Voice of a Southern Baptist Prophet - B.H. Carroll

“A church with a little creed is a church with a little life. The more divine doctrines a church can agree on, the greater its power, and the wider its usefulness. The fewer its articles of faith, the fewer its bonds of union. The modern cry, ‘Less creed, more liberty’, is a degeneration from the vertebrate to the jellyfish, and means less unity and less morality, and it means more heresy. Definitive truth does not create heresy - it only exposes and corrects it. Shut off the creeds and confessions and the Christian world would fill up with heresy unsuspected and uncorrected, but none the less deadly.”           


- B. H. Carroll  An Interpretation of the English Bible

GateWay East Africa Ministries

November 9, 2011

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, 

Sifa Mungu!  Praise God!  We have just returned from doing the Lord’s work in Burundi.  God blessed our trip in so many ways and I am so thankful that so many of you were able to participate in this glorious kingdom work.  We were able to work for 9 days witnessing in the communities of Kabezi, Migera, Ruziba, Nkenga, Kanyosha, Rugombo, Kinyinya, and Gakungwe.  The Lord has established 7 new churches in these areas and we witnessed 4,704 people express the desire to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.  To God be the glory!

Burundi is definitely the most poverty stricken country in which we have worked.  There is an overpopulation of children and we witnessed much malnutrition and disease.  But with these conditions also comes a great responsiveness to the gospel.  The people know they need help.  Not only do they sense the need for help in this life but one can see their sense of need for hope in the life to come.  It is heartbreaking to see so many children and adults living in such difficult conditions.  Yet, at the same time it is encouraging to see people being transformed by the power of the gospel.  There is a great movement of God occurring among the people of Burundi.  One example of this can be seen in many of the governing leaders of the nation.  We were invited to meet with many of their Parliament and Senate as well as the mayor of Bujumbura.  Pastor Andre Dugger from Nashville led us all in prayer and Pastor Samson Kisia from Nairobi brought greetings from our churches.  I preached God’s Word to this group of Senators and members of Parliament and we sang songs of God’s praise in their chambers.  God is doing a wonderful work among them and I pray that God will raise up a country out of the ashes of many years of war to be a testimony of what He can and will do with a people who will look to Him for guidance.  

There are other denominations represented in the country but little of it is biblical.  It is so common in these east African nations to be nominally “Christian” and to be thoroughly unbiblical.  In response to the need for doctrinal fortification we are working to establish a Bible college in Burundi that will be able to serve the pastors and church leaders of Burundi and Rwanda.  We have now seen many new churches started in both of these countries and the vast majority of the pastors are untrained.  We must provide strong Biblical training or much of our work will be in vain.  I am currently working with the national leaders to start this school and I plan to go back soon to teach and strengthen the school and churches.  

God has been increasing the importance of this ministry and the burden of my heart for the people of east Africa.  Many others have shared with me that God has been doing the same in their heart.  In response to this burden we have set up GateWay East Africa Ministries that will be serving the east African countries in this region.  More information will be coming, but for now you can look at GateWay East Africa on Facebook and richmondgoolsby.blogspot.com.  We are committed to continuing to plant new churches in this area of the world and to start Bible colleges to train the national leaders.  We are also praying about taking a medical team for a trip of medical treatment and evangelism to Burundi in the near future.  Please be praying for us and may God bless you as you serve Him.

Grace and Peace, 

Pastor Richmond Goolsby

“And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses,  commit these things to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”    2 Timothy 2:2

2 Burundi Update

Our last day of work is complete.  We have seen 5294 professions of faith with 7 new churches started and 1 existing church strengthened.  We began our day by meeting with many of the Parliament, Senate, and the Mayor of Bujumbura.  I was invited to come and preach to them.  It was a wonderful time.  We presented the Mayor a gift Bible which was very nice.  We also presented one for the President although he was unable to attend.  The Senators and members of Parliament were very responsive to my sermon and God was present in a very special way.  The Mayor was very hospitable and very thankful for my preaching.  We will rest tomorrow and do some sightseeing.  Sunday morning we will have one large worship service with 7 of the churches and will be baptizing many of the new believers.  After the worship service we will change clothes at the hotel and go to the airport.  I have had many dreams of Mexican food and awakened myself to disappointment.  We are so excited to come home and share with everyone about God's faithful and miraculous hand during this trip.

Grace and Peace,
Richmond

Update from Burundi

We had a great first day today.  I did not sleep last night and was exhausted but we have seen God at work in many miraculous ways.  Two of our groups worked along the shoreline of Lake Tanganyika and two of our groups worked in another location further south.  We had 3 new churches birthed today with 680 professions of faith.  They built structures for meeting out of tree trunks and tarps atop a dirt floor.  God has been very gracious and the people are very responsive to the gospel.  Our lives are being changed as well.  Please pray that we would continue to serve Him in humble faithfulness and that God is glorified among the people.

