Are You Running from Your Book?

There is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation about “fundamentalists” these days. For one thing, Islamic Fundamentalists are frequently being called “extremists” by authorities and in the news, because they have returned to a literal interpretation or practice of their holy book, the Quran. I have done a little study on that book, and while it is often self-contradictory, it does seem that the terrorists are practicing their book fairly accurately. This would make them very much “Muslim” even if they are being left behind by some of the modern moderates who use the name.

Webster’s definition of “fundamentalism” is what I have in mind, which is, “a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles.” For Muslims those principles are found in the Quran even though their imams are given wide latitude in interpretation. For Orthodox Jews their basic principles are found in the Talmud and the Torah, and for Biblical Fundamentalists, the first ones to get the name, it is the 66 books of the Bible.

Those of us who are still willing to be identified as “Biblical Fundamentalists” are doing our best to practice the Bible carefully. By the way, the Bible says that we are to love our enemies, do good to them, and pray for them. The sixth commandment forbids us from murder, and Jesus said that harboring hatred in our hearts is just the same. If in this matter, or in any other, we stray from the practice of God’s Word, we are failing fundamentalists! Sadly the failures are the ones who get the most press and taint popular impressions of those believers who are still committed to God’s authority over man’s.

Once in a while it seems that it is necessary for all of us to be reminded of where we find our best and most basic guidance. That is true especially (but not only) in matters of faith. Many of us come from a background where we, our parents, or grandparents, were guided by a particular book, and for many Americans that book was the Bible. Today, though, there are fewer people all the time who believe that there is any book which has authority over them personally.

Some mainline churches openly place church tradition equal to or above the Bible. Those traditions are often based on rulings or findings of church leaders at some point in time, but they amount to the authority of men. Our church is “traditional” in many ways, but we do not believe that any tradition should be kept or begun if it is not in keeping with Scripture. That belief comes from the Bible itself. We recognize that churches will have different ways of doing things, but all of us will answer to God measured by the absolute standard which is His Word.

Cults are known for following books written by their leaders, or just a particular contemporary personality. Sometimes they include the Bible but re-interpret it or add other books to “explain” it authoritatively. Followers of any faith make a choice, and it should be a conscious and well-informed choice to place their hope and trust in a certain authority. For myself, I cannot imagine placing my trust in anything less which would be anything other than the Bible. Neither can I imagine giving my children or other Christians counsel and direction from any other, inferior, source. This is not just the way my parents lived, the Bible has given me every reason to trust it and no reason to doubt it.

Referring to Christ, the Bible says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” Acts 4:12. “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue:” II Peter 1:3. It seems that the Bible is not a “good book” if it is lying to us (or deceiving people who take it naturally and literally) on this or any matter. I believe that there is one true God, and that the Bible is truly God’s Word.

Perhaps this article will spark some good discussion, and I hope it is discussion related to the most important issues of life today and eternal. Our church is a group of people who love to help others find the truth about God’s way of salvation and abundant life, please contact us if you need a Bible or have questions about it, www.southportbaptistchurch.com is a good place to start, or “southport baptist church” on FB. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” John 14:6.

If you know of someone in particular need of solid spiritual footing, or if you believe as I do that there are many people who would benefit from a return to basic understanding and practice of faith, please share this message with them. There is a temptation for Biblical Fundamentalists to duck and cover while under fire in this day, but it is our responsibility to spread the good Word!

"It Is Finished"

“It Is Finished”

G.S. Jones

Clearly Jesus is done with His mission of salvation, you might say that the gift is wrapped and sitting under the tree...  Even though, as our High Priest, He now is sitting down on His throne in Heaven, He still has more that He wants to do with us.  Let me encourage you today to determine not to be a half-way, Sunday morning, good enough, Christian!  Let your life and service reflect what Jesus did for you on the cross, because, “It is finished!”  Someday soon, years or minutes from now, He will take our lives into His hands and say “It is finished” to us!

