Pastor's Corner

In Romans 1:16-17, the apostle Paul declares, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”

A few weeks ago, Colfax celebrated the Concrete River Festival.

Climaxing a weekend filled with events was a joint worship service and barbecue/potluck in Schmuck Park on Sunday morning, an event which brought seven congregations together.

After some old hymns and praise songs, it was my joy to give a brief message from the Word of God to the 400 or so people.

In that message, I endeavored to remind them of our great evangelical heritage.

Each of the churches that were there has a heritage of faith passed down to them from great men and women of faith who were “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”.

It was my quest to remind them of the great evangelical heritage of each of their denominations through the words of one or more of their forefathers.

The Plymouth Congregational Church was there.

I think of Congregational church leaders who made their mark on this world for Christ, one name comes to mind above the rest: Jonathan Edwards.

Edwards was pastor of the Congregational Church in Northampton, Massachusetts in the 1700’s and arguably one of the greatest theologians America has ever produced.

He, along with evangelist George Whitefield, was used of God to start the revival fires that ignited the first Great Awakening in our nation.

Edwards said, “If a minister has light without heat, and entertains his hearers with learned discourses, without a Savior of the power of godliness, or any appearance of fervency of spirit, and zeal for God and the good of souls, he may gratify itching ears, and fill the heads of his people with empty notions; but it will not be very likely to teach their hearts, or save their souls.” He also said, “If there be any ground for you to trust in your own righteousness, then all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did to prepare the way for it is in vain.” And finally, concerning the victory we have in Christ, he said, “He, whose heart is fixed, trusting in Christ, need not be afraid.”

The Peace Lutheran Church was there. The obvious name that emerges here is Martin Luther. Speaking of his own conversion, Luther said, “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the justice of God’…Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into Paradise. The whole of Scripture took on new meaning.”

The United Methodist Church was there. Whitefield (the great evangelist), along with John & Charles Wesley, has long been considered the initiators of the Methodist movement.

Speaking about the contrast between attempting to stand before a holy God with your own righteousness OR…standing before Him covered in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, Whitefield said, “Why should I lean upon a broken reed, when I can have the Rock of Ages to stand upon, that can never be moved?” John Wesley said, “Give me 100 preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell!” He said to fellow preachers, “Catch on fire with passion and people will come for MILES to watch you burn!”

The Church of the Nazarene was there. Dr. Phineas Bresee – founder of the Church of the Nazarene – was a joy-filled, intensely optimistic man of God. He was always saying, “The sun never sets in the morning”. On another occasion he said, “Our church is a missionary church. It knows no difference between home and foreign fields – in these days all fields are near.”

The Catalyst Church was there. When I think of the Assemblies of God and of the Pentecostal movement in general, I am reminded of William Seymore, the African-American minister and initiator of the Pentecostal movement. On one occasion he said, “There are many wells today, but they are dry. There are many hungry souls today that are empty. But let us come to Jesus and take Him at His word and we will find wells of salvation, and be able to draw water out of the well of salvation, for Jesus is that well.”

Onecho Bible Church was there. Onecho has a Mennonite/Methodist heritage. Menno Simons - father of the Mennonite movement - said, “Christ is our fortress; patience our weapon of defense; the Word of God our sword.” He said, “The Word of Christ remains and is the word of the cross; all who accept it in power and truth must be prepared for the cross. This both the Scriptures and experience teach abundantly”

The First Baptist Church was there.

When I think of Baptist Heritage, I think of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London during the 19th century.

Speaking on Acts 26:28, where king Agrippa told the apostle Paul that he had “almost persuaded him to be a Christian”, Spurgeon said, “Almost persuaded to be a Christian is like the man who was almost pardoned, but he was hanged; like the man who was almost rescued, but he was burned in the house.

A man that is almost saved is damned.” Spurgeon also said, “I received, some years ago, orders from my Master to stand at the foot of the Cross until He came.

He has not come yet; but I mean to stand there till He does.

If I should disobey His orders, and leave those simple truths which have been the means of the conversion of souls, I know not how I could expect His blessing.

Here, then, I stand at the foot of the Cross, and tell out the old, old story, stale though it may sound to itching ears, and worn threadbare as critics may deem it.

It is of Christ I love to speak of Christ, who loved, and lived, and died; the Substitute for sinners; the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God”

Yes, there were seven churches gathered in the park that beautiful Sunday morning.

And we were reminded of our evangelical, Gospel-preaching heritage that we have in common.

The proclamation of the Gospel is at the core of every true movement of God.

May we, by the grace of God, be faithful to our calling to “preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

May we, by that same grace, as fellow ministers from these various churches, look each other in the eye and ask, “Are you proclaiming the Gospel of Christ…His substitutionary death on the cross and His bodily resurrection from the dead? Are you calling on all people to turn from their sin and believe on Christ for salvation?” Though we may disagree on some of the peripheral areas of theology, we are not afforded the leisure of straying from this eternal, central truth that is the bedrock of our faith…the heritage of the gospel that Christ died to make possible and that many of our forefathers died to defend.

Dean Ellis,

First Baptist Church