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USER COMMENTS BY “ JEFF LUDWIG ” |
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| RECENTLY-COMMENTED SERMONS | More | Last Post | Total |
| · Page 1 · Found: 63 user comments posted recently. |
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 3/31/18 5:44 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York City | |  |  |
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“ Though Saved, Do You Have Peace and Hope? ”
I am very grateful to Ptr. Doug for this Good Friday message. This morning, the day after Good Friday, I went out for a late breakfast/brunch with my wife. We were discussing various matters, and at one point I said, "The Lord revealed to me that he's not finished with us in this matter yet." So the Lord has taken us successfully through certain difficult situations, and in those same areas, He will continue to lead us and give us perseverance and wisdom. But when Christ said it is finished on the Cross, that saving work, the forgiveness for ALL our sins, is finished. Yet, the sermon reveals that there are many saved Christians who still are vexed with guilt and fears, and have not realized the hope and the peace that passeth understanding that flows from Christ's "It is finished." (Only one word in the Greek) I am one of those still overly vexed by guilt and fear of man. Perhaps you are too? The sermon promises that if we keep knocking on heaven's door, we will attain that level of perfect peace and hope. This is helpful to me because I have found myself asking myself how I can be saved but yet not have the peace that passes understanding. I am now encouraged that it is not beyond my reach. |
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| 12/28/16 4:11 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York City | | | |
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“ God Commands Us To Love, And To Obey His Commands ”
This sermon will encourage Christians who have become saddened and discouraged by the widespread antinomianism in the church. Love covering a multitude of sins has been taken to mean "anything goes" for Christians as long as there is "love." Even back in the early '70's, this commenter was studying at Andover Newton Theological Seminary (Congregationalist and United Church of Christ) and situation ethics so-called was beginning to get wide acceptance in those so-called churches. Three of my fellow seminarians were shacking up with their girlfriends in the dorm of the seminary. Nobody said a word. You see, as long as those couples were professing Christians, and as long as they had "love," a reasonable adjustment to their "situation" could be made. "Love" trumps repentance and dog-like behavior, to use a metaphor from this sermon by Pastor Doug. In today's America, too often, much too often, there is no room for duty, honor, or righteousness. Love is a sentimentalized version of Christ's teachings that supposedly covers "a multitude of sins." Fear of self-righteousness has increasingly led to no righteousness. This sermon is rich in meaning, and certainly has more perspective on the real meaning of Christ's teaching than this comment, and I strongly recommend that you listen. |
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| 4/3/16 1:52 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York City | | | |
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“ Do You Love Jesus? ”
Jesus challenges the most religious, pious Jews of his time. They are doing all the "right things." Yet, they would like to see Jesus dead. Is there something wrong with this picture? You bet. Jesus is the Living Word. If He is not eliciting a loving response within us, if we justify ourselves before a holy God instead of depending on our holy God to make us more holy, clean up our sins, forgive us and change us, then have good reason to be afraid. Responding to Christ, Pastor Doug tells us, is not simply going to church every Sunday, voting Republican, and driving an American-made car. Rather, our sinful condition must be acknowledged and responded to. As John 3:7 tells us...we must be born again. It's a serious sermon, but if the listener takes it seriously, then it also will be a source of great hope. |
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| 10/27/15 4:46 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York City | | | |
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“ This Sermon Is 'Must Listening' ”
Passion, intensity, and coherence can all be heard in the sermons of Pastor Doug. This one is no exception. Yet, it seemed to me that this sermon contained a unique cry from the heart of God for self-purification. We need to come to our beautiful Lord and Savior not only or even mainly for the many temporal blessings that we often associate with following Him, but for salvation, for eternal life with Him that can be found and accessed only through Jesus Christ. We need to focus more on the eternal aspects of The Gift of Christ given to us by the Father. Yes, I thank God because I already have had a long life, my finances are stable, my health is better than average, and I have my faculties. But these areas of life that engender "my happiness" should not become idols or totems on which to hang my understanding of His grace or my faith. Pastor Doug calls us to look heavenward towards the eternal aspect of our relationship with the Lord, to treasure that dimension of our salvation, for it is indeed for that reason that Christ joined himself to us. Please tell all your friends to listen to this sermon. I have posted it on my Facebook page. |
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| 2/13/15 11:47 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York City | | | |
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“ True Worship Is Explained ”
This is not a sermon about how to structure a worship service. His focus is on the purpose and meaning of worshiping the Lord Our God in spirit and truth. He stresses that God is not just a bigger and greater version of ourselves. Thus, although he does not use my term -- anthropomorphic -- God is not to be understood anthropomorphically. He is eternal and unchanging. He is spirit. He is not identified with a specific time and place. That seems to me to be a wonderful starting point for considering the nature of true worship. Further, he stresses that our sincerity or zeal for the worship does not define the meaningfulness of the worship. In saying this, Pastor Doug reminds me of similar passages in Jonathan Edwards' book The Religious Affections, where Edwards tries to disconnect the authenticity and meaning of true worship from the issue of the degree of emotionality exhibited by the congregation. Ptr. Doug gives a marvelous example of the worshippers of the Golden Calf which, although dedicated to the great I AM, was nonetheless wrong, i.e., not prescribed. It was sincere and to the correct God, but it was still WRONG worship. Lastly, Sunday worship, assuming it to be true, affords the worshippers a little taste of eternity as God breaks into time and space. |
