A Sermon for Today

[Book of Jeremiah]

Sermon for 4/1/2015
A Most Inoffensive god
by Michael Boldea Jr.

Hand of Help Ministries

A god who does not condemn one’s sinful nature is not the God of Scripture. A god who does not insist upon a standard, some plumb line to which he must hold those who purport to serve and worship him is not the God of the Bible.

The god of many today is a most inoffensive god, a god who is permissive of any and all things, a god that eerily resembles the self, because there is no more permissive a god than the god of self.

The one true God is offensive to man’s sinful nature. Man’s sinful nature bristles, rebels, and rejects the one true God because He demands a mortification of said sinful nature, a doing away and parting of ways with what the flesh once enjoyed and reveled in.

The modern day church jumped the rails when it stopped preaching repentance, and it has been hurtling towards a shattering impact ever since. Because we now preach self rather than Christ, because we now preach personal growth rather than spiritual growth, because our focus is squarely set upon the things of this earth, we are as toothless lions, something for strangers to look at and try to imagine in their prime. We pose no real threat to the enemy, we pose no real danger to the darkness, but we’re fun to look at and make light of once in a while.

Righteousness has ceased being our banner, obedience has stopped being our goal, and as such we have become the devil’s footstool and a punchline for perverts and pederasts. The lunacy of our self-destructiveness will be a tale told for as long as the world turns, because no generation has wasted more potential, and been altogether more ineffective as pertains to the kingdom of God than this present generation.

We have ways and means to reach the world in a heartbeat, we have ways and means of getting the message of the cross to billions of souls, and instead we elevate men who can barely string two words together because one of those words happens to be prosperity.

Instead of charging the gates of hell, we’re peaking over the wall hoping to see something memorable, enamored with the idea that someone from the other side may throw us a glance.

We’re climbing all over ourselves to call any has been musician or never was actor an honorary Christian simply for speaking the name Jesus in passing, as though their mention of Him validates Him in any way.

What wonderful news: the lead singer of the Idiot Savants said Jesus was a cool cat! Now I can die happy.

We’ve bought into the cultural relevance lie, and though it has proven itself ineffectual time and again we’re still trying to find people to validate the King of Kings, thereby hoping that some will be drawn to Him and begin to worship Him.

It’s not the power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit the church needs, it’s someone with enough star power, someone truly famous to give Jesus the thumbs up. Once that happens, boy, look out, you’ll have them stampeding the altars, and fighting over who gets dunked first in the baptismal.

If it were not so tragic it would be comical to an extent.

We have betrayed our principles, abandoned our dignity, and sold out our Savior all for the hope that some ignoramus on some reality show will give Jesus the nod, even though he doesn’t subscribe to all that morality stuff, but just thinks it would have been cool to have a beer with Him.

The ‘sin no more part’ has been conveniently left out of ‘go and sin no more’ because it might offend the sensibilities of some hedonist or another, and we don’t want to exclude anyone from our big tent approach to God.

All that stuff about the way being narrow and those who find it being few must have been a mistranslation, and so we’re filling heaven to the rafters with men and women whose garments are soiled and muddied, waiting for the wedding feast, not bothering to acknowledge the reality that once the King arrives and finds them without the proper wedding attire they will be bound and cast into the darkness where there is but weeping and gnashing of teeth.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Sermon for Today 6/2/2015

Strong Faith
By Mrs. Charles Cowman

Streams in the Desert Daily Devotional Charles Cowman Christian Bible Devotions


Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.” Without being weak in faith, he considered his own body as dead (because he was about one hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. — Rom 4:18-19

We shall never forget a remark that George Mueller once made to a gentleman who had asked him the best way to have strong faith.

“The only way,” replied the patriarch of faith, “to learn strong faith is to endure great trials. I have learned my faith by standing firm amid severe testings.” This is very true. The time to trust is when all else fails.

Dear one, you scarcely realize the value of your present opportunity; if you are passing through great afflictions you are in the very soul of the strongest faith, and if you will only let go, He will teach you in these hours the mightiest hold upon His throne which you can ever know.

“Be not afraid, only believe.” And if you are afraid, just look up and say, “What time I am afraid I will trust in thee,” and you will yet thank God for the school of sorrow which was to you the school of faith.
--A. B. Simpson

“Great faith must have great trials.”

“God’s greatest gifts come through travail. Whether we look into the spiritual or temporal sphere, can we discover anything, any great reform, any beneficent discovery, any soul-awakening revival, which did not come through the toils and tears, the vigils and blood-shedding of men and women whose sufferings were the pangs of its birth? If the temple of God is raised, David must bear sore afflictions; if the Gospel of the grace of God is to be disentangled from Jewish tradition, Paul’s life must be one long agony.”

“Take heart, O weary, burdened one, bowed down
Beneath thy cross;
Remember that thy greatest gain may come
Through greatest loss.
Thy life is nobler for a sacrifice,
And more divine.
Acres of bloom are crushed to make a drop
Of perfume fine.

“Because of storms that lash the ocean waves,
The waters there
Keep purer than if the heavens o’erhead
Were always fair.
The brightest banner of the skies floats not
At noonday warm;
The rainbow traileth after thunder-clouds,
And after storm.”

 

[Capstone]

[. . .]By Mrs. Charles Cowman...[emphasis Capstone's]

End of sermon!

For it is written:

1 Timothy 2:11-12 (NASB)
11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (NASB)
34 The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says.35 If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is [a]improper for a woman to speak in church.

Please, stop trying to lead the flock astray with your womanly wiles, Jeri!

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

[. . .]By Mrs. Charles Cowman...[emphasis Capstone's]

End of sermon!

For it is written:

1 Timothy 2:11-12 (NASB)
11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (NASB)
34 The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says.35 If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is [a]improper for a woman to speak in church.

Please, stop trying to lead the flock astray with your womanly wiles, Jeri!

We are not in a church, Capstone. I'm glad to see you looking at the sermons tonight though. It's wonderful to see you on this thread, you know. By the way, do you recall this scripture?

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

That's me! I'm seated in heavenly places tonight. In Christ. Looking towards the day that you are too. I mean that with all sincerity.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Sermon for today 6/4/2015


A.B. Simpson Devotional - Days of Heaven Upon Earth - Devotional for June 6.
By A.B. Simpson

"He emptied Himself" (Phil. ii. 8, R. V.).

The first step to the righteousness of the kingdom is "poor in spirit." Then the next is a little deeper, "they that mourn." Because now you must get plastic, you must get broken, you must get like the metal in the fire, which the Master can mould; and so, it is not enough to see your unrighteousness, but deeply to feel it, deeply to regret it, deeply to mourn over it, to own it not a little thing that sin has come into your life.

And so God leads a soul unto His righteousness. He usually leads it through some testings and trials. This generally comes after conversion. I do not think it necessary for a soul to have deep and great suffering before it is saved.

I think He will put it into the fire when He knows it is saved; when it realizes it is accepted; when it is not afraid of the discipline; when it is not the hand of wrath, but the hand of love. Oh, then, God, takes you down and makes you poor in spirit, and makes you mourn until you get to the third step, which is to be meek, broken, yielded, submissive, willing, surrendered, and laid low at His feet, crying: "What wilt Thou have me to do?"

 

[OZman]