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Pilgrim said:

From reading your reply it appears that you think that spirituality comes automatically when a church and/or pastor/elder(s) are faithful in doing A, B, C, etc.?? Although it is important that whoever is responsible for the preaching that they preach "the Gospel", which IMHO should occupy a very small part of preaching vs. "the whole counsel of God" for "the upbuilding of the saints", it wouldn't make a wit of difference if Charles Spurgeon or R.C. Sproul were doing the preaching if the hearts of the hearers weren't regenerate.

Jeff,

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From reading your reply it appears that you think that spirituality comes automatically

First, I never said anything would come automatically. Second, I agree with your statement here fully, but I don't agree with your conclusion. Preachers that are as passionate and true to the word of God like Spurgeon and Sproul are going to have vibrant churches God willing and I do believe that He would be for great preachers who preach His truth in season and out of season.

Yes, I agree that those whom God has not elected will always be hardened, but these people are not going to stay in a Christ focused, Gospel preaching, devout, conservative, orthodox, conservative church, where the Gospel is preached in it's full beauty with conviction. These unregenerate people are not going to stay in a church where the whole councle of God is preached and taught.

This is my point of my post. If you have a pastor and church leaders who are serious about Christ and serious about maintaining a biblical church then you will find that the unregenerate will leave to another church where their ears can be tickled, where they aren't convicted of their sin and where they can resume to feel comfortable about themselves.

Using my own personal experience, If I were to bring my current PCA pastor and elders to my past PCUSA church and allowed them to run the church for a month and told the congregation that they were here to stay. They would be branded as intolerant, ultra conservative leagalists and you would have a mass exodus of congregation members to another liberal church.

God uses good godly preachers like Spurgeon and Sproul for His good pleasure to further His kingdom and where you find these godly preachers, you find godly congregations that are spiritually alive. Of course I'm not saying that there won't be unregenerate covenant members, it won't be a dead church either.

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I say, that the Church with its preaching and teaching opportunities can only further the already resident desire to grow in grace and to call those without that desire to repentance and faith in Christ. If someone told me that they don't have any interest in going to Bible Study, no desire to read the Scriptures, had no appetite for doctrinal discussion and/or learning, then I would have to conclude that there is a serious spiritual problem NOT with the person's church, but with THEM. There have been and are countless individuals who right now belong to/attend "dead" churches where there is little to no sound preaching and/or teaching. Yet, there are some who have an insatiable hunger to learn about God and study the Scriptures. Many seek high and low for that "good food" outside their respective churches. The Highway is one of those type of "spiritual cafeterias" which serves up solid meat and some milk for those who hunger due to a lack of substance where they "worship".

Yes, I agree, there will be those whom are truly of God in dead churches. I was one of those people. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, it was very hard for me to remain in a dark place. I wanted to worship God in a very meaningful way and everything about the PCUSA church became so disturbing to me, that I was having a very hard time staying there. It was a situation where I found myself having people at every encounter getting upset with me with my calvinistic, biblical steadfastness. My wife also was not growing at all and that needed to change. She needs to be in a church where she is challanged and encouraged to learn because she won't do it on her own. Now that we're in the PCA she attends a womans bible study using a Kay Arthur study, where she is learning sound bible instruction. She is learning much more from the pulpit and I can see the much needed change in her. So for my own personal experience, it wasn't an option for us to stay in the big, mega, neo-orthodox, liberal church to be a bright light to those around us. It was effecting my family in a seriously harmful way.

So yes, I do still firmly believe that it's God's sovereignty and providence that causes revival, growth and spiritual healthy churches, but we are His instruments and where His truth is proclaimed and believed, then His followers will come. Where His truth is hid then His followers will be spiritually handicapped and they will IMHO sooner of later leave to search for another church.

I tried very hard and prayed very hard for reform in my old church. I spent a lot of time in fellowship and bible studies with a lot of people. I worked hard at my ministry opportunities and I shared the gospel often with everyone I was in fellowship with, but at the end of it, I finally had to discern that God had withdrawn His hand from that congregation and it was time for my family and myself to find another church.

After reading books like "nine marks of a healthy church", "City on a Hill" and "Whatever happened to the Gospel of Grace." I have concluded from these godly preachers that it does matter how you preach and run the church.

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Bottom line.... the church can do everything right, within its power and ability, but that is no guarantee that those who attend that church will be spiritually alive and hungry to study, pray and live out their lives before God in holiness. The Church is not some kind of vending machine where you can simply drop in the correct change and push the button to get the wanted result. The Lord Christ was the most perfect evangelist and teacher this world has seen or ever will see. Yet, His "success rate" in getting people to be His disciples; i.e., with a lively faith in Him, continue in His word and hunger after righteousness, was probably less than any known preacher/teacher in history while He was yet on earth. As I stated in my other replies, there are "2" areas that need to be considered in such matters: 1) the Church and 2) the Individual.

I agree for the most part with this. But, who's to say how big a church has to be for it to be edifying. What I'm saying is that if a preacher is preaching the way that God has intended for him to preach, then you will find a situation where the people who remain in the church are going to be for the most part spiritually alive, now with saying that, the church might only be a few families, but if that is what God has planned for that preacher, to be a preacher of a church with 5 or 6 families, then so be it. It's better to preach the truth to empty pews then to compromise God's Word.

Dave.

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. - Galatians 2:16