"Just Do It"

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place
Pulpit Series Volume 17 Issue 14 04/15/2007

John 21 in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples didn’t know it was Him. Jesus said to them, Lads, catch anything? They answered, No. And he said to them, cast the net on the right side of the ship, and you shall find. They cast the net and now they weren’t able to draw it in, because of the large catch. John said to Peter, it’s the Lord....

This was familiar… it brought back memories of days gone by….

Luke 5:4-6 Jesus told Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon said, Master, we’ve toiled all the night and have caught nothing: nevertheless at your word I will let down the net. And when they did that, they caught such a great number of fish that net began to break. They called their partners in the other ship to come and help them. They filled both ships to the point they began to sink.

Luke 5:10-11 Jesus said to Simon, Don’t be afraid from now on you shall catch men (fishers of men). And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed Him.

This miracle took place at the first encounter with the disciples and three years later in the first showing of the resurrected Christ. I believe it is far more significant than we may first imagine.

Two similar events: identical requests made by Christ, identical responses by the disciples, and the exact same results.

Now lets look at this event…

Did Jesus tell the disciples to try a different fishing spot? No.Did Jesus tell Peter to use a different net? No.Did Jesus tell the disciples to use a different boat? No.Jesus told the disciples to throw the net on the other side of the boat. Same sea, same boat, same net, just a different side.Now, I’m pretty sure they had cast their net on the “other side” of the boat before. I mean, come on? After a whole night of fishing to no avail, there is a really good chance that they had already tried this “other” side of the boat. Yet Christ was asking them to trust Him and do what didn’t make a lot of sense… and cast the net on the other side.

Think about you being out there - all night long. and nada, nothing, zip, zero catch. And you know from experience how long that night can be when you catch nothing. You thank God that its over and your heading back to shore… the last thing you need is some shore walker asking if you caught anything let alone telling you to try the other side of the boat.

Listen, the fact that Peter was unable to catch any fish had nothing to do with any of the surrounding circumstances.

There was nothing the disciples could blame their failure on.

They were doing what came natural, they were doing their own thing! Life it self can often hinder our success. Stuff happens.

I believe Jesus was trying to teach the disciples then and now, that it's not about boats, nets and lakes; it's about living our lives completely following the directions that He gives us.No matter how illogical. It was Christ's direction and Peter obeying it that brought Peter his success.
Now get this. Peter’s boat couldn't have been that big. It was a fishing boat after all... not an Ocean Liner. Which means those fish were probably down there the whole time.

I believe that God in order to stay true to His Holy nature is forced to withhold blessings from us until we OBEY His voice, actually DOING what He requires of us.

I find it very interesting that although the Roman Catholic Church has set the Virgin Mary in a high and lofty place, they neglect the one and only command she ever gave.

They’d do well to heed John 2:5 Jesus’ mother said, Whatever he tells you to do, do it.

OBEYING CHRIST IS EVERYTHING!

Luke 6:46-49 Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to me, and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you to who he is like: He is like a man which built a house, digging deep and laying the foundation on a rock: and when the flood waters rose the stream beat violently against that house, but didn’t shake it: because it was built on a rock. Jesus went on to say, he that hears my word and does not do it, is like a man built a house without a foundation, the flood stream beat against that house, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.

John 15:14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command

Let’s go back to the basics…. Mark 12:30-31 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment. The second is, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There’s no other commandment greater.

So it is back in your ball park. What are you going to do with this message.
Are you going to keep fishing on the wrong side of the boat? How long before that gets old? May the church get what Niki promotes…. JUST DO IT!

"Not Your Typical Easter Message"

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place,

Pulpit Series Volume 17 Issue 13 04/08/2007

For the most part this will be the same but then again I held back because we were in someone else’s house….But this is our house of worship and we long for an intimate time with our God.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Psalms 126:5

Sowing comes before reaping! Tears come before joy! Death comes before Resurrection! Repentance before Revival!

As a Pentecostal I remember a day when didn’t apologize for our zeal. I remember a day when we believed it only right to be passionate about our relationship with God! For sure we dwelt on the other side of the theological tracks, but the glory of the Lord was in our midst.

Jeremiah 2:13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and built cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Much of what we experience or see today is artificial, fleshy, and repulsively stagnant. We have no distinguishing marks of servant hood on us. We have compromised, become religious, and worldly…. We do not flow with living waters.

I long, how I long for a church life, that includes nights of prayer, followed by signs and wonders and divers miracles.

I long for the church to freely operate in the genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I am desperate for the time when we weren’t clock watchers and our meetings lasted for hours, saturated with holy power!

