Archives for 2008

gbcvic closing evangelistic service

Our last night of evangelistic services came tonight. Our only visitors were friends and fellow BWM missionary-church planters, Bill and Norma Carter. We had good attendance from our own people, including some who only attend occasionally.

The meetings closed out with another fine, Biblical evangelistic message, this time from Isaiah 53. Here’s the summary:

All We Like Sheep (Isa 53.6)

Our last message of the evangelistic meetings concerned the message of Isaiah 53.6. Evangelist Ken Lynch described the waywardness, willfulness and wickedness of man … and the wonder of our Saviour. O that men would hear him!

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on things canuck-like

Yesterday I made a comment about how we Canadians identify ourselves. Typically a lot of our self-definition is in terms of how we are not like Americans. A certain distressing (to me, at least) smugness lies in the Canadian sense of superiority over Americans.

It is to be expected that smaller, less powerful neighbours will be somewhat jealous of the more powerful next door. I think this is true to America’s south as well as to the north. But for us on the north there is an added sense of competition from sharing the same language, heritage and culture, but not sharing similar positions or power in the world.

Yesterday was Victoria Day in Canada, one of our statutory holidays in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday. The holiday is set to occur on the first Monday before May 25, even though Victoria’s birthday was May 21. This day is one of our uniquely Canadian cultural events. It is always celebrated with a grand parade in our city, complete with American high school bands from Washington state. (I love to hear them when I get a chance to go down to the parade.) This year, our civic pride was boosted by a band from one of our local high schools winning the band competition.

One of our nation’s senators wrote an article in a Toronto paper yesterday on the occasion of Victoria Day. He made an interesting comment that highlights some essential differences between Canada and America.

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gbcvic evangelistic service

We had another excellent night in our services with a fine message and blessed special music. A couple of visitors, but this time no outward signs of any spiritual work in hearts. I spoke with one of them afterward and there is an area of mutual interest where I think I may be able to do some follow-up work. Pray for the ongoing work of the Spirit.

The Rich Young Ruler (Mt 19.16-22)

Evangelist Ken Lynch brought another powerful evangelistic message in our service tonight concerning the rich young ruler. He emphasized that the rich young ruler was respected, religious, and respected Christ. He was rich, but his riches could not obtain the sense of loss he experienced in his life. To his loss, his earthly mindset was fixed on making a deal with Christ so that he could obtain eternal life. What a tragedy … eternal life was available for him, but he would not do the one thing that was needed most of all, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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an evangelical really gets it

John Mark Reynolds, professor at Biola, writes in response to the Evangelical Manifesto on the Washington Post On Faith site I mentioned the other day. His article, Reasonable Evangelicals contains a number of very interesting statements, but this one particularly caught my eye.

An Evangelical is moderate, fundamentally opposed to fundamentalism. They believe in truth and that God has spoken to humankind, but know that understanding that truth is difficult. They are willing to walk the hard road of Socratic persuasion and of cultural engagement. Sometimes they do this badly, but modern American Evangelicals historically came into being through a rejection of any narrow intolerance that refuses to consider competing points of view.

I would describe this as the Canadian approach to self-definition.

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gbcvic evangelistic service

The Vision of Isaiah (Isa 6)

Evangelist Ken Lynch brought another powerful message for us tonight from Isaiah’s vision. Men reject what little they know of God, but if they would look at the Lord and who he is, if they would look at themselves as they really are, they would beg and plead God for pardon for their sins. Bro. Lynch gave us a closing illustration that brought out the difference between men who value pardons and men who do not.

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The service was a real blessing with more special music from bro. Lynch. We had two visitors, one of whom asked for spiritual counsel after the service. We hope to be able to have further opportunities with this one to help understand the gospel.

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gbcvic sermons 5.18.04

Blessed are the Forgiven (Ps 32.1-5)

We are blessed these next four days to have Evangelist Ken Lynch speaking (and playing various instruments) in our services. Brother Lynch first visited our work about 14 years ago while on vacation with his family. We are glad to see him return for special meetings with us.

