ChaplainChas

Here I sit at the Solid Rock Cafe and Bookstore in Chalfont, PA (SRC). It's a ministry/ outreach of Calvary Chapel of Central Bucks (County, PA). I'm vacillating btwn reading Spurgeon: A New Biography by Arnold Dallimore, and lesson prep for my next group at HARVEST USA.

I want to quote from the above book, then see how that compares with OUR responsibility as Christians in general!

During the 1880s a group of American ministers visited England, prompted especially by a desire to hear some of the celebrated preachers of that land.

On a Sunday morning they attended the City Temple where Dr. Joseph Parker was the pastor. Some two thousand people filled the building, and Parker's forceful personality dominated the service. His voice was commanding, his language descriptive, his imagination lively, and his manner animated. The sermon was scriptural, the congregation hung upon his words, and the Americans came away saying, "What a wonderful preacher is Joseph Parker!"

In the evening they went to hear Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. The building was much larger than the City Temple, and the congregation was more than twice the size. Spurgeon's voice was much more expressive and moving and his oratory noticeably superior. But they soon forgot all about the great building, the immense congregation, and the magnificent voice. They even overlooked their intention to compare the various features of the two preachers, and when the service was over they found themselves saying, "What a wonderful Savior is Jesus Christ!"

p. 216

As Dr. Ken "Hutch" Hutcherson prayed at the Exodus International Freedom Conference, it is my prayer that God would get me out of the way in lesson prep, in teaching, in preaching, and in living! That God would teach me so that others may be taught. That He would convict those who need conviction, and that He would comfort those who need comfort. That He would have permission to say whatever to whomever He will. ...It seems C.H.Spurgeon lived this prayer, himself.

Another section of the book that not only caught my attention, but slammed me up against the wall and beat me in the head with truth was the section on church membership. New converts and applicants for membership had to meet with the Pastor, but so many were applying that certain messengers were appointed to meet with them...

In dealing with a person who testified he had come to know the Lord, the messenger looked for three marks of true conversion. One, had the person, knowing himself to be a sinner and unable to do anything toward saving himself, gone to God, begging for mercy, and had he entirely trusted his soul to Christ, believing in the saving merit of His death upon the cross? This individual experience of the soul with God was the unalterable and basic necessity, and without it there was no recognition of the person as truly converted. Two, had the person entered into newness of life, experiencing a change of affections, victory over sin, a love for the Word of God, and a desire to win others to Christ? Three, did he or she possess a basic understanding of the doctrines of grace, recognizing that salvation did not begin with himself or his own will, but with God's choice and God's action, and that God, who saved him, would keep him through time and through eternity?

p. 81

Wowsers!

Meditate on that last paragraph for a few minutes. Ask the Holy Spirit to do that work in your life! As the Holy Spirit to prove that He has already done it in your life, if more appropriate! Meditate and receive this blessing.

...Cutting it off for now,
with Blessings!
ChaplainChas.

Labels: Calvary Chapel, CCCB, conversion, Exodus, Hutcherson, lesson prep, prayer, Solid Rock Cafe, Spurgeon, SRC, true believers