Faith by Hearing
Sanctifying the MP3 RevolutionArchive for Church Growth Movement
Nashville Conference on the Church & Theology 2009
John MacArthur and Bruce Ware join Bryon Yawn at the 2009 Nashville Conference.
Right off the bat MacArthur delivers some of the best messages I’ve heard this year. He begins in session one by reflecting over the core convictions of his ministry that he formed early on and have not let go of since. These convictions happen to be Trinitarian: The Glory of God, the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the work of the Holy Spirit in Scripture.
There is so much to talk about regarding his messages. But perhaps the most needed, is he relates the story of when he met a ministry friend who told him about this incredible book about how IBM was structured, and why pastors needed these lessons. MacArthur asked this man, “Why, is the Word of God deficient somewhere?”
MacArthur also talks about why he does church discipline. Again, early in his ministry other pastors told him he would empty his church. It never happened. If you are a church planter or pastor who buys a lot of contemporary books on how to “do church” you need to listen to a pastor who saw God build His church apart from all the books, programs, polls, and expert opinions. Listening to MacArthur is like a breath of fresh air in a day when the church looks more to Starbucks for it’s ecclesiology than it does the Apostle Paul.
Above Every Name pt. 1, John MacArthur
Above Every Name pt. 2, John MacArthur
Above Every Name pt. 3, John MacArthur
Beholding the God of Merciful Holiness; Transcendence, Immanence & Ministry, Bruce Ware
An Overwhelming Greatness, Bryon Yawn
Beholding the God of Self-Sufficient Fullness; Humility, Satisfaction & Ministry, Bruce Ware
Beholding the God of Sovereign Supremacy; Good, Evil & Ministry, Bruce Ware
Slaves of Christ, John MacArthur
Christless Christianity
Michael Horton raises an alarm about the condition of our churches and the youth who are following us, as he discusses his book Christless Christianity on Christ the Center. Horton clearly explains the gospel understanding and basic theological position of the average evangelical American who attends church. Quite frankly it’s frightening.
Paul Washer’s Shocking Sermon
Here’s the sermon that often doesn’t get Paul Washer invited back. And no, it’s not because he’s boring. Washer preaches with clarity and passion. The reason Washer has caused such an uproar in some places is because he makes a frontal attack on some of Evangelicalism’s most sacred cows: Assurance of Salvation, and sincerity in “making a decision” for Christ.
Washer pulls no punches. Nor does he just attack for the sake of attack. He attacks these forms of Evangelical religion like a surgeon attacking a cancer. He dissects and explains.
Washer rails against how Evangelicals are so quick to proclaim people ‘believers’. One of the most damnable practices in the church is when a person doubts their salvation, they are usually taken back to that day when they “made a decision” for Christ and “asked Jesus into their hearts”, neither of which are statements found in Scripture (apart from a poor hermeneutic). We are often guilty of giving people a false assurance that is based more on the ‘sincerity’ of their decision than on the presence of a transformed life. Washer claims this tactic sends countless people to hell. At the very point that a person may be coming to Christ with a legitimate doubt about salvation, we kill off that work with a sloppy proclaimation of false salvation.
Washer broadsides contemporary evangelistic practices, including child evangelism and Sunday School programs. He says he would not put his children in 80% of the Sunday school programs, because the gospel presentations we give to children are so seriously distorted they border on heresy.
This message needs to be preached to every church in America. The congregations response would serve as a good litmus test of spiritual health.
Paul Washer and HeartCry Missionary Society
HeartCry Missionary Society held a conference on prayer in 2006 with a number of preachers. Paul Washer took two messages to talk about missions work, which provide a significant challenge not only in regards to prayer, but in a believers entire dependancy of life on God.
In Session 3 Washer describes his conversion and his early years as a missionary in Peru. God’s work through this humble servant is fascinating, and at the same time, utterly convicting.
In Session 5 Paul talks more about the work HeartCry is involved in across the world, and the particular principles and convictions that they operate by. Paul explains why they are focused on supporting indiginous missionaries rather than sending missionaries. He talks about why they send Bibles to believers and not to unbelievers. He also cuts through the modern day missions clutter to explain how missions minded people must be primarily interested in Biblical truth. “We send truth, not missionaries.”
I have to say this is a very impactful duo of messages.
