We live in an age of information, multiple resources, and intellectual aspirations to exactness. In light of this, no greater desire exists by many but to lasso such a great subject as the love of God. Paul identified God's love as "great" in Ephesians. 2:4. However so many today have such a broad kaleidoscope of views and have been indoctrinated with modern concept. Therefore, I choose to try to encapsulate my thoughts on the subject and what may be missing from those concepts! Perfect Love! Over twenty years of prayer, study, meditation, experience and heartfelt desire before God has gone into what I am about to say. Yet, I feel that I am just getting both the tip of the iceberg and the tip of a priceless balance too few have found! I want to share them with all who read this. I warn you that I am about to take you where you need to go and perhaps not where you want to go. To experience the fullness of God's love is to experience all the Love of a perfect Father. All the love from His perspective and not the perspective of modern parenthood! You Can Experience It! I want to make sure that you understand that the love of God in my understanding is absolutely experiential! When He chooses during a worship service, prayer time, or unexpectedly as we go about our daily routines to engulf us in His spiritual, loving presence, there is no describing it! Neither by words of any language could we explain it nor find any clear formula to experience it at our will. This article is not designed to do that. However it is designed to help us understand the fullness of both His working in our lives and the Biblical diet that we need to be at a healthy, spiritual balance. Lost Words! This article will do some studies on some lost and misinterpreted words and their powerful impact on today's believers and today's spiritual leadership. I have had to pay a dear price to come to the understanding that I have today. Yet I believe in and have seen the time proven truths of what I am about to share. Pastors sharing these truths with their congregations will bring great illumination, true and lasting repentance and a very healthy balance of attitudes, giving, forgiveness, and biblical Christianity. The Truth is Always that "Yes, God Loves Us!" I recently shared a thought with my wife. I said "Marilyn, when some hear that "God loves you", they hear the preacher say; "God loves you so much that you can do whatever you want and it will be OK! You can go home and get out the pornography, commit immorality and it will be OK because God loves You! Others will hear that same statement and hear that preacher say; ‘God is watching over you and you hadn’t better get out of line or you’re gonna get it!’.” After we have lived out our life in God (no matter what our understanding), we will be able to look back and say, “Yes, God has loved me!”. All that I am about to say will be summed up by this last paragraph. We Should Regularly Pray for Wisdom! However, the Bible admonishes us in Proverbs 4:7 that we are to get wisdom and with all thy getting get knowledge and understanding. What I am about to share with you I believe comes from years of praying for these three things on the subject of God’s love. All that I am, believe, practice, preach, and when God permits prophesy is summed up in the foundation of Jesus Christ and what I am about to share. To Strike a Biblical Balance! I remember almost twenty years ago the powerful experiences I had right after being filled with God’s Holy Spirit. I was a single man then and had hours and hours to spend in His presence. I can remember one powerful night praying down next to the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida where I was living. God by His Spirit began to speak to my heart about the power of His love in this world. The wisdom that He began to pour out in my spirit was so great and so overwhelming that I had to beg Him to stop. It essentially answered in a few passing moments all the questions that I had had on my heart for years. It essentially said that God’s love was so great and so powerful that it was the answer to all of life’s and this world’s problems. I remember leaving that encounter a changed man. A Revolutionary Scripture Passage! I remember being troubled though over the next few years by what I saw in the church and what I now know to be the truth. It would take almost two decades to come to full understanding of the problem. However, about ten years ago, the Holy Spirit broke in on me with a powerful and beautiful truth found in the little book of Jude. Jude 22-23 states, “And some save with compassion making a difference and others save with zealous fear yanking them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh!” That scripture revolutionized my life. From the philosophies of John Wesley who proclaimed to young preachers, “Preach ninety percent law and ten percent grace!” to those modernists who believe that if you just proclaim God’s love it will be enough, we all need this balance! Some reach with God’s love and others reach with preaching zealously the “fear of God”! Some only respond to God’s love. Only God in prayer and the leading of God's Spirit can show us what we need to use or what we need to have. We Must Be Open to Change! For