“If you haven’t read
that book you need to,” said Jordan in his study last Sunday night. “In that
book, Mr. Stam addresses and answers every objection of the distinctive
ministry of Paul that will ever be raised. He fought those battles in the ’30s,
’40s and ’50s against the kingpins of fundamentalism and he answered them
clearly from the Scripture.
“I would sit down every year and reread that book and the
reason I did is I learned back in the late ’60s that in a year’s time my
thinking could kind of drift a little bit with me not ever aware of it. I would
use that book to bring me back, because if you’re off a half a degree to start
with, you go far enough and you’ll be way off.
“The first or second year after I got saved I was learning
and studying and I remember reading Stam’s book and thinking, ‘Wow, I had let some
things enter into my understanding that weren’t really good doctrine,’ and
there was some corrective teaching in that book about Paul’s apostleship that
helped me correct myself. I said, ‘You know what, I need that beacon of that
correct teaching.’
“Back then, (in the ’60s and ’70s) I was reading the Bible
4-5 times a year all the way through and yet I realized I needed to be careful
and I needed a very clear plumb line; a cornerstone to measure by.
“The teaching in that book is a defense of the distinctive
ministry of Paul. Every question anybody will ever ask you or throw at you to
contradict Paul’s distinctive ministry and message is addressed and dealt with
in that book.”
*****
Among countless gems in Stam’s expose is his overall
observation, “It is not mental acumen that brings men to an understanding of
the mystery, but a sincere desire for the truth. Home many of God’s humblest
saints rejoice in ‘the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles,’ while the intellectual wonder what it
is all about! Surely it is true that: ‘God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.’ "
Stam succinctly sums up, “So deep is the antipathy of some
religious leaders toward the Pauline message and those who proclaim it that
they will simply lie low each time their falsehoods are exposed and await an
opportunity to strike again. This is Satan’s strategy for it is easier to believe
a lie one has heard a thousand times than to believe a truth he has never heard
before . . .”
As for the “godly” men who were thoroughly exposed to Pauline
truth but ultimately chose to deny it, Stam writes, “The sad fact is the
Church, as such, has ceased going forward in the truth . . . Those who do not
go forward in the truth go inexorably backward, so that many who once felt they
had reached the summit of dispensational truth have now fallen back into
Amillennialism and Pentecostalism, and others, who still hold generally to
Scofield’s position are beginning to ask whether, after all, we might not have
to go through the prophesied tribulation period or at least a part of it.”
*****
“Folks, the path of faith is wearying to the flesh,” said Jordan,
reminding that he has for the past four-plus decades spent time on Saturday
evenings to sit and read the Pastoral Epistles--I Timothy through Philemon—in preparation
for his Sunday ministry. “Your flesh doesn’t like to be left out and that’s
what faith does. You have to be constantly on guard because the seduction is so
subtle and so insidious that it gets all of us.
“That’s why Paul warns in II Timothy 4:16, ‘Take heed
unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou
shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.’
“Not just the doctrine but yourself. Why? You’re being
careful to bring these things into your life because you can get to assuming
they’re there when they’re not and you get kind of diverted into other things.
It can happen to you, too!
“That’s why he says in I Corinthians 9:27, ‘But I keep under
my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I
have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.’
“In other words, he disciplines himself. He’s careful to
maintain good works. Why? Because that’s going to make him more pleasing to
God? No. It’s because it makes him a better soldier. It makes sure he’s not ‘entangled
with the things of this world.’ It makes sure he’s doing what’s expedient and
not being brought under the power of something deceptively.
“It’s a faithful saying that you can give yourself to that;
these things are good and profitable unto men.
“By the way, when Paul says ‘suffer,’ that word doesn’t
necessarily mean that you experience pain. The word simply means 'to allow.'
Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’ You only get to
chapter II Timothy 3:12 before Paul says, ‘Yea, and all that will live godly in
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.’
“Now, in II Timothy 2:9 he’s talking about himself suffering
persecution, so you know that’s what the context is. If I allow the life of
Christ, and that godly edification now to live in me, then there is a reigning
that I’ll be a part of; there’s a promise of the life to come in that future
out there that I’ll be a part of. To the measure that I don’t allow Christ to
do it then I lose out. So the issue there is the Judgment Seat of Christ and
the life that is to come.”
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