No add ons

I have just come across this quote in my drafts, unfortunately, I didn't put where it come from, or who said it. 

In this age of add ons, I thought it would be good for Christians to muse on this....

“The next word is basicality. I do not think there is such a word; I made it up. But if there is not such a word, there ought to be. What I mean is that Jesus Christ is basic to the church. He is underneath it, and the whole redeemed company rests on the Lord Jesus Christ. I think I might be able to go around the world and simply cry, “Christ is enough.” 

What weakens us in evangelical circles is that we put a plus sign after Christ. Christ plus something else. It is always the pluses that ruin our spiritual lives. It is always the additions, or the additives, as we say now, that weaken the church. 

Remember that God has declared that His Son, Christ, is sufficient. He is the way, the truth, and the life; He is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He is the wisdom of God and the power of God that gathers onto himself all things, and in Him all things consist so that we do not want Jesus Christ plus something else, or Jesus Christ and something else. We must never put an end after Christ, waiting for something else, or Christ with a dash, leading to something else. We must preach Christ, for Christ is enough. 

We of the evangelical faith—which is, I believe and have always believed, to be the faith of our fathers and the biblical faith—should not put Christ plus science or Christ plus philosophy or Christ plus psychology or Christ plus education or Christ plus anything else, but Christ alone. 

These other things may have their place and be used, just as you can throw sand into vats where they are making glass and it will all melt. We can use all these things, but we are not leaning on any of them. We are resting on Him who is basic to the faith of our fathers."

The only add ons Christians should use are the ones that are in Scripture, 

which are for our whole spiritual well being,

and the well being of the church.

Dr Too Late and the Great Physician

Dr Too Late, dreadful words from the lips of this one “you should have come earlier, you should have come when you first had the problem, you’ve left it too late.” And folks, desperate, desperate man I am with an awakened conscience “Lord God, is there no one who can help me?”

All of the physicians in the entire world are useless and worthless, vain is the help of man “Sweet, Christ Jesus to you I come, will your blood avail for me Lord Jesus? And I find then the Great Physician, hallelujah, “Will Your blood avail for me, all the worthless physicians have failed me.”

Isaiah 26:3 

You will keep him in perfect peace, 

whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You,

and all the comfort of heaven comes to my soul in a still small voice that’s says to me.

And what the worthless physicians couldn’t do the Great Physician does it, He alone, only Him, rest, peace, inner peace, this priceless thing called peace given to us by the Great Physician. What an interesting question to consider when you are talking to some troubled soul to see if you can ascertain “Who’s your Dr?” you may not have to put it like that, you may not have to ask that question just listen to what they have to say and you will find out who the Dr is, and I tell you if it is any Dr other than the Great Physician then he is a worthless physician and he’ll do no good and we just need to be reminded of these things folks. And what about you, having come to the Great Physician don’t let us be deflected and start trusting in something else or someone else, trust Him. You can seek help from all sorts of sources there is no problem in that but the one to trust is the Lord Jesus, He’s the only one, He will never let you down ever, let us be ready to recommend the Great Physician to others. Let us be ready to assess ourselves and keep guard of ourselves that we will always turn to Him whatever the circumstances.

Where it says there, you will keep him in perfect peace, the translators have said perfect peace because if they translated it literally it doesn’t appear to make a lot of sense in our English because what it would actually say is, you will keep him in peace peace, the Hebrew is, shalom shalom, the Hebrew word shalom for peace means an entire well being and God will keep us not just in shalom which would be wonderful but he keeps us in shalom shalom, there is an intensity about it, praise the Lord that sounds wonderful to me, so he is talking there about an absolute fullness of wellbeing and it comes only from the Great Physician. Only from being in a right relationship with God which is only possible through the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He has done for us on the cross at Calvary, there is no other way, we are trusting in Him. But notice as well that this peace, this shalom shalom involves both the mind and the heart, the head and the heart you can’t leave the one out you have to have them both. Whose mind is stayed on You, what’s he talking about there? He’s talking about the thoughts, it might be the imagination, don’t let your imagination run off on some kind of weird trip, think about the Lord, think about the One whose arm is not shortened to save. Whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You, so the mind, the thought processes stayed on Him and the trust is a heart condition, can you see that? The mind and the heart they are both together and the result is peace peace, shalom shalom.

Isaiah 26:4

Trust in the LORD forever, 

For in Yah, the LORD, 

is everlasting strength.

Yah that’s an interesting name for God, and it’s talking there about Jehovah God, in the special sense of having become our salvation, it is He who was, and is and is to come, the All Becoming One, it’s talking about Him, Yah. Everlasting strength literally means, Rock of Ages, let us be encouraged, there is no other physician anywhere, any place at any time who could do this for us only this one, only this Great Physician and let us be ready always to recognise as we talk to people. So easily it comes out of their mouth,

Matthew 12:34 

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,

you have only got to be around people for such a short time, and you realise what is in their hearts, and you recognise the worthless physicians, probably you can categorise them, you can find out who it is. Let’s be ready always to share with them the Great Physician. Who He is, what He has done for us, what He can do for them, and how He and He alone can impart perfect peace, peace with God and the peace of God, peace to your soul in the midst of the turmoil of a fallen world, shalom shalom I don’t know of anything folks more priceless, praise the name of Jesus, blessed be the name of the Lord, amen.

Pastor Philip Yendle

Dr Do Better and Dr Time Enough

Here is a physician who is really talkative as well, they have all had a lot to say just like Job’s comforters, chapter after chapter they had a lot to say and Dr Do Better says he can help me, and he says “it is quite true that you have done some bad things but you can’t help the past, the past is the past and you can’t change it, it’s gone now, so what you must do from here on is turn over a new leaf and you must do better in the future than you have done in the past, if you try to do better in the future you will be comforted by that and all will be well.” That’s what he says, but you know Dr Do Better the answer to him is that even when I do well there is something still bad with me, even when I am doing my best I am conscious that things are not quite as they should be with me, and actually my very best efforts seem to be filthy rags, problem, problem, problem. And besides how can a better future blot out a guilty past? Even if I could do better in the future what about all the mistakes I’ve made and all the bad things I have already done, “I am so miserable Dr Do Better and you are no help to me you are just like all the others, another worthless physician.” Can’t somebody help me? 

 At this point there is a knock on the door and it is Dr Time Enough, “Don’t worry” he says “there is no immediate cause for concern, this condition can be controlled. You are not wrong to consider your present state and your eternal destiny but just relax, eat drink and be merry” and click, click, click goes my mind and I realise that he has left the end bit of that off because it says eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, but he’s not mentioned that bit and he continues “relax, don’t worry about it because there is always a death bed conversion to fall back on” “but what if I don’t have a deathbed, what if suddenly something happens and there’s no deathbed, what then?” and he is no better than all the others, another worthless physician as Job would put it. I am getting desperate and suddenly I am confronted by somebody who is called Dr Too Late.