Adrian Rogers Addresses SBC Pastors, Urges Them to Seek Holiness and Boldness
by Allie Martin
June 21, 2005
(AgapePress) - The nation's largest evangelical denomination kicked off its annual meeting today in Nashville. The two-day business meeting for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is expected to be attended by tens of thousands of delegates, who are known as "messengers."
Those messengers will hear reports from SBC entities such as the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, the Women's Missionary Union, the Executive Committee, and all six SBC seminaries. Denomination president Dr. Bobby Welch says the gathering makes for two full days of praise, worship, preaching, and business.
"The convention is loaded with interesting format," Welch says. "We're going to baptize at every session in the convention. Pastors are bringing people to be baptized, [and] they're going to be baptized in a lot of different languages."
According to welch, Wednesday night's activities will include special recognition of the ministry and life's work of Dr. Billy Graham, who begins what may be his last crusade later this week in New York City.
In a nod to a key constituency, President Bush addressed the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention during the first day's activities. The president spoke to Baptist messengers through a live video link from the White House. His opposition to abortion and homosexual "marriage" have more support in the Southern Baptist Convention than in his own United Methodist Church.
Messengers to the Nashville gathering will also have the opportunity to debate a number of resolutions. One resolution, which may or may not make it to the floor for a vote, calls for all SBC churches to investigate their local school districts for any sign of influence by homosexual activists. That resolution was introduced by black evangelist Dr. Voddie Baucham and attorney Bruce Shortt. (See related story)
The two-day conference ends on Wednesday, June 22.
Pastors Urged on to Holiness
The SBC Pastors' Conference concluded on Monday with addresses from a former SBC president -- and a former jurist who was removed from his position for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from a state judicial building.
Dr. Adrian Rogers, a former head of the Southern Baptist Convention, told pastors they need to strive for holiness and boldness through the power of Christ. Rogers based his message -- "The Making and the Ministry of a Man of God" -- on the story of Gideon, found in Judges 6 and 7. The respected pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis said God can use anyone who has vision, valor, vigilance, vitality, and victory through the power of Christ.
Pastors must have vision, he said, if they want God to transform their lives and ministry -- and before they can catch a true vision of God, they must have a hunger for holiness. He said ministers must be constantly on guard against sin.
"You younger preachers -- many of you have let down the bar," the veteran preacher admonished. "You're watching filthy movies that you have no business watching. You're going to places of recreation that you have no business going. And some of my preacher friends are using language that is an embarrassment.
"Some [pastors] are using, for illustrations in their sermons, video clips from R-rated films, assuming that the congregation has seen it and letting the congregation assume that you've seen it. Stop it!"
Rogers said nothing puts a Christian out of Satan's reach more than "old-fashioned holiness." He also reminded the pastors in Nashville that victory in Christ is already theirs.
"I wonder if sometime we don't need to eavesdrop on Hell and hear one demon say to another demon, 'If those Christians really ever let Jesus Christ out of that grave, Hell help us, all Heaven will break loose,'" Rogers shared.
And the issue, he said, is not whether a pastor is afraid of Satan, but "is the Devil afraid of you?" Rogers reminded his listeners that Jesus gave His followers authority over all the power of the enemy. "And again, don't you insult God by saying He can't use you," he exhorted. "It's not scholarship; it's relationship. It's not ability; it's availability. It's not your fame; it's your faith. It's not who you are, but whose you are that counts."
Rogers said there has never been a better opportunity for pastors to preach the full counsel of God. After his sermon, more than 8,000 in attendance joined in corporate prayer for Rogers' physical recovery from colon cancer.
Rogers was preceded at the Pastors' Conference by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who explained that his removal from office has freed him to speak nationwide about what he calls "judicial tyranny." Moore, who was ousted for refusing to obey a judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from his state's judicial building, said that in public schools and political institutions, Americans have "been deceived by a government that tells us we can't worship God."
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
