If you love the truth, Sermons in Times of Persecution, are about as pure truth as you will find. In this sermon by John Welwood, is a message you WILL NOT hardly ever hear …even in the Reformed Churches here in the West. Here is a link to the sermon…John Welwood, Sermons in Times of Persecution, IV, 1Pet14:18 It is a MUST read, people of God! The Lord bless you.
Our generation has been so propagandized with the prosperity gospel, that even we in the reformed Churches think ourselves immune from it… while we look on men like Joel Ostein with disdain. But materialism, like a plague…infects even the best reformed Churches in the West. We, in the West, eagerly focus on the increase of knowledge in reformed truth…but few readily embrace the school of adversity. Samuel Rutherford, said, in one of his Letters, he would rather have his sorrow than the laughter of the 14 Prelates.
Here is a portion of John Welwood’s sermon, found on p. 363.
“I warrant there be many saying that “they shall never be moved.” Many say in their hearts with wicked men, “I shall not be moved, for I shall never be in adversity.” But stay till God arise and plead, and He shall bring adversity on those “that are at ease in Zion and trust in the mountains of Samaria,” and can carry handsomely in troubles. “These shall go into captivity with the first that go into captivity.”
Note his comment, “and can carry handsomely in troubles.” To understand his meaning, look at the text he cites just before he makes this remark.
In the Heavenly Man, by Brother Yun, if I recollect, the underground Chinese Church warned us in the Western Church that our riches are weakening us. I remember at one point in this book that the Western Church had asked the underground Chinese Church about their seminaries where they train their leaders. The reply surprised the inquisitors. The Chinese noted, that they did not have Seminaries like us in the West…they train their leaders in the school of adversity. Whereas it seems to me, we in the West, LOOK DOWN on a brother of low degree…he is most often seen as the least of the brethren…he is sidelined…shunned…neglected…often it seems he is automatically categorized as bordering on worse than an infidel, because he does not provide for his own (paying no mind to the word’s of Jesus in Mk 10:29). If a man of means and wealth (not necessarily a Bill Gates, but one with a thriving business, a nice home and car, a well dressed large family, etc.) walks in a Western Church, he receives all sorts of attention.
RAIN MAKER (1Kings 8:35, 36) 