The Driving Power of the Gospel.

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God [has] appointed a day in which He will judge the world, and we sigh and cry until it shall end the reign of wickedness, and give rest to the oppressed. Brethren, we must preach the coming of the Lord, and preach it somewhat more than we have done, because it is the driving power of the gospel. Too many have kept back these truths, and thus the bone has been taken out of the arm of the gospel. Its point has been broken; its edge has been blunted. The doctrine of judgment to come is the power by which men are to be aroused. There is another life; the Lord will come a second time; judgment will arrive; the wrath of God will be revealed. where this is not preached, I am bold to say the gospel is not preached. It is absolutely necessary to the preaching of the gospel of Christ that men be warned as to what will happen if they continue in their sins. Ho, ho, sir surgeon, you are too delicate to tell the man that he is ill! You hope to heal the sick without their knowing it. You therefore flatter them, and what happens? They laugh at you; they dance upon their own graves. At last they die! Your delicacy is cruelty; your flatteries are poisons; you are a murderer. Shall we keep men in a fool's paradise? Shall we lull them into soft slumbers from which they will awake in Hell? Are we to become helpers of their damnation by our smooth speeches? In the name of God, we will not.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92)

This is why I believe that the preaching of a Joel Olsteen is dangerous.

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Paul Washer on False Teachers.

I realize I might not make any friends with this clip, but I like it, I agree with what he says. He only mentions Joel Olsteen and Benny Hinn, but there are a ton of other false teachers that can be lined up with him. I hope you enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWMrKcFKqzk

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Project Ezra.

Yesterday, I just started to do what is known as Project Ezra. What is it, is we read the Bible, out loud in the open air, or in public, and then follow it up with a gospel presentation. Now, let me tell ya, I've done open air preaching a couple times, but doing Project Ezra makes it a lot easier. Definitely a lot easier to go from reading the Bible into presenting the Gospel, rather than trying to attract a crowd and then present the Gospel.

For those of you who have never done open air preaching before, might I suggest that you start with this. Its easy, all ya gotta do is read the Bible. You are using God's Word, not your words, and God's Word does not return void. Once you do that a couple of times, you'll soon build up enough confidence to do some open air preaching.

For more info on Project Ezra, click here.

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Know Your Weapon.

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In the military, we are introduced to our rifles. We train with them and become proficient with them. We get an intimate knowledge of this weapon, because in combat, it will save our lives. Without it, we are useless in combat. We get to know the weapon inside and out, and we a trained to be proficient using it. Their are even some people I know that can take their rifle apart and put it back together blindfolded.

For us Christians God has given us a mighty weapon. It is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God(Eph. 6: 17). In Hebrews 4:12 it is described being "sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Just like a soldier and his weapon, we should also have an intimate knowledge of our weapon, because we are in a spiritual battle with the spiritual forces of wickedness (Eph. 6:12).

Hopefully you have all picked up on the fact that this weapon, the "Word of God", is indeed our Bibles. It is very important that we learn how to use it right. Just like a military weapon, if someone uses it not knowing what they are doing, they could harm or even kill a person, spiritually. If we learn to use it rightly, it has the power to fight off wickedness, and lead people to Christ.

So I urge you, pick up your weapons, and learn to use it well. It should be as another part of you, and come naturally to you. Commit verses to memory so that you will always have your weapon with you, and never be caught unarmed. Above all, learn to use it right.

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Halloween Witnessing Tip From Trish.

This is a two minute witnessing tip from Trish Ramos at fishwithtrish.blogspot.com. Check out her blog for more tips, stories, and even some contest.


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How do you view yourself? A letter to unbelievers.

