book seemed as if it was always spurring me on to read something else.

So don’t waste your summer. . . READ!!!! I have an older summer reading list that might interest you that can serve as a jumping off point for this summer.

If you have never read Alexander Dumas’ book The Count of Monte Cristo you are in for a real treat. It is a big book but don’t let that discourage you. It is one of the most incredible tales about a young sailor who is betrayed and the girl he intended to marry goes to a rival. He is then thrown into a real prison with rats, disease, horrible food, and so forth. He battles with depression, fear, and rage. During his tenure in the prison, he meets a fellow prisoner who is a priest and the kindly priest helps him. The priest ends up dying and Edmond escapes the prison. I don’t want to spoil it for you but there is an incredible surprise waiting on him when he gets out. He then turns about doing his best to destroy the man who robbed 14 years of his life.

Because of the exposure to this book years ago, there were themes in this book that I did not pick up on because I had not lived long enough. Suffice it to say that I have accumulated some miles along the way and I can now see the themes of hope, justice, vengeance, retribution, love, mercy, forgiveness, and brotherhood. These weren’t evident to me until a few dings of life had struck me.

You can purchase the Barnes and Noble classics (paperback) edition for less than $10 or if you have an e-reader (Nook, Kindle, Sony E-reader) you can download it for free from Feedbooks.

Go and READ!!!!!!

Book Recommendation -- Ashamed of the Gospel -- John MacArthur

As always, I am constantly in the hunt for good books that will inspire me toward more spiritual growth. One such book that I have benefited from over the years has been one written by John MacArthur in 1993. He wrote Ashamed of the Gospel as a call to action for biblical preaching, a lifestyle of holiness, and the great need for discernment in our times. More often than not the trends that MacArthur pointed out in our times mirrored what happened during the “Down Grade Controversy” in Charles Spurgeon’s times over 100 years ago. If you are interested in a challenging, thought-provoking book then you need to read it. If you are uncomfortable with a straight-forward and direct approach to the supposed new trends of the modern church era, save your money.

The book has been reprinted and there are several new chapters that have been added and some revisions have also taken place in the new edition. Suffice it to say that what was written nearly 20 years ago has almost come to pass. The subtitle of the book reflects that “when the church becomes like the world.” Theology and doctrine has taken a back seat to life “app” preaching. Life “app” preaching is that preaching which helps manage stress, work situations, raising kids, and a host of other ways to help make life very man-centered and not too God-focused. The power of Scripture has almost been totally discarded and when someone does point out that Scripture clearly addresses moral and social issues of the day, that person finds himself cast into the uncomfortable role of being judgmental. Worship has progressively become more focused on feeling than it has meaning which is backwards. If a man has meaning in his worship, you better believe that there will be feeling in his worship.

In Chapter 5, The Foolishness of God, MacArthur spends an important amount of time writing about the need for solid biblical preaching that radically opposes the wisdom of this world. The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God but a number of detractors in our times, particularly of doctrinal preaching, seem to think that worldly wisdom is so much better than God’s wisdom.

MacArthur makes the following comparisons based on 1 Corinthians 1:18-31:

1. Human wisdom is temporary while divine wisdom is eternal.
2. Human wisdom is impotent and divine wisdom is powerful.
3. Human wisdom is for the elite and divine wisdom is for all.
4. Human wisdom exalts man but divine wisdom glorifies God.

From the next chapter there are suggestions given to preachers about where to get their sermons from and a sort of how-to guide for modern preachers:

1. Visit those how-to sections in your local bookstores.
2. Regularly have a small group submit a list of their greatest challenges at home and on the job.
3. Similarly, acquire inventories of needs from several secular people in your community.
4. Periodically, examine issues of Time, Newsweek, and USA Today, as these publications tend to be on the cutting edge of the felt needs and fears that people are facing.
5. Apply practical aims to every study, message or program in your church.
6. Practice composing practical, catchy titles for your messages (sermons) from various biblical texts.
7. Limit your preaching to roughly 20 minutes, because boomers don’t have too much time to spare. And don’t forget to keep your messages light and informal, liberally sprinkling them with humor and personal anecdotes.

This is a list for weak and insipid preaching and it is also diametrically opposed to biblical ministry writes MacArthur.

