Studying The Word

I was listening to our pastors CD of the Wednesday evening service last evening while fooling around in the house doing various things and I must admit, its hard to find sermons that I can agree more with. See, I ain’t in the church Wednesday evenings and being that I’m not, I’m teaching children’s church, they give me a CD of the evening’s service. Kinda handy, either listen to it upstairs on a CD player or just plop it in this old computer and listen to it while I’m putzing on it. Good sermon though, about the offices of ministry, about the harvest being ready or ripe. Yup, that it sure is. And after a couple of years of not really knowing what direction I was heading as far as faith matters things finally kinda fell together for me this week. Not one person talked to me about it, nothing like that, but I now truly know where I’m heading, (at least for now). A person is standing in the middle of a ripe field here and it needs some harvesting before it gets over ripe and starts falling to the ground. I always kinda knew that it was all right here, but a person just ain’t quite 100% sure. Funny how a person can’t get it all straight sometimes. I knew a year ago that it was right here, but held back just a bit because I sure wasn’t prepared as far as knowledge from the Word. Used to think that I would never learn a thing from the Bible, used to just wonder how folks could quote it so good, how they could bring up the right verse or verses when they were needed, yup I sure did wonder how they did that. Up to that time i was reading allot of book from preachers and they were pretty good, but for some reason I was getting tired of them. Really didn’t matter who wrote the books, something was missing. Then I’d dwell on how those old giants of faith more than likely read the Bible most of all and in many cases it was the only book they would ever read. So quite a while back I started reading the Bible every single day no matter what. Even if I didn’t feel like it, I forced myself too. because it sure is an easy way out from the Word of God if we figure we got to be all spiritual before we can soak in the Word. I’ve come to the conclusion, and this might get allot of disagreement from many Christians, that when a person “forces” themselves to read the Bible there’s allot can happen when he or she does. Now there ain’t nothing our flesh would like more than if we don’t read the Word when we ain’t feeling quite up to snuff. Plus that old snake Satan sure would like to convince us that we should only read the Word when we’re feeling real good about our standing with God. And you can bet that your going to be feeling real good about that standing with God less and less as time goes on without reading the Good Book.

One time I heard someone say that if you force yourself to read the Bible every day that’s being religious and that makes it outside of the will of God. I tend to disagree with that. Old Paul said to crucify the flesh and there is hardly a better way than to get into the Word whether you “feel” like it or not. And even when you don’t feel like it, the words seem kinda blah, kinda boring its amazing how they will stick with a person especially when a situation comes up when they are needed. Well anyway that’s what I found out in my experience. Now when a person is really crucifying the flesh it might be in some of them Old Testament books, just started I Chronicles last evening in the daily schedule and oh my. If I can get through some of that the old flesh will really be whipped! Another result of reading daily is, and I still find this hard to believe, when a preacher says to go to so and so book and chapter and verse in the Bible, well as they say where to go I already know what its about and what they’re going to say or read. Now that always throws me for a loop! Who’da ever thought!

The Word of God is precious to me, very precious. years ago it was just gibberish, couldn’t figure it out for anything. Now its life itself! And of course when it becomes alive and speaks so clearly a person wants to spread it around. Yup, I can see why God put the brakes on as far as my zeal the last couple of years. Had to get in the Word till the Word was in me. Like old Paul said to young Timothy,

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Old Paul writing to Timothy is an incredible letter in the Bible to say the least! Its like a blueprint for anyone with a burning desire to preach the Word. Now one thing I know for sure, I could never and more than likely will never be a church preacher. Not interested in it at all. But in the countryside are people everywhere that are dying in their sins and the only direction they are taking is the wide road to hell. Our Savior died for them and wants us to bring the Good News to each and every one of them. Whether they accept it or not is not our responsibility, our job is to do what Christ commanded us. To bring the Good News and the love of Christ out where the popular church has forgotten, or probably never really cared about in the first place. I read that in America, the rural areas actually consist of around 52 million people. These are the areas that aren’t considered metro or suburban. Just rural. That’s allot of people you never hear about from the big named ministries that are always concentrating on the high profile targets, the metros. There’s an incredible opportunity for followers of Jesus Christ to spread the Gospel out here. And to throw away the modern religions way of doing it. Go one on one, spread the Word to one or a hundred, makes no difference. Proclaim Christ in the feed store, at the gas station, where ever a person is.  Don’t try to get them to church so the pastor can have a crack at them, get em saved where they are, bring the church to them! Pretty Biblical if you ask me.