some, it will involve utilizing other people’s giftings in their pulpits. For balance-motivated believers it will mean supplementing their diet through the ministries of others. It is from here, however, we must look at the nature of man and be cautioned by our own tendencies to favor our flavor of ice cream and avoid the vitamin rich greens and protein rich meat of the Word. We must also be humble enough as ministers to recognize the fact that through the diversities of giftings we will not be enough to supply all the spiritual needs of our people by God’s design. No one person is designed to handle all the credit or all the criticism in any congregation. God has preinstalled pride proof buffers if we will utilize them. We Must Accept our God Given Responsibilities! For the individual believer, this will require the humility to see our need and the ambition to go after what is lacking and needed in our spiritual diet. God has set apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in the body of Christ. Only those with sometimes the most subtle form of pride will believe they can be used in all five gifts and be the only spiritual leader a believer needs. Ministries truly flowing in the Holy Ghost will have a beautiful confirming agreement that will settle needed truth on the bedrock of God's will and truth. It is then that God gets the glory and man gets the quiet satisfaction of knowing he has been used of God to feed His flock! I say all this because of the diversities of people, personalities, and backgrounds are going to affect both the way they hear and the way they perceive the truths of God’s Word! The same thing holds true with ministers of the gospel and the way they emphasize particulars of the many truths of the scriptures. Where leaders are spiritually themselves, will always have an effect on the way they minister. It is almost, if not totally, impossible for anyone to ever lead some else to grow spiritually beyond themselves! So it is with the love of God. How a person perceives that love is in direct parallel to his own experiences and the liberties he allows himself within what he believes to be the truth. Before we go any further on the subject of God’s love, let us look to see if we agree about the condition of man. Please do not let this side track you. It really is a very important step in understanding the reason for a vitally important, commonly misunderstood, and quite often misinterpreted word in the scripture. However, before we go to that word that I believe is the most passionate expression of God’s love one can offer, let us look at the state of man according to scriptures. The Condition of Man The Word of God is very clear on both the unconverted and the converted state of man. The unconverted man is a sinner according to scriptures. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is exceedingly wicked above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?”. Many places in the scriptures-including the teachings of Jesus Himself-made it clear that the unconverted heart was sinful to the core and a person needed to be born again or have a heart change in order to ever be holy or righteous in God’s eyes. The converted heart happens of course as a person is born again. However, we are told in many places that the old nature is still present within us. The old nature has to be put to death and be put to death daily. The potential for sinning is still there and the old selfish, self serving nature is still a part of our lives. A person may have a day, days, or even a season of his life where he is putting his flesh to death daily through the power of God’s Holy Spirit. However, tomorrow he may allow his old nature to gain control and start to serve his evil nature again! My Old Nature Must be Consistently Challenged! I say all this to lay a foundation for the fact that my old nature must be constantly and consistently challenged by God’s Word either through personal study and devotion or through teaching and preaching. That teaching and preaching must be a balance of truths from the scriptures. It has been said that any one Bible truth preached, taught or studied without the balance of other Bible truths becomes heresy! I knew of a church that decided it would focus only on “Healing for the Brokenhearted”. It became soon badly unbalanced and almost closed its doors. I have known of other churches who have focused so strongly on faith that they too became lopsided spiritually and have fallen into moral trouble, etc. The same thing can happen with excesses of preaching on love, grace, wrath, end times or any other viable doctrine. The Bible is designed to balance itself! Our nature is to conveniently unbalance it.! We All Prefer the Easier Path! We must be willing to accept the fact that our nature-whether old or born again-has the subtle tendency to choose the easier path! On our best days, we all do the best things. For those who have matured in the faith and are really growing in God, you can shout over some victories. Things that used to have you bound you are not bound by any more. Things that used to be a great temptation to you are not so great a temptation any more. No matter how strong or mature we are, we all must admit that there are areas of our life that we