blabr |
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Phil. 1:21) |
We live in a world where God has not chosen to eliminate sin totally from his permissive will of the believer, why should we assume that suffering is excluded? If every Christian were well and healthy, if perfect health were a guarantee benefit of the atonement, millions of people would be stampeding to get saved-but for the wrong reason.
John MacArthur
Today’s sermon comes from John MacArthur, who teaches on the real true growth of the church – not through marketing, easy believism schemes, but through suffering, trial, and the true preaching of the Gospel of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Be blessed with this excellent teaching.
http://www.gty.org/resources/sermons/90-455
As soon as a video is available, I will update this post.
Many professing Christians appear to care far more about the world’s opinion than about God’s. Churches are so engrossed in trying to please non-Christians that many have forgotten their first duty is to please God (2 Cor. 5:9). The church has been so over-contextualized that it has become corrupted by the world.
John MacArthur.
2Cor 5:9 states:
Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
It should be clear that modern church marketers cannot look to the apostle Paul for approval of their methodology or claim him as the father of their philosophy. Although he ministered to the vilest pagans throughout the Roman world, Paul never adapted the church to secular society’s tastes. He would not think of altering either the message or the nature of the church. Each of the churches he founded had its own unique personality and set of problems, but Paul’s teaching, his strategy, and above all his message remained the same throughout his ministry. His means of ministry was always preaching the straightforward proclamation of biblical truth.
John MacArthur – from his blog, titled ‘Contextualization and the Corruption of the Church’ – http://www.gty.org/resources/blog/B110922