Travesty Invitations

     There are two ways a Gospel minister can conduct an invitation for the sinner to trust Christ. He can either imbed his invitation into the body of his Gospel sermon (which is how Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitefield, Asahel Nettleton, and Charles Spurgeon did it), or he can tack it on at the end (which is how Billy Graham and John R. Rice did it). This ministerial musing has nothing to do with where in the Gospel sermon the invitation to trust Christ is found.

     Feel free to preach the Gospel and invite sinners to trust Christ. Never hesitate to engage in that high and holy calling. As you do that, however, recognise that among those who actually preach the Gospel (and most don't) there are a great many whose invitations to trust Christ are diametrically opposed to the spirit of the Gospel they purport to preach.

     Who initiated God's interaction with Adam? God. Who initiated God's interaction with Noah? God. Who initated God's interaction with Abram? God. Who initiated God's interaction with Isaac? God. Who initiated God's interaction with Jacob/Israel? God.

     Whose idea was it to send God's Son to seek and to save sinners? God. Whose idea was it to bring the Church into existence to carry out the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus Christ? Would you like to answer that it was the Lord Jesus Christ? Great. Would you like to point out that the phrase "church of God" is found eight times in the New Testament, suggesting that it was God's idea? Also great. The point that I seek to make is that there is nothing about the church or the church's mission that would suggest any initiating activity with respect to the salvation of the lost is to be found in the thoughts or conduct of anyone who is lost.

     From Pentecost when the church was empowered onward the initiative is always found with the Spirit-empowered and Spirit-led Christians in the Biblical record. There is not a single instance in the New Testament of the initiative in a conversion transaction by an unsaved person. On the contrary, it is always God, the Spirit of God, the glorified Son of God, or the empowered child of God who initiates the conversion transaction.

     And how about the comments made by the Savior?  Did He not claim that He came to seek and to save that which was lost? Of course, He did.

     That being true, why are Gospel ministers and well-intentioned Christians so determined to reverse the dynamic the Bible so convincingly and unerringly pictures without fail? This is done when the sinner is told, taught, encouraged, exhorted, and otherwise misled to "invite Jesus into your life." What! From where comes this notion that the sinner is responsible to invite the Savior?

     Such an approach to evangelism suggests by action if not openly declaring by instruction that the Lord of glory is waiting for the sinner's word, the sinner's permission, the sinner's go-ahead before He dares to make a move. Such suggests the Savior is passive when the Bible shows Him to always and only be the instigator of the sinner's salvation.

     Just as I have no desire to engage anyone in an argument about when to invite sinner's to Christ, be it during or after a Gospel sermon, so also do I have no desire to engage in soteriological wranglings. I only seek to point out to men who are convinced the Gospel and its presentation are so clearly shown in Scripture that at no time should a sinner be led to conclude that he is the active party and the Savior is the passive party.

     Quite the other way around, John 1.12 shows the sinner to passively receive Christ. Matthew 11.28 shows the sinner to be responsive to Christ's command to come to Him. I leave it to you to search the New Testament for verification and validation of what I bring to your attention. It is a violation of New Testament pattern and protocol to teach a sinner, to suggest to a sinner, to encourage a sinner, and (if I may be so bold) to allow a sinner to invite Christ into his life.

     No, sir! To be saved you are to respond to Christ. You are not to initiate anything with Him. Those who are dead in trespasses and sins are incapable of initiating anything with Him. He left heaven's glory, was born of a virgin, died a substitutionary death on the cross, rose from the dead, ascended to glory, and saves to the uttermost those who come to God by Him ... doing so by responding, reacting, repenting, and believing in response to Him (and those who represent Him) via the Gospel.

     Only when this dynamic is appreciated and honored by the Gospel minister or the witnessing Christian is Jonah's declaration reflected: "Salvation is of the LORD." Am I suggesting that those who invite Jesus into their lives are not saved? No, I am not.

     I am suggesting that Gospel ministers and witnessing Christians conscientiously emulate and imitate as much as humanly possible the approach used to bring people to Christ found in the New Testament. It is better to urge the sinner to receive Christ, to believe in Christ, to believe on Christ, or to trust Christ than it is to suggest the sinner invite Jesus into his life. Why so? The Scriptural approach more implicitly acknowledges Christ as the initiatior and the instigator than does inviting Him into your life.

     The travesty invitation seems to invite Christ to do something He already purposed to do, came to do, and has declared He does. The proper invitation is an invitation to the sinner to respond to Christ, rather than the sinner inviting Christ to do something.

Women in the Church by Kostenberger & Schreiner

     I was saddened but not surprised to learn a number of men without whom I have been aquainted for decades decided to feature their wife, their daughter, or another female speaker during the Sunday morning worship time of their recent Mother's Day service. It requires an ignorance of Second Corinthians 5.14 to think that such a move by a Gospel minister evokes images of love for either women or anyone else. It requires an ignorance of First Timothy 2.9-15 to think such a move by a Gospel minister is permitted by God's Word and does not introduce confusion to the already confused world affected by third wave feminism.

     The slide into effeminacy has continued apace in the West for centuries, with so many women and more and more men thinking they are magnanimous for surrendering a position in the society, in the family unit, and in the church assigned to them by God. Confusion reigns, and since God is not the author of confusion it is clear that this trend is not of God.

