Fasting by John Thweatt

(This article was written by John Thweatt, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Pell City, AL) 

Years ago I felt God calling me to an extended fast.  The experience was inexpressible for many reasons and since that time I have fasted on a number of occasions.  I can look back to each fast and see how God taught me and moved me toward Him, but there is one common denominator that I’ve found with every single fast.

Fasting demonstrates to me my own selfishness.  If we are completely honest we will have to admit that we are often so consumed with our own desires that we cannot see our own self-centeredness.  Some may be less self-centered than others, but we all tend to have a bad case of the Globe-Head.

Being Globe-Headed means you live as if the world revolves around you.  Fasting takes place when you give up an otherwise normal activity for the purpose of seeking God.  You can fast from TV, you can fast from Internet, you can fast from a particular type of food, or you can fast from food altogether, but the fast should be from something you enjoy.  For example I hate brussel sprouts…it isn’t a fast for me to give them up…I live an eternal fast from brussel sprouts, but I do love Diet Cokes, Coke Zero, and Diet DP, football, and Starburst Jelly Beans!  It would cost me something to give them up for a period of time if I would pray and seek God every time I wanted one that would be a biblical fast.

So, as we fast we become aware of how much we do to please ourselves.  Our schedules, our eating, our recreation, and even our church attendance are often driven by our desire to be pleased.  How much of our lives center around pleasing God?  What I have found is that you’ll never find a Globe-Headed person who is truly happy, but when you find a person who centers their life upon pleasing God you will find someone who has true joy.  Some of the most joyful people I’ve ever met happen to have the least in terms of material possessions.  It isn’t that being poor makes them happy—it is that they aren’t cursed with a number of gadgets to distract their relationship with God.

Try to go a day without Twitter, Facebook, E-mail, or your phone.  Try spending your lunch hour reading the Bible and praying and asking Him to make you as hungry for Him as you are for food.  Try giving up golf or tennis or TV for a day and spend time with your wife or children.   Give up something you personally like to help you learn to love as you are supposed to love.  When you begin to give up personal preferences you will find your flesh rebels and when it breaks out in an all out World War you’ll see just how Globe-Headed you really are. 

How to Backslide in 9 Easy Steps

(Copied from here written by Tim Challies.

A few days ago I shared John Bunyan’s wisdom on why some who profess faith in Christ eventually backslide. Today I want to follow him a little bit farther. Having covered the why, I’ve now drawn from Pilgrim’s Progress instruction on the how. In each case I’ve given my short summary followed by Bunyan’s own words. Here is how to backslide in nine easy steps:

1. Stop meditating on the gospel. “They draw off their thoughts, all that they may, from the remembrance of God, death, and judgment to come.”
2. Neglect your devotions and stop battling sin. “Then they cast off by degrees private duties, as closet prayer, curbing their lusts, watching, sorrow for sin, and the like.”
3. Isolate yourself from Christian fellowship. “Then they shun the company of lively and warm Christians.”
4. Stop going to church. “After that, they grow cold to public duty, as hearing, reading, godly conference, and the like.”
5. Determine that Christians are hypocrites because they continue to sin. “They then begin to pick holes, as we say, in the coats of some of the godly, and that devilishly, that they may have a seeming color to throw religion (for the sake of some infirmities they have espied in them) behind their backs.”
6. Trade Christian community for distinctly unChristian company. “Then they begin to adhere to, and associate themselves with, carnal, loose, and wanton men.”
7. Pursue rebellious conversation and fellowship. “Then they give way to carnal and wanton discourses in secret; and glad are they if they can see such things in any that are counted honest, that they may the more boldly do it through their example.”
8. Allow yourself to enjoy some small, sinful pleasures. “After this they begin to play with little sins openly.”
9. Admit what you are and prepare yourself for everlasting torment. “And then, being hardened, they show themselves as they are. Thus, being launched again into the gulf of misery, unless a miracle of grace prevent it, they everlastingly perish in their own deceivings.”

Sunday Sermon, May 13, 2012

I finished the two-part series on "The Church is Built on the Gospel Illustrated Through the Lord's Supper" yesterday (May 13, 2012) with this message on the elements of the Lord's Supper.  What does the bread and blood represent?

The notes of the message are here.

The audio of the message is here.

Sermon of Sunday, May 6, 2012

Yesterday (May 6, 2012) I began the two-part series on the Lord's Supper with this message here.  This message deals with the aspect of the covenant and the Lord's Supper.  The audio is below.

