When Church Leaders Fall–Part 3

To clarify a point on this particular series of posts concerning when church leaders fall—it is not limited to immoral relationships—it can also be related to misuse of money, poorly exercised authority (either too little or not enough), doctrinal compromise, laziness, and a host of other issues. Church leaders fall when they are not actively carrying out their responsibilities and work of ministry. Generally speaking when the man is initially confronted by the maligning behavior, he will initially deny it.

Denial is a deadly form of self-slaughter. Henry Ford made that mistake after his company had been viable for a little over a decade. The things that made it great in the past were the things that drug it down in the present. Compound that with the fact that Ford began to believe his and be overcome with his own press releases. Don’t ever, ever believe what people are telling you about yourself! If you can deflect the criticism that comes to all ministers then you will have to deflect the praise that comes also. We can get caught up in great deception when we believe all of the compliments we receive and all the criticism we receive. Get a balance on that or it will ruin you. You are never as good as people think you are and you are never as bad as they think you are either.

When flattery is no longer fiction, you will be put on spiritual life-support and it won’t be long until a stumble takes you down. If our motivations are not principled, any form of success will cause a man to be corrupted in the long haul. Success does funny things to us. It makes us unbending, unyielding, and prone to mistakes. You will be overcome with the mentality of ‘just go out and do it!’ or ‘you’ve done this a thousand times, no need to continue the spiritual disciplines of prayer and so on’ and you are about half-way in the trap when you buy into that. I am glad that there are times that I am still nervous before I preach, before I am involved in the work of the church, and as I muddle through counseling sessions. Invincibility is an illusion that we all can buy into no matter if the church has 25 or 2500. You can’t do this by yourself!!!

I come to the last couple of points concerning what happened to me when one of my spiritual heroes fell. (Part 1 and Part 2.)

8. It will not be the first time that someone fell nor will it be the last time I will witness a failure. Be prepared for it!

In fact as time has passed, I have witnessed multiple failures of men who were church leaders. It is not nearly as ground-shaking as it was for me twenty years ago or so. As time has passed and the numbers have increased somewhat, it appears that the thing that contributed most to all of the failures was a prevailing sense of pride. That pride manifested itself in many different forms but two of them appeared to be prevalent. Those who thought they could control their motives and desires without the active work of the Spirit or they were increasingly absent from their home and their own church where they were called to work. Being absent from their home was not necessarily that they were taking cross-country trips but just away for various reasons.

Get used to the fact that failure is going to occur. It does not mean the Church is any less powerful, it just means that God uses the winds of the trials to expose the charlatans. We are often somewhat skewed in our thinking to believe the idea that our days are different from that of Paul. He routinely warned the Church that there were wolves among the flock, false brethren populating positions of authority, and weeds in the wheat. Why should we expect our days to be any different?

9. It made me appreciate the wall-flowers of the ministry world.

I mean by this that I quit looking for the organ grinders who had hopping monkeys. I started looking for men whose lives reflected a quiet godliness and a calm spiritual authority, men whose names never graced the marquees or the organizational flyers. I found a lot of heroes riding Shetland ponies. More than once I had to repent for my former attitude about the regular “Joe’s” of life and came to understand that they could contribute so much to my life that would be important in the years to come.

10. Every man must have a personal devotion to God.

You will find this particular thought woven through much of these blog posts. You will have to fight with your life for this time to get alone. We are by nature given to busyness and the doing part of the ministry. We can preach canned sermons, pray canned prayers, and lead canned programs and starve our souls to death.

Family problems, church problems, financial problems, and fill-in-the-blank problems will deplete your spiritual life. One man said that the bucket will leak even if nothing is being poured out of it. Maybe this series of blogs has scared you—it has me! I don’t want to fall because there is a lot of influence that God has granted to me but I am not alone in that. God has granted you an incredible amount of influence in the circle of the world where you are too! If I am not constantly dependent on the grace of God to sustain me, my life will run low.

I will have some concluding thoughts tomorrow. . . .

Thanks for reading. . .

God Bless,
PH

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

When Church Leaders Fall–Part 2

Picking up from yesterday’s post concerning when Church Leaders Fall, I want to give you some more thoughts that helped me to continue on in what we are called to do. The enemy loves nothing more than to challenge our faith by the failure of others. In fact, William Gurnall in his classic work, The Christian in Complete Armour, lists as one of the strategies of temptation that the devil uses is to get us looking at those who are in positions of influence and success and then create public failure to discourage us.

4. Public ministry “success” does not always mean that all is well.

The soul of the man collapses long before the trappings of his public ministry unravels. The old adage, “A man never falls far” is true. When we see a church leader fall, you can count on it that it rarely was a sudden failure. A man can be publicly lauded and elevated and behind the scenes be rejected by God.

Years ago, I was in the Barnes and Noble in Montgomery, Alabama and ran across a biography of Jimmy Swaggart. That book noted that during the 1980’s that within his own denomination, he had no peer as a preacher. Any conference that wanted to have a good attendance always made arrangements for him to preach because it had some sense of credibility with his presence. But when one gets so busy that he trusts in the arm of flesh instead of the anointing of the Spirit, complications will occur. One may compartmentalize his sin for a certain amount of time, but over the course of the long haul, carnality always will reveal its presence. No matter what level of talent that we have been gifted with, talents have never provided salvation for anyone. Please, please do not allow the trappings of success to justify improper or even immoral activities. Be a man of integrity.

