Would God consider you a zealous Christian? Simeon Ashe on Rev. 3:19!

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C. Matthew McMahon

Christian Preacher

The Zealous Christian - by Simeon Ashe (d. 1662)

Simeon Ashe (d. 1662) was a puritan minister of the Gospel and a member of the Westminster Assembly. He is described as a man of great sincerity, humility, benevolence, prudence, and patience: as eminently diligent in preaching the glorious gospel of the grace of God in season and out of season, so as not to please the ear, but to wound the heart. Samuel Rutherford described him as, “gracious and zealous.”

What is holy zeal? From Revelation 3:19, “Be Zealous,” Ashe divides his work into 8 parts. Part 1 explains the text expounding on what Christ means in being zealous. Parts 2-3 briefly describe how zeal is to be exercised for good, and how it is to be exercised against evil. His main objective will come to light in parts 4 and 5, dealing with those who are not zealous – how they should be – and then teaches the motives by which Christians may be provoked to seek the increase of holy zeal in their life. In part 6 he covers the means to be used for obtaining zeal, with hindrances to be avoided, and then demonstrates all Gospel administrations, being rightly used as a means to increase true biblical zeal. In part 7 he gives nine rules to guide Christians to improve zeal in their life, and then ends in part 8 with an incitement to magistrates, ministers and private Christians to improve zeal, especially seen in not profaning the Sabbath, attendance on sacred ordinances, and that ministers may be encouraged to perform their duties for the betterment of the church and nation.

Do you have a heart enflamed with zeal for God, true zeal, true biblical heat and spiritual fervor? If your outward performance of true religion stems from the inward change made by the Holy Spirit, then such zealous action on behalf of Christ is heartily commendable. True regenerate Christians should be taking heaven by storm, violently seizing the Kingdom of God by force, and pressing into the Kingdom with all their might. Yet, though there are those who glorify Christ in their religious zeal through obedience to the revealed word, there are also those who perform external religious acts remaining still unconverted. Those who are living under the eminent means of grace but possess a superficial affection to the things of God are called Gospel hypocrites, and their zeal is fake. They introduce a form of godliness but deny the power of God, and so the Apostle Paul says that, “from such turn away,” (2 Tim. 3:5). Ashe did not preach and write this treatise simply for the sake of being informative. He heartily desired to see the people of God in his day transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit towards a heated zeal for the means of grace. As Ashe will show, it is the command of Jesus Christ for every Christian church member to be zealous.

This work is not a scan or facsimile, has been carefully transcribed by hand being made easy to read in modern English, and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.

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Matthew in the future maybe just a maybe you can start something like a book of the month club I buy all your books in print because I know I will put notes in them although I guess I can do that on kindle. I have tried to read books on the computer, phone, and ipad but I can't so just some food for thought
 
I recall suggesting a Book-of-the-Month once, Matthew. ;)

Just like the big publishing houses, first time subscribers get to pick, say, 5 books for $1, and then commit to a year's subscription of some nominal amount monthly.
 
Matthew in the future maybe just a maybe you can start something like a book of the month club I buy all your books in print because I know I will put notes in them although I guess I can do that on kindle. I have tried to read books on the computer, phone, and ipad but I can't so just some food for thought

Thanks brother. I appreciate that.

I've thought about something like that. Part of that requires a kind of back end ability through the Web. I'm trying to figure how to make that possible. I'd love to do a book of the month club. But what hinders that is technical ability.
 
I recall suggesting a Book-of-the-Month once, Matthew. ;)

Just like the big publishing houses, first time subscribers get to pick, say, 5 books for $1, and then commit to a year's subscription of some nominal amount monthly.

I'd love to have something to make that work. Pray the Lord would open that door. I'd love to have an online library where all the books are available like a personal library, with a user login portal from the Web. Again, technical ability.
 
Low tech is the way to go initially. It will be a high class worry to have to have a full-blown automated system.

With 100 subscribers it would involve a only a spreadsheet to track BOM membership.

Create categories of interest for BOM club subscribers, Theology, Devotional, Pastoral, etc. Build up your monthly offerings accordingly. Twelve months, one book from each category assigned. Users will get one book from their selected category(ies) each month. BOM club subscribers can also buy extra books with a special discount coupon code.

Each month following the initial 5-for-$1 deal, ping the user's with email and the the normal monthly. Ship the item with an invoice to each member, as opting out within the initial 12 month period is not allowed. Members must use a credit card to sign up, so you can bill them automatically as per terms of the BOM club. Forget Paypal for the BOM, as unscrupulous users can cancel recurring payments too easily. So you will need a credit card merchant account for this.

Track it all in a spreadsheet, including building the BOM mailing list. When the numbers get too large to handle, that will be a worry worth having and you will be able to farm out development for a back end system or subcontract with a firm to do it all for you.
 
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