MINNESOTA BAPTIST ASSOCIATION

Restoring the Joy of Salvation!

by Dr. Lance T. Ketchum, MBA State Missionary

Cry Out to God

IV. We need to cry out to God for direction from His Word of restoration. There are certain things Wilderness Christians frequently do not want to know; yet they are essential to the restoration of joy.

"O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles." (Psalm 43:3)

They do not want to know definitive doctrinal truth. This type of preaching is often called "legalistic."

"The most comfortable type of religion is always a vague religion, nebulous and uncertain, cluttered up with forms and ritual . . . There is nothing so uncomfortable as clear-cut Biblical truths that demand decisions." (Spiritual Depression by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, page 44)

They do not want to know that the majority of their miserable existence is due to their own unbelief.

"Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief." (Hebrews 4:6)

They do not want to know that there is no difference between sins in God's eyes. Therefore, they tend to dismiss the so-called minor sins of omission and the minor sins of the heart as inconsequential to God and to their fellowship with Him.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." (Matthew 23:23)