Just because it appears to be successful does not necessarily mean that God is in it.

5. A man has to live what he preaches.

If you can rationalize and justify your wayward behavior and then get up and rail against those sins in a pulpit, your soul is that of a worm. The sharpest words that Jesus had were for those who were hypocrites (Matthew 23). You must live what you preach. If you don’t live it, don’t preach it!

We can get so busy doing that he forgot about being. We are human beings not human doings. The farther along in the ministry that one progresses the more of a premium that spiritual disciplines must be fostered. Prayer, fasting, and reading Scripture just for the sake of reading the Book are invaluable. Prayer develops and nourishes the passion of the preacher. Fasting develops the discipline of both body and soul. Reading Scripture adds wisdom and gives us options when we are faced with weariness, temptation, and discouragement.

No ministry will ever rise above what occurs in the secret place of the closet. An old survey conducted by Leadership Journal found that pastors pray an average of 22 minutes per day. Of the 572 who were surveyed, 57% spend less than 20 minutes a day in prayer, 34% spend between 20 minutes and one hour a day in prayer and 9% pray for an hour or longer daily. This thing about renewing your mind that Paul mentions in Romans 12 really works. But perhaps we have gotten so high tech with all of our gadgets that we think that praying our way through something is too old-fashioned. However, that was what Paul affirmed would keep us from conforming to this world and then transforming the average man into a noble instrument to be used for God’s purpose.

Prayer and devotion to the Word will help us to live what we preach.

6. I will never again be trapped into believing that success is what I can “see.”

We Americans put way too much emphasis on buildings and bucks or nickels and noses as someone has aptly said. We place way too much emphasis on image at the expense of substance. Preaching at conferences, camp-meetings, and seminars is not necessarily the benchmark of successful pastoral ministry. The real pattern for ministry is what you will read about namely the Bible, more specifically the job description you find in 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.

You may see outward “success” but God is more concerned with inward godliness than with public persona.

7. The real heroes are usually the men that you cannot see.

While it is crucial for God to have visible and capable leaders, the majority of the work is going to be accomplished in the trenches where real pastoral ministry takes place. It is amazing how that God uses the sanctifying work of a godly ministry to hone and shape our souls. When we are given to prayer, ministry of the Word, evangelism, encouragement, helping, and serving it puts a lot in the tank so to speak.

Over the years, I have come into contact with men whose real holiness and godliness put a longing in my heart to be closer to God. I have met men who truly gave themselves to the ministry of prayer and it showed in the complexities of life. I have met men who were literally filled with the Spirit in such a manner that it provoked me to good works. The vast majority of those men would be looked upon with disdain because they do not pastor large churches. They just serve where they are called to serve. They love their people and their people love them.

On a concluding note, a long time ago a minister, whose name now slips my memory, said that it was a must that I read Richard Exley’s book The Perils of Power. It is long now out of print but I want to leave this thought with you. Every man has his own blind spots and dangerous Achilles’ heel. Consider your areas of weakness and face up to them. Where spiritual self-examination occurs, is where the power of the Spirit moves into our lives. The following describes one pastor’s experience:

Somehow I made it through the public confession, on adrenalin I think, but following the benediction an awful weariness settled upon me. Like a sleep walker I made my way down the center aisle to the front doors. Years of weekly repetition gave my handshake firmness, my smile warmth I didn’t feel, and my words of personableness which belied the awful emptiness within. Eventually the last worshiper departed and I re-entered the now empty sanctuary and looked around in despair. The silence was overwhelming, almost eerie. I made my way to the altar, then to the pulpit.

Standing there it all came back–my call to the ministry, the skimpy years when we both had to work so I could finish seminary, my first sermon, the night I was ordained, our first church. Then I begin to weep, soundlessly at first, just huge tears running down my cheeks, then harder until my whole body shook. Great heaving sobs rent my soul. I wept for what might have been, what should have been. I cried for my wife, for the terrible pain I had caused her, for the anguish that now locked her in painful silence. I cried for my church. They deserved better than this. They had trusted me, loved me, and I had betrayed them. And I cried for me, for the man I might have been.

I stood behind the pulpit, touched it, ran my fingers over the smooth wood and realized as never before what a sacred place it was. And with that realization came guilt so great that I couldn’t breathe. The magnitude of my sin, my betrayal, drove me from the pulpit and I stumbled to the altar and sat down. An accusing voice inside of me whispered, ‘How are the mighty fallen.’

There was no reason to stay, no reason to linger longer, but I couldn’t tear myself away. My life was ending, unraveling thread by thread, and I was powerless to stop it. Over the years, I had told ministers, again and again, that they had identity as persons not just as preachers, but now I discovered it wasn’t true for me. Without the pulpit, the church, the ministry, I had no self. I could feel myself becoming invisible, turning into a nonentity–breathing and taking up space but having absolutely no reason to exist.

Think long and hard about it! Read those words again and think about what one tosses away when immorality enters into his personal life. Think about what it was like when you preached the first sermon that God really used. Think about your wife and children. Think about those saints that you serve. Guard yourself. Keep yourself. Maintain your love for God.

More tomorrow. . .

Thanks for reading. . . .

