Gospel.com Blog

Many people’s lives have been changed by this challenging sermon from Paris Reidhead called Ten Shekels and a Shirt. He preaches about how easy it is to miss what God wants for our lives by pursuing a religion based on utilitarianism and humanism.

You can listen to it at sermonindex.com.

Here are a few choice passages from the transcript:

And then we come to another well known person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was a failure from judging all the standards. He never succeeded in organizing a church or denomination. He wasn’t able to build a school. He didn’t succeed in getting a mission board established. He never had a book printed. He never was able to get any of the various criteria or instruments that we find and are so useful, I’m not being sarcastic at all, they are useful. And our Lord preached for three years, healed thousands of people, fed thousands of people, and yet when it was all over there were 120…, 500 to whom he could have revealed Himself after His resurrection. And the day that He was taken, one man said “If all the others forsake you, I’m willing to die for you.” He looked at this one and said “Peter you don’t know your own heart. You’re going to deny me three times before the cock crows this morning.” So all men forsook Him and fled. By every standard of our generation or any generation, our Lord was a single failure.

The question comes then to this, what is the standard of success and by what are we going to judge our lives and our ministry? And the question that you are going to ask yourself, “Is God an end or is He a means?” And you have to decide very early in your Christian life whether you’re viewing God as an end or a means. Our generation is prepared to honor with single honor anyone that’s successful regardless of whether they settled this problem or not. As long as they can get things done or get the job done or well it’s working isn’t it, then our generation is prepared to say well you’ve got to reckon with this.

And probably the most interesting quotation from the sermon:

So it had gotten down to the place where salvation was nothing more than an assent to a scheme or a formula, and the end of this was that salvation was the happiness of man because humanism has penetrated. If you were to analyze fundamentalism in contrast to liberalism of a hundred years ago as it developed, for I am not pinpointing it in time, it would be like this:

The liberal says the end of religion is to make man happy while he’s alive, and the fundamentalist says the end of religion is to make man happy when he dies.

Even if you aren’t a student of church history, you may have heard of the preacher and author Charles Spurgeon—his Morning and Evening daily devotionals have stood the test of time and remain extremely popular today.

While Spurgeon was quite serious about the Gospel message he preached, he was also known for his wit and sense of humor. While browsing through the article archives at the Evangelical Press Association website, I came across an interesting article about the great value that Spurgeon placed on humor in his life and ministry:

Spurgeon laughed as often as he could. He laughed at the ironies of life, he laughed at comical incidents, he laughed at the amusing elements of nature. He sometimes laughed at his critics. He loved to share wholesome jokes with his friends and colleagues in ministry. He was known to tell humorous stories from the pulpit. [...]

Spurgeon considered humor such an integral part of his ministry that a whole chapter in his autobiography is devoted to it. Humor permeates his sermons and writings, often woven into the fabric of his messages. It’s one reason among many why he is still so readable today.

You can get a feel for Spurgeon’s wit by reading some of the many sermons and devotionals he wrote. There’s the Morning and Evening devotional mentioned above, and if you really want to get to know your Spurgeon, there are over 700 sermons by Spurgeon awaiting your perusal over at SermonIndex.

Sometimes all it takes is an impassioned speaker to move us on into action. Thankfully many of the gospel.com community members have made classic and contemporary sermons and messages available on their sites. Here’s are some links to those resources on from around the community:

From Sermonindex.net:

A Burning Heart by Leonard Ravenhill

Turkey Creek Revival by J.D. Brodgon

A Vision of Revival by Sammy Tippit

David Bryant’s Proclaim Hope:

Seven Irrefutable Reasons Why We Should Prepare for a Nationwide Christ-awakening Movement

The Anatomy of a Christ Awakening

The Crises that Demands a Christ Awakening

How to Prepare a Way for a Christ Awakening

From Life Action Ministries:

Personal Revival Messages

Here are a few sermons on heaven and hell from sermonindex.net:

Hell, What is it like?

