I'm disgusted

Amen!
When all is said and done, how many of us want to look back and have regrets because we wasted our time here on earth?

 

We can witness, share our personal experience with someone, but salvation isn't up to us.

 

We preach as if it all depends on us, and pray knowing it all depends on God.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Amen... Amen... Amen!... Jim!... If my Salvation isn't in the shed blood of the Lamb Of God... Then I and all Gods children are lost worlds without end!... Why when the scripture say that he will save all his children we suddenly stop believing the promises of God?... I'm appauled more brethren preach about Hell then Salvation... Not in a Primitive Baptist Church but then again we believe in the completed works of God and not the works of men!... Does the Bible teach he will lose one that he died for? ... Brother Glen

 

Glen, since this is a common idea you put in your posts, would you inform everyone who believes men work for salvation?

I suppose this has to do with your unscriptural idea about not needing to believe in Christ for salvation. Feel free to correct me if you so desire.

 

I remember hearing a message on crying for the lost. When was the last time we had such an overwhelming burden for someone to be saved that we cried in agony for this lost soul and that he would come to this understanding? Maybe the tears come in frustration knowing that we have no power over them to accept Christ, and the knowledge of them going to hell is so real to us, yet they are not concerned with this. I should cry more often, but I know I am not burdened with every soul I have witnessed to as much as I am for some. Is this because we hear the Lord's prompting for prayer in some but in others, it was more our will, not His?

 

Dad blame! I agree with Jim again!

 

As far as the weeping...I've done my share. But I don't stand by idley either. That's why we go soul-winning. That's why we have a bus ministry. That's why we support missionaries. That's why we take the great commission to heart. Sure I've wept over lost souls...I wept for my sister's for 8 years until she accepted the Lord as her saviour last April. I am not hardened to lost souls... I doubt that that could even be possible in a church like mine.

I don't know what you mean by "the churches attitude". My churches attitude is one of caring a great deal about lost souls, in fact it's the main thing. And as my Pastor loves to say "Keep the main thing, the main thing" Furthermore, it doesn't stop there...there are believers being fed with the WORD.

Maybe some churches aren't weeping for lost souls as you say. I guess I've just been fortunate to not experience that.

 

Hi Kevin,

C.S. Lewis, in Screwtape Letters made the interesting comment that the devil's two greatest groups of allies were those who didn't believe in hell/devils and those who were obsessed with it/them.

Personally, I am not sure that anyone who is not aware truly of the love and Person of Christ can comprehend in the least the horror of being away from Christ through all eternity. And, again personally, I am not at all sure that most of the people attending any kind of Christian church today (Baptist very much included) are truly born again Christians -- and if they are not, they do not understand the love of God and thus cannot accomodate the concept of hell in any kind of accurate way.

I have heard a lot of jokes about hell -- we probably all have -- about "well, that's where all the interesting people will be", or "I want to be where my friends are" and similar. So hell is marginalized and mocked in comedy and then in real life.

Jesus mentioned that he did not come for the healthy, but for the sick. Unless people know they are sick, they will not go to a doctor; they imagine themselves healthy unto death! And this imagination is promoted now in so many guises -- "I'm OK; you're OK"; "find your inner child"; "you are a frog with the prince waiting to come out" -- etc. ad nauseum. When people are taught they are really OK deep inside, or even better than OK, all they have left to depend on is works to try to please God.

This is a sad and terrifying deception perpetrated in so many subtle ways even in churches. "Good Christians" will do this and that, we are told from the pulpits. "Mature Christians" will do this and that....

And so, by doing this and that, many seekers who are not even born again will strive to be good and mature Christians through their works.

It is the rare pastor now who encourages the members of his congregation to pay attention to the leading of the Holy Spirit rather than the leading of the church. It's sort of like so many think God needs our help -- and therefore the more help we give God the better Christians we are.

Following and obeying Christ seems to often fall by the wayside.

And when that falls, so does concern for the lost.

That rant ranted, the most any of us can really do, along with prayer, is to live, speak, and show concern in such a way that others will ask the questions we are told to be ready to answer. We can't make a person drink the water of life, but we can sure lead, or at least point the way, to the Stream. We can live and care on an individual basis in such a way that people see what life and caring really is.

But that can only be done when we ourselves are reborn in Christ and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit -- for the love and care are, at the base, of Him and from Him.

So perhaps what you are seeing is the lack of born again Christians in churches?

 

I don't think the problem is the attitude of the church, it's the church's (people's) views of what spreading the Gospel is.

It seems there's an over abundance of sayers. People who thump the Bible on every bloke that walks down the street. At the same time, not a finger is liften to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or visit those in prison.

We think to ourselves "I've told you all about Jesus Christ, and if you don't believe it, you're gonna burn in hell, and it's your problem".

Yet Jesus seemed to do more with his hands and feet than he did with his mouth. The Gospel of Christ is not accomplished with the mouth, but with the hands that do and the feet that walk.

I think if the church wants to spread the Gospel, it needs to shut up, get up, and lift up!

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I thought his teaching was the thing that he was most centered on. He taught with words. What do you mean his hands and feet?