There are two contraditory theories. One is that better institutes, schools, governments, etc., produce better people.
The other is that better people produce better institutions.

Jesus subscribed to the latter. He never tried to change His Roman government, which was far more wicked than any America has ever seen. He never even mentioned it! They made slaves of half their population and Jesus never mentioned it. They killed gladiators for amusement–murdered them, while the crowds cheered and Jesus never mentioned it. What He did do was focus on changijng the hearts of individuals. He believed better individuals would eventually produce better government.

The church must quit hoping for political power to change America. She needs to, like Jesus, go out and convert sinners. This is the only way we will ever have a Christian nation again. It is far better to win one sinner to Christ than to register 1,000 to vote for some candidate

I no longer open a bathroom door without using a paper towel, or have the waitress put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel.

I can’t sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed. And, was it ever really washed?

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking one’s nose.

Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.

I can’t touch any woman’s purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public restroom.

I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about rat droppings in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing.

ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa’s Novena has granted my every wish.

I can’t eat at KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes, feet or feathers.

I can’t use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

THANKS TO YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains..

I no longer buy gas without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer doesn’t crawl in my back seat when I’m filling up.

I no longer use Cling Wrap in the microwave because it causes seven different types of cancer.

AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can’t boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face,disfiguring me for life.

I no longer go to the movies because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS when I sit down.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

And I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica , Uganda , Singapore , and Uzbekistan ..

THANKS TO YOU I can’t use anyone’s toilet but mine because a big black snake could be lurking under the seat and cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

AND THANKS TO YOUR GREAT ADVICE I can’t ever pick up a coin dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a s * x molester waiting to grab me as I bend over.

I can’t do any gardening because I’m afraid I’ll get bitten by the Violin Spider and my hand will fall off.

If you don’t send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon, and the fleas from 120 camels will infest your back,
causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor’s ex-mother-in-law’s second husband’s cousin’s best friend’s beautician . .

Oh, by the way….. A German scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse. Don’t bother taking it off now, it’s too late.

P. S.: I now keep my toothbrush in the living room, because I was told by e-mail that water splashes over 6 ft. out of the toilet.

NOW YOU ALL HAVE YOURSELVES A VERY HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!

If you can start the day without a cigarette,
If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches, and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct them,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend, If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics,

Then – my friend you are almost as good as your dog.

Needed: Preachers Out of Step with the Times

Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him (1 Kings 22:7).

Men who speak for God never merge into the fog around them. Noah stood alone in a civilization of culture and progress. His contemporaries must have laughed at him as an eccentric who was building an oversized houseboat and looking for the world to end.

Elijah stood alone among the priests of Baal and the stooges who ate at Jezebel’s table. When he challenged the multitude, that fifth-amendment crowd “answered not a word.” Amos stood alone in the religio-political system of his day. Dr. Kyle Yates wrote, “His time had not been spent in a divinity school. He was unwilling to be classed as a member of the guilds who made their living by bowing to the wishes of the people and preaching a pleasing message that would guarantee a return engagement.”

Jeremiah stood alone among the tranquilizers of his day who were preaching peace when there was no peace; but we are still reading Jeremiah while the happiness boys of his day have been forgotten.

Daniel spoke for God in the midst of a pagan empire and it was worth a night in a lion’s den to be able to read God’s handwriting on the wall.

Paul conferred not with flesh and blood but got his orders direct from Headquarters. He was not the product of any assembly line. Dr. Mordecai Ham said, “Paul was a strategist who thought out his strategy on the field of war, not in some Jerusalem war office where parchment and sealing wax were more plentiful than experience and foresight.”

True prophets are solitary people; eagles do not fly in flocks. It is not easy to be a Lone Dissenter. When the messenger was sent for Micaiah, he must have said in effect, “The clergy have agreed, and you had better make it unanimous. It is quite an honor to speak before two kings and four hundred prophets. Why are you such an odd number! This is a good gravy train and you had better ride it. This is the mood of the hour and you had better get with it.” The same subtle pressure today would persuade preachers to get in step with the times and ride the wave of the future.

What we need are more preachers out of step with the times, more odd prophets like Micaiah. We are told that we must adjust. Adjust to what! What is there in this world setup to adjust to? God’s man needs to adjust only to God’s Word and God’s will. It is not the business of the prophet to harmonize with the times. “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” (2 Corinthians 6:15).