We should be moved to tears with heartfelt sorrow because so many of our own children are turning a deaf ear to the Gospel, willingly to risk hell in the process.

The true believer:
Should be grieved at the worldliness of the Church.
Should be grieved at the blindness of the Church.
Should be grieved at the tolerance of sin in the Church.
Should be grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church.

I am not saying the church doesn’t pray however much of what we pray for reads more like a shopping list than intimate conversation with Almighty God!

The true believer is known in Hell! Acts 19:13-16 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon themselves to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We demand you by Jesus whom Paul preaches…. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, so they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

We should be disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil in this sin-mad society.

Many gathered here today have no heart-sickness for the former glory of the Church because, well basically because you’ve never known what true revival is.

Where are those who’ll allow their hearts to be stirred for salvation and soul winning?
100 years ago, a series of boisterous revival meetings in a converted stable on Azusa Street launched a global movement that overcame differences in class, gender /race to unite around the belief that the Holy Spirit still works miracles.

Today, there are about 600 million Pentecostal and charismatic Christians whose roots are in the Azusa Street revival. The pre-revival meetings were nights filled with public repentance. We sit in our churches void of the living waters because we are content rather to drink from our man-made cisterns.

For the most part we sleep easy at night while this generation is going to hell in a hand basket. They are being swallowed up swiftly into the eternal darkness. Shame on us! This same Jesus who we celebrate today - wept over the lost.

He was aware how near their judgment was. We are not.

The Apostle Paul sent a tear-stained letter to the Philippian saints, writing: For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Notice that he did not say they are enemies of Christ; rather that they live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

I tell you with tears, they live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Powerful words, words that strike fear into the heart of man. Enemies of the cross of Christ? You gotta wonder who he’s talking about.

I think of people like Hitler. Problem is, Paul isn’t speaking about Hitler. I think of those who commit such horrible crimes that to speak of them is difficult. However, Paul is not talking about those people either.

Listen, and weep this blessed Easter morning For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Paul goes on to say Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.

Enemies because they LIVE IN A WAY that diminishes the redemptive values of the cross. If we believers trust in anything other than the saving work of Christ, we are guilty of living like enemies of the cross of Christ. Paul, knew that earthly things cannot save us. For him the death and resurrection was everything.

But friends, it doesn’t matter how well you adhere to this law or that law…without the saving work of Christ, His death and His resurrection you can’t be saved. Galatians 2:21 if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.Fellow believers, it is us Paul is talking to… we are the ones who LIVE like the enemies of the cross of Christ. Listen to what Jesus said, When the householder has risen up and shut the door, you’ll stand outside and knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us. He’ll answer you, I do not know where you come from. Then you’ll begin to say, We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you, depart from me, all you workers of iniquity!
Jesus condemns all who ate and drank at His table, all those who sat under his teaching, because it was not an intimate relationship it was casual - all too casual.

Jesus isn’t warning wicked men here, this is aimed at us!

We are being warned to take our discipleship seriously. We are warned not to neglect co-crucifixion. That is we need to die with Christ so we can be raised with Him!

Why are we so reluctant to place the cross at the center of our lives? I Corinthians 1:18 the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but to us who are saved it is the power of God. Rejoice in the cross of Christ!

Is there a better time to get right in our thinking about the cross?
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

"Community Good Friday Service"

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at the Osoyoos Baptist Church
Good Friday - Joint Service 04/06/2007

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Psalms 126:5

This is the divine edict. This is more than preaching with zeal. This is more than scholarly exposition. This is more than delivering sermons of homiletical perfection.

Whether preacher or pew dweller we should be appalled at the shrinking authority of the Church in this present hour.

We should cringe with sorrow because so many are turning a deaf ear to the Gospel, willingly to risk hell in the process.

Our heart is often crushed but for the wrong reasons, (selfish). The true believer should be heartsick, and grieved at the worldliness of the Church. The true believer is grieved at the blindness of the Church, grieved at the corruption in the Church, grieved at the tolerance of sin in the Church, grieved at the prayerlessness in the Church.

The true believer is disturbed that the corporate prayer of the Church no longer pulls down the strongholds of the devil.

The true believer is embarrassed that Church folks no longer cry in their despair before a devil-ridden, sin-mad society, Why could we not cast him out? Matthew 17:19 Many of us have no heart-sickness for the former glory of the Church because we have never known what true revival is.

It should bother us that when the church asks for testimonies we hear about something God did 20 or 30 years ago. My understanding is that God is still alive and active.

Where are those who weep for revival?