The first message of the day was a sound exposition of the condition of sin, the consequences of sin, the conviction of sin, the confession of sin and the cancellation of sin. The message was a thorough examination especially of the condition of sin and its confession. There was no doubt concerning the solution for the sinner: turn to Christ, have your sins forgiven, covered, and cancelled.

The Lord Proves You (Dt 13.3)

In our Bible Study time, bro. Lynch began a message from Dt 13. In the first part of the message, he emphasized the fact that the Lord works in our lives, bringing even false prophets in contact with us (as well as other trials) to prove or test our need of the Lord … and the quality of our relationship with Him.

Responsibilities to the Lord Thy God (Dt 13.4)

Concluding the message from earlier in the day, bro Lynch emphasized our relationship to our personal God and our responsibilities to walk with Him, obey Him, and serve Him.

Today’s messages were a great blessing to us all. I believe brother Lynch fulfilled the mandate of Eph 4 where Paul says evangelists (among others) are God’s gift to the church to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

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Newsweek-WaPo site ‘on faith’

Some very interesting responses to the Evangelical Manifesto can be found on the Washington Post’s site, “On Faith“. The list of contributors is a potpourri of the broadest kind of ecumenicalism.

Among others, Deepak Chopra(!) comments on what he calls  a “new evangelicalism”.

In light of recent discussions regarding the social activism of some, one of his comments is interesting.

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an old timer on social action

Jon Trainer and Champ Thornton are talking about social action and whether there is a mandate for the church to engage in such activities. You can read some of their articles here, here, and here.

I am not sure where Jon and Champ will end up on this question, but for myself I see  no mandate at all for social action as a ministry of the church (except perhaps direct help for church members in crisis). As a Christian individual, I believe I should be kind and helpful to all as I come in contact with needs, but this really isn’t the mission of the church.

While I was working away on Romans today, I ran across a little essay in one of my commentaries on the social gospel. It is by William R. Newell, one-time assistant superintendent of Moody Bible Institute (under R. A. Torrey) and a fine Bible teacher and evangelist in his own right.

Newell left Moody in 1910 to take a Presbyterian pastorate in Florida. He published his commentary on Romans in 1938. He died in 1956.

This essay is from the Romans commentary.

William R. Newell, Romans verse by verse, pp. 46-51

TO THE PREACHERS OF “THE SOCIAL GOSPEL”

This is the doctrine that Jesus Christ came to reform society (whatever “society” may be!); that He came to abate the evils of selfishness, give a larger “vision” to mankind; and, through His example and precepts, bring about such a change in human affairs, social, political, economic and domestic, as would realize all man’s deep longings for a peaceful, happy existence upon earth, ushering in what these teachers are pleased to call, “the Kingdom of God.”

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characteristics of revival

A bit more from my Church History notes. We were nearing the end of the semester when we discussed revival and revivalists. The heading of this lecture is the subject line of this post, “Characteristics of Revival”. Here they are:

  • Interdenominational (but not undistinguished cooperation between infidelity and fidelity)
  • Prominence of prayer

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terms matter

While words are elastic and meaning changes over time, terms do matter. For example, would you say you “pro-life” or “anti-abortion”? (For the other side, it would be “pro-choice” or “pro-abortion”, eh?) While either one of the first pair is not all that offensive to me, the second term “anti-abortion” is primarily used by the “pro-choice” side as a pejorative against their opponents.

Many of the terms used in the debate are seen as political framing: terms used to validate one’s own stance while invalidating the opposition’s. For example, the labels “pro-choice” and “pro-life” imply endorsement of widely held values such as liberty and freedom, while suggesting that the opposition must be “anti-choice” or “anti-life” (alternatively “pro-coercion” or “pro-death”). Such terms gloss over the underlying issue of which choice or life is being considered and whose choice or what kind of life is deemed most important.[1]

But my topic tonight isn’t what you might suspect. What I want to talk about are these terms: “cessationist” and “non-cessationist”. Here is my question: who is ‘framing’ whom with these terms? Where did they come from and what is the purpose of this terminology?

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