Philip Harrelson

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

When Church Leaders Fall–Part 1

I am currently working through a long series of studies through the book of Acts and I have come to the part in Acts 1 where the replacement of Judas is being dealt with by the Apostles (1:12-26). (If you want the notes send me an e-mail and I will send them to you in a Word doc.) As I worked through this passage, again I am confronted with how unsettling it can be when a church leader falls. In fact, it is almost ground-shaking to us when we see someone who once stood for the core doctrines of the faith find themselves disqualified from public ministry because of their actions. Not only did Judas disqualify himself from public ministry he committed suicide which totally removed any potential for his recovery at a later time.

We have grown accustomed to public spectacles taking place when men make foolish choices and destroy the influence that they had carefully worked toward creating. This has always been the case as time marches on—the names change but the times of man’s failing or his potential for falling does not. In fact, when men are given an opportunity to make poor choices they always do unless they have allowed the influence of the Spirit to take place in their lives (Romans 8:13-14; 12:1-2). We are can still be somewhat surprised when the Bernie Madoffs’, Tiger Woods’, John Edwards’, and others in the secular world make destructive choices motivated by their sin but when it comes into the church it can be ground-shaking.

Never can I forget when one of my spiritual heroes plummeted almost 20 years ago when I was still in a state of youthful immaturity. For months I was in a state of disbelief with the constant nagging thought that the same thing could happen to me. Furthermore, I lamented, if it could happen to him then I was even more susceptible that it could happen to me because I did not have nearly the spiritual status that my hero had. I thought, ‘If he can fall, what will happen to me?’ I worried, ‘If he can’t make, can I?’ I agonized over all of those things at the time. It pushed me to a place of prayerful consideration and evaluation and caused me to put up some boundaries in my life that to this day have continued to help. It forced me to understand that prophecies, “words” from the Lord, will all be forgotten as the clock marches on but Scripture is with me all the time and the more I get in my heart and head, the safer that I will against the attacks that surround our passage on this earth.

As time has marched on, I have discovered that this prominent failure would not be the only one I would encounter but that there were other men who would fall too. In all of that I discovered some valuable lessons that were helpful to me and may be helpful to you also.

1. I understood the pervasive and powerful influence that private sin has on one’s life.

One cannot expect to engage in frequent, private, and secretive sins and not be marred by the impact it will have on your life. To do so proves that there is an incredible self-deception that one has bought into. Private sins have a way of corroding every aspect of our lives. We all have a public persona that is present with us, it is the level of living that we are expected to do and it can be deadly to us because it does not take much to be acceptable to the public eye. However, a public anointing will never rise any higher than a private devotion! The private life of a man, the secret chambers of his heart is where all of the action is and that secret chamber of the soul must literally be saturated with the Word and with prayer. If that does not take place, it is only a matter of time before the door is thrown open to the sin that will mar your influence. Public credibility is already fragile enough and it will be axed when private sin is being entertained. You can put whatever sin you wish to place in the area of private sin—there are a multitude of choices—all of them being as pervasive as leprosy.

2. It caused me to take deep (and constant) inventory of my own soul of which I continue to do even to this day.

Soul inventory requires that you not be gentle with yourself! You cannot afford to allow yourself outs on any issue. Years ago, an old preacher told me that four things will ruin a man who is called to public ministry—silver, self, sloth, and sex. That pretty well sums up for us the avenues of life that we must always hold the line and never allow a drift to take place.

Soul inventory is more than just a checklist that you go through on a daily basis because lists in themselves can become very legalistic and you will soon find an out if you look hard enough. Deep soul inventory requires that you constantly realize that that you are in a perpetual, relentless spiritual battle that requires constant vigilance. Paul said that you would have to buffet the body and reign in your body (1 Corinthians 9:25-27). Peter notes that your mind has to be held in a sober manner of thinking (1 Peter 5:8-9). He would later give a picture of those men who refused to deal harshly with their motives and actions in 2 Peter 2.

3. It caused me to look deeply at who this failure affected.

Who was affected by the failure of Judas? I am certain that because he was a disciple that he had someone he was influencing and I feel fairly certain in saying that his dramatic betrayal and suicide affected those who loved and admired him. The sad thing is that when men fall there are others who wash out with them. The wash outs are not as dramatic but their failure is just as dire and their destination is the same as that of Judas because some never recover.

I conclude this post with a list that I wrote down in my Bible about two years ago. I found it on Randy Alcorn’s blog and thought it provoking enough to put it at the end of Genesis because of the association with the integrity that Joseph demonstrated. Alcorn entitled the list “Anticipated Consequences of Immorality.”

• Grieving my Lord; displeasing the One whose opinion matters most.
• Dragging into the mud Christ’s sacred reputation.
• Loss of reward and commendation of God at the judgment.
• Having one day to look Jesus in the face at the judgment seat and give an account of why I did it. Forcing Him to discipline me in various ways.
• Following in the footsteps of men I know of whose immorality forfeited their ministry and caused me to shudder. (List these names.)
• Suffering of innocent people around me who would get hit by the shrapnel of my disobedience (Achan).
• Untold hurt to my loyal wife and best friend.
• Loss of my wife’s trust and respect.
• Hurt to my children. Why listen to a man who betrayed Mom and us?
• If my blindness should continue or my family is unable to forgive, I could lose my wife and children forever.
• Shame to my family.
• Shame to my church family.
• Shame and hurt to my fellow pastors, ministers, and elders and hurt to my friends who I have influence with.

I realize this is heavy thinking stuff and I have more of it that I scribbled down in the moleskin that I will share this week. We are rarely given to this kind of soul inventory much anymore because we don’t even want to entertain the fact that we could very well be guilty of being way too easy on ourselves. Don’t do it!!!! Too much is at stake. . .

