Grace Fellowship Church

Godly Women

2008-04-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

At Grace Fellowship Church we have been blessed with some godly women who love their husbands and their children. On a daily basis they sacrifice their time and energy to ensure that all of them are taken care of and the children are educated in the fear of the Lord. I applaud these women and am very thankful they are raising the next generation of wives.

One of our ladies had the privilege of speaking at a ladies event just a few weeks ago and has been gracious enough to allow me to post what she said here.

Good evening! It’s an honor to be here with you. My prayer tonight is for our Heavenly Father to be glorified, for truth to be spoken in love, and for you to be encouraged in your

relationship with Him and others. One of my favorite scriptures is Psalm 115:1, “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to Your name give glory because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.” May the LORD be glorified here tonight.

As I was praying about what the Lord would have me speak to you, I thought of the theme of this banquet: LOVE BY DESIGN. I thought of how God is a God of LOVE and that He is our Master DESIGNER. He is a God of order: order in the universe, order in the church, and order in our families. By following His design for these things, we can experience peace and blessings. When I say blessings, I’m not talking about “health & wealth”; I’m talking about contentment & joy that ONLY can come from Him,

especially in the midst of trials and sufferings. God’s Word, the Holy Bible, has EVERYTHING you need to find His design for your life. Romans 15:4 states, “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through

perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

There are many commandments that God gives throughout the pages of Scripture. I used to think that when I heard the word “commandments”, it was only referring to the 10 Commandments. However, Scripture is full of commandments. A commandment

is a mandate; charge; or an order given by authority and is expected to be obeyed.

The greatest commandment that God gives is to love Him first. This commandment is written in the Old Testament, and repeated gain in the New Testament. In Deut. 6:5 Moses tells the Israelites, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and

with all your soul and with all your might. In Matthew 22:36-37, Jesus is asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “YOU

SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.” (Mk.12:30 includes mind & strength) The Greek word “love” when used as a noun is agape. (God is Love). Here it’s the action verb-agapao- which means “the commitment of devotion that is directed by the will and can be commanded as a duty.” We are commanded to love God with our

entire being! We are to give God our complete allegiance and total devotion!

When our focus is on putting God first, we desire to please Him in every area of our life. When it’s not, we become focused on self and worldly pleasures, which ultimately bring discontentment. If you’re discontent in your life right now, my questions to you would be: Where is YOUR focus? Are you allowing God to be 1st in your life? Are you content with where God has you right now? To experience contentment in our lives, we must surrender our hearts to the LORD and know His truths. Contentment is also a

choice. We can always find the good or bad in anything. We should pray as David prayed in Psalm 86:11, “Teach me Your way, O LORD, and I will walk in Your truth; give me an undivided heart that I may fear Your name.” An undivided heart is one totally and completely devoted to Him. To fear God is to have a Holy reverence for Him. We must also be on our guard NOT to become complacent! When our whole heart is surrendered to Him, we can experience contentment in our lives, no matter what comes our way.

There was a time in my life when I was not devoted to God, nor did I love Him first. I was selfish and sinful. I didn’t realize His love for me through Jesus Christ. I got involved in unhealthy relationships; relationships that seemed fun and exciting at first,

but ended up in abuse. The abuse, which started out as verbal eventually got worse and left me with no self worth. It had gotten so bad that one young man I had dated for a few years told me that if I ever broke up with him, no one would ever have me…and I believed him. At that point, I even thought it’d be better to stay with him and be miserable than to have no one and be miserable. Eventually, I ended that relationship. Looking back, I see I was searching for that unconditional love that only God can

give and that no one can take away. Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Eighteen years ago I attended an Easter program in Mobile, AL. God used that to speak to my heart, to show me His love, and to draw me to Him. My life has never been the same. 1 Peter 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,…” Shortly after this, I started attending a church in Gulfport. I loved being around other Christians and learning about the Lord. I was single at the time, but desperately wanted to be a wife and a mother. One night as I was praying, I laid my heart bare before the Lord. I told Him that I didn’t want to be single all my life, and that I wanted a husband and children. I confessed that obviously I did not do well choosing the “right” guy for me. I asked God to choose my husband for me, and that the only request I had was that he loved God more than life itself. I knew that if my future husband loved God first, he would treat me and our children well.

I also prayed that if God wanted me to stay single, that He’d put a peace in my heart because I did NOT have it. I pictured Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane asking for God’s will and not His own. Even though my situation did not compare to what Christ

went through, I desired the same: God’s will above my own. It was when I became content in Him, that He blessed me with my husband Mark. I share this with you to encourage you to be still and wait on the Lord. His will for your life is far greater than you can imagine. Surrender to Him and allow Him to be the Lover of your soul!

The second greatest commandment is, Matthew 22:39, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Who is our neighbor? Basically, anyone other than ourselves! We are commanded to love and esteem others. Philippians 2:3-4 states, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit, but with humility of mind consider others as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own interests, but also for the interests of others.” God has given us the family as a perfect environment to practice this in. When my children are having difficulties sharing or being kind to one another, I remind them that of all the children in the whole world God chose them to be siblings, and He does NOT make mistakes, so they have to love one another and treat each other kindly...It is NOT an option!

Scripture is very clear about our roles as women. Whether you are single or married we have many opportunities to show God’s love to others. For those of us who are married, or desire to be, God has designed us to love our husbands. Marriage is ordained by God and has been from the beginning of creation when He created Adam and Eve. He created Adam first, and then Eve to be Adam’s suitable helper. Similarly, we are to be our husband’s helpers. Are you a helper to your husband? God has ordained our husbands and given them the responsibility to lead our families. For those of us who like to be in control, we must let go of the reigns and trust God to work through our husbands. When we submit to their headship, we are recognizing their Biblical authority.

Ephesians 5:22-24 says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church. He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.” We are to submit to them in all things UNLESS it CLEARLY goes against the Word of God.

For those of you who may be married to an unbeliever, Scripture is clear about your behavior towards your husband. 1 Peter 3:1-2 states, “In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the

word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and *respectful behavior.” What kind of behavior? Chaste & respectful. *You can find something to respect about your husband-(ex. work; think back to

what 1st attracted you to him).

Submission is a word many women shy away from. Some even make up their “own” definition for it, but we must realize the authority of Scripture. It does not mean that wives must throw their brains out the back door and become doormats. Submission

is yielding, resigning, or surrendering to the power, will, or authority of another. It is recognizing God’s order for our home. We should desire to be the “most excellent wife” we can be for the glory of God. Proverbs 12:4 says, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who shames him is like rottenness to his bones.” When we don’t submit and respect our husbands, we become like ‘rottenness to his bones’. Do you ever

talk badly about your husbands? We should NEVER speak disrespectfully about our husbands, not even in a joking manner, because that would be shaming them.

We can submit to our husbands as an act of submission to the Lord. However, we are not to place them above the Lord. That would be idolatry. By the way, ladies, when we submit, we’re to do it WITHOUT grumbling or complaining. Philippians 2:14-15 says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.” By submitting to our husbands, we are honoring God by obeying His Word.

God has also designed us to love our children. After Moses told the Israelites to love the LORD with all their heart, soul, and might, he told them in Deut. 6:6-7, “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” We are to make the most of every opportunity to train our children according to the Word of God. To do this, we must spend time in the Word and obey it, as well as spend time with out children. Psalm 119:2 says, “How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek Him

with all their heart.”

We must also be careful to see children as God does. In Psalm 127:3 it says, “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward.” How do you view your children? Will you be glad when they’re grown and gone; or do you see them as blessings from the LORD? Are they one of the joys of your life? Unfortunately, many in our society view children as a curse, when God clearly says they are a blessing. Being a

mom is a privilege, but comes with great responsibility. When we mess up, we must ask our children’s forgiveness. When I ask for my children’s forgiveness, I remind them that our Heavenly Father is the only perfect parent and that I’m going to mess up. I also

remind them that Jesus Christ was the only perfect child that walked on this Earth, and that I don’t expect perfection from them, but I do expect them to do their best. Because we love our children and want to train them in righteousness, we must instruct, encourage, correct, and discipline them. To do this Biblically, we must know the difference between childishness and foolishness. Childishness is when a child behaves in a way because they don’t know any better. Foolishness is when a child knows better, but chooses to be disobedient or defiant.

Proverbs is full of Godly counsel in training children. We should make every effort to train them up to have Godly character, but be on our guard NOT to compare them with others. We must love our children for who they are; if we don’t, they will find someone who will….and that could be DANGEROUS! Enjoy who God created them to be. Pray to see them through the eyes of Christ. Encourage them in their strengths, and help them

through their weaknesses. What we may see as a weakness, God can use for His glory if it’s encouraged properly. Critical words can tear down a child, but wise words can build him up. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue…”. How have your words been lately? Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands.” We can set the tone in our homes by our attitude, by not allowing our emotions to control us. The only way we can succeed in this is by spending time with the LORD in His Word. John 15:4 says, “Abide in Me,

and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” This verse applies to all of us. It doesn’t matter if you’re married, single, divorced, or widowed. God can use you!

I just want encourage anyone here who may be dealing with rebellious or wayward children to not give up. Keep praying! There was a time in my life when I was rebellious and my precious mother prayed fervently for me. I am forever grateful.

For those of us who are older, in age and in the faith, Scripture makes it clear what we are to do. Titus 2:3-says, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” (blasphemed) Why do we need to encourage younger women in these things? So that the Word of God will not be blasphemed!

There are women everywhere that are hungry for the Truth. Pray for opportunities to share the love of Christ. I will conclude with this…

John 13:34-35, Jesus is speaking and says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all

men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

When we get into the Word of God, and realize His great love for us, it is then we are able to love Him first, and love others as He commands.

*REMEMBER:

The author of Scripture is the Lover of our Souls.

When in Rome

2008-03-10T03:32:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger Tom Holliday has written a timely piece about Christianity and culture. He has graciously allowed me to post it here. May you find it instructive and convicting as I have.

When in Rome…

How many times have you heard the saying “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”? The origin of this concept is definitely not from the Bible. Some of the first Christians were living in Rome, and though many of them were from Rome they refused to do as the Romans did. These Christians understood that their citizenship was in heaven (Phil 3:20) and they were to follow the customs and culture of heaven regardless what country they were in. This refusal to yield to local culture was costly: the Romans fed Christians to lions for entertainment.

Personal experience has shown that it is easy to go along with local culture and sometimes even forget that I am a stranger and a pilgrim in this land (1Pet 2:11). It is tempting to look for ways to settle comfortably in this world, but to do so is to betray the Lord to whom I owe allegiance. It is easier to just dig into dinner at a restaurant than to interrupt a conversation with business associates to give thanks to the Lord for the food. It would be easier to just go along with attending events that are held at a casino or include inappropriate entertainment. It is easier to spend the evening surfing the internet than to meditate on the Word of God.

A subtle danger is to look for ways to avoid the conflict altogether. It is easier to think about isolating myself from the local culture than to live differently in the midst of the culture. But we are called to the spiritual battle. We are soldiers operating inside enemy territory (Eph 6:10-18). To hide from the culture is to lay down our armor and wait quietly for the war to end. This is neither the way of the cross nor the way of valor.

May our Lord give us strength and courage to live even as He lived – confronting those around us with the culture and customs of our heaven, not fitting into or avoiding the culture of earth. While in Rome, we will not do as the Romans do, but we will be ambassadors for Christ even as the Roman Christians were.

Martin Lloyd Jones on Biblical Authority

2008-03-07T05:14:00.000-08:00

A friend sent this to me and I thought it was worth posting. Honestly, can you think of too many things better than Martin Lloyd Jones quoting Charles Haddon Spurgeon on biblical authority? Here is the quote.

The authority of the Scriptures is not a matter to be defended, so much as to be asserted.... I am reminded of what the great Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said in this connexion: 'There is no need for you to defend a lion when he is being attacked. All you need to do is to open the gate and let him out' . . . it is the preaching and exposition of the Bible that really establish its truth and authority. I believe that this is more true today, perhaps ... than it has been for the last two centuries.... There is nothing that really explains the whole world situation, as it is today, except the Bible. Take even the question of the origin of the world, and the very nature and character of the world itself. We know that there have been certain scientists in this present century who ... have been forced to come to the conclusion that there must be a great Mind, a great Architect behind the universe.... The Bible has always asserted this, but at long last some of these men are coming to admit it.
But when you come to consider the state and condition of the world this particular point is still more evident. When you look at the average individual man as he is today, in spite of all the advance of learning and culture and knowledge ... what, are you to say? When you are confronted by the fact of two major world wars in this present century ... the only adequate explanation is that which is given in the Bible: the biblical doctrine of sin. Nothing else really gives an adequate explanation.... It is only in the light of this teaching that you can understand the whole process of history. Now it is of great interest and real significance to observe that the critics themselves are now beginning to say this. They used to deny it.... They hated the whole notion of sin. Man was developing and improving. He was getting better and better. But now they have been forced to admit the truth of the biblical teaching and they are coming back to it.