have placed “No Trespassing” signs up before the Lord! Oh, we cry out in our hearts, “Take it all Lord!” and we sing all the songs with great zeal. However, the Lord knows our hearts and many times though He tries to love us “out” of something. Many times though He sends the still small voice. Many times even though He gives us better things than the sinful thing that we are holding onto we still resist. It is in those times that I believe that He must show us the greatest love of all. It is in those times that He can use only His most trusted, experienced servants to deliver this love and only when we are not listening to that still small voice so He cannot speak to us Himself. It is during these times that the philosophies of the “fluff love only” Christians do not work. It is during these times that His stumbling blocks that He sometimes uses do not turn us around. Does His love stop here? No! It is during these times that He must use what I believe is the most passionate love cry of all. The cry of exhortation! We need to give God equal opportunity! After several kind admonitions to his patient to loose weight, a doctor goes to stronger methods and scolds the patient a little harder when he fears death or disease due to the patient’s indulgences. After telling a player time and again not to force a shot, a basketball coach raises his voice at the player and has him sit on the bench for a while because the player did not obey his instructions. After countless attempts to get the child to obey, the wise parent raises his voice and ads an “or else” to his warnings to the child. All these things are what are called exhortations. 1 Corinthians 14:3 describes them as one third of the types of prophecies that we can hear. “He that prophecies speaks unto men for edification, exhortation, and comfort.” Why is this missing from our churches? Part of it is a lack of understanding of the word. The word exhort almost shouts out its meaning. However, some modern translations and even some modern dictionaries interpret exhort to mean encourage at the farthest extreme of the word. It would have to mean I encourage you to stop that!" The truest definition of the word is to charge, challenge or rebuke. One dictionary defines it as to urge or advise strongly. An exhortation in the most Biblical sense would always be an exclamation!!! Remember, we established a foundational understanding of the state of man. Remember, we said according to scriptures that the state of man is selfishly evil and must be born again and put to death daily. Remember, how that I made the statement earlier that I believe that though a person is born again that they must daily be challenged with God’s Word to remain in that self death mode. Why do you think then that it would be possible under modern thought to somehow conveniently loose the true definition of a word such as exhort? Also, why do you think that there is so much flesh in today’s churches and so little self death and real Biblical Christianity being practiced? Do you believe that there is any connection between the fact that modern concepts of psychology and liberal theology are trying to relieve guilt from the human mind and a pointed word of exhortation brings conviction? Is this really a word game of the intellect or a wrestling match between rebellious hearts and the exhorted Word of God? Could it be that the most passionate form of God’s love is being ignored? Its also an interesting fact that preaching without Biblical exhortation brings less in house persecution from those occupying the pews! God's Love Goes Further than We Think! Could it be that God rather than giving up on His church is trying to reach it with stronger warnings than our theology will receive? Could it be that we in the church are continuing to rebel intellectually by justifying our behavior by misinterpreting biblical love? Could it be that we have made God a pacifist in the name of love to justify our rebellious behavior? When Jesus said to the self righteous Pharisees, “You are of your father the devil!” was He violating His own concepts of love? I say, “No!" However, it would be a violation of ours! When He said to the two cities that, “It will be more tolerable in the day of Judgement for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for you.” was that a violation of God’s love? No, but it is a violation of ours! When He said to the Pharisees in Mathew 23:33, "You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of Hell?” was Jesus violating God’s love? No, but He was ours! It's our Nature to Rebel! You see our human nature is to rebel against all outside control of our lives. Whether it is a teenager with his attitude up defying his parents’ instruction or an intellectual looking down his glasses arguing with your theology, rebellion is still rebellion! Neither God’s love nor His grace is a Carte Blanche for our liberties. He wants to Father our lives by watching over us in love. However, it is a love that sometimes has to correct. It is a love that sometimes has to rebuke. It is a love that sometimes has to use strong words. However, only when necessary! A father’s love saving a son from destruction who has wandered so far away that he has to raise his voice to be heard! Modern Liberal Love It is the very liberal type of love that I believe was warned about in the scriptures! Paul said that, “In the last days men would not endure sound doctrine, but would heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and would depart from the truth giving heed to fables.”