In response to this idea, he quotes Douglas D. Webster about this user-friendly approach:

Biblical preaching was God-centered, sin-exposing, self-convicting and life-challenging—the direct opposite of today’s light, informal sermons that Christianize self-help and entertain better than they convict.

There are so many illustrations in today’s market-sensitive sermons that the hearer forgets the biblical truth that is being illustrated; so many personal anecdotes that the hearer knows the pastor better than she knows Christ; so many human-interest stories that listening to a sermon is easier than reading the Sunday paper; so practical that there is hardly anything to practice.

No wonder nominal Christians leave church feeling upbeat. Their self-esteem is safely intact. Their minds and hearts have been sparked and soothed with sound-bite theology, Christian maxims and a few practical pointers dealing with self-esteem, kids or work. But the question remains: has the Word of God been effectively and faithfully proclaimed, penetrating comfort zones and the veneer of self-satisfaction with the truth of Jesus Christ?

This is a just a taste of a very good book. My old copy has been read and re-read numerous times in the last several years and this one will fall into that same category.

Off the Chart Preachers

Brother Martyn Ballestero, over at his Home Missions Chronicles blog, has given me a bit of inspiration to tag into for today’s blog. He wrote about preachers that used to teach off the charts. You owe it to yourself to go to his blog and read about it. I won’t rehash what he wrote but I have taken the liberties to get his pictures and post them on my blog.

I, too, remember the off the ‘charts preachers.’ My own pastor, Brother Patterson, used various charts back in the ‘70’s when I was a kid. Although his charts weren’t the hand painted ones, he would routinely use the old Search for Truth charts and various others during the mid-week Bible studies. We really thought we were moving up when he started using the overhead projector with various transparencies as he taught his mid-week Bible studies. Those were the times that life seemed so much simpler and our lives had so much order and structure to them. Our days, despite all of the modern conveniences, seem to be filled with chaos as we breathlessly try to keep up with all of our commitments.

Perhaps the most striking memory that I have of an ‘off the chart’ preacher was a man named Wayne Pounders. He was a gifted Bible teacher that had such ability with his teaching that even the kids would pay attention to him. To show the power of his gifting, he could hold the attention of a congregation for well over an hour and for the most part those listening were held in rapt attention to what he was speaking on.

My dad was relocated to the Fort Walton Beach area and we attended the First United Pentecostal Church in Niceville pastored by Henry Dennis. Brother Dennis was big on revivals and looking back it seems like we were having a revival about every other month. Some of the most colorful evangelists you have ever seen graced the pulpit at the FUPC in Niceville. Brother Haypenny was an evangelist that was about 4 foot tall and he played the organ. What was so nifty about Brother Haypenny was that every night before he preached, he would get on the organ and tell a Bible story to all the kids as he played along on the organ in a dramatic fashion. All of the kids were awed by his stories and the flair with which he told them. I also remember a time when some evangelist came through, whose name I cannot remember, and for quite some time preached a ‘blistering’ on the church and finally Brother Dennis stood up and told him quite authoritatively, “That’ll be enough, Brother!” I was too young to remember the content of the message but what does prevail in my mind was how much Brother Dennis loved his church.

My exposure to Brother Pounders took place in Niceville, Florida when I was in the 4th grade or so. His teaching specialty was the book of Revelation. He had taken four white bed-sheets and sewn them together, lengthwise, end-to-end. I would guess that each sheet was probably six feet long and the normal wide of probably four feet wide. On this large space, he had painted the whole book of Revelation. He started with John’s vision of Jesus Christ, progressed to the seven churches, to the seals, the trumpets, the bowls, and a final segment on heaven. It was incredible to walk into the church and see that sheet hung up all the way across the front of the church entirely covering the place where all of the musicians sat.

When Brother Pounders came through, Brother Dennis started him on Sunday night, and then the teaching revival continued every night for the rest of the week and he would conclude on the following Sunday night. Any pastor who would even attempt to try that kind of thing in our times would be sorely disappointed because it is highly doubtful that people would make it every night. That says much about our times whether we are willing to admit it or not.

Brother Pounders encouraged all to bring their Bibles to church which during those times was not a problem because everybody always brought their Bibles to church. He would literally start at Revelation 1:1 and when it was over he had concluded with Revelation 22:21. One of the things that stands out to me the most was Brother Pounders ‘pointer.’ It appeared to me to be an old car antenna and at the end of the night he would close it up and put it into his leather Bible case and zip it shut as Brother Dennis would make his concluding remarks before we went home with our heads filled with the scary images of Revelation and Daniel but our hearts filled with faith that God was going to work everything out in the end.

