Apr-12-Of Preaching & Pulpit Monkeys

Dream Word – FOOD

1 Corinthians 1:21-24
For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. KJV

Of Preaching & Pulpit Monkeys

I am what was once referred to a ‘Literate.’ That is, I am an ordained person not bearing a University degree. I would like a degree, a couple maybe but ah no matter, I must confess, I do love being a “literate”. T’is enough.

I regard myself as someone rooted in literacy, in all kinds of words and in The Word in particular and I am daft enough to believe, that even in this Post modern age, even in what some have referred to as a visualized Post Evangelical age, that the proclamation of the Word of God still stands tallest as the primary means of communicating the gospel. I believe in the verbal proclamation of the gospel, one voice to another’s ears; one soul speaking through the connected eyes of another, from his heart to their heart. I believe this is God’s chosen way of communicating the Gospel and though it might be foolishness, it works. The only reason it has not seemingly been working and the main reason we have replaced it most thoroughly with anaemic video clips, cosseted in the pale blanket of wet worship, is that we have hired ourselves a multitude of pulpit monkeys, who, void of any anointing, never the less bear a reputable degree, manage well and communicate inoffensively better. For sure, such monkeys are cute to have around at first, performing great tricks even, but in the end, who wants to listen to a pulpit monkey chattering on about nothing. The soul turns sour and dies under the pathetic ministry of such chattering monkeys. Yes, I wish with all my heart that we had men in our pulpits instead of monkeys, for what we have is just not enough.

In his book, ‘Lectures to My Students’, when talking about ‘God’s Acres,’ those open air arenas of proclamation and the great men of the past who made them their pulpits, Spurgeon makes mention of the Scots divine, Holy George Wishart. It is Wishart’s disciple, John Knox, who tells us that being denied access to most churches, that Wishart preached the length and breadth of Scotland in the open air. Indeed, on one occasion he went to the plague city of Dundee, choosing his platform of proclamation to be the entrance of the east gate, where taking Psalm 107:20 as his text, he preached to the infected outside the city gate and the black death free within. Spurgeon says “Seldom has a preacher had such an audience and seldom an audience had such a preacher......Old time stood at the preachers side with a scythe, saying with a hoarse voice, ‘work while it is today for at night I will mow thee down.’ There, too, stood grim death hard by the pulpit, with his sharp arrows saying, ‘Do thou shoot God’s arrows and I will shoot mine.’ This is indeed,” says Spurgeon, “a notable instance of preaching out of doors.” You’d better believe it!

Wishart escaped an assassination attempt at Dundee, but his old enemy Cardinal Beaton had him handed over to him by the Earl of Bothwell. Wishart was tried as an heretic, convicted and burned at the stake outside the walls of Edinburgh castle. On the morning of his execution the Captain of the castle invited Wishart to breakfast and gave him both food and gunpowder bags to put under his clothing. At the burning, his executioner knelt and begged for Wishart’s forgiveness, which he most readily gave. The fire did indeed eventually explode the gunpowder bags but they didn’t kill him straight away. From his window, Cardinal Beaton watched Wishart’s dying agonies.

Yes, you can buy yourself a pulpit monkey anytime you like. Ah, but men who carry the gunpowder of the Holy Spirit, underneath their anointed and holy garments, men that pack power in their words, and shoot arrows from their mouth, men who stand with time and death by their sides, men who truly believe and practice the foolishness of preaching, my God, men like that are worth their weight in gold! However, they cannot be bought. Think about that.

Some of you tonight are called to set your pulpits in the open air once more. Make sure your a literate in the Word, make sure your packed with the gunpowder of the Holy Spirit.

Some of you tonight need to stop monkeying around and repent. Yes, some of you, for goodness sake, need to start being men in your pulpits and not a monkeys.

Some of you Church goers tonight need to check your larders and I tell you, if all you have accumulated over the years are bunches of bright yellow bananas, then some of you need to simply stop going to the local zoo, because I tell you, that’s what your local church has turned into.

Apr-10-The Blair Which?