. This statement always troubled me in that I was not sure what the itching ears referred to. I had heard teaching on and modern translations even use tingling ears. However, I still failed to see any correlation as with other analogies found in the scriptures. What does Paul Mean by Itching Ears? Recently, I was reading a book on nutrition. It was not written by a Christian that I know of but the author had a Ph.D. in nutrition. The book reported that one of the negative side effects of eating too much sugar in the diet is a build up of ear wax which can cause a lot of itching of the ears! Could it be that the Apostle Paul was drawing from a then known truth? This was to show that people who only want the sweet stuff, the flowery stuff, the love stuff, the encouraging word stuff, the comfort stuff, the honey stuff, but do not want the meat of God’s Word have wax build up in their ears causing itching? Could they be hard of hearing because someone filled them doctrinally with only the seemingly positive promises of God’s Word? Teaching about His love without teaching about His just side? Could it be possible that many of our so called converts today only want to be part of a bless me relationship without really aspiring to His holiness? Could it further be said that some of the preachers that are doing this are only doing it for their own gain? Could it be also said that some of the preachers are doing this because they too are in rebellion to the Lordship of Christ and are intentionally leading others in their own way of thinking? Could it be that the teachers are the one who have itching ears blocked by the ear wax of the sweetness of their own diet spiritually? Could you further say that there are countless thousands willfully choosing to establish a religious practice that does not crucify the flesh, but serve it? Also, that our countless lifeless churches in this country are the evidence of pulpits and pews occupied by people who do not really want the fullness of God’s love and kingship in their lives, but only want His counsel! So to further their own justifications, they intellectually and systematically do away with all critics and criticisms of their uncrucified lives by redefining by their own standards of Biblical love? They then place anyone challenging that in a category of extremist or undereducated. They write them off as too harsh or hard so that they can continue unchecked in their opulence. Jesus said, “The day will come when they will put you out of the synagogues thinking they are doing God’s service.”. Does Agape’ Love really mean “Unconditional”? I challenge the reader to do an in depth word study on the Greek word agape’. Books have been written, seminars taught, and countless sermons preached on the “unconditional love” of God! Modern translators again like to use this descriptive word in describing the word agape’. Yet, in all my studies of the word in established bible dictionaries or any other research on the word by anyone more than two decades ago I have never found it described that way. The word unconditional love came from modern day teachings of psychology. It seemed to many to fit perfectly defining God’s love of mankind. However, it seemed as if there was a gentle grieving of the Holy Spirit every time I heard it described that way. I found that Vines Bible Dictionary, as well as others, interpreted agape’ as “unmerited favor”. The word unmerited favor means undeserved favor. It clearly refers to us getting something that we did not deserve! It is a beautiful biblical description of God’s grace. It does not suggest, however, that this love was shown towards us without conditions! For instance, the Bible says, “You must be born again.”. Well, that is a condition to receive God’s love! The Bible says, “He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him.”. These are more conditions. As a matter of fact, there is an “If ye” clause on every promise in the Bible. To describe God’s love as unconditional is unbiblical and misleading. Is it any wonder we have a hard time getting modern converts to pray, read their Bibles, attend regular church services, tithe, etc.? We have subtly taught them that they do not have to! The phrase “unconditional love” seems to suggest that God has all these warm, fuzzy feelings toward everyone. This unmerited favor might better be interpreted “an accelerated general concern” towards all mankind. A love so powerful it is almost indescribable yet not unconditional as many promote! John Wesley described this unmerited favor as a benevolent love towards everyone. It was without favoritism or prejudice. It was the “whosover will let him come" love. I am in no way making light of this Love! It is powerful and almost indescribable. To split hairs one may only truthfully say it is unconditional as it is extended from God's hands but there are certain conditions we must meet to receive it? Have you ever heard of anyone experiencing God without either there being