Two weeks ago, I was hanging out with my Pastor and we ended up at a book sale. As I was carousing he came over to me and told me to go over there and pick up an old old book called Mr. Jones, Meet the Master. So I bought it, rather at the checkout he took my books and bought them for me.
I was just reading and wanted to share an excerpt about Preachers.
"For the tap on the shoulder that called me to the ministry came to me, and this is the call that brooks no refusal--the call that we cannot ignore, the call that brings us to heel--to falladoring and wondering at the feet of Christ.
Now, if you were walking down the street, and someone came up behind you and tapped you on the shoulder... what would you do?
Natrually, you would turn around.
Well, that is exactly what happens in the spiritual world. A man walks on through life--with the external call ringing in his ears but with no response stirring in his heart, and then suddenly, without any warning the Spirit taps him on the shoulder.
What happens? He turns around.
The word "repentance" means "turning around."
He repents and believes and is saved.
The "tap on the shoulder" is the almighty power of God acting without help or hindrance upon an elect fallen sinner so as to produce a new creature, and to lead him into the particular work which God has for him.
God calls men to preach.
How did preaching arise in the first place? By what right does a man stand before his fellows, Bible in hand, and claim thier attention?
Not because he is better than they are...
Not because he has attended a theological seminary and studied Hebrew...Greek...and theology.
But primarily because he is obeying a "tap on the shoulder."
Because God has whispered him in the ear and conscripted him for the glorious company of those voices crying in the wilderness of life.
The preacher is concious of being called, as we say, and that means he is responding to an inward urge that could not be resisted...an urge that grew out of a providential arrangement of his life and his circumstances to the great end that he should become an ambassador of the Chief--an urge that grew into a conviction that only by obeying could he ever find that joy and satisfaction of a life lived according to the plan of God.
God brought Moses from minding the sheep...
He took Amos from the herds of Tekoa...
He beckoned Peter, James, and John from the fishing boats and thier nets...
And called Livingston from the mill in Blantyre, Scotland.
He called Carey from his cobblers bench...
He claimed Moody from the shoe store.
From the mills, the factory, and the farm they come...
From the ranks of mediocrity, or the gutters of sin He calls them...changes them...and makes them His messengers.
The true minister is in his pulpit not because he has chosen that profession as an easy means of livelihood, but because he could not help it, because he has obeyed an imperious summons that will not be denied.
Such was my tap on the shoulder."
And such was the tap on the shoulder for me. Amen, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
I was just reading and wanted to share an excerpt about Preachers.
"For the tap on the shoulder that called me to the ministry came to me, and this is the call that brooks no refusal--the call that we cannot ignore, the call that brings us to heel--to falladoring and wondering at the feet of Christ.
Now, if you were walking down the street, and someone came up behind you and tapped you on the shoulder... what would you do?
Natrually, you would turn around.
Well, that is exactly what happens in the spiritual world. A man walks on through life--with the external call ringing in his ears but with no response stirring in his heart, and then suddenly, without any warning the Spirit taps him on the shoulder.
What happens? He turns around.
The word "repentance" means "turning around."
He repents and believes and is saved.
The "tap on the shoulder" is the almighty power of God acting without help or hindrance upon an elect fallen sinner so as to produce a new creature, and to lead him into the particular work which God has for him.
God calls men to preach.
How did preaching arise in the first place? By what right does a man stand before his fellows, Bible in hand, and claim thier attention?
Not because he is better than they are...
Not because he has attended a theological seminary and studied Hebrew...Greek...and theology.
But primarily because he is obeying a "tap on the shoulder."
Because God has whispered him in the ear and conscripted him for the glorious company of those voices crying in the wilderness of life.
The preacher is concious of being called, as we say, and that means he is responding to an inward urge that could not be resisted...an urge that grew out of a providential arrangement of his life and his circumstances to the great end that he should become an ambassador of the Chief--an urge that grew into a conviction that only by obeying could he ever find that joy and satisfaction of a life lived according to the plan of God.
God brought Moses from minding the sheep...
He took Amos from the herds of Tekoa...
He beckoned Peter, James, and John from the fishing boats and thier nets...
And called Livingston from the mill in Blantyre, Scotland.
He called Carey from his cobblers bench...
He claimed Moody from the shoe store.
From the mills, the factory, and the farm they come...
From the ranks of mediocrity, or the gutters of sin He calls them...changes them...and makes them His messengers.
The true minister is in his pulpit not because he has chosen that profession as an easy means of livelihood, but because he could not help it, because he has obeyed an imperious summons that will not be denied.
Such was my tap on the shoulder."
And such was the tap on the shoulder for me. Amen, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