Authority, pp. 41-2

A thousand amens to that. And this is another reason the elders of Grace Fellowship Church are committed to the faithful, ongoing unleashing of God's Word through the exposition of the Bible. Our most feeble attempts of studying and preaching God's Word will be blessed because the God of that Word has instructed us to do so.

Catching Up

2008-02-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

Its been quite a while since I have been able to put anything on the blog. But here are a couple of updates for Grace Fellowship Church. First our website was down for a while but is now back up and running at a new address. That link is www.gracefellowshipgulfport.org.

Also, all the sermons for Hebrews that I have preached to date have been uploaded to the sermon hosting site. You can get those here.

Also please pray for Gary Lankford as he travels to Guatemala today. He will be there for two weeks.

The Great High Priest of the New Covenant

2007-12-25T06:08:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to the new sermons from GFC. We have been dealing with Christ as the Great High Priest of the New Covenant. I hope these sermons will be as edifying to you as they were to me in preparing and preaching them. I have been reminded over and over through this series of the absolute superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ over all. He truly is the Great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Here is the link.

Jesus Christ Our Great High Priest

2007-10-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Christ is indeed our Great High Priest thus nullifying the Old Covenant sacrificial system. Yesterday I preached on Hebrews 5:1-10 and gave two ways that Christ's priesthood is superior to Aaron's. Click here to get the sermon.

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones on Evangelism

2007-09-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Charles Spurgeon is my hero. He was a Calvinist, a Baptist, and an evangelist used mightily by his Lord. Right now I am finishing a cup of coffee from my "Charles Spurgeon is my Homeboy" coffee mug. It's my favorite mug. One of my prize possessions is a one hundred plus year old print of Charles Spurgeon that I bought off eBay. As much as I admire Spurgeon a close second in my hero list of non-biblical characters is Dr. Lloyd-Jones or "the Doctor" as he was often called. He lived from 1899-1981 and pastored two churches. One at Aberavon in Wales and then at the Westminster Chapel in London. He forsook a promising career in medicine for the ministry of the Word of God.

I have been reading his two volume biography by Ian Murray and I wanted to share some gems I have discovered. The first gem I have discovered about this man is his steadiness. When the evangelical world around him was tossed about by fad and new invention of "winning" people to the Lord he remained steadfast in his conviction that the Lord uses His Word in the conviction and conversion of sinners to Christ. He believed that it was through the preached Word that God gave the evangelical gifts of repentance and faith. He rejected a merely intellectual Calvinism that led to a full head but a cold heart. His doctrine and preaching was correct yet filled with the passion of a heart that loved God, loved the Word of God, and lived for the glory of his Lord.

In February, 1942 the Doctor was asked to speak on evangelism by the leaders of the Crusaders' Union at Sion College. The first portion of his address dealt with avoiding two opposite ends of the spectrum. First there were those who were "perfectly orthodox" yet had ministries that were "barren and fruitless." The second end of the spectrum were those who always claimed "phenomenal results" without even considering their methods and the results. He pointed his listeners back to the "textbook" for evangelism, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the New Testament Epistles. He said if we are going to evangelize correctly we must follow the model therein. The second suggestion for learning proper evangelism was to study and know the history of the church. He advised that we look at the Puritans, the Protestant Reformers, and even the Church fathers. It is important to learn how these people of the faith down through the ages understood the biblical text and how they practiced evangelism. Ignorance of these two guides would lead us down a road of pragmatism where everything we do is based on what we think and what we feel will work usually disregarding the witness of Scripture and the testimony of the church through the ages.

After teaching this the Doctor laid down five foundational principles of evangelism. Here they are as Ian Murray reports them on page 90 of Volume 2.

1. The supreme object of this work is to glorify God... The first object of the preaching of the Gospel is not to save souls... Nothing else, however good in itself, or however noble, must be allowed to usurp that first place.

2. The only power that can really do this work is that of the Holy Spirit...

3. The one and only medium through which the Holy Spirit works is the Word of God... The medium that is used by the Holy Spirit is the truth.

4. The true urge to evangelization must come from apprehending these principles and, therefore, of a zeal for the honor and glory of God, and a love for the souls of men.

5. There is a constant danger of error, and of heresy, even amongst the most sincere, and also the danger of a false zeal and the employment of unscriptural methods.

I hope in my own life and in yours these principles will both guide us and ignite a fiery passion for scripturally informed and biblically saturated evangelism to the glory of God.

Help in Time of Need

2007-09-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

On September 16 I preached on the convicting power of the Word of God and the fact that all will stand before the Lord to give an accounting of their life. The scary part of this is that nothing is hidden from God. He is keenly and intimately aware of everything even to the very intentions of our heart. You can hear that sermon by clicking here.

Yesterday I preached on what we are to do in response to the convicting power of the Word and the truth of the coming judgment of God. The sermon above is from Hebrews 4:11-13 and yesterday's sermon was from Hebrews 4:14-16. Click here to hear that sermon. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Striving to enter God's Rest

2007-09-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

Over the last two weeks we have looked at Hebrews 4:3-11. We are called by the Word of God to "strive to enter God's rest." Part one can be heard here. Part two can be heard here. May the Lord give you strength as you strive to enter His rest.

GFC Top Ten Sermons

2007-08-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to do this for a little while but have kept putting it off. I wanted, in honor of our one year anniversary at GFC, to post the top ten sermons from the GFC pulpit that have been recorded and uploaded to the sermon hosting sight. I am listing these according to the number of downloads. If you missed these then they may be worth a listen.

10. "How to Shepherd the Lord's Sheep" 1 Peter 5:2-3
9. "The Armed Christian" 1 Peter 4:1-6
8. "Suffering as Evangelism II" 1 Peter 3:13-17
7. "Instructions to Wives II" 1 Peter 3:1-6
6. "Instructions to Wives III" 1 Peter 3:1-6
5. "Suffering as Evangelism" 1 Peter 3:13-17
4. "Instructions to Wives" 1 Peter 3:1-6
3. "Instructions to Husbands" 1 Peter 3:7
2. "The Favor of God" 1 Peter 3:8-12

And last but not least is the most downloaded sermon (744 times as of today) in GFC's short history:

1. "Sola Scriptura"

Is It Possible to Fall Short of God's Rest?

2007-08-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Over the past two weeks I have been preaching in Hebrews 4. I have thus far covered about two and a half verses in two sermons. The reason for this is because the warnings in this chapter are so clear. Many people have a false sense of security when it comes to their salvation. These two sermons will serve to point all of us in the right direction for our security in salvation. That direction is of course the Lord Jesus Christ. We are, according to Hebrews 4:1--3, fear for two reasons. First, that we do not fall short of entering God's rest. You can hear that sermon by clicking here. Second, we are to fear lest we fall short by being vain hearers of the Gospel. That sermon can be found here. May the Lord bless you through His Word proclaimed.

Pastoral Reflections on Grace Fellowship's First Year

2007-08-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

The first Sunday in July marked Grace Fellowship Church's official first anniversary. I have stood amazed over the last year at all the Lord has done. We at GFC rest in the fact that Christ has promised to build His church. We have no programs, no organized outreach, or any of the other trappings of many churches and yet God has been faithful to not only sustain us but also to increase our fellowship.

Every Lord's Day I delight in (and not only I but also my wife and children) going to church. We look forward to being with our church family and worshiping the Lord together. We spend hours in fellowship together each week. We always share a meal. The only way I can describe Sunday is like a family reunion. We are always excited to see one another and that is evident by how long it often takes to get started and then the time everyone stays after.

As a pastor I have never had so much freedom in the pulpit. If the sermon takes forty five minutes or an hour or even more the congregation are there to hear the Word proclaimed. They have a love for the Word and no pastor-preacher worth his salt would leave this congregation disappointed willingly. They challenge me to work harder in preparation, to sharpen my skills as an exegete, and to faithfully deliver the Word as the Lord has intended. It is very unusual for a week to go by where I do not receive from someone an encouraging email or phone call about last weeks sermon. Some even read ahead and tell me they are anxious to see how I handle a certain upcoming passage.

If you are a pastor then I know at this point you are salivating. To ask questions about the sermon or an upcoming text keeps me on my toes as I approach the next section of a Bible book. Not to mention that it is extremely encouraging. A preacher preparing to preach for a congregation that relishes the Word of God brings such joy and excitement to the often long and tedious job of preparing an exposition.

I have to say a few words about the elders at GFC. I serve with two of the most dedicated, godly men I have ever been around. These men balance me in leadership. They are both older than me in age and in the Lord and in so many ways wiser. There have been two occasions this year where they have had to step in on my behalf on short notice and have done a tremendous job in the pulpit. My only regret was that I had the sermon recorder and did not get to hear them myself. But others told me what a wonderful job they did in preaching the Word. Plus the decisions that we have made over this last year for the church have always been made prayerfully and cautiously. A prayer I often hear these men pray is, "Lord, we do not want to go before You in anything..." I can not even express how encouraged I am when I think about this.
I stand in awe of what the Lord has done thus far in the life of our congregation and I am excited at what He has in store for us in the future. On a personal note, in April before our second anniversary in July, I will turn 35. I pray that the Lord will give me at least forty more years of ministry at Grace Fellowship Church. May the Lord be praised.

Recent Sermons

2007-07-25T06:46:00.001-07:00

Over the past few weeks I have been emphasizing the danger of neglecting faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some are afraid to talk about this all important issue in Christianity. Is it possible for a legitimate Christian to depart from the faith? I pray these sermons will be a warning and an encouragement to avoid the great danger of spiritual apostasy. You can go here to hear the last three sermons from the Grace Fellowship pulpit.

Our Superior Savior Christ the Lord

2007-06-25T13:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to yesterday's sermon at Grace Fellowship. May you glory in the superiority of Our Great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Christ is Superior

2007-06-21T10:57:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest sermon from the pulpit of Grace Fellowship Church. This is also my 1ooth post. May God bless you.

Serving Well: The End of an Honored Career

2007-06-19T07:54:00.000-07:00

I have the privilege of serving as a fellow elder at Grace Fellowship with Doug Lipscombe. Besides serving as an elder of the church, striving to be a godly husband, and working hard at raising twin daughters, Doug is a Hurricane Hunter. Yes, he is one of those guys who get their kicks out of flying an Air Force C-130 into a monster storm. But those days for Doug are now coming to an end. As of July 1 he will be retired from the Air Force Reserve and as of this month has taken his last flight as a part of this distinguished service group.

I know that he will miss this as much as the crew he served with will miss him. Tradition for this group is to soak the retiring member when they land from their final flight. Which is what these pictures above are. When he walked off the plane someone got him with a firehose (picture two) and at the same time he got the bucket of ice water down the back (picture 4). He obviously took it like a man.

Doug, we thank you for your service to our country for nearly thirty years. We salute you and look forward to thirty more years of service together at Grace Fellowship Church if the Lord is so gracious to grant us that.

Staying the Course: An Introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews

2007-06-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

This Sunday we began an expository series on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Part of the reason is because we are nearing our one year anniversary as a congregation. We must stay the course. This sermon addressed that issue as well as the superiority of Christ. Click here to listen and may the Lord bless you.

An Interesting Site

2007-06-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting site for everyone. Jason Dawson, a friend from Kansas City, maintains this site. Check it out here.

The Lord is Able: On the Death of Marielle Nish

2007-06-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

The family above is the Nish family. Our family has been praying for them for about a year. Our church family has been praying for them since July of 2006. I can't recall a Sunday that has gone by that they have not been mentioned in our prayers as a congregation. Monday, May 28, Marielle went home to be with her Lord. Our church family mourns with the Nishes. We have kept up with them through email updates over their journey. We have rejoiced when they rejoiced and we have wept with them and for them. In our own way there is an emptiness in our prayer lives where Marielle once was. Because of our hope in Christ we no longer have to pray for Marielle but we will continue to bring her family before the throne of grace.

This week I felt strongly that I should hold off before beginning a new book of the Bible and turn to a passage that offers great hope in the face of overwhelming circumstances. The congregation and their pastor needed to hear that our Lord is both sovereign and good. I hope you will take the time to listen to the sermon from John 11:1-46. Go here to listen.