More tomorrow. . .

Thanks for reading. . .

Philip Harrelson (philipharrelson@gmail.com)

P.S. — I am taking a brief hiatus from the Christopher Hitchens posts until I have a chance to read through his memoir which will be in a few days.

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Christopher Hitchens’ Great Dilemma — Part 2

Continuing on that same stream from last week with Christopher Hitchens’ battle with cancer and his obvious and perhaps delightful embrace of atheism, we have to note the obvious hopelessness that comes to those who are intent on embracing this theory. If you listen closely to what Hitchens has to say about life in general, there are some obvious comparisons with the thoughts and ideas of George Carlin who also recently passed away. George Carlin was another figure with who I wasn’t familiar with until his death and happened to read a book review from another blog about his life. Considered one top comedians of our age, he was another man who was trapped in the same defiled thinking patterns as is Hitchens.

I made the mistake of searching for Carlin on YouTube and could only manage about 3 minutes of the vile monologue that was dubbed as entertainment. But in reality both Hitchens and Carlin were both saying the same thing in a round-about way. Hitchens is being hailed as one of the foremost thinkers and progressives of our times and Carlin was being touted as one of the best comedians of our day—either education is being confused as comedy or comedy is being confused as education. Initial surprise at these two characters was soon replaced by proper theology—don’t be surprised at the actions and words of those who are sinners—they are just doing what comes natural to them, fighting with God. Despite their greatest inclinations to say there is not a God, all of their actions put them unknowingly in direct opposition to God. Anything opposed to God always fights with God!

All one has to do is again go to Scripture to look at the mindset of a man who has no hope in God. Perhaps it is most reflected in the most cynical book in the Bible, the Ecclesiastes, written by Solomon when his life was devoid of the hope of God. His idols and his wives had caused him to forget who God was.

Ecclesiastes 3:18-22 ESV [18] I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. [19] For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. [20] All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. [21] Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? [22] So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?

This is what happens to men who pursue the American dream at a maddening pace and either they get it or it is like chasing butterflies that are always elusive and never captured. If you only pursue things that are confined to the earth and never consider the spiritual aspects of your soul, it always comes up with emptiness. Hitchens soul is empty because he bought into the deceptiveness of the temporary and refused to believe in the permanence of the eternal.

Chuck Swindoll in his devotional commentary on Ecclesiastes provokes my thinking with the following thoughts:

Before we travel with Solomon through his journal account, allow me to state in three simple comments how directly his observations and experiences, though ancient, tie in with our journey today.

1. The sensual lure of something better tomorrow robs us of the joys offered today.
2. The personal temptation to escape is always stronger than the realization of its consequences.
3. The final destination, if God is absent from the scene, will not satisfy.

The good life—the one that truly satisfies—exists only when we stop wanting a better one. It is the condition of savoring what is rather than longing for what might be. The itch for things, the lust for more—so brilliantly injected by those who peddle them—is a virus draining our souls of happy contentment. Have you noticed? A man never earns enough. A woman is never beautiful enough. Clothes are never fashionable enough. Cars are never nice enough. Gadgets are never modern enough. Houses are never furnished enough. Food is never fancy enough. Relationships are never romantic enough. Life is never full enough.

Satisfaction comes when we step off the escalator of desire and say, “This is enough. What I have will do. What I make of it is up to me and my vital union with the living Lord.”

I plan on reading Hitchens biography in the next few days and have to believe that somewhere in that autobiographical work that there is some evidence of a man who never had enough. His dissatisfaction with life paralyzed the ability of his soul to rise to gratitude.

Finally, here is another video clip of the trailer for the Collision debates. The disclaimer that comes with this clip is that this is purely an intellectual and academic pursuit of God (or with Hitchens the absence of God) which always leads men astray. God cannot be confined to a classroom or a Petri dish. The great danger of seminaries that started with biblical foundations found that they drifted when they turned God into a purely academic pursuit; God always becomes lifeless when He is confined to academic nuances. God means and intends to live in the hearts of men through the occasion of the New Birth (John 3:3-5; Acts 2:38; 10:44-48; 19:1-6).

More later. . .

Thanks for reading. . .

PH

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Christopher Hitchens’ Great Dilemma — Part 1

Last November, I wrote a series of posts (which I did not finish) about a neurosurgeon that I have worked with and known since the summer of ’92 and his recommendations of Richard Dawkins’ works (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). At the time of his suggestion, I had no idea who Dawkins was. But after I read through one of his books and sorted through a couple more, it became clear that Dawkins was a radical, hostile, and sarcastic atheist who enjoyed humiliating anyone who would attempt to defend a Christian worldview and the existence of God.

As I became acquainted with the Dawkins spin, I also discovered a few other fellows that are comrades with Dawkins in their efforts to become what has commonly been referred to as the New Atheists. One such author, and very popular I might add, is Christopher Hitchens. He is also an avowed atheist but is not nearly as sarcastic and pugnacious as Dawkins, at least in my opinion. Although I have not read any of Hitchens work, my exposure to him came through the Collision Debates that he had with Douglas Wilson. All of the debate is on You-Tube but unless you are interested in debates you probably won’t find it very compelling.

