Sermons and Biblical Studies

What is the present condition of the evangelical church? The bulk of Christians are asleep.… The present condition is that we are asleep. These sleeping Christians do two things that God must grieve over. One is that they control church affairs. We are democratic, and if we do not like a pastor we give him … Continue reading “CHURCH:
APATHY; CHURCH: SPIRITUAL CONDITION; NEW BELIEVER”

Let me show you the progressive stages. I begin with what I will call the rote. This is repetition without feeling.… We repeat without feeling, we repeat without meaning, we sing without wonder, and we listen without surprise. That is my description of the rote. We go one step further and come to what I … Continue reading “CHURCH:
APATHY; CHURCH: SPIRITUAL CONDITION”

The church, generally speaking, is afflicted with a dread, lingering illness that shows itself daily in the apathy and spiritual paralysis of its members. How can it be otherwise when 20th-century Christians refuse to acknowledge the sharp moral antithesis that God Himself has set between the church, as the body of Christ, and this present … Continue reading “CHURCH:
APATHY; CHURCH: SEPARATION; WORLDLINESS”

Were some watcher or holy one from the bright world above to come among us for a time with the power to diagnose the spiritual ills of church people, there is one entry which I am quite sure would appear on the vast majority of his reports: Definite evidence of chronic spiritual lassitude; level of … Continue reading “CHURCH:
APATHY; CHURCH: ACTIVITIES”

Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The … Continue reading “CHURCH:
ACTIVITIES; WORSHIP: MEANINGLESS; KNOWLEDGE OF GOD: CHURCH’S NEED; SIMPLICITY”

In an effort to get the work of the Lord done we often lose contact with the Lord of the work and quite literally wear our people out as well. I have heard more than one pastor boast that his church was a “live” one, pointing to the printed calender as a proof—something on every … Continue reading “CHURCH:
ACTIVITIES; ACTIVITY: RELIGIOUS; BUSYNESS”

Every activity now being carried on in the name of Christ must meet the last supreme test: Does it have biblical authority back of it? Is it according to the letter and the spirit of the Scripture? Is its spiritual content divinely given? That it succeeds proves nothing. That it is popular proves less. Where … Continue reading “CHURCH:
ACTIVITIES”

In these latter-years of the twentieth century no other season of the year reveals so much religion and so little godliness as the Christmas season.… How far have we come in the corruption of our tastes from the reverence of the simple shepherds, the chant of the angels and the beauty of the heavenly host! … Continue reading “CHRISTMAS:
WORLDLY CELEBRATION”

So completely are we carried away by the excitement of this midwinter festival that we are apt to forget that its romantic appeal is the least significant thing about it. The theology of Christmas too easily gets lost under the gay wrappings, yet apart from the theological meaning it really has none at all. A … Continue reading “CHRISTMAS:
TRUE MEANING”

By the intellectual, I mean we should think the way Jesus Christ thinks; that we should think scripturally, that we should see things the way the Lord Jesus sees them, that we should learn to feel the way the Lord Jesus feels about anything or anybody, that we should love what He loves and hate … Continue reading “CHRISTLIKE
THINKING; SIN: HATRED OF”