The Ultimatum of God

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Charles Spurgeon Archives

In the first place preach, and in the second place preach, and in the third place preach.

Believe in preaching the love of Christ, believe in preaching the atoning sacrifice, believe in preaching the new birth, believe in preaching the whole council of God. The old hammer of the gospel will still break the rock in pieces; the ancient fire of Pentecost will still burn among the multitude. Try nothing new, but go on with preaching, and if we all preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the results of preaching will astound us.

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Have great hope yet, brothers, have great hope yet, despite yon shameless midnight streets, despite yon flaming gin-palaces at the corner of every street, despite the wickedness of the rich, despite the ignorance of the poor. Go on; go on; go on; in God's name go on, for if the preaching of the gospel does not save men, nothing will. If the Lord's own way of mercy fails, then hang the skies in mourning, and blot out the sun in everlasting midnight, for there remaineth nothing before our race but the blackness of darkness. Salvation by the sacrifice of Jesus is the ultimatum of God. Rejoice that it cannot fail. Let us believe without reserve, and then go straight ahead with the preaching of the Word.

The Soul Winner | Charles Spurgeon | p179

Seed Your Cloud | Amazon MP3 Sale

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To encourage you to pick up your 5GB of free cloud space and up to 20GB for a year (20GB if you buy an mp3 album), Amazon has dropped way low the prices on some great music in their Seed Your Cloud promotion. Here are the ones worth picking up...

Preaching Has Great POWER

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Preachers, we talk big about the power of the Gospel and the power of preaching. But for most of us, our Gospel preaching is limited. It stays in our buildings at announced times to mostly our people. (I understand that one-on-one witnessing is a kind of preaching, but I'm talking to preachers and about our calling.)

My question is this: If preaching has power, God-designed and Spirit-delivered power, why are we not taking it everywhere, to the most people we can, with urgency? Why are we not preaching on the street corners, in public parks, in places of commerce and theater and government? It seems to me we believe Gospel preaching has power as long as it's in a pulpit, but out of the pulpit our language changes. Now the audience has power. Now they determine whether or not we preach to them. Their ears and wills and tastes and distastes become sovereign. Our the bad examples of bad public preachers tells us that approach isn't viable or helpful anymore.

We have excuses for it all from our demographics, city designs, lack of public dialogue, etc. And so the Gospel that comes with power is left in the sheath. We try to convince people to visit our church where it's taken out of the sheath. Where the power will be on display. Or we start emphasizing the power of other things, like our good examples and righteous living. 

But the truth is, the Gospel proclaimed is POWERFUL. It's like Ezekiel prophesying to the dry bones and then to the breath resulting in an army rising from the deadest of the dead. Preaching to bones is silly. Bones don't listen. Bones don't want your preaching. Bones aren't an attentive audience. But if the Gospel is preached, the worst audience and least conducive situations will be places of spiritual birth! Of salvation! Of army creation! The audience changes nothing about whether or not we preach. The audience only changes some of the bridges we use in preaching, like Paul in Acts 17.

How can we any longer fail to preach to everyone, everywhere? How can we have such a powerful Gospel and fail to unleash it? 

Let's make it public again.

Music Monday: Cheap | New | Free 3.28.11

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It's Music Monday and you need some good new music at a good price. Here you go!

CHEAP (Note: I found some of April's $5 albums early. Pick'em up!)

$5 ALBUMS | MARCH (Hurry, ends Thursday!)

NEW & STREAMING FREE

    Good New Music (out now)...

    Coming Soon (all coming out tomorrow, March 29th)

FREE MUSIC - DAYTROTTER

Okkervil River | "Wake & Be Fine"

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I'm a big Okkervil River fan. Some of the most creative indie music around. Lyrically rich. New album, I Am Very Far, drops in May. I can't say enough how much I love their albums: Black Sheep Boy (and Appendix), The Stage Names, The Stand Ins. Here's the official video for "Wake and Be Fine" off their new album (via)...

Support NYC Mission | VBS Offering

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My friend, Freddy Wyatt, leads Gallery Church in New York City. Is your church doing the 2011 Big Apple Adventure Vacation Bible School? You can support this new work in NYC through your VBS Missions Offering. Would love if some of my readers' churches could help out this good brother and good work in the Big Apple! Check out their videos, starting with the one below...

Open-Air Preaching, Gospel Power, & Interruption

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I think we need to regain a healthy, biblical view of interruption.

Interruption can be good or bad. When I'm hurt and a doctor tells me I need to go to the emergency room, that's a good interruption. When I'm leading family worship and I get a recorded phone call from a politician, it's a bad interruption. Much open-air preaching is bad interruption. Sometimes very judgmental. Even cruel. Good open-air preaching, humble and loving preaching, would be the best interruption we could ever have. 