Well it's good Friday. Nothing new there then for most people in Britain thank God it's Friday every week of the year. It's nearly Easter annd Hussein Obama is back from Turkey declaring that America is not a Christian nation. Yes it's Easter abd Tony Blair reveals he actually read the Koran almost evey day. It's Easter and the Archbishop who suggested we have Sharia Law in England will be celebrating bunny rabbits. After all, I'm not sure if he beleives in the resurection.

Happy Easter everyone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7992738.stm

Tony Blair has spoken to the BBC about his first spiritual experience, which occurred when he was a child.

The ex-prime minister said that praying for his atheist father when he became seriously ill had "a tremendous impact" on him.

Elsewhere in the interview with Joan Bakewell, Mr Blair defended the decision to invade Iraq, and insisted that faith schools are not divisive.

He also said that he reads the Koran nearly every day.


Blair converted to Catholicism after leaving office

In the interview, to be broadcast in the "Belief" programme on BBC Radio 3, Mr Blair reveals that when he was 10 years old his father had a stroke.

Despite the seriousness of that illness, his mother wanted her son's life to carry on as normal, so he continued to go to school, where he ended up praying for his father with the headmaster.

"I said to him 'Before we pray, I should tell you that my father, he doesn't believe in God.

"And I always remember the headmaster saying to me 'Well, that doesn't matter because God believes in him'".

He described the experience as having a "tremendous impact" on him.

Terrorist responsibility

Mr Blair also spoke about the role of faith schools in the state sector.

During his time as prime minister, the academy schools programme was launched.

He believes that expanding faith school provision helped to foster inter-faith relations, adding that a question of equality was involved.

I certainly don't believe that there is a Christian conviction that is superior one way or another on what the right thing to do is

Tony Blair

"You can't say to Christians and to Jews that you can have a faith school but Muslims can't".

"I think they can help give a sense of values, they can ground a child, they can instil a certain amount of discipline, in the right way, in a child's mind, provided that they approach religion in a non-sectarian way."

Blair's family on his mother's side were Irish Protestants, which he suggested gave him a personal connection with Ireland.

His grandfather was a grand master of an Orange Order lodge, a fact that he jokingly suggested may have helped in the Northern Ireland peace process.

"Every so often some guy who would say he was a cousin of mine would sort of wander up and say 'You don't know me, but we're related'".

On the issue of Iraq, Mr Blair insisted that Britain went to war for the right reasons, and that a previous policy of appeasement towards Saddam Hussein in the 1980s had led to the Iran-Iraq war and a million casualties.

Everyday reflections

He denied thinking that his Christian beliefs meant that he considered his decisions at the time of the invasion to be automatically the right thing to do.


"I certainly don't believe that there is a Christian conviction that is superior one way or another on what the right thing to do is."

He said the decision to invade Iraq was something he reflected on every day.

Mr Blair added that his religious beliefs help him - accepting that there is a God can be frightening but it is also a source of comfort.

He also spoke about the motivations of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rejected arguments that British foreign policy has radicalised Muslims.

"I think actually these acts of terrorism are utterly evil, yes. And when you think of the numbers of wholly innocent people that have died... I say the responsibility lies with the people doing the terrorism, 'cos there's no reason for them to do the terrorism."

Belief is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 10 Friday April at 2300 BST.

Apr-08-Magnificent Mohler on the Islamic Culture Clash

President Barack Obama has put the issue of Islam front and center on the international stage. His visit to Turkey, and his very public statements to the Muslim world, have raised a host of questions at home and abroad.

In his speech to the Turkish parliament on Monday, President Obama declared: "The United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam." He went on to say that "our partnership with the Muslim world is critical not just in rolling back the violent ideologies that people of all faiths reject, but also to strengthen opportunity for all its people."

But the President also spoke of his "deep appreciation for the Islamic faith." Here is the statement in context:

I also want to be clear that America's relationship with the Muslim community, the Muslim world, cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstandings, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world -- including in my own country. The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them.

At a press conference in Turkey, the President made yet another statement:

"One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."

On CNN with host Roland Martin on Monday night, I said this:

"I think President Obama rightly said that the United States is not at war with Islam. I think that's a very helpful clarification. But you can't take Islam out of the whole civilizational struggle we are in, not only in the war on terror, but, frankly, going back for centuries, coming up with a definition of what a good civilization would look like and how a society ought to be arranged."