Revivals like the 1751 Baptist Church Revival brought by an obscure Connecticut preacher, whose heart was stirred for salvation and soul winning under the ministry of George Whitefield.

The immediate results were astonishing for the frontier era. More than 900 baptized in the first 3 years. It is estimated that the Sandy Creek Revival directly resulted in the birthing of over 1000 Baptist churches. Where are those who’ll allow their hearts to be stirred for salvation and soul winning?

One hundred years ago, a series of boisterous revival meetings in a converted stable on Azusa Street launched a global movement that overcame differences in class, gender and race to unite around the belief that the Holy Spirit still works miracles.

Today, there are about 600 million Pentecostal and charismatic Christians whose roots are in the Azusa Street revival. They make up the fastest-growing segment of Christianity, thriving especially in the Southern Hemisphere, with their beliefs having an impact on nearly every Christian denomination.

Where are those who still believe that the Holy Spirit still works miracles.

We sleep easy at night while this generation is going to hell in a hand basket. They are being swallowed up swiftly into the eternal darkness of hell. Shame on us!

This same Jesus who we celebrate today - He, Himself wept over the lost.


He was aware how near their judgment was. We are not.

We are clueless, and ignorant. The Apostle Paul sent a tear-stained letter to the Philippian saints, writing: For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. Notice that he does not say they are enemies of Christ; they are, rather, enemies of the cross of Christ.

Enemies because they deny or diminish the redemptive values of the cross. There are many like this today, even among us this Easter week-end.

As a Pentecostal I remember a day when we dwelt across the theological tracks, but the glory of the Lord was in our midst.

Regrettably sad, no rather shameful is the fact that we have no distinguishing marks on us today… we have compromised, we have become religious.

I long, how I long for a church life, that included nights of prayer, followed by signs and wonders and divers miracles.

I long for the church to freely operate in the genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I am desperate for a time when we were not clock watchers, and our meetings lasted for hours, saturated with holy power!

I blush to think that our children know nothing of such power!

For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

We have just heard powerful words. Words that stand to strike fear into the heart of man.
When you hear Paul speak of the enemies of the cross of Christ…it is a very difficult thing not to try and picture who he is talking about. Enemies of the cross of Christ…it makes me think of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party. Their treatment of the Jewish people…the death camps…. There is only one problem with that.

The Apostle Paul isn’t speaking about this type of people. He’s not railing against those who commit such heinous crimes that to speak of them is difficult. “Amazing Race” contestants stopped at Auschwitz concentration camp, where some 1.5 million people died. The contestants were so moved they wept.

They wept as I weep this morning - this blessed Easter Morning.

I weep because the enemies of the cross are not who you may think.

It ought to shock you to hear Paul say, For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.The Apostle speaks of other preachers that have come to Philippi… claiming the faith of Jesus, yet teaching it is needful to adhere to Jewish purity laws in order to be saved.

Paul, was confident that earthly things cannot save us. He knew that…without the saving work of Jesus Christ suffering, dying, rising again and ascending into Heaven…we could not be saved!

Without the cross you can’t be saved.My dear friends, we are in grave danger if we fail to see Jesus Christ and His atoning work on the cross as the only means to our Salvation. If we begin to trust in ourselves or in humanity for our salvation, we become enemies of the cross of Christ.

It is possible to do this while still claiming a relationship with Jesus.

When the householder has risen up and shut the door, you will stand outside and knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us. He’ll answer you, I do not know where you come from. Then you will begin to say, We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you, depart from me, all you workers of iniquity!

What we see in this passage is Jesus condemning those who ate and drank at the table with Him, those who sat under his teaching, but it was all to casual. The important word…the word which all of this hinges upon is the word casually.

They know of Jesus, know who He is and what He is about, but treat their relationship casually.So we begin to see what all of this is about. It is not the condemnation of wicked men…rather it is aimed at the average and ordinary person. It is aimed at us. We are being warned to place the cross of Christ at the center of our lives…we are being told to take our discipleship seriously.

We are warned not to neglect co-crucifixion. That is we need to die with Christ so we can be raised with Him! Perhaps not your typical Good Friday message … But then again is there a better day to get right in our thinking about the cross of Christ. It ought to be at the center of our lives.

I make no apology for my boldness - Why would we not want to try and be the best disciples we can be? Rejoice in the fact that we are servants of the cross. May we become more and more who we are called by God to be.

"Imitate VS Partake" II

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place
Pulpit Series Volume 17 Issue 12 04/01/2007

Christ and all true believers, are one. They constitute His body. They are, in the language of Adam, bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh. Most Christians have never had so much as an inkling of what that really means. May the Holy Spirit enable us not only to understand, but to realize our oneness with Christ.

