When the Church was Saving Souls

Romans 15:14-22

I grew up in a Church that was all about bringing people to God through Jesus Christ. The Church attendance in the 11:00am meeting was about fifty people on a real good Sunday. Anyone who had a decent understanding of the Bible, and were able, were put into the ministry to save souls. About ten people would routinely go to an outside public place, with an amplifier and microphone, horns, and sometimes a bass drum. There was singing from the Church’s songbook and a short Salvation message. Being a new Christian, they let me retell my testimony of how I came to Jesus. There was also a bar ministry and a tavern ministry on the weekend evening hours. Things began to change as city ordinances began to prohibit the Gospel of Christ. I saw the zeal of saving souls and I saw the ministry being shut down. I remember one Sunday the group was discussing where we could go to minister, if anywhere.

The soul saving ministry at the City Park was banned by city ordinance, the ministry in poverty-stricken apartments were banned by management, and the ministry on city street corners were banned by other city ordinances. The ministry to save lost souls was shut down. That was around 1981. As of today, that once zealous Church is now an organization like the Red Cross or Goodwill. It lost its roots in the Gospel of Christ. I’m a Baby Boomer, born in 1959, so I witnessed the drastic change of the church. I saw the days when the zeal to save souls was strong and I see its steep decline into the dead pool.

It was immediately after WW2 when the world reorganized into one global order. I was born about 13 years later. The purpose of the international cooperation was to prevent any more world wars from happening. As of today, they are still struggling. I was 22 or so when the ministry of the Church was closed down. As soon as the new world order formed, they made quick work of dismantling the foundation of Christ’s Church. The new global alliance is founded on the internal government of the mark of the beast. “It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander His name and His dwelling place and those who live in heaven. It was given power to wage war against God’s Holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.” Revelation 13:6-7

The ministry of Paul was to bring the salvation of God to as many people as possible through Jesus Christ. From Christ’s time up to the formation of the new world order, in 1946 or so, people were coming to Christ in mass numbers. The Gospel reached global proportions. After 1946, there was a huge decline in the Church built on Jesus Christ. The churches of today with huge congregations and wealth are not the same Church as in Paul’s day, not even the same Church that I grew up in. Paul explains his ministry in this section of Romans.

Paul felt that the Christians in Rome were full of goodness, knowledge, and competent to share the Gospel of Christ. When a person lives for Jesus Christ, there’s a thirst to bring the Salvation message to others. Paul considered it his duty to bring Jesus Christ to those who didn’t have a clue of who the Son of God was. Paul desired them to be sanctified through the Holy Spirit. His glory was in his service to God through Christ Jesus. Paul says this, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—” He was living in the Spirt of God. He proclaimed the Gospel of Christ everywhere he went, that is what he lived for, his life was in Christ.

“I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, 
filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 
Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again,
because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. 

He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, 
so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 
I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished
through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— 
by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. 

So, from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. 
It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known,
so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. 
Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.”
This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.”
Romans 15:14-22

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“….to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,“
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:11