As a church we had an evangelistic book-table in the city centre of Sheffield recently. If I had doubts about how lost our nation was, then they were all dispelled after meeting so many godless and lost people. Two things were apparent in all the people we met:
1). We must be committed to evangelising the lost in the West.
2). Many professing Christians have little idea concerning sound doctrine or an understanding about the doctrine of the church.
As reformed presbyterians, I believe, and with all humility, that we have real answers for the spiritual condition of the West. I hope that the title of this blog post is not trite, but I wanted to convey that we desperately need churches which are both "serious-minded" and "warm-hearted". Hence I wrote "reformed with a smile". I have actually borrowed this from someone else whom I heard using it, but it is a good slogan, I think. Furthermore, as Cornelius Van Til so ably explains in his book "Christian Apologetics", it is only a reformed worldview which is able to biblically defend the gospel in the face of hedonism, atheism, buddhism, hinduism, materialism or anything else.
The Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
This is not the time to shrink back. May the reformed section of the church advance, with godly confidence, because the church needs help to recover sound doctrine again. We need to serve the Lord with joyful zeal. May God help us in this overwhelming task. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ, Amen!
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