Truth Magazine

By Dennis Gullege

Did you hear about the Baptist preacher recently who decided to cut his religious services down to 22 minutes and issued it as a challenge to see if people would be bold enough to “receive their religion in small doses.” He wanted to do for his preaching what McDonalds has done for food – make it fast! What this preacher proposes is nothing new, and he certainly is right up there with some of our brethren in his fascination for brevity.

The length of a sermon is purely a subjective matter. There is no right or wrong as to the time involved. The personal preferences of people get involved and everybody has his opinion about it. As far as opinions go one is about as good as another. It isn’t as though I haven’t given serious consideration to the ingredient of such, and here are my conclusions:

1. Leave out a lot of Scripture. Keep “opening and alleging,” preaching the Word, quoting and reading to a minimum.

2. Dispense with heart felt appeals for lost souls.

3. Don’t study.

4. Eliminate applications from Bible passages that might fit our time and situations in life. It might take a few minutes.

5. Quit calling them sermons and call them “nice little talks,” or better yet, “sermonettes.”

6. Forget boldness in the pulpit – you might be prompted to linger.

7. Never condemn sin! There is too much of that to deal with. For the sake of brevity you may just have to ignore it.

8. Minimize any concern for the disobedient and wayward persons in your audience. You might shed too many tears privately and too many words publicly in trying to reach them. And besides, people will be too busy studying their watches to hear what is said anyway.

9. Leave out any treatment of issues troubling the church. You might be perceived as being “negative,” and you might get bogged down in warning people.

10. Just have something to say instead of something you have to say. Try to squelch any feelings of earnestness about your task. Just get the job done quickly!

This is what I would have to recommend to my preaching brethren if they are to learn the art of the 15 minute sermon. However, it appears that many of them caught on years ago when you consider some of the ingredients above. All in all, it appears that more is left out of the sermon than put into it.

Guardian of Truth XL: 8 p. 13
April 18, 1996

 

By Harry Persaud

Paul wrote Philippians from the Roman jail where he was imprisoned for the gospel’s sake. He rejoiced in spite of much opposition and persecution because “Christ is preached” (Phil. 1:7, 18). Knowing his brethren at Philippi would suffer “the same conflict,” he taught them to be al-ways “in nothing terrified by your adversaries,” but rather, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice” (Phil. 1:28-30; 4:4). This great Christian considered it an honor to share with Christ in “the fellowship of his suffering” because it is a great honor to serve Christ and to spread the blessed gospel (Phil. 3:10).

I, too, rejoice greatly for the privilege of serving Christ and spreading the blessed gospel! God has been with me and my family in many ways, especially since I obeyed the gospel and began to preach it. I was born April 12, 1923 and married my wife on February 13, 1944. In this year of 1996, I am celebrating my wedding anniversary number fifty-two. Since my wife and I were born into a Hindu culture, our parents arranged our marriage without dating and other American customs. Our ancestors were from India but we were born in British Guiana (now called Guyana), South America. I was twenty and my wife thirteen when we married. During the Hindu wedding ceremony, the garment of the bride and the garment of the groom are literally tied together to symbolize joining in marriage. Then as the husband and bride walk forward, she follows behind him in symbolic recognition of his role as her guide and leader. Even the false religion of Hindu teaches that we are joined for life in marriage.

As we celebrate this 52nd anniversary of our marriage, we thank God for leading us out of the maze of false religions, including the Hindu, Roman Catholic, Baptist, and Jehovah’s Witness religions. Since I learned the true gospel of Christ and obeyed it in 1973, my wife and all of our children have also been saved by the gospel and added to Christ. Many people thought I was crazy to quit my good job and begin full-time preaching in 1976. We have faced many problems and much persecution, just as Paul said we would, but God has been with us through all of our trials. Truly, we rejoice in the Lord with the beloved brother Paul because of the great privilege of serving Christ!

Since 1981 I have been preaching full-time with the Church of Christ in Vauxhall near South Orange, New Jersey. There was no true church in this community when my family and I first came here. The church which now meets here is small and exists in a vast wasteland of sin, error, and false religions. This is not a reason to complain, be-cause God is giving us many opportunities to teach so many lost souls. I rejoice because of the help of my godly wife and children. Not only has my wife been faithful to me for fifty-two years, but also she is my faithful fellow-worker in the kingdom of God. She and our children are a great encouragement and a great help in the work of the Lord. My oldest son is our song leader, and the youngest often leads us at the Lord’s table.

I continue to rejoice for the help which I find in the Guardian of Truth magazine and its writers. When I published Ron Halbrook’s article on the pope in our area newspapers, the article borrowed from the Guardian of Truth, I had much good response as explained in the Guardian of Truth for December 21, 1995, pages 746-747. Therefore, I contacted him about the possibility of using more articles. He sent another article which he also sent to the Guardian of Truth entitled, “Perverted Religion: `An Empty Vine.- It had several parts discussing the truth of God’s Word in contrast to The Bible Perverted, Morality Perverted, Preaching Perverted, The Church Perverted, and Perverted Worship. He thought I might be able to use some parts a little at the time, but I felt it could have a greater impact as one article. Therefore, I put it all in The Star-Ledger for December 6, 1995 as a full page ad under our usual heading: “Let The Bible Speak, 1 Pet. 4:11.”

My follow-up article in the News-Record on December 14 further explained that the word of God is the seed of truth, giving the world the truth about New Testament Christians and the New Testament church. I pointed out that human churches are not planted by God and are unknown to the Bible, including the Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Mormon, and all others. The result is religious confusion, division, and delusion, including fake healers and the religious circus on TV. I urged all of these people to investigate the Bible and to search for the truth.

I was not disappointed at the results of these efforts! There have been the usual verbal attacks and abuse by people who are hostile to the truth, just as explained in the article of December 21, 1995 in the Guardian of Truth. One caller threatened to find a way to get rid of me. This does not discourage us because we rejoice to suffer with Christ like Paul and the early saints. Some people call to ask for more information because the truth seems new and strange to them. Since we came out of religious error, we realize there are many people who have never been taught the truth and someone must be willing to teach it. As a result of our full page ad on “Perverted Religion: `An Empty Vine,”‘ two Baptist families have visited our services and given us the opportunity to teach them the truth. Also, our hearts were tenderly touched by a letter we received from an 83-year-old lady, which opens the door for further teaching. The letter said, “Is it possible to get copies of your advertisement recently in The Star-Ledger? I’ve never seen anything so frankly explained as this enlightening article. I am Baptist.” The letter requested extra copies of the ad to mail to preachers and relatives!

The end of the story is this: Three precious souls have been baptized into Christ as a result of this newspaper article. We hope there will be more fruit to come. It is very hard to convert people in this area. We are rejoicing!

We shall continue to preach the truth in love and with great plainness of speech because the gospel of Christ is truly God’s power to save sinful souls (Eph. 4:15; 2 Cor. 3:12; Rom. 1:16). To those brethren who write articles in the Guardian of Truth, remember that I am always reading them to find material which can be used in whole or in part to help in spreading the gospel in New Jersey. When I consider my godly wife of fifty-two years, my children who serve the Lord, and my brethren who help me to spread the gospel, I forget about problems and persecution and remember the words of Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice!”

Please notice a correction to my article, “Sharing in the Defense of the Gospel,” Guardian of Truth, Dec. 21, 1995, on page 746. The first paragraph says I was born in “British Columbia (now Guiana),” but it should say “British Guiana (now Guyana).” This confusion occurred through a friend who helped with the typing of the article. People commonly confuse these two countries, and the change in the spelling of Guiana to Guyana adds to the confusion.

Guardian of Truth XL: 8 p. 10-11
April 18, 1996

By Connie W. Adams

God, as creator, has ultimate authority over everything created. Paul said on Mars Hill that “God made heaven and earth and all things therein”: and then concluded by saying “he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world”(Acts 17:24-31). When we say “God created” we must include Jesus Christ in that. “Let us make man” (Gen. 1:26) is in the plural. Elohim (God) is plural is form. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1-3). “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Col. 1:16).

That “word” which was with God and was God, “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). The greatest evidence for the existence of God is the fact that God came in the person of Jesus Christ. The historical Jesus can be explained on no other basis than the fact that he was divine, as he claimed to be. While he took upon himself the form of a servant, he did not give up the qualities which made him deity. He was “Immanuel, God with us” (Matt 1:22-23). Two things are of note in that statement. (1) He was “with us.” He dwelt, or tabernacled among men and they beheld his glory (John 1:14). In the flesh he was subjected to the experiences common to flesh. He “suffered in the flesh.” But (2) he was God in the flesh. He did not cease being deity. He was at once the “Son of man” and the “Son of God.”

The Promised Lawgiver

Peter said, “For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22-23).

Peter was quoting Deuteronomy 18:18-19. No wonder on the mount of transfiguration the voice of the Father sounded and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Matt 17:5). And no wonder that when the three apostles with him heard this “they fell on their face, and were sore afraid” (v. 6). In Christ, the lawgiver had come and the challenge went forth, “Hear him.”

The Superior Spokesman

There is a progression in the book of Hebrews which begins in the first verse and reaches a climax in 12:25. “God, who at sundry times and divers manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1-2). What a blessing that the God who formed the world has spoken. The natural world testifies to his “eternal power and Godhood” (Rom. 1:20), but without God speaking to man, he could not know what direction God wanted him to take. How did God speak? He spoke to the fathers in direct terms, in dreams and visions. He spoke to the Israelites through prophets. They were often referred to as “My servants the prophets.” What a noble lot they were: Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and a number of lesser known men who faithfully spoke God’s word to the people of their time. But great as these were, none was equal to God’s spokesman in these last days.

Leaving the realm of human spokesmen and entering that of a heavenly sphere in which angels serve as divine messengers, even there, God’s spokesman now is far above all of these. The law of Moses was given by the “disposition of angels” (Acts 7:53). It was “the word spoken by angels” (Heb. 2:2). Whether Michael, Gabriel, or unnamed heavenly messengers, all diminish in grandeur when placed beside God’s spokesman for these last days. Never to an angel did the Father say “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (1:5). When he brought his Son into the world he said, “And let all the angels of God worship him” (1:6) It was the Father who said of the Son, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (1:8). It was of the Son that the Father said that when the world is ready to be folded up like a garment, God’s spokesman will remain the same. His years shall not fail (1:10-12). It is that same spokes-man who is now seated at the right hand of the Father (1:13). He has “all power in heaven and on earth” (Matt 28:18).

No wonder the warning is sounded about giving heed to what he said and not drifting away from it (2:1-4). Then in chapter 12:25, the climaxing appeal is made: “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.” “God has spoken in his son.” Don’t refuse what he said! Such refusal comes at the peril of the soul. Jesus said, “Except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). The Confirmed Word Jesus said “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not” (John 10:37). John said of the miracles of Christ which he recorded, “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:31). On Pentecost, Peter preached, “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs” (Acts 2:22).

It is not enough to declare Jesus Christ a good man, an able teacher, a noble philosopher. If he was not the Son of God, not the word made flesh, then he was a false prophet for he claimed all that and more. Good, noble teachers do not practice deception. Any philosophy built on deception and fraud is useless. No, my friends, Jesus Christ was Emmanuel – God with us. The creator condescended to live for awhile among the creatures. What he said will judge us in the last day, that day of judgment to which Paul referred in Athens and to which he connected the thought that “God made the heavens and earth and all things therein.”

“He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). You cannot refuse Christ and his word and still honor the creator of everything. (More To Come)

Guardian of Truth XL: 8 p. 3-4
April 18, 1996

By Mike Willis

“Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psa. 29:2).

Holiness has a beauty all of its own. There is something marvelous about a character that is pure in heart, without guile, devoted to the Lord’s service, lovely, and loveable. The beauty of holiness is “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit” (1 Pet. 3:4). The beauty of Christ’s holiness has attracted men to him for nearly twenty centuries.

In What Does Holiness Consist?

1. Holiness consists in consecration to God. A person must be to-tally devoted to the Lord’s service. Those things designated “holy unto the Lord” were those things consecrated to his service. It might be one’s house that was vowed to the Lord (Lev. 27:14), an animal, or the produce of his field that was set apart as his tithe (Lev. 27:28,30). Anything specifically separated to the Lord’s use was “holy unto the Lord.”

That which is “sanctified” is “set apart” to the Lord. Christians are “sanctified” when they obey the gospel. Paul wrote, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

Jesus spoke of this kind of dedication to the Lord in these terms: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment” (Matt. 22:37-38). This is a spirit totally committed to the Lord.

Paul manifested this kind of holiness when he explained that his life was a “living sacrifice” to the Lord. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1). He also wrote, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). This is a beauty in seeing a person so totally devoted to the Lord.

2. Holiness consists in becoming like God. Peter wrote, “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Pet. 1:15). Peter explained that we imitate God’s divine attributes when we add faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, etc. to our character. `By these ye might be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:3-10).

We learn to love what God loves and hate what he hates. “Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way” (Psa. 119:104). The wise man wrote, “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren” (Prov. 6:16-19). Sometimes, we look upon sin as something to be played with that has no ability to inflict harm on a person. Rather, sin is so dangerous, that it can only be hated. We therefore hate fornication and adultery, because we have seen what it does to families. We hate drug addiction and drunkenness, be-cause we have witnessed how it destroys lives. We hate lying and stealing, because we have seen how it eats the heart out of one’s character. We hate all forms of lasciviousness because of how it leads to other immoralities. We see the damnation of hell to which all of these lead and we hate sin. Anyone who does not hate sin is not God-like.

Look at what God loves. He not only loves righteousness but also those who practice righteousness. Sometimes the world describes those who are righteous as “geeks,” “nerds,” “right wing fundamentalists,” and similar epithets. But God loves the righteous and so should we. Paul wrote, “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God” (2 Tim. 1:8). Perhaps there were some who were ashamed of Paul, like there are some who are ashamed to be associated with those who are righteous. If we are going to be God-like we will love both righteousness and those who practice righteousness.

Becoming like God also leads to developing the virtues of righteousness. We learn to be patient like God. The quick-tempered person has not become God-like. Think how God would act toward those who sin (that includes me), if he had the quick-tempered nature some of us have. We learn to love like God. God’s love is self-sacrificing and is full of grace – that is, it is given toward those who do not deserve it. We can be God-like when we show love to those who have done nothing to deserve our love.

Conclusion

When a person who meets the descriptions listed above brings his worship to God, he is doing what the verse in Psalm 29:2 is saying – worship God in the beauty of holiness. We would be wise to give more attention to bringing the “beauty of holiness” when we come to worship than fretting so much on whether or not one’s shoes match one’s skirt or purse, whether or not the tie and suit matched, and other things pertaining to one’s outward appearance.

Guardian of Truth XL: 8 p. 2
April 18, 1996