It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!!!!

   

Rusty Cars and Lust (got your attention, didn’t I?)

The following is from Life Action Revival Ministries.     

One problem I didn’t anticipate facing when I moved north was rust. I have now discovered that harsh weather, snow and slush, salt and chemicals, and road grime take their toll on automobiles. This means that part of my regular car maintenance is rust-proofing.

Nicks and chips must be painted. The undercarriage of the car needs to be washed regularly, and other corrosion-prevention measures must be taken. The fact is, the only way to drive a rust-free car in the slushy north is to pursue car protection with intention and discipline.

The same could be said about living a lust-free life in our sex-saturated culture. Paul’s Ephesian readers lived in such a society. Ephesus was the home of the fertility cult which worshiped Diana (or Artemis), the multi-breasted goddess of fertility. Some scholars believe that part of worshiping Artemis actually involved sexual orgies and copulating with temple prostitutes.

Even outside of the fertility cults, sexual ethics were very low in the ancient world. While there were fairly high expectations for women, men regularly engaged in extramarital sex, which was socially acceptable.

Demosthenes wrote, “Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households.”

Ephesus was not much different from America today. According to the Barna Research Group:

60% of Americans believe that cohabitation is morally acceptable;

59% believe that sexual fantasies are morally acceptable;

42% believe having a sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse is okay; and

about one-third of the population gave the stamp of approval to pornography (38%) . . . and homosexual sex (30%).

Other research shows that more than 25 million people visit porn sites every week, and one out of every ten websites is dedicated to explicit sex.

Putting all those things aside, our society is still saturated with sex. With Victoria’s Secret, Cosmopolitan, beer commercials, sitcom television, and immodest dress standards, we are barraged daily with sexual images and temptations.

And it eats away at the human heart. The following poem, written by a young college student, expresses well the deadly allure of sexual temptation: 

For the poem, source of statistics, and the rest of the article… 

Why my youngest son has the initials C – H – S

I wanted to name our youngest son, Charles Haddon Shaw, after my preaching hero and ministry mentor, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Ruthe didn’t like Haddon, but in honor of a friend of ours, she did agree to settle for the middle name, Howard.

I still got the C. H. S.

This brief quote from one of Spurgeon’s books makes it clear why I love him so much.

“I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel.

As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

People have often asked me, “What is the secret of your success?” I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel,—not about the gospel, but the gospel,—the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news.

Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in the sermon.

You remember the story of the old minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and when he was asked by the preacher what he thought of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said, “If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was no Christ in your sermon.”

“No,” answered the young man, “because I did not see that Christ was in the text.”

“Oh!” said the old minister, “but do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, ‘There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His track till I get to Him.’”

“Well,” said the young man, “but suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?”

“Then I will go over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him.”

So must we do, brethren; we must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to save a soul. Take care that it is so when you are called to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you have to preach to charwomen or chairmen, still always take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon.

“Quote is from The Soul-Winner

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