Perhaps the last ‘off the chart’ preacher that I would be exposed to was Brother David Gray. Although he did not have hand painted charts, he did use transparencies. These took place during my Texas Bible College days in Houston back in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s. Brother Gray during this time was beginning to grapple with his age. I look back at those days and think how I would have liked to have been exposed to Brother Gray during his prime.

Heritage does not mean much to you when you are young but as your years begin to stack up there is a gratefulness that begins to appear as you think how much that God was quietly working out the details of your life. I am profoundly thankful for the heritage that I have and hope that in some small measure I am able to pass it on.

If you have any recollections of old-time off the chart preachers, I would love to post your comments that would add to the content of this particular post.

Thanks for reading. . . . .

The following pictures are various ones that I have in my collection.

A. W. Buie's chart on the Fruit of the Spirit and Works of the Flesh from Galatians 5.






















Clyde Haney teaching on Prophecy:

















Carl Ballestero and his chart at an unknown location:

















David Gray pamphlet on the Two Natures of Man. I understand that he had an accompanying chart with this in years past.

Too Much, Too Soon

“You are now the leader and people are looking for you to make some major changes.” “Changes,” I asked? “Yeah, things need to be updated and improved on.” And then a litany of things was listed for me to change in the church that I grew up in and was now the pastor of. This “change” was couched in such a way that for me not to make the “necessary” changes that I would be perceived as a weak leader sort of a catch-22 situation. It was a very base appeal to my own personal ego and a beckoning to the nastiness of an unholy ambition that I have to keep restrained on a pretty routine basis.

Time passed and I did not change a thing except that we baptized people at the beginning of the Sunday night service instead of at the end. Everything else stayed the same.

The point of this whole blog is that sometimes those who are church leaders can be falsely wooed into making changes that will literally cripple and perhaps even split an already healthy congregation. Woe to the man who comes into an established congregation to serve as pastor and turns the place upside down with irrational changes. We don’t like change! So if we don’t like change, what makes us think that people will like sudden and drastic changes especially in their spiritual life?

I remember well a few years ago when the hospital where I worked went to computers for all sorts of record-keeping and so forth. I still remember the duress and struggles with some of the older employees as they tried to cope with the changes that had been suddenly flung on them. The difference between the radical changes that takes place in the workplace versus the church is that in the workplace they are being paid. We who are in ministry are working with a bunch of volunteers and whether we believe it or not we need every one of them.

More times than once I have watched from the outside looking in at places where new pastors went and destroyed churches because of their drastic and unreasonable changes in the outset. It was a train-wreck and when the guy was finally drummed out of town, the poor fellow who was incoming after the train-wreck had his work cut out for him trying to re-establish trust and confidence. Additionally it had a very negative impact on the man who had to leave and it also usually affected his family, especially his wife.

The prevailing mentalities that usually cause these fellows to make such drastic changes goes something like this:

We are going to have a harvest in this place. It has been a dead church long enough. We are going to have revival!

I am going to clean this place up! These people don’t know anything about holiness! Revival! Outreach! ____________!

Boy, that previous pastor was a real winner! He didn’t know his head from a hole in the ground and I have to fix all this incompetence he had going around here!

These people just don’t get it!


Those sorts of comments are quite telling about the messiah complex that has engulfed this man. Are there churches out there that fit the bill as described above? Absolutely! But I have also discovered that just as there are mean churches (Church Trouble Part 1 and Part 2)there are some mean pastors who are going to make the gate so narrow and the path so hard to find that only about 30 are going to be saved.

A little food for thought about changing too much too soon might be good for all of us. These thoughts are in no particular order of priority.

First, if you go into an existing church, the people there already have a mindset about what they want to do and what they want you to do. They probably did not get this mindset from the devil, they got it from the man who was there before you were. If he was a great man, your work is easy, just keep doing what he did. If he was a scoundrel, your work is cut out for you and of primary importance is for you to be flexible with the flow of things.

