"Little Bilney"

“Behind Hugh Latimer (1485-1555), the ‘Preacher of the English Reformation”, was his mentor Thomas Bilney.

Bilney, a quiet scholar at Cambridge University, acquired a Greek New Testament from the famous Erasmus. As he pored over it, one verse of Scripture seemed to be written in letters of light, and it led to his conversion: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners!

Bilney wanted to share his experience with others, but this was Reformation truth, and the Reformation had not yet reached England. Teachers such as Luther were being fiercely attacked by English churchmen like Hugh Latimer.

But as Bilney listened to young Latimer rail against the Reformation, he prayed this unusual prayer: ‘O God, I am but ‘little Bilney’ and shall never do any great thing for Thee. But give me the soul of that man, Hugh Latimer, and what wonders he shall do in Thy most holy name.’

One day Bilney pulled Latimer aside. Using his own conversion verse—1 Timothy 1:15—he led the great Latimer to simple faith in Christ, and the English Reformation was born.”

–Morgan, Robert J. Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, n.d. (2000). Page 224.

Oh, that we had more “little Bilneys”, who think more of what others can do for the sake of the Gospel than what they think of themselves. How often do we look to build up self, pour into our own lives, and not seek after others with the expectation that they will do more! How many of us will seek to humble ourselves in prayer, asking GOD to save the souls of others so that THEY will do something for God. How often do we pray instead “Use me” to do thus and such.

May we all be “Little Bilneys” and have that very estimation of ourselves.

Vacations, Reading, the Civil War & Memorization

Well, we are back from a much needed vacation. As much as I enjoyed the time away, it is good to be "back in the saddle" with Lost Cause Ministries, Informed Evangelist and the book business.

Last week we went on vacation to San Angelo, TX. We were blessed with some good family time and some time to enjoy the great outdoors of West Texas. The end of July is not usually the best time to go on vacation, but it was the only time I could get away for a solid week. At the State Park, where we camped in an air conditioned cabin, we saw roadrunners, prairie dogs, the State herd of bison and longhorn steer, hummingbirds, deer, snakes, black tailed jackrabbits, and a skunk. We managed to do a couple of hikes through the interesting terrain in the mornings, before it got too hot. In the evenings, we went to an isolated ridge and watched the sunset behind a picturesque plateau. While we were in the area we visited Fort Concho (Indian wars), the Indian paintings at Paint Rock, and had some incredible Mexican home-made ice cream.

I had a chance to do a little booking while we were in town. San Angelo has a few used bookstores. Two of them are the garden variety paperback exchange type shops, but I still managed to scrounge up an Advance Reading Copy of Richard Bradford’s first book, “Red Sky at Morning” as well as a limited edition of a book on Texas history, printed in San Angelo. But the best find was in the reputable “Cactus Book Shop”. This shop specializes in the Southwest and in Texas in particular, both fiction and non-fiction. The owner is friends with the prolific Western\Texas author, Elmer Kelton (whom I once met in Fort Worth) who lives in the San Angelo area and who drops by the shop to chat with the owner and sign books. It is a wonderful shop to visit and the owner is very knowledgeable. In my never-ending search for the titles printed by the Modern Library, I scoured his Modern Library section and was surprised to find a small collection of Modern Library reprints which were once owned by Fred and Tommie Gipson, with their inscriptions and address labels on the endpapers. Fred Gipson is the author of the classic book into film and classic TX juvenile, “Old Yeller.” Gipson wrote a couple of other juvenile dog stories set in Texas, but he was also a serious author of Texas non-fiction. The prices were reasonable, so I bought them all. The owner had a framed invitation to the Gipson’s wedding hanging on the wall, so the provenance is very good on these titles. I’m going to take my time with these and sell some of them since one of my specialties is Texas fiction and literature, but I’m going to keep a few as well, for my own modern library collection.

During the trip I caught up on some reading as well. I've been reading through J. William Jones' "Christ in the Camp", the fascinating story of the revival which took place in the Confederate Army (specifically, the Army of Northern VA) during the Civil War. I dabble a little bit in Civil War history, but as a born and bred Yankee, I was taught that the South was pretty much evil in their cause. Certainly, slavery WAS a horrible evil in America. As an antiquarian bookseller, I've had some pretty scarce abolitonist material, including Frederick Douglass' autobiography and a book signed by the guy who bankrolled John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. A guy named "Joshua Speed" was Abraham Lincoln's best friend and I've always been an admirer of Lincoln, and not just because I share Joshua's last name.