I do think that President Obama was correct in stating that the United States is not at war with Islam. This is not only important in terms of international diplomacy, but also in terms of constitutional authority. The government of United States has no right or authority to declare war on any religion.

We can understand the political context, especially as the President was in Turkey. Given the confusions rampant in the Muslim world, that is a crucial clarification. Of course, a quick review of the statements of President George W. Bush will reveal that he said much the same thing, over and over again.

The fact that President Obama made these comments in Turkey is very important. Throughout the Muslim world, most Muslims do see the United States as, in effect, at war with Islam. Classical Islam understands no real distinction between religion and the state, but instead establishes a unitary society. Thus, when a foreign power like the United States invades a Muslim nation like Iraq, most Muslims see this as a war against Islam.

While specific forms of government vary in the Islamic world, this general understanding holds true. Unlike New Testament Christianity, Islam is essentially a territorial religion including all lands under submission to the rule of the Qur'an. The President was in Turkey when he made these statements, and Turkey is usually defined in the media as having a secular government. Indeed, the Turkish constitution even requires a secular government. But, as anyone who has visited Turkey knows, this requires a very unusual definition of what it means to be secular.

Being Muslim is part of what the Turkish people and government call "Turkishness," a unifying concept that goes all the way back to Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Offending "Turkishness" is a criminal act in Turkey. The Turkish government is the steward of every one of the seemingly countless mosques within the nation and it pays the imams. Thus, Turkey is a Muslim nation with a secular government, but its secular character would not be seen as anything close to secular on an American model.

In this light, President Obama's statement that America is not a Christian country is also both accurate and helpful, though he is being criticized by many conservative Christians for making the claim. His clarification, offered in Muslim Turkey, establishes as a matter of public fact the reality that our American constitutional system is very different from what is found in the Muslim world -- and even in Turkey itself.

Furthermore, if the United States is to be understood as a Christian nation in the same sense that most nations in the Islamic world consider themselves to be Muslim nations, then America is at war with Islam.

The controversy over the President's remarks in this context are misplaced. There is indeed a controversy over whether it is appropriate to call America a Christian nation in the sense that Americans would even make such a claim -- but the context in Turkey and the Muslim world is very different. Do American Christians really believe that Christianity benefits by being associated with all that America represents in the Muslim world? To many Muslims, America appears as the great fountain of pornography, debased entertainments, abortion, and sexual revolution. Does it help our witness to Christ that all this would be associated in the Muslim mind with "Christian" America?

Beyond any historical doubt, the United States was established by founders whose worldview was shaped, in most cases quite self-consciously, by the Christian faith. The founding principles of this nation flow from a biblical logic and have been sustained by the fact that most Americans have considered themselves to be Christians and have operated out of a basically Christian frame of moral reference. America is a nation whose citizens are overwhelmingly identified as Christians and the American experiment is inconceivable without the foundation established by Christian moral assumptions.

But America is not, by definition, a Christian nation in any helpful sense. The secularists and enemies of the faith make this argument for any number of hostile and antagonistic reasons, and they offer many false arguments as well. But this should not prompt American Christian to make bad arguments of our own.

I criticize President Obama, not for stating that America is not at war with Islam, but for failing to be honest in clarifying that we do face a great civilizational challenge in Islam. Islam is, in effect, the single most vital competitor to Western ideals of civilization on the world scene. The logic of Islam is to bring every square inch of this planet under submission to the rule of the Qur'an. Classical Islam divides the world into the "World of Islam" and the "World of War." In this latter world the struggle to bring the society under submission to the Qur'an is still ongoing.

President Obama also created his own confusion over these issues, subverting his own main point. If America is not at war with Islam, it would seem unhelpful for the Obama administration to now refer, against previous American practice, to Iran as "The Islamic Republic of Iran." Similarly, some of his words and gestures during his trip seemed overly indulgent toward Islam -- especially as these words and gestures would have been interpreted in the larger Islamic world.

This ambition drives the Muslim world -- and each faithful Muslim -- to hope, pray, and work for the submission of the whole world to the Qur'an. Clearly, most Muslims are not willing to employ terrorism in order to achieve this goal. Nevertheless, it remains the goal.