The Perseverance of the Saints

2007-05-28T05:23:00.001-07:00

The final sermon on the TULIP that defines the Doctrines of Grace was preached today. Like most of the doctrines, perseverance of the saints is a hot button. Press it and people come out of the woodwork that want to debate. This sermon is from John 10:22-30. I hope the explanation of this doctrine will be beneficial and edifying to you. You can listen here.

Irresistible Grace and Blog Hiatus

2007-05-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

Here is the sermon from Sunday. It is on the doctrine of irresistible grace.

Also, we are packing to move to our new house and will not have internet service for a while. I will be back on line soon.

Thoughts on the Home Going of Rev. Jerry Falwell

2007-05-16T06:01:00.000-07:00

How do you describe a man like Rev. Jerry Falwell? Some would say a man of God which I would agree with and others would say not so nice things. When I read yesterday that Rev. Falwell died I was shocked and saddened. This is one of the preachers that my dad listened to when I was a kid. So I grew up watching Brother Jerry on television. I watched the news and saw him as a lightening rod absorbing the barrages of the immoral portion of our country. He stood strong and he stood on the Word of God.

Personally, Bro. Jerry and I would not have seen eye to eye on some theological and methodological issues but on most social issues we would have stood side by side. He fought against the evils of pornography, abortion, homosexuality and most of the time did so with truth clothed in the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. I watched him debate far left liberals who tried unsuccessfully to make him look like a fool. He never came across as loud and obnoxious in those debates, he simply stood for God's timeless truth.

Jerry Falwell will be remembered as a hero of the faith. I will think back over the next few days of those times with my family watching Bro. Jerry on the Old Time Gospel Hour. I will think about the amount of integrity that he walked in and try to live up to the same standard that he tried to live up to also, that of the Lord Jesus Christ. His family, friends, church, university, and seminary will miss him personally and his leadership greatly. Remember to pray that Liberty and Thomas Road Baptist Church will remain a light for the gospel in the coming decades.

As I have listened to the news this morning, the question has remained the same. "Was Rev. Falwell afraid of death?" As a result his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has been able to be spoken of on several occasions to a watching world. He was a witness for Christ in his life and is so even in his death.

Now for us. What will people say about you when you pass from this world into the glory that is to come? Will they recall your integrity and your faith in Christ? Will they remember you as a strong soldier for the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you be able to say as you breathe your last, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith." I believe this morning that Bro. Jerry could say that. I pray that at my death I can say that as well. I pray the same for you. Lord, teach us to number our days and may all that we do, say, and think bring you great glory that You so rightly deserve.

The Mother of My Children

2007-05-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

I love my wife. God has truly blessed me with a godly woman. Her value is far above rubies and all the gold in the world could not purchase her from me. For almost ten years now she has been my companion, my best friend, my biggest supporter, and the thing that thrills my heart is that she is the best mother to my children that I could ask for. She loves them and cares for them. She teaches them about the Lord and about life. She is their educator and their nurturer. And they love her tremendously.

Baby, these are truly verses that you have and will live up to.
28 Her children rise up and bless her;
Her husband also, and he praises her, saying: 29 "Many daughters have done nobly,
But you excel them all." 30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,
But a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. 31 Give her the product of her hands,
And let her works praise her in the gates.

Prov 31:28-31 (NASB)

Limited Atonement

2007-05-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

In this post I do not want to say very much. I would like for what I said yesterday in the sermon to speak rather than me say it all over again. The atonement provided to the people of God by the Lord Jesus Christ is one of the most amazing doctrines in all of Scripture. Listen for yourself and I pray that you will glory in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the sermon.

Carbon Dioxide Shmeoxide: The Foolishness of the Radical Left

2007-05-07T08:03:00.000-07:00

I usually stay out of the political realm on this blog. But in the words of Yosemite Sam, "I've had all I can stands and I can't stands n'more!" When so called self appointed authorities on global warming and the environment like Sheryl Crow tell us that we need to limit ourselves to one square of toilet paper per bathroom visit I can usually overlook such ignorance. The last time I checked trees, which toilet paper is made from, are a renewable resource. Plus I don't want Mr. Whipple down at the supermarket to have to stop telling people not to squeeze the Charmin. Heaven forbid that he find himself jobless because we stopped squeezing.

Then we have all the "people in the know" tell us that we must start using electric cars instead of cars with internal combustion engines. They tell us that it is better because we are not using the big mean gas companies' products. I guess they think that electricity is produced by magic. I went on a field trip when I was in eighth grade and I learned then that electricity was not produced by magic. It was produced by burning coal and lots of it. Coal is dirty and it has pollutants also. So in my mind you are just picking your poison. Plus it is not any cheaper. How much did it cost you to run your house last month with electricity? It cost me more than I paid in gas for our minivan with a big V6 engine that gets about 20 MPGs on a good day. And living in hot house like southern Mississippi you can bet your carbon footprint that we run the air conditioner when we are on the road. Is it because I don't care about the environment? No. Its because I want my family and I to survive the trip and not smell like we have been on the farm all day when we get to where we are going.

Plus I don't like (thankfully former Vice President) Al "I don't have walking around sense" Gore telling me how much damage I am doing to the environment as he jets around the world, leaving a larger carbon footprint in one day than I will in my lifetime, telling people how horribly we treat the planet. Then he tells us that we can pay a company to help offset our carbon footprint and the funny thing is, he is part owner of the company. Yes. Mr. Gore, i was born yesterday and fell off the turnip truck today. Where do I send the check? I guess the way they offset my carbon footprint is the same method the environmental crazies think electricity is made...by magic.

Now I know you are probably thinking that I have waited too long to say anything already constructive and that I am just being mean. I clicked on Drudge Report this morning and I found this story. According to a "Think" tank children are terrible for the environment. If we all would just have two children, drive electric "magical" cars, pay Al Gore more money, and use one sheet of toilet paper then the world will be saved.

Now I am aware that there are many Christians embracing the environ "mental" movement today and they want to protect "mother" earth from the detrimental effects of humanity. Maybe these Christians should read their Bibles a little more and see what the earth that they are protecting is headed for. In my Bible it says that the creation suffered the ravages of Adam's sin just as humanity has. Romans 8:20-22 says:
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

And later we learn in 2 Peter 3:10-11 what the destiny of this earth that some people are trying so hard to protect is going to be.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,

Now I don't want you to think that I believe we ought to live irresponsibly and pollute everything just for the sake of living easier lives. I am not saying that at all. I believe in turning off the lights, driving the speed limit so not to use as much gas, and doing all I can to help keep the water and natural areas clean. All I am saying is that as Christians we should stop listening to these same people that twenty five years ago were telling us that we were going to have another ice age that are now telling us that the planet is going to heat up too much. Tell the people in Siberia and Alaska and Montana that its a bad thing for the earth to get a little warmer. If anyone should be worried it should be us down here in sweltering hot South Mississippi. Okay, I feel better now.

Unconditional Election

2007-05-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

The above print is a picture of the Synod of Dort where the five points of what is called Calvinism were given to us in an acrostic. Here is the acrostic.
T- Total Depravity
U- Unconditional Election
L- Limited Atonement
I- Irresistible Grace
P- Perseverance of the Saints

Today at Grace Fellowship I preached on the doctrine of unconditional election. Many say that preaching these doctrines can be divisive or confusing. They say that they are unimportant. But as a Christian and a pastor I can not think of one unimportant doctrine. As a matter of fact, if you get the doctrine of election wrong then you will get many other doctrines wrong as well. For instance, if you do not understand that election is unconditional then you will never fully understand and appreciate your security in Christ, the love which the Father has loved you and will continue to love you with, and the fact that we have grace available to endure whatever hardship the Lord allows to come our way. I encourage you to listen to the sermon and see all that our Heavenly Father has done on our behalf. Here is the link.

It Finally Happened

2007-05-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

After almost two and a half months of hair pulling stress and distress we closed on our first home. I told my wife that I hoped she liked Mississippi and this house because after the ordeal that we went through to buy it I am not in any hurry to start the process over again. Seriously, we really like the house and its location. We would have never imagined that a house like this and with the view and scenery would be remotely close to our price range.

We are so happy to finally have the opportunity to be settled in one place. Dani and I have lived in five cities in three states in ten years of marriage. Now we can settle down and call one place home hopefully for the rest of our lives.

The pictures above are from the house. The first picture is of Black Creek taken from the front porch of the house. The second picture is of that porch. The third picture is of Abby on that porch. You can see more pics by visiting Dani's blog. The Lord has truly blessed us.

Total Depravity

2007-04-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

When people think of Total Depravity, they think often of men like Adolph Hitler. But he is merely an example of what our warped, depraved will is capable of. Every human that has been born with the exception of the Lord Jesus Christ, has been born totally depraved and perfectly capable of the crimes that Hitler committed. And may I say that we are capable of far worse. But it is only through an understanding of this critical doctrine that we can more fully appreciate the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.

At Grace Fellowship, I am currently preaching through a series on the Doctrines of Grace. Some refer to these doctrines as Calvinism. But they are not original with John Calvin. They are original with the Word of God. So take time to listen to the sermon on Total Depravity and may God cause you to rejoice in His grace afresh today.

No Call to Repentance?

2007-04-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

It seems in the wake of the tragedy on the campus of Virginia Tech that a word has dropped completely out of the American vocabulary. That word is repentance. It means to turn away from the sin that is causing the problems that plague our nation and turn to the only One who can save us from our depraved selves. That One is the Lord Jesus Christ. I listened to part of the convocation at Virginia Tech yesterday and watched some more of it. I was shocked. Right off the bat as the religious community representatives were introduced to speak we had a Muslim, a Buddhist, a representative of liberal Judaism, and then a Lutheran.

At a time in our nation where the memories of the Oklahoma city bombing, the first World Trade Center bombing, the countless acts of terrorism on US interests around the world, the memory of Columbine, Pearl, Mississippi, the shootings in Canada several months ago, not to mention the images of the Twin Towers collapsing on thousands of people in New York in 2001 we as Americans are trying to be sensitive to the people of other faiths. In case no one has noticed the United States is under attack. We have brought this on ourselves by our lack of obedience to the Gospel. Read the Bible. Sin has consequences whether we like it or not. And yes the lines have not blurred enough for me to call sin sin and not some dysfunction. I would agree that people are dysfunctional and that is because of depravity.

President Bush called on people to pray and thanked them for their prayers in the shadow of the horrific killings at Virginia Tech. But why will he not stand up like Abraham Lincoln and call for national repentance? It is because the word has been lost in our culture. You now need counseling alone for your dysfunction, not repentance. But we can not blame our culture. The word has been almost completely lost in our churches. How can we expect the nation to understand the word when most men who claim to be God called preachers of the Gospel do not understand it?

Repentance is not feeling sorry that you have sinned. Repentance is not admitting that you are a sinner. It is not asking Jesus into your heart. Repentance is an evangelical gift by which the Lord enables you to see your utter depravity and it so sickens you that you loathe your own self and turn to Christ by faith alone in His righteousness. That is real repentance. It is turning away from your own vileness to the righteousness of Christ alone.

This will only happen as the proclaimers of the Word of God in our evangelical (and I mean true evangelical churches) churches boldly proclaim repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. When the people of God become repenters then and only then will the nation be shown an example of true biblical Christianity and not this fake Jesus follower nonsense.

So why are these tragedies multiplying on our nation? Why do we seem to be getting worse instead of better? Why is our nation crumbling before our eyes? We have lost the blessing of God precisely because we have forgotten how to blush. We as a nation have forgotten about repentance. May the Lord help us recover this by sending a wave of conviction on our leaders and nation.

God's Protection Plan

2007-04-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

Over the last few weeks at Grace Fellowship we have been studying the duties of the elders toward the flock of God, the church. Yesterday, I completed our expository series of 1 Peter by preaching through 1 Peter 5:5-11. I briefly touched on verse 12 as well. In that section of Scripture, Peter gives us four imperatives for faithful church membership. These commands are for the protection of the flock of God. God has planned for none of us to stand alone in this world and to have a group of people to come around us for fellowship, mutual edification, and when necessary Godly church discipline. I hope that you will take the time to listen to the sermon (by clicking here) and be challenged in your duties as a church member. And by the way, if you are not a church member, then I hope you will be challenged to covenant with a group of people who will provide instruction in the Word, edification for sanctification, godly fellowship, and Spirit led church discipline.

Post Abortion Memorial Service

2007-04-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Those of you that know my wife Dani and I know that we love children. We have three children of our own and are thankful everyday for God giving them to us. We also love unborn children and pray for God to change the heart of our nation and for the practice of abortion to be a thing of the past. But we also know that this world is permeated with sin and thus there are many sinners, including us. We rejoice in God's grace that can make the "vilest sinner clean."

