Just now, as I was searching this blog to update any links I might have given you to the Peoples Church Sermon Archive*, I came across this blog post, from March 2013. I'm reposting it not only because this needs saying, but as a thankful nod to Charles Price, without whose clear and steady-handed exposition of God's Word I would likely be in a very different place in my walk with the Lord. This post is not about Charles, but I am deeply grateful to God for using him to begin redressing several decades' worth of misunderstanding about what it is to live the Christian life.
*updated link here (also updated in the post below)
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Warfare
(originally posted March 24, 2013)
When I returned to the Lord after decades in quasi-exile, I had to sort through many mixed messages about Christianity. I've mentioned this before, but not in detail. Without naming names, here are just a few of the things I encountered:
- A TV preacher who had an uncommon gift for understanding prophetic imagery of Christ, but who believed that by virtue of Jesus' saving work of grace, he no longer had a sin nature, therefore no need to confess his sins to God. He also thought he was immune to harm, sickness, and aging. He once told a nervous lady on an airplane not to worry -- the plane wouldn't crash as long as he was on it.
- A Christian TV show host who believed (as did the previous person) that taking communion multiple times a day gave spiritual power and drew quicker answers to prayer;
- A TV pastor whose gospel was positive thinking: If life isn't progressing as it should, think nothing but positive thoughts. God will see this as gratitude and reward you with blessings, even giving you rewards you haven't merited, such as a promotion someone else has worked for harder than you have.
There are other highly misguided things going on out there, but you get the idea.
Paul's prophetic words from 2 Timothy 4:3-4 are unfolding before our eyes. Myth backed up by truth is particularly insidious, and is bewitching believers. The church is under attack from within. The worst danger comes not from those we might label as corrupting forces, but from Christians who have given themselves over to idols -- idols they've rechristened with comforting scriptural names such as "blessing," "favor," "faith," and "grace."
On the evening February 28, 2011, I prayed along with the congregation of one of the above-mentioned TV preachers. We were told to place a deep need before God and to remember the date, so we could take note of when He answered. My prayer was for financial sanity to be restored to my life. The preacher assured us we would receive an answer, but only if we prayed with the right attitude -- believing in the full power of Jesus' saving grace. We were not to re-pray the prayer. The fulfillment was on its way; if we prayed the same prayer again, we weren't trusting God. As I write this, it hits me how much this sounds like a chain letter (don't jinx your good luck by saying or doing the wrong thing!).
A couple of weeks later, I happened to tune in to "Living Truth" on TV. Charles Price was preaching about the holiness of God. I listened for a while, then I got angry.
I may even have turned the program off. "This is so 'old school'!" I thought. I'm not sure what seemed so "old school." Probably a combination of the traditional church setting (not a stage) and the message itself -- reverence and repentance towards the incomparable supreme deity -- which I suspect was registering to me as "God is unapproachable." Very old school indeed, but that's not what he was saying.
The following week I somehow decided to watch "Living Truth" again. This time the message was about the worship of God. Within minutes, Charles Price had my full attention. By the end of the sermon, my whole world had changed.
In eloquent but unaffected words, Charles sketched out exactly what I had myself begun to experience during the previous several months. He said that prayer was the talking part of our relationship with God. Quoting C.S. Lewis, he gave the analogy of the urgent necessity lovers have to express their love to one another.
I'm sure I watched the sermon more than once that weekend. I began seeking out more Charles Price sermons to listen to. The online work I was doing at the time relied more on mechanical reflexes than creative thought, so I was in the habit of listening to music while I worked. Why not sermons?
I began to subscribe to "Living Truth" podcasts, which meant among other things that I got to listen again (and again, and again) to two wonderful Hilary Price sermons I'd seen that had been filmed at a retreat in Galilee the previous fall. Two sermons by Charles were also in this series. All four sermons met me exactly where I was that spring.
I soon discovered the sermon search page of the Peoples Church site, and over the next several months I listened to every Charles Price sermon on the site, plus a few more I found online. Some sermons I listened to repeatedly, not as some new obsession with listening to sermons, but because God was cutting deep. He had an enormous amount of lost time to make up for. He was correcting subtle but important misunderstandings I'd carried since my days in student ministry. He was challenging me concerning my idols. He was comforting me regarding things I'd been through that still threatened and terrified me. In short, He was binding up my wounds and preparing me to move forward.
His reasons for choosing Charles Price as His primary teaching instrument seem quite obvious. Charles Price is not someone I necessarily relate to; but he's a particularly attentive student of God's word. His sole mandate is "preach Christ," and preach Christ he does. He very rarely wades off into lesser issues.
Yet this post is not about Charles Price. It's about our gracious Lord, who in His profound mercy and wisdom chose to grab my life and put it back on track. He's still tweaking the GPS settings, trying to teach me to stop thwarting Him. This very week, He gave me a verse that cut so deep into my rebellious heart that it has changed my perspective forever. It took Him years to bring me to this verse. I'm not going to share it with you, but I will share this: He has such verses for all His people.
I'm no authority on anything, except possibly on how to make life get off-course. These are the musings of a broken woman who has no hope of wholeness apart from her sweet Lord. Yet through my brokenness, God has placed a deep burden on my heart for His bride, His church -- caught in the crossfire of spiritual warfare, largely unarmed. The weapons used against her are increasingly treacherous and subtle. Drawing near enough to her Bridegroom to hear His heartbeat is her only defense.