The sad condition of baptists

Hear Hear :thumbsup:

 

Taken from Martyn Lloyd-Jones writing on the Welsh Calvinistic Methodism

Then, in turn, as I have been trying to say, true Calvinism is bound to emphasize the element of revival, the 'givenness' of the activity of God, the visitations of God. It is only since the decline of Calvinism that revivals have become less and less frequent. The more powerful Calvinism is the more likely you are to have a spiritual revival and re-awakening. It follows of necessity from the doctrine. You cannot work up a revival. You know that you are entirely dependent upon God. That is why you pray to Him and you plead with Him and you argue, and you reason with Him. These Fathers used to do this. How different is our approach to the condition of the church today from that which was true of these Fathers and their successors for several generations. Today we look at the situation and we say - 'Well, things are very bad, everything is going down - what shall we do? We had better have an evangelistic campaign.' So we call a committee together and we begin to organize, and to talk about what is going to happen in a year's time or so. ..... Sound familiar?

BTW..... Happy St David's Day 3/1/11 :wavey:

 

I don't know where you are at Brother or what prompted this post, but beleive me when I tell you God's not dead. I see and hear God led preaching and the moving of the Holy Spirit all the time. I see and know people who are still getting saved. I see people growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord. If I wasn't I would find another group of churches to attend!

 

I had planned to start a thread such as this but didn't get around to it.

Yes, there are some Baptist Churches out there that are spirit filled and people get saved and folks just can't wait for the next meeting.

On the other hand, there are way to many Baptist Churches out there where the gossip abounds and members don't want to face the problem head on.

The last church I attended our Pastor's Grand Daughter (Living in another State) had a baby a couple of years ago. She's now out of High School but still doesn't have a husband.

Our busy-body member married to one of the Deacon's called each and every member of the church to spread the news. When I answered the phone all she said was, "Brother Harold, I just called to let you know the Preacher's grand daughter had a baby." Catching me off guard I said, "Okay, I didn't know she was expecting", and the woman said, "Well, I just thought you'd like to know", and that was it.

This was the first time in nine years this woman ever called our home.

A couple of weeks later she stood up on a Wednesday evening service and very quickly said, "...ifioffenedanyonebycallingaroundi'msorry", and sat back down. End of subject.

Yep, some Baptist Churches need to hit the problem(s) head on instead of tit-toeing through the tulips.

 

I write out (type out) my sermons...does that mean they are automatically dead? Can God not speak to me during preparation or does He only speak to me while I am behind the pulpit? :thumbsup: Why does the location of where a preacher is coming from determine if revival does or does not come? Just wondering...

 

Hello deacon jd

Although you didn’t say one word about it, the OLD PATH, starts with the OLD BOOK.....
Proverbs 22:28
“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

The old path will never be chosen by anyone, unless they can believe that God has perfectly preserved His Word for us today.

And most people here have openly said many times, that they do not believe in a perfect Bible!

This is why I am sad!

 

Totally irrelevant to the OP.

 

I’m praying for you deacon, it sure sounds like you need some encouragement.

You are not alone! Remember Elijah and how he thought that he was the last man on earth who still served God, yet God still had 7,000 others who had not bowed to Baal (I Kings 19).

There are thousands or even millions of others out there deacon; who feel the same way you do. Some of them might be right in front of your face and you have never noticed. I am praying for you generally and praying specifically that God will send you a Christian friend and brother to help share your burden.

 

Deacon, I know that you and I sometimes have disagreed...but I can wholeheartedly say I appreciate your passion for true revival, and your desire for such honors God.

May there be true revivial in our churches, homes, and individuals.

 

God is perfectly willing to save our neighbors. We don't have to beg, but we should ask. And then after we asked, witness to our neighbors in word and deed, looking for opportunities for God to use us.

True revival has always been that way. Scheduled revivals often involve a visiting preacher who comes in using emotionalism, techniques and manipulation to motivate people to make a "decision" that may or may not have any lasting relevance. When there is true revival, lives are never the same and there is no need for manipulation or techniques.

God certainly used Jonathan Edwards' sermons that were written out, and he read them in a near monotone voice to his congregation. It's not an issue of whether or not the sermon is written out or the preacher's style of preaching, but whether or not the Spirit is using the message in the midst of the congregation to bring repentance and transformation.

Repentance, forgiveness, love, and broken hearts come from God, not from a speaker, over educated or not, called to preach or not.

Absolutely.

The Apostle Paul leaps immediately to mind. He was very well educated and knew and understood his Jewish culture and the pagan Greco-Roman culture, even quoting some of their poets on Mars Hill to illustrate the truth of God.

I don't make a habit of listening to poor preachers who don't teach the scripture, so I am not familiar with much bad preaching today. But the difference between a "dead" sermon and a Spirit-used sermon has to do with the Spirit, not the sermon.

I agree. I wouldn't given two minutes to someone who was trying to tease out secret meanings from the scripture when they are ignoring the plain teachings.

May I recommend not looking to others to find spiritual vitality? Devote yourself to the scriptures and ask God to teach you how to obey everything He has commanded so that you may be transformed into someone who can change the world. God will honor that prayer.

And while you do that devote time to serving others both inside and outside of a local church so you can learn how to put everything God is teaching you into practice.

No, you are not alone. You will be relieved to know that many of us are following Christ, although we are coming from different directions, one day we will find ourselves unified in His grace and life.

