Sunday, 23rd September 2007
My dad and several others had warned me to be careful not to emphasise the teachings of Pastor Prince too much, because ultimately, he is only God's messenger and not the Message.
The devil can pervert something that is good into something bad, and I have to constantly be on guard that I do not hero-worship Pastor Prince or make him into my idol.
That is why I have started to listen to sermons by Peter Youngren from Canada, Andrew Wommack from USA and Age Aleskjaer from Norway.
And I thank God that the very same consistent message of God's abundant grace and the finished work of Jesus on the cross come across from all these anointed man of God.
By the very same token, we as Methodists should also not elevate our founder John Wesley above the message of Jesus Christ. I like what one cell leader in PLMC told me: we are first Christians, and then Methodists second.
John Wesley may have been an Arminian, but George Whitefield (another Methodist pastor) was a Calvinist.
When a person insists that a Singaporean Methodist *must* be Arminian because the roots of Methodism in Singapore is traced back to John Wesley, it sounds very much like a Jew insisting that the offspring of Messianic Jews *must* be physically circumcised because their forefathers were circumcised or that Jesus Himself (the founder of Christianity) was circumcised.
Sorry, but no can do :-)
Denominations are after all man-made. When we go to heaven, it does not matter one single bit whether we are Methodist, or Lutheran, or Baptist or Anglican. What matters is whether we are followers of Jesus Christ or not.
Then, there are yet others who insists that good Methodists should study and understand the life of John Wesley. For other religions like Buddhism and Islam that may be nobly so, but as Christians, our example should be none other than Jesus Christ Himself and not the founder of any of the denominational sects!
Rather than study the life of John Wesley, or Martin Luther, or Kenneth Hagin, or Joseph Prince, for that matter, we should spend time getting to know the very Author of the Book of Life Himself and not the vessels that He has been using down through the ages.
Let's focus on the Message and not the messenger. Amen?
4 comments:
Hi Mal, Stanley here ...
I once had a customer who, after seeing that I was playing Pastor Prince's sermon dvd on my portable dvd player at the stall, asked me,"So, you are a follower of Joseph Prince?"
I answered her,"No, I am a follower of Jesus Christ." It turns out that she was an ex-NCC member who left around 1998 which was about the time when Pastor Prince started preaching grace fully.
Many people have a misconception that NCC members are "worshiping" Pastor Prince because of the humorous and charismatic way he preaches. This may be true for a portion of the membership as evidenced by the shorter queues whenever Pastor Prince is away and not preaching.
However, many members (including me) continue to attend NCC because of the gospel of grace that is being preached. Even when Pastor Prince is away and the assistant pastors take over, the message preached is still consistently about the finished work of Jesus on the cross.
In fact, personally, I find that Pastor Joshua Lee's messages are sometimes even deeper (from a bible study point of view) than Pastor Prince's.
A lot of those people who kindly "warn" us about hero worshiping Pastor Prince have not listened to even one sermon by him, and discover for themselves that the star attraction is not the preacher, but the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ!
Praise Jesus! It's all about Him! Infact, all our pastors are anointed amen?! ;)
Wow brother and sister i totally amen with you.
All the pastor in new creation church under the annointing and leadership of Lord Jesus is preaching very good message of God
And we should not argue abt who sect or denomination or which preacher is correct. Instead we should ask our heart "DO YOU BELIEVE IN JESUS?"
God bless all of you!
AMEN!
I completely agree that Jesus, and not the messengers, should be the reason why we go to Church.
We shouldn't go to Church to seek a pastor. We go to Church to seek His Kingdom, to grow in His Word.
I feel that all the pastors in NCC are annointed and despite having different styles, they all bring back the same msg of Grace to the congregation.
Jesus is the Word. Jesus is Grace... And Jesus is Truth.
May we grow in Him and not in His vessels.
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