How to Succeed at God's Work

Vince Massi said:
Galatians 5:18-21 lists the traits that prove that a person is unsaved, regardless of his profession of faith:

"19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Notice "selfish ambitions." The KJV translates this word as "strifes." The Greek word refers to people who are willing to fight to advance themselves.

In my first church after graduation, the pastor¡s wife had steadily seized pastoral authority, bullying the staff and accomplishing nothing. They had 75 kids in children's church, and the pastor put me in charge. We worked hard and got it up to 300. One day I was called into his office where an enraged group of women, led by his wife, demanded that they be put in charge of children's church. None of them went soul-winning, but they won.

Three years later, children's church was running less than 10 kids.

I later learned from Christian school teachers that many of them had similar experiences. A person would seize a successful ministry, claiming to be a superior Christian whom God had appointed as a leader, and then they would wreck the ministry.

Some time back, I drove the scorners into rage by talking about people who seize church positions without God calling them. Galatians 5:19-21 shows that these people are not born again.
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Wow! It is just a good thing that you are around to straighten everything out and build up all these ministries every place you go. You are our hero.
 
Vince.....Vince...he's our man if he can't mess it up, nobody can!  Rah!
 
Good Heavens, I was wrong and Ransom was right! "The field is the world" is not another parable--it's distanced a little, but it refers to the parable of the tares. I apologize. And carelessness with God's Word like that is inexcusable.

And now...

In the parable, the Owner tells the servants to leave the tares alone. Also, He does not tell them to warn everybody. Why not?

Remembering that this is a parable, not a list of no-exception doctrines, one reason is that most people wouldn't have believed them.

In listing the sins that prove that a person isn't saved, Paul concludes with "of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Paul had just finished telling the Galatian Christians what deeds prove that a person is not born again. Then he warns that he is telling them ahead of time. Then he points out that he had told them in the past. The problem? They didn't believe him.

In a comical side note, I was explaining this to a Baptist minister and his wife, pointing out that most Christians reject Galatians 5:19-21. She pulled out her pocket New Testament while I quoted the verse, and then they both started arguing against it.

On a serious side note, I felt for decades that some teachers at HAC had wronged us by quitting over Dave Hyles without warning us about him. But if they had, most of us, including me, wouldn't have believed them.
 
The record book, with no sin in it, proves who is saved.

We have one test given...in 1John chapter 1,

Other than that, which is really worded as a self-examination, we aren't given much to go on in calling out our brethren as saved or lost.

Since sanctification is a process, at any given moment, any one of us could be at any point in an infinite line of process.

Sorry, but one of the things I am grateful for hearing Jack Hyles say, is that :
  The best Christian in this room probably isn't someone you think is saved at all, they may smoke, drink, cuss, etc., but in their heart, they are completely surrendered to God.  Some of you haven't lifted a finger to help your fellow saint in years.  You have your don'ts list down, and you look down your phariseeical nose at people like ST (a recently saved Prostitute) and the woman at the well, who may not look like you think a Christian should, but they are helping everyone they can, they are getting out the Gospel, they would do anything God asked of them.  That is the person who is closest to God.

At the time, I had so much weight and sin to lay aside, that this was an encouraging
 
prophet said:
The record book, with no sin in it, proves who is saved.

We have one test given...in 1John chapter 1,

Other than that, which is really worded as a self-examination, we aren't given much to go on in calling out our brethren as saved or lost.

Since sanctification is a process, at any given moment, any one of us could be at any point in an infinite line of process.

Sorry, but one of the things I am grateful for hearing Jack Hyles say, is that :
  The best Christian in this room probably isn't someone you think is saved at all, they may smoke, drink, cuss, etc., but in their heart, they are completely surrendered to God.  Some of you haven't lifted a finger to help your fellow saint in years.  You have your don'ts list down, and you look down your phariseeical nose at people like ST (a recently saved Prostitute) and the woman at the well, who may not look like you think a Christian should, but they are helping everyone they can, they are getting out the Gospel, they would do anything God asked of them.  That is the person who is closest to God.