Paul Washer’s Ministry in Peru mp3 >>>
Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church
What can I say about Paul Washer? Lest I tread too closely to making too much of a man, I can’t help but be excited by a preacher who speaks for God, whose words convict and inspire awe before God and his work of the Gospel. Here is a man who has a prophetic voice in the manner of a Tozer or Lloyd-Jones. And in this message, Washer clearly and effectively levels ten indictments against the modern church that we must take heed of. Here are just a few of Paul’s major points, though not necessarily his exact 10 indictments:
The modern church practically denies Scripture by embracing the sociological, the psychological and the anthropological as having authority over God’s Word. The modern church does not know God. The modern church has exchanged the Gospel and the power of God for tricks, techniques, and pagan-like methodologies.The modern church has robbed people of the power of the Gospel by embracing the heresy of decisionism. The modern church is focused on prosperity and not on sin, thus defusing the one thing necessary for the Holy Spirit to deal with to restore a sinners true relationship with God. The modern church is filled with and caters to the goats while the sheep starve under the hand of capitulating leaders. The modern church has remained silent on the reality that God`s people are called out to be separate. The modern church has torn Matthew 18 from Scripture, and along with it loving, compassionate church discipline.
Paul asks the loaded question of leaders, “Are you smarter than God? Then stop acting like it!” There is a sharp bite to Washer’s indictment, yet the cutting comes from spiritual wisdom, and one who loves Christ’s bride, the Church.
Washer spent 10 years ministering in Peru, where he started a missions organization called HeartCry Missionary Society, and has since returned to the US to oversee this organization. He makes Grace Life Church of the Shoals his church home.
Many thanks to Chad of Christ Fellowship in Hannibal, Missouri for connecting me with Paul Washer. You will be hearing much more about this man as my iPod is filled with Paul Washer mp3′s.
David Wells talks about his book The Courage to Be Protestant
Al Mohler interviews David Wells on his radio program. Dr. Wells talks about his latest important book, ‘The Courage to Be Protestant’, and what motivated this work. The Courage to Be Protestant is a summary of his four amazing books beginning with ‘No Place for Truth.’ This is one book every Christian should read and consider. Wells and Mohler talk about the non-doctrinal nature of the church today, the loss of an informed evangelicalism, and the destructive nature of marketing methodologies.
2008 Shepherds’ Conference
As to be expected, this years Shepherds’ Conference was great, and it focused on the prime responsibilities of the church which are being clouded by a wide array of church growth strategies. I was fortunate enough to listen to a few sessions through the live feed, which was real treat.
The concern of this conference is to examine and challenge the contemporary church’s lopsided attention to meeting the culture at the expense of the universality of the transforming message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
MacArthur kicks off with a look at what a church is, and compares today’s church growth movement with God’s church growth movement recorded in the church in Acts. An excellent, and even fearful, look at how God designed the church to function.
Rick Holland picked up the baton and examined lessons we need to learn from Nadab and Abihu, that those who approach God in leadership must approach God as a holy God. Phil Johnson looked at how Jesus and Paul engaged the culture in light of contemporary evangelicals focusing on trying to find ground for conversation and not confrontation as the New Testament outlines.
Steve Lawson brought out the big stick and hammered home the power and sufficiency of Scripture, and reinforced the truth that preachers are nothing without the power of Scripture at work behind them.
MacArthur did a Q&A.
Al Mohler trumpets the concern that we have lost the concept that Scripture is a matter of life and death, and have traded it for something far less and profane. He looks at what true preaching entails, as exemplified by Ezra. A true preacher must engage in exposition (read the text and explain it), and then apply that to the people. He focuses his message on Deuteronomy 4, and calls preachers to the urgency that exists for the church to recover true preaching as a matter of life and death.
MacArthur delivered two messages which his elders said were the two most important messages he preached the previous year. The first looked at Jesus’ words that pointed to the end of Judaism, which had deteriorated into a completely ungodly system. He concluded the conference by looking at the word ‘dulas’ in the New Testament which should be correctly translated ‘slave’, and shows how we have lost meaning by softening that term with the terms ‘servant’ or ‘bondservant,’ which according to MacArthur, is a tragedy in Bible translation.
This is a very important conference for church leaders to listen to carefully and examine their ministries under it’s light. The ramifications of missing the mark in ministry is not something to be taken lightly.