 

double post

 

Oh yeah, lets go back to the good old days when men were men, women were women, and everyone was ten feet closer to the Lord. We all walked to school without shoes five miles in the snow and carried bean sandwiches to eat. I have seen no such evidence to support your claims. Revivals are held as they have been for years. The same kinds of speakers deliver a word from the Lord, and people respond. I do not recall hearing one revival about end times prophecy, and if I did, what is wrong with that? What is wrong with an educated speaker? It seems to me some minimal of intelligence is required to speak in front of others, especially about salvation. You said, "I challenge you to find one civilized preacher in the Bible." Does that make Paul, Peter, John, James, and Elijah uncivilized? You said you need something straight from God? What is it you are getting at the revivals you go to? So are you saying if you could get into a time machine and go back to the super revival of 1946, you would receive some divine word?

By the way, revivals are a product of the Holy Spirit, not a less educated speaker as you put it. Those following the Lord are on the same path our parents were in 1950. Yeah, lets go back there when people were disfellowshipped for unBiblical reasons, and deacons acted like power hungry maniacs instead of servants. Your post is baloney.

 

I'm for revival and for some of what you say here but some of it is the cause of our spiritual deadness today.

The Great Awakening did not occur under the shallow preaching of some uneducated men who just claimed that "God gave it to me!" George Whitefield and Gilbert Tenet were thoroughly theologically educated men and Jonathan Edwards was the greatest theological and philosophical mind in American history.

My people perish for lack of knowledge- God said.

What we need is not just heat (passion and zeal) and what we need is not just light (knowledge and understanding).

We need them BOTH. We need what Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones called , "Logic on fire."


And praying primarily for souls will not get it done either. That is man centered prayer. Praying for God to be glorified and magnified is what we need.

A great book on this is "The Surprising Work of God" by Jonathan Edwards on the Great Awakening.

 

I'm sure deacon jd has some first-hand experience with Baptist churches he described in the OP. I understand his distress. We have to make sure, though, that we don't tar every Baptist church with the same brush. I can take you to a bunch of churches in my area which are doing the work of the ministry.

I can take you to an inner city church near East St. Louis, Illinois, where my wife's brother is pastor. They don't play church. And they don't water down the gospel.

I can take you to a fairly good-sized urban Baptist church in my town where the pastor preaches Joel Osteen-type motivational sermons, throwing in a scripture verse here and there. They haven't heard a gospel sermon in a long time.

I can take you to some Baptist churches in Romania, forged in the fire of Communist oppression, where confessing Christ as Lord could get you killed, imprisoned, beaten up, could cost you your family and your job. When the Communists were in power, when someone came to the Baptist church wanting to publicly confess Christ, they'd try to talk him out of it. If he persisted in spite of the downside, they figured his conversion was valid. Then they'd baptize him, but place him on two years probation, during which time he had no church duties. He was discipled, taught the scriptures. They don't play church either, and their services start at two hours.

Yes, there are Baptist churches out there who have left their first love. But there are many who have not "bowed the knee to Baal." God still has a witness.

 

I heard this story told by the late, great Dr. W A Criswell of FBC, Dallas

While at a meeting at church someone asked

Why don't we have revival meetings here at First Baptist like all the other churches in town-----every other church I know has a revival meeting at least once a year!!!!

To which Dr. Criswell responded

Dear sir!!! We at First Baptist, Dallas, Texas ---- we have revival meetings 52 weeks out of the year!!!

-------------------------------------------------------

When I heard Dr. Criswell say that--------all I could think was

Thats the way I want my church to be----revival 52 weeks out of the year!!!!!

 

I heard him speak years ago, and if I recall correctly, he was a retired pastor at the time. It was quite an experience to hear him. I agree with what you are saying, and wish every local church strived for that. There are some local Baptist churches that are not following the Lord as they should. There were some in the 1950's that were not either. The point is I think we should all be thankful for the number of local Baptist churches that have stayed on the straight and narrow. As a whole, the Baptist faith is very strong.

The solution is not to rewind a clock and immitate mannerisms of people long dead and gone. The solution is to follow what the Lord says, now in the present. There is nothing magical about the past.

 

From the past: Jude 3: ...earnestly contend for The Faith once for all delivered to the Saints.

Seeing the fulfillment there of is inspiring. We have an heritage which mainstream Christendom cannot claim.

Sadly: many of us do not seem very interested.

Praise the Lord, He is faithful--even when we are not.

Peace,

Bro. James

 

The need is not for more preaching. Congregations are preached at ad infinitum. The church needs deeper teaching. Scriptural preaching is for the salvation of the lost, not the spiritual growth of the believer. Our model of what "revival" is is based on the failed "great" revivals of the past. Those evangelists preached against the sin of the people without the knowledge of God, and the areas in which they occurred are spiritually dead. The people returned to their former lives within one generation. They turned to God for self-preservation from the destruction that the preacher said would come. It never came, & the hearts of the people were revealed.

True revival comes from a desire to know who God is & to learn more about Him through His Word. You want revival? Cut out the Sunday & Wednesday evening preaching services & have indepth Bible studies that are open to discussion. Start feeding the people from the meat of the Word instead of the curdled milk of denominational tradition & doctrines. Quit emotionally manipulating believers down the aisle with guilt-driven sermons & calling it "conviction". The Holy Spirit of the Bible does not need a human mouthpiece to convict His people of our sins. This is the true sad condition of many Baptist churches. Too many have believed the lie that spiritual growth, what some call revival, is not found in the walls of a religious temple, but in the honest study of Scripture & its application to our lives.