Fork in the Trail

Glory to God, we got us a good rain this past Sunday and I must testify that this spring is much more like what I’ve always though a Minnesota spring is like. Cool and still waiting for summer type weather. That’s how I remember allot of springs years ago and if’n I remember right they were some durn good years too! So here’s praying that holds true this year. The hay fields are looking down right beautiful and things just seem good. The pastures are outgrowing the cowherd and I pray that keeps up too! Maybe a person won’t have to spend all his time in disaster mode this year and would that ever be different. There’s a long way to go, a very long way to go yet, but this brings allot of promise!

So I have no idea what I should write about which in all truth is the normal way that I write. I’m just dwelling on what I should do as time goes on as far as faith matters go. I’m more than a little confused on which way to turn. But one way or another things will go. Now as anyone who has ever read any of my blogs knows, I’m country and not much else. That’s the way it is and more than likely that’s the way it’ll be till I head on off to glory! Nothing wrong with that either by the way I look at it. Getting a little settled in with my ways these last couple years, just like good old preaching that nails things right on the head, not the mushy, feel good stuff that “sells” on the market today. I read a little thing in a magazine I get called the Brush Arbor Quarterly and it said that the preaching of old was done with the thought that this could be the last sermon the preacher would ever be preaching and also the last sermon that the listeners would be hearing and those sermons were done with a purpose, a now or never purpose that is missing today in most places. I thought about that. And I figure that thought will stick with me till the end. Every time we give our testimony, every time we spread the Gospel, every time we bring forth the Word of God, well it could be our last time. And also to the person receiving it too. Something simple but very important to live by. Even a layman like me is just as much in the ministry as a bigshot preacher if we’re following our calling and obeying God.

Oh Lord, sometimes if I could take it all back and do it all over again. But I can’t and I guess it don’t matter anyhow because its not reality. Reality is now and that’s when a person gotta do the things we are called to do. Sometimes I think of maybe entering the ministry, in a round about fashion, like I mentioned so many times before here and elsewhere, but in reality if I tell that to most folks, including others in ministry, they just laugh. That’s OK I guess, no problem, I ain’t gone to some Bible College for real, I ain’t been to some seminary or anything like that. All I do is farm and go to church, teach a little bit, write on the computer a little bit. Not very qualified I guess. No ministry in their right mind would want someone like that. So I dwell on that allot, but doing chores I told God that I’ll study till I’m blue in the face, I’ll spread the Gospel on the internet in my stumble bum fashion,I’ll preach one on one with people, I’ll teach those kids till they’re old enough to vote and if He ever sees fit for me to be a man of God, well, so be it. But He’ll have to do it, because I have no idea where to turn, simple as that. But its not all that important anyhow as long as I can do what I was called to do, or at least I think I’m called to do it. But if I ain’t at least I’m having a good time at it! Could be worse, allot worse! Don’t know which way to turn on the fork in the trail, could go one way, or could go the other. Both are good, but I’m stuck a bit in the mud.

The Old Methodist Piano

Well Glory! Got the first corn planted today and some sweet corn to boot! Weather permitting I’ll head out to another field and start getting it ready for corn tomorrow. Was in church last night, didn’t think I’d make it, but I just had to go! If I don’t get my “fix” of preaching and teaching I go half nuts! I don’t care if its two people or a large group, makes no difference, just gotta do it. Things went well, and I feel more work got accomplished around here just because a person has a little more zip in the step because of church.  And things are a buzzing around this house, moving things around, rearranging things because I found out last night after church we’re the proud owners of an ancient church piano! Gotta bring it home from church tomorrow evening and at least get it in the garage here, and if there’s enough strong backs around here, maybe upstairs where it will set. Its really old and really beautiful! I just wonder how many folks were saved as that old piano was playing years and years ago when our church building was a Methodist Church. You can’t buy a piano like that one! Now when we get it home I can take out the old hymnal from our church and practice up a bit. Plus on a couple of internet sites they have all the simple arrangements of many of the old hymns from days gone by that a person can print off for nothing, all public domain songs now.

I woke up this morning still in unbelief that we finally got us a piano, and more unbelief knowing the rich history of this particular one. Between reading the book Jan sent this way and receiving a Geneva Bible from our pastor a few weeks ago, and now this, I’m kinda wondering. Wondering because God knows my sincere interests, I figure He should because He must of put them in my heart and to see things like this happen have me more than amazed. Now I know to a regular person this might sound kinda stupid for lack of a better word, but I just love it! The piano is going upstairs, (someday when there’s enough help around the place), and the TV is coming downstairs. Even though it only gets like three channels nowadays its being more or less abandoned for good. The living room will be more like an old fashioned parlor. Nothing electronic there anymore except lights. No more entertainment center supposedly entertaining a person. Nope, more like real living, which might seem kinda strange to most folks in this day and age of everyone racing to buy the most modern electronic gadget for their homes.