What and Where is Heaven?

Heaven

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Revelations 4:

Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

“You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”

There are two new audio sermons online at the Soulation audio library:

• God Is Your Hero by Dale Fincher, which takes a fresh look at the David vs. Goliath story and CS Lewis’ Narnia tales, and talks about what it means to have God as your hero.
• How the World Is In Us by Dale and his wife Jonalyn, which explains why human beings are “spiritual amphibians”—we live in two different worlds, the physical world and the spiritual world. Sound strange? Listen as Dale and Jonalyn talk about the need to understand both aspects of our existence.

If you haven’t listened to one of Dale or Jonalyn’s messages, it’s well worth giving one a try—they have a unique and humorous way of taking seemingly abstract concepts and showing what they mean for your everyday life.

Have you ever looked around, taken stock of the spiritual apathy and confusion in our culture, and wished for a nationwide religious revival? If so, you’re not the first Christian to do so. If you’re despairing that a society-wide revival could ever take place, you might be surprised to learn that just a few hundred years ago, that’s exactly what happened!

I’m talking about the “Great Awakening” that swept through America in the 18th century, sparking great church growth, renewed missions work, and inter-denominational unity. Sound far-fetched? Here are a few resources to introduce you to the Great Awakening and the evangelists who helped spark it:

• First, read a brief overview of the Great Awakening—who started it and what it meant for an America increasingly affected by spiritual malaise and the humanist philosophies of the Enlightenment.
• Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan preacher who, distressed by what we saw happening (or not happening) in America’s churches, began a preaching tour that kickstarted a great spiritual revival. His 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (link goes to an audio reading of it) is one of the most famous sermons in all of Christian history. (You can listen to many more of his sermons at Sermon Index.)
• George Whitefield, a British evangelist and friend of Ben Franklin, was another major figure in the Great Awakening. Greatly upset by the “lukewarm Christianity” he saw all around him, he did all he could to shake Christians out of their stagnant spiritual state. Read more about Whitefield’s evangelistic work, or check out some of his many sermons. For a shorter sample of his teaching style, see this brief Whitefield excerpt on the importance of “frequent and devout prayer”.
• Revival didn’t end with the Great Awakening— it wasn’t long after that a Second Great Awakening was sparked, with an even greater impact on American society.

The preaching of Edwards, Whitefield, and other evangelists had a profound effect on their society—and if you take the time to read some of their sermons, you’ll be amazed at how relevant they are. Some of them feel like they could just as easily have been written in 2008! So next time you’re tempted to despair at the all the religious confusion we see in society around us, remember the Great Awakening, and be reminded that what seems impossible to man is quite possible for God.

In our last post, we pointed out some classic sermons about discipleship. Soulation is another ministry with some excellent sermons and essays about drawing closer to Christ in your everyday life. Their sermon library has a large number of sermons in audio and PDF format on a variety of topics. Keeping with this week’s theme on discipleship, be sure to check out Loving God With All of You (PDF; part 1 of a seven-part series), which talks about the process of deepening your relationship with God. Loving God With Your Soul (MP3) is a good companion to that series.

Strangling Your Soul is a short, insightful look at the everyday care and feeding of your mind and spirit. There are many more good resources in their library—take a look around and spend some time reading and listening to their sermons!

“Jesus said, Follow Me (Matt. 4:19; 9:9).” He called us to be, “set apart, challenged, and taught so we see and adhere to the call and mission Christ gives us. The word “disciple” literally means someone who pledges to be a ‘learner.’ Moreover, it is someone who follows another’s teaching, and adheres to it. It is a commitment and a process to undertake the learning, and, as a Christian, a yearning to imitate Jesus!” —from Call to Discipleship at Into Thy Word Ministries

Discipleship is answering the call of Christ in your life. This week, the Gospel.com blog is focusing on providing links to community resources that can help you deepen your walk with Christ. We’d like to start by pointing you towards some sermons from Sermonindex.net, which has over 14,000 sermons available online!

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