Grace and Peace, 

Richmond

Glory Belongs To God

“Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us; but unto Thy name give glory.”  Psalm 115:1 

A.W. Tozer once said, “The glory of God is the health of the universe.  Wherever God is not glorified, that part of the universe is sick.  Hell is sick because God is not glorified there.  Heaven is abounding in glorious health because God is glorified there.    And earth is somewhere in between because only some glorify God here.”  When I speak of glory I wish to speak biblically.  The Bible has much to say about glory.  The ancient Hebrew idea is wrapped up in the Old Testament with the word, kabod, which means something is heavy in weight.  It is heavy, awesome, powerful, grand.  To glorify something in the Old Testament means to give weight to it, to honor it.  The ancient Greek idea is communicated in the New Testament with the word, doxa, which means to praise, and recognize the importance of something.  The question for us is, who is heaviest in our lives?  To whom do you give your praise?  Who is recognized as most important in our daily lives?  Or we might just simply ask, who gets the glory? 

Glory is ours to ascribe, but never ours to own.  “Not unto us” is the believer’s cry. Glory does not belong to us because there is never any good thing that originates in us.  Any good action that comes through us originates with God.  This is why Psalm 115:1 says twice, for emphasis, “not unto us, not unto us!”  This is why Paul said, “by the grace of God, I am what I am.”  It is only by God’s grace that anything good comes out of us.  Therefore, the glory that surrounds us never belongs to us.  All glory belongs to God.  The psalmist prays that glory will be given to God’s name alone and we should do the same.  “Not unto us, O LORD, but unto Thy name give glory.”  This should be our constant prayer.

The Message and Methodology

One of the more common phrases in our current church culture goes something like this, "Our methods change but the message never does."  This sounds acceptable at first but I think a little further thought is in order.  Vance Havner once said, "People are saying we should hob-nob with Sodom and get chummy with Gomorrah in order to convert them.  The argument is that the end justifies the means, but they fail to realize that the means determines the end.  If you use an unworthy means you have already spoiled the objective."  Our methods are very much apart of our message.  The way one performs an act says so much about what is being done.  For example, if one wishes to be a great baseball pitcher then one must practice. Someone who is lazy and shows up late and dresses shabbily and does not prepare himself will not be a good pitcher because his methods express the message to the coach and others that he just doesn't care.  He may be very talented and have a very strong arm but if he does not bring his methods in line with what the coach demands it will not matter how talented he may be.  Our objective is to glorify God in all things.  And we have no talent apart from Him.  By changing our methods to whatever is the latest fad in our modern Sodom is simply expressing a message that displeases our holy God.  He commands (without apology) that His people act reverently in their worship of Him and express that to others.  It matters not if the Sodomites are comfortable, nor are we called to provide a relaxed atmosphere  for those in Gomorrah.  What matters is that God is honored and revered above all else and that His truth is proclaimed in love.  Any method that does not first of all focus on this truth will unfortunately declare a different message than that which has been delivered to us from the prophets and apostles of old.

Reverence and Relevance

       2 Samuel 6:1-7 contains a story about a man whom God killed for what seems like a minor infraction.  His name was Uzzah.  Uzzah was moving the ark of God and when it slipped he reached out to steady the ark.  God's anger was aroused and he killed Uzzah, right there in front of everyone.  It seems harsh, even rash.  But what was the sin of Uzzah?  And shouldn't we avoid it today?

       Uzzah’s mistake was that he chose convenience over reverence.  Now  God had very clearly dictated in Numbers 4:15 how the Ark of the Covenant was to be carried.  It was to be approached with awe because this is where the presence of God dwelt among the people.  The Scripture said that the ark must be carried by Levite priests and that there was only one acceptable method to do so.  It was to be carried by the poles that were attached to the ark through the golden rings on each side of it.  But you will notice in verse 3 they decided they would try a new method.  An easier and more convenient method.  They brought the ark out of Abinadab’s house and placed it on a “new cart”, and Uzzah and his brother Ahio drove the new cart.  It may not have been what God said to do but it was surely more convenient to transport that way, especially considering the house was “up on a hill” and it would be much easier to move down hill on a cart.

Alexander McLaren once said, “Nothing is more delicate than the sense of awe, trifled with ever so little, it speedily disappears.”  This is exactly what happened to Uzzah and it is exactly what is happening to many today.  The sense of awe of God’s holiness disappeared and they chose new methods of convenience over reverence.  There are more new carts today than ever before in the history of the church, and never have we stumbled more.  We have more shifts in methodology today than ever before and never has the ark of God wobbled more.  Everyone is talking about relevance.  Let’s be relevant.  Let’s have a relaxed atmosphere.  Let’s provide a dynamic experience.  Let’s get comfortable and be convenient.  It’s all about you.  I don’t hear much talk about reverence.  I think its time that we send those new carts hurling down the hill and watch them crash into pieces.  I would like to hear people stop talking about emerging with the culture and see some start contending for the faith that was once delivered to the saints.  Its time that we let the people that God has appointed to carry the ark carry it, and we all fall to our faces in prayer before the holiness of God.  And if we do, I promise you this, our reverence will bring about a relevance that people have never dreamed about.  If we had more trembling there would be so much less stumbling.