One of the ministries that Dani has been involved in, even before I met her over a decade ago, is the crisis pregnancy and post-abortion ministry. Dani will partner with another woman and lead a group of ladies who have experienced the trauma of abortion through a detailed Bible study about the grace and mercy of God found only in the Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of the Bible study the ladies have the opportunity to participate in a memorial service for their unborn children. They give the children names and they mourn the loss of their babies. It is a celebration of God's grace and proof that God makes beauty from ashes.

I have preached the memorial sermons at two of these events. I am not a tearful person and I am very good at holding back my emotions but let me promise you that if you ever experience such an event you will be like me and be overwhelmed at the grace of our crucified, risen Lord.

Tonight I uploaded the sermon that I preached at Faith Community Church in the fall of 2005 at one of these memorial services. I pray that the Lord will give you a heart for this type of ministry as you realize the untold millions of mothers and fathers in our nation today who have experienced abortion. Remember, Christ died for sinners, of whom I am chief.

How To Shepherd the Lord's Sheep

2007-04-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

The flock of God is special. The Lord Jesus Christ laid down His life for these sheep. So He cares for them more than words can express. So when the Chief Shepherd calls out sheep to lead and tend His flock these men must understand what the Chief Shepherd requires. Today I preached from 1 Peter 5:2-3 and gave four directives for shepherding the flock of God. May the Lord bless you as you listen. Update! The audio has been fixed. Sorry for the delay.

Church Elders: Men Under Authority

2007-03-25T15:55:00.000-07:00

One of the truths of Scripture is that God many times over refers to His people as sheep. If you know anything at all about sheep you know that being called a sheep is not a compliment. Furthermore, God even chooses men from His flock of sheep to shepherd the other sheep. To me this is ironic. Only God can train a sheep to be a shepherd. But those shepherds must understand that they are under the authority of the Chief Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today, I preached from 1 Peter 5:1-4 on where the elders of the church get their authority. I also provide a brief defense of a plurality of elders as the biblical model for church government in the introduction. I hope you will take the time to listen to the sermon, especially if you are a church elder or aspire to that position. We recorded most of the service. The volume is a little low at the beginning but gets better a few minutes in. Enjoy and may God richly bless you.

Amazing Grace and the Constant Struggle with Sin

2007-03-24T06:09:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, my wife and I went to see the movie Amazing Grace. It was based on the struggle of Wilberforce in having the slave trade abolished in Great Britain. The struggle was great but worthwhile. I would recommend the movie and here is the trailer from the official movie site.

In the movie there were some great quotes. The one that has remained with me was when the actor playing John Newton (pictured above) who penned the hymn Amazing Grace said, "I am a great sinner. Christ is a great Savior." This was a great reminder in my own mind and heart about the constant struggle with the flesh and sin. No matter, it seems, how much we hate sin we still sin. We struggle, we battle, we fall prey to temptation. We seek to walk upright before the Lord but often our thoughts and our actions betray us.

The Apostle Paul said, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" The Apostle Peter reminds us "to be holy as the Lord is holy." Even the Lord Jesus tells us that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees if we are to see the Kingdom of God. So what are we to do? If you take a moment for honest self evaluation, you can not say that you have indeed made great progress in the Christian faith. Yes, you may know more and you may understand complex doctrinal issues, but at the core of your being you are still a sinner. The past and the present sins you still struggle with. Temptation lurks around each corner.

If you on at least the surface understand your own depravity, you know that you had nothing to do with your own salvation and therefore you have nothing to do with staying in the state of salvation. The grace of God in Christ Jesus that saved us is also the same grace that perseveres us. Newton in the movie said, "I am a great sinner, Christ is a great Savior." In his song, Amazing Grace, verse 3 sums this up.

"Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."

In other words, we are always and constantly in need of God's mercy and grace. And HE through the Lord Jesus Christ has provided that persevering grace. So today I am renewed in my understanding of my need for grace and I also understand that my righteousness indeed surpasses that of the Scribes and Pharisees. This is true not because of my works, which are filthy rags, but because of Christ's work on the cross on my behalf. I have real righteousness because I have been given Christ's righteousness.

So today I proclaim in full agreement with John Newton, "I am a great sinner, Christ is a great Savior!"

Evangelistic Motivation

2007-03-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

Some of you have seen this video. For those who have not, enjoy!

How to Grow Your Church

2007-03-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a great video on church growth with an excellent quote by Charles Spurgeon.

The Second Part of "Suffering Well"

2007-03-18T15:54:00.000-07:00

Today I completed the series on Suffering as Evangelism. This series has taken about twelve weeks. It has been a series that has stretched me as an expositor and has caused me to reevaluate some of my own beliefs. The passages of Scripture that we covered was from 1 Peter 3:13 through 4:19. Here is the last sermon in this section of First Peter. May the Lord bless you as you listen.

House Update

2007-03-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

I have always heard that buying a house for the first time is a difficult thing to do. I will admit that there has been a lot of paperwork but Harry at Community Bank has made it very easy. If you live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast I would highly recommend Harry for your mortgage needs. He has been very thorough and is a genuinely nice guy. We should be closing on the house in a week or so.

Dani and I are so excited to finally call a place that we lay our heads, ours. Technically the bank will own it until we finish paying for it but it is nice to think that at the latest it will be paid for when I am 63 years old.

The kids are really excited about the new house. They can hardly wait to go exploring with mom and dad.

Suffering Well

2007-03-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

One of the truths of the New Testament is that God calls His people to suffer persecution. The intensity of this persecution can vary. But no matter the level of persecution that God ordains for His people, He calls us to suffer well. To not suffer well is to miss out on the blessedness of suffering and to miss out on bringing glory to our Heavenly Father. Here is the sermon from Sunday, March 11, 2006 at Grace Fellowship Church.

New Sunday Meeting Location

2007-03-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

Back in the summer of 2006, the elders of Grace Fellowship Church met on practically a weekly basis ironing out church documents and establishing what we as a church would be about. There were some very important priorities that we established. We are committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of God as the only authority for life and faith, expositional preaching, the biblical raising of our children and ordering of our families, and fellowship.

When a new church is started there are always big dreams. We looked at our situation and prayed asking the Lord to send those whom He would add to our fellowship. We are not the typical church and if you want “drive thru” Christianity GFC is not the place to go. We spend large amounts of time in fellowship with one another for two reasons. First, we genuinely love each other. Second, we believe that fellowship and hospitality are biblical commands and should be followed for the glory of God and for our edification. Trust me; it is true that it is for our edification. I am personally very thankful for the times after worship where I visit with my brothers and sisters in Christ. It is both refreshing and encouraging.

A problem that we did not think we would have so soon was a space problem. We were meeting in our homes and were beginning to feel like sardines. So the elders met and after being given a great idea pursued a larger location. But there were some criteria for this new location. It had to provide room to grow. There had to be no time limit on Sundays for us to leave. There had to be a place to fellowship. And there needed to be a place for the children to play together after the worship service. That is a tall order and one the Lord could only fulfill.

A phone call was made to Harrison County and we asked about community centers. Most were booked for the next year… except one. The Success Civic Center was open. As a matter of fact, it was hardly ever used. We rode out one Sunday afternoon to look at it and see if we thought we could use it. It was almost perfect. There was a large enough meeting room with chairs and tables provided. There was a complete kitchen. Outside is a walking track and a playground for the kids. There is also room to grow. It really seems like the Lord had this place tucked away just for us.

So last Sunday we met for the first time at the Success Civic Center. The best word to describe Sunday would be to call it, well, a success. The Lord has truly blessed us with this facility. May He be praised.

The Glory of Christ in Christian Suffering 2

2007-03-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I preached the second part of 1 Peter 4:7-11. The focus was on how we are to use our spiritual gifts in the midst of suffering to the glory of God. That may sound like an impossible thing to do but I assure you that is exactly what God would have us do. May God bless you as you listen.

Amen Tom!!!

2007-02-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

Recently, there was an article in the Mississippi Sun Herald about a local high school alum who has made it big (pun definitely intended). The alum is none other than Big from the MTV show Rob and Big. In all fairness I know absolutely nothing about the show. I do not watch MTV nor would I just to see what was going on. From past experience I can be sure that the show is not wholesome. Big came to Stone County High School for a motivational speech to the students because he is considered a successful alumni of the school. Big has not discovered a cure for a dreaded illness or anything that I would deem a success. He is a very large man and has become successful as a bodyguard. That is all that I have to say about it but I would like for you to read Tom Holliday's response to the Sun Herald. I can't believe they printed it but they did. I hope people read it. Here is the letter.

Principal Has a Pathetic Definition of Success

In his article "Stonewalled by MTV and Stone High School," Chris Hawkins quoted the Stone High School principal as saying, "We're having a motivational speech from someone who has succeeded."
The "successful" motivational speaker is Chris "Big Black" Boykin, a bodyguard for a professional skateboarder who appears on the "reality" show "Rob and Big" on MTV.
As near as I can tell, MTV's corporate mission is to corrupt the culture of our youth with the crudest, most sensual, profane, empty, materialistic lifestyle possible.
For example, the description of the Nov. 1, 2006, episode of "Rob and Big" is "Rob and Big rock out their new home in style with a new pup and a pimped-out party." In this episode, Rob and Big hold a drunken party after which Big demonstrates mixing up his hangover remedy.
This is the kind of "success" that Stone High School is promoting, while preventing the local news media from reporting on the event where this "successful" alum of Stone High gave his motivational speech.
Apparently Stone High School defines success as appearing on television, no matter what program or how vacuous the behavior. With this standard of success, no amount of funding will improve the performance of public schools.

TOM HOLLIDAY Gulfport

Tom, you are right on the money.

Hopefully, Our New Home

2007-02-27T06:08:00.000-08:00

Our family has never owned a home. When Dani and I got married we lived in an apartment. We then moved to a parsonage. From there we lived in seminary housing until I took a church and moved into their parsonage. When we moved south again, after a short adventure in a camper, we found a rental house. So after nine years of marriage, we are attempting to settle into what we can call "our home." We are very excited because the place is really like what we look for when we vacation. It is secluded, on a creek, and rustic. My wife has posted some pictures for your perusal over at her blog. Check it out. And for my friends out there in blog reading land, there is a vacation rental very close to us where you could spend some time on the creek.

The Glory of Christ in Christian Suffering

2007-02-25T19:05:00.000-08:00

The sermon for this Sunday was from 1 Peter 4:7-11. We are studying how Christians are to interact with one another in difficult times. Take the time to listen and I hope that you will be challenged by the Word of God expounded.

Coming to America?

2007-02-25T06:59:00.000-08:00

This girl is fifteen year old Melissa Busekros from Germany. She has been detained by German authorities for committing the horrendous crime of being home schooled. As a homeschooling dad my blood boils at the thought of this. For the sheer ridiculousness of this story read it now. Then gather your children around you and pray that the Lord would have mercy on this precious German family and that He would continue to have mercy on us in a part of the world where it is not yet illegal to home school. After you have done this then click here and join this organization that is defending this girl and countless thousands of home schoolers in this country even if you have no children.

Proper Gospel Proclamation

2007-02-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

For those of you who do not know, the man pictured is the great 18th century evangelist George Whitfield. He preached during the days of the Great Awakening. The sermon for Sunday was Proper Gospel Proclamation. Listen and may the Lord bless you and give you ample opportunities to proclaim His glorious Gospel.

Why No Suffering?

2007-02-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

Suffering for the sake of righteous living and for the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proof that we belong to God. The opposite is thought by the world and the fleshly false church. While I was studying this past week for preaching I was sitting in the coffee shop of the local book store and the bestseller rack was in front of me. The Christian book on there was Joel Osteen’s “Your Best Life Now.” It is a book all about how we can achieve ultimate happiness now. But this is the American Gospel that I spoke against last week. These writers are culturally acceptable but biblically illiterate. The proof of our salvation is not that we are happy but rather that we are suffering.

This section of First Peter that we have been studying at Grace Fellowship has sparked quite a bit of discussion during and after our fellowship time which is a very good thing. We have had to look around us and ask the question why none of us drag in to church on Sunday morning beaten to a pulp because of our witness that week. Or why we have not heard of one of our brothers and sisters in this congregation thrown into prison last month for being a Christian. And let me tell you I have spent quite a bit of time agonizing over why that is not happening to me. Am I not proclaiming the Gospel? Am I not living a Christian life?

I have been reading a couple of books that have been very insightful in helping me work this out in my own mind and none of them are Joel Osteen’s book. One is “The Forgotten Spurgeon” by Ian Murray and the other is the story of William Bradford and the Christian colonists that came to America. Also what has helped is reading Second Peter along side First Peter. Bradford pointed out something very interesting. Physical suffering is the norm in the New Testament. But that is not all that is there. There is also spiritual suffering.