The Lord’s preacher is a soloist; he was never meant to play the accompaniment to anything. The pulpit is not a platform from which to boost the projects of men to bring in a false millennium, the Kingdom without the King. No matter how much Scripture may be quoted or how many false prophets bid Ahab go up against Ramoth-gilead, Micaiah will stand his ground and refuse to be swept off his feet by popular movements. The greatest need of the hour is a four-hundred-and-first prophet of the Lord besides, that we may enquire of him.

There are several ways of silencing a prophet. Persecution will do it. John the Baptist’s head is not always brought in on a charger; there are newer ways of decapitating the prophet with more finesse. Promotion sometimes does it. The prophet is given a high seat in the synagogue and is never heard from again. The pressure of the times and discouragement can do it. Jeremiah wanted to quit preaching, get out in the wilderness, and run a motel. Another prophet can sometimes do it, as when the prophet at Bethel backslid in his own revival, and he who could turn down a king was deceived by another prophet.

Prophets are not popular at home; they are without honor in their own countries. They are not popular with politicians. Ahab hated Micaiah—but he feared him enough to disguise himself when he went to battle, lest Micaiah’s predictions [of his certain death] came true.

There was another prophet by the name of Obadiah who was out with Ahab looking for grass when he should have been with Elijah praying for rain. The true prophet does not know how to work both sides of the street. He refuses to dine with Jeroboam and does not let his hair down with the priests of Bethel.

Prophets are not popular with Pharisees. Our Lord asked, “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?” (Acts 7:52), and He said, “… ye are the children of them that killed the prophets” (Matthew 23:31). One generation stones prophets and the next builds sepulchers in their honor. Organized religion hates the preacher whose headquarters is heaven, whose Superintendent is God. They are enraged when they cannot control him. The times are never propitious for the Lone Dissenter.

Naturally, one can hardly expect a sermon on Micaiah to be any more popular than its subject. But it is worth preaching if in the congregation one man will hear and heed the call to be a New Testament prophet. If such a prospect is reading this, God bless you. The odds will be four hundred to one, the diet may be bread and water, and the orders are: “… what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.”

If you are interested in the prophetic ministry, get ready for trouble! You will be despised by Amaziah and all who want to preserve the status quo at Bethel. You will be hated by Jezebel and all who would set up the worship of Baal alongside the altar of Jehovah. You will be too angular to fit the Procrustean beds of the religious world. You will not be able to feather your nest in this world; scant provision is made for prophets down here. You will report to Heavenly Headquarters and get your orders from the Main Office. If you are a prospect, think it over. You had better mean business, else your ministry will be pathetic instead of prophetic. And remember that prophets are needed, but not wanted.

It is time for another four-hundred-and-first prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him.

Vance Havner, The Four-Hundred-First Prophet. From The Best of Vance Havner, 1969, Fleming H. Revell Company.

The decent into apostasy

One of the strategies of Satan and those who work in concert with him is to destroy the Gospel message by destroying the Gospel messenger. The rejection of God’s ordained ministry gift to His Church is the first indication of apostasy. The more intense and advanced the rejection of God’s ordained ministry gift of a pastor becomes the more intense and advanced apostasy becomes. But the more intense rejection becomes and the more intense and advanced apostasy becomes, the more intense must God’s ordained pastor be in his commitment to preach God’s Word.

Leonard Ravenhill expressed it well when he said:

“There is a terrible vacuum in Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet; the man with a terrible earnestness, the man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.

Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnant ‘church-anity.’ Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle. Let him, too, say and live, ‘This ONE thing I do.’

Let him reject ecclesiastical favors. Let him be self-abasing, non-self-seeking, non-self-projecting, non-self-righteous, non-self-glorying, non-self-promoting. Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move men to God. Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has received the order of the day. Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism. Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon

At the zenith of David’s life, when he was king, we are told, “Then went king David in, and sat before the LORD, and he said, Who [am] I? This royal soul considered himself a “flea” when attention was placed upon him by others. He stuffed his ears with cotton when the crowds cried out, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” This wise warrior knew the fickleness of people. He was well aware, as his blessed Lord would be in future years, that those who cry “Hosanna” today, may be saying “Crucify Him,” the next.

