WesleyGospel Ministries

²³ In Hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. ²⁴ And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame!

–JESUS CHRIST IN LUKE 16:23-24 (KJV)–

—

¹⁰ The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: ¹¹ And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night.

–REVELATION 14:10-11 (KJV)–

—

¹⁰ The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. ¹¹ And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. ¹² And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. ¹³ And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. ¹⁴ And death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. ¹⁵ And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

–REVELATION 20:10-15 (KJV)–

—

To set the record straight about Dr. John Piper’s view on Hell. This video was in 2017. Here he teaches a literal hell fire; and speaks against people like Dr. Schreiner who would essentially say that Biblical hell fire isn’t real; and that its “only just a symbol” and not a literal picture of Hell. Piper completely and flatly denies any such notion here: and so he stands with the Bible, Dr. John Gerstner, and Jonathan Edwards on Hell. What he’s saying here is essentially what Dr. Weir says in the horror movie Event Horizon: “HELL IS ONLY A WORD. THE REALITY IS MUCH, MUCH WORSE.” Unlike Schreiner and R. C. Sproul, who could read about hell fire; and walk away denying it completely. Piper instead reads of hell fire and says, “This is a vision from God; and it points us to something much, much worse than simply reading a Bible verse about people burning alive in fire forever. What it points to, is the fact that outside of the Gospel, YOU YOURSELF WILL EXPERIENCE THE PAIN AND THE HOPELESSNESS, OF PERSONAL CONSCIOUS SUFFERING OF BURNING ALIVE IN FIRE, FOREVER AND EVER, WITHOUT ANY HOPE OF ESCAPING FROM IT!! ALSO, YOU WON’T READ ABOUT HELL FIRE BIBLE VERSES ANYMORE, AFTER YOU GET TO HELL. IN FACT, YOUR OWN BODY AND SOUL, AND MIND AND FEELINGS, WILL BE ABSOLUTELY, COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY IMMERSED IN ACTUAL FIRE, AND YOU’LL EXPERIENCE THE MIND-BLOWING PAIN AND HOPELESS DESPAIR, OF THIS FIRE EVERY DAY, IN TIDAL WAVES OF DIVINE WRATH IN THE FORM OF FIRE, FOR CENTURIES AND CENTURIES WITHOUT ENDING.” That’s essentially what Piper is saying. He believes in a literal hell fire–a real literal lake of fire. What he’s saying is that it’s one thing to read some unreal looking Bible verses about hell fire, and to go your way and stay mentally detached from it, after you put your Bible back on the table when your devotion is all done. Its quite another thing to actually be thrown into a very real lake of fire yourself, to look up and see angels and the Lord Jesus watching you, and all the others, and to hear thousands of people screaming at the top of their lungs all around you, at volumes that no mortal man can scream; and to never be able to get away from any of it!! –J.B.

THE WORD OF FAITH

PROSPERITY GOSPEL

IS

FALSE TEACHING.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
–1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)–

We have seen what abominations ensue where love is lacking; such individuals are proud, envious, puffed up, impatient, unstable, false, venomous, suspicious, malicious, disdainful, bitter, disinclined to service, distrustful, selfish, ambitious, and haughty.
–Martin Luther–

HILARIOUS.

Because thou art lukewarm,
and neither cold nor hot,
I will spue thee out of my mouth.
–Revelation 3:16 (KJV)–

As lukewarm water turns the stomach, and provokes to a vomit, lukewarm professors turn the heart of Christ against them. He is sick of them…They may call their lukewarmness charity, meekness, moderation…it is nauseous to Christ.
–Matthew Henry–

Seize the prophets of Baal;
don’t let any of them get away!
–1 Kings 18:40 (GNT)–

—

For Great Revivals, We Must Have Evangelists

God had an Elijah for Mount Carmel. He had a Jonah for Nineveh. The Lord Jesus Himself was the evangelist at Sychar in Samaria, but a saved and Spirit-filled convert helped to collect the crowd and do personal work. At Pentecost God had Peter standing up with the eleven to preach, and others of the disciples, no doubt, preached. In the great revival by the River Jordan where such multitudes went to hear John the Baptist condemn sin and announce the Saviour who would save all who would repent and trust Him, we cannot ignore the preacher himself, the Spirit-filled evangelist, John the Baptist. God has always used evangelists, that is, men who are especially anointed and dedicated leaders in great revivals.