The apostle Paul was not a perfect man by any means, but the Lord allowed him to testify in Scripture that when he came to the end of his life he had done what the Lord asked him to do.  II Timothy 4:6-8 “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.   I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”  How will we know we are finished?  When the Lord crowns our service for Him!

Created to glorify

Saved to sanctify

Molded to identify

Elect but not elite

We will only be complete

On the day we lay our crowns at His feet.

My Call to Christ and His Service

This is the testimony and challenge that I shared at a seminary chapel in Crato, Brazil, in September 2005:

John 15:7  “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you.”

Early in my life I realized that receiving whatever I asked of God would happen as I accepted His desires as my own.  The desires that He gave to me were to be a pastor and to be a missionary.  My testimony is that God’s Word is true, God gave me these desires and He has been fulfilling them.  Being allowed to be here with my dear brothers and sisters in Brazil today is part of that.  Although I have believed God to be good for a long time, every day I am more certain!

I was brought up in a family with Christian parents who were away from the Lord for several years but had come back to Him at about the time I was born.  This meant that I had parents who loved the Lord sincerely with a realization of how desperate life can be without Him.  They also had, and still have today, a burden for lost souls that is contagious.

With that kind of a family it is not entirely surprising, but it is still wonderful, that I came to trust Christ as my Savior at the age of four.  Someone here asked me how I could understand salvation at the age of four, my answer is that I understood it very simply, the only way that anyone can receive it.  I was taken to church every time the doors were open since I was born, and we had devotions as a family almost every day of my childhood, but there was no question that I was a sinner.  I had a pastor who was not afraid to preach about hell, and he put it on a level that I could understand.  It was after a church service on September 16, 1973, that I knelt beside my bed to beg the Lord to save me.  The next day I told my father what I had done and he took me through the Scriptures to be sure that I understood my decision.  I was baptized a few years later at the same time as my newly-saved grandmother!

Now, about this verse, notice that there are conditions set for having our prayers answered.  They are that we abide in God and have His Word abide in us.  That has never come easily for me.  I was a disobedient rascal as a child and especially as a teenager.  I would have times of repentance, though, and I always knew that the Lord wanted to use me.  At the age of 11 I formally surrendered my life to the Lord’s service.  Even while I was a sneaky, selfish, trouble-making youth I was involved in many ways in my church and went on several missions trips.  I worked in AWANA, a bus ministry, and Children’s Church.  We ministered with American Indians, Haitian refugees in Miami, retired missionaries, a new church plant, and at a Christian camp.  The Lord was giving me valuable experience even before I had fully surrendered to Him.  A new pastor that came to my church took me in as an apprentice and taught me a great deal.

In my last year of High School I had begun dating the girl who would be my wife, and I began to get serious about preparing for the ministry.  The Lord still did not have my dedication on a consistent basis though, until I got into Bible College and began to faithfully have personal devotions.  You see, I had not been abiding in God because His Word was not abiding in me!

While in college I was given the opportunity to serve as a youth leader in a church and remained with that ministry for three and a half years.   Seeing how much I needed the Lord’s help in His service taught me to apply myself to my studies like I never had before.  I also grew more mature as I got married while in college and carried the financial responsibility for my education and that of my wife as well.  She trained as a teacher and put me to shame with her almost perfect grades.

I started school with very little money and a small scholarship which I lost when I married.  I learned then to work hard at several jobs and to earn an academic scholarship to pay our way through school.  I often worked more than 40 hours a week, carried a full class load, and spent the entire weekend at our church ministry 150 kilometers away.  Yet it was the Lord Who carried us through and we did it with great joy, still finding time to make good friends and play Volleyball and Ping Pong!