What I have come to better understand about suffering is that God is sovereign over that also. Suffering must come through his permission. It does not happen otherwise because He is God and all is under His control. So if I am not getting beaten because of my faith in Christ then it is because God has not willed that. But I think there is suffering in our day that is far worse than physical suffering and that is spiritual suffering. Physical wounds heal. We may have scars but the wounds go away pretty fast. Death ushers us into the presence of God so death for a Christian is ultimately going home.

However, spiritual suffering lingers. Let me try to describe this. You are sitting in the church that you once attended and you realize that something is just not right. You may not recognize what it is right away but you know that the Lord has gotten your attention. This may be the church that you grew up in or have been going to for a long time. So you go and seek the Lord about it.

Our family was a member of a church while we were at seminary and I literally hated going to church there. Now this caused me a great deal of spiritual anguish. I could not figure it out. I went through the checklist and ultimately came down to two possibilities. First, it was possible that I was not really a Christian and that is why I hated going to church there. After all, many of my professors and classmates went to this church. The other option after thinking about it some more was that I was just too prideful. I would sit during the preaching and think often, boy he really missed the point of that passage or that was really funny but I did not come to laugh. It was one of the most spiritually oppressive times in my life.

I was discussing this with a friend and telling him my conclusions and he really helped me out. He said you need a new church. I asked if he had any suggestions. He did and so the next week we went to the new church. It was amazing. It was like I was born again all over. Somebody was feeding my soul on the Word of God. The music was not performed. The preacher preached for an hour. It took all I could do to hold back the tears while he was preaching. After the service was over I went to him and the first thing I said to him after I introduced myself was this. “Thank you for spending time on the text this morning.” I then briefly explained what had been happening and that this church was a breath of fresh air.

We live in a day of spiritual oppression. By far, in most churches the Word is not being preached. Much man centered pop psychology is proclaimed and the Lord Jesus is presented as an addendum to an already wonderful life. In many places the Bible is merely hinted at or the Bible is merely a prop for the stage. Worship is centered on entertainment and not on the enjoyment of or entering the presence of the magnificence of our great God and Savior. Preachers apologize when they read more than two verses of Scripture and you can forget any organized time of congregational reading of the Scriptures. And that is just the church. What about the world?

In the US the prevailing attitude of the non-Christian is really this. “I am doing my own thing and you do yours just don’t bother me.” Or all roads lead to heaven if there is a heaven and no one will go to hell if there is a hell. The paganism abounds and people are embracing their inner depravity. Ultimately we as Christians will suffer physically when the pagans decide to get tired of us.

I said three books helped me. Bradford showed me this and also Second Peter. In just a short time, maybe a decade, you have a paradigm shift in the focus of letters from the same man to the same churches. The focus of First Peter was suffering at the hands of pagans. The focus of Second Peter is suffering spiritually at the hands of false teachers. In a short time the focus shifted. The third book that was helpful to me was the “Forgotten Spurgeon.” Ultimately what took Spurgeon to his grave in his early fifties was this spiritual suffering. The Baptist Union that he was part of wanted to be more inclusive so they took theological requirements down to its lowest common denominator. Basically in order to be a part of the Union you just had to believe in Baptism of disciples by immersion. You did not have to believe in the Trinity or the deity of Christ or anything else. You just had to be a dunker. Spurgeon spoke and wrote against this. He pulled out of the Baptist Union and in one letter to a friend he wrote this. “The battle is killing me!” He was right. It killed him. May we fight as Spurgeon fought, to the death!

The Armed Christian Prepared to Suffer

2007-02-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

At times it seems the Bible repeats itself. I think that this repetition is necessary in order to help us be obedient. There have been times in my preparation when I wondered how long this series may go on. But each time it seems fresh again as I prepare.

In this sermon I talk about how we are to arm ourselves spiritually for suffering and how we can do that. I also deal with the difference between physical suffering and spiritual suffering.

May the Lord bless you and prepare you while you listen.

Net Finney (Guard Against Calvinism)

2007-02-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

After this past Sunday's sermon and my mention of Charles Finney, I found this on another blog and decided to share it with my four or five readers. Remember, this is all in fun.

A Gospel to Die For

2007-02-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

Is the Gospel worth dying for? The answer would be yes if you have received the Biblical Gospel. In this sermon I am introducing 1 Peter 4:1-6 and spend most of the time explaining the Gospel that we are called to be armed to suffer for. Have you received the Gospel of Scripture or have you been deceived by another gospel? Listen and find out. Here is the link and may God be glorified in the proclamation of His Gospel.

Just For Fun

2007-02-03T15:45:00.000-08:00

Most of my posts are pretty serious. I have in the past tried to be humorous and I am much better at it in person than I am behind the keyboard. My wife, Dani, has a very funny post over at her site. I hope you enjoy it. It really is worth a look. Click the link and then scroll down to the Nashville Star post. Turn up your sound. Oh yes, that is me and our children.

The Old Modern Battle

2007-01-30T06:57:00.000-08:00

Many things separate people within the church. The most divisive issue facing the church today is over the sufficiency of Scripture. Grace Fellowship Church holds as our Confession of Faith the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689. It is a large document but we believe that it expresses an accurate summation of what Scripture teaches. The very first sentence in the confession has to do with the Bible. This is how the first statement begins: "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience..." Did you notice the first description of the Holy Scriptures? That is correct. The writers of this document affirm at the outset that the Bible is the "only sufficient.... rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience...."

This is the old modern battle that we face in the church. Let me warn you. When you begin to wrap your mind around the sufficiency of Scripture to order all of your steps you will be forced to heave off the worldly man centered methodology of the modern church. For instance, where do we find in Scripture the command for the multiplicity of pragmatic programs that have seduced the modern church? The fact is you will not find them in Scripture. So in order to continue with these programs you must ignore the sufficiency of Scripture. Understand by ignoring the sufficiency of Scripture you are placing yourself over the Bible and in essence saying that you are more capable than God at doing His will. You may think that is silly but if you really take the time to think about it that is what you are doing.

In a particular class in seminary I was forced to view all of these programs that were available to the pastor and staff of the local church. I made the comment one time in class that if a pastor was to do all that the professor was suggesting he would never see his family nor would he be able to adequately prepare for preaching. It goes without saying that he would have no time for his own heart preparation and continued studies in order to keep himself from spiritual burnout. But this is what most churches expect. I contend that this is wholly unbiblical and has been detrimental to the modern church.

Think about how many things most churches do that we do not find in Scripture. There is Sunday School, youth group, children's ministry, and the list goes on and on. I contend that most of these programs exist so that Christian parents can pay someone to do what Deuteronomy 6 tells them to do. But the pastor will say, "The parents will not teach them so we must." If you hold to the sufficiency of Scripture then you will understand that the parent who refuses to teach their children the Bible must be lovingly disciplined.

What the modern church must have is a reformation and revival of the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. Most movements within the church in the name of reaching the new generation is a departure from this doctrine. The seeker movement is an example. They contend that the preaching of the Bible will turn many away from the Gospel. I agree with them on that matter because that is what the Bible says. Jesus said "Narrow is the way that leads to salvation and few there be that find it." I am perfectly satisfied with our Lord's words. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul penned 1 Corinthians 1:21.
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. Why would I or any other Christian have a problem with that? If the Scripture is sufficient and God is pleased to save those who believe through the preaching of the message, then I and you must stick to God's plan. Anything less is placing yourself above Scripture. Take time to read 1 Corinthians 1 and see the phrase "world's wisdom" and how that it is despised by God. And yet many in the modern church are enthralled by the wisdom of the culture. So instead of obeying the Scripture, preaching the message, and letting God be sovereign in the salvation of dead sinners, they feel that they have to set the right mood.

I wonder how much thought the Apostle Paul or Peter put into the preparation of their services? Did they see what music was popular and set Christian words to the First Century pop music? Did they study the culture to see all the debauchery around them so they could reach the pagans? Did they craft the biblical message so that people would "understand" what they were saying? I believe at one point Paul was called a babbler. It doesn't sound to me like he was using cleverness of speech. The Apostles believed in the sufficiency of Scripture and so should we.

So Christian, be freed from the slave master of modern pragmatic programs and unscriptural preoccupations with the culture at large. Embrace the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture and please the Lord.

Baptized Into Suffering

2007-01-29T09:18:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to the most recent sermon at Grace Fellowship Church. It is entitled Baptized Into Suffering. The text is 1 Peter 3:21-22. This is one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament. I hope this sermon will be edifying to you all no matter your view on Baptism.

An Illustration of Suffering as Evangelism

2007-01-18T17:16:00.000-08:00

Here is an article about the suffering and persecution I have been talking and preaching about recently. Here is the link.

Suffering as Evangelism 3

2007-01-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

This has been one of the most difficult passages that I have ever preached. I have been left pondering a few important questions. Why are we as a church not experiencing persecution? Is God sparing us? Or is He preparing us for persecution? I ended this sermon with an open question. I asked whether or not we should pray for persecution to come so that the Kingdom would be further advanced. I am not sure that I know the answer. I will welcome any suggestions but only after you have taken the time to listen to the message.

Suffering as Evangelism 2

2007-01-07T16:24:00.000-08:00

Today was the second installment on our subject of Persecution as Evangelism. I pray you will be challenged to consider the high price of biblical evangelism.

Giving an Answer Properly

2007-01-04T18:43:00.000-08:00

My wife told me today of an interview of a quiver full family on ABC's Nightline. I went to the Nightline site and the video was on the first page. Take the time to watch the video. These are parents who have not been influenced by the wisdom of this age. I cannot be so kind in my words about the pastor that was interviewed.

What I was so impressed with was how the family answered the questions of the obviously shocked reporter. This family is to be commended. They are a blessing and an encouragement for those of us seeking to honor the Lord by our lives and with our families. May we become more and more biblically minded to shine forth the light of the Lord Jesus Christ in a dark and deceived world. Here is the link. Enjoy and may God bless this family who has given an answer to the world for the reason they live the way they live. Let me warn you. If you have been deceived by the wisdom of this age then you may be offended by this family. But that is okay as long as that offense leads to your repentance.

Suffering as Evangelism

2006-12-31T18:13:00.000-08:00

To the left is a picture of the father of modern day missions, William Carey. He labored in India for much of his life. He experienced many trials and suffering for the cause of Christ and the Gospel. His wife and son died in India while he ministered. It was seven years before he saw his first convert. Through the suffering he translated the Bible into forty languages. He is a testimony of suffering as evangelism.

This Lord's Day I preached a sermon on suffering as evangelism from 1 Peter 3:13-17. This was the first sermon of two. Next Sunday, Lord willing, I will be far more practical in the presentation of the evangelistic/ apologetic ministry that all Christians are called to.

You do not have to go to India to suffer for the furtherance of the Gospel. You can live anywhere and live out this call. I hope you will take the time to listen to the sermon.

The Ministry of a Slave vs. The Modern Cult of Personality

2006-12-28T06:25:00.000-08:00

The Apostle Paul often began his letters by introducing himself as Paul, bondservant of Jesus Christ. Paul, even though an apostle, saw himself as expendable. He encouraged others to lead the churches he started. He spent hours in prayer and agony over these churches and pastors. He died loving and serving the Lord Jesus and the churches.

There are not many Pauls in our day. At least not where they can be seen. The reason for this is explainable. We live in a celebrity culture and many Christians want a celebrity pastor. Paul was not such a man. The people at Corinth desired greatly to make Paul like them but he refused. They wanted him to be eloquent in speech but he preached the crucified Lord to them in plainness of speech. He refused to be put into the meatgrinder of the world and be conformed to its image. Paul was the one who penned Romans 8:29 that says, " For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son..." He also understood what this image looked like because he also penned Philippians 2:6-8 which tells us about the Lord Jesus and commands us to be like him. Read: "although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped , 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

So what happened to that type of pastor? Many have let the world dictate what a pastor is supposed to look like, talk like, act like, think like, and believe like. This is evidenced in much of the outright blasphemous activities by pastors and churches. I could spend time giving you details but my advice would be to visit this site http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com and be enlightened.

So what about the cult of personality? Brannon Howse has written a fantastic article on the subject at christianworldviewnetwork.com. Here is the link. http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/print.php?&ArticleID=1390

May God rescue us from ourselves.

Grace Fellowship on the World Wide Web

2006-12-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

Our webmaster, operating from the nation's capital, has now completed the Grace Fellowship Church website. We are so proud of the work he has done. I am sure you will find the website informative. Here is the link.
http://www.gfcgulfport.org

Grace Fellowship Christmas Eve Service

2006-12-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

Sunday evening Grace Fellowship Church met together for a our first ever Christmas Eve service. Our focus as always was the Lord Jesus Christ especially His birth. There was plenty of Scripture, prayers, and hymns highlighting our Lord's incarnation.