Secondly, the majority of people who come to church are not motivated to fight. Work with those. Inspire and challenge them to grow in their spiritual walk. Be a useful teacher, preacher, influencer to them. On the other hand, there will always be a couple of people whose primary purpose in life is making your life miserable. Their demands are unreasonable, their attitude is un-Christian, and they aren’t happy and don’t think anyone else ought to be happy either. Look at the small minority that the Lord has put in your life to make you better. Let their attitude sand you down into becoming an incredible example of a Christian. These people DO NOT make up the majority. They may be the money people but God can work on them with the authority of your prayers. Pray for them and watch God do some drastic things that you will stand in awe of. They will either get better or they will make their exit. Let me tell you what will happen to you when you do this, your disgust with them will turn in to a profound sorrow and compassion will grip you as you watch them struggle through life corrupting everything they come in contact with.

Thirdly, don’t change things too quickly (as in don’t change anything for a long time). Most changes that people try to make are usually in areas of secondary importance. Before it is over, a lot of blood has been spilled over something that has zero influence over the Gospel. If you want to change something, take your time. It took C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General, ten years to get Congress to go along with his idea of putting a warning label on all tobacco products and tobacco advertisements. But he persisted and it happened. Now we have the warnings on the packages but we also enjoy transit systems where passengers cannot smoke. We can eat in restaurants where we can enjoy a smoke-free environment. If you think it needs to change, take your time. Furthermore, if you are only going to be there for three to seven years, you probably ought to leave it alone. If you are not committed to being there for the rest of your life, you probably ought not to insist on such radical changes anyway. Just preach the Word and pray for them and love them and move on.

Fourth, consider what malpractice is. Far too often, we have a tendency to confine malpractice to the medical field. We think of negligent physicians who are incompetent and wound more than they heal. But there can be something called ministerial malpractice also. The easy out is that we cannot be sued. However there will be a day that the Lord will look squarely at us and ask us what we did with the church we were called to pastor (Hebrews 13:17). On that day, we will have to give an answer. Radical and unreasonable change is ministerial malpractice. As Warren Wiersbe wrote one time about a church battle caused by too much change, “It was witnessed by angels, applauded by demons, but is best left unrecorded among the saints.”

Fifthly, most change is motivated by some sort of emphasis on a program. Don’t put your trust in a program to change a church. Put your trust and confidence in the preached Word and the passionate prayers of the pastor and the church at large to accomplish long lasting spiritual change. Increasingly, it is clear that activities do more to suck the spiritual life out of people and it kills the faithful few who are called to do all the work while the spectators watch.

Sixthly, don’t change because of fads that attempt to drive a pastor toward so-called success. John R. W. Stott wrote in his book The Preachers Portrait, “The shameful cult of human personalities which tarnished the life of the first century Corinthian church still persists in Christendom, and a most improper and unbecoming regard is paid to some church leaders today.” Pastors who get caught up in the numbers game will in the end be destroyed by the numbers game. Chasing numbers is going to create a great angst in your preaching because you will have to aesthetically improve some areas of Scripture to fit our American mindset.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in changing in the maddened pursuit of numbers it will cause us to sell our calling for a mess of faddage. In the end, you will not have a church but you will have a crowd. For those who chase fads, they end up like dogs chasing their tails because there will be a new method out next year and the next year and the next year. It is the job of marketers to take your money and the only way to do that is to sell you something that is new and improved. Brother Harrell in Bridge City, Texas has told me multiple times that it’s hard to beat three songs, an offering, and a sermon. You might scoff at that but a whole lot of guys preach his sermons every year at camp-meetings all over the country and this coming Sunday, they will have a full house.

Seventh, when you do begin to make changes, don’t ever create a divide between young and old. If a man does that he will pit the generational groups in a battle against each other. This is a crime. 1st John creates the pattern of spiritual maturity and the older generation needs to be stalwarts and influence the younger generation in the right direction. When you create a rift between the old and the young, you are destroying God’s biblical pattern of growth. We need elders and youth working together!

I conclude with a quote from Thomas Jefferson which just makes good sense, “In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current.”

Soul Fuel--Part 1

It’s Monday! Welcome to Monday! It is that proverbial day when a lot of pastors scattered about the world have already loaded up their U-Hauls and determined that yesterday was their last Sunday wherever they may be serving. I would be very deceptive if I were to say that I have never had those days before. I think that those who say that they have never thought about loading up their U-Hauls are either seriously out of touch or not telling the truth.

