I am still thinking on this morning's message that Pastor preached "The Right Choices" or "You Know Brass isn't Gold!" 2 Chronicles 12:9-12 It really did something for me and I'm not going to go into great detail but it drove me to a firmer, bolder stand for God! I was reading a lot tonight - a hunger for righteousness and a disgust for worldliness in the church. The whole message was basically about counterfeits and guarding your treasures that God has given you and the church! I dare to fight and stand to keep worldliness and ungodliness out of my church........I know several others who will also. Will you dare to stand? Or are you busy polishing your brass behind the curtain?
They who design and endeavor to win others . . . must religiously avoid that which is the greatest obstruction of all, the profligate and atrocious lives of some that call themselves Christians. If men were prompted and employed by the devil himself, they could not be more effective in making the Gospel to be abhorred, than by living as some Christians do. How can it be expected, that the poor, ignorant heathen should have any reverence for the great and sacred name of God, when they hear those who pretend that they have a deep veneration for Him, reproach and blaspheme Him? . . . Can any man convince them, that the saints are such excellent creatures, when they see those who call themselves so, live like brutes or devils? - George Hammond
I now see more good and more evil in men than I did before. . . . I once thought that anyone who could pray eloquently and fluently, and talk well of religion, had to be saints. But experience has revealed to me that low crimes can co-exist with high professions. - Richard Baxter 1615 – 1691
There is a widely-spread desire to make things pleasant in religion – to saw off the corners and edges of the cross, and to avoid, as far as possible, self-denial. On every side we hear professing Christians declaring loudly that we must not be “narrow and exclusive” and that there is no harm in many things which the holiest of saints of old thought bad for their souls.
That we may go anywhere, and do anything, and spend our time in anything, and read anything, and keep any company, and plunge into anything, and all the while may be very good Christians – this is the maxim of thousands. In a day like this I think it good to raise a warning voice, and invite attention to the teaching of God’s Word. It is written in that Word, ‘Come out and be separate. - J.C. Ryle
I believe there is far more harm done by unholy and inconsistent Christians than we are at all aware of. Such men are among Satan’s best allies. They pull down by their lives what ministers build up with their lips. . . . I fear that Christ’s name is too often blasphemed because of the lives of Christians.- J. C. Ryle
Our Lord’s strong language about the false teachers of the Jews ends here. Those who think that unsound ministers ought never to be exposed and held up to notice, and men ought never to be warned against them, would do well to study this passage. No class of character throughout our Lord’s ministry seems to call forth such severe denunciation as that of false pastors. The reason is obvious. Other men ruin themselves alone: false pastors ruin their flocks as well as themselves. To flatter all ordained men, and say they never should be called unsound and dangerous guides, is the surest way to injure the Church and offend Christ.- J.C. Ryle 1816 – 1900
Many a church has fallen into a condition of indifference, and when it does so it generally becomes the haunt of worldly professors, a refuge for people who want an easy religion, which enables them to enjoy the pleasures of sin and the honours of piety at the same time; where things are free and easy, where you are not expected to do much, or give much, or pray much, or to be very religious; where the minister is not so precise as the old school divines, a more liberal people, of broad views, free-thinking and free-acting, where there is full tolerance for sin, and no demand for vital godliness. Such churches applaud cleverness in a preacher. As for his doctrine, that is of small consequence, and his love to Christ and zeal for souls is very secondary. He is a clever fellow, and can speak well, and that suffices. This style of things is all too common, yet we are expected to hold our tongue, for the people are very respectable. The Lord grant that we may be kept clear of such respectability! -Charles Spurgeon (“An Earnest Warning about Lukewarmness”)1834-1892