Islam and the West offer two very different and fundamentally irreconcilable visions of society. While we are certainly not a nation at war with Islam, we are a nation that faces a huge challenge from the Islamic world -- a challenge that includes terrorism, but also a much larger civilizational ambition that remains central. Anyone standing in Istanbul, the historic seat of Ottoman power, should certainly recognize that fact.

As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and a minister of the Gospel, my primary concern about Islam is not civilizational or geopolitical, but theological. I believe that Jesus Christ is indeed, "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and that no one comes to the Father but by Him [John 14:6]. Salvation is found only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of Christ is the only message that saves.

I can agree with President Obama that Islam has produced cultural wonders, but I have to see it more fundamentally as a belief system that is taking millions upon millions of persons spiritually captive -- leaving them under the curse of sin and without hope of salvation.

For Christians, regardless of nationality, this is the great challenge that should be our urgent concern. Our concern is not mainly political, but theological and spiritual. And, all things considered, Islam almost surely represents the greatest challenge to Christian evangelism of our times.

The Challenge of Islam -- A Christian Perspective
Posted: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 at 4:20 am ET
http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php

Apr-08-No More Neutered Males in Our Pulpits Please.

Deuteronomy 23:1
"He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the Lord. NKJV

Served With Sago

They disembarked the ship at ‘Risk Point’ on the River Fly and were invited by the fierce Tribesmen into their longhouse for a meal. Little did they know that they were in fact the main ingredient of that meal. In just a few moments the stone clubs smashed into the back of their heads and then just as quickly, a bone dagger was thrust downwards into their gullets and their heads immediately sawn off their bodies with a bamboo knife. The headless corpses were then given to the women of the tribe, the flesh of which was removed and then cooked and mixed with sago, which in turn, was consumed with gladness that very day. It was via this most terrible route, that the younger missionary, Oliver Tomkins and the sixty year old walking legend of Rev. James Chalmers (Tamate, the Great Heart of Papua New Guinea,) entered into heaven.

Chalmers was known as 'Tamate,' simply because the Tribes people he took the Gospel to, could not pronounce his real name. Tamate stuck! Indeed, he stuck with his task and duty for over twenty years without taking a furlough, lost two wives to exhaustion and sickness, was shipwrecked at least four times and was in constant danger every other day and twice on Sundays! He was a sold out, eccentric man of God, a man’s man of genuine loveable character, making friends and followers ranging from Robert Louise Stevenson to even ‘Bully’ Hayes, that most infamous 6 foot 4 inched, 4 foot round barrel chested pirate from Ohio! There is no time tonight to tell you of his deeds amongst the fierce, live nose biting, eating, battling cannibals, which he came to take the Gospel to. Men like him would find no place in the churches of today. Indeed I wonder if their spirit if now placed among us, would most naturally turn to arson and burn our buildings down around our girly heads? Ladies please, no offence intended.

Whenever I read of brethren of this stature, for what mighty warriors were both they and their dear Deborahs’, I am struck by two things.

First of course is their daring, their dedication to duty and their utter death to themselves. The stories of these heroes of the faith need to be reintroduced to our young people of today, who God help us, are more familiar with the current Californian, white teeth teenaged idol, than any of these real giants. We are breeding pussy cats dear friends, pussy cats instead of lions, and when these cosseted little kittens finally do get older, all they will do is pea on their parents, eat processed salmon from a can and become incontinent on our carpet. At least they can sing a good song and play a mean guitar, I mean that’s got to count for something? The Christian education of our children needs some meat injecting into it that’s for sure!

Secondly, the brutal method of their departure is so contrary to the very false promises which is so much spouted lately from our pulpits by Pastoral pussy cats wearing velvet collars with dangling silver bells. It seems to me, God help us, that these pussy cat silver balls are the only dangly bits that will ever be let near the testosterone free areas of our pulpits. Don’t you know that neutered males can NEVER enter the service of God! Yet there they are and friends, they can do nothing but lie to their congregations because they have already lied to themselves and sold themselves to softness!

Am I mad? Or is it really the Parididdle of the Paraclete I hear, as Drake’s drum beats once more? Or is it just my simple, wishful thinking, my desperate personal longing, to hear the roar of lions in our land once more?

