becauseHElives
Advanced Member
Member # 87
|
posted
Leonard Ravenhill came to our country from England, but he understood the problem in our churches. He laid much of the blame for their weakness on worldly preachers:
A worldly clergyman is a fool above all fools, a madman above all madmen! Such vile, infamous wretches as these are the real ground of the contempt of the clergy. Indolent clergymen, money-loving clergymen, praise-loving clergymen, preferment-seeking clergymen - these are the wretches that cause clergymen in general to be contemned. Worldly clergymen are the pests of the Christian world, the grand nuisance of mankind, a stink in the nostrils of God (Leonard Ravenhill, Sodom Had No Bible, Bethany House, 10th printing, 1988, p. 120).
The churches are powerless to help our crumbling society because too many of them are led by ministers who are so worldly that they don't seek the true conversion of their members. Our decaying churches are filled with lost people as a result.
Back in the 1940s Bob Jones, Sr. estimated that 50% of church people were lost. Dr. W. A. Criswell felt that 75% of the members of his church were unsaved. A. W. Tozer and Southern Baptist consultant Jim Elliff gave an even gloomier picture. Both of these men said that 90% of evangelical church members are unconverted (see The Church That Will Be Left Behind by R. L. Hymers, Jr., Hearthstone, 2001, p. 3).
"Flabby Christianity"
Why has this dismal situation occurred? Simply because many of our leading pastors are too worldly to care. They bring junk music into their churches. They preach fifteen-minute "motivational" messages. They close the Sunday evening services. They allow their young people to come to church dressed like the neo-cretans in our failing culture. They have even brought dancing into many so-called "fundamental" churches. What's next? Anything goes - simply because these "big" preachers don't care about the souls of their people.
Oh, I know the arguments these pastors use. I know they are reacting to the Phariseeism and hypocrisy they saw when they were young. But they have rebelled the wrong way. Instead of seeking the reality of God, they have turned to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Instead of turning from Phariseeism to God, they have turned to the world, the flesh, and the Devil. They have poisoned our churches instead of getting our people truly converted. As Dr. Tozer put it, they preach sermons that contain a
flabby Christianity, intellectually impoverished, dull, repetitious [that] to a great many persons are just plain boring. This is peddled as the very faith of our fathers in direct lineal descent from Christ and the Apostles. We spoon-feed this insipid pablum to our inquiring youth and, to make it palatable, spice it up with carnal amusements filched from the unbelieving world. It is easier to entertain than to instruct, it is easier to follow degenerate public taste than to think for oneself, so too many of our evangelical leaders let their minds atrophy while they keep their fingers nimble operating religious gimmicks to bring in the curious crowd (A. W. Tozer, The Set of the Sail, Christian Publications, 1986, pp. 67-68).
The Pests of the Christian World
What is the motive behind this kind of ministry? The answer is simple enough. These "progressive" preachers are in the main men who have never been converted. Most of them were "church kids" who grew up in the stuffy mildew of a dying religion. They raised their hands or came forward at "invitation time." They were instantly pronounced "saved" and baptized into the fellowship of the church. They grew up snickering in the pews, passing notes, and telling off-colored jokes after Sunday School. Some of these "church kids" were then manipulated into going to Bible school or seminary, where they were taught to manipulate others, the way they themselves had been manipulated. As a result, these unconverted "church kids" now lead most of the larger congregations in our nation into every hare-brained scheme of human manipulation that comes along. You name it: vapid music, insipid Bible versions, mawkish preaching and "touchy-feely" professionalism on the one hand - and Ruckmanism, incompetent evangelism, and cold Phariseeism on the other. The "church kids" of the sixties and seventies are taking over our pulpits - and killing our churches. As Ravenhill said, these "clergymen are the pests of the Christian world, the grand nuisance of mankind, a stink in the nostrils of God."
We need something better than what they offer us with their dry-as-dust "expository sermons," with hackneyed ideas culled from the modern writings of a few shallow authors. We need something better than their superficial form of evangelism and refusal to personally counsel the lost. I say that we need something better than these Philistines have given us!