Think about it for a bit. Pastors are firemen who have to constantly attend to putting out brush fires on various fronts. They have to bolster sagging marriages. They put up with criticism. They counsel those who are experiencing financial calamities usually that are self-induced. They have to keep everyone encouraged. They have to look across the way and see places that are seemingly booming and deal with that gnawing self-doubt that promotes self-pity. Add to this the incredible, overwhelming burden of the harvest. Sometimes the sheer volume of the job can be overwhelming.

A lot of men feel like they are pulling a train uphill and its brakes are firmly locked in. They work under financial hardship that may be personal but more often than not from the corporate body called the church. They have to preach hard things. Things that nobody wants to hear but are eternally important that they do hear it. They endure, suffer, work, climb, and generally pour it all out trying to do the work of God. This is what a man who shoulders the yoke of the ministry finds himself called to do. So what does he do to keep his soul fit to work out such a task? There are some things a man can do to fuel up his soul to help him continue this path.

Foremost, he has to trust in the sovereignty of God. That means that God is absolutely in control of every detail of life and ministry. God knows exactly where you are and has measured out every trial and difficulty measured out specifically for you. Don’t curse the darkness you may be in presently just believe that the entire situation has been tailor made for you.

I have come to understand that God is more concerned with me being saved than being comfortable. He is more interested in my holiness than my happiness. He is more concerned with my worship than my work. Keeping this in mind helps me from getting all the priorities from mixed up. Wherever you are standing is holy ground.

Holy ground is just as much in the courts of Pharoah as it was in the desert by the burning bush. Holy ground is still present whether you are confronting Korahs’ or on the mountain top with fire, thunder, and lightning accompanying the presence of God. Wherever your feet are in ministry, it is holy ground.

Back in 1994, I just sort of haphazardly purchased a little book. It literally is a little book in both shape and size entitled The Heart of a Great Pastor by H.B. London and Neil Wiseman. Periodically I pick this little book up and glance back at the scribbling in the margins and retrace the dog-eared pages. In the first chapter, they listed seven resources that are available in every assignment that you may find yourself in. You are where you are because God has placed you there and He has given you some things that will help you and the church grow.

Resource #1: Every Place is Unique—Just like individuals, every place has unique gifts, opportunities, and problems but they are still places to grow. God places us in the places He wants us to be because there is something He is trying to develop in us as well as the church we are called to serve.

Resource #2: Every Place Needs a Pastor’s Love—An important quote, “The sheep grow restless without an attentive shepherd.” The presence of a pastor is crucial for our generation. Your church needs to see your example of personal godliness more than anything else. Our world is constantly in change and turmoil. It is a blessing for people to be able to come in week-in and week-out and look at you and see a model of consistency. Get into their lives and impact and influence them!

Resource #3: God Provides Supernatural Empowerment—Churches that are dead will never change their world. This places a premium on having a constant flow of the Spirit. More than one time, I have heard Pastor Anthony Mangun tell of when he was a kid growing up in that church in Alexandria on 16th and Day Street that his dad and mother would take a dead service and stand it on its head. Elder G. A. Mangun take up a tambourine and Sister Mangun would take up an old accordion and they would do a victory march (when was the last time you had one of those in your church????). They would march around that church singing and praying until the Spirit started moving. To my dear readers who resorting to nifty lights, cool power-points, and neat little 20 minute “life app” sermons, you are spitting in the wind. If you want a supernatural move of the Holy Ghost, you have to get engaged in the Spirit. It will cost you some meals as in fasting, it will cost you some time as in on your knees pleading with God to awaken that dead place you are pasturing, and it will cost you some passion as in you might have to look a little unprofessional in your preaching but it will have a huge impact on your church. (NOTE: This was not what London and Wiseman wrote, I just took the liberty with their #3 Resource.)

Resource #4: Every Place Needs Bible Preaching—This takes time and discipline to develop things to preach. You will never expose your church to the power of the Word until you get invested in the Word. Sound preaching will help us to grow. Preach hard things. . . preach challenging things. . . No coach has ever won a championship by not challenging, inspiring, and lifting his players to a level beyond mediocrity. Do this to your church with your preaching. Make them hunger for holiness, help them to desire prayer, give them a passion for the Word!