At the time, I had so much weight and sin to lay aside, that this was an encouraging
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Sanctification, like salvation is in Christ. It is not a work I do. It is what God does.

1 Corinthians 1:2 Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:

1 Corinthians 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

Jude 1:1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:

Acts 26:18 To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Romans 15:16 That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.

1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

When sanctification becomes my work that results in performance based Christianity.

Salvation, sanctification and glorification are all by grace through faith, not by works.
 
Vince Massi said:
Good Heavens, I was wrong and Ransom was right!
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That's a start. Perhaps you'd care to correct the rest of your mistakes while you're at it, such as your false claim that I said Rom. 2:1 was about civil judges, or perhaps that a person can actually occupy a position that God has not ordained?
 
Daily roll call.

Who is "hopping mad" today?

Sound off!
 
Recovering IFB said:
subllibrm said:
Daily roll call.

Who is "hopping mad" today?

Sound off!
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I've been drinking a "hoppy" IPA, does that count?
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No, Frag says that makes you a drunk. Of course you might be an angry drunk.  ;)
 
Ransom said:
Not me. I got corned-beef hash.
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Me either...I had homemade biscuits and elk sausage gravy for breakfast!
 
subllibrm said:
Daily roll call.

Who is "hopping mad" today?

Sound off!
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I've done a lot of things when mad, but hopping is one I don't think I've done.....yet.

:D
 
Vince is a nut. Frag is a close second! Any questions?
 
Trying to start a conference with  Vince as the featured speaker! How to succeed at work! So far I have several interested. But, I don't think they speak English. Vince, How is your Chinese?
 
Remember that the subject is succeeding in God's work, and we're talking about how to deal with tares--something HAC never taught us.

What do you do if you're in a church that is controlled by people who have seized leadership positions? Remembering that Galatians 5:18-21 teaches us that people like that are unsaved, I can only give general guidelines: You should leave without fighting.

1) It is amazing how many problems you can solve by going to another church. When a small group seized the successful Baptist church we were attending, we started going to an Assemblies of God church. God has blessed my wife and I with outreach and teaching opportunities that we never had before.

2) "Let nothing be done through strife..." Should you fight? The people you are trying to protect might know more than you think. I was angry at HAC professors who quit without warning us about Dave Hyles. But I knew about Jim Vineyard.

3) When a church has an exodus due to sin, the ones who leave early are the happiest.

4) Fighters have a harder time finding positions to serve, because others are afraid of them. And once you become a fighter, the easier it is for you to rely on fighting to solve future disagreements.

5) The leaders responsible for the church's failure blame the fighters for the exodus, saying they caused discord in the church. This helps the leaders focus attention away from their own sins.

6) Often, as the years roll by, the leaders disappear, Godly people quietly reseize control, and the church becomes successful again. You don't want that church to regard you as an enemy.
 
It's probably a good thing Paul never confronted Peter for the sake of the gospel.
 
Vince Massi said:
What do you do if you're in a church that is controlled by people who have seized leadership positions?
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You notice how Vince didn't add "that God didn't want them to have" this time? A tacit admission that his view of Providence was defective, though of course he won't admit it in public.

Anything else you want to come clean about being wrong on, Vince? This is, after all, your personal blog. The floor is yours. *snicker*
 
No, Ransom, you yourself are an example of a person who has seized a position God doesn't want you to have.

Before you met me, you were disobeying God's command not to speak evil of the brethren, but only to a small number of people. By setting yourself as a teacher on this thread, you have expanded your ministry to encouraging over 100 people a day to reject God's promises of blessings, and to disobey God's commands not to scorn.

On other threads, you urge the saints to reject God's Word in favor of pagan philosophy, but you don't have a large audience. God doesn't bless scorners with success in His work--some, like you, seize positions that allow them to sin more widely, but God doesn't grant them that success.
 
Vince Massi said:
No, Ransom, you yourself are an example of a person who has seized a position God doesn't want you to have.
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1) What position is that?
2) How do you know God doesn't want me to have it?
3) No such thing.
 
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