How do we view ourselves? Are we good? Our society now days seem to believe in telling everyone that they are good. After all, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But is it legit to lie to someone to avoid hurting their feelings? I am certainly not one to hurt anyone’s feelings, but lying to is not only wrong, but to do so to not hurt their feelings is just going to hurt them more in the end. Cases in point, school kids; we don’t want to hurt their feelings. We want them to have a good and high self esteem. Yet, studies show that kids with higher self esteem do more poorly academically. So I guess its fine for them to think they are good now, but when they are older, and can’t do much but flip burgers for a living, who do we blame? Another case, and a very popular one, American Idol. Seriously, it really is sad to see those people coming out of the auditions crying because Simon told them the honest truth and told them that they can’t sing. I’m not just talking about people with mediocre voices, but I mean these people can’t carry a tune in a bucket and they go to these auditions thinking they can sing because no one wanted to hurt their feelings and tell them that they can’t, and so they go to the audition and leave in a mess of tears.

What does this have to do with how you view yourself? A LOT! One of my witnessing techniques is to ask people if they would consider themselves to be a good person. I learned to do this when I became a Christian, and I am following the example of a role model of mine, Ray Comfort. The whole Idea behind it is that the Bible says that “Most men will proclaim his own goodness” (Proverbs 20:6). As a result every time I have asked someone that question, they always give me a response indicating that they are indeed a good person. Even if I were to ask if mankind is inherently good or evil most people will say good. But are we really? In Jeremiah 17:9 it says that “the heart of man is deceitfully wicked; who can know it?” All throughout the Bible there is nothing that indicates hat man is good. Jesus Himself even said “There is none good except God.” (Mark 10:18)

So who is right on this issue? Is it God or is it mankind? I will always stand with God. Reason being… The standards of which we use to define good. A person’s standards can change from one person to the next, and even an individual’s own standard can change due to life experiences and maybe even to justify their own sinful habits. God’s standards, on the other hand, never change. They were written in stone. They are The 10 Commandments. It is the standard that of which He will judge the world by on Judgment Day.

How are you going to do on that day? Have you kept the commandments in thought, word and deed? God can see our thought life and even that will come out as a testimony against us on Judgment Day. Have you ever lied, or ever stolen anything, or even desired something that wasn’t yours? Jesus said that if you look at someone with lust you are an adulterer at heart and if you hate someone without cause then you area murderer at heart. Have you ever done those? Have you ever used God’s name in vain, taking the name of the one who gave us life and used it as a 4 letter filth word to express disgust? How about the Sabbath day, have you kept it holy? Have you always honored your parents? And what about God, who gave you life, have you always loved Him above all else?

If you have broken any of those then you are in danger of going to Hell, because you will be found guilty on that day. You might say “My God would never send anyone to Hell!” Well, I’d agree with you, you are right. Your God wouldn’t send anyone to Hell, because he couldn’t. Because He doesn’t exist, and in believing so you would have violated the 2nd commandment by making a God to suit yourself. So what are you going to do on that day, what are you going to say? What can you say? The answer is nothing because by then it would be too late.

But until that day comes there is hope. There is good news. God loves us so much that He sent His son Jesus (God in the flesh) to live a perfect life and become the perfect sacrifice for our sins. On he cross He took the punishment for our sins, so that we wouldn’t have to. He was then buried and on the 3rd day rose again, defeating death. This through Christ is a free gift, and to receive this forgiveness we must repent of our sins, that is to confess and for sake them. Turn from your sins and then turn toward God, and put our faith and trust in Christ alone for our salvation.

So what are you going to do? I pray that you would repent and come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Because I don’t want to see any of you end up in Hell. I love you all too much to not tell you the truth and to not warn you of the danger to come if you die in your sins. Thanks for reading.

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Should He Be Writing a Book on That???

I'm probably gonna make a lot of people not like me very much, but this really struck me odd and I gotta say something. Should a person who wrote a book on how to have purpose in life, and in the process used a lot of verses from the Bible out of context to get his point across, be writing a book on Bible study method? I'd say no, but it happened.

That's right, I couldn't believe it either, but "America's pastor" Rick Warren has written a book called, "Bible Study Methods: 12 Ways You Can Unlock God's Word". I can only imagine that one of the topics would be, how to make any verse mean what you want it to mean.

I do give him credit though, I have not seen his face on the front cover of any of his books. I tend to be a bit cautious of books that have a picture of the author dominating the front cover, like Joel Olsteen, but that's another discussion perhaps.

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