Last evening, I noticed a news article concerning Christopher Hitchens who has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer with apparent metastasis. The cancer not only is in his esophagus but also has spread to the lymph nodes. For anyone who remotely knows anything about medicine and the disease process, this is a ticking time bomb that Hitchens is dealing with. So take note of the interview and hear what the man says. Listen carefully to a man who is now sitting on death row about to go where we all will ultimately end up, facing the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

I will post more thoughts on this in the days to come but I want you to contemplate what hopeless this man unknowingly is presenting to his watching fan base. I conclude with Paul’s words to the Romans:

Romans 3:4 ASV God forbid: yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy words, And mightest prevail when thou comest into judgment.

For Mr. Hitchens, and everyone else for that matter, it doesn’t matter what you believe or do not believe about God! Your unbelief does not change the equation of God’s existence and His active work to redeem man through the power of the Cross.

More later. . .

Thanks for reading. . .

PH

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

How Is Your Listening?. . . . Part 4

With this last blog on how is your listening, I want to continue with the ways that Ken Ramey states that we can help our listening.

Fifth, be consistent with church attendance. Haphazard church attendance is an Achilles heel for many Christians in our times. They do not even realize what they have missed after they start having sporadic patterns of attending church. When we assemble together for a time of fellowship and encouragement it helps all of us (Hebrews 10:23-25). When I was growing up, my parents attended church every time the doors were open, so this habit became ingrained into my life and it has continued to reward great benefits to me. When you are regularly attending church, God has the ability to pick up where you left off from the last time. Not only do I feel that weekends are important for corporate worship, I am also a strong advocate of coming to mid-week services.

David Eby summed it up like this, concerning church attendance: “You grieve over flaky folks who don’t take preaching very seriously, who will miss services with seemingly no conscience pangs, at almost any flimsy excuse. You mourn for a generation, red-eyed from Nintendo and TV, bloated with soccer, scouts, hot tubs, and designer vacations, but bored with the Word of God.”

You have to make time for worship and when you go, have a sense of expectancy. Expect something in the worship to engage you. God is a speaking God and when we go to the house of worship, we should intentionally determine to experience something great from God. Plan your Saturday night to facilitate your Sunday morning and Sunday night. There are a lot of things that could be done in 15 minutes of Saturday night that would severely diminish the stress levels that some families face on Sunday mornings getting ready for worship. It’s hard to hear from God if marital tension, unruly kids, and NASCAR style driving all had to accompany you on the way to worship.

Sixth, worship with all of your heart. Worship helps us to focus our thoughts and minds in prior to the preached Word. The songs, the prayers, even the offering are all a series of active things taking place to help us to be receptive to the Word and Spirit of God. We need to sing! Some can sing in their car but can’t sing in their church. We need to pray! Some men can call in on nation-wide sports call-in shows and talk about their favorite team but cannot pray in front of their wives and children. We need to give! Again, most people spend $100 and even more eating out on a weekly basis but quibble when someone expects them to give 10% in tithes. As you can see worship is always a matter of priority and whatever your priorities are they will get your time and attention.

Seventh, fight off distractions. There are a thousand and one distractions that one can find attractive in the course of a worship service. You can watch people, you can look at the sanctuary, you can day-dream, and in fact the sky is the limit as to what distractions you can pay attention to. However, most of us have been in a class before whose intent it was to prep us for taking a final or a board examination. Nobody had to tell you to get focused and pay attention because you were fearful of failing the test. It’s funny but sad how we can put much more effort in paying attention for some earthly examination we want to pass but pay little attention to the words that can help us to gain eternal life.

You can fight off distractions by making eye contact with the preacher. You can mentally follow along with what he is saying and you can physically follow along in your Bible. Don’t give in to laziness by leaving your Bible at home, take it to church! By the way, sermons are not for entertainment, they are for instruction in righteousness and sometimes the Word will confront where you are living and it will convict (or confront) you. If you are living low, the tendency is to get angry with the preacher but if you are living high, spiritually speaking, you will embrace the biblical message and determine to do better after you repent and confess your sin to God.

So, on a closing note, my question again is, “How Is Your Listening?”

Thanks for reading. . . .

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

How Is Your Listening?. . . . Part 3

We have established the importance of listening to preaching and the effectiveness of jotting down notes while you are listening, and now we come to the important part of getting your ears ready to listen. You are probably familiar with the song “Open the Eyes of My Heart” which is more of a prayer that it is a song but it has a powerful lesson in it. We listen with our ears but we hear with our heart. For the right thing to be heard in the heart, the heart has to be prepared to hear what is being preached. If your heart is dead to spiritual things, more times than not you are going to come away from the preaching/teaching event with the idea that it was boring and had little to say to you. However, if your heart is set in a tone of spiritual responsiveness to God, you are going to glean a lot from the preaching.

But preparing our hearts to listen can be an overwhelming challenge for us on a weekly basis. We have developed what one writer (who slips my mind at this time) terms as infobesity. We are little fat with information. We have become road kill on the information superhighway. The information superhighway roars at you all day long with massive doses on media of various sorts, tack on the internet with e-mail, add to those cell phones which text, tweet, and talk, and your head and heart can be spinning round and round!

In Ken Ramey’s excellent little book on Expository Listening, he has a chapter entitled “Harrowing Your Heart to Hear.” The indication is that your heart is a field and it has to be plowed, cultivated, and watered just as a garden would have to be taken care of. I am going to summarize some the points that he lists that are helpful to help us to hear.

