Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Pastor Lonnie Wooten, Jr. – Gone Home


“Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”

Two Fridays ago an old soldier of the cross suffered a stroke and passed into the eternal regions a little more than one week later. He was in his 80’s and had preached Christ as man’s only Savior and sovereign Lord for seventy years. His church family could not have been shocked, but they are surely grieving the loss of their friend and shepherd until the dawning of that great Day. Indeed, the Day of the Lord will be all joy to the redeemed.

For now, these are days of reflection. Days to remember. Family, church family and friends now consider the life and death of a man of God who ran his race and ran it well, a man renowned for love and kindness. His sons, while suffering the pain of loss, are surely comforted by the confidence that their father’s entire hope of heaven was Jesus, His blood and righteousness, His cross, His empty tomb.

He was a pastor before I was born. When I knew I had been called to preach the everlasting gospel as a youth, he was the first to welcome me to his pulpit on a Lord’s Day morning. He too had been called as a youth. He understood my passion to preach the glorious gospel, for it was the passion of his soul too. While I never sat under his regular ministry, I never forgot him through the years. My remembrances of him are all good memories of joys together as we worshiped the matchless Redeemer King.

He was a guileless man. He rested his soul in the perfect righteousness of Another.

There is a whole generation of God’s children that grew up in the church under his ministry. Their whole world will seem very different from now on. Sundays will never be quite the same. I hope they won’t lose their balance. I hope they will stand firm and carry on, as their beloved pastor would have wished. May God comfort His hurting people in these days and bring glory to the Savior. –TSA

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Remind Me, Again & Again



He knew he would soon die and felt a sense of urgency to strengthen the believers with the truth of the gospel because Christians face many trials throughout life and need to be prepared for whatever may come. Simon Peter wished to remind the Lord’s people of truth they already knew—to stir up their minds, which is to say, their hearts. By rehearsing great and awesome truths the Apostle strengthens Christ’s loved ones. Do we not need to be stirred by the truth?

Is there something important that you should say to someone before you die? Are there people for whom you care who need one more gospel word? At this moment I can think of numerous people for whom I care and I would wish to leave them with a clear word before I die. I do not want to leave this world before telling them the one thing that might be of lasting, even eternal, benefit to them?

It is reasonable to think that Simon Peter wrote the second letter bearing his name to the same believers as the first. He was concerned for them, that their belief in Christ would be true and sound and saving for every one of them—and that none of them be deceived by “false teachers” that inevitably come among any assembly of Christians at some point.

Just as had happened in the history of old covenant Israel, Peter warns that even so “false teachers” would be found among the new covenant Israel, Christ’s church, His bride. And by the designation “false teachers” Simon Peter does not refer to well-meaning Bible expositors who happen to be in error about some fine point of biblical teaching. He refers to people who falsely claim belief in Jesus Christ, who falsely claim that Jesus is their Master and falsely claim that they are blood-bought believers like every true Christian. They falsely claim that they are Spirit-anointed, Spirit-led heralds of the gospel—but they are none of those things. Their claims are not true. They are not motivated by love for Christ or His gospel. They have other motives.

The Apostolic era passed by the end of the first century. The men who had lived and walked with Jesus had died by then. But the gospel they preached had been widely heralded and Christ was believed on throughout the known world. And Christ has been building His church upon the truth of the gospel ever since, as Jesus promised (Matthew 18:13-18). Yet the peril of “false teachers among you” remains until now.

With charm and swagger and smiles and personality and deception “false teachers” make prey of those who are disobedient to the Word. And even those who have honest hearts, who sincerely desire to please Christ, may find themselves deceived and exploited because they have not heeded and obeyed Scripture’s warning—“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20).

The more we know the Scriptures, the more we know the character of God. The more we know of God’s Word, the more we will know of His mind, His thoughts, His goodness, His perfections. And the more we know of Him, the easier it will be to recognize a counterfeit teacher when we see one. But we must be careful at this point; the fact that a teacher is wrong about something does not make him a “false teacher” by the Apostle’s definition. The most careful student of the Scriptures may occasionally err in understanding and pass that error along to others. But all Christians are responsible to “search the Scriptures” for themselves and to test and confirm every teaching by the Word of God; obedience to Christ in this matter provides us a large measure of safety. Disobedience results in potential spiritual devastation. Sola Scriptura!

Consider the words of Simon Peter as he warns true Christians to beware those who have a false confession, a covetous heart and a willingness to make prey of Christ’s loved ones. Despite their eloquent profession of love for Jesus, they are headed for judgment and destruction in an endless hell.

1But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. (2 Peter 2:1-3 NKJV)

Remind me, again and again—for in hearing and believing the Word of God there is great safety and greater joy. Do you also relate to that line of the old song sometimes sung, “I love to tell the story for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest”?  –Timothy