____________________________________________________ THE GOSPEL OBSERVER "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations...teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19,20). ____________________________________________________ April 23, 1995 ____________________________________________________ "Cast Me Not Off In The Time Of Old Age" by Warren Berkley The writer of Psalm 71 was drawing near the natural end of human life and was already experiencing the infirmities of age. He made this appeal to his compassionate God. ``Cast me not off in the time of old age. Forsake me not when my strength faileth.'' Perhaps after his prayer was finished, he was refreshed by the memory that he had ``been young, and now'' was old, yet he had ``not seen the righteous forsaken'' (Psa. 37:25). From time to time a sad reality is brought to my attention: the tragedy of faithful, senior preachers (still healthy, alert, and willing) rejected and forced into early retirement or poverty by brethren who are placing too much emphasis on youth. In some cases, these good men are told by churches seeking an evangelist that they are looking for ``someone younger.'' And I picture these men adapting the words of the text to their own prayers: ``Cast me not off in the time of old age.'' It is time to re-examine what we really want from a preacher. I'm afraid one danger is there are some who want style over substance. This is part of a larger or deeper problem, coming to the assembly with a consumer attitude. ``HERE I AM, SERVE ME; I CONTRIBUTE, GIVE ME SOMETHING IN RETURN. Even though you are talking about religion and the Bible, make it interesting so I'll stay awake.'' We want a preacher so dynamic and entertaining he will keep our bored children awake and impress our worldly visitors. We want our neighbors to come and meet a young, ``90's sort of guy,'' who is more sensitive than scriptural; more entertaining than edifying. There is this almost frantic rush to get some young man in the pulpit who is handsome, dynamic, entertaining, and positive to a fault. There is a loss of scriptural focus here! In too many cases, brethren are making decisions and drawing conclusions about preachers based on everything but what matters. Charming personality, vigor and volume in the pulpit, eloquence, and other secondary matters are brought into the decision process, ahead of a man's faithfulness and the content of his preaching. Have we forgotten? The function of this man is to ``preach the Word.'' We are elevating secondary things when we base decisions on age, charm, and eloquence. We just must disregard the number of years in a man's age, and focus on faithfulness, knowledge, ability to teach, zeal, and love for the lost. Age can be an asset! Younger preachers, and middle-aged preachers like me, need to stop and think--before we glibly dismiss the effectiveness of our older brothers--IF THE MORTALITY TABLES HOLD TRUE IN OUR CASE, WE'LL BE ONE SOMEDAY!! The glory of young men is their strength, and the splendor of old men is their gray head (Prov. 20:29). -- abridged by Wayne Walker in the Gospel Truth, Dec. 11, 1994. ___________________________________________ The Heart and Lip Service by H. E. Phillips The piercing question of Paul in Galatians 4:16 is in order: ``Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?'' Why do we foolishly and carelessly allow ourselves to be carried away from the truth in our daily lives? Why do we talk about doing better, and promise both ourselves and the brethren that we will repent of indifference and get to work in the kingdom of Christ, but never make the change? Why do we hear more and more brethren express alarm because they are not able to pray and to study the word of God as they once did? The answers to these questions may be found in our own hearts where our real goals and desires reside. An individual needs to be urged to do more serious soul searching with special emphasis on his spiritual and moral concepts. We need to really ``Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?'' (1 Cor. 13:5). Jesus told the Pharisees of their hypocrisy and referred to the prophecy of Esaias, which he applied to them in Matthew 15:8-9: ``This people draweth night unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with the lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'' Of course, they were offended after they heard this (v. 12), but Jesus said to his disciples: ``Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch'' (verse 14). One could say, ``Look what we are doing, we draw nigh unto God with our singing, praying and preaching the word, and in addition, we praise and honor God with our lips and promise to serve Him. What more could one ask?'' Every word of this could have been said by those hypocritical Pharisees to whom Christ spoke. The problem was not that they did not give vocal praise and lip service, but the real and only problem was that the heart was far away, and in fact not involved at all in their professed praise to God. I could follow the typical line of many prayers which we hear today: ``Father, we thank thee for this wonderful opportunity to meet here and worship thee in spirit and truth,'' when in fact I could care less whether I am present upon the occasion or not. And the ``wonderful opportunity to meet here'' is really a painful burden I wish I could avoid, and I do dodge the ``opportunity'' every time I can. I could also sing loud the words of the song: ``My Jesus, if ever I loved thee, tis now,'' and not give a simple thought to Jesus, love, or time. This lip praise and verbal honor is the cold, lifeless, formalism that now enshrouds churches all across the land. Because the lifeless body does nothing more than lip praise and promise, the commandments of men are brought into play to try to pump some life or activity into an otherwise cold, dead body of people. Back to some of the questions at the beginning of this article which we should be asking ourselves. We must realize that without heart action, the lip and hand service is nothing. While all responsible people have the capacity to see, hear, and understand with their hearts, by comparison, not many of them use the heart in praising God. The heart becomes dull of hearing, gross and calloused so that what is seen and heard does not effect any change in the thinking, believing, and obeying from the heart. The heart hardened by the practice of sin explains why the preaching of the gospel in the most persuasive manner produces little more than blank stares, vague promises, and a few attempts at lip service. We must bring heart worship to God if we expect it to be accepted. -- via Searching the Scriptures, June 1992 ___________________________________________ MULTIPLE CHOICE BAPTISM by Alan Jones In our divided religious world, there are many who hold that there are three ``forms'' of baptism: sprinkling, pouring, and immersion, and that the believer is allowed to choose the one he prefers. Examine carefully the following to see if one has such liberty. The original Greek word baptisma is defined as ``consisting of the processes of immersion, submersion, and emergence'' (Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 98). Baptisma meant to immerse and this would be the rendering in our English Bibles if the English translators had actually translated the word instead of transliterating (bringing over letter for letter) from the Greek. History bears out that immersion was the only practice of the early disciples. The first case of sprinkling was not until A.D. 251 when Novation was sprinkled because he was very sick. But, it was not until A.D. 1311 at the Council of Revenna that the Catholic church made sprinkling legal for anyone, whether sick or healthy. The New Testament clearly shows that baptism is immersion. From the work of John the Baptist it is evident that baptism requires ``much water'' (Jno. 3:23). When Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, ``they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him''; then ``they came up out of the water'' (Acts 8:38). It doesn't take a Greek scholar to see that immersion, not sprinkling, took place! Baptism is a burial into the likeness of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:3-5). When you bury a man, you don't sprinkle sand on him! When you bury a man in baptism, you don't sprinkle water on him either! All the evidence points to immersion as being the baptism commanded by Christ. We must submit to the authority of Christ and put away the other ``forms'' which not only are contrary to His wishes, but which also divide us. Baptism is not a multiple choice question. -- via The Old Paths Monthly ________________________________________ Tri-State CHURCH OF CHRIST 1314 Montgomery Avenue, Ashland, Kentucky 41101 Sunday: 10:00 A.M. Bible class 10:50 A.M. Worship 6:30 P.M. Worship Wednesday: 7:30 P.M. Bible study evangelist/editor: Tom Edwards (606) 325-9742 e-mail: tedwards@zoomnet.net Gospel Observer web site: http://www.zoomnet.net/~tedwards/go ________________________________________