I just finished listening to two messages by Francis Schaeffer which I wanted to share with all of you. They are well worth your time. The first, “The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way” is a convicting, encouraging reminder of our need for the power of the Holy Spirit to do any of “God’s Work.” It is very close to our heart-beat as a church for our Sunday night prayer meetings, and also to how I think the Lord is leading us as a Monday Night group. Download it and then come talk to me about what you think about it all and what the Lord speaks to you through it. The second lecture, “Intellectual Proof and Faith” is long, but so worth the time. In it Schaeffer covers a variety of topics, like the the relationship between our intellect, reason, and faith; the way our thinking interacts with our believing God; how these things relate to real times of trial in our lives; and how our daily living proves out what we actually believe. So good. Click on the titles below to go to the L’Abri Ideas Library download page for each one.
- The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way (68 min.)
- Intellectual Proof and Faith(93 Min.)
And here’s a taste of the first message:
“…The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually or corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them…If we do not want to waste our lives, then we must understand the importance of having a humble, quiet heart and the power of the Holy Spirit….Is it not amazing, though we know the power of the Holy Spirit can be ours, we still ape the world’s wisdom, trust its form of publicity, its noise, and imitate its ways in manipulating men! If we try to influence the world by using its methods, we are doing the Lord’s work in the flesh… The key question is this: as we work for God in this fallen world, what are we trusting in? To trust in particular methods is to copy the world and to remove ourselves from the tremendous promise that we have something different — the power of the Holy Spirit rather than the power of human technique.”
(PS: While you’re at the L’Abri website, I encourage you to browse the audio titles they have available. There’s truckloads of very helpful stuff, especially for those of you in intellectually challenging environments.)