Joel Osteen’s Hope

Sean Lucas offers some reflections after watching Joel Osteen. (HT:TA)

Inward, Then Outward

I am one of those who still believe that the key to the present situation is the individual local church. It is possible for a revival, if we are waiting and praying for it, to start at any moment. Before we think about planning and organizing in order to reach the outsider, let us concentrate upon our own churchs. Are our own churches alive? Are our people real Christians? Are they such that in their contacts with others they are likely to win them for Christ and to awaken in their hearts a desire for spiritual things? That would be my own word to you to-day; that instead of spreading outward, we should concentrate inward and deepen and deepen and deepen our own spiritual life, until men here and there get to the place where God can use them as leaders of the great awakening which will spread through the churches and through the land.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981, pp. 78-79.

Online Resource - True Spirituality: The Transforming Power of the Gospel

I strongly recommend this article to you by Steve Childers (president and CEO of Global Church Advancement). Let me know what you think.

Piper - How Important is Church Membership?

Here’s a link to the transcript from this recent sermon.

Characteristics of True Revival

Curious to hear your thoughts on this selection from Iain Murray:

In true revival, conviction of sin, sometimes amounting to agony of guilt, is widespread, and in the case of those who are finally brought to salvation no human endeavours can unloose them from their sense of bondage. A God-given persuasion of being lost and condemned can only be removed by ‘the Spirit of adoption’ who follows his first work of conviction with the assurance that sin is forgiven. The man who has truly felt his sin will not be prepared to stop short of a conscious persuasion of his salvation, and when he has that assurance the height of his jubilation may correspond to the depth from which he sees himself to have been delivered.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years 1899-1939, p. 217.

Sermon text for July 20th - Proverbs 16:32

Topic this week is anger.

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

Click here for the sermon audio.

The Problem With Present-day Preaching

I’ve been reading Iain Murray’s two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd Jones and have already been greatly challenged. The quote I’m sharing with you today was a response by MLJ to the complaint that ‘Present-day preaching does not save men, the churches are not getting converts’:

‘there is something even worse than that about the situation as I see it, and that is that present-day preaching does not even annoy men, but leaves them precisely where they were, without a ruffle and without the slightest disturbance….The church is regarded as a sort of dispensary where drugs and soothing mixtures are distributed and in which everyone should be eased and comforted. And the one theme of the church must be “the love of God”. Anyone who happens to break these rules and who produces disturbing effect upon members of his congregation is regarded as an objectionable person….’

[...]

‘If ever anyone knew the love of God, if ever “the love of God” was preached and understood by anyone, that one was Jesus Christ. Yet what was the effect He produced upon His congregations? Did all go home from the service smiling and happy, and feeling very self-satisfied and complacent? Was His perfect ministry one in which no one was offended and at which no one took umbrage? Do His services suggest the type so popular today - the building with “the dim religious light” where nice hymns are sung, nice prayers are offered, and a fine and cultured “short” address is delivered? Look to the pages of the New Testament and see the answer.’

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years 1899-1939, p. 207.

Sermon text for July 13th - Proverbs 18:21

This week we’re going to study what Proverbs teaches about the mouth and how we use words.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Click here for sermon audio.

Free Audio @ the New Gospel Coalition Website

Check it out. Among the listed speakers are Alistair Begg, Mark Driscoll, Mark Dever, Tim Keller, John Piper and D. A. Carson.

Summer Fellowship @ Lake Padden Begins!

On behalf of our church, I’d like to invite you all to drop by Lake Padden on Wednesday nights throughout the summer as we BBQ, play, sing, and do other fellowship-y kinds of things. You won’t regret it. The grill gets fired up at 6:00 pm.

Click here for a map.