Our day began as Jonathan, Jack and I met for
breakfast and had a very good discussion about future work to be done. They had
some excellent suggestions about new efforts that they believed would be
fruitful. After we work out some further details, I will be sharing those
plans.
After breakfast, we drove about twenty minutes to
the venue for today’s lectures. It was at the building of a group known as the
“Calvary Christian Church.” It was located at the end of one of the most
narrow, rough and winding roads that I have ever seen. The man who called
himself the “Pastor” of this place also was the head of a group of
denominational preachers affiliated in an independent “ministry” known by the quasi-acronym
“PAUSE.” As I understand it, those attending today were all denominational
preachers with one institutional preacher thrown in. The rest were from either
Calvinist, Evangelical or Pentecostal groups.
When we arrived, we took a few minutes to set up
and by that time, the crowd had arrived. There were 81 registered in attendance. I started by preaching on “How Did God
Use Prophets to Speak His Word?” which dealt with the inspiration of Scriptures
and how that worked to produce a message perfectly revealing God’s word. The
end of the lesson made application by showing that, if God perfectly revealed
His will in Scripture by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we cannot change
it in any way. After a short break, I brought another lesson on the “Blood of
Christ and Salvation,” from Hebrews 9-10 showing how the blood was
representative of the life in OT sacrifices. That lesson ended with Romans
6:3-11 showing how we are cleansed by the blood when we come “into Christ” and
“into His death” (or His blood).
After lunch, I started with the lesson “Salvation
and Saul” taking the three parallel accounts in Acts of Saul’s conversion. We
noted the timeline to show that faith only could not have saved him on the road
to Damascus because he had already believed for three days before Ananias said
he was still “sins” and needed to have them washed away (Acts 22:16). We used
the same approach to show it was not at the point of repentance and prayer, or
a personal appearance of Jesus, or receiving a miracle. Rather, Romans 6:3-11
was again used to show it was at the point of baptism that Paul met the blood
of Christ and was saved thereby. Several of the young preachers wanted to stop
and have a question/answer period, but we had already agreed to have it at the
end after all of the lessons. That agitated them and some left very angry at
that point. If we would have allowed that question/answer period then, there is
no doubt they would have tried to take over at that point and that would have
been the end of the opportunity to teach.
Jonathan brought a lesson on the “Two Covenants”
next to clarify why we do not make appeals to the Law of Moses for authority in
our teaching and practice, but appeal to the gospel as the will of Christ that
governs all, both Jew and Gentile, today. Towards the end, he made an
application of the principle to show why we do not use mechanical instruments
of music in worship today. I finished the lessons given with one on “Repentance
and Holy Living.” It stressed the need for us to be holy in all aspects of our
conduct and put away every manifestation of evil and worldly ways.
At the end of the lessons, we opened the floor for
questions. There were only four or five questions asked – none that were
confrontational in nature. It was obvious that they were somewhat shocked by
what had been taught, but they did not seem to know how to challenge it. It was
also obvious that they understood the teaching. Many had been taught in their
seminaries a warped concept of what members of “churches of Christ” believed,
and it was clear that did not match what they heard. Several noted the fact
that they were challenged by the lessons and needed to give them further
thought. Almost all expressed thanks for the lesson and invited me to come
again in a future trip if possible. I think we were able to open a door and
that is the most we could have hoped to do with this opportunity. Please pray
that these souls will continue to search with an honest mind for the truth.
