{"id":1646,"date":"2011-12-10T09:54:42","date_gmt":"2011-12-10T09:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=1646"},"modified":"2011-12-10T09:54:42","modified_gmt":"2011-12-10T09:54:42","slug":"feeding-sheep-or-amusing-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=1646","title":{"rendered":"Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats?<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Charles Spurgeon (edited)<\/p>\n

An evil is in the \u2018professed\u2019 camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted Christian can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years this evil has developed at an alarming rate. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments!<\/p>\n

The devil has seldom done a more clever thing, than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, <\/strong>with a view to winning them. From speaking out the gospel, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day.<\/strong> Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses!<\/p>\n

My first contention is that\u00a0providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? \u2018Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel\u2019.<\/p>\n

No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to Him.\u00a0Where do entertainers come in? <\/strong>The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people, or because they confronted them? The \u2018concert\u2019 has no martyr roll.<\/p>\n

Again,\u00a0providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the apostolic Church to the world? \u201cYou are the\u00a0salt<\/strong> of the world\u201d, not the\u00a0sugar candy<\/strong>; something the world will spit out, not swallow.<\/p>\n

Had Jesus introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His teaching, He would have been more popular. When \u201cmany of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him,\u201d I do not hear Him say, \u2018Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow; something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it! Be quick, Peter, we must get the people somehow!\u2019<\/p>\n

No! Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In vain will the epistles be searched to find any trace of the \u2018gospel of amusement\u2019. Their message is, \u201cTherefore, come out from them and separate yourselves from them\u2026 Don\u2019t touch their filthy things\u2026\u201d Anything approaching amusement is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.<\/p>\n

After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the Church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, \u2018Lord, grant unto your servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are\u2019.<\/p>\n

No! They did not cease from preaching Christ. They had no time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down; that is the only difference from today\u2019s church.<\/p>\n

Lastly, <\/strong>amusement fails to effect the end desired. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment had been God\u2019s link in the chain of their conversion, stand up! There are none to answer! The mission of amusement produces no converts!<\/p>\n

The need of the hour for today\u2019s ministry is earnest spirituality joined with Biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats? by Charles Spurgeon (edited) An evil is in the \u2018professed\u2019 camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted Christian can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years this evil has developed at an alarming rate. It has worked like leaven until the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-h-spurgeon","category-false-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1647,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1646\/revisions\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}