First, meditate on God’s Word every day. We are a Bible rich society. They are everywhere but I have come to discover that just because they are everywhere does not necessarily translate into us reading them. You really can’t expect to be hungry for the Word on Sunday if you have not been reading it during the week. Richard Baxter said, “Read and meditate on the Holy Scriptures much in private, and then you will be the better able to understand what is preached on it in public.” I long for every person that I know to keep working at the Word until they literally see how applicable it is to your daily life. There are all sorts of different things to help you gain a love for the Word. All you have to do is go to ITunes and search “You’ve Got The Time” or “Faith Comes by Hearing” in the podcast area and you can download the New Testament free in two formats, KJV or ESV.

Second, pray throughout the week. Prayer is very crucial to help us to hunger for the Word. If you will ask God to give you the ability to hear and pursue the Word, He will! Ask the Lord to turn the lights on in your mind and the Bible will explode in your life. Suddenly what your pastor is preaching will begin to fall into place and you will begin to see what real spiritual life is all about.

Third, confess your sin. For those who think they are not sinning, let me follow you around for about a week. If you are not praying, you are sinning. If you are not evangelizing, you are sinning. What about those websites, movies, books, or conversations that you are actively involved in that are not encouraging Godly and clean living? What about you’re comments on Facebook or the forums that you are a part of? Are all of those Facebook polling questions that provide a characterization of you something that God would be pleased with? When you plow through Romans 6, 7, and 8, you will immediately discover that the American culture is constantly pulling at us and it is deadly to our spiritual life. All of those things obstruct our vision of God and His Word. That is sin and it calls for repentance.

Fourth, reduce your media intake. I am constantly fighting over this very lonely battlefield. I often think I am a lone voice crying out against this. Ramey writes that the average American watches TV just over 4 hours a day. But we can’t stand sermons over 30 minutes! That speaks to our priorities! The latest rage among the young teenage girls is the attraction to the vampire books and movies. It is hard for a preacher to get past that. For the men who saturate their lives with sporting events, college and pro, watching ESPN until you waddling about from sportsbesity is killing your ability to listen to the Word. Then we have the gamers, hours wasted building the dynasties inside of a little electronic box. Can you imagine proudly standing in front of God one of these days and proudly telling Him that you were the champeen of all championships in the little e-world.

Ramey writes, “After TV watching and going to the movies and surfing the Internet all week long, you come to church and have to sit and listen to a lengthy sermon that requires a great deal of concentration and exertion you aren’t used to. You’re expected to go from being a passive viewer to an aggressive listener literally overnight.” When a preacher cries out against this he is looked at with suspicion, as a legalist, as a real fruit-loop who needs therapy. The reality is that he doesn’t need therapy, our world needs to clearly again understand the calling out of holiness that will separate us from all of this soul-deadening nonsense!

A final quote from Jay Adams: “Many today drift into church with their minds turned off, slouch in the pew, and expect the preacher to do the rest. Examine yourself, brother or sister: have you been guilty of becoming a Sunday morning version of the couch potato?” (From Be Careful How You Listen.)

More tomorrow. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

How Is Your Listening?. . . . Part 2

What struck my thoughts on this idea of listening is a book that I am currently reading and a sermon that I downloaded by Pastor Anthony Mangun. The book I am reading is called “Expository Listening” by Ken Ramey who noted the wealth of books on preaching and homiletics and that he had never noticed a book about listening to sermons.

The podcast that I heard of Brother Mangun was a series that he was starting at the church he pastors about the Fruit of the Spirit. He began with Matthew 13 in the parable of the soils and before he really got into the message he mentioned that there would be people who didn’t hear a word he would say during the message. There would be others who would listen and have some emotional or intellectual reaction that would be gone by the middle of the day on Monday. However, he also said that there were also hearers who had hearts that was like the good ground that Jesus spoke of that would have true spiritual growth because they had been willing to pull in the Word into their heart and mind and let it help them make adjustments in the course of their spiritual walk. Basically what he was saying that your response to preaching is an affair of your heart! Wherever your heart is will greatly depend on your response to the Word.

I will never forget my junior year at Texas Bible College when it struck me that first week that I needed to be more proactive with my listening. I was sitting next to Paul Jacks and Bryan Aaron in a chapel service and I looked over at them and saw varying degrees of dazed lethargy. They were not quite to the point of nodding off and drooling but they were pretty close to it. Glazed eyes that had a faraway look keyed me in to the fact that both of them were present physically but not mentally. But I have to drop my rocks on the ground for I too had been in the dazed zone chapel before too.

Anytime that you get a bunch of rookie preachers who are in their early twenties and know everything about the Bible (if you don’t believe it just ask them) you have a recipe for a dazed-glazed preaching event to take place. I can well remember some of the antics of preaching about the identity of Melchizedek, forty-nine aspects of praise, and climbing into the third heaven using Jacob’s ladder. In between all of that were the nifty little poems, stories, and personal experiences that were pulled together in those “sermons.”

On the other hand, I heard some jacked-up masterpieces in that chapel at Texas Bible College. Some of them I have never forgotten despite the fact that this month is twenty-years ago that I walked into that place (I was welcomed to Houston by having my car stolen and stripped the second night I was there but that is for another day). I will never forget Ken Gurley’s opening chapel when he preached “The Beauty of the Beast.” Phil White’s “Overloaded with Goats” and “The Eyes of the Bride.” O. R. Fauss who preached “The Peril of Not Being Anointed” along with Mike Chance’s three shot Accent weekend with every sermon being on prayer. Never will I forget Brother Griffin’s series on “Blessed Assurance” and the series on the Sermon on the Mount. Two very troubling sermons came from Brother Hunt and Brother Griffin; “Concerned with Gourds” and “Despise Not the Day of Small Things.” Nor will I ever forget Brother Ensey preaching “The Ghost of Ephraim” and “Loving Much.”

