THE DANGER OF AN UNCONVERTED MINISTRY

As a faithful ministry is a great ornament, Blessing and Comfort, to the Church of God: even the feet of such messengers are beautiful: So on the contrary, an Ungodly ministry is a great Curse and Judgment: these Catepillars labor to devour every green thing.

Isn’t it a principal part of the ordinary call of God to the ministerial work, to aim at the Glory of God, and in subordination thereto, the Good of Souls as their chief marks in their Understanding that work? And can any Natural man on earth do this?

Is a Blind man fit to be a Guide in a very dangerous way? Is a Dead man fit to bring others to life? A Madman fit to give counsel in a matter of life and Death? A Possessed man to cast out Devils? A Rebel, an Enemy to God, fit to be sent on an Embassy of Peace to bring rebels into a state of friendship with God? A captive bound in the massy chains of darkness and guilt, a proper person to set others at liberty? A leper, ...a fit Physician? Is an Ignorant Rustic that has never been at sea in his life fit to be a Pilot to keep vessels from being dashed to pieces upon rocks and sandbanks? Isn’t an Unconverted minister like a man who would teach others to swim before he has learned it himself? (So, he) drowned in the act, and dies like a Fool....

The ministry of natural men is dangerous both in respect of the Doctrines and Practice of Piety. The Doctrines of Original Sin, Justification by Faith alone, and the other points of Calvinism are very cross to the Grain of unrenewed nature. And though men by the influence of good education, and Hopes of Preferment may have the edge of their natural enmity against them blunted; yet it’s far from being broken or removed. It is only the Saving Grace of God that can give us a True Relish for those Nature-humbling doctrines; and so effectually secure us from being infected by the contrary. Is not the Carnality of the ministry one great Cause of the General spread of Arminianism, Socinianism, Arianism, and Deism at this day through the world?

Gilbert Tennent

Preached at Nottingham, Pennsylvania March 8, 1740

MODERN EVANGELISM

".... Says Marabel Morgan of her own experience, which took place when she was working as a beautician and rinsing a client’s newly washed hair:

There with the water running I was born again. There was no bolt of lightning, only peace. I WAS TICKLED TO DEATH."

-TIME MAGAZINE, "Back to That Old-time Religion" December 26,1977, page 55.

 Poor Marabel! She is as lost as a goose! But she does not know it. "How shall they call on Him in Whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?" (Romans 10:14)

She has apparently no need of a Saviour, because she has no consciousness of her utter depravity and innate corruption.

"Marabel, the Bible says, ‘Repent or perish.’ Where is your godly sorrow over your having broken the laws of a good God? Have you ever sensed you were ‘dead in trespasses and sins? Having no hope? And with out God in the world?’ ‘Awake to righteousness and sin not.’ Behold, God in flesh come to die for the sins of His people. Has He become your God, your Master, and your Salvation?"

BIBLICAL EVANGELISM

"0, I think this might pull down men’s proud conceits of themselves, especially such as bear up and comfort themselves in their smooth, honest, civil life; such as through education have been washed from all foul sins; they were never tainted with whoredom, swearing, drunkenness, or profaneness; and here they think themselves so safe, that God cannot find in His heart to have a thought of damning them.

"O, consider of this point, which may make you pull your hair from your head, and turn your clothes to sackcloth, and run up and down with amazement and paleness in your face, and horrors in your conscience, and tears in your eyes:

What though your life be smooth; what though your outside, your sepulchre be painted? O you are full of rottenness of sin within. Guilty, not before men, ...but before God of all the sins that swarm and roar in the whole world at this day; for God looks to the heart. Guilty! You are of heart-whoredom, heart sodomy, heart blasphemy, heart-drunkenness, heart-oppression, heart-idolatry --and these are the sins that terribly provoke the wrath of Almighty God against you."

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From the same article in Time Magazine:

"Evangelicals form a conservative majority of about one-third of the 36 million protestants in ’main-line’ churches belonging to the National Council of Churches. In addition,33.5 million are distributed among scores of orthodox Protestant groups outside the National Council of Churches."

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"The reason for the Prevalence of ‘Corinthian Religion’ in the Church today is the Prevalence of ‘Corinthian Morality’ in the Church today."

A BIBLICAL ASSESSMENT

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there he which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the say, which leadeth unto life, and few there he that find it." --Matthew 7:13,14

"Not every one that saith unto Me, ’Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in Heaven. Many shall say in that Day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophecied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?

"And then will, I profess unto them, ‘I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.’" --Matthew 7:21-23