During our last year of school I took on a new ministry as an interim pastor, and that led us to the planting of a new church just before we graduated.  Because I had a burden to be used of the Lord in training missionaries in America and visiting foreign fields I continued to study after receiving my Bachelor’s Degree.  I wanted to come to places like this and be something more than a tourist.  The Lord was calling me to make myself more useful to Him through further training.  I just kept at it, not really stopping until last year when I had all of the degrees that my school had to offer for pastors.

As I have said, I count it a great privilege and a fulfillment of God’s promise to be here in Brasil today.  I did not ask Him to take me to a certain country, but to use me wherever there were precious souls that needed to be saved, and willing workers with a burden to reach them.  My church in Wild Rose is honored to have a small part in the ministry of the Willsons, and if the Lord is willing we will keep the church alive and make it grow.  Then it can do more yet to further the work here, and in Mexico, and in Italy, and in Tanzania, and in Cuiaba Brasil, in New York City, and in Wisconsin.

I have spoken of my calling specifically, let me say a few words about the calling which we all share.  Acts 5:17-20 "Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,  And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.  But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said,  Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life."

That passage can serve as an illustration of what the Lord is asking of each of His children.  This passage illustrates my ministry calling, and perhaps it will be a challenge to you as well.  The apostles had been imprisoned by the high priest and Sanhedrin for doing God’s work, but the Lord did not want them out of service for long, in fact they did not even get the whole night off!

An angel was sent to break them out of jail and give them God’s orders.  First he said that they were to “Go.”  They had no cause to feel sorry for themselves or permission to take it easy and lie low for a while.

The angel also said that they were to “stand.”  That meant that their ministry would be open, and particularly that they were being sent out into the court of the temple even though that was very near to the men who had commanded their arrest!  “If our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are lost.”  The people needed to see their determination and conviction and they needed to hear their message.

That brings us to the angel’s third command, for God’s men to “speak.”  They had something to say and they refused to be made quiet by any threat.  It is hard to keep good news to yourself, but when it may be dangerous or uncomfortable for us to speak up we can often find excuses for silence.  Now let us apply these three commands to Christian life and ministry.  I particularly want to point out how important it is that we obey all three together and do not leave any one undone.

What if we are willing to stand and speak but do not go anywhere?  I am afraid we will be like a great many of the Lord’s people today.  Sometimes we treat our churches like traps, we are just waiting for the lost to come in so that we can spring upon them with the gospel.  That is great, we should do that, but let us make that our Sunday strategy, the rest of the week is hunting season and we need to go out to where the game is, wherever the Lord sends us, near or far away.

What if we are willing to go and speak but we do not really stand for anything?  We are not only disobedient, we will be totally ineffective. The Lord has designed His work to be done as a harmony of sound doctrine, pure testimony, and compassionate outreach.  Too many have gone to a mission field or church ministry and have become so much like the lost that they are no good to them.

Let me say one more thing about standing firm in the ministry, and illustrate it.  I used to push the limits of Christianity with things that were new and exciting which I felt that I had liberty to do.  During college the Lord impressed upon me the necessity of standing “fast,” or “firm” which He commands many times.  Remember this: the way you lean is the way you will fall.  Are you technically standing in obedience, but beginning to lean?  The world the flesh and the devil will push us at every opportunity and often right in the direction that we are leaning.  We will have a much better chance of staying true and straight if we are not leaning.  Are you conservative, but leaning contemporary?  Are you standing pure but leaning toward worldliness?  Are you standing in what is right but leaning toward compromise?  The way you lean is the way you will fall.  The safest stance is the straightest one!

Lastly I ask you, what good will we do for the lost if we go to them and stand faithfully, but do not speak the gospel?  A silent witness is no witness at all, the truth must be spoken or it is not rightly lived.  We cannot take this for granted among God’s people.  Sadly, there are many evangelistic efforts that never get to a clear presentation of the gospel!

I am so glad that a pastor answered his calling to go to Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.  I am so glad that he stood for pure living to remain in the ministry, and that he stood for the truth of God’s Word.  I am also very glad that he spoke the whole gospel, the terrible penalty of sin and the hope of salvation.  His obedience made all the difference of eternity for me!