However, it's pretty clear that men like Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee were devout Christians and not the garden variety false converts that we have in evangelical American Christianity today. They not only supported, but encouraged the revival and spiritual growth of their men. They were good friends of the chaplains, supporters of the colporters (evangelists) who came through the camps, and both had deep walks with the Lord. Jackson's walk with Christ is most impressive. Some of his men thought him crazy because of his constant attitude of prayer. One of his main concerns was the evangelization of his men.

Compare this with the leaders of the Union armies: Grant was an alcoholic, Sherman was downright brutal, and Grant's predecessors in his position were egomaniacs. I've been blessed reading "Christ in the Camp", but especially by the early chapter on Stonewall Jackson. I love the movie "Gods and Generals" which focuses on Jackson, and which is very accurate historically, in spite of Ted Turner's atheism. Jackson's life is one that I want to emulate. He was a bold leader of men, but only because of what his humble walk before God.

He fought on the wrong side regarding the slavery issue, but seeing what's become of our federal government one can't help but wonder if the South had the right idea about the issue of states rights. Considering the financial prosperity of the South these days compared to the relatively depressed North (e.g. Detroit, New York State) it's easy to see how less governmental interference has brought a more stable economy here. The War may have been a judgment of God on our nation for ALL of the evils of our nation's birth (slavery, the extermination of the Native Americans, etc.); we lost more men in the Civil War than in all of our other wars COMBINED. More than 625,000. But this does not diminish the wisdom of stronger state's rights that the South fought for.

I also read a great little book on the importance of Scripture memorization by N.A. Woychuk. This is a discipline that I have neglected. I've memorized Scriptures over the past few years, but not purposefully. I have a good memory and can memorize single verses that I use without being very systematic about it. But the Lord has given me this memory for a reason and I need to develop it even further. So, I've begun memorizing chapters as well as verses on evangelism from the School of Biblical Evangelism. I'm using a software program to help which has been fun and very, very helpful. You can check it out here.

Well, those are my thoughts for today. Time to get back to work. Thanks for reading.

Genius?

This is funny stuff.

Jon

Informed Evangelist Store is Now Open!

Saints (and ain'ts),

We're pleased to announce that we have developed an Amazon storefront for The Informed Evangelist. We've featured some books which have been influential and helpful in sharpening our minds when it comes to Biblical evangelism.

The storefront gives us a percentage on each book that you purchase while shopping from that site, so we obviously hope that you will visit often and check out what titles we've added there for your perusal. We know that our readers are an astute bunch, so we have tried to include the best in books on evangelism, theology, church history and book collecting. We'll be adding more titles as we either become aware of them or we remember to put them there.

Please check out the store here.

Jon

Todd Bentley, Spiritual Blindness & The Tenth Commandment

This past Sunday it was my turn to teach our adult Sunday School class. We're going through the Old Testament in survey format, which is a new experience for me since as a former pastor, I'm used to doing verse-by-verse sermons. It's a big change. You have to cover a lot more material in a lot less time.

At any rate, this week, as the Lord would have it, we were in 1 Kings 20-22; 2 Chronicles 17-20. This text covers part of the life of Ahab (Northern Kingdom) and Jehoshaphat (Southern Kingdom). But the main characters aren't really the kings; they are the prophets, true and false, that the Lord raised up in this passage to Sovereignly guide the fate of these kings and kingdoms.

What I found to be interesting is the fact that in spite of his 400 false prophets guaranteeing victory against the Arameans in what would be his third battle campaign against them, Ahab hears from one true prophet named Micaiah. Micaiah makes it crystal clear that Ahab (and Jehoshaphat) will be defeated and that Ahab will die. Now this takes guts by itself. But on top of that, Micaiah tells Ahab that he had a look behind the scenes prophetically and that the LORD Himself sent out a deceiving spirit to the false prophets so that Ahab would be lured into battle and be defeated. This is not problematic since the book of Job teaches us that Satan himself is on a short leash and is controlled by God to accomplish His purposes, even with those who are His people (such as blameless Job). So how much more can He use the forces of evil to accomplish His purposes in the lives of those who are His enemies?