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| 2/13/15 10:45 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York City | | | |
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“ Inspiring Sermon! ”
Tonight, again, I had a deep sense of my sinfulness. Again, for the hundredth time, I failed to apply Godly wisdom to a situation that occurs time and again. The Lord in his faithfulness gave me two thoughts: (1) to listen to a sermon by Pastor Doug, and (2) to begin preaching regularly again (I had stopped preaching every Sunday after 8 years about 11 years ago -- just doing occasional guest preaching and 6-8 week series on specific topics). My wife has repeatedly told me that I don't have the patience with other people to pastor. At any rate, I listened to this sermon, and it encouraged me that in spite of my sinfulness and weaknesses, I could still deliver the precious word of God and the delivering sacrifice and love of Jesus Christ to a lost and fallen world. Isn't there a great need for the Word of God today? Aren't we flooded with false teachers? Aren't we drowning in atheism and hypocrisy in our society? I live in New York City. Do you think the dominating life principle of this city is "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy mind and all thy strength?" There are a lot of social workers in this city, but while they are helping the bodies and sometimes the emotions of the people, are they dealing with the souls of their clients? Thank you Pastor Doug. |
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| 1/26/14 9:40 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | Brooklyn, NY | | | |
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“ We Are All Sinners ”
I visited a Filipino church today (my wife is Filipino) called Brooklyn Evangelical Church. The pastor proclaimed or delivered a wonderful message on Romans 9:30-33. It was more than unusual in New York City to hear a message that not only preached salvation through faith as opposed to works, but included divine election, justification, sanctification, and the doctrine of Christ being 100% human and 100% divine in one personality. I was so surprised, encouraged, and rejoicing the entire day since the service. Fast forward to tonight when I listened to this sermon by Pastor Doug whose sermons have enlightened me and encouraged me for many years. He preached on the contrast between the prayer of the Pharisee and the prayer of the publican, not running away from, but rubbing our noses into, the sinful tendency towards hypocrisy that may and does lie in our hearts. This very same contrast was in the sermon I heard this morning, but it was only a small part of that sermon. Don't you think the Lord is saying something to me that I need to hear? Am I more like the Pharisee or the publican? I better find out, and soon. It seems I already know the answer, and I will repent. Thank you for being so strongly used by the Lord Pastor Doug. |
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| 12/7/13 7:53 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York City | | | |
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“ Real Reasons For Hope In This Evil Age ”
This sermon should encourage every born again believer who hears it, and should draw every unbeliever to repentance for his or her sins. But the sermon by Pastor Doug is mainly aimed, I believe, for born again believers like myself who sometimes are overwhelmed and discouraged by the ungodly, unjust, and downright depraved and unconscionable actions of our present period of history. Pastor Doug warns us not to expect these wrongdoings to just go away. He tells us that good and evil will exist side by side, possibly for a long time. However, Almighty God, the Ultimate Fisher of Men, is casting out a net drawing all of his creation ("fishes") to himself, and once the net is full, there will be an emptying of the "net". Some will go to glory to worship him forever, and (based on Matthew XXV) others will go to "eternal fire" to experience the fire that cannot be quenched. We who are in the Lord have the privilege of access to the throne of grace, as well as the promise and substance of eternal life with Him. We pray with thanksgiving for the gift of eternal life with the Lamb that has been freely given us through no merit of our own. Jesus will return to take the Church into the presence of the Father. The sermon ends with a passionate crescendo of encouragement. |
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| 9/19/13 8:55 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | New York | | | |
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“ Gratitude Should be Our Daily Diet ”
Pastor Doug's sermon focuses on gratitude as the sina qua non of growing in faith. This sermon also shares that the Bible does not make a distinction between believing 'based on facts' and faith based on nothing that is provable. Rather the Hebrew, Greek and Latin do not have a sharp dichotomy between faith and belief the way the atheists in our universities do, or the way Webster's dictionary does. Rather, we have faith in a person, the person of Jesus Christ who has been revealed to us through the Word of God. Although Ptr. Doug does not add this point, I will: namely, our language itself is skewed towards atheism by allowing that distinction between belief and faith. I was encouraged by these points and many others in this sermon. We are sinners saved by grace. Do you realize, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that we are still sinners, that we can and do experience "drift" away from the things of God, and that we need to be vigilant for this...otherwise, we will be "led" into temptation and not be delivered from evil thoughts and acts. Blessings to all. |
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| 5/3/13 4:30 PM |
| Jeff Ludwig | | Brooklyn, NY | | | |
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“ Our Bodies Are Not Our Own ”
Over the past 25 years since I have been a born again believer in Jesus Christ, I do not recall hearing a sermon about the "body as a temple of the Holy Spirit." Imagine, we are living in a sexualized society where lust is given a top priority and the fulfilling of our sexual lusts is typically deemed normal, appropriate, and, in fact, healthy. As Pastor Doug puts it, "all of life is about me expressing myself." Or, at another point, "It's all about me...." Yet, we should FLEE from sexual immorality. We should be making God attractive in our bodies and our souls. This sermon tells us why we must cleave to sexual morality. If we don't we are tearing up the body of Jesus Christ to whom and with whom we are united. Please listen to this strengthened to become strengthened in your purity, and to live in such a way that you have no master in your life except Jesus Christ. |
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