Suffering...Part III

“The subject of sin is vital knowledge. To say that our first need in life is to learn about sin may sound strange, but in the sense intended it is profoundly true. If you have not learned about sin, you cannot understand yourself, or your fellow-men, or the world you live in, or the Christian faith. And you will not be able to make head or tail of the Bible. For the Bible is an exposition of God’s answer to the problem of human sin and unless you have that problem clearly before you, you will keep missing the point of what it says.” J. I. Packer

“I hope in some way I can take my wheelchair to heaven. With my new glorified body I will stand up on resurrected legs, and I will be next to the Lord Jesus. And I will feel those nail prints in his hands, and I will say, ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ He will know I mean it, because he will recognize me from the inner sanctum of sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings. He will see that I was one who identified with him in the sharing of his sufferings, so my gratitude will not be hollow. And then I will say, ‘Lord Jesus, do you see that wheelchair over there? Well, you were right. When you put me in it, it was a lot of trouble. But the weaker I was in that thing, the harder I leaned on you. And the harder I leaned on you, the stronger I discovered you to be. I do not think I would ever have known the glory of your grace were it not for the weakness of that wheelchair. So thank you, Lord Jesus, for that. Now, if you like, you can send that thing off to hell.” Joni Eareckson Tada

More on suffering....

“I remember one Monday when two officers were interrogating me. About midday, a
general came into the room. He signaled with his hand for them to leave. He began to curse me and hit me, slapping my face and hitting my head with his fist, finally knocking my head against the wall. I screamed—intentionally. I shouted so the other detainees in nearby rooms would hear me. What the general was doing was clearly illegal. That, of course, was why he had ordered the two officers out of the room. He wanted no witnesses at my trial. He kept on for a while, and then left without another word. The two officers came back and resumed the interrogation as if nothing had happened.

“On Thursday afternoon, the general returned. Again he motioned with his hand for the
two to leave. I braced myself for a second round of beating. But the man sat down behind the desk and said, ‘Don’t worry. This time I am calm. I have come to talk to you.’ Now the Lord has promised that when His people are questioned, the Holy Spirit within them will do the talking. I can testify to this truth. I myself was surprised as I said, ‘Mr. General, because you came to talk to me, I want first of all to apologize for what happened Monday.’ He was very surprised. ‘Let me explain what I mean,’ I said. ‘On Tuesday, I was kept here the whole day without being interrogated. I had plenty of time to think. All of a sudden it dawned on me that this is Holy Week. And sir, for a Christian, nothing is more beautiful than to suffer during the time his Savior and Lord suffered. When you beat me, you did me a great honor. I am sorry for shouting at you. I should have thanked you for the most beautiful gift you could ever have given me. Since Tuesday I have been praying for you and your family.’

“I saw the man choking. He tried hard to swallow. Then, somehow, he said, ‘Well, I shouldn’t have done it. I am sorry—let’s talk.’ We talked many days after that. Eventually he said, ‘Would you put on paper all you have said to me? I want the president of the country to read it.’ From this I learned that no one—not even a Communist—is beyond the reach of Calvary love. These are savable people, redeemable people like anyone else. They desperately needed to see Christ in me.” Josef Tson

“Should you pray for a miracle? Well, you’re free to do that, of course. My general impression is that the God who is able to do miracles-and he certainly can-is also able to keep you from getting the problem in the first place. So although miracles do happen, they’re rare by definition. A miracle has to be an unusual thing. Above all, I would say pray for the glory of God. If you think of God glorifying himself in history and you say, where in all of history has God most glorified himself? He did it at the cross of Jesus Christ, and it wasn’t by delivering Jesus from the cross, though he could have. Jesus said, ‘Don’t you think I could call down from my Father ten legions of angels for my defense?’ But he didn’t do that. And yet that’s where God is most glorified. God is in charge. When things like this come into our lives, they are not accidental. It’s not as if God somehow forgot what was going on, and something bad slipped by. God is not only the one who is in charge; God is also good. Everything he does is good. If God does something in your life, would you change it? If you’d change it, you’d make it worse. It wouldn’t be as good.” James Montgomery Boice
(Diagnosed with liver cancer and died eight weeks after sharing this with his congregation)

Sermon Notes and Audio of Sunday, April 29, 2012

This past Sunday, April 29, 2012 was the last in the mini-series on Baptism.  The message was entitled "Is Baptism Essential to Salvation?  Yes and No" I dealt with the major passages of Scripture that those who believe salvation is essential to salvation use to teach "another gospel."  The notes for the message are here.

The audio of the message is here.