Plus its garage sale season around here and my wife has discovered that you can but quite a few Bibles for pennies and that’s what she’s doing. She just got in with another one, I don’t know how many that makes now, and it looks like a good one. By that I mean its in good shape, well most of them are because lets face it, they were hardly ever touched. But they’ll be touched here plus it don’t hurt to have a whole bunch around to give to people when the need arises. And one thing for sure, the need will arise. So now we’re armed with allot of Bibles around this house, and a piano to boot! So that’s just a little news from around here, nothing earth shattering, but I’m having the time of my life!

The Real Faith

A rough week is was with a sore back, (very sore), and still getting allot of work done around the place. There’s one larger field that’s just about ready for corn this next week and I just got in from planting a row of peas out in the garden, figuring it might rain this weekend and I want them in before its too late in the season. That didn’t help my slowly mending back much but I can’t sit around waiting for things to get done themselves. And with most of the week spent in the field and this evening in the garden it gives a farmer allot of time to catch up thinking and planning. And over the last few years that means allot about faith matters. Many in the church today take vacations to supposedly clear their head and give them a fresh start, but except for the last seventy five years or so that was an unheard of thing. I was thinking about that this week.

Last spring when searching for information on revival I came across something that totally changed my life, and most of all my view of things. I came across a video called Revival Hymn and it probably back on this blog about a year ago. On the long version is a piece on humanism and after a few months I stumbled on the sermon audio at a site called the Sermon Index. Last November or so I even posted the entire written sermon on a page at the northern Farmer blog including a link to the audio sermon. And of all the hundreds of sermons I’ve heard this sermon changed it all. Afterwards everything is measured by that sermon and that includes my life.

To put it bluntly most things in the modern charismatic church make me want to throw up. The theme song could be, “It’s All About Me!!!” It strikes me like the church is so scared to lose out that people have to be promised everything is going to be just fine, your going to be blessed beyond your wildest material dreams, if you have a problem its from the devil, always blaming someone else, just as this humanistic society does. “We could not be at blame and if your having problems its because your faith isn’t strong enough, speak it and receive it!” And I humbly submit that its a lie. The Apostals and early church wouldn’t even recognize these teaching today. Why wouldn’t they recognize them? Because its pure humanism!

The biggest thing in that sermon which by the way is the most biblical sermon I’ve ever heard, is about saving the lost. The statement, “I don’t want to see anyone go to hell”, is nothing but pure humanism and I here again a person will not find any thinking of this sort in the Bible. Interesting to say the least. Here’s a small part:

Now I ask you; What is the Philosophy of Missions? What is the Philosophy of Evangelism? What is the Philosophy of a Christian? If you’ll ask me why I went to Africa, I’ll tell you I went primarily to improve on the justice of God. I didn’t think it was right for anybody to go to Hell without a chance to be saved. So I went to give poor sinners a chance to go to heaven. Now I haven’t put it in so many words, but if you’ll analyze what I just told you , do you know what it is? Humanism. That I was simply using the provisions of Jesus Christ as a means to improve upon human conditions of suffering and misery. And when I went to Africa, I discovered that they weren’t poor, ignorant, little heathen running around in the woods looking for someone to tell them how to go to heaven. That they were Monsters of Iniquity! They were living in utter and total defiance of far more knowledge of God than I ever dreamed they had! They deserved Hell! Because they utterly refused to walk in the light of their conscious, and the light of the law written upon their heart, and the testimony of nature, and the truth they knew! And when I found that out I assure you I was so angry with God that on one occasion in prayer I told Him it was a mighty little thing He’d done – sending me out there to reach these people that were waiting to be told how to go to heaven. When I got there I found out they knew about heaven, and didn’t want to go there, and that they loved their sin and wanted to stay in it.

