Pastor Green I have struggled with reading the Psalms on my own. Your teaching has opened my eyes and I have learned so much from you. I am only on Psalm 38 but I plan to listen to all of them. I take notes and I journal. Thank you again. I’m in Dayton Ohio but would love to visit your church.
God Bless You and this ministry.
Bobbie Murphy
Have appreciate you. Thank you so much!
This is no bland, indifferent lecture such as I used to hear in the OPC: Pastor Green is deeply attuned to the reality and pain of betrayal and that Satan creeps into even the covenant-keeping House of God, even the "Orthodox" Presbyterian "Church," even OPCs operating under the name of the Khrist Kovenant Kountry Klub. Providentially, he preached this sermon originally just as I was experiencing betrayal myself in the KKKK.
As always, this strengthening and encouraging sermon full of clarity is not anything I ever have heard nor would expect to hear in the superficial spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs and least of all from the cold, mechanical, academically detached "Orthodox" Presbyterian country club. Pastor Green is a rare treasure and a throwback to an age of preaching that has largely passed and been replaced by emotionally manipulative entertainment.
Not a sermon I would ever expect to hear anywhere else
I'm not aware of any church in the spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs, and certainly not the "Orthodox" Presbyterian country club, that ever preaches to the discouraged, downtrodden, and suffering--everyone in either these rock-concert venues or cold lecture-halls seems happy and superficial. This preaching is why I love Don Green's pulpit and this church.
I have never in my life heard any church anywhere here in the spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs preach this gospel message, and certainly not from the pulpit of the cold, legalistic, works-oriented OPC, no matter how nominally "Reformed" it claims to be. This sermon is why I love Don Green's preaching and this church and why I would move to Cincinnati or across the river to Kentucky in a heartbeat if I were in a position to do so.
A sermon unlike any you will hear in the spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs
I can't imagine hearing a sermon such as this anywhere in the superficial spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs and certainly not in the cold, academically detached OPC. This sermon is just one of numerous reasons I love and cherish the sober but heartfelt preaching of Don Green.
Here is something I have never heard from any other pulpit
"There are many reasons to love the Bible, the 66 books of the Bible. There are many reasons to love God's word. One of the many reasons, in my opinion, to love God's word is because it deals with reality. It tells us the way things really are rather than flattering us and telling us that we are good people by nature, it deals with the reality of sin and James, for example, says that we all stumble in many ways; and so the Bible confronts us with our sin and gives us a means to deal with it and yet it tells us that we stumble in many many ways."
"I'm not what I used to be": I have not met a soul in the spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs who attests to this reality, and certainly not in the "Orthodox" Presbyterian social club of Crystal Lake, Illinois, where an arrogant nominal believer who openly professed that he did not "need" God' Word was warmly embraced by that congregation as one of its nominal but "orthodox" own before they coddled him to hell.
What Pastor Green preaches here is not anything I have ever heard preached or even articulated anywhere else in the spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs: that being a Christian is not about what YOU do or have done but rather what Christ has done TO you. It is about spiritual TRANSFORMATION, and I saw no evidence of it whatsoever in the spiritually dead "Orthodox" Presbyterian social club in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
When was the last time you heard the gospel preached with POWER?
I certainly never have in the spiritual wasteland of the Chicago suburbs, and certainly not at the so-called "Orthodox" Presbyterian social club in Crystal Lake, Illinois, nor at any other local so-called "Orthodox" Presbyterian social club. This sermon is why I so love Truth Community Church and would move to Cincinnati in a heartbeat if I were in a position to do so.
"To be a Christian is not a mere matter of knowledge or intellectual assent," and there you have all the difference in the world between the spiritually dead and indifferent "Orthodox" Presbyterian social club in Crystal Lake, Illinois and this powerful pulpit.
The only key piece missing from this important sermon which unfortunately is only touched upon is WHY the gospel is good news and from WHAT we need to be saved, because the gospel has been twisted by too many pseudo-churches into a vague and sentimental, fuzzy message of "love," as though all this unloved world needs is love, like some hippie song. Roman Catholics believe the crucifixion was real, but WHY was the crucifixion even NECESSARY?
Pastor Green says that he cannot "prove" that many if not most churches seem to have a tacit, unspoken agreement that "as long as you continue to show up, I won't say anything to offend you," but that was certainly the case at the "Orthodox" Presbyterian social club in Crystal Lake, Illinois, where all one had to do was show up, and he was "orthodox" and "in."