some level of searching or crying out? Or someone has taken up a place of prayer for them? I believe to tell people that God's love is unconditional is misleading to the true connection that must be made between God and man and will produce many times weak converts. Now let us clarify that this love is a powerful love and a drawing love! It is not a picture of a father with a stern look and folded arms. It is the love of a loving father with open arms. “It is not His will that anyone should perish!” It is a love shown by Him giving His most precious possession, His only Son, that we could know Him better. It is a giving love, not based on any goodness or good works that we may have, but on His own goodness. I believe that to use the word unconditional to describe His love is biblically inaccurate. Until the 20th Century Theologians had a Different View of Love! It is also interesting that theologians for up until the turn of the twentieth century did not feel that the agape’ love was the end all of a relationship with God! They believed that the phileo or the friendship love was the higher level of relationship that a believer should aspire to. That once someone received the gift of salvation through God’s benevolent love that they should then grow in Him by nurturing and sanctifying their relationship by His power in prayer. By the way, did you know what Jesus actually said in Revelation? He said, “As many as I love I chasten and rebuke, be zealous therefore and repent!” The word for love there is not agape but phileo! Did you know when the scripture was referring to John the Beloved that the word again is not agape but phileo? Also, that when “Jesus wept” over Lazarus and the crowd said, “Oh, how He loved him.” that the word used is phileo-not agape’! you Know that God Never Called us to Phileo our Enemies but to Agape them! Did you know that God never called us to phileo our enemies but agape’ them. In other words, God never expected us to have warm, fuzzy feelings toward our enemies or even have them be our friends but to offer them undeserved or unmerited favor. It is not a feeling but a decision not to hold anything against them in our hearts! With our modern concepts of love influenced a lot by indoctrination of concepts based in psychology and secular humanism, can we comfortably teach to our congregations the whole Bible? One of the foundational truths of Secular Humanism is that man is basically good and sometimes turns out evil! This is in direct contrast to the teachings of the scriptures which we mentioned earlier on the state of man. In Matthew 7:11 and Luke 11,13 Jesus speaking to His Disciples qualifies his statement by stating "If you being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children?" Many other places in the Bible, as previously mentioned, identifies the nature of man as evil and not good as philosophies of Secular Humanism dictate! . Do you see People as Basically Good? Do you see people as being basically good that will always respond positively to positive messages on things like the love of God? Or does man have an evil nature and even after conversion either consciously or subconsciously seeks out an “easier path”? Do some seek the “path of least resistance” as it has been called? Or even if some do, which I believe many do, respond to the "Love of God" type messages, do all? If not has God made provision in ministry for them? I believe He has if we will use it! I Refer Back to Jude 22,23! “Some save with compassion and others save with zealous fear yanking them out of the fire hating even the garment spotted by the flesh!”. I remember the Lord over many years teaching me about the use of His strong exhortative messages. I remember the Lord speaking to my heart as I asked Him one time why sometimes He calls me to bring forth such strong messages. He spoke to my heart, “Hard messages for hard hearts, tender messages for tender hearts!”. God always Confirms with His Peace! Whenever God has called me to proclaim a strong message and sometimes while I am giving it I am saying to myself, “Wow, this is a strong word!”. It is during those times that if a pastor understands what God is doing that he will many times lead into an altar call and we see many repentant hearts and the sword become a scalpel of God’s delivering power! It is also during those troubling times to my heart that I might not be received that He comforts me with a warm blanket of His peace to assure me I am in His perfect will. “Righteousness and peace kiss each other!” Psalm 85:10 I have been a bit of a student of human behavior for many years. One big thing that I have noticed is that all people do not respond to kindness and gentleness. When shown love they gladly receive it , but then just keep taking and taking and taking without it influencing their lives to produce change at all! Many, many times, however, if you work with these people differently using what has been called “tough love” tactics being confrontive and authoritative that these people finally “get it”. That these people only come to true repentance with the stronger messages of the Bible! Paul said to the Corinthian church, “Should I come to you with love or a rod of correction?”