First Baptist Church of Vineland, NJ

Welcoming, Witnessing & Winning for the Kingdom of God

KAREN

Boy, these are tough acts to follow - let me tell ya!   We had two different parts to the seminar this weekend.  The first was an intensive training session which was very intensive and I got so much out of it that I am kind of going to dwell on that part, I think, for what I want to say. 

But the second part was where we shared with everybody, standing in the lines waiting for autographs from the people that were there to sign their books or whatever.  I got to talking to a lot of the girls who were also there from other churches in other areas of the country and it was just so exciting to hear their testimony and their witness and to share them with each other. 

It was just a seminar that was filled with joy.   We learned about how we can be free in the Lord, not free to do whatever we want, but free to enjoy the Lord's love and to feel his love for us.  The perfect peace of God's love and His love alone, the uncompromising hope, the joy that He gives us. 

Kathy Trocolli, a secular singer, who is also a Christian singer, sang a song called "Hold Out Your Candle."  That's what we should be doing - holding out our candle for everyone to see. 

On the way there, like Bri said, we had some difficulty getting there.  Not getting to the church but getting to the hotel.   That was the problem.  We had difficulty when we got to the hotel but that was all right.  I don't know about Ann's car but all I can say is what we did in my car was laugh and praise the Lord.  We just had a good time and it was funny.  We didn't get upset or anything, it was really cool.  Even when Janet almost ended up in the front seat with me! 

But on Friday, I got a lot out of Friday, in the intensive only because it taught me a lot about me.  It is so easy to look at everybody in church and in other churches and point and say "Well, we should be doing this.  We should be doing that.  Everybody should be doing this.  This person should be doing this.  Why isn't this person doing that?"  But it gave me a chance to look at myself and see the problem with churches and the problem with our society.  The problem is that we are apathetic to the Word of God.  Our chief source of failure is our tolerance of incomplete obedience to God and that is the problem.  That is the problem in the churches today, that's the problem in society today. 

Apathy leads to apostasy.  Apostasy is that we should be clinging to the Lord and even though we say we are going to love the Lord and He means everything to us, (but I know I am guilty of this) we don't follow Him.  I should be clinging to the Lord in everything I do.  Apostasy is the Lord leading one way, but I turn away.  I am not willing to walk with Him.  Sometimes I might be walking with him and I might go back, but at other times I am doing what I think I should be doing.  I think what I am doing is in the Lord, but what I am doing is not really what the Lord wants me to do.  So that is what apostasy is.  We turn our backs on what we know to be true, which leads to anarchy.

Unfortunately, I think that is where so many in the church are right now.  They've already gone beyond apathy, they are in apostasy right now and it leads to anarchy.  Unfortunately, our whole country is in a state of anarchy right now.  The whole country is doing what is right in their own minds.  Anarchy is doing what is right in our own minds.  We've already turned our back on what we know to be true.  Just think about what the whole country thinks is right in their own minds.  They don't have any absolutes.   There is no King.  We should be glorifying the Lord.  He should be our King.  But we are not really doing that.  Crimes happen and they go unpunished from the top of the country on down. 

Once you have anarchy, you go into idolatry.   It's found in all the people and is manifested in them.  It leads to immorality.  It leads to internal war.  Internal war within our own people.   We have that even within our own church and I am sure every other church does too.   This one thinks we should do this, this one thinks we should do that.  We are arguing over petty stuff and it's not good.  It's not good - we don't want to end up there. 

We are living in a time where there are no absolutes.   We are sleeping with the enemy.  The enemy, we all know, is not a person.  It's a principality that we don't even have control over.  The Lord has control.  We can beat them, but we are sleeping with them.  We are sleeping with the enemy and when you do that it is just bad. Why are we sleeping with the enemy?   Because we are apathetic to the Word of God. 

What place does the Word of God have in your life?   I think I love the Lord and He plays a part in my life.  After going to the seminar, I wonder how big of a place He really has in my life.  I can sit down, and believe me, I can sit down and read a novel in three to four hours.  Why aren't I reading the Bible?  Why aren't I in God's Word?  I have time to sit down and watch a movie.  We are all guilty of that.  We read a novel or whatever, we take the time to do that, but we should be in the Word of God.  That is what He is asking us to do.  Then I have to question "Where is the Word of God in my life?   Where have I really put God?"

There is no fear of God in our eyes.  The fear of God is found in wisdom.  Wisdom is found where?  In the Word of God.   The problem is that we are not examples, as Linda said.  We should be living examples.  We should be holding up that candle.  If we were clinging to the Lord like we are supposed to be, every week when we come into this service to share, the fruit should be so abounding that we would have a praise service and when pastor asks for praise every hand would be up.  It would be like "Time's up, pastor.  You don't get to preach today."  We would be full of praise for things that happened in our lives to share with others. 

Are we afraid to stand up for the Lord?  If we are, and lots of times that's it (I've been in situations where there are people I could witness to and I don't want to get involved that way.)  Why?  Are we afraid of the persecution we will suffer?  The persecution you suffer in this world in this day can not even compare to the glory that we are going to have in the next.  The suffering, persecution, or people making fun of us shouldn't even matter because what lays ahead of us is so much better than what this life can ever offer. 

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