Resource #5: Every Pastor Is Distinctively Gifted—It took me a little while to get this one because I wanted to imitate somebody down the road and across the country. But consider this: Amos never would have worked in the courts of the kings but by the same token Isaiah wouldn’t have made much headway with the fig-tree farmers. The courtiers would have dismissed Amos as a redneck and the fig-tree farmers would have dismissed Isaiah as a stuck-up academic know-it-all. God used both of those prophets to bring His word to the right places. You are distinctly gifted to work exactly where you are at. Take the focus off of your inabilities and look at your God-given abilities. Don’t let self-pity wipe you out!

Resource #6: Every Setting Has Potential—If you have some folks who jerking your chain and making life generally miserable for you. Consider a couple of things. First, is your heart right? When you heart gets out of sorts, you can get out of sorts with good people. But if you heart is right, then I have a second consideration. There are ten people that can replace that one who appears to be the nephew of the Wormwood, as of the Screwtape Letters fame. It is a matter of you hunting them down and picking up your evangelism efforts.

Resource #7: Every Church Has Something to Give—You may be thinking of your limitations; lack of youth, lack of funds, lack of spiritual maturity among new converts, lack of music, lack of good lay leadership, and so forth. In fact you can get so focused on your limitations that you not only want to load up the U-Haul, you just want to throw in the towel. . . if you could just find it! “We have been lulled into believing that the small church has little to offer. We have allowed the big-is-best mind-set to dilute the fact that when the church is the Church, it is a mighty instrument in hand of God regardless of size.”

Hey Pastor, Assistant Pastor, Youth Pastor, or whatever your title may be. . . a little fuel for your soul on this Monday. . . Trust in the sovereignty of God, He has you right where He wants you. . . If you are supposed to be somewhere else, He is quite big enough to pull all the strings to get you where you need to be. . .

More Later. . .

What Do Those Who Influence You Say About You?

This is the last of the series about what different things say about us. Our stats and our schedules say much about us. In addition those things that we allow to influence us says much about us also.

Practically everywhere you look—websites, print media, television, radio—one of the dominant stories of the week has been the return of Tiger Woods to the world of golf. He is competing in the most prestigious event that professional golfing hosts—The Masters at the Augusta National over in Georgia. There is a vast array of responses that are appearing from those who feel as if he should just go away contrasting with those who hope he wins it all in what might be hailed as the greatest comeback of any athlete ever.

The Tiger saga started several months ago when some of his very private moments hit the national scene because of his marital difficulties. Very little details were spared from the national scene through various news outlets. There appeared to be a morbid but quite naughty curiosity apparently from the whole world. The thing that struck me most was the incredible amounts of money that Tiger Woods made and then turned around and spent on very expensive toys. In fact when the figures were given as to the cost of his yacht, I thought to myself that if I were to just have the money he spent on the yacht, our church building fund would escalate and we literally could build fifteen churches for what that yacht cost.

We live in culture of deception and the last few years have brought this to light. You cannot hide sin forever and it has a way of worming itself out of the soul of men after it has devoured them. Think Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme where he rooked 55 billion dollars from unsuspecting investors. Think John Edwards who had a strong run at the White House, most likely as a Vice-President, but ruined it with his dalliances with Rielle Hunter. Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and others resorted to “juicing” and they hit more home runs than ever but in the end their achievements were sullied. Ted Haggard fits in the same box with Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker as all of these men tried to compartmentalize their sins while working in the religious world. The reason that men can do this sort of thing is because the culture of deception causes them to ultimately fall to the trap of self-deception.

How does one become self-deceived? There are facts that are blatantly ignored. There is a pressure to continue to perform despite the tank being empty. There is a blind pressing on that overruns the inner voice of the conscience. Tiger Woods was living in a pit of corruption whose depths were bottomless. How much money did he waste in this pit? How much of his soul did he sell to get to that place? Will his marriage ever recover? Will there ever be the level of trust established with his wife that was present at the beginning of his courtship? As with most rhetorical questions, we can only contemplate the answers within.

