cast.sheep said:
brainisengaged said:
Boomer said:
I went to Youth Conference back in the mid-90s. Jack Schaap preached a "sermon" while wearing an outfit made out of sackcloth (supposedly made for him by his wife). Schaap told us he would wear that outfit as he lamented and prayed for America. Then he took some passage out of Jeremiah or Isaiah (Can't remember which) and predicted that Russia was going to take America down.
His text had some mention of Babylon (America in his imagination) falling in the space of one hour. So Schaap told us that the Russians had some kind of missile that they could launch over the North Pole that could get to America in 60 minutes . . . and it would blow up the whole country.
Many of the kids in our youth group were scared to death that "The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!"
I had been thinking about going to HAC at the time. That sermon was just one more nail in the coffin of that notion.
That reminded me...he seemed to like to scare us. Make us writhe in our seats with graphic stories of the gang rape of an innocent little boy sent to boarding school, make us listen to tales of horrors of killings of animals and torture of people...and there was a time when a video was produced about how Muslims are overtaking the world because their birth rate is something like three or four times that of non-Muslims...I remember being so depressed at the inevitability of that. It may be true, but a huge big video shown on the double I-mag screens complete with totally ominous "doom music" is really pretty dour, heavy and pessimistic stuff. But cheer up! I found a penny! God loves me after all...
Times sure were weird down in the rabbit hole.
We used to call that his "shock preaching". JS did it all the time.
When getting ready for church I would often say to myself: "Time to go get beat up again." That was EXACTLY how I felt about going to church. I NEVER looked forward to it. It was just my duty. Period. And there were others that just LOVED it. Sometimes I would wonder what was wrong with me. Now I wonder what was wrong with THEM. Haha!
I can identify with the "time to get beat up again"... Tom Brennan pretty much summed up that former church with: "Bless God, if we're not going soul-winning 25 hours a day, we're not right with God". That pretty much sums it up. Give all you can, and go all you can... and whatever you did was never "enough". If you didn't go out at one of the church set times, you were lazy and wicked. If you went out at one of the times, that was acceptable, but you should really go out another time. Then, if you didn't stay out until you "caught one", that showed the lack of compassion, and so on.
The whole "quicker prayerism" thing was making me sick - my kids could see the hypocrisy as well. The church saw lots of people "saved" each week, but the church didn't seem to grow very much (no kidding, with people just wanting us off of their porch so they could get on with what they were doing before we interrupted them).
I was crushed down, thinking I was about the worst Christian ever. I thought of myself as one of the "whosoever will" crowd - not anyone God really wanted, but He was promise bound to take anyone who believed, and I had.
When we (I) finally had the courage to leave, we found a Bible-preaching church, and it was amazing how the Holy Spirit could use messages that were based on the Word He inspired instead of merely the preacher's opinion. And then, there was the first time the preacher showed us that we were each, individually, precious to God. I was overcome with the goodness of God, and broke down and wept. Yes, God did want me, Walt ___, with all my faults and failures! Amazing love!
Anyway, didn't mean to get off on that, but I can so much identify with the "time to get beat up".