     Do they not study God's Word and discover there God's plan for men, for women, for marriage, and for church and society? As well, do they not correlate the current trend with the prophesied slide into apostasy? Finally, have they no concern for the confusion introduced into the lives of children who increasingly make distastrous choices about sexual practices and so-called gender identity? Does no one read secular history to discover the implementation of a plan (Critical Theory) by a group of communists (the Frankfurt School) who moved to this country before World War Two with the goal of destroying our culture?

     The whole world is going mad, as we see more and more evidence of what happens when God turns people over to a reprobate mind. People who are sometimes brilliant nevertheless abandon any capacity to make more judgments about anything.

     Into this debate has been introduced the third edition of "Women In The Church" by Andreas J. Kostenberger and Thomas R. Schreiner. It is a masterpiece of scholarship, application, and courage in a culture gone south. It is a must read for anyone involved in the teaching and preaching of God's Word.

Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15 by Andreas J. Köstenberger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


An extremely well-prepared and marvelously thorough treatment of a timely issue in congregations everywhere. I have already held my copy up to the congregation I preach to and have endorsed the book with my highest praise. I like everything about this work.



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Finishing Well

I am generally a very happy man. God has given me a cheerful disposition, even though I am sometimes prone to deep reflection and introspection. So, it has been with sheer delight that I lead our Church into another annual missions conference in which all but the final of the scheduled speakers not only have forty plus years of Gospel ministry with reputations untarnished, but each of them is committed to finishing well.

Despite this I find myself in a somewhat gloomy state this afternoon as I sit back and begin the second volume of Stephen Kotkin’s biography of Josef Stalin, Stalin: Waiting For Hitler, 1929-1941. And what was it that plunged me into a funk while reading the biography if an evil man long dead? It was a section of Kotlin’s first chapter he labelled “The Victim.”

Everyone who is my age or older has some familiarity with Josef Stalin’s reputation. But I had not before known one aspect of his personality, the facility of casting himself always and in every case the victim. Kotkin writes in connection with Stalin’s most loyal colleague, Bukharin:

“Bukharin had grimly foreseen that Stalin would twist his words and label him a schismatic to extract political advantage, but Stalin’s cruelty was something his friend would puzzle over for a long time. And no matter how underhandedly the dictator undercut Bukharin, Stalin was the victim… Stalin wrote to Bukharin on April 16, 1929… ‘Will you at some point desist the attacks against me?’”

I am not saddened that Stalin’s mindset was so perverse that he used his victim mentality to justify his actions. I am saddened that my mind’s eye fell as I read upon a Gospel minister who is quite unlike the men preaching at our Church’s annual missions conference, who are finishing well, and who recognize that no child of God is anyone’s victim. On the contrary, we are the most blessed of God’s creatures. I am saddened by the thoughts of a man who is not finishing well, a man who sees himself as a victim, and who portrays anyone and everyone who disagrees with him about anything as a compromising traitor to the cause of Christ. As I read of Stalin I thought of this man, his victim mentality, and his willingness to twist the words and actions of those who are decidedly not his enemies for short-term political advantage.

I cannot be angry at such a man. I cannot seek revenge against such a man. I can only feel sad and get as far away from such an unapproachable figure as I possibly can. I must allow no one to hinder me from finishing well. I urge every Gospel preacher to contemplate what the apostle wrote in Second Timothy 4:

⁶     For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.

⁷     I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:

⁸     Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

Let us finish well. Does someone disagree with you? Disagreement does not make an enemy. Does someone choose not to stand with you? Could it possibly be that he can no longer stand with you in good conscience while standing for the Lord? We are flawed and fallible men who must focus our attention on finishing well, so we do not undo in the end what we have spent our lives doing for the Lord.

So-Called Baptist Preachers

     There are drawbacks from reading Baptist history and observing the conduct of our forebears when there were giants in the land. One alarming development is the capricious attitude that is displayed these days with respect to membership and the authority of the congregation where one is a member. Is God no longer on the throne?
     It was not unusual before the Revolutionary War (on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean) for someone who was sought after to become the pastor of another congregation to seek the endorsement of his home Church and to remain in his home congregation if permission to depart and join another congregation was denied. Such was the attitude of God-called men back in the day. They did not think they had authority greater than the authority of the Church in which God placed them. Neither did they believe they had the wisdom to thwart the will of the congregation where they served.
     Such is certainly not the case in modern times, where pastors, missionaries, and evangelists change Church memberships and/or fields of service without regard to the will of the congregation where their membership was held. Frequently these days evangelists set up non-profits in order to operate quite independently from their Church, sometimes because they change membership so frequently.
     Do you think this approach to Church membership helps to explain why so many Church members take their responsibilities as members so lightly? Is this partly why charismatic congregations have no memberships at all? Yet we Baptists rarely, if ever, see real integrity when it comes to membership. Pastors do not usually honor the memberships of other congregations anymore when receiving new members. Remember when Church letters were sought and granted? Not anymore.
     We have slipped considerably from the days when Baptists acted like Baptists, when spiritual leaders believed Christ built His Church, and when undershepherds returned strays to their proper place.
     God help us preachers in 2019 to reflect Scriptural mandates better and to conduct ourselves more like the giants of days gone by.