(1st Corinthians 4:21) It is for these types of people that only a rod of God’s correction and warnings of Hell, judgment, accountability, wrath, and correction will motivate them to spiritual growth! That only straight forward confrontational style preaching will reach these people and these types of people sit in our pews week after week! They are going on unchanged by messages on God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness, longsuffering, kindness, compassion, etc.! Not Everyone can Minister Exhortative Messages! I believe there is both giftings in this area and special times when God anoints someone for a specific need. Some of the most loving people I have ever met are gifted exhortatively. Again, I believe it is the last effort we many times try in reaching someone. However, I believe rather than being considered loveless as many have labeled it that exhortative words are often the most passionate form of God’s love! It is only the people who live the closest to God who have the true roar of the Anointing of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah in their hearts! It is often only these people who will obey God at all costs to risk losing friendships and run the risk of not being received to attempt to wake up individuals or a body of believers into making a needed turnaround with a skillful exhortation of the truth! This is a New Generation of Believers! It is something that people of this generation are receiving as never before. The teenagers especially of this era and time are extreme in everything they do. Where confrontational preaching and exhortative words were considered a “no- no” in the past, now there is a generation that wants “right in your face stuff”. Many pastors and leaders are “stuck”! They know that conditions exist in their church that are unpleasing to God, but they do not know what to do about it. They faithfully preach week after week misinterpreting biblical concepts of God’s love formed by modern misunderstandings of that love. They have taken the scripture, “The goodness of God leads us to repentance.” , to mean you only ever preach on His goodness or things that seem good and man will repent. They do not realize that- that scripture, balanced by other scripture, could only mean that it is by His goodness that He leads men to repentance! Many can see the Promised Land of revival, but are stuck in Moab because they are afraid to “offend” anyone by their preaching! Preaching an exhortative message also requires a godly boldness that only comes by being truly full of God's Spirit! Again I point you to the fact that many fall far short of God's best in their own personal relationship with God! Many would rather choose to believe that they have done all that they can and the rest is up to God, than to believe their own relationship is lacking and that it is a spiritual detriment to their congregation. It is easier even for preachers to choose the path of least resistance that to preach a message that they know will bring real biblical persecution to them. They know very prideful controlling people exist in their church. People with money. People with influence. People who could lead a division. People who don't want to really hear the truth but continue to come to church week after week wanting their guilty conscience soothed. May I remind you of Aaron, Saul, Ephriam, and others in the Bible who listened to the people rather than God! Ephriam in Hosea 7:8 says He mixed himself among the people. Verse 9 says "gray hairs are here and there upon him yet he knoweth not!" Back in verse 4 it says "He is like a baker who ceases from raising the fire in the oven after he has used it!" It may seem as if you are a success in the eyes of men. But may I warn you in an exhortatory fashion that Judgement Day is coming! It's God's Word that will never pass away! Solomon said "Better is a poor and wise child then an old and foolish king who will no more be admonished!" (Eccl. 4:13) The Biblical Word Offend Does Not Mean Upset! When you find the word offend in scripture, it refers to “never doing anything to cause a brother or sister to stumble spiritually”! I guarantee that if you confront a hardened sinner with the truth that many times he will become seriously offended or upset at you! Many Have an Unbiblical Understanding of the Word Offend! Many a preacher today has a complete misunderstanding of the biblical use of the word offend. They do not want to offend someone by a strong statement because Jesus said that if I did, “It would be better that a millstone be hung around my neck and that I be cast into the sea than I should offend just one of His little ones.”. That is a total misinterpretation of that word and scripture. The original text says, “It would be better that a millstone be hung about my neck and I be cast into the sea than I should cause a weaker brother or sister to stumble spiritually.”