One responsibility of the Holy Spirit is to graft the believer into Christ, as a gardener would graft the branch of a tree into the main body of another. By one Spirit are you all baptized into one body I Corinthians 12:13

Paul dwells on this grafting process in Romans 11, where he speaks of the breaking off of Israel from the Root, Christ, and the grafting in of the Gentiles, to become partakers of the Root. True conversion in its deepest aspect is just that.

A grafting into Christ. We must be rooted into the very Trunk of the Eternal Godhead. We do not simply strive to imitate a Divine Leader; exceeding great and precious promises have been left to us whereby we are made partakers of the Divine Nature II Peter 1:4

The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God, heirs and joint-heirs with Christ Romans 8:17

In the Greek, the much-loved John 3:16, conveys a very different meaning from our English versions. It is not simply he that believes in Christ, but rather he that believes into Him, who shall have eternal life. Now this grafting necessitates some cutting, of course. Don’t pull away from God when this takes place. If we won’t die to the natural, how can we expect to live in the supernatural?

Paul puts it like this: If we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall also live with Him. The branch which is grafted into a tree of another species, must die to the old life. It must now depend on the roots of the new trunk. It receives a new life. Its relation with the old is severed so utterly, and so completely, that for it, the old no longer exists.

A seems that the all those who have truly lived in and for Christ have with few exceptions experienced what has been called "a second work of grace." There came a time when they longed for a fuller participation in the life of God. The facts indicate that they usually wander for some years in the wilderness of a divided affection before entering into the land of milk and honey. It is the Holy Spirit who works in the believer this conviction of the sin of a divided heart. The believer comes to realize that he is crucifying Christ afresh by his lust for pleasure, his greed for excitement, and his passion for self. He sees that though he has been rooted into Christ, yet, he has been drawing more from the old roots.

He begins to understand Romans 7. He, too, would be free. The secret cry of his heart also becomes: O wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death?

This marks a crisis. The hour has come for a fresh revelation of Christ's redemptive work. The believer's eyes are opened to the deeper aspects of the Cross of Christ. The Cross is unveiled. He begins to see that unless Self is crucified, Christ is. It is all the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not natural for a man to turn against himself and to begin to hate that which by nature he loves.
But He can’t bring us to the place called Calvary-without our consent. We must be willing to die. Romans 6 How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer in sin? Don’t you know that as many of us who are baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?... We are buried with Him into death... We have been planted together in the likeness of His death... our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.... In that He (Christ ) died, He died to sin once... Likewise reckon also yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ

Oh! that the Church might catch a fresh vision of Calvary and come to appreciate the deeper aspects of the Cross! The Church, said the great French preacher, Lacordaire, was born crucified and until, like her Divine Head, she falls into the ground and dies, she abides alone, the life-giving streams cannot break forth from her bosom.

Oh that Christians might be brought down into the grave, and then brought up in resurrection power! Be clear about one thing: Christ does not come into our lives to patch up the "old man."
This is where too many Christians get "hung up." They think it was Christ's mission "to make them better." There is absolutely no Biblical ground for any such idea.

Jesus has no intention of pouring His new wine into old wine-skins. He said that unless we renounce ourselves utterly, we cannot be His disciple. Christ does not come to simply straighten out the "old life." He never promised to just make us better. We must die and be born again. Christ takes us down into the grave, the "old life" is utterly terminated, then he partakes of His resurrection.

Christ our Lord imparts to us an entirely "new life." Christ the Vine, we the branches. He is the Head, we form the body. Paul again and again points to co-crucifixion. We shall live with Christ, if we die wiith Him. We shall be with Him in the likeness of His resurrection, if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death. We shall reign with Him, if we suffer with Him."

The Cross kills. The one who goes to Calvary soon discovers that a hidden fire burns within his bones. The old "self-life," so resentful, so fussy, so greedy, and so touchy, so haughty and so vain, can no more resist the impact of Calvary, than some frail break the onrush of a great tidal wave.

The Lord’s crucifixion was not mere dying. Rocks exploded, the earth quaked when in that hour of triumph the Son of Man cried out with "a loud voice", "It is finished." His final cry shook the world When the centurion saw that so He cried out, Truly this Man was the Son of God. Mark 15:39

The "old life" brought under the dynamic of the Cross, is doomed to die. Resurrection life takes its place. Little wonder the Apostle cried out God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom I am crucified to the world, and the world to me. We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God.