Apr-06-My Favourite African American

Mr Keyes came to speak at a Pro-Life fundraiser I attended in South Florida- Excellent--

Apr-03-The Churches BIG UGLY HEAD

Dream Word – HUMBLE

Galatians 2:9-10
and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do. NKJV

The Bones Of The Elephant Man

Someone commented regarding God, that ‘The Invisible God is sat on a cloud somewhere, looking at people who break His ten commandments and then on their sad demise, will throw them into a molten and ever burning hell forever and forever for doing so! BUT He loves you! Yes He loves you and He needs your money. He always needs money! He is all powerful and all perfect and all knowing and all wise, but somehow, He can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars every year and they pay no taxes and yet, they always need a little more.’ This, many people have commented, ‘Is nothing but male bovine manure’ and frankly, I would agree.

I do not want to deal with the gross contextual inaccuracies of the first part of that statement, as it simply points out the two glaring facts of the twentieth century, those being, that post modern man does not know the God of the Bible and most Christians find the full revelation of God in the Bible, to be rather troubling, so much so, they don’t really like Him either and much prefer the watered down version presented by pale and slick preachers, sliding them slippery-elm like words, from behind not so pure, Perspex pulpits. No, it is the latter part of that opening statement that I would like to look at tonight, which says that ‘God needs money.’

Religion has always been a multi-million dollar industry and even when the leaders are not stealing all the cream, then churches of the day always present their folks with a vision budget, the top three line items reflecting the Old Testament Temple requirements (in this order usually) of monies for personnel, monies for premises and monies for programmes. Local churches meeting in buildings with paid staff and programs to get and keep the pew punters in there, will always be asking for money. So what do you do? What do you have to do? Well, ask! That’s what I say! Lay out your plans and get the funding, ask! But please, stop telling people it’s God that needs the money! That’s just male bovine manure.

I have been to too many vision casting meetings, building drive meetings, dream casting meetings, end of year, beginning of year meetings all which in the end have focused on money and frankly I have to tell you friends that the most important item of local mission, foreign missions and money for them, have never been on the top three line items. Mission giving is there mind you, it makes an appearance, kind of, maybe, sometimes, but hey, charity begins at home and most of us have very costly local home churches.

Today I returned from the residing place of the bones of the elephant man, the Royal London Hospital. A light, set in the continued dark area of White Chapel area of continual immigrant turnover.Over the years it has seen French Heugenots, Irish and then Jewish immigrants and now Bengali Muslims. Indeed, the 4000 seat East London Mosque also now resides in this area. There is no connection to this, but even Jack the ripper did his dirty work around these prostitute ridden and continually gospel darkened streets. I was visiting my brother who has a ministry right there amongst the sick of every kind. It seemed every can carrying junkie with the saddest story in the world to tell you, seemed to know him and to respect him. One of his many friends was an old Jamaican Christian lady, who armed only with an old collapsible table upon which she laid out her old second hand bibles, for several years now, had been preaching the word to Muslims. She has had her table over turned many times and had indeed, feared for her life on more than one occasion. Still she continues on, right there in London’s Yashmacaddam streets. Welcome to England.

The only monies these two ministries have are what the two good servants bring to it. They ask for none, but simply in the most spiritually hardest and darkest places of this old girl of a city, spread what goodness and light they can. Frankly, I am not sure you could pay me enough to do either ministry! Yet, these two ministries are more intriguing than even the bones of the elephant man, still kept in the Royal London Hospital, who by the way, because the great size of his head, crushed and closed his own wind pipe, when he laid himself down to a suicidal sleep aged just twenty eight years.

As long as the church continues to serve itself, and in doing so perpetually prattles on about money, money, money, in both the name and need of God, it shall always lay itself open to such terrible criticisms like those contained in my opening paragraph. As long as my brother, my black warrior sister and people of their like, shall walk the streets of Whitechapel in both simple truth and unpaid goodness, such criticism will always be confounded!

I have no idea of specific times but friends, the grotesque largess of our Laodicean church diseased head, laced with the grey lice of all creeping compromise, has been finally laid down on the bed of doomed destiny. Unless we are revived, then I reckon we too have but twenty eight years before our crushed windpipe shall remove the life totally from the lungs of our lost land.

Listen: -If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 NKJV