I have included in the following link the entire service minus the Lord's Supper and the last hymn. I hope that you enjoy the service.

Before I give you the link I pray that your Christmas celebration was as wonderful as ours. May God bless you and your family. http://www.sermoncloud.com/gfc-gulfport/

Our Kids

2006-12-20T05:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Dani and I took the kids across the street to take their annual Christmas picture. This shot is one of about thirty five that we took. Those of you with children know how difficult it can be to get all the kids to smile, look at the camera, and keep their eyes open at the same time.

They are a joy and we are so blessed to have them. They are a testament to the goodness of God. May you and your family have a blessed Christmas.

Church, Circus, or Churcus?

2006-12-18T07:16:00.000-08:00

Recently, after a conversation with my friend Tom Holliday about churches trying to be entertaining, I suggested that Tom write a post concerning an experience he recently had. Here is the article. Enjoy. And by the way Tom, I give this a hearty AMEN!

Entertainment in the Church

I recently visited a church where they announced that the following week's Sunday morning service would be held in the gymnasium where they would have the world's largest Popsicle, a knife thrower, and a bullwhip demonstration. During the meet-and-greet hymn, someone handed me a ticket for their upcoming carnival. I was expecting at any moment that calliope music would begin playing. The preaching was like a carnival barker yelling “step right up; get your free salvation here.”

Many churches have begun hiring celebrities of various kinds to try to bring people into their meetings. There’s even a website for finding comedians and celebrity speakers: outreachcomedy.com. There are dozens listed there for hire. Here is a list of messages available to accompany the comedy of one such comedian:
-Say Yes to Your Dreams!
-It's A Sin to be Boring!
-Dynamic Diversity
-The Five Dimensions of Achievement

What fruit do we see from such methods? Lives of those professing Christ are completely indistinguishable from those who want nothing to do with Christ.
“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” – John 4:23-24
What method has God ordained for proclaiming His gospel? “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God..” – 1Cor 2:1-5. Throughout the book of Acts we find Paul going to the synagogues or public places to proclaim the gospel. We don’t find Paul setting up carnivals or hiring comedians to draw a crowd.

How much emphasis was placed on entertainment in the early church? “And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.” – Acts 20:9. Such preaching would be a scandal in today’s churches. But the power of that kind of preaching turned the world upside down and changed the course of history.
We cannot expect to see power in the lives of churchgoers unless they are converted by the power of God, and not simply lured by the entertainments of this world.

- Tom Holliday 12/16/06

Study, To Show Yourself Approved

2006-12-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of days my wife and I have pondered whether or not a man going into the ministry should attend seminary. I understand that there are many opinions on this subject. Of course I have an opinion as well.

Some men have seen the need to have letters behind their name and not willing to actually do the work to earn them have bought their degrees. Some men have decided that a "call" to the ministry is sufficient enough with no preparation. One of my favorite jokes of all time goes like this. There was a preacher who refused to prepare for preaching. So every Sunday morning he would pray during the music service. "Lord, give me your message. Oh Lord, give me your message!" One Sunday morning just before the last song the Lord spoke to the preacher. The Lord said, "Here is my message to you. You're lazy!!!"

When I was in college one of my professors said this to the class, "A call to ministry is a call to prepare." By that statement he was not saying that in order to be the best minister you can be you have to be in pursuit of many degrees from institutions of higher learning. What he was saying was that if you are called to the ministry you are called away from intellectual laziness. You are called to prepare yourself in the best way that you can utilizing all available resources in order to "stir up" the spiritual gift God has provided.

Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us that God has given to His church the ministers to be the undershepherds of His flock. Contrary to what some believe this gifting must be cultivated. Skills must be honed and this honing happens for a lifetime of study and preparation for service. But we cannot do this alone.

The most important task of any preacher is not to win the lost to Christ. It is not to oversee the church structure and make sure it runs smoothly. It is not even to put together the monthly calendar. Over and over the Apostle Paul instructed Timothy and Titus to give themselves to the study and preaching of the Word of God. Social justice is important. Pro-life causes are important. Church government is important. Evangelizing is important. But the task that pastors have that is the most important is the preparation and proclamation of the Bible. And this is a serious and sacred task. Men who take this task lightly are not worthy to stand and speak the oracles of God. There is a graveness in preaching the Word. There is a seriousness in taking up the mantle of expositor. Personally, I have a very good sense of humor. I love to tell jokes and make wise cracks. But when it is time to preach I approach the pulpit with deadly seriousness. I take the advice of Richard Baxter seriously. He said, "I preach as a dying man to dying men." I understand that I am not called to be a stand up comic. I am not a motivational speaker. I do not even give speeches, talks, or homilies. I have been assigned to the task of faithfully and fully proclaiming the Word of God to the people of God as opportunity arises.

It is a careless, unthinking man who thinks that preparation for this task is not needed. If you are going to tell people "what is on your heart" then I guess you do not need to prepare for that. If you are going to give three points and a poem then you can read that out of a book of sermons and regurgitate that to the flock of God. But if you are going to be the "one who is speaking the utterances of God" then that takes intense preparation. No person who has not intensely trained shows up at the Olympics to run the one hundred yard dash. They would be laughed out of the stadium. No person who has the dream of playing professional football shows up to training camp having never played a down. Professional athletes are superbly trained. If athletes are superbly trained how much more should the man of God be trained?

But the question must be asked, where should we get this training and how much should we get? First, lets understand the nature of Scripture. The church has believed and Christians today affirm that the Bible is innerent and infallible. But the innerency and infallibility of Scripture is limited to the original languages. If you grew up in the first century AD then you probably have no need to study the original languages. But since no one who is two thousand years old is reading this I can be pretty sure that you have no understanding of the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament without some intense training. I am by no means an expert in the original languages but because of training I have a working knowledge of them and can utilize the works of the experts in the field. And contrary to popular belief the Strong's Concordance is not enough to understand the languages. It is a valuable resource but is no help with the syntax of the Bible. That is where language studies are so valuable. This is just one aspect of biblical study.

There is also systematic and historical theology. It is important for the preacher to understand church history and what the church has historically believed. Not only are pastors and teachers gifts to the church today, but pastors and teachers of years gone by are gifts to the church today by their writings. I have heard many preachers say that it is wrong to read the writings of other men because they want to hear from God themselves. But if they are unwilling to listen to the men of the past as God spoke to them through His Word then why should the people this man pastors listen to him? After all, his words are the words of a mere man.

Among the many important subjects that preachers must learn is biblical backgrounds. Many theological and exegetical mistakes are made when we place on the text a 21st century understanding of a 1st century or earlier text. Most people want to say that what is important in preaching is what the text means to us. But you cannot understand what the text means to us if you do not understand what the text actually means. Scripture had an intended message to an intended audience. That is what the preacher must come to grips with and then the application must flow from that to the modern hearer. The preacher that stands in the pulpit and proclaims what a text means to him probably has no idea of what the text actually means.

Another important aspect of preparation for ministry is learning to preach. A man may have all the passion and desire in the world to preach the Word but without some direction his sermons may be a lot of heat but will fall short in light. There must be an equal amount of understanding as passion. If either overlaps the other the sermon falls short. I have heard people say that a man really preached when he was passionate. You ask them what he said and many will reply, "I don't know but it was good." Others have been a wealth of information and much biblical knowledge but they were as dry as cracker juice. You learn to preach ultimately by preaching but there are men who can teach you the fundamentals of biblical preaching. They can be constructive in critiquing your sermons as well as your delivery.

So let me answer my second question first. "How much training should a man preparing for ministry get?" The answer is simple. He should get as much training as he possibly can. Then after that training is over he should get more. Who wants to go to a physician who does not study more and keep up to date with medicine? Who wants to sit under a preacher who does not continue his education and training. In other words, you can never be overprepared for ministry. I have been in ministry now for a decade. I have three earned degrees. I am praying about pursuing a fourth. But there has never been a time in that decade that I have felt prepared enough for ministry. I know men who have been in the ministry much longer than me who will tell you the same thing.

Now for the first question. "Where should we get this training?" The answer again is a simple one. You get this training wherever you can. If you have the opportunity to go to a school to get you started in learning the subjects mentioned above then do so. If you have a pastor who is willing to mentor you and is able to direct you in these studies then do so. If you have to learn these subjects on your own then do so.

Many pastors make a fatal mistake. They shun education. They see education as almost "quenching the Spirit." Many have heard horror stories about how a church sent a young man to the seminary and he came out a liberal. By the way that does happen. What many pastors will find is that when they shun education they are more likely to follow the latest church growth, ministry philosophy. They become desperate in their lack of training and give up. I want you to keep in mind that I am not saying that we should submit to the worlds way of thinking and say that if a man does not have the right education he cannot pastor. But I will say that if a man has not had some formal training, either seminary or mentorship, then he probably has no business in the pulpit.

The picture at the top is one I took at the Charles Spurgeon library when it was located in Liberty, Missouri. Many will point to Spurgeon as an example of a successful minister with no formal training. They would be wrong. Charles Spurgeon was a third generation pastor and had been in training his entire life. He did not have a formal degree but he had been to the Spurgeon "seminary" since birth. As Paul told Timothy, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth." By the way, First and Second Timothy were training letters.

The Favor of God

2006-12-10T17:55:00.000-08:00

Every Christian wants the favor of God. We want to walk through life knowing that God is blessing us as His people. But there is a question that we must ask. Is this favor conditional? Today I preached from 1 Peter 3:8-12 about the favor of God. I hope this sermon will clear up any question you may have about God's favor. Here is the link.

http://www.sermoncloud.com/gfc-gulfport/

Recent Thoughts or Ramblings on Fatherhood

2006-12-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

One of the great joys of my life are my children. One of the great difficulties of my life are my children. Some of you may be asking how in the world I can call one of my greatest joys one of my greatest difficulties. Here is why. I understand the great responsibility that I have in being their father and all that entails.

Children are demanding. They need love, care, food, sleep, correction, discipline, and lots of our time to make all this happen. They must know that you love them. But most of all they must know that God loves them and desires them to love Him, thus the difficulty of fatherhood. Over the past few weeks Romans 3:23 has become more evident in my life in my parenting skills. In case you do not know, that verse says, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Because of the biblical doctrine of total depravity, sin and falling short of the glory of God even extends to our parenting.

Here is what I have learned afresh this week. At the end of the day when I have acted imperfectly toward imperfect yet precious children, I must repent of my imperfection and cast myself afresh on the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. No, I am not getting saved all over again but simply returning to the source of life and godliness. I want with every fiber of my being for my children to walk in the ways of the Lord. I want fervently and passionately for my children to love the Lord Jesus Christ more than they love their parents or future spouse. I desire greatly for them to serve the Lord all the days of their lives. And I want that for successive generations. That means that I must lay down my life for their sake.

I have found myself, especially over the last few days clinging to the words of the Lord Jesus found in Matthew 11:28. Jesus said, "Come unto me all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest." I know that Jesus is talking about salvation in that verse but I think there is enough within the mighty salvation that Christ has secured to also secure help in the storms and difficulties of parenting. Remember I talked about my total depravity? Guess what. My children are also totally depraved. So what we have in parenting is one sinner telling another sinner how not to sin. Have you ever thought about parenting in that light? Whether you have or not it is still true.

I have been taking my children through a chronological history of the Bible. We have been digging into books like Judges, I and II Kings, Chronicles, and the Prophets. We have looked in depth at the depravity of the nation of Israel and Judah and how they forsook the Lord and chased after idols. Yesterday I talked to the kids more in depth about sin and its root cause. I showed them that sin has its root in not being satisfied with God. As I was showing them this in terms they can grasp I was convicted of my own sin rooted in not being satisfied in God.

So what do you do? How can I a sinner teach three sinners not to sin? The fact is I can not teach them what I do not know myself. So the answer is pretty simple. I consistently point them to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ where grace abounds. I teach them to look to the Lord and live. I teach them that they must repent from their sin and have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I also teach them that only God can give the gift of repentance and faith. I teach them that they must have a changed heart and only God can change their heart. I want them to see their sin and feel the ugliness of it so that they will run to Christ for salvation and forgiveness. That is their only hope. That is my only hope as a parent. May the Lord make up for all my shortcomings.

Instructions to Husbands

2006-12-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

Instead of continuing with the godly woman series, I decided last week to put the audio to those posts on my last post. See "Sermons for Wives and Future Wives." I am now turning my attention to the husbands. By the way, I really liked this picture.

