Weekly Spurgeon

From Morning and Evening

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. 
- Luke 2:20

Have you not found the gospel to be in yourselves just what the Bible said it would be? Jesus said He would give you rest–have you not enjoyed the sweetest peace in Him? He said you should have joy, and comfort, and life through believing in Him–have you not received all these? Are not His ways ways of pleasantness, and His paths paths of peace? Surely you can say with the queen of Sheba, ‘The half has not been told me’. I have found Christ more sweet than His servants ever said He was. I looked upon His likeness as they painted it, but it was a mere daub compared with Himself; for the King in His beauty outshines all imaginable loveliness.

The Best of Spurgeon

Lately, I’ve been getting into C.H. Spurgeon, the great London Baptist minister, a little more. I guess you can credit Mark Driscoll in Seattle for that encouragement. Spurgeon was an amazing man of God, the “Prince of Preachers,” and a simply, a tremendous communicator. Right now, I’m reading a biography of Spurgeon by Arnold Dallimore. It is wonderful; I commend it to you. Also, Spurgeon published a devotional book, in which he commentates on two passages a day called Morning and Evening. So, from time to time, hopefully two to four times a month, I’ll have “The Best of Spurgeon” post for everyone to take joy in–whether it be from the devotional or a sermon or some other source. Praise God for Spurgeon’s words and may they lead you to the Treasure of Jesus, and not an idolization of Spurgeon.

james

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Psalm 89:19 (ESV), Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said, “I have granted help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people.”

Why was Christ chosen out of the people? Speak, my heart, for heart-thoughts are best. Was it not that He might be able to be our brother in the blest tie of kindred blood? Oh, what relationship there is between Christ and the believer! The believer can say, ‘I have a Brother in heaven; I may be poor, but I have a Brother who is rich, and is a King, and will He suffer me to want while He is on His throne? Oh no! He loves me; He is my brother.’ Believer, wear this blessed though, like a necklace of diamonds, around the neck of thy memory; put it, as a golden ring, on the finger of recollection, and use it as the King’s own seal, stamping the petitions of thy faith with confidence of success. He is a brother born for adversity, treat Him as such.

Christ was also chosen out of the people that He might know our wants and sympathise with us. ‘He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.’ In all our sorrows we have His sympathy. Temptation, pain disappointment, weakness, weariness, poverty–He knows them all, for He has felt all. Remember this, Christian, and let it comfort thee. However difficult and painful thy road, it is marked by the footsteps of thy Saviour; and even when thou reachest the dark valley of the shadow of death, and the deep waters of the swelling Jordan, thou wilt find His footprints there. In all places whithersover we go, He has been our forerunner; each burden we have to carry, has once been laid on the shoulders of Immanuel.

‘His way was much rougher and darker than mine;
Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?’

Take courage! Royal feet have left a blood-red track upon the road, and consecrated the thorny path for ever.

Martin Luther King Day

Today is more than just a day off of school if you are still a student. It’s more than just vacation day if you are a government worker. Most people don’t realize what Martin Luther King was all about. For the most part, I have a finite understand of his legacy in the United States. One thing I do know is that what he did, what he said, what he stood for, and how he initiated change has forever impacted this country.

Stop and think for a minute: King was killed April 4, 1968. That will be 40 years ago this April. Forty years. My parents were eight years-old. That is not very long ago. When I was born in 1984, his death had only been 16 years removed. That is incredible. This great “affluent” nation that is so “developed” and “sophisticated”, was lynching blacks and burning down churches just a couple decades before I was born.

If you think this country is free from racism even today, I would challenge you to open your eyes and look around. Maybe not in Lincoln. Maybe not in Hastings or Holdrege or Norfolk or Grand Island. But what about Omaha? What about Kansas City? What about St. Louis and Chicago and L.A. and New York and Memphis? My contention would be that we are still so racist that we don’t realize it. And if you are a follower of Christ today, as I am, my desire would be that we pray hard and trust the Lord to remove all those sinful negative attitudes toward people of a different color–or nationality or gender for that matter as well. It’s natural to have those attitudes–natural–but not spiritual. And when we have Jesus as King, we are no longer only natural.

I hope today would not just be a day off for you. I hope that it would be a day of praise to God for the way this country has turned around from racism, but that it would also be a day of pleading God for him to still work more change in us. Below is a excerpt from Martin Luther King that he wrote in April of 1963, five years before he died. I pray it convicts, teaches, encourages, and humbles you. I know it did that for me.

Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six- year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

STINT in South Africa

Dear Partners in the Gospel,

About five months ago, there was a chance to go to Uganda for a year to teach African pastors. I love theology and I want to teach and preach Jesus for my life’s work as a pastor. As you know, the Uganda opportunity quickly dissolved. I knew I didn’t want to be on a campus in Africa-or America. I feel called to more than campus work. I want my ministry to expand. I want to reach a more diverse group of people. I know being a pastor is my call because I love writing, preaching, shepherding, and communicating. It’s an irresistible call. My bones quake for it. My blood simmers at the thought. It will be there. I am going there. Just not quite yet. After the Uganda option fell through, I thought all other possible African ministry with Campus Crusade were on campus. I was awfully wrong. Just a week and a half ago, I found out differently. That day, my life’s direction changed. That day, suddenly, Africa became a giant opportunity.

Right now, I have applications at two amazing seminaries. My call is to go there, yet today, I feel like Eric Liddle, from Chariots of Fire. “God made me for China,” he said. “But he has also made me fast.” For me, I’m saying, “God made me to be a pastor. But he also made me for Africa.” Perhaps the race I need to run first is Africa; perhaps seminary can wait. Crusade does more than Campus ministry in South Africa. Here’s a quick rundown: Training in sexuality and abstinence; theological training for pastors; visiting orphans and widows; job-skill training; providing relief and support for AIDS patients; and the JESUS film to African tribal people. South Africa is the hope of Africa. It is like the United States of that part of the world. Africans say, “If I can only get to South Africa, I will be successful.” If you reach this country, you will reach the whole continent. Right now, I hear the call, “Preach, disciple, send!” For some reason though, it’s followed by: “But, wait!” I want to go to the hard places to work with the hard people. With this opportunity, it seems, I can’t pass it up. At the end of my life, will I say, “I’ve wasted it”? Or will I say, “I went to Africa when you called me, Lord”?

Because of this, I have decided to do a year-long STINT (an acronym for Short Term INTernship) from January to December 2009 in Pretoria, South Africa. This conviction is so heavy on my heart even though it has just budded. I can’t imagine the enthusiasm that will come as the experience blossoms into a rich time of growth and dependence on the Lord.

A year in Africa would humble my arrogant heart. A year with people who have AIDS and with children who don’t eat everyday would change my perspective on life. If I don’t go, will I ask, “What if?” May I never say that! Humility. Perspective. Wisdom. Experience. All of these, and so many more, will come if I go. It will no doubt change my life. Will it be hard? O yes! I might die. The great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When God calls a man, he bids him come and die.” When Jesus’ life was risked upon going to Jerusalem, Thomas said in John 11:16, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Jesus is whispering to me: “Come and die.” Will I die to myself? Will I go through the humility, pain, and sowing period to be more fruitful down the road? The experience gained from going to South Africa does not come from a classroom or interning at a church. Those are good things, but in the season I am in right now, would that be best? I do not have a wife or children or a mortgage. There is no better season than this one to seize the opportunity.

If I go, it would truly show that Jesus is my Treasure. It would prove my heart for Africa. It would be evidence of the Spirit’s work in my life. It would lower my pride, make me live simply, open my eyes to the hurt in this world, and would draw me to repentance and a greater thirst for Jesus. The great sin of the church in the 20th century was that it let an entire continent go down the toilet and sink into the devil’s grip. I don’t want to be identified with that. Know this: I’m not going to impress God or make him love me if I go. He will love me if I go or not. I’m going because he loves me and I want to obey his call. I’m going because Jesus said, “Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations.”

I want to store up my treasures in heaven. It sounds crazy to want to live in a broken country like South Africa. But when I read the words of Jesus in Luke 18:19-30, my fear is dissolved: “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life.”

I hear this promise. I believe it in faith.

Amen.