The Baptist Visitor, June 13, 2017

1. FIRST SOUTHERN BAPTIST CHURCH of NORTH HOLLYWOOD (1-818-761-4800) NON-PROFIT ORG.
“The First Family” (www.fsbcnh.org) U.S. POSTAGE PAID
10853 Victory Boulevard PERMIT #660
North Hollywood, CA 91606-3826 VAN NUYS, CA
Address Service Requested
THE BAPTIST VISITOR
Paul D. Whetstone (Interim Senior Pastor) June 13, 2017 Charles Cutney (Minister of Encouragement)
***Our Annual***
***Men’s Sunday***
***WILL TAKE PLACE THIS SUNDAY, June 18, at 8:30 & 11AM and 6:30PM!!***
Here are some things that
will make this Lord’s Day
a very special time of
Celebration:
First of all, each man who attends
will be honored and given a small
gift—whether he is a father or not.
======================
Second, Pastor Charles (at
8:30AM) and Pastor Paul (at
11:00AM) will both be preaching
their messages from the same text—
Ephesians 4:15 and 25!
As you are probably aware, we live in a day and
age where lying is such a common, everyday
thing, that no one—even if they are born-again
Christians—thinks much about it. BUT GOD
DOES! In John 8:44 Jesus made it very clear
that THE DEVIL “…is a liar and the father
of lies…” (Don’t miss one of those services!!)
======================
Third, Reverend Hughlen Johnson
will be bringing the message at our
6:30PM Creative Worship Service!
======================
Fourth, this Sunday marks the
occasion of Pastor Charles’ 30th
Year as a Pastor in the First Family!
(Continued)
Pastor Charles preached his first message as our
Senior Pastor on Father’s Day, 1987, and he’s
been with us ever since—although he became
our “Minister Of Encouragement” a few years
ago, and Pastor Paul has been functioning very
well as our Interim Senior Pastor ever since.
(Here’s a Secret: Shhhh—don’t tell anyone, but
Pastor Charles and his wife, Sandra Dee, will
also be celebrating their 62nd
Wedding
Anniversary this Sunday June 18!)
OUR RECORD SPEAKS: May 28, June 4, June 11, 2017
8:30AM Worship Attendance 40 /22 / 16
9:45AM Bible Study / Sunday School Attendance NR / 20 / 22
11:00AM Worship Attendance 35 / 26 / 25
6:30PM Worship Attendance 21 / 20 / 18
Offering **$4,187.56 / 2,479.49 / $2,556.49
(** 2016 Budget Offering Goal**$2,603.46)
Benevolence $00.00 / $77.00 / $00.00
Children's Ministry $40.00 / $00.00 / $00.00
First Family Friends Who Will Celebrate a Birthday or a
Wedding Anniversary During the Month of June
17 – Jay Fuller
18 – Edward Preciado
19 – Audrey Maldonado
20 – Faith Ranes
21 – Addison Preciado
22 – Ignacio De Ruiz, Jr.
23 – Owen Richter
26 – Ruth Ann Nixon
27—Candy Avery
27 – Robin Collins
28 – Scott & Tara Oliver

2. “How do we know
when we need one?”
—Part 1
Article #2 of “What is ‘Revival,’
and how does it happen?”
There’s a mattress company that advertises
on television a great deal. One of their standard
commercials begins with the declaration that “9 out of 10
families need a new mattress!” I could use the same brazen
approach that they do and say, “9 out of 10 churches need
Revival!” Or I could make it more personal and say that “9
out of 10 born-again believers need Revival!!”
But I won’t. Because I don’t know. Only God has
the kind of wisdom that it takes to evaluate how both
churches and individual Christians are doing in their
spiritual lives—including whether or not they need a
“fresh, new spiritual awakening.”
Believe me, though, He really does know! Just
look at His evaluations of each of the seven churches
mentioned in chapters 2 and 3 of the Book of Revelation.
He had them pretty well pegged, and I’m sure that each
church recognized the accuracy of what He said about
them—whether it was positive or negative!
So the question remains: “How DO we know when
we need ‘Revival’?” People who are “church-hunting” after
moving into a new community, for example—or perhaps
because they’ve become discouraged with what they see in
their present church—must try to answer this question,
because they don’t want to go from one seriously-flawed
fellowship into another one that is just as flawed!
If they only look on the surface of things in a
church they are visiting, they may end up misreading the
“spiritual temperature” of that church. Of course it’s good
to observe that the church has—seemingly, at least—a
Spirit-filled worship service, and that the preacher gets
through his message without stumbling around too badly.
And the fact that the church is growing in numbers is also a
plus. And then, when you find out that it also has programs
for the whole family, and you make friends with some of
the “natives,” you decide that “this may be the one”!
“Well, Pastor Chuck, what you’ve described
sounds to me like a pretty good church, doesn’t it to you?”
It may or may not be a “spiritual church.” I can tell
you of dozens of people whom I’ve met over the years that
have dropped out of church completely. The reason for
their actions? The pattern is almost-boringly familiar: They
(1) get saved and join a church; they (2) get involved in
church activities, and (3) for a period of time (it may vary
from months to a few years, even) they are happy. But then
(4) they discover that things are not as they seem to be—
they become the victim of gossip, for instance, or they find
out that some of the church leaders are living “double
lives.” Finally (5) they get totally discouraged and “drop
out” of attending church. They may watch services on TV,
or listen to radio preachers, but they “keep their distance”
from any live interaction.
“Well shame on them—what’re they looking for, a
‘perfect church’?”
If they are, they’ll never find it! One thing I always
tell prospective members is that WE ARE NOT A
PERFECT CHURCH, AND I’M NOT A PERFECT
PASTOR, SO IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR
PERFECTION, YOU’VE COME TO THE WRONG
PLACE!
“See! That’s what I said!”
On the other hand, God still holds churches
accountable for their unspiritual behavior. Listen to Christ’s
heavy warning to the Church at Sardis in Revelation 3:1[b]-
2 (NASB): “He who has the seven Spirits of God, and the
seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a
name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and
strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die;
for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of
My God.’”
Let me quote Evangelist Junior Hill, from a
message he gave at New Orleans Seminary some years ago:
“Most of the time, when a child of God backslides, he never
drops out of the church; he never stops giving his tithe; he
never really stops reading his Bible; he never falls into
overt sin; he never turns his back on his call into ministry.
Backsliding, in the Word of God, is nothing more than
when Jesus becomes less than the first place in a believer’s
life, and that is really what has happened to a large
segment of our church membership today.”
You see, it’s fairly easy to look around us—in our
neighborhood, in our city, in our state, in our country, in
our world—and say, “Wow! Our world sure does need
revival!” The daily headlines are enough to drive us to our
knees and make us cry out to God for “spiritual awakening”
all around our troubled planet.
We might even look at the shortcomings of some
of our fellow church-members, and say “Wow! They sure
do need revival!”
But REAL REVIVAL begins when we come to the
place in our own lives where we pray “Oh Lord, I sure do
need revival! Break me, Lord, and fill me with your Holy
Spirit, until everyone who meets me knows that Jesus has
‘first place’ in my life!”
“But Pastor Chuck, you still haven’t answered that
question: ‘How DO we know when we need ‘Revival’?”
On June 26 I’m going to describe the “litmus test”
for determining whether or not a church or an individual
believer is in need of Revival.
Until then, look for clues in Christ’s words in
Matthew 22:35-40 (NASB): “And one of them, a lawyer,
asked Him a question, testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the
great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with
all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and
foremost commandment. The second is like it, “You shall
love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two
commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets’”
June 12, 2017