However, it was not long before I begin to pick up things from even the rookies that helped me in my spiritual growth and it all had to do with how I listened to sermons. This all came about because of my purchase of one of those cheap little marble notebooks from Office Depot and good pen. Now twenty years, fifty notebooks (that I still have), and innumerable dead pens (that I don’t have), I have benefited from going back and reading through some of the things that struck me during the sermons I have listened to.

There are those who disagree with people taking notes while someone is preaching because they argue that it takes away from the listener’s ability to pay attention to the preacher. I strongly disagree with that, in fact I believe that it actually heightens the ability of the listener to pay attention and on Tuesday of Thursday one can still be mulling over some of the things that were said. I have to carefully demonstrate the difference between note-taking that you would take in listening to a sermon versus what you would do with Anatomy and Physiology in a college classroom. Some notes are very detailed and others hit the high points—hitting the high points and jotting down the Scripture references helps us to listen. I also might add that it goes a long way in helping a bad sermon move a little quicker.

Thomas Watson—When we come to the Word preached, we come to a matter of the highest importance; therefore we should stir up ourselves and hear with the greatest devotion. (From Heaven Taken By Storm)

If you begin to take notes, you will suddenly figure out who are the real Biblical preachers and those who are not. You may ask, “How so?” I want to give you a few areas to consider.

Keeping track with notes will determine the biblical content of the message. The cry of one of the minor prophets was that the people were being destroyed because of a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). If you follow along and really listen the acid testing of biblical preaching is that it will contain the Word; not jokes, not stories,

Keeping track with notes will determine the spiritual content of the message. When I say spiritual content, I am meaning those things that apply to the spiritual disciplines of our lives—prayer, fasting, corporate worship, and church attendance. These are all spiritual practices that gives leanings toward growing spiritually. The world sees a lot of “Christians” who are not much different in their activities than those who are in the world—if we go to all the same places, do the same things, pursue the same things, etc. that the unsaved are pursuing. . . then are we really converted. . . have we really been saved?

Keeping track with notes will awaken a spiritual discernment in you that you have never experienced. You will suddenly be brought into understanding the power of the Word in the application of how you live day-to-day. Spiritual discernment is directly related to spiritual maturity. Find a person who is spiritually mature and you will find a person who is spiritually discerning. I have also discovered that spiritual maturity and spiritual discernment will bring out a boldness that will help you resort to the Word instead of opinions, theories, and ideas.

More tomorrow. . . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

How Is Your Listening?. . . . Part 1

Every week preachers are routinely evaluated by how well they did or did not do with the messages they preach. The congregation is constantly evaluating, for the most part in the private confines of their mind, the value of a sermon. In the interest of time, they evaluate the length. The complaints are that it is usually too long. While I have certainly been trapped a few times with long, windy sermons the other end of the spectrum ought to be considered too. Was the sermon too short? So the private thoughts continue about preaching—length, subject matter, tasteful, diplomatic, and so forth. Consider with me how deadly it is to begin to evaluate sermons in this particular manner.

First of all, it caters toward making preaching entertainment. Preaching is nothing more than a dish that is being sampled at a recipe contest and tested for its sweet taste. Preaching becomes just another venue to say “Good!” or “Bad!?” just like one of John Grisham’s latest novels. Preaching can be evaluated just like a cake, a steak, a book, a play, a podcast, or you fill in the blank.

When we listen to preaching for the sake of entertainment, it will do nothing for our soul growth in the long run. What few people understand is that this is a very active role of spiritual warfare that takes place every single Sunday of the year. Spiritual warfare is anything that reduces your ability to take in spiritual things and accommodate them to your life. Most people who think of spiritual warfare immediately want to equate it with an ethereal, mystical never-land that is filled with ghosts and goblins and all sorts of other matters. To do this means that we have fallen into Screwtape’s trap—making too much of spiritual warfare. So you have to watch your listening and stay focused on what you are hearing. If it helps, take notes. If taking notes is not a good option for you then consider that preaching is just as much an act of worship as is praying, singing, and giving. All worship is a verb and preaching means that we are active participants in the preaching—through listening!

Secondly, it creates hero worship. When we thumb up and thumb down preaching with our expectations, it won’t take you long to understand that some men are more gifted in the pulpit than others are. I am convinced that there are some who could be jerked from their beds at 3 AM and hastily thrown into a pulpit and ordered to preach and they could do it. Not only could they do it, you would be blown away by their personal gifting and talents. Thank God for those men like that but all of us don’t pass the muster in the 3 AM test!

Take it from me as I am well aware of this fact. In my early (undiscerning?) years, I was very impressed by those with a flair for talent in the pulpit. As the years passed and I gained some maturity and discernment, I started noticing that flair in the pulpit did not always equate to personal holiness and personal godliness of life. A man could be a star-studded wonder in the pulpit and could be a rogue in his personal life and he was given a pass for it. Forgive me for my forthrightness but we need more authenticity of life than flair in the pulpit. If you have an authentic life, you will have an authentic anointing to preach the Word.

So be careful how you listen. One of the things that can happen to a pastor who spends his life in one church is that more often than not, he preaches with his life and not so much his words. That congregation hears what he says but they do far more hearing with their eyes than with their ears. All of us who have been called to preach owe it to those places that we serve to live cleanly and clearly as we articulate the Gospel.

