Reality Check Conference - Paul Washer - Session 6

I dropped by Tim Challies book table to buy his book and hoped to meet him, but unfortunately, he's under the weather and missed the session tonight. Praying that he'll be better in the morning! Ryan was feeling unwell today as well. He stayed in the room and napped while we explored Chattanooga. We brought him back a "Sausalito" which is a turkey sandwich with salsa and pepper jack cheese. He ate it and by 10 PM was working out in the fitness center. Oh to be 16 again!

Paul Washer:

When he began, the big question on everyone's mind was, "Will he get through the Beatitudes?" "Will he even get through the first three?" Unfortunately, we were left in suspense as he mentioned how we had been feasting on God's word through Jono Sims' talk and he asked, "Did your heart burn within you?"
"Did justification excite you?"
"Is glorification music to my ears?"
"Is this what I long for?"
"Do you Need Him now more than ever?"
"Have you changed since your conversion?"

Or have we taken the flu shot of American Christianity and been inoculated into apathy and boredom over these precious doctrines?

"Blessed are those who mourn..." Matthew 5:4

"Lives [of true converts] are marked by mourning over sin." This is written in present participle tense - it is ongoing. Confession of sin is not just giving a laundry list of our sins to God. It is saying, when convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit, "Lord I hear you and I speak back the same thing - I agree."

"We want you to see your sin because God wants you to see it so he can deliver you from it."

Examples of Biblical mourning:

• Ezra 9:5: Oh God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you.
• Luke 18:13-14: The tax collector: God have mercy on me a sinner.
• James 4:9-10: Grieve, mourn and wail; turn your laughter into mourning.
• 2 Corinthians 7:9-10: Made sorrowful to the point of genuine repentance according to the will of God.

In contrast, Judas was an example of unbiblical "worldly sorrow brings death" (2 Cor. 7:10).

There is what seems to be a paradox in the life and sanctification process of the sinner. Washer says that those who complain about (and even teach against) those who preach sin and repentance don't understand this:

The more you see of God's holiness, the more you see the poverty in your life (Matthew 5:3) the more you mourn, the more you see his grace and the more indescribable is your joy.

As the Christian matures, there is an exchange. For the immature Christian, his joy is in his performance of works for God. As the years go by, his focus becomes the finished work of Christ (see indescribable joy above). We can't be the source of our own joy. We must embrace poverty of spirit and his all-sufficiency and exchange our works for His joy. Woah!

He then shifted gears to our response to the sin of others.

"Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed" (Psalm 119:136).

"Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it" (Ezekiel 9:4).

Our response should not be to tear sinners apart, but to pray for them and to mourn over the lost condition of our generation.

In Jonah 4:11 the Lord says to Noah, "But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

"God was more concerned for animals than we are for the souls of men!"

"The world does not want to mourn, and because of that, it will never be happy."

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Flying through the Beatitudes.....

Blessed are the meek....

We are to have a mild disposition before God and bend to His will. "...they will inherit the earth."

Psalm 37:11 "But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace."

The rest of Psalm 37 describes those who will inherit the land as:

• Not envious of those who do wrong
• They trust in Him
• They do good
• They delight in the Lord
• They commit to the Lord

"The greatest offense against God is not to believe in Him. Has he ever failed you? Has one of his words ever fallen to the ground undone?"

OT sidebar to teenagers:

The most beautiful thing to a godly man is simple and faithful woman.

The most handsome man bears joyfully the yoke of his master and submits to his will.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...

Hunger and thirst = crave ardently; to painfully want.

Do you feel that? Are you desiring to be more righteous? Does it even enter your mind? One of the greatest evidences of conversion is that you find righteousness only in him and grow in righteousness for his glory [emphasis mine] (Phil. 3).

Blessed are the merciful......

Those who are the most zealous about righteousness tend to be the most critical. Note the order of these two: righteousness - mercy. "A godly man never looks at a fallen brother and says 'how could you?' They say, 'Why didn't I?" (see mourning and poverty above).

Who are we to be merciful to? Those who refuse the Gospel.

Matthew 23:37: Jerusalem, Jerusalem,....how I have longed to gather your children together but you were not willing.

Mark 6:34: Jesus had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

We must pity the lost and have compassion on them.

Washer said we are living in the "greatest moment in human history." [I think he meant in terms of the spread of the gospel....I might have missed something here.]

"Don't sit there filled up with self. Go preach the gospel. Don't wait to be "called." Ask God to send you. Go find a country and preach the gospel. Woe to us if we do not go and have mercy on the lost. If that doesn't fit into your theology, then your theology is demonic!"

He said people are going to hell not because of Hollywood, but because of Evangelicalism in America. [yes...he's very subtle :)].

He closed by saying if he could re-do anything in his Christian life he would know God more and be more like his son and spend less time on "activity."

"Give yourself to being like Christ as he manifests Himself in this book [Bible]. "

He closed in prayer and called Jesus the "Rock so infinite that we cannot fall off thee but that we can only fall into thee."

Gary and I were really challenged by these two messages tonight - spurred to action even. Some things God is telling us to do - that it would be easier not hear. Paul Washer said something yesterday about how God can't fill buckets that are already full. He needs to empty them before he can begin to fill them. He alluded to that tonight - something he said to the young people - telling them that God would put them through a lot of pain and challenges in order to conform them into his image. It sure doesn't stop when you get older, does it?