. It refers as much about what I do and the way I live my life as it does about words being said. If you are used in exhortative ministry, you will offend people by God’s design! However, you will not be causing them to stumble spiritually! I contest that many are causing many to stumble spiritually by the lack of exhortative ministry coming from their pulpits. We are misrepresenting the true character of God by making Him lopsided, one sided, and passive. That we are creating “sloppy agape’” converts with almost a Santa Claus image of God! The Exhortative Call Is A Wakeup Call! The exhortative call is a beautiful picture of the watchman on the wall warning of an incoming enemy invasion! It is designed to wake up the sleeping. It is often not well received as half-awake people often want to go back to sleep and not be woken up. It reaches beyond their slumber and free will temporarily to say, “I don’t care if you want to hear this or not. I love you enough to tell you the truth! I want to see you wake up and prepare for battle! I want you to wake up and listen to the King’s instruction. You have not been listening to His gentle pleas. You have not been reading His memos that He sent to you. He has sent me to shout them in your ear if necessary, but I love you enough to risk offending you to save you from destruction!”. I Have Seen Beautiful Fruit From This! I have seen slumbering saints come on fire for God and it is an awesome thing to behold. Pastors that used to avoid me because they thought I was a few sandwiches short of a picnic come up and rejoice over their new found love. People who had no spiritual zeal are now full of life and a desire for the things of God. Dozens, if not hundreds of people, that I have seen move from a dead religion repeat after me prayer to true conversion and faith in Christ! One man in Massachusetts came up to me after a Sunday Evening Service. He said, “Brother Nolan, when I heard you this morning I thought you were preaching too hard! This afternoon God kept dealing with my heart and brought me back tonight. I believe that I was for the first time truly born again here tonight and truly repented of my sins.”. Another man came up to me at a revival in Cobleskill, NY. He said, “Brother Nolan, I have been a student of revivals and revival preachers for many years. I have never heard preaching like that from any modern preacher. You remind me of reading Finney’s or Wesley’s sermons.”. Many senior saints have told me that my preaching sounds like old time Pentecostal preaching. My response is always the same, “Well, He’s an old time Holy Ghost!”. One church in a large college town in New York State had seven people answer this altar call: “How many people here this morning prayed a sinner’s prayer sometime in their life, but never have seen any lasting change in your life? If you were to be honest, you are still pretty much the same person you were then and possibly even worse? You don’t mind raising your hand this morning to show that you would like to come down this morning to this altar and truly repent of your sinful life and earnestly ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart and be Lord of your life?” Seven people, most of whom were good standing members in that church, came down in answer to that request and with tears wept their way into a beautiful new revelation of the grace by which they were saved. One ran up to me in tears thanking me over and over again for preaching that message that morning. Yes, There Are Risks! There are always the extremists without love of any kind going around like Peter whacking people’s ears off. However, even that ear can be put back on if Christ is truly on the scene. What is worse-loose swords or sleeping saints with the enemy loose? In one scene the picture is red blood while the other picture is only comfy cozy sleeping saints! Both are potentially hazardous. However, the casualties of a sleeping army are always greater than a few misfires in battle! THINK ABOUT IT PLEASE! The Secret is the Balance! I believe the secret is the balance found in Jude 22,23. If we are praying leaders open to both extremes of the truths of God, we will be able to offer our congregations the balance or the counterbalance they need. Often, if I come into a church and I am aware that the pastor is strong in edification and comfort, I will be led by God to preach exhortative messages. If I find that he is a strong exhorter himself, God seems to use me to preach messages on edification and comfort. The first is more often the case than the second. Pastors many times have had me come and speak at their churches for that very reason! Without Love we are Nothing! As I said in the beginning of this article, my early days in the Holy Spirit were flooded with God’s love as I spent hours with Him in intercessory prayer. I remember Him leading me to work in a Christian telephone-counseling center in those early days. On one occasion, a middle-aged woman called me weeping from a nursing home. She had tried over fifty churches and no one would come and get her for church. I went in for a visit and she warned me about her gruesome appearance. She had been in a wheelchair her entire life and had a rare disease which left her disfigured, overweight, and drooled uncontrollably. I promised her we would get her to church, but I did not know how. I remember we were able to get another man to help and we started picking her up with the church van each week. Two of us had to lift her up physically because we did not have a lift van. Her greatest joy was to come to that church. Before long, other people from that nursing home wanted to come and other people in wheelchairs began to come to that church. People coming in would say, “I want to be part of a church that loves people this much.”