What Do You Think Of ...

[Calvary]

The premise of what this holiness preacher of old is speaking. He is Paris Reidhead, and was a Missionary and Christian Alliance preacher/missionary to Africa.

God bless,
calvary

[heartstrings]

WHY did I come to Jesus? Because I decided one day, "you know, God is so great, I think I will do the right thing and start giving him glory...."??? No sir.

I realized I was a sinner,
I realized I was headed for Hell and deserving it.
I realized God was righteous and right for sending me there.
What is so righteous about God?
Love

Nobody can come to the true and living God until they see their own need. The blind man came because he was in darkness and needed light, the leper came because he was dirty and vile and needed to be clean, the lame came because they needed to be made whole. The only and I repeat only way that a man will ever love God is when that man realizes that God first loved!
God needs nothing...what He "wants" is to give God is all about giving, not taking. Compared to His giving , we are all unthankful beggars! No sir, I came to God with entirely selfish motives......I was blind, filthy and dead, and needed life. I came as a beggar, and a helpless child. selfish to the core and I admit it!! You know why God's glory is so far more glorious than anything we could imagine? Because His glory comes out of his boundless unfathomable, unchangeable love. We love him because he first loved us, the Bible says. I didn't come to God to do him any favors, including giving him some type of glory.
You want to know what God's glory is all about? When the Mighty King of Glory comes in, and fills your heart with his sweet presence, you will love Him and glorify Him. If you looked on His loving face, your physical body could not handle it.

[John81]

He does raise some good points. I've encountered many of those who are "brain Christians", meaning they know what others want to hear, they know how to talk Christian talk, but they don't have Christ in their heart.

There are also many who think they can have Christ as Saviour but not as Lord, when Scripture is clear that Christ IS BOTH Saviour and Lord. Scripture is also clear that those who came to Christ in the New Testament recognized Him and accepted Him as BOTH Saviour and Lord. We are told clearly that obedience is better than sacrifice yet there are many who think they can have Jesus as their Saviour while not accepting Him as Lord.

There are those who want to be Christians for what they think they can get out of it, what's in it for them. They do indeed include those who simply want to escape any possibility of hell in favor of heaven, as well as those who want their best life now.

God promises many things to those who are truly His but they are not promises simply for us to say, "yes please, I'll take that", they are promises of how He rewards those who faithfully follow and serve Him.

It's common for Christians to memorize Ephesians 2:8-9 but to leave out verse 10 which is a key verse and should always be included with verses 8 and 9. Verses 8 and 9 tell us how we are saved but it's verse 10 which tells us WHY.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:10

We are saved so we can do the works God commands us to do. We are not saved simply to avoid hell, so we can claim some promises, so we can have health and wealth today.

As for myself, I knew when I was born again that I was a new creature and I knew part of that meant obeying God. I knew being born again meant I would not see hell, that heaven would be my home, but I knew that wasn't the main thing, I knew I now had a new Lord and Master.

Every so often we hear of one who was raised a Christian, was "saved" at some point in their lives, and lived their Christian lives for decades only one day to actually be confronted with their lost state at which point they repented and were born again in Christ. From that point on their true Christian lives were radically different from their former "Christian life". What is sad is how many more never come to this point but enter eternity with their "brain Christianity" but without biblical salvation.

[heartstrings]

Ecclesiastes says that the 'duty of man' is #1 to fear God and #2 to keep God's commandments, and those commandments are chiefly to love God with all your heart soul, and mind and your neighbor as yourself. You cannot keep those commandments without first trusting Jesus in your heart. One comes to the true and living God recognizing him as the Truth the Way and the Life; Not as 'glory seeker'. He that cometh to God must believe that he IS and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. You don't come to God because you have decided to be a good guy and bestow 'glory' upon him. He deserves and gets glory because of His lovingkindness.

When sinners stand at the great white throne before being cast into Hell. God's glory won't be because he ENJOYS casting people into Hell....Oh NO...it will be because of the LOVINGKINDNESS and the opportunities, and the pleading He did with them in their lifetimes on this earth. His GLORY will be becaus He was KIND and loving, and was will that none should periswh but that ALL should come to repentence. That's who He is..

[Seth Doty]

WHY did I come to Jesus? Because I decided one day, "you know, God is so great, I think I will do the right thing and start giving him glory...."??? No sir.