It has been so in modern times. You cannot have a Reformation without a Luther and a Calvin. You could never have had the great Wesleyan revival without a John and Charles Wesley and Whitefield. We would never have had Charles G. Finney revivals except for Finney himself, the Spirit-filled, mighty prophet of God who did the work of an evangelist. The Moody revivals are inseparable from Moody himself. And the Billy Sunday revivals cannot be imagined without Billy Sunday. Other great revivals have been led by mighty evangelists. They had their weaknesses, but they were called of God to the work of evangelism, and dedicated and anointed for that work.

God has given to the church men for different purposes. “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers” (Eph. 4:11). After apostles and prophets, and before pastors and teachers in importance, God gave evangelists. There are some who would like to do without evangelists, some who would scorn them, curb them, berate them. But all such sin against God and sin against His holy Word. He has set the work of an evangelist in the body of Christ. These evangelists are not only called to give a gospel message to the unsaved, but, according to the Scripture they are “for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry,” to the end that the body shall make increase (Eph. 4:12-16).

The church is a sick church when it does not have evangelists. People will not be taught personal soul-winning as they should be and edified and built up for the ministry God requires of every Christian without the work of Spirit-filled, full-time called and anointed evangelists. The churches will lose the revival flavor God intended them to have if they do not have evangelists. It is true that some pastors will win souls, but they will be fewer and fewer as we have fewer evangelists to set the pace. Without evangelists we may not expect the great revivals God wants us to have. All the efforts to put evangelists into a minor place, to rob them of influence, circumscribe their preaching, and keep them out of the churches is working against God’s harvest, working against great revivals.

A widely-known prophetic teacher was called to a principal city, the capital of a state, to lead in a city-wide “revival campaign.” His sermons on “The Mark of a Beast,” on “The Coming Antichrist,” “The Tribulation Period,” etc., did not bring about a revival. They brought division and strife among pastors, and the result not only failed to be a revival, but it greatly hindered any future effort to get Christians united for a city-wide revival effort in that city.

A blessed preacher and Bible teacher has recently been invited to hold a city-wide revival campaign. Here in recent years a number of great revivals have been given by the Lord, and it was my privilege to lead in one such campaign with many hundreds of conversions and the city profoundly moved. The preacher now selected, a greatly-loved friend of mine, is not an evangelist. He has never claimed to be an evangelist. That is not his calling, not his anointing. He will preach good messages, but they will have no great revival unless his ministry is entirely transformed. God does not give great revivals without evangelists.

In another city known to me, good pastors got together to have a “revival campaign.” But so there would be no hard preaching against sin, no issue raised about movies, dances, lodges and other worldliness, they asked a good pastor to lead in the “revival campaign.” He preached good sermons. But he did not take the time for preparation of Christians, preaching against sin, getting them to pray and win souls, as Moody and Torrey and Billy Sunday and other blessed evangelists have always done. He simply preached sermons to the unsaved, good, sound sermons on the blood of Christ. But not many unsaved attended the services, there was a notable lack of real conviction, and pastors were disappointed because there was no genuine revival. There are a lot of good preachers, sound preachers, devoted preachers who are not evangelists. They are not called to be evangelists, not anointed to be evangelists.

It would be foolish for anybody to suppose that a group of men could select some man more to their liking than D. L. Moody, and put him in Moody’s place in the Moody revivals and still have the same results. God chooses evangelists and anoints them. And the best of them have learned by much waiting on God and in much experience how to promote a revival, how to get Christians to forsake their sins and pray and win souls, how to get sinners to attend the meeting, how to get them convicted and how to get them saved.

It would be as foolish to set out to change the whole plan of Christian churches and say that we would do away with the local congregations called churches and the office of a pastor, as it is to try to do away with the office of an evangelist. The evangelist is named before the pastor, has a more important role in carrying out the Great Commission. It is sin, it is rebellion against the New Testament plan, it is substituting human wisdom for the divine order when we try to get along without full-time, anointed, dedicated, Spirit-filled evangelists. If we want revivals, we must pray God to send the laborers and particularly that He will fit each one for the task God has for him to do. If we want to have a great time of revival so that every principal city and town in America will be shaken, then we must pray that God will raise up evangelists fit for the job and with the holy oil of God upon them, the breath of Heaven, the fullness of the Spirit.

—

Dr. John R. Rice, We Can Have Revival Now! (SLP, 1950), pp. 197-198.