As the Masters plays itself out this weekend and Tiger Woods tries to get back to his game, my mind went to some of the comments that Charles Barkley made shortly after the Tiger story hit the headlines. He was offended that Tiger would not call him or Michael Jordan because they were his “friends” and could help him more than anyone else. Apparently it was the influence of Barkley and Jordan that led Tiger into his dark world of regret and failure. There are consequences of a man’s influences. One man challenged me a few years ago with this statement, “Tell me who your friends are and the books you read and I will tell you where you will be in five years!” This fellow was not clairvoyant, it was far more than that, and it was called godly wisdom. Influences make all the difference in the world!

It is in the early stages of a man’s life that often sets us in the direction that we will follow for the duration of our lives. Very rarely do men break out from under those earliest influences that contributed so much to their lives. Whether it was parents, teachers, pastors, or friends the level of early influence set the direction for their lives and they are now following through on that path.

My own life was shaped very much by my parents who demonstrated responsibility, honesty, integrity, and persistence that to some degree are present in my own life today. My pastor who is my father-in-law influenced me in areas of ministry that continue to prevail today. I think he would give his last dollar to missions and our church has endeavored over the years to follow that example and do the same thing. I have had good friends who have influenced me in proper ways toward a greater understanding of God and His Word. The world of medicine also had a deep impact on me and promoted an inquisitive mind that wants to turn Scripture upside down and ferret out every nugget that can be found. For all of these things I am profoundly grateful.

But there have been crossroads that I have come to when I had to make choices, particularly with people that I would meet, who would have had a very negative effect on my spiritual life. Just as Jordan and Barkley were bad for Tiger, there have been those who would have been detrimental to me. As time has passed on, I have become aware of this, but when I was vacillating about whether or not to allow this influence into my life, I did not have the barometer of experience to give me the forecast of how it would turn out. But I did have the guidance of the Spirit and I learned that sometimes that the gift of discernment will express itself my making you very, very uncomfortable with the surroundings you are in and the voices that you are listening to. It was but for the grace of God that I ignored those voices and their siren calls.

Give yourself to reading the books of dead men. Men like Ravenhill, Tozer, Bounds, and the Puritans. You certainly have to read with filters but take a sermon of Spurgeon’s and compare it with the sermons of modern day preachers and it won’t take very long to discover an obvious difference in the depth of understanding in previous generations to ours today. Read Maclaren Macartney, J. C. Ryle and G. Campbell Morgan. I have some older blogs about devotional reading, sermon preparation, one created by E. E. Jolley and personal growth that might point you in a direction of growth.

Ralph Turnbull—During my ministry I was able to devote a year to reading all of Alexander Whyte. Other years were given to W. Graham Scroggie, G. Campbell Morgan, Samuel Chadwick, J. H. Jowett, and G. H. Morrison. A winter apiece was spent with C. H. Spurgeon, Jonathon Edwards, and Phillips Brooks. I read selections from the last three to gain a feel for their preaching styles, whereas the works of others mentioned were read in their entirety. Biographical studies of each were part of the investment.

Give yourself to friendships that stretch you to be godly, righteous, and more spiritual. Listen to what these voices are saying and it won’t be long before their conversation is going to give you some insight into their soul. Words are an expression of our soul.

Thomas Watson—Walk with them that are holy. ‘He that walketh with the wise shall be wise’ (Proverbs 13:20). Be among the spices and you will smell of them. Association begets assimilation. Nothing is greater in power and energy to effect holiness than the communion of saints.

Give yourself to being saturated by the Word. The only way we will become Word saturated is to spend time with it. The Word can so saturate your life that you will begin to view your world through the lenses of Scripture.

Thomas Watson—David valued the Word more than gold. What would the martyrs have given for a leaf of the Bible! The Word is the field where Christ the pearl of price is hid. In this sacred mine we dig, not for a wedge of gold, but for a weight of glory. The Scripture is sacred eye-salve to illuminate us. ‘The commandment is a lamp, and the law is light’ (Proverbs 6:23). The Scripture is the chart and compass by which we sail to the New Jerusalem. It is a sovereign cordial in all distresses. What are the promises but the water of life to renew fainting spirits?

Give yourself to prayer. This prayer business is hard work but it is what Epaphras did with his life.

Thomas Watson—These wandering thoughts [in prayer] arise from the world. These vermin are bred out of the earth. Worldly business often crowds into our duties, and while we are speaking to God, our hearts are talking with the world: ‘They sit before me as my people, but their heart goeth after their covetousness’ (Ezekiel 33:31).

I trust you choose your influences as well as you choose other things. . .