. For over two years, we did this week after week as well as the people of the church helping with the bathroom visits, etc. During that time (almost twenty years ago), God also had me meet an elderly woman that had been widowed twice. She had hired me to do a couple of small maintenance jobs for her and asked me to come over for a Sunday meal. She asked me what type of meat I would like. When I told her my favorite, she said that is what we will have then. I went over to her home and had an enjoyable dinner. She showed me through her home. I could see she was wanting financially. The Lord began to speak to my heart to help her. Her neighbor lady had told me that she was very poor, lived on social security, and was having to try to pay off some back indebtedness. The neighbor lady also told me that she had fasted for three days to buy the food for that Sunday meal. My heart was touched and God burdened me to help her. She had a small room with a rear entrance, separate bath, and filled with boxes. I asked her if I could help her turn that into an apartment. I felt this was what God was showing me to do. She said she could not afford it. To make a long story short, God called me to take two thousand dollars from my limited salary and install a kitchenette, carpeting, painting, appliances, etc. to provide for her some extra income property. He then called me to begin to rent if off of her at the going rate. I did this reluctantly for two years-including the first year with Marilyn my wife as newly weds. When we moved back north, we helped her find a replacement tenant. The last fifteen years of my life God has called us to extensive work with teenagers. Three and a half years we were on the streets of Elmira, NY on Saturday nights talking with teens about God. For the last ten years, I have produced and hosted a now syndicated radio show for teens heard on several stations across New York State. I have been a youth pastor/leader in five churches. Up until now as Youth For Christ Director, I have had no salary for my ministry to teens. I have found work substitute teaching in the special education departments of the local school systems. I am there almost every day and make a whopping sixty one dollars a day without benefits. We lean hard on my wife’s income who has felt the call to work full time as a registered nurse to help with our expenses. It Is the Love Of God That Compels Us! It has been the tremendous love of God through the years that has compelled us to not only to do all with His leading as previously mentioned but to travel to churches where the doors were open and preach the revival message to all who would hear. We have invested tens of thousands of dollars in that which will only be compensated for in heaven one day! However, it is His love that keeps us going. I have always said that behind the pulpit I want to be a sharp threshing instrument of the Lord faithful to whatever He calls me to preach. However, in my daily life and one on one relationships, I want to be one of the most loving and forgiving men anyone has ever known by modeling the very character and likeness of Jesus Christ! It is in the fullness of His love that I do what I do In Conclusion It is my prayer that God has spoken to you through this article. That you will find the beauty of a close intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the fullness of His Holy Spirit. That you will either pray that God will begin to use you in exhortative ministry yourself or that you will utilize those gifted in this area in your pulpits. You may have to begin by praying a prayer of repentance asking God to forgive you for rejecting and sometimes even mocking those used in this gift. Those flowing in exhortative giftings are the most often persecuted in the American Church largely due to either our own lack of understanding concerning the gift or our subtle rebellions towards right relationship with God. Again we prefer the ice cream to the meat of Gods word! I pray that no one will just take all of what I have written to immediate heart but will begin to pray and check out what I have written biblically and historically. I encourage you to do word studies on such words as exhort, offend, and search out the true meanings to the Greek words agape and phileo. It will all begin on your face "sucking carpet" as it has been called asking God to examine your own heart and quickly repenting to what he has shown you! I want to remind you if you are a spiritual leader that "To who much is given, much shall be required!" Are you willing to place the welfare of all the eternal souls under your keeping under the standards you set by your own spiritual life? If that thought causes you to fear, good! Then you at least have a level of wisdom that will cause you to begin to pray and hopefully offer your congregations the Fullness of God's Love! Not just concepts of modernism formed in the minds of those content with finding a Christianity of convenience! " To spare the rod spoils the child" goes for more than just raising children! Just ask the Apostle Paul. 1st Corinthians 4:21 Open rebuke or secret Love? |