Stick to Snake

During my early morning meditation in the still and dark, I asked the Lord if there is a lapse in my faith.  I admit that it was due in part to a strange dream that I had, but it will always be a good question:  “Lord, is there anything that I think You cannot do?”

This bit of soul searching was a good opportunity to deal with some struggles that I was having with God’s will.  I have not always liked what God chose to do, but I recognize that He is doing the choosing, He is in complete control.  It may be partly my nature, but I really believe that He can do anything with anybody, not just in abstract, general terms, but also in a practical sense in my life.  On this occasion, the prime discovery that I made is that I do not believe that God can make something extraordinary out of me.

This was not a great achievement in humility, it is just a matter of knowing myself as well as I do.  My moment of clarity was to get beyond the self-deception with which I am often plagued.  The truth is that in forty years of walking with the Lord I have always managed to go right from progress to regress.

I am always looking for a bit of self-improvement and I am coming to see it as spiritual micro-evolution.  I make slight but mostly helpful adjustments to the old man, my old nature.  I have never believed in macro-evolution, one species changing into another, and apparently I have come to a sad acceptance of my mediocre spiritual species.  What I lack in faith in the worst way (at the moment) is belief in God’s ability to change me!

II Peter 1:3-5 “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge.”

My lack of faith is not a respectable problem, it is an unacceptable condition.  I know that I must constantly build my faith, and this is clearly a major building project which needs to begin now.  Knowledge is important, but, as Peter said, it must be built upon faith and virtue.  For instance, I know that God changed Moses’ stick into a snake, but I just do not see that happening in my life.  I guess that I do not like the stick or snake as a personal metaphor!  Moses himself, though, went through some major life-transformations, as did Peter and Paul.  Those men are good examples because they had additional major life-makeovers even after their conversion.  I know that God can work at all stages of life, but perhaps the missing link between my faith and my knowledge is virtue.  I need a love for God and His work that is greater than my love for myself or anything in this world.

I do not need a new job, but I do need new determination to be all that God wants me to be.  I need to be renewed as God’s child, as a husband, as a father, and in all my relationships in this world.  A first step to seeing it happen will be believing that God can make it happen.  The Lord asked both Abraham and Jeremiah, “is there any thing too hard for me?”  He asked me as well, and I know the answer.  Now I just need to know the victory.

Preface to "Light on Eternal Life"

   From the time I first learned to read (which was not all that long ago) I opened to the Gospel of John, and soon after began to memorize the first verses.  It has always been a special book to me, probably because it presents such an intimate perspective of my Savior.  It is a book of personal interviews, and one who gives it honest, concentrated study cannot help but feel as though he has had a personal encounter with Christ.

This book is comprised of expository messages that I was privileged to preach in two churches, Maranatha Baptist of Phillips, Wisconsin, and Wild Rose Baptist, also in Wisconsin.  So far they seemed to have survived, and they were very gracious to give me encouragement during the long series.

The concept of a “Devotional Commentary,” at least in my mind, is a commentary that goes beyond informing its readers to challenging them.  “Devotional” means “used in worship.”  While these messages were delivered in worship services originally, hopefully they can now be a part of the private Bible study and worship of individuals or small groups.

The perspective employed in these pages is that of a Baptist Fundamentalist.  Hopefully, though, above all else, this teaching has come from the Word of God and has remained true to it.  The reader will also notice that this is a strongly evangelistic commentary which, I believe, is a direct reflection of the thrust of this gospel.  You might say it is the gospel gospel!  Let me encourage readers who already know Jesus as their Savior to make good use of the many different approaches and appeals to lost souls.

Dr. Gordon Scott Jones   Kenosha, Wisconsin

I am self-publishing this 234 page book, copies are available for $7 + shipping.  Order via email.  Lord willing "Light on Foundations" a devotional commentary on Genesis will be available this year.