I realized I was a sinner,
I realized I was headed for Hell and deserving it.
I realized God was righteous and right for sending me there.
What is so righteous about God?
Love

Nobody can come to the true and living God until they see their own need. The blind man came because he was in darkness and needed light, the leper came because he was dirty and vile and needed to be clean, the lame came because they needed to be made whole. The only and I repeat only way that a man will ever love God is when that man realizes that God first loved!
God needs nothing...what He "wants" is to give God is all about giving, not taking. Compared to His giving , we are all unthankful beggars! No sir, I came to God with entirely selfish motives......I was blind, filthy and dead, and needed life. I came as a beggar, and a helpless child. selfish to the core and I admit it!! You know why God's glory is so far more glorious than anything we could imagine? Because His glory comes out of his boundless unfathomable, unchangeable love. We love him because he first loved us, the Bible says. I didn't come to God to do him any favors, including giving him some type of glory.
You want to know what God's glory is all about? When the Mighty King of Glory comes in, and fills your heart with his sweet presence, you will love Him and glorify Him. If you looked on His loving face, your physical body could not handle it.

Good post. Concerning the OP God did not send his son to die for mankind in order to get glory. Christ DID die for the "happiness" of man. That is not humanism it is bible. John 3:16 should prove that as do many other scriptures. Now a Christian should care about God's glory and glorifying God but that is a product of loving God not the beginning and the end of all things. Look at how God reasons with sinners throughout the scriptures? How often does he say just "worship me because I am glorious and I deserve it and that settles it." Is that true? Of course, but God generally reasons with mankind by saying something along the lines of "if you obey my words it will go well with you, I will bless you and give you joy. If you don't you will be miserable and will suffer for it". Now if God says that it seems rather obvious that there is nothing wrong with that approach. The scriptures say the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and if a person hears and believes Gods warnings and promises it doesn't matter in the least how interested they are in Gods glory at that point and how much is just a genuine fear and understanding of what will happen if they don't. Now, if they truly believe and trust in God their heart will be changed and they will begin to care more and more about honoring and glorifying God as they grow and learn to love him more, but that doesn't change the fact that God loves mankind, and mankind meant enough to God that a holy God was willing to send his son to become sin for us in order to save us. That had everything to do with love and nothing to do with glory even though glory is one of the byproducts.

The problem comes not when people come to God out of a fear of what will happen if they don't, but when they don't really come to God at all because they were not afraid ENOUGH to really turn to God. All that happened is they got a little scared and "trusted" God as a "just in case" sort of thing rather than out of a genuine and serious fear of the Lord. As a result they never do grow and they never do care about honoring God because it never was truly and seriously real to them. It was a "what if" situation to them, like when people can be scared or get tense when watching a war movie. That is a feeling, but not really the same feeling as actually hearing real bullets go by. In order to have their heart in a position to be saved a person must be hearing "real bullets" go by rather than just watching it in a movie metaphorically speaking.

[Invicta]

That video is much edited. I mostly agree with Mr Reidhead. Today the teaching is often "Come to Jesus if you want to go to heaven" or alternatively, "Come to Jesus if you don't want to go to hell." That is false teaching. We come to Jesus and repent, because we have sinned against a Holy and awesome God who cannot abide sin.

Full transcript of Ten Shekels and a shirt. here http://www.parisreidheadbibleteachingministries.org/paris.shtml

[Calvary]

@ Seth:

Good post. Concerning the OP God did not send his son to die for mankind in order to get glory.

I think that is a completely provable false statement. You might want to rethink that one.
What do we do with John12:28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

or John17:1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

To think that the end goal of God is to make you happy is just what the short sound clip was talking about. It's humanism.

Christ DID die for the "happiness" of man. That is not humanism it is bible. John 3:16 should prove that as do many other scriptures.

I am interested in hearing how John 3:16 is speaking of my happiness in a more direct way instead of some derivative way. I thought that John 3:16 would speak more directly to the way in which God has loved us, through the death of His Son, who by His death has glorified the Father.

The audio clip did not deny that men can have peace, joy, love, and all other things that men desire. It simply stated that the goals of preaching the gospel has changed much over the generations, from lifting up the greatness of God to appealing to the satisfaction of man's basic needs, which is of course man centered. Interesting repsonses.

God bless.
calvary

[Calvary]

That video is much edited. I mostly agree with Mr Reidhead. Today the teaching is often "Come to Jesus if you want to go to heaven" or alternatively, "Come to Jesus if you don't want to go to hell." That is false teaching. We come to Jesus and repent, because we have sinned against a Holy and awesome God who cannot abide sin.

Full transcript of Ten Shekels and a shirt. here http://www.parisreid...org/paris.shtml

The essence of the entire message of Ten Shekels and a Shirt, is the 7 minutes or so on the audio clip. But you nailed it, say a prayer and everything will be great! The message was more an indictment upon the preaching establishment that had shifted the purpose of preaching the gospel to satisfy men rather than God. I don't think it was meant so much as a rebuke for anyone who came to Christ under that styled preaching. The "soul winners fundamentalism" style of preaching. At least that is how I've understood that message all these years.

God bless,
calvary