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Arrived home today from my first Banner of Truth conference. I enjoyed listening to solid Reformed expository preaching. The bookstore was a great place to stock up on some of my favorite reading material. The atmosphere at the conference was very warm and welcoming. I enjoyed sharing with my roommates about our churches and discussing theology. Doing the same with the guys in our church as well. Participating in worship with a large group of men singing hymns is a very powerful experience. Let me share with you some wisdom from Iain Murray speaking about the present needs.
1. Need for less-confidence.
We need to recognize our weakness, We need the grace of humility. We need to still learn.
2. Need for increased persevering faith in God.
Faith is the main spring of the Christian life. We need an increase of faith in the Word of God, We can be hardened without the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Pray, search me o God and know my heart.. Being strengthened by the love of God, spiritual happiness is dependent. What we have in our heads should permeate our hearts. Meditate as the Puritans did on the truths of the Word. Our concern should be to serve the church.
3. Need for guidance on best use of our time.
New converts realize time is short. Ask yourself, What has God called you to today? Only what Christ does in us will last. We will be examined by God at judgment. Show me thy ways.
4. Need to start praying for Spiritual Revival.
Don’t live in misery while you are waiting for awakening. Expect great things from God He has commanded us to pray. We may not see it but it is our duty to be filled with the Spirit.
Side note: He realized he was taking too long during the session. He wanted to summarize quickly points 3, 4 and close the session. The audience was gripped wanting to hear more. Murray said, I keep telling my friends to stick to the time and how important it is. Then, my pastor shouted, “none of your friends are here,” this evoked a huge laugh from everyone in the room. Murray decided to sing a hymn, take a two minute break for those who wanted to leave but no one left the room of course. It was a great moment, my thought is when you hear great preaching you want to hear more time does not matter.
Murray then took a moment to speak to the young pastor’s in the room. Being a young pastor, I was excited come to find out what he had to say. However, it appeared all the pastors younger than Murray were excited as well.
Young Men
1. Spend regular time examining our self. Going away with no distractions, once a month or every couple months.
2. Watch your own temperment
3. Read the best books and only the best books. Have a method of recollection (Mark in pencil, pg # of the quote in the back of the book or a notebook – his personal habit and recommendation).
4. Don’t let emails/websites control your life
5. Don’t waste time on controversies (there is a time to contend/defend for the faith but a time to not be consumed)
6. Don’t see what you can’t change in your churches. (Some things you may never be able to change, don’t fight it, Let God work).
I appreciated how Murray came across with such Pastoral care and concern for everyone in the room. He did not speak as if he knows it all, even though he is a very well educated, well-written and experienced man in the ministry. He was gentle, sharing wisdom that we all needed to hear. This sermon will be worth it’s weight now and down the road in my personal ministry experience.
Thank you to all who served at the Manna Food Center, Stuff a Bus event.
Angela passed along this information of what took place to help fight hunger in Montgomery County. Take a look.
“Thanks so much for your help and the help of the Twinbrook Community Church youth group with Manna Food Center’s Stuff-A-Bus event. It was such a great day for Manna. Approximately 275 volunteers worked at four area Whole Foods stores throughout the day collecting donated food for the clients we serve. Nearly 10,000 pounds of food were collected on that day! The specific totals for each store are as follows:
Rockville 2844 lbs
Silver Spring 2817 lbs
Bethesda 2329 lbs
Kentlands 1788 lbs
Total: 9778 lbs
Wow! We have you to thank for this. In addition, we expect to receive a donation from Whole Foods in excess of $20,000 representing 5% of their sales for that day.”
What a great blessing it is to be part of something that will help many families in the community.
“The Spirit’s true work can be distinguished from that which is false because we know that he always (1) causes a greater esteem for Christ (2) operates against the interest of Satan’s kingdom ‘which lies in encouraging and establishing sin’ (3) promotes greater regard for the truth and the divinity of the Holy Scriptures (4) brings men to the light of truth (5) excites love to God and man making the attributes of God, manifested in Christ, ‘delightful objects of contemplation’”. (Murray 234).
Here are a some quotes, I thought I would share from the reading,
“Wheresoever God works with power for salvation upon the minds of men, there will be some discoveries of a sense of sin, of the danger of the wrath of God and the all-sufficiency of his Son Jesus to relieve us under all our spiritual wants and distresses”
-Issac Watts and John Guyse in their Preface to A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God., 1737, J.E. (I. 345) p. 115.
“Their understanding of what was required of a preacher was different. As Reformed pastors they knew that the purpose of preaching was not to induce the regeneration of their hearers. The giving of new life to the spiritually dead is soley the act of the Spirit of God. None can enter the Kingdom of God without first being born from above. But they also believed that it was God’s usual way and manner, in bestowing grace, to work in sinners prior to their regeneration in order to reveal their false security and to bring them to conscious emptiness and need” (Murray 127).
“In the words of J.S. Stewart, ‘It is one thing to learn the technique and mechanics of preaching: it is quite another to preach a sermon which will draw back the veil and make the barriers fall that hide the face of God’” (p. 142, Heralds of God, 1946, p. 101).
The Banner of Truth conference will be on May 27-29, 2008 in Grantham, PA. If you haven’t registered already please do so because the prices will go up after Friday, May 2nd. This will be my first year attending. Iain H. Murray is one of the speakers this year. I’ve heard nothing but good things from my Senior Pastor about Iain Murray’s ministry experience, biographies and one of his greatest works on Jonathan Edwards. So to prepare my heart for the conference, I will be reading his biography on one of the most influential preachers in history. I have read four books by Jonathan Edwards in the last couple years and have enjoyed them so much. I look forward to reading this book.
