The Persevering Church

By Donald Llewellyn Roberts

Framed against the current church preoccupation with quantity, The Persevering Church considers a New Testament church in its quest for quality and numbers. Pauls letter to the Ephesian church reveals its trials and triumphs in its desire for both.
In this book the author seeks to focus on the primacy of Christ and the priority of serious biblical preaching and teaching:
We must return to and invest in our biblical roots. For you have exalted above all things your name and your word (Ps 138:2b).
We need to be as the Emmaus disciples. Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures (Lk 24:32)?
Acts two shows that quality and quantity will coexist if only they are united by Spirit empowered teaching and preaching!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512790382

Donald Llewellyn Roberts

Donald L. Roberts is a graduate of Wheaton College and Gordon Conwell Seminary. He also has earned degrees from the University of Cincinnati and Drew University. He is the author of the books The Perfect Church and The Practicing Church, and has pastored churches in New York, Ohio, Connecticut, Oregon and Minnesota. Roberts is a veteran of the Korean War having served overseas in the Army Counter Intelligence Corps.

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Copyright © 2017 Donald Llewellyn Roberts.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Unless otherwise indicated quoted scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV). Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-9037-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9039-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9038-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017908921

WestBow Press rev. date: 9/22/2017

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue: Memory Lane

Preface: The Persevering Church

Occasion

1:     The Ephesian Connection (Background)

2:     What is the Christian Life? (1:1–2)

3:     One Giant Step (1:3–14)

4:     Back to Square One (1:15–23)

5:     God’s Work of Art (2:1–10)

Outlook

6:     Uncommon Denominator (2:11–22)

7:     From Mystery to Ministry (3:1–13)

8:     Energy Crisis (3:14–21)

9:     Teamwork (4:1–6)

10:   Growing Pains (4:7–16)

Objective

11:   Mind Really Matters (4:17–32)

12:   Genuine Imitation (5:1–2)

13:   Marathon of Life (5:3–21)

14:   Home Thoughts (5:22–33)

15:   An Unpopular Word (6:1–20)

16:   The Last Word (6:21–24)

Epilogue

Endnotes

DEDICATION

To my loving wife June,

and in loving memory of my parents,

Llewellyn and Marie Roberts

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Christians who impacted my life:

Mentors:

Arnold Borgman

Roy Carley

Eldridge Carpenter

Larry Forsberg

Jack Kershaw

Ed Matto

Read McLean

John Morris

Tom Northcott

Orville Seastrom

Earl Tygert

Ray Whittles

(and their wives)

Pastors:

Dr. Stanley Allaby

Dr. Howard Cleveland

Rev. Harry Cox

Dr. Carlyle Saylor

Rev. Richard Schoenert

Professors:

It was while visiting the Bethel Seminary library that I enquired about finding someone who could enable me to complete the production of my third book, The Persevering Church.

A staff member recommended Gloria Metz. Gloria had retired after being the Coordinator of Academic Affairs at Bethel Seminary of St. Paul. I also learned that she had assisted on numerous manuscripts for seminary professors. Though Gloria has a busy schedule including her ministry with the homeless and completing her Master’s degree at Bethel, she agreed to help me with this project. Her familiarity with the procedures in publication has proven valuable.

In the months we have worked together, her skills in editing, updating, computer sourcing, and her encouragement, have facilitated the preparation of this manuscript for publication. The completion of this book would not have been possible without her participation. Gloria’s friendship and commitment to Christ have been a special blessing to my wife June and me!

I dedicate this book to my wife June and our family of Ruth, David, and Carol. June’s love, patience, support, and companionship have been a constant factor through all the years of our marriage and ministry. Her special ministry, through her wisdom and faithfulness, has been the raising of our children and leading them to trust in and serve Christ.

June also has worked many years in her profession as a registered nurse to meet family financial needs. She has sacrificed her educational aspirations to enable her children and husband to achieve theirs!

She has made significant contributions in every congregation we have served. From nursery age to seniors she has been loved and respected! She also urged me to complete this trilogy on the church!

I thank the Lord for June, indeed a pastor’s wife and helpmate. While students at Wheaton College we chose 1 Thessalonians 2:4 to be the goal of our ministry:

But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, who trieth our hearts. (KJV)

PROLOGUE

Memory Lane

I confess! I was born during the Great Depression. Such a timely birth has influenced my life ever since. So I just missed being a member of the Greatest Generation? Dare I claim to be a member of the second place Almost Greatest Generation?

Our heritage includes remembering the hard times and the painful memory of the Service Flags with Gold Stars hanging in the windows of grieving families in World War II. Have those lost individuals been forgotten? No! I still remember Len, Andy, Bob and Pete. They were four young men from our Black Rock community who did not return from the war. They gave their lives in the service of their country.

I am the son of a blue-collar factory worker who served in the Army in World War I and the grandson of a godly Welsh coal miner who died in a horrific mining disaster, leaving a wife and eight children behind.

In the Depression and during the war years I came in touch with a youth group at the Black Rock Congregational Church, located on the western edge of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The Black Rock Congregational Church (Bridgeport, CT) relocated to nearby Fairfield, CT, some years ago. It was/is a vibrant evangelical church that has had a significant impact on all the members of my family. Through its ministry, I received Christ as my Savior. Later I would preach my first sermon at the rescue mission on South Main Street in Bridgeport. It was a mission supported by Fanny Crosby, the famed hymn writer.

What stands out about the church that ordained me and that era, was the ongoing burden for a spiritual revival! Looking back, it seemed like they were already experiencing a quiet taste of revival. On occasion, my father would talk about the Welsh revival in his mining community at the turn of the twentieth century.

My father said, There were many days that, as a family, we would rise early to attend chapel services. Afterward, the men would go down into the coal pits singing their beloved hymns! He also spoke of the newfound kindness for the mining ponies that bore the burdens of coal, the changed lives, and especially the songs that came from those Welsh voices!

E.M. Bounds once wrote, Nothing helps praise so mightily as a gracious revival of true religion in the church. The conscious presence of God inspires song.¹ Ah, Wales! Land of labor, beauty, music, and revival–hence my middle name, Llewellyn (that I could not spell until the eighth grade!).

I saw revival in another form in the winter of 1950 when I was a student at Wheaton College, Illinois. I spent several days in Pierce Chapel as faculty, staff, students, and townspeople (in turn), stood and confessed sin. As a young Christian, I thought these were such small sins. However, Calvary reminds us that there are no small sins in the presence of God! There were countless lives changed in those days of spiritual housecleaning! How did we define revival then? The focus of revival was repentance—an almost lost teaching today.

As a retired pastor of fifty years, I wonder about churches today. Do the relentless musical repetition and overkill amplification, joined to a milky theology drown out the still small voice we need to hear once again? Are we exchanging depth for decibels in our services?

The Persevering Church is not an attempt to postulate a formula for revival—far from it. 2 Chronicles 7:14 gives us that powerful pattern. Revival is in God’s hand and timing. But I sense a missing note today in churches.

In this book, I seek to focus on the person of Christ and the priority of Bible preaching and teaching. Without such a guideline, we confirm Vance Havner’s observation in the past: Never before in the history of the church have we had so many degrees, but so little temperature.²

We must return to and invest in our biblical roots. For you have exalted above all things your name and your word (Ps. 138:2b, ESV). We need to be as the Emmaus disciples observed, Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? (Luke 24:32).

While a pastor of the Glastonbury Community Church in