But where can we look to find better examples and better models for ministry? I say we should look to the Puritans! These preachers paved the way for the First Great Awakening - and the Second Great Awakening - and the Third Great Awakening! And if we hope to have a real revival in our day, it is to the Puritans that we must look once again.
And there is no better place to start than with Richard Baxter, the most prolific writer and preacher of all the Puritans. I believe that the writings of Baxter are exactly what we need in our churches today. Let me tell you about this man who was highly regarded by George Whitefield, John Wesley, C. H. Spurgeon, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and a host of others.
Richard Baxter's Message
The best known of the Puritan preachers is Richard Baxter (1615-1691). He has been called "the most successful preacher, winner of souls, and nurturer of souls that England has ever had." Edmund Calamy called him "The most voluminous theological writer in the English language." Baxter wrote over 160 books.
Born in Shropshire into a somewhat poor family, he never attended a university and was always physically weak. Yet he acquired great learning on his own. He became the pastor in Kidderminster, a town near Birmingham, in 1647. The people who lived there were very wicked when he came. The pastor he replaced was a drunkard, who preached only once every three months! Hardly any of the church members were converted when his ministry began. During his years at Kidderminster he visited each person individually every year, among the 800 families in his church. He taught his people one-by-one. Baxter wrote about his method of pastoring in his famous book, The Reformed Pastor. John Wesley thought so highly of this book that he recommended it to his Methodist preachers. I believe it to be the greatest book on pastoring which has ever been written.
Baxter sought to mediate between Arminianism and Calvinism by advocating a form of free will, through grace. He believed that his method was a middle way, which he called "mere Christianity" (in the twentieth century C. S. Lewis used Baxter's phrase as the title of one of his popular books).
Baxter's great strength lay in his evangelistic preaching and his pastoral ability. The main purpose of his sermons was to see the lost converted. His book, A Call to the Unconverted, is a hard-hitting plea for the lost to come to Christ. The outstanding feature of his preaching was his earnest zeal. In both his writing and his sermons he put forth his belief that preachers need "the skill necessary to make plain the truth, to convince the hearers…to screw truth into their minds and work Christ into their affections."
Although he preached in Westminster Abbey, before the King, and before Parliament, his favorite pulpit was in his own church, speaking to the poor people of Kidderminster.
He was put in prison in the Tower of London for eighteen months, rather than submit to the Church of England, after the Act of Uniformity was passed. He was often visited while in prison by the famed Bible commentator Matthew Henry.
Baxter's Treatise on Conversion was written in 1657. It is a wonderful book, but the wording is too lengthy and complicated for most readers today. I have condensed it, rearranged some chapters, and changed difficult words to simple ones, to reach the less literate mind of modern man. I have tried my best to convey the basic ideas Baxter presented in the original book in an interesting and readable way. I hope it is a blessing to you. It corrects the shallow preaching of "decisionism" which has overthrown true evangelism in our time.
Before you dismiss a book written back in 1657, remember these words from Winston Churchill:
"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see."
Most current religious writers repeat each other's ideas with no input from an objective source. Baxter is a voice from outside the "system" - a ray of light that penetrates the social vacuum, and shatters the stereotypical assumptions of the arrogant snobs who palm themselves off as the new and progressive leaders of evangelicalism, but who actually offer only hackneyed platitudes. In stark contrast, Baxter's thoughts are so old that they spring from the page with newness of life. His message is exactly what our churches and our nation need.
I love America with all my heart. My father's father and grandfather came here from England for a better life than they had slaving in a mine shaft in Cumbria. My mother's people were flag-waving patriots from the heartland, who instilled in me a deep love for our nation which has never faded. People who know me best can tell you that there is not the slightest pretense or artificiality in this chapter. Nothing was said for "effect." I believe what I have written in the very marrow of my bones.
As I sit here alone tonight, with tears streaming down my face, I beg you - in the name of God - pay attention to Richard Baxter! Let him speak to our dying nation!
R. L. Hymers, Jr.
--------------------
Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged | 
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