Thirdly, it diminishes the power of the provoking Word in your life. We all love those moments when the encouragement is flowing and the inspiration is at a high pitch during the preaching. We can feel good because our spiritual and moral flaws are not confronted. We can feel the mental massage as the Word brings about a spiritual rush of adrenaline in our lives. But constantly evaluating preaching in this way quickly reduces (annihilates?) the ability of the Word to provoke us toward living a higher life. You need more than a “feel-good” sermon, you need transformation. This necessary transformation takes place in our minds (Romans 12:1-2) and it is greatly facilitated when we are willing to hear the Word and allow it to provoke us.

Most spiritual provocation is going to make you mad but just stay with it because you are now on the way toward spiritual growth. We love for our physicians to talk straight to us about our temporary human bodies but we take great offense for our pastors to talk straight to us about our souls which are eternal. You will resort to all sorts of suggestions to get your weight down, your blood pressure down, your cholesterol down, and a host of other things but it is hard to make the same changes that lead to spiritual growth. Yet the provoking preaching of the Word is the only real way that we will notice that we have true spiritual revival and personal growth.

So if you are evaluating preachers on their preaching. . . Can we evaluate you on you’re listening???

More tomorrow. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul

Certain Men. . . . Jude 4

The news has been caught up this week with Wikileaks and its very troubling posting of critical documents concerning the war in Afghanistan. The man in charge of the website is Julian Assange whose decision to release the documents for the whole world to see has placed a number of allies of the United States military at great risk. It is not without reason to believe that it could lead to the death of these Afghani supporters by the Taliban once they have determined their identities.

But the greater and more troubling issue is how that Wikileaks obtained the documents. According to the Wall Street Journal Online, it appears that they were helped by Pfc. Bradley Manning who worked on the inside to gain access to these top-secret files who then managed to download them and pass them to Assange. As stated today (7/29/10), the military and government investigators have “concrete evidence” that Manning is the culprit.

In observing this story at the periphery during the last week, I have continually been drawn toward the Scripture that Jude left for us in his brief epistle:

Jude 4 KJV For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jude 4 ESV For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. [Cross References: 2 Pet. 2:1; Gal. 2:4; 1 Pet. 2:8; Acts 11:23; Titus 1:16; 2 Pet. 2:1; 1 John 2:22]

There are those who would bring about a breach from the inside. The greatest challenge the church has is not from the outside but those who work to destroy it from within. When you look at the history of the Great Wall of China you will discover that it was never breached from the outside but it was always from within. Some unscrupulous and unprincipled gatekeeper was bribed with money to let the enemy gain the entrance.

Most people who attend church rarely like to entertain the idea that there are negative spiritual influences that is at work on the inside of the church. Far too many have a sentimental view of the church that makes it just a warm fuzzy playground to get our fears and anxieties massaged and put to rest. It is a place more of fellowship than of stimulating personal spiritual growth that directs us to a deeper prayer life and greater understanding of the Word of God. It is not about transformation as much as it is about affirmation.

Over the years, I have greatly enjoyed to read through the commentaries and writings of the Puritans. As with all books, it is important to read with a filter and have the ability to critically think and analyze what you are reading. I subscribe to this idea with all that I expose my mind and spirit to. It is important that we not just let our minds be open to anything and everything that comes down the pike; ultimately it has to stand the principles and tests of Scripture no matter who the author or speaker is. With that thought in mind, I am going to list a few lines from Thomas Manton’s commentary on Jude. Particularly notice the fantastic word pictures that Manton is given to.

From the Preface:

When the Christian church began first to look forth in the world, there were adverse powers without ready to crush it, and Libertines, who like worms bred within in the body, sought to devour the entrails and eat out the very bowels of it.

The monsters of Africa came from the unnatural commixtures of the beasts running wild in the deserts; so when men had once broken through the hedge, mingling in their own fancies with the Word of God, by an unnatural production they brought forth such monstrous and absurd opinions.

Our greatest defense against the enemies from within is a strong hunger for the Word and the constant exposure to it. Both hunger and exposure to the Word helps us to be able to identify and ward off the attacks of those who have “crept in.” One of the jobs of the shepherd is to provide a solid and secure sheepfold. This only takes place through prayer and the ministry of the Word. Nothing else has the capacity to preserve the fold like these two elements (Acts 6:4).

How does a pastor open up the fold to the wolves who can creep in? The following ways are some of the ways that it can happen:

• Soft and easy messages that never confront anything.
• Marketing the church to get a crowd.
• Not allowing the Word to be authoritative in its call for holiness, surrender, and dedication.
• Having a majority of people attending who are actively embracing worldly lifestyles, who have unholy minds, and commit ungodly actions.
• Pastors who do not commit themselves to teaching and preaching through consecutive passages of Scripture that deals with the righteousness that God longs for.
• Being critical of those who love the Truth of God’s Word enough to defend their convictions.
• When worship becomes more entertaining than it does soul-building.
• When the examples in leadership falls into mire that Nadab and Abihu along with Samuel’s sons lived in. Worldly, carnal, immoral, and distracted sums up their actions.
• Falling prey to the sin of silence that never raises a voice of concern about the direction of the ship.

I have a feeling now that the Pentagon is wishing that they had been much more vigilant than what they had been before Pfc. Manning got into their top secrets.

Until next time. . .

Encouragement = O2 for the Soul