God has called us to the mission of good interruption. We don't need permission. We don't need to find an invitation to speak. We speak. We declare. We preach. We have been given the command to interrupt the world before they face the judgment of God. We are physicians crying out to a sick world to get life-saving medicine. We are ambassadors of another Kingdom warning that the current Kingdom will be destroyed and the only rescue is to join the Kingdom of the Good King. That's what the Gospel does. It forces the issue. It interrupts.

Praise God, the Gospel interrupts with power. The Bible tells us we have the power of the Gospel for salvation, the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses. We have the Word that is fire and a hammer that shatters the rock and won't return empty but accomplishes what God's purpose for it. We have a sword that separates joints from marrow, the sword of the Spirit. God doesn't give us an ineffective Word, but an effective one. It saves. 

If we have this power at our fingertips as preachers, and given God's permission to interrupt the lives of everyone around us, how can we not preach to everyone? How can we be content to confine our preaching to those who show up? 

(Check out all my posts & resources on open-air preaching)

Millennium Park FREE Concerts

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I attended with Sarah (14) the free Besnard Lakes concert at Millennium Park in Chicago last summer. It was a fun trip in on the train and we loved the concert. The free concert list is up for this summer and it's a great one. From the Trib...

...10 free concerts at 6:30 p.m. Mondays from May 23 through July 25. The lineup will include the following performers:

May 23: Bonnie “Prince” Billy featuring the Cairo Gang and special guest

May 30: Justin Townes Earle, Andre Williams and the Goldstars

June 6: Iron and Wine and special guest

June 13: Headliner to be announced and Campbell Brothers

June 20: Kings Go Forth, Ben L’Oncle Soul

June 27: Low and special guest

July 4:  Seefeel and special guest

July 11: Delicate Steve and Bombino

July 18:  Blonde Redhead and special guest

July 25:  Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Rachel Ries

New Bon Iver Coming In June

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Rolling Stone...

In the three years since Bon Iver released its critically beloved 2007 debut For Emma, Forever Ago, frontman Justin Vernon earned thousands of new fans – including Kanye West, who invited the sensitive singer-songwriter to appear on six songs of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

But when Vernon sat down to work on Bon Iver’s follow-up album, he discovered a problem. “Somewhere along the line, I forgot how to write songs,” he tells Rolling Stone. “I couldn’t do it anymore with a guitar. It wasn’t happening.”

So Vernon – who wrote For Emma while holed up by himself in rural Wisconsin – changed gears, working with studio musicians, trying to build sounds rather than songs. “I brought in a lot of people to change my voice — not my singing voice, but my role as the author of this band, this project,” says Vernon, who hired well-known players like sax man Colin Stetson, who plays with Tom Waits and Arcade Fire, and pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz, who recorded with Bill Frissell and Linda Rondstadt. “I built the record myself, but I allowed those people to come in and change the scene.” The album, which is still untitled, is scheduled to come out sometime in June.

If you don't have Bon Iver's two albums, For Emma, Forever Ago (only $6.99) & Blood Bank EP, it's time to catch up and get ready for June. Also check out his stuff with Volcano Choir and Gayngs (though neither compare to the greatness of Bon Iver. Now, when does Beirut's new album come out?

Music Monday: Cheap | New | Free 3.21.11

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It's Music Monday and you need some good new music at a good price. Here you go!

CHEAP

$5 ALBUMS | MARCH

NEW & STREAMING FREE

    Good New Music (out now)...

    Coming Soon (all coming out March 29th)

  • True Widow: As High As The Highest Heavens | (buy) Dark, heavy, fuzzy. Love it so far. Play it loud if you need to slowly strip the paint off your walls. ..::stonegaze::..
  • The Mountain Goats: All Eternals Deck | Always worth hearing.
  • Peter Bjorn and John: Gimme Some | Like their fun debut. Haven't heard this one yet.

FREE MUSIC - DAYTROTTER

SXSW | Jack White & Seasick Steve

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Jack White's bus from Third Man Records rolled into SXSW for a surprise parking lot performance (hear NPR's All Songs folks explain what happened). Jack played a Buddy Holly song, a White Stripes song, and then introduced new Third Man Records recording artist, Seasick Steve who stomped and played a song with a guitar with three strings (it's the blues, baby!). Some technical glitches in the last song, but I think you'll like this. The first video is the parking lot concert. The second is Seasick Steve on Jools Holland. Also, check out the album by Seasick Steve: Man From Another Time.

Music Monday | Middle Brother: "Blue Eyes"

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I can't say enough about my love for Middle Brother. Very much enjoying their self-titled debut album. This supergroup is formed from the lead singer of one of my favorite bands Delta Spirit, as well as the lead singers of Deer Tick & Dawes. Here's "Blue Eyes" featuring (Matthew Vasquez of Delta Spirit) and an interview (colorful language). Also highly recommend Delta Spirit: History From Below and Ode to Sunshine.