God calls men to lead their families in all aspects of life with a particular emphasis on spiritual matters. This is quite a task for any of us but one that we must do. No one ever said it would be easy. As a matter of fact it is much easier to chase material wealth and success than spiritual wealth and success with your children. But God has not left us to fend for ourselves.

1 Peter 3:7 gives some great instructions on being a godly husband. I hope you will take the time to listen to the sermon that I preached last Sunday and I hope that it will be a help to you as you seek to please the Lord in your role as priest of your home. Here is the link:

http://www.sermoncloud.com/gfc-gulfport/

Sermons for Wives and Future Wives

2006-11-28T09:36:00.000-08:00

We interrupt this latest set of posts to provide to our faithful readers a link to the audio of this series.

http://www.sermoncloud.com/gfc-gulfport/

I do apologize for the sound quality of some of the recordings. Keep in mind as you listen that these are recordings done on a notebook computer with a $10 computer microphone. But I guess that is better than one of those old fashioned tape recorders.

The series is called Instructions to Wives and there are three parts.

I hope you enjoy these and may God bless you through His Word.

A Beautiful Christian Woman II

2006-11-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

The godly wife is to be submissive to her husband.
Notice 1 Peter 3:1.
Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands...
Notice the first word. Likewise. The reason Peter begins with this word is to hearken his readers back to what he just got finished saying. In the previous verses of chapter two Peter commanded us to submit to all human institutions of government and to those in authority over us in our work.

But there is a major shift here in Peter’s thought. He moves from the human institutions to the heavenly institution of marriage. When the Lord Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees about the issue of divorce he said this about marriage. "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5 and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH'? 6 "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." Matt 19:4-6 (NASB) He reminds them that marriage was God’s design from the beginning and in this heavenly institution there should be some heavenly principles.

In the proper ordering of the family, God has placed the husband as the head of the household. Remember this idea of family functions in a similar manner as the church. Christ is the head of the church and as the members of the church we are submissive to the will of Christ. Husbands remember that as the head of the family we must imitate the head of the church and lay down our lives for our bride.

Martin Lloyd Jones, the doctor as he was referred to by his congregation, when preaching on Ephesians 5:25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, said that we men should think of this passage not in terms of human affection but in terms of the atonement of Jesus Christ. Therefore in the proper ordering of a biblical family we men are to literally lay down our lives for our wives.

Ladies, you are to submit yourself to your husband. I want you to notice that Peter is very specific about who you are to submit to. Look again at verse 1. Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands.

I don’t want to be confusing or ambiguous about what Peter is saying here. When he says “Wives be subject to your own husbands,” Peter is giving a command. Peter uses a participle in the imperative sense thus making it a Christian command. So ladies, if you have the attitude that says that you will never submit to your husband then you are living in outright rebellion against God. That sin is no different than if you were out stealing or breaking one of the other commandments. The words “be subject,” Greek hupotasso, means to obey or be obedient to.

I can hear the argument from the world now. The closest I ever came to be heckled while preaching was while I was preaching on Colossians 3:18. All I did was read the text, “Wives be subject to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord.” A woman close to the front literally out loud said, “Ha!” Let me assure you that this is not what the world says. This is not some abject form of slavery that lends itself to abuse by some abusive man in the Christian home. This submission is an act of beauty. Let me illustrate this.

When Joseph and Mary took the Lord Jesus to Jerusalem and the Temple at age twelve something is written in Luke’s gospel that should catch our attention. They of course forgot the Lord as he was in the temple with the elders. And they came back for him. As he was returning to Nazareth Luke writes these words. And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued in subjection to them; Luke 2:51 (NASB)

Now wait a minute. This was God in the flesh. This was the one in the eternal councils of the Triune God had foreordained the very births of Joseph and Mary. He literally numbered the hairs on their head and the days of their lives. He was the one who would perform numerous miracles. He was the rightful heir to the throne of Israel and the Lord of the Universe. And yet he subjected himself to this carpenter from Nazareth and his homemaker wife.

This was not the only time. When John the Baptist was preaching and baptizing in the wilderness the sinless one came to John and submitted Himself for baptism. John recognized this as a problem because the baptism of John was unto repentance. He told Jesus, “I need to be baptized by You.” Yet Jesus was baptized by John.

Jesus took a bowl and began to wash the feet of his disciples, by the way which was the job of a slave. He gets to Peter and Peter recognizes the problem. “Lord, you shall never wash my feet.” In other words, Peter was not saying he was too good to have his feet washed, what he was saying was that Jesus was far too superior to be washing anyone’s feet especially his.

And ultimately Jesus submitted Himself to the will of the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prayed, “Not my will but thine.”

Do you see the beauty in this? Do you see the Christ likeness in this? Do you see the importance of this in the life of the Christian wife? Do you see how different this is than the model of the worldly wife?

I recently heard an interview on the radio of a famous pop singer who is married and has children. She basically said that she was not willing to sacrifice what she wanted to do to be some subservient wife and mother. She just got off tour and knew she needed to spend some time with her family but what she really needed was a massage. So instead of spending the day at home with her family she spent the day at the spa.

Now this is not the attitude of a godly wife and mother and what we should be fearful of is the fact that what she said was acceptable to most people.

The first principle that is pleasing to God is for a wife to be submissive to her husband.

A Beautiful Christian Woman

2006-11-21T05:56:00.000-08:00

The world is filled with bad advice for women of all ages. The world tells women that if they are not career women then they are simply placing themselves as doormats to be walked on by some Neanderthal husband. As a matter of fact, the world tells women that they are not to love their husbands but do everything to undermine them and belittle them and whatever they do they should never show him any respect. If you were to watch any sitcom on television what you will soon find out is that most husbands are portrayed as buffoons. The women are fully liberated heads of the household who just so happens to be able to balance family and her career as well as spending a great deal of time shopping with her friends and coming up with new material to emasculate her husband. And unfortunately for the modern church, many women have bought into this satanic lie. They have looked at the example of the world and not the example in the Word.

The Christian woman has some decisions to make. She can follow the way of the world and live in direct disobedience to God or she can obey God and be a woman of the Word. The Christian women will leave one of two legacies for her children and grandchildren. Either she will be known as a woman of the Word or she will be known as a woman of the world. Now those particular words may not be used of her but let me assure you what these children and grandchildren will say. They will either say that their mother or grandmother worked hard at home and raised her children and loved her husband and obeyed the Word of God or they will say that she were a successful business woman.

Ladies, what model will you follow? Will you be all that the world says you should be or will you be what God says you are to be?

There are two examples of wives that stand out in Scripture. The first is Sarah, Abraham’s wife. One of the beautiful truths of Scripture is that we get to see the characters, warts and all. Sarah was not perfect. There is only one perfect person in all of Scripture and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone else, we see their faults and their shortcomings. But we also see their character that God approves of. Notice 1 Peter 3:5-6.

For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their husbands, 6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

But there is also an example of a less than admirable wife. King Ahab married Jezebel and she caused him misery all the days of his life. She instituted Baal worship into the land of the people who had the Ten Commandments. She killed a man for his field to give to her husband. She caused the whole nation misery. She was not the example of a godly woman or wife.

Think about all the Proverbs that talk about wives. Proverbs 5:18 says, “Let your fountain be blessed, And rejoice in the wife of your youth.”

Proverbs 12:4 says, "An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, But she who shames him is like rottenness in his bones. "

Proverbs 18:22 says, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing And obtains favor from the LORD."

Proverbs 19:14 says, "House and wealth are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from the LORD."

Proverbs 31:10 says, "An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels."

But there are also negative Proverbs about wives. Proverbs 19:13 says, "A foolish son is destruction to his father, And the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping."

Ladies, let me say to you that the highest calling that you can fulfill in your life is to be a godly wife and an excellent mother. The world will tell you that by doing this you are robbing yourself of all of the joys of life. But there is not a single profession that is more demanding and more rewarding than to give your life in the service of your Lord to your husband and children.

In these next series of posts I am going to provide you four biblical principles for the Christian woman striving to live godly in this wicked world. In these series of posts my desire is to instill in the married women the principles that God finds pleasing and precious in His sight and to instruct the young ladies who will one day be wives and mothers.

I cannot stress these truths enough. It is obvious in our nation that the family is losing ground. Legislation lends no hope. Electing certain people to office has proven null and void. Statewide votes on certain issues have simply been held up by liberal judges. The hope for the church and for our nation and our world is through the biblical family. We must as parents now, raise our children to be godly parents so that their children will be godly parents. This is when change will take place.

The truth is that we all want a quick fix to the problems that plague or society but the problems did not arrive quickly and will not be remedied quickly. The ultra-liberal anti-family crowd are doing all of us a great favor by refusing to bring children into the world. Therefore we as Christians must make sure that we stress the importance of families to our families so that it will have a trickle down effect on our world.

God has throughout biblical history worked through families. Noah and his family entered the ark while a wicked world perished. Abraham and Sarah’s family became the nation of Israel. And today God is still working through families. So get ready for these four biblical principles for the Christian woman striving to be godly in this world. The principles will be taken from 1 Peter 3:1-6.

The Gospel of Celebrity

2006-11-17T05:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received an email for "an evangelistic opportunity to reach wrestling fans in your community." This former professional wrestler, now turned evangelist, will come to your church and hold a crusade. This of course will attract all of the wrestling fans in your community to come and hear this man speak. I will leave this wrestler/evangelist unnamed in this post. But let me say that I find this despicable and insulting to the cause of Christ and the Gospel.

Now I realize that we live in a celebrity culture. Turn on the news and all you hear about is the newest divorce, marriage, or scandal of one of the famous among us. Sadly, this has bled into the church. Now we have former famous people parading themselves as Gospel preachers. I am not aware of any of them that preach for free. All are remunerated for their efforts and usually at a fantastic sum. In the first church that I pastored we decided to invite a person to come and close out our Vacation Bible School. Keep in mind this person would have to travel one and a half hours and would "perform" for about an hour. Travel time, performance time, and fellowship time together amounted to about five hours tops. The price you ask? Try $1500 plus travel expenses and they wanted a hotel. I am not a math person but that breaks down to $300 an hour. Needless to say our church did not invite this person. Plus this person would have been disappointed because there was no hotel within thirty five miles.

Let me give you one of the disturbing phrases from this email. It says that this former wrestler "will transform your church." Into what? A wrestling match? Why would any pastor worth his salt and familiar with the Bible think for one minute that this man could transform any church? I thought it was the Lord that could change a church. But my naivety is obvious here I guess.

Some of you may be asking, "So Joe, what is wrong with having a celebrity come to your church to reach a particular group?" First, it is obvious that this is trust in the wisdom of men and not the power of God. Second, the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not celebrity. It seems that the celebrity uses their status to bring more attention to themselves than to the Savior. How about instead of investing enormous amounts of money into having a celebrity come to your church, invest time and money into discipling the men of the church to fulfill their God ordained roles as husbands, fathers, workers, and slaves of God. That would bring far more people into the Kingdom of God than a one or two night celebrity crusade with people walking the isle simply to get closer to the celebrity to get an autograph or a picture. And yes, people do that. I have seen it myself.

So do I expect any change in this celebrity fascination by the church? No. The reason is because we live in a fast food, microwave culture that does not understand success over the long haul. We want immediate results. We are impatient with God's methods because we may have to invest our whole lives and not just a few weeks of preparation. Plus, these celebrities make us look statistically good. We can claim hundreds of converts in a few days. Of course the majority, and usually the vast majority are no where to be found the following Sunday. But what does the facts have to do with preachers looking successful?

Our Vision: A Quiet Revolution

2006-11-14T05:42:00.000-08:00

Does your church emphasize children's ministry? I have personally heard advertisements for churches that tell the prospective visitor that while they are enjoying the worship service their children will be in another part of the building enjoying games, crafts, snacks, and Bible stories. By the way, this is celebrated. We in the church have even created new positions that we could never find in Scripture such as the infamous "Children's Minister." This is the man or woman who relieves us parents of the responsibility of our children while we are in Sunday School or church. After all, why should we have to be parents during the worship service when we can pay for someone to do it for us. Plus, the kids are having fun and that is what being a Christian is all about, right?

After the children move out of the tween years and into the teen years we have a new hired minister who works specifically with the youth. Now this person must be "cool" and be able to relate to today's generation of youth. They spend their time planning youth trips and raising money for them. They have their own church services often geared toward what the youth like with the music they like and the topics for Bible study they like. Before you know it, the youth are now in college and have a new pastor, Mr. College and Career minister. Or if you prefer, the Minister to Young Adults. Why not have a minister for all ages. We could have a 30's minister. It could go on and on. Then we could find a retired pastor to be our minister of senior citizens. I think I may be on the cutting edge.