(Brother Paris speaks with great passion in this paragraph) I went out their motivated by humanism. I’d seen pictures of lepers, I’d seen pictures of ulcers, I’d seen pictures of native funerals, and I didn’t want my fellow human beings to suffer in Hell eternally after such a miserable existence on earth. But it was there in Africa that God began to tear through the overlay of this humanism! And it was that day in my bedroom with the door locked that I wrestled with God. For here was I, coming to grips with the fact that the people I thought were ignorant and wanted to know how to go to heaven and were saying, “Someone come and teach us!”, actually didn’t want to take time to talk with me or anybody else. They had no interest in the Bible and no interest in Christ, and they love their sin and wanted to continue in it. And I was to that place, at that time, where I felt the whole thing was a sham and a mockery, and I had been sold a bill of goods! And I wanted to come home. There alone in my bedroom as I faced God honestly with what my heart felt, it seemed to me I heard Him say, “Yes, will not the Judge of all the earth do right? The heathen are lost, and they’re going to go to Hell, not because they haven’t heard the gospel. They’re going to go to Hell because they are sinners, who love their sin! And because they deserve Hell. But……I didn’t send you out there for them. I didn’t send you out there for their sakes.” And I heard clearly as I’ve ever heard, though it wasn’t with physical voice but it was the echo of truth of the ages, finding it’s way into an open heart. I heard God say to my heart that day something like this, “I didn’t send you to Africa for the sake of the heathen, I sent you to Africa for My Sake….They deserved Hell! But I love them! And I endured the agonies of Hell for them!!!! I didn’t send you out there for them! I SENT YOU OUT THERE FOR ME… Do I not deserve the reward of my suffering? Don’t I deserve those for who I died?” And it reversed it all!! And changed it all!! And righted it all!! And I wasn’t any longer working for Micah and ten shekels and a shirt! But I was serving a living God! I was not there for the sake of the heathen. I was there for the Savior that endured the agonies of Hell for me, who didn’t deserve it. But He deserved them, (the heathen). Because He died for them.

I put the entire sermon on a page on the sidebar of this blog for anyone interested. There it will be explained when humanism entered the church. Its deep within the church, very deep. And when a person reads the stories of years gone by the faith was totally different than the norm today. People spread the Gospel for their Savior, just as in the Bible. In my eyes there’s no greater problem today than this. When we go out to save the lost it almost always fails, it never comfortable and a person  gets poor results. How then did the early believers covert 51% of the Roman Empire in one generation?  Meanwhile the church today is week and floundering. Its because of the humanism in our hearts. I want the faith that they had! I want to be sent out for Him! Simple really, but shocking to most in this present age.

Busted Up

The day is done around here, I quit a little early, kinda sore. Sunday I fell down our steps going into the basement and landed rather dramatically on the concrete floor.  Nothing busted though, including the floor. But a couple days later I got almost crippled up and I figure that might have something to do with it. About as  bad as my back has ever been, but its already getting better than it was. Nothing that solid work can’t cure! No days off even if you have to crawl, that’s life on the farm. Went to church last evening in that condition and it was a tad bit rough surviving the hour and a half in children’s church but I managed. Barely made it through my nightly bible reading when we got home. But I praise the Lord, it could’a been worse, much worse! The healing is going rapidly! I even smile now, well once in a while anyhow!

Work is moving along, small grains are done, now to focus on corn. Grass is greening up and things are looking better! A church 30 miles away discovered our farm and placed a big beef order and I’m in awe how that worked! Things are moving along just fine if you don’t count me

A Little on Wesley

“Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth.

England of the early 18th century was a bleak place to be, a country riddled with crime and hopelessness, an isle ripe for spiritual revival. Enter John Wesley, the son of an Anglican clergyman, a man whose own spiritual doubts had recently been vanquished by a startling revelation.

“Suddenly an inexplicable warmth swelled inside John’s chest. His heart seemed to buoy him off the floor. His mind soared. He realized he did trust Christ alone for salvation. Christ had died for him, John Wesley. Christ’s blood had washed away John Wesley’s sins. Christ alone had saved John Wesley…”

The founder of what would become the Methodist Church, the man who would ride over a quarter of a million miles on horseback, who would preach over 40,000 sermons to often jeering crowds, had been convicted of this simple truth: salvation is by grace through faith.

This is just a copy and paste post. In fact I’m doing this to save it for myself. The way my computer loses its memory so frequently I had better do something of the sort! But these pastes really tell allot! The faith and courage of John Wesley and those who followed after him just gives me a lift to say the least. There’s allot going on with our spiritual lives right now here at our place. Its very foundational. Its very simple. Just the way the Gospel should be. I don’t need complicated things and I sure ain’t going to follow whats popular at the moment. In this day and age we need men and women that follow the Lord like Wesley and those that came after him. He was nothing special, just a mere man that truly followed the Lord. Just like the circuit riders that came after him. Preach the Gospel to the regular folks. With so much garbage happening today in so called Christian circles its no wonder there’s a great falling away. Who in their right mind would follow it for life? No, its gotta be the basics, the truth, the Gospel and the real Gospel. Not some message meant to tickle the ears of the modern self centered person in society. There has to be conviction, the truth preached out. The truth of how God’s Son died and rose again for unworthy sinners that only deserve hell. The love of God for beings so unworthy. And that we are saved by Christ alone. Nothing we ever did to deserve it, nothing. Whatever happened to the Gospel that would set the captive free? Whatever happened to preaching to the poor and down trodden and bringing to them the eternal hope and gift that Jesus died for?