This act of God via deceiving spirits is not the only time in Scripture that this happens. Zechariah 13:2 records another instance. It says here that an "unclean spirit" is connected with false prophets. Some Bible scholars connect this incident in 1 Kings 22 with the deceiving spirit with Romans 1:22, 24, 26 where it states that God "gave them over" to reprobate minds.

Now I find this incredibly interesting. Especially in the light of our recent visit to the Todd Bentley "revival" when it came to Denton a few weeks ago. As we tried to speak to people there about the Gospel there was a tangible blindness evident. Over the last four years I have spoken with many about the Gospel, both admittedly unsaved and professing Christians, but I have never seen blindness on anyone like I did that night. At the time, I could not understand it. They were both blind and deaf to the Word of God. Whether you agree with this assessment or not, I know what I (and the others on our ministry team) saw that night.

In these passages of Scripture, I think we have a way to understand this blindness. Many (not all) may be following Bentley because the Lord has given them over to their own selfish desires for health and wealth. He has allowed demonic forces to blind professing believers to the truth. Whether they are or are not true Christians is not for me to say. We are all supposed to "examine ourselves" (2 Cor. 13:5). Since Todd Bentley is of the "spirit of Antichrist" it's not really surprising that in a similar manner his "lying wonders" work together with the "strong delusion" sent by God Himself (2 Thess. 2:9-12) for the purpose of giving his followers what they claim they really want; a spectacular, charismatic (in personality) leader who promises them health and wealth.

On Sunday our church was blessed to have Justin Peters do part of his "A Call to Discernment" seminar. This seminar exposes the Word of Faith movement for their unbiblical teachings. Justin also wrote his doctoral thesis on Benny Hinn's ministry. He is uniquely qualified to teach this seminar. Not only has he studied the movement thoroughly, but he has cerebral palsy and followed the Word of Faith movement for a couple of years as he sought to be healed.

After Justin finished his seminar on Sunday night, I had a chance to speak with him for just a few moments about this theory regarding Todd Bentley. I asked him if he thought this might be the case; that the Lord has sent a strong delusion amongst the Word of Faith followers and that He has "given them over" to reprobate minds. He agreed and added that he thought that this teaching and its spread is a judgment from God on our nation.

This was an aspect I had not thought about, but just some consideration shows it to have some merit. Considering the fact that the judgment by God on Ahab via his false prophets was not simply a judgment on Ahab alone, but on the entire nation of Israel (Northern Kingdom), there is some Biblical weight to this. Our nation has pursued pleasure from its inception, claiming we have the "inalienable right" to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This founding document of the Declaration of Independence, as one recent book has it in its title, is practically "American Scripture".

Now, I don't think the founding fathers had Todd Bentley or the Word of Faith movement in mind when they signed this document. Many of them were godly men. But it is not debatable that the United States is driven by covetousness and consumerism to a degree that no other nation of the world is. Our economy is absolutely driven on violating the Tenth Commandment. Anyone who denies it has never been overseas. To the degree that they are driven by consumerism is due mainly to America's influence.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think that Thomas Jefferson had the right to be greedy in mind when he penned the Declaration. However, as time has passed, that is exactly how we have applied it, especially since the end of World War Two. Interestingly enough, that is when the Word of Faith movement began to be popularized. Meanwhile, evangelical Christianity moved away from the true Gospel and embraced the "Modern Gospel" which states that Jesus will fix all of your problems and give you happiness in spades. The stage was effectively set to make the Gospel completely man-centered. As Americans flocked after it in droves as well as the pursuit of their own personal wealth, is it possible that the Lord sent out a deceiving spirit to give us what we claim we wanted? Is it possible that He has given us over to our reprobate minds, sending a strong delusion on American Christianity, as a judgment on this nation? The case seems pretty strong that He has done exactly that.

If we want true revival and not this smoke in mirrors show that Bentley is doing in Lakeland, we must repent of our covetousness. Turn from our materialism and turn towards the One who did not have a place to lay His head. Turn from the Super Bowl commercials and turn towards the One who said that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Turn from the malls and big-box stores (and churches) and turn to the One who said that if anyone wants to come after Him, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Him.

Oh Lord, have mercy on us. In Your wrath, remember mercy.

Your Best Life Now?

Joel Osteen's "Best Life Now" exposed.

(I don't have time to write for this blog this week because of ministry responsibilities; I'll try to come back with an actual blog post next week.)

Jon

Todd Bentley video

Here's some Todd Bentley video from UNT in Denton. Thanks Ron, for putting this together.