At Grace Fellowship we see no need for any of this. I know this may come as a surprise to some but for each child, tween, teen, and college and career age person has a built in minister. Who? Their parents. That's right. We as parents of multi-age children understand that God has called us to minister to our children no matter their age.

God has brought revival to his church over the centuries. Think about the Reformation. How about the Great Awakenings in America? Then there were the Welsh revivals. All of these are interesting to read about. But I believe something special is taking place in our day. I don't believe that this revival will be overwhelmingly accepted. But there is no denial that God is at work. When you read the account of the servant in Malachi 4 that makes straight the way of the Lord, what you will find is a very interesting phrase. Verse 6 says, "He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse ." Luke 1:17 echoes this same verse.

Think about how much neglect has taken place in Christian churches by the fathers. Think about the amount of rebellion in teenage children over the years. In many households the fathers are either absent or working so much that they cannot fulfill their biblical role as priest of the home. Or worse, they are consumed with sports, golf, or hunting and fishing.

So what I believe is happening, and it is happening in our midst as well as other places, is that God is calling fathers back to their children and some are answering that call. The men of Grace Fellowship Church are men that God has called to shepherd their families. We make no claim of perfection in doing so but by the grace of God we are striving to fulfill the Lord's mandate to us.

This is a quiet revolution. We are a non-vocal minority. But the next generation will see the difference. As our children grow up and do what we are doing, only better, our grandchildren will reap the benefits of the legacy we have left. God's kingdom will be growing by His grace and through a multigenerational approach to ministry and evangelism.

So how does this work out in church? First, our children do not get separated from us in worship. We believe that church will be a part of their lives as long as they live and so we see no need to ship them off to another part of the building. They are with us and participate in the service. We do not even have a Sunday School. If we do decide to start one it will be a family Sunday School and will not be age segregated. We operate under the assumption that our children are intelligent and can listen to expository sermons that happen to last forty minutes to an hour each Sunday. Our goal is to raise godly adults who will carry on the biblical vision. We are discipling our children not coercing them into some false confession that ends up allowing them to live like the world.

What about you? Are you involved in this quiet revolution? It will not be quiet very long.

Where Are the Men?

2006-11-08T06:00:00.000-08:00

I am frustrated. I am not frustrated because a certain political party had success yesterday. I have been frustrated for about the last fifteen years with politics in general. I hate politics. The reason I hate politics so much is because it seems no one in politics seems to have a spine. I have never been to Washington DC but I can imagine the sound these spineless politicians must make as they slosh through the halls that some of the most determined men have lead.

I am tired of the liberal agenda. Gay marriage is being forced down our collective throats. Abortion has become a sacred cow that no politician is able to touch. Our right to keep and bear arms is under fire. It seems no matter what the people (who by the way are the government) say, some liberal federal judge has the audacity to overturn it. Is that freedom? I doubt it. That is judicial tyranny and the reason they get away with it is because the people of our nation are too busy chasing the new American dream of having all of the material goods they can possibly acquire.

People, do you not know that we are destroying ourselves? And the politicians do not have the intestinal fortitude to tell us the truth. Unless abortion is ended God will continue to judge our nation. And who can blame Him? I wonder why He has been so gracious so long. People want to destroy embryos (a fancy word for baby) in order to harvest stem cells that might cure some diseases. In their opinion, the end justifies the means. That is like saying that me robbing little old ladies is justified because I can now provide better for my family. If gay marriage is ratified you can bet that judgment will soon follow. If you take the time today to read the first chapter of Romans you can see for yourself where moral decadence ends. That is right; in self destruction.

It seems the church could make a difference. But from what I have seen the church has been brainwashed by the media. Yes, there is an attack on our nation by the media no matter what network you watch. Take the time to think about how the news is presented and you will see for yourself that indeed the news is not merely reported. It is slanted.

As I read through the Old Testament I can see and ebb and flow of revival, apathy, apostasy, judgment, then repentance. Folks, if God is still operating as He always have, we are in line for more judgment. The revival has happened in our country. The apathy has happened and we are squarely in the days of apostasy. Judgment is coming. And God's judgment is always severe. We deserve judgment more than Sodom and Gomorrah.

I asked the question lately, "Where are the Teddy Roosevelts, Abraham Lincolns, and George Washingtons?" But my mind has changed. Now I must ask, "Where is Jeremiah? Where is Ezekiel? Where are the prophets? " Most pulpits are filled with men who are just as spineless as the people in DC. I don't know where the prophets are. I wonder if there are any. I wonder if God will raise anyone up to proclaim repentance to our wayward nation. Too many are fulfilling the words of Isaiah the prophet found in Isaiah 32:6.

6 For a fool speaks nonsense, And his heart inclines toward wickedness: To practice ungodliness and to speak error against the LORD, To keep the hungry person unsatisfied And to withhold drink from the thirsty.

Our nation is famished for righteousness. They no longer recognize it. Churches have adjusted their message to fit the middle class ethic. "Get all you can, can all you get, and sit on the can." And if anything becomes inconvenient to your success and personal fulfillment, do away with it.

So where are the men with the intestinal fortitude to lead our nation back to the blessings of God? Have we men been so feminized and liberalized we can no longer discern right from wrong from for of offending someone? Yes, prophets get stoned. They get hung and sawn in two. Read Hebrews 11 and 12. Who will lead us?

Revive Us Again Part 4

2006-11-02T05:34:00.000-08:00

In previous posts I have made some recommendations as to the type of revival we need. But I think the key to this revival will be to understand our state of depravity as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. When God called Ezekiel to prophesy to a bunch of dry bones, Ezekiel could not help but see the futility of such an action. Even the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2 told us that we "were DEAD in our sins and trespasses." And we had to be made alive by a work of the Holy Spirit. The biblical evidence of the pervasiveness of sin in mankind is astounding. Read the Old Testament. The ebb and flow of revival, lukewarmness, apostasy, and punishment are scrawled across the pages of each book.

Here is what we have to get over. We are not good. We are bad. We are evil. We are filled with sin even on our best day. Even when we think we are at our most holy our holiness is a putrid stench in the nostrils of God. Is this too harsh? I don't like it anymore than you do. Personally, I desire to be holy. But when I have convinced myself of my own holiness the only person I have convinced is myself. Everyone else knows that as Luther said, "I am a rotting bag of maggots." And so are you.

I find the Genesis account of the Fall of Man very compelling. After Adam and Eve sinned God drove them out of the Garden. Why didn't He let them stay there just with some added difficulty? One word, grace. Read Genesis 3:22-24 below.

22 Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

If you paid any attention to verse 22 you noticed something very interesting. If Adam and Eve could have gotten to the tree of life they could have eaten the fruit and lived forever. What's wrong with that? They would have lived forever in depravity. That is what is wrong with that. But God in His mercy, who would provide the sacrifice for their sin and ours by crucifying His only begottenn Son, drove them out of the Garden and stationed a cherubim with a flaming sword to drive them away if needed. Here is the point. God does not nor will He allow us to live forever in our present sin filled condition. Even when the Apostle Paul talks about those who are alive at the coming of Christ it is clear that they must be changed.

Here is where the revival comes in. What we have to come to grips with is that I am not okay and neither are you. With Paul we must cry out, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Paul answers his own question in the next verse. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." This is a clutching of and clinging to Christ. This is like the woman with the issue of blood who knows that if she can just touch the hem of His garment she will be made whole. This is like Mary Magdalene at the tomb when she grabs the Lord and holds on to Him when she realizes He is risen indeed. This is like Jacob who wrestled with the Lord and refused to let go unless he received a blessing. Do you get it?

Our holiness and righteousness belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is the righteousness of God provided to His people. No matter how holy I may think I have become the truth is apart from the holiness and righteousness that God has placed on me like a new robe I am bankrupt.

If revival will ever come to our churches we must come to grips with who we are without Christ. Without Christ we are dry bones. We are dead in our trespasses and sins. We are locked in the dungeon of sin with no hope of or chance of release. We are in dire straits. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

So how does revival come? By clinging to Christ. By realizing and living like if Christ were not your savior you indeed would be dead physically and spiritually. When Christ truly becomes your all in all it will be because you see yourself for who you truly are. God help us do that.

Not Good but Great Music

2006-10-31T05:23:00.000-08:00

If you are a regular visitor to this blog you know that I hardly ever plug a product. However, if I did not tell you about this CD I would be doing you and your family an injustice. This CD is the poetry of Irish missionary to India, Amy Carmichael, set to the music of Jim Spencer. Follow the link and listen to the samples. They are breathtakingly beautiful. http://www.jimspencermusic.com/

When our family lived in Kansas City, MO we had the privilege of belonging to the best church in KC. Faith Community Church is very blessed. Along with a
http://www.faithcommunity.com/content/page.asp wonderful group of people and a strong body of elders they have a gifted expositor (Tim Juhnke) and Jim Spencer their worship leader. I think you will find the music both beautiful and edifying. We do live in a day of "7-11" songs. Usually the new music is seven words and we have to sing them eleven times. This is not the case with Jim's CD. The words are rich and filled with meaning. The music accompanying the words draw your heart to "taste and see that the Lord is good." I can't wait to get my copy! Do yourself and your family a favor and get yours by visiting Jim's website.

Reformation Day

2006-10-30T05:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at Grace Fellowship Church we celebrated the Reformation. Martin Luther is known as the father of the Reformation. What we can be sure of is that God used Luther in a magnificent way to return at least part of the church back to the Bible as authority and to the purity of the Gospel.

We at Grace Fellowship are grateful for and stand in admiration of the courage of this Augustinian monk who faced and felt the wrath of the Roman church in a time of great darkness.

The beginning of the Reformation is traced back to October 31, 1517. In the picture above, Martin Luther is nailing a document known as the 95 Thesis to the castle church door in Wittenburg, Germany. I encourage you to visit the following link and hear the sermon that I preached yesterday on Reformation Sunday. You will soon be able to tell that we were outside and I was having to fight off a yellow jacket or two at the first.

God bless you.

http://www.sermoncloud.com/gfc-gulfport/reformation-day-sola-scriptura

Bible Reading Plan

2006-10-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

There are three of my favorite things in this picture. There is the Bible, a hot cup of coffee, and a great pen. When Dr. Don Whitney (http://www.spiritualdisciplines.org/) speaks in churches on the Christian Disciplines he emphasizes Biblical intake. When I was in seminary and sat in his classes he emphasized to us "professional" ministers the absolute necessity of spending time taking in the Word of God. He told us that we should read the Bible through every year.

I don't know about you but every time I have tried to read straight through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, I get bogged down somewhere in the begat section of Numbers. Recognizing this, Dr. Whitney advocates a Bible reading plan from five sections of Scripture. Let me outline the sections.

1. The Law and Writings- Genesis through Esther.

2. The Wisdom Books- Job through Song of Solomon (Canticles for you Puritans).

3. The Prophets- Isaiah through Malachi.

4. The Books of the New Testament- Matthew through Acts.

5. The Letters of the New Testament- Romans through Revelation.

By reading just two chapters each day from each section you can read the Bible through faster and more efficiently than you think. For instance, a good reader can read these ten chapters in twenty to thirty minutes. Let me show you how fast you will read through each section.

The first section will take the longest. Genesis through Esther contains 436 chapters. Two per day will have you reading through that section 1.67 times in one year. Section two moves faster and you will read through the Wisdom Books 3 times in a year. The Prophets will be read almost 3 times in a year.

The New Testament will go even faster. The Books of the New Testament will be read 6 times in a year and the Letters will be read 5 times. Isn't that amazing? Think about what you will do in three years. Look:

In three years you would have read through the first section over 4.5 times. Section two would be read 9 times. Section three also 9 times. And you would have read through the entire New Testament 15 times in three years! Do you see how easy this is? We all can make time to fit in thirty minutes of Bible reading time in our day. You could do ten minutes in the morning, ten minutes at lunch, and ten minutes at night.

Happy Reading and may God bless you through His wonderful Word!

Grace Fellowship Sermon

2006-10-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a recent sermon from our fellowship. I have been preaching through First Peter. This is a sermon entitled "Growing Up." The text is 1 Peter 2:1-3. Click the link and may the Lord bless you through the proclamation of His Word.

http://www.sermoncloud.com/grace-fellowship-church/growing-up

Revive Us Again Part 3

2006-10-23T07:13:00.000-07:00

It has been said that the Bible is the best selling book of all time and the least read of them all. I remember in college hearing arguments over which translation of the Bible was best and having a professor put it in perspective. "Stop arguing over the translations and start reading the one you have." He challenged us in class one time by asking if any of us had read a whole book of the Bible at one sitting. I asked if Jude counted. He of course said no. What he was challenging us on was our obvious neglect of Scