Winning The War For The Souls Of Men

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Well, for many months now, literally for many months, I have been eagerly anticipating our time together in this conference,
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I can just tell you that. I want to begin tonight by citing a popular
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American black spiritual. You've all heard these words, going to lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside, down by the riverside, going to lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside and study war no more.
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I want to speak tonight on the topic, the battle for the souls of men.
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This lyric from the popular American black spiritual expresses with profound simplicity four truths that many
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Calvinistic Christians seem to have forgotten if indeed they ever knew them, namely, that the church of Jesus Christ is first, it's an army.
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The church of Jesus Christ is an army. Second, it is an army, not in peacetime, it is an army in wartime.
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It's an army at war. Three, it is an army at war with this world and with the evil principalities and powers and heavenly realms that are hostile to grace.
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Four, it is an army that should be studying war, that is, it should be strategizing.
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It should be doing the strategy necessary to doing the waging of the war. We could even add a fifth.
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It's an army whose warfare will cease only at the return of Christ when the church militant becomes the perfected church triumphant.
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These truths are taught unmistakably in several places in the
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New Testament. Let me just run them, run you by them. In 1
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Thessalonians 5 .8, there, it's only brief, but there it is, in 1
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Thessalonians 5 .8, the Apostle Paul talks about us putting on the helmet, the helmet of the hope of salvation.
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So we're to wear a helmet. That's a martial term. In 2
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Corinthians 6, in 2 Corinthians 6, 4 through 10, if you want me to just give you the references and you can take, you can read them for yourself later, 2
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Corinthians 6, 4 through 10, and the Apostle there writes, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, in great endurance, in troubles, hardships, and distresses, in truthful speech, and in the power of God, now note, note, with weapons, with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left.
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That is, with the shield of faith in one hand, and the word of God as the attacking sword in the other, 2
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Corinthians 10, 3 through 5. The Apostle writes, though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
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The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
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On the contrary, our weapons have divine power to demolish strongholds.
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And what are these strongholds that we are demolishing? The next statement tells us. We demolish the strongholds of arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
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These words apply directly to a militant evangelism in the battle for souls.
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Ephesians 6, 10 and following, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.
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Put on the whole armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.
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For our struggle, see, there it is, we are in a struggle. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
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Therefore, put on the whole armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
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Stand firm then with the belt of truth, with the breastplate of righteousness, with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel.
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In addition to this, take up the shield of faith, take the helmet of the hope of salvation, and the sword of the
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Spirit, which is the word of God. Much of this armor that the apostle delineates here is defensive, and represents the believer's struggle against temptation and spiritual trials initiated by Satan's cohorts.
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However, the offensive weapon is there. The offensive weapon, the word of God, is also mentioned.
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And Paul immediately proceeds, after mentioning it, to appeal to the Ephesian Christians for prayer, that he may open his mouth boldly to make known the gospel as an ambassador in change, and to declare it fearlessly, as he writes, as I ought.
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1 Timothy 1 .18, Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction, that by following it you may fight the good fight.
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1 Timothy 6 .12, fight the good fight of the faith. 2
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Timothy 2 .3 and 4, endure hardness like a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
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No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs.
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He wants to please his commanding officer. 2
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Timothy 4 .7, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, and I have kept the faith.
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Throughout his ministry, as indicated from his earliest Thessalonian correspondence, all the way to 2
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Timothy, his last will and testament, Paul saw the
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Christian life as a spiritual warfare, and he employed martial terminology to describe the
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Christian walk. For him, the church on earth is truly the church militant, engaged in a struggle with Satan and his demonic forces, a struggle, listen, a struggle so infinitely deadly that it makes all of earth's other conflicts, however momentous, no more than child's play by comparison.
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This truth about the martial character of the church militant is reflected in the church's hymnody.
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In such great hymns as Onward, Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War, Soldiers of Christ, Arise, and Put Your Armor On, Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, Ye Soldiers of the
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Cross, Lead On, O King Eternal, The Day of March Has Come, Am I a
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Soldier of the Cross, A Follower of the Lamb?
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Because these martial metaphors are not popular today, some liberal denominations have removed these hymns from their denominational hymn books.
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But that does not alter the fact one whit that the church is at war, which is the reason
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Dr. D. James Kennedy, my pastor there at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, how many have seen him on the
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Coral Ridge Hour? You've seen him, you know who I mean. Dr. Kennedy, when he brings a new group of new members into the church, he asks the questions that are normally asked, and when he's through, he declares to the new church members, after they have publicly taken their membership vows, he says, welcome to the army.
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You're in the army now. He takes that seriously.
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Now, my beloved, the battle for the souls of men and women is a topic that should grip the minds and hearts of all
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Christians unless they have become horrifically cold and self -complacent in spirit.
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And the questions behind my sermon this evening are these. Does your church,
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I'm speaking now to the leaders, does your church reflect by its daily activity, not its
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Sunday activity? Does your church reflect by its daily activity the martial language of the evangelism of the
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New Testament, self -consciously seeing itself as being on a war footing for the souls of men and women?
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And is your church on a war footing? Another question could equally be, do we have authentic Calvinism in our churches?
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Do we resemble our Reformed forebears, especially those in times of Reformation and Awakening and other periods of strong church growth?
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I refer to John Calvin and John Knox, to George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, to John Bunyan and to nearly all of the leaders of the
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Great Awakening, except for the Westleys. The Westleys are the exception here, being tagged by J .I.
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Packer for their efforts as confused Calvinists. Charles Spurgeon, all the leaders of the modern missionary movement from William Carey and the
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Baptists in England, Henry Venn in the Church of England, Adoniram Judson and the
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Americans, David Livingston and the Church of Scotland, all the way to Dr. D. James Kennedy, founder of Evangelism Explosion, in our own day, all of whom were and are great
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Calvinistic soul winners. Tragically, it must be acknowledged that Calvinists and evangelicals in general today do not appear to be much engaged in the great battle for souls.
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You might find that strange for me to say that, but I will show you why I say it in a minute. I'll repeat it.
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It must be acknowledged that Calvinists and even evangelicals in general today do not appear to be much engaged, there are exceptions, in the great battle for souls.
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In our churches generally, it is rare for distinctive, persuasive, evangelistic messages to be preached and heard, and it is equally rare to find in them really serious efforts being made to reach the neighborhoods around them for Christ.
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I see symptoms of this failure to reach the loss present even in my own denomination, the
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Presbyterian Church in America. While statistics can be made to prove almost anything, it is a fact, and I've gotten these statistics now from the reported minutes of our stated clerk at the last
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General Assembly that we have, that we could get record, the 2004 General Assembly, here is what our stated clerk reported based upon our church's reports to him.
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In our church, it is a fact that the total membership of the PCA's 1 ,553 local churches, a decrease of 22 churches in 2004, its total membership in its 68 presbyteries for the statistical year 2004 was 330 ,182, a net increase of 9 ,782 or 3 % over the previous year.
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Our church grew in 2004 by 3%.
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These local churches reported 10 ,978 professions of faith in 2004, an increase of 479 over the previous year, but this means that each
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PCA church was instrumental in bringing on average only seven people to the
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Lord during the entire year, with a good many of these churches reporting no conversions at all, and with a few such as the
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Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church's reports accounting for most of them. A redeeming factor in my denomination is that our churches are not miserly in their giving.
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They reported total local church disbursements of 500, and we gave $546 million, $546 ,317 ,651, an increase of over 15 million over the previous year.
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So we give, we give, but somehow we're not evangelizing, in my opinion, as we should.
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The result of this rarity within evangelicalism to evangelize has been a steady decline of congregations so that now panic has set in within evangelicalism.
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And some Reformed churches have even gone hat in hand to the seeker -sensitive church promoters and said, in effect, show us how to revive our churches.
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Show us your worship songs. Allow us to incorporate them into our Reformed liturgy and into our
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Reformed hymn books. Show us your new praise culture. Allow us to incorporate it into our worship.
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What is this if it is not stark evidence that the Reformed church is losing confidence in the convincing and converting power of the gospel message?
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The gospel is not popular today, so the church has become user -friendly, consumer -oriented, and its worship and its gospel have been watered down to appeal to the consumers.
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As a result, the church is being inundated with the plague of cheap grace, to use
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer's expression. We are seeing within the church, even within the
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Reformed church, a waning confidence in preaching and teaching doctrine as the means by which the gospel is to be spread.
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Spirit -animated preaching and teaching are increasingly being viewed as outdated and ineffective, and as a result, preaching is giving way throughout the
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United States to multimedia presentations, to drama, to dance, to sharing times, to innocuous sermonettes promoting personal self -esteem and devotionals on how to build personal relationships.
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Just listen to, what's his name, Pastor Osteen out in Houston.
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That's typical. He says he doesn't preach against sin.
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The evangelical church has borrowed techniques from the advertising industry in order to grow.
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Telemarketing is taking the place of personal, one -on -one evangelism. And cell groups are now the darlings of the church growth movement.
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And the wholesale infusion of the popular culture into our churches gives evidence of the diminution of these churches' vision of the nature of the one living and true
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God, and suggests that in their eagerness to be relevant, they are really only revealing more and more their desperate desire merely to survive or to hold their own numerically.
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I can only conclude that the power of panic, to say the least, is remarkable.
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Now, I want the biblical passages we read earlier that use the language of warfare to spur us to action, in order to move us onto a war footing, and in order to strengthen us in our battle to win the loss to Christ.
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This, I believe, is the missing factor in contemporary evangelicalism. Warfare, may
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I remind you, is about militant advance, the prosecution of a vigorous, unrelenting campaign strategy to capture territory presently in the hands of the enemy.
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Lacking this driving determination, pivotal and historic conflicts have been lost.
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Let me give you three examples of what I mean. Consider an example from the
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American War Between the States, or do you say the Civil War up here? You say the
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Civil War up here. Where I am, it's either the War Between the States, or the
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War of Northern Aggression, or Lincoln's War, or something like that.
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But we'll not get into that. At the outset of the conflict, the
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Confederate Army in the South had fairly bleak prospects against the superior
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Union forces. But then there was the strange case of General George MacLennan.
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If this general had speedily marched his huge army of 168 ,000 men south and taken
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Richmond, there might have been an early end to the war, and thousands upon thousands of lives would have been spared.
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MacLennan was the man of the hour, a wealthy former railway chief who exuded decision and authority.
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When they painted his picture, he even struck a perfect Napoleonic pose with his hand in his coat.
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His manual on the art of war was required reading for all Union officers. In the winter of 1861 and 62, his was the best -supplied, best -fed army
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America had ever seen, chickens and equipment in abundance arriving in wagons by the hour.
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The trouble was not the availability of recruits and provisions, but with this celebrated general, he just wouldn't move.
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He fussed and dithered for months, while back in Washington, Abraham Lincoln paced his study in exasperation, asking, what have we got to do to get him to fight?
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We've given him everything he's asked for. Why won't he go forward?
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Despite a three -to -one majority in troop strength, MacLennan repeatedly appealed for reinforcements and additional supplies, having convinced himself that the
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Confederate force was far more powerful than it really was. Eventually, he did move forward and mount some attacks, but all these efforts were too little too late, and much bloodshed on both sides accomplished little.
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As a result, the noble general withdrew further into his shell until he was finally relieved of his command.
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What was his mistake? Based on lack of knowledge, his mistake was his overestimation of the power of the enemy that moved him to be overly cautious.
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Is this not like the reformed scene? We are well -equipped.
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We have the spirit of God, the word of God, preachers committed to the reformed faith, and people willing to serve, all the necessary weapons of our warfare.
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Yet little or nothing is being attempted, and we cannot plead ignorance of the power of the enemy.
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For our God has informed us that infinitely greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world.
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I wonder sometimes if the angels of heaven look down and say, what must their Savior God do to get these reformed churches to move out?
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They do not seem interested in the battle for souls. Now, I'm going to get very personal, and I'm going to give you some directions before the sermon is over, so don't despair.
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Let me give you a second example, farther afield but nearer to us in time.
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In 1940, the Italians came into the Second World War on the side of Germany. Italy's Il Duce Benito Mussolini spoke haughtily of initiating a drive to the
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Nile and sent a massive force of five well -equipped divisions to the border of Egypt that was defended by British and Indian troops.
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The Italian commander, Marshal Rudolfo Graziani, and by the way, you can pick all of these names up off of the
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Internet. It's amazing what's on the Internet today. You can pick all of these names up and read these stories for yourself, as I have.
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The Italian commander gave the order to this huge force to move forward. The Allied forces, having little more than two divisions at their disposal, were heavily outnumbered, while the
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Italians had in the air a five -to -one superiority over Britain's Royal Air Force.
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General Richard O 'Connor, the British commander, became puzzled shortly after the conflict began when the
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Italian army, having rolled forward about 50 miles, suddenly stopped. Reconnaissance officers crept forward and saw an astonishing sight through their binoculars.
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Hundreds of Italian engineers were laboring and digging in and erecting long -term fortifications, even laying a great pipeline for water.
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One lieutenant radioed back, it looks as though they've determined to settle here forever.
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Mussolini's drive to the Nile had ground to a halt. General O 'Connor, at 40, the youngest of the
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British generals holding command at the time, was eager to strike and move quickly.
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So early one morning, as the sun rose up, the British and Italian forces attacked with maximum impact, finding all the
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Italians in bed except for the sentries and the cooks preparing breakfast. The battle lasted less than two days.
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Allied tanks and infantry prevailed with ease. More than 20 ,000
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Italian soldiers were taken prisoner, along with, as war historians love to tell us, countless bottles of wine and mountains of spaghetti.
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What was the problem that halted the
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Italian offensive? It was their commander, Marshal Graziani, the leadership.
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He would not fight. He moved his enormous army forward and vacillated and dug in, and it cost him the day and ultimately his entire army.
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What was his mistake? His vacillating character that led to inaction.
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How like our Reformed constituents. How similar Reformed churches are to a stationary army.
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We have churches throughout the land. We have excellent equipment. We have the word of God, the spirit of God, the great doctrines of grace.
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We have abundance of spiritual food and sermons preached from our pulpits. We have a superb heritage of examples in our history.
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And we're certainly looking after our own troops. But so many of our churches are not moving out.
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We cannot plead the legitimacy of timidity because God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and of love and of self -control, self -discipline.
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What then is the reason for this? Where is the thirst for victory? Where is the evangelistic fervor?
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I suggest that the problem lies in our churches not taking seriously that they are to be an army on the march.
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And yet we are supposed to be the church militant. One more example, how tragic it was when
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Britain lost Singapore in February 1942 to the Japanese. Admittedly, it was difficult to defend
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Malaya, and so four British divisions retreated into Singapore, crossing the causeway there and attempting to destroy the causeway behind them.
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Eventually, the Japanese invaded Singapore, taking the British by surprise by approaching from an unexpected direction.
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Within seven days, General Arthur Percival, general officer commanding
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British forces in Malaya, surrendered. After seven days, losing 9 ,000 men in battle and sending into captivity for the duration of the war 100 ,000
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British and Commonwealth troops. Many authorities, including
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Winston Churchill, call this the most humiliating defeat in the history of British warfare.
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Why did General Percival surrender? While there is a difference of opinion among military analysts, it seems rather clear that he had concluded that the
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Japanese force was far stronger than it actually was. A case of intelligence, or lack thereof.
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Afterward, it emerged that Japanese supplies were stretched to the breaking point so that they had only one or two weeks fighting at best left in them.
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But General Percival, by all accounts and every other respect, a good officer, was weak before his fellow commanders and subordinated himself to their desire for surrender because they thought the enemy was unbeatable.
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His mistake, based like the others on misinformation, he overestimated the strength of the enemy and was incapable of infusing into his officers the will to win and a refusal to surrender.
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Is this the reason we will not fight the battle for souls today?
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Do we pastors look at the walls of atheism and the powers of the media and the influence of the entertainment world and the doctrinal and ethical nominalism that abounds today everywhere among the laity and do we then retreat thinking that the winning of the world cannot be done?
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Oh, no doubt the church desires its apologists to fight for the faith in the arenas of truth and we want our elders to hold the line in our churches with respect to holiness of life and the maintenance of our present territory.
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We cannot plead the legitimacy of overestimating the strength of the enemy because the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world.
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On the contrary, our weapons have divine power to demolish arguments, to demolish strongholds, every pretension that sets itself against the knowledge of God, to take captive every thought to make it captive to Jesus Christ.
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Nevertheless, we are doing precious little in actual daily battle for the souls of people in our church's neighborhoods.
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And to the degree that this is true about us, I must say that we Reformed people are a lopsided, freakish group.
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We are nothing like the historic mainstream. We do not have the fervor or the urgency of the soul -winning priority.
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If we would recognize this, perhaps we would begin to move forward once again. I recognize fully that Christian warfare is a fourfold battle, first for truth, second for holiness of life, third for true assurance, and fourth for souls.
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And I recognize too that most Calvinistic preachers take the battle for truth seriously today.
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We stand for the Reformation and for the great 17th century Reformed confessions, those wonderful statements of biblical doctrine.
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Everywhere Calvinistic pastors seek to teach the doctrines of grace with sincerity and diligence and urgency.
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They also promote holiness of life. They proclaim from their pulpits the need for godly living and the mortification of sin by the power of the
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Holy Spirit. Our tradition has its Puritans. With their wonderful expertise in presenting the standards and methods of holiness, and Reformed pastors are concerned to apply these standards and methods.
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The Reformed Church has also focused the minds of its people against Satan's offensive to take away joy and peace in the
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Holy Spirit. And we have taken measures to counter this onslaught against the believer's assurance.
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And it's vital that the Reformed community continue to give constant attention to these three aspects of the spiritual warfare.
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But what about the fourth, the battle for souls? Without doubt, this is the one area where we have faltered and failed on our watch, and so much so that there often appears to be no battle at all.
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We know, of course, that there are ministers and Christian workers struggling against this trend, and their labors must be acknowledged and honored.
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But since the 1950s, true biblical evangelism has been the weakest theater of war for the
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Reformed movement in the world. Generally speaking, Calvin is no longer thrilled to the language of Bishop Ryle, who spoke of attacking the strongholds of Satan to rescue the perishing, and of hunting the fox to its lair.
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Martial language has become an embarrassment, and hence modern Calvinists have become a lopsided, peculiar thing, an oddity when assessed in the light of its noble past.
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Of course, we rightly have obligations and concerns for the other theaters of need in this war.
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We've acknowledged that. But why not soul winning? Surely, in this regard, we are freaks when compared with the
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Reformers, the Puritans, the preachers of the 19th century of missionary expansion, the
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Victorian pulpits, the likes of George Whitfield and William Carey and Charles Spurgeon, and so many others of the
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Reformed faith. Far too many Reformed preachers are mainline Calvinists in theory, but they are hyper -Calvinists in methodology, for their level of activity is often no greater.
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Far too many Reformed churches have little evangelistic preaching, no outreach, listen, no outreach
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Sunday schools, I'm going to talk about that in a minute, no outreach Sunday schools, no active community visitation, no stress on the necessity of a working church membership.
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But this is not authentic historic Calvinism. It is something abnormal to historic
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Calvinism, and we need to face this fact squarely. Well, what can we do about all this?
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How should we go about remedying this dire situation? To say the least, any biblical remedy will require at least two things.
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First, strategic planning, and second, sacrificial activity.
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Let's talk about strategic planning. Maintaining the army occupies the attention, maintaining the army, not expanding it, maintaining the army occupies the attention of all too many churches, while their commander -in -chief's commission to that army to disciple the nations is all but forgotten.
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The members of these churches spending little to no time with those who are lost, but rather spending most of their time with each other, in this regard are guilty of high treason.
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In our circles, endless conferences and publications emphasize the other departments of the
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Christian warfare seemingly unaware that contemporary
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Calvinism has by this omission become disfigured and unsound.
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We often seem to have no intelligent strategy or battle plan for souls.
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We don't study war anymore. Can you imagine a nation being at war with no battle plan?
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Fighting a war requires elaborate planned involvement of the entire army.
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Nobody in the army is excused from the warfare, with its divisions and brigades, its battalions and companies, its platoons and squads.
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And all of these have to be deployed in a coordinated manner. Yet too many of us in the
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Lord's army seem to believe that it is enough that we espouse the doctrines of grace, that it is kind of unsavory to have strategic objectives of any kind.
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Too many of us seem to believe that the only strategy for soul winning is to promote pure doctrine and holy living.
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Indeed, a phrase has come into vogue. We believe, someone says, we believe in the evangelism of holy living.
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Well, of course we do. But the way the phrase is too often used as it works itself out in actual practice is we believe in doing nothing in evangelism.
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Certainly the gracious lives of Christian people will attract others. But this is only one aspect of the battle for souls.
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My brothers and sisters in Christ, never forget that the gospel, by definition, is a message.
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It is good news. It is a message that is to be proclaimed and taught.
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Authentic Calvinistic sessions and diaconates and congregations should be very exercised about the best way to move forward in this war for souls and never allow their strategic activity to stagnate.
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They need to study the war to apply their thinking to how they may reach their communities, not only the adults, but also the children and the young people, considering how they may deploy all the talents and abilities of the entire communicant membership in that task in the most effective way.
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Let me call your attention to one church as an example of what I mean here. A church
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I have witnessed firsthand engaging itself in such strategic work, having preached there several times and having taught there several times in its pastor's fraternal, its school of theology, and its seminary.
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Most Christians who know anything at all about the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London think that it became the great church that it is to this day because of the marvelous evangelistic preaching of its pastors through the years from Charles Haddon Spurgeon to its current pastor,
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Peter Masters. No doubt the evangelistic preaching of its pastors have always been a major cause of its vibrant testimony for Christ.
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But it is a little known fact that the congregation of the Metropolitan Tabernacle from its beginning, the congregation from its beginning has been what one could only call it was a working congregation, a working congregation.
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Maybe that's a new concept to you. I hope not, but maybe this is where we need to begin. During Spurgeon's ministry, the
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Metropolitan Tabernacle had over 60, what was then called societies, ranging all the way from its
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Sunday school teachers to its famous girls and young women's Bible class led by Mrs.
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Bartlett who taught about 500 to 700 young ladies every
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Sunday to its ladies' police society that knit gloves for the
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London policemen to protect their hands from the bitter London cold. This is one reason, by the way, on the occasion of Spurgeon's funeral procession that 4 ,000 policemen lined his body's route to the cemetery.
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In 1875, during Spurgeon's ministry, the on -site Sunday school held on not a
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Sunday morning during the worship time. The Sunday schools that were held in the afternoon, afternoon
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Sunday schools had more than 1 ,000 children in regular attendance of which 150 were in senior classes.
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Branch Sunday schools at the Tabernacle's mission halls added another 1 ,000 children with other branch schools attracting hundreds more.
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The records of the Tabernacle show that very large numbers of its church members over several generations were brought to the
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Lord not through the preaching of the pastors but through the ministry of these afternoon
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Sunday schools. The great majority of these converts was collected every
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Sunday afternoon in their early years from godless homes and, humanly speaking, would never have become church attenders but for these afternoon
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Sunday schools. Remarkably high numbers continued until the Second War when the main
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Tabernacle Sunday school reached 1 ,500 children each Sunday and its seven branch missions added over 1 ,000 more.
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This same work continues every Sunday afternoon to this day. The monumental demands of this activity, finding sites at which to meet, moving the furniture and preparing these sites each
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Sunday, scouring neighborhoods and recruiting and then collecting children, preparing and teaching gospel lessons, preparing graphics, providing hot meals upon occasion to the hungry waif and cookies for all, maintaining order, having available doctors and nurses, members of the church with first -aid training, returning the children to their homes, maintaining the
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Sunday school vehicles, mechanics in the church keep the vehicles running, visiting the homes of absentees, keeping records.
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These illustrate that the Tabernacle expects its entire membership to be involved in ministry, and it virtually is.
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The last time we were there, Shirley and I ate our Sunday lunch with a lovely young medical doctor and his family in a lovely little home.
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About halfway through the meal, he said, You'll have to excuse me now, I have to leave. I said,
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Oh, is there an emergency at the hospital? He said, No, I've got to go to afternoon
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Sunday school. A second example of a church that has learned to think outside the box, that's what we're talking about, learning to think outside the box, that is, outside of its comfort zone.
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A second example is the First Baptist Church of Leesburg, Florida. That church sponsors over 75 ministries of various kinds, such as a women's care center, a men's residence, a pregnancy care center, a community medical care center, a residential group home, a children's shelter, a benevolence center.
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And all of these ministries have buildings on site of their own that the church has built.
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Adoption counseling, backyard Bible clubs, a ministry to the deaf, divorce recovery support groups, a furniture barn, a grief share ministry, a
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Saturday -Sunday school program for poor children, a Haitian ministry, a jail ministry, literacy classes, a
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Mother's Day Out program, a nursing home ministry, a post -abortion support group, and a
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Christian school that features before -and -after school tutoring, a summer reading program, and abstinence education.
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That's just some of the programs of these 75. I'll say parenthetically,
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I went to Jim Kennedy. I said, Jim, how many programs do we have in our church?
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And I told him about these churches. He said, oh, Bob, I don't think we have that many. But he said,
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I'm going to find out. He said, I'm going to ask every pastor in the various departments to report back to me, give me a list of every program that they're doing in that department to further to advance the cause of Christ.
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He found out that there were over 200. And I said, now what are you going to do with them?
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He said, I'm going to collate all of these. We're going to put them, we're going to print up all of these programs on sheets of paper, and we're going to pass them out to the new members, and we're going to pass them out to the old members of our church, and we're going to tell them we expect every member of the church to check one of them at least and become involved in the ministry of the church.
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War also demands utmost commitment despite unseasonable conditions.
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If the command goes forth that a mission must be undertaken at midnight, the troops may not decline on the ground that it's bedtime.
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The military analogy in scripture between an army and the church implies the enormous amount of sacrificial activity involved in reaching the lost.
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It highlights the inconvenience, the difficulty and hardship involved in this warfare.
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But is this the ethos in our churches, the ethos of sacrificial activity?
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Do the pleas to the soldiers to involve themselves in this battle fall on deaf ears because these soldiers have something else to do or more likely because their comfortable routines would be disturbed?
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Dr. Kennedy told me once that one of the great griefs of his heart, that here in the
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Mother Church of Evangelism Explosion, which is now international,
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Evangelism Explosion has teams in every nation in the world, including
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North Korea. The hardest one to get into, but they got in there. But he told me that one of the great griefs of his heart is that he has never gotten more than 10 % of the
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Mother congregation involved at any one time in the church's evangelism training.
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Now, I should say to him, well, you know, there are other things besides just evangelism.
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Somebody can make a telephone call and wish somebody who's recovering from a hospital surgery.
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Ask how he's doing. That's ministry. That's a program that the church has. Well, here we are, soldiers of the cross, called to spiritual warfare, yet so few of us are actually engaged in any regular service or willing to receive training in evangelism.
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Does your church have an EE training program? Dr. Kennedy would kick my hind end if I came here and I said nothing to you folk about thinking about getting an
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EE training program in your church if you don't have it. So too often we're willing to involve ourselves only in the comfort zones of this war.
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Sacrificial rigors are unthinkable. Is this indifference to the spread of the gospel authentic Calvinism?
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I say no. Where is the burning hunger for conversions today, apart from the writing of books about revival?
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Do we think that God is going to conduct this war by himself? Dear hearts, we must not think that in the day of judgment,
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God will receive careless, worldly, carnal Christians who have lived pretty much for themselves in the same manner.
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He will receive the great saints who have served him night and day.
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Dear friends, I think about I think often about that great day and about my own accounting.
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And I ask myself if he should come today and find
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I had not told one soul today about my heavenly friend whose blessings all my way attend, what would he say?
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If he should come today and find my heart so cold, my faith so very weak and dim,
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I had not even looked for him, what would he say? Let me close with another war story.
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This is I'm closing now. Another war story. Sometime back,
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I succumbed to all the hype and went to see the 1993
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Academy Award Movie of the Year. Schindler's List. How many have seen it?
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Schindler's List. The Steven Spielberg story of Oskar Schindler, the
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Nazi war profiteer, who shortly after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 began to use the
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Jews of the Krakow ghetto as workers in his Pots and Pants factory.
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At first, he saw them only as chattel to be used to line his own pockets, which he did quite successfully, becoming exceedingly rich.
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But as the war dragged on and as he increasingly witnessed Nazi atrocities being inflicted against the
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Jews of Poland, increasingly did he begin to use his own wealth to bribe
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Nazi officials and army officers to give him more and more Jews for his factory, which the
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Nazis had turned into a munitions factory, which became a model of non -productivity, a model of non -productivity in the
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Nazi war effort. He had given strict orders that no munition that leaves his factory should be able to fire.
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They left firing pins and everything else out. Though it virtually bankrupted him, he saved over 1 ,200
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Jews from certain death in the gas chambers. I recount this storyline only to say that I was struck by some statements put in his mouth toward the end of the movie.
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The war has just ended, and having worked for the Third Reich, both he and his
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Jewish factory workers realize that the Allied authorities will be searching for him.
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And he bids farewell to them, and they present him with a letter signed by each of them and that they hope will help him before the
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Allied authorities. At this moment, Schindler, remember the scene?
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Schindler suddenly becomes very sober, and he quietly says,
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I could have done more. I could have done more. And he began to sob.
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I could have done more. I didn't do enough. This car, why did
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I keep this car? Ten people right there, ten more people.
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Pulling off his lapel pin, he exclaims, this pin, two people, this is gold, two more people, one more.
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I could have bought more people, but I didn't. His knees crumble, and he sobs heavily.
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As his words, I could have done more. Why did I keep the car? This pin, this is gold, two people.
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I could have bought more people. As his words, I say, seared themselves into my mind. As I sat in the darkness of that theater,
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I suddenly became convicted that many Christians, and I include myself among them, are going to be asking similar questions at the great judgment in heaven.
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Why did I not do more to reach the lost for Christ? Why was
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I not engaged in the battle for the souls of men? Why did
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I think that I had to have that more expensive house, that more expensive car?
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Why did I not use more of my resources for the cause of Christ? More poignantly, why was
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I not willing to get involved and to go myself? In that great day when we all give an accounting of our lives lived here,
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I fear that many of us will have no answers to salve our smitten consciences. So, Christian man,
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Christian woman, I'm glad the young people are here tonight who are here. I must ask you, do you understand that your church has the most relevant message in the world today?
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You have the good news in a bad news world.
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Do you realize that your church possesses the only ultimate remedy for your neighbor's fears and miseries in this life?
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And most compellingly, do you know that you hold the answer to the removal of his guilt before God?
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Have no doubts about that. So I call upon you tonight to covenant with God, to rethink your priorities.
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I call upon you to become involved in the war of the church militant and boldly let your faith in Christ be known.
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Pastors, make Christ and his cross the centerpiece of your church's ministry. Make much of the blood.
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Preach evangelistic sermons. For the blood of Christ is sufficient to quiet God's wrath toward men.
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Strategize, you pastors, with your leaders about how you may train and employ the entire membership of your church in this battle.
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Do this for the improvement of the health and the equipping of God's children, for those good works that God himself has foreordained that they should be doing.
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And while it will ever be the case that it is God alone who gives the increase, bathe your entire labor for him in your fervent prayer that you may be used both to plant his word and to water it in the souls of needy men and to give him all glory for what you accomplish in the territory you claim for him.
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For it will be indeed, after everything is said and done, it will be his doing.
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But he's doing it through you. Let us pray.
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Our Heavenly Father, we've talked from our heart tonight to the leaders of the church. We ask you,
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Heavenly Father, that we would think about these things. As leaders in the church, are we strategizing?
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And are we expecting of our people sacrificial activity?
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Are we expecting all of our people to be involved? Or have we given some a free pass to go home?
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Even to be AWOL, we ask our Heavenly Father that you would stir us and move us to be more faithful in this war for the battle, the battle for the souls of men.