The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Love the Church?

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<font size="4">C.H. Spurgeon said</font>
LOVE THE CHURCH


'Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for
the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. For
thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor
the dust thereof. ' -Psalm 102:13-14


YES, our prayers for the church will be heard. The set time is come. We love the prayer meeting, and the Sunday-school, and all the services of the Lord's house. We are bound in heart to all the people of God and can truly say,

'There's not a lamb in all thy flock
I would disdain to feed;
There's not a foe before whose face
I'd fear thy cause to plead.'

If this is the general feeling, we shall soon enjoy times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Our assemblies will be filled, saints will be revived, and sinners will be converted. This can only come of the Lord's mercy; but it will come, and we are called upon to expect it. The time, the set time, is come. Let us bestir ourselves. Let us love every stone of our Zion, even though it may be fallen down. Let us treasure up the least truth, the least ordinance, the least believer, even though some may despise them as only so much dust. When we favour Zion, God is about to favour her. When we take pleasure in the Lord's work, the Lord Himself will take pleasure in it.[/color]

A invited preacher? recently visited our church and preached two sermons on the sluggard without ever mentioning the Lord Jesus Christ or His finished work. How can I love a church that allows that?

Whether this guest preacher was correct or not in not mentioning the Lord Christ in his sermons, I'll let you decide. However, your question does evoke another one which I should ask you.

The inspired book of Esther makes no mention of Christ, nor even does the name of God appear anywhere in its entirety. Must I then have no love for it? Is this book of no use to me? Just curious. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

In His Grace,

It's not about ME

Yankee,

I agree <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/BigThumbUp.gif" alt="" /> and I sometimes wonder if it's only me. A sermon preached without the Gospel may be found each day on the evening news by Dan Rather look-a-likes or in a Morman or Moslem temple. Hang in there!

Denny

Roms 3:22-24

Sorry brother, but you lost me on this one. What isn't about you? And what IS this all about anyway? I'm not following here. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/stupidme.gif" alt="" />

Oh, and what about my question concerning the book of Esther?

Sorry, I wasn't very explicate. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/bash.gif" alt="" /> of coarse Esther is of use to ME for "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" 2Ti 3:16 even if there is no mention of God. However if it is preached (Esther) from the pulpit God must be in the sermon or it is not true preaching that's all.

Couldn't agree more! God is the "canvas" upon which the book of Esther is painted. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

What I object to is the typical "Fundy" idea that each and every sermon must end with an "altar call" or at least an appeal to repent and believe upon Christ for salvation. This is what is commonly regarded as "Gospel preaching". However, if that were true, then the Bible as God has inspired it to be written would not be what we have today. My objection(s) to this are based upon one's ignoring the fact that the Bible is inspired and thus each and every text was written for a specific purpose. A good preacher will seek to determine the purpose of the passage he is going to preach and its relevant application to his hearers. To simply turn every text into an appeal to believe Christ unto justification is dishonoring to the Spirit Who inspired that marvelous book. The worship of God is not simply singing 42 stanzas of "Just As I Am" and asking people to come forward to "receive Jesus into their hearts" (an odious statement if there ever was one).

That's my

Thank you for the hang in there. We do attend the most faithful church we could find within a reasonable distance.We also bring my mom whom we are not sure about wheather knows the Lord or not. And this month we will be bringing my step-daughter D.v. who's lost. Imagine bringing a guest to church and they don't even hear about Jesus Christ.
Can anyone refer me to a sermon of two or three hundred years ago that did not contain Christ?

Spurgeon relates this story,

Though I know his intent was honorable, this type methodology may and has lead to interpretive error ... ministers are not to force the text the text is to force them!

What I find even more astonishing today is to hear the mention of Christ and His Gospel (well at least part of it) and still not hear Christ preached! Many cannot discern the difference.

I was actually thinking the same thing as I was reading along.

Hi Yankee,

This question has somewhat been addressed before in this thread

https://www.the-highway.com/forum/showfla...prev=#Post41815

Although I agree with Pilgrim over 99% of the time, this is one of the few things I've disagreed with him about. I do agree with Pilgrim in his other posts in this thread that altar calls, 42 verses of "Just as I Am", artificially forcing Christ into the text (I apologize for my poor paraphrasing here), etc. are to be avoided. But I've never been convinced that there is not a proper way to include Christ in every sermon and stay faithful to the text at hand. I still think that I would be disappointed to not here Christ mentioned at all in a sermon.

John

John
My question is can I love a church that allows sermons to be preached that do not contain the name of God or the Lord Jesus Christ?
Sorry if I hacked up your quote to much.

Bill

Bill,

Sorry, I guess I missed your original question (even though it is the thread name). I was distracted by the turn that the conversation was taking.

It's hard to give a short answer to your question because there are so many variable involved, but I think I would say, "yes, you can still love the church." First of all, individual churches aren't perfect and even the best ones slip up. If everyone left their church the moment the pastor said something they disagreed with, I would expect that with in a month no one would be attending church at all. In your case, it was two Sundays without mentioning Christ. Although others disagree with me, I still think that Christ should be preached (not artificially, which I think is possible) in each sermon. But, two sermons do not really indicate a pattern, especially since it was a guest preacher. I've attended some really good churches in the past, and even with diligent elders/pastor, sometimes guest preachers can slip some things in that can really surprise you. If there is more to the situation you didn't mention, then it's hard to really comment. However, based on what you wrote, I would say that, although two Sundays with no mention of Christ is definitely something to take notice of and be concerned about, it's definitely not a good basis for immediately not loving that church. I would suggest that if you are really bothered about it or if it becomes a pattern that you discuss your concerns with the pastor. That may the best first course of action.

John

I don't see why not. There would be a legitimate problem, I think, if Christ's name was never mentioned or His work on the cross never acknowledged throughout the entire service on a regular basis, but I don't see why every sermon must explicitly mention Christ, and, for example, I think the story that Joe provided shows forth a grave danger in trying to explicitly connect Christ to every passage of Scripture.

Yankee,

In addition to echoing the consensus of the other posters, let me add a couple of thoughts.

It is important to evaluate the worship service in its entirety, rather than merely the sermon. One of the advantages of being in a church with weekly Lord's Supper is knowing that the essence of the Gospel will have been proclaimed in every worship service, even if faithful exposition of the sermon text, in commtiment to preaching the entire counsel of God, happens to dwell heavily on a passage of Law.

Having said that, it is also important for the Law passages to be preached in such a way that the "righteous requirements of the Law" have their full impact of producing praise for their Giver, terror for our having fallen short, and gratitude to Christ for having fulfilled them in our place. That connection is unlikely to be found in the exposition of a particular text, and should not be read into it, but it would certainly be appropriate during application or prayer, even if it does not go into a full Gospel proclamation. My pastors might close such a passage with words to the effect of "as we saw earlier in the Lord's Supper, our only hope of escaping the just condemnation befitting the sluggard is found in the grace of Your Son ..."

I may be reading into your post, but did the pastor present "the sluggard" as a "Diligence for Dummies" course, with helpful hints and the benefits of non-sluggardly behavior? If so, the real issue may be less that Christ was not explicitly mentioned than that the full force of the Law was not being faithfully proclaimed.

The trouble with those sermons is the temptation they offer to self-justification: "Glad I cut the weeds yesterday! At least I'm not like that sluggard over there!"; rather than, "God have mercy on me, miserable sluggard that I am!". The latter will have heard Christ whenever He is proclaimed--worship, prayer, readings, Lord's supper, sermon, fellowship--while the former will see no need of Him, no matter how frequently His name is mentioned.