I heard an old preacher say years ago, “Live fish stay on the bottom, dead ones float to the top.” For those who seem to be riding the crest of popularity now, I might remind you, one goes down faster than he or she went up. And once you hit bottom, and pick yourself up again, you don’t begin where you previously were, but where you are, at the time of the fall. And the climb back up can take longer than you’d like. So, God’s good advice to all is, “take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently.”

Today, we are cursed with a hoard of men who are polite, political, pleasing, pandering, professionals who have the audacity to call themselves Baptist preachers, yet they are a disgrace to their heritage. They are soft spoken, weak, boring, lifeless, powerless, passionless, loveless, public speakers whose biggest fans are the demons of hell who attend their services for laughs and encouragement.

As Satan observes the so called fundamental preachers of the day, his eyes must fill with tears of joy and comfort as he is almost constantly reassured of his progressive victory over of battle for America.

Sermons with content yet no conviction, though in word may be aimed at revival and holiness, will only bore and annoy those who hear them. Facts without fervor will produce fools. Fundamentals without fire is fleshly. Preaching without passion is pointless. Sermons without strength are silly. Messages without the Masters might are at best mediocre. Delivery without dogma is devilish. Wicked men use the smokescreen of Is. 55:11 (“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void…”) to excuse their lack of study, prayer, power, boldness, fire and love in their preaching. Love is not boring someone to insanity with a cute homiletical outline and some dry illustrations, love is preaching the depth and content of Gods Holy word in such a way that will help to keep the attention, awaken the conscience and convince all who listen of the extreme importance of Gods message.

Subtle Satanism has invaded our preaching when we are so worried about splitting a Church that we will not address and attack the “issues” that God commands us to make war against. The preachers of old didn’t wait until things had calmed or settled down before preaching against sins that were rampant and public. They rolled up their sleeves, clinched their fists, squeezed their eyebrows and violently mauled the corruption at hand. Too often men preach about preaching against sin, yet so rarely do those men preach against sin themselves! May God send America some true, Holy Spirit filled, Christ empowered Warrior Prophets

Dear Pastor,

Preach to me no more sermons on God’s love, unless it is accompanied by a message of His holiness. Preach to me no more sermons of His amazing grace without mentioning from what His grace saves me. Preach to me no more sermons of my Lord’s mercy except it be contrasted with what He would otherwise be just and righteous to do.

I cannot understand this God of love without hearing of His many other characteristics. My God is woefully complex, but He has been reduced to a god of mere sentiment and romance, which god has no power to save. Explain to me the wrathful God of the Old Testament. Acquaint me with His jealousy; why is His Name Jealous? When God says He “hates,” tell me what is it He despises? Show me His anger in full that I might know the object of this anger and avoid it in my own life. Don’t down play and trivialize His anger, I know He doesn’t change.

Show me the horrors of hell that I might truly prize my salvation and seek to share Him with others. Teach me to be hopeful of Judgment Day but to share with those whom are lost they should greatly fear it. Declare God’s holy commandments that I might have a portrait of His purity and holiness and conversely, that I might know what sin is. Proclaim to me my sin – that I lie, that I cheat, that I hate and covet. Tell me of my helplessness to keep said commandments that you might impress upon me my dire need of a Savior.

Once I have a grasp of the abomination of sin, then and only then, show me my Savior! When I fully comprehend the depth and breadth of my personal sin, my original sin, my self-righteousness and my unbelief, then the Gospel will really be Good News! When I realize my nakedness before God, my utter bankruptcy with respect to sin, I might esteem my deliverance utterly. Pastor, teach me the meaning of repentance, that I might truly be forgiven. Show me true humility that I might know its semblance.

Declare to me the offense of the cross and expound upon its meaning. Tell me, Pastor, why does it offend? Don’t merely tell me this is God’s love; help me to see His perfect justice in this Event. Describe for me also the representation of His holiness and righteousness at Calvary. Explain to me that this is what I have escaped through a life laid down for Christ; that this is the hell I deserved and instead Jesus took the punishment. Tell me that on that day, He became sin for sinners.

Then permit me to see by example how to live for this beautiful Savior. Help me to see in you the life of the redeemed. Show me your love for the lost; teach me likewise how to pour out my heart for them.

Then finally, tell me of God’s wonderful love for me. Then I think I will really understand “how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” Then I know I will understand. Then I will be truly in His loving grip.
Sincerly
Johnny The Baptist

http://www.johnnythebaptist.org