THE POUND
PROCLAIMER
Volume IV
September 2009
Number 11
Sing
to the Lord, bless His name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day
to day. Psalms 96:2
FORGET DIVISIVE
NAMES, BUT REMEMBER OBEDIENCE
BY Wallace Whitehorn
Men say, your church, my church, his
church, her church, the church of your choice. That is not Bible language and
does not even sound like it. That is the language of people who do not know the
Bible, or what it teaches.
Jesus prayed for unity of His people. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be
one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in
us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me,” John
17:20-21.
Paul said to the divided Corinthians that
they could and should do away with division. Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that
ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgments,
1
Corinthians 1:10. Also, “Now
this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I am of Apollos; and
I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or
were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Corinthians 1: 12-13.
Paul not only named the problem of
division, but gave the cure for it. “Speak
the same thing” and do not follow men’s names and doctrines. The sad state
of denominational division is with us today because God’s word, as directed by
the Holy Spirit and written by Paul, has not been followed.
How can we do away with this system of
denominational slavery that has evolved around us? Paul said it would come and
told us how to deal with it, (Acts 20:28-32, 1 Corinthians 1:10-13
and 1
Timothy 4:1-5).
Peter also tells us that these false teachers would come and
bring damnable heresies. Many people would follow them and the way of truth
would be spoken against, (2 Peter 2:1-3). This is a serious
matter since our eternal destination hangs in the balance. Now is the time to
rise up, study God’s word and be obedient thereunto, (2 Timothy 2: 15).
Jesus told us what to do, the apostles
taught it and the early Christians were obedient. In our way of thinking it
would be, instructions plus obedience brings salvation. Jesus said, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter into the
In Mark 16:16 Jesus said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be
save; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Why do not all people do
this? There are several reasons. Some people lack faith, some do not love the
Lord, but back of all this is Satan trying to keep you out of Heaven. Let us
make sure of Heaven.
In the second chapter of Acts, Peter
preached the first gospel sermon and the church came into existence. He proved
to those people that they killed the Son of God. They believed and asked, “What shall we do?” (Verse
37). In Verse 38, Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for [unto] the remission of sins.” Three thousand
souls obeyed the gospel that day (Acts 2:41). Let us notice that they
were not told what church to join. They were told what to do to be obedient to
the Lord and when they did that, the Lord (not man) added them to the church (Acts
2:47). To what church did He add them? It was most likely His that
He said He would build (Matthew 16:18) and the one over
which He is head (Ephesians 1:22-23).
There are some statements made and some
questions asked which show a lack of Bible knowledge. “The church cannot save.”
No, the church is made up of obedient people and we do not save ourselves. The
Lord adds all obedient people to His church and He does the saving.
“Is there just one church?” Paul tells us
that the church is the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23) and in Ephesians
4:4, “There is one body.”
That is the answer from God’s word. Why would Christ need more than one church?
“Is one church as good as another?” If
you are comparing man made churches with man made churches, the answer is yes,
but not one of them can offer salvation and back it up. The difference between
the Lord’s church and man made churches is that the Lord offers salvation in
His church and has the power to back it up.
“Are there good people in all churches?”
Yes, if you are talking about morally good, but obediently good, no. The Lord
adds all obedient people to His church.
“Is the Lord’s church a denomination?”
No, because a denomination, as the word implies, is a part of something. The
Lord’s church is the body of Christ made up of all obedient people (Acts
2:41-47).
“Who then can be saved?” Jesus has the
answer to that question. “Blessed are
they that do His commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life
and may enter in through the gate into the city,” Revelation 22:14.
That brings up a very good question: what
must I do to be saved? Or how can I obey the gospel? The gospel is the good
news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came in the flesh, lived, died for my
sins, was buried, resurrected and ascended into Heaven. Why did He do this? That I might be freed from my sins and be saved in Heaven.
Therefore, I must believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (Mark
16:16), repent of my sins (Acts 2:38), confess that I believe
that Jesus is the Son of God (Romans 10:17) and be baptized into
Christ (Mark
16:16; Acts 2:38; Romans 6:4; Galatians
3:26-27). By doing this in obedience to His commands, because I want
to and am glad to (Acts 2:41), the Lord will then add
me to His church (Acts 2:41). As a Christian, a member
of the body of Christ, I can worship and serve the Lord with other Christians
and have the hope of eternal life in Heaven.
“What
will happen to those who do not obey the gospel?” Paul tells us, “And to you
who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from
Heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that
know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall
be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from
the glory of His power,”
2
Thessalonians 1:7-9; cf. John 5:28-29.
Forget about the name of the church.
Maybe that is why the Lord did not name it, but just called it His. All we need
to be concerned about is obedience and the Lord will add us to His church. May
God help us all to do just that, and it will be to His glory.
- 10323 Orby
The Editor’s
Page
To what does ‘idle chatter’ refer? Have
you ever engaged in ‘idle chatter’? How do we know which ‘chatter’ is truly
‘idle’?
A person who works for
our national defense monitoring the back and forth talk of our nation’s enemies, understands the
concept of ‘idle chatter’. It is talk that does not contain messages for the
purpose of attacking our nation. The type of messages our defense department
seeks to intercept are those which pose a threat during war or heighten alerts.
Therefore, ‘idle chatter’ is conversation whose content has no value concerning
the reason the hearer seeks to hear the communication.
The apostle Paul wrote Timothy concerning
the danger involved by engaging in ‘idle chatter’. “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent
babble and contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’ for by
professing it some have swerved from the faith. Grace be with you” (1
Timothy 6:20-21).
Timothy was charged with speaking the
pure gospel of Christ without corruption from false knowledge. Those who preach
the gospel of Christ today will do well to take heed to Paul’s admonition.
Paul further explained to Timothy how he
could avoid the trap of ‘false knowledge’. “Do
your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need
to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble,
for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will
spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved
from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are
upsetting the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:15-18). The charge to
“rightly handling the word of truth” is one that all Christians would do well
to follow.
There is a real temptation to appear more
knowledgeable, that is to say enlightened, concerning
God’s ways than the truths contained in God’s revealed words. Hence, ‘false
knowledge’ is the impetus for ‘idle chatter’. Luke, the historian, speaks of
the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers along with “... all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend
their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts
17:18-21).
Christians should not be guilty of
engaging in idle chatter. Our words must reflect the character of one who has
their speech seasoned with holiness. The words of Paul regarding this subject
as written in Ephesians 4:29 should have our utmost attention. “Let no corrupting talk come out of your
mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it
may give grace to those who hear”.
Communication is a precious gift from
God. It is the one thing our Creator gave to man that sets humankind apart.
This unique and precious ability should be used to honor God not give false
honor to self. To accomplish this, we must avoid idle chatter that does not
profit the hearer. How we speak tells more about us than we might think.
“Let
your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how
you ought to answer each person”
(Colossians
4:6). - END -
WORKING FOR THE
MASTER
THE CIRCLE OF LOVE IS EVERYTHING!
Several years ago, I came across an
article with the following quote. While this is written by an uninspired
individual, it contains a thought that we all would do good to heed.
“As a physician who has been deeply
privileged to share the most profound moments of people’s lives, including
their final moments, let me tell you a secret. People facing death don’t think
about what degrees they have earned, what positions they have held or how much
wealth they have accumulated. At the end, what really matters (and is a good
measure of a past life) is who loved and who loved you. The circle of love is
everything.” Bernadine Healy, M.D.
Doctor Healy’s observation, if not
profound, is at least challenging. It challenges us to direct our attention to
God’s teaching about love. Not only does God give instruction on this matter,
but love’s power is observed in life experiences.
I have for sometime felt that those who
face imminent death shed their ties to this world. Hence, their perception of
what is important changes drastically. One would be hard pressed to convince
someone who can feel their life force waning that they need to invest money in
an IRA. On the other hand, those of us who are alive and well at sixty-two,
feel an ominous foreboding because we have failed to develop a portfolio for
retirement.
John teaches us in his first epistle that
who we love and who loves us is vitally important. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In
this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son
into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we
have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for
our sins” (1 John 4:8-10). God is love and has manifested that love
by sending His Son into the world to save mankind. Who loves you? God, that’s who!
Knowing that God loves us is not enough,
we must love! “We love because he first
loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he
has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must
also love his brother” (1 John 4:19-21). Who do you love? Is
God the number one love in your life? Before you answer yes too quickly
remember what John writes, “If anyone
says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar.”
John also deals with love in the negative.
“Do not love the world or the things in
the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For
all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes
and pride in possessions — is not from the Father but is from the world. And
the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of
God abides forever” (1 John 2:15-17). How sad it is to
come to the final moments of one’s life only to realize they have loved the
wrong things. And to realize that because they have loved the wrong things, God
rejects them.
God has given you and me a most precious
gift. The gift is a life to be lived. What we do with that gift has eternal
consequences. As the doctor observed, when we have used up God’s gift, nothing
will matter except who we have loved and who has loved us. Do you love God?
Does God love you?
- END -
THE LAST WORD
GOSPEL
MEETING
October
25—30, 2009
Joe Shane from Middleburgs, FL will be doing the speaking
Regular
time on Sunday
7:30
pm Monday—Friday
NOTE: As you can see this is September’s issue, which
indicates we are two months behind in publishing the E-bullein. It is our intent
to be caught up by the end of November. Thank you for your patience.
####################
WHAT MUST
I DO
Hear: Rom 10:17
Believe: Heb 11:6
Repent: Lk 13:5; Ac
17:30
Confess: Matt 10:32; Ac
8:36
Be Baptized: Ac 2:38;
22:16
TO BE
SAVED?
###################
FAMILY
MATTERS
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