On Just Such Husks do the Religious Swine Feed

On Just Such Husks do the Religious Swine Feed

"Take heed what you hear" (Mark 4:24).

The word hear obviously includes what is read, for that which is written or printed is addressed to the ears of our intellect. Few people today realize the urgent need for "taking heed" unto what they read. Just as the natural food which is eaten either helps or hinders the body; so the mental food we receive either benefits or injures the mind, and that, in turn, affects the heart. Now just as it is harmful to listen to the rubbish and poison which is being served from the great majority of present-day pulpits, so it is exceedingly injurious to the soul to read most of what is now being published. Take heed what you hear - and read! 

"Those who are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh" (Romans 8:5), and are charmed with oratorical eloquence, catchy sayings, witty allusions, and jocular displays. On just such husks do the religious swine feed; but the penitent prodigal can find no nutriment therein!

Christian reader, if you value the health of your soul, cease hearing and quit reading all that is lifeless, unctionless, powerless - no matter what prominent or popular name is attached thereto. Life is too short to waste valuable time on that which profits not.

Ninety-nine out of every hundred of the religious books, booklets, and magazines now being published, are not worth the paper on which they are printed! Take heed what you hear - and read!

~Arthur W. Pink~
___________________________

What Is Most Needed Today

It is my deepening conviction that what is most needed today is a wide proclamation of those Scripture truths which are the least acceptable to the flesh. 

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the character of God:

His absolute sovereignty, His ineffable holiness, His inflexible justice, His unchanging veracity.

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the condition of the natural man:

his total depravity, his spiritual insensibility, his inveterate hostility to God, the fact that he is "condemned already," and that the wrath of a sin-hating God is even now abiding upon him!

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the alarming danger which sinners are in - the indescribably awful doom which awaits them; and the fact that if they follow their present course only a little further, they shall most certainly suffer the due penalty of their iniquities!

What is needed today, is a scriptural setting forth of the nature of that dreadful punishment which awaits the lost: the dreadfulness of it, the hopelessness of it, the unendurableness of it, and the endlessness of it!

~Arthur W. Pink~
____________________________

True Christian Ministry

There may be an undue, idolatrous, if not superstitious, attachment to, and reverence for, Christian ministers by churches and by individuals, the existence and growing extent of which demand a prompt and effectual check. The office of the Christian ministry is strangely misunderstood at the present time. By one part of the professing Church, the Christian minister is all but deified; and exalted into the place of God; so that multitudes, in the blindness of their superstitious attachment, worship him as God.

Seek to divest your mind of all unscriptural, superstitious, and idolatrous views and feelings in reference to the nature and powers of the Christian minister.

Remember it is but a human instrumentality, possessing no essential, inalienable grace or holiness of its own.

True Christian ministry disclaims all superstitious reverence, and rejects all idolatrous attachment and worship from the creature.

But the evil against which many of the Lord's people need to be tenderly cautioned is that of undue exalting of, and the setting of the affections upon, the pastor. A Church may so vaunt itself of the talents, the gifts, the attainments, the popularity, and even the success of its pastor, as greatly to detract from the glory of God, grieve the Holy Spirit, and seriously injure both itself and the object of its adulation.

How keenly is the spiritual mind pained by the humiliating spectacle of "man worship" which sometimes meets the eye! What applauding of human eloquence; what burning of incense at the shrine of human intellect and genius; what vain boasting of profound learning, and brilliant talent, and popular gifts; while the infinitely weightier attributes of a holy, powerful, and useful ministry, are lightly esteemed, if not totally dispensed with!

The evils which arise from this vain glorying in "men", and this undue admiration of, and exclusive attachment to, a particular order of ministerial character and fitness, are many and various.

The pastor should be received gratefully, as the Lord's messenger, and esteemed very highly in love for his work's sake. Yet hold him infinitely subordinate to Christ, and with a loose and gentle grasp.

Cherish a devout and grateful spirit for the precious and invaluable gift of a holy, affectionate, and useful minister; but rest not in him short of Jesus. Give to him his proper place in your affections and thoughts; a place infinitely beneath the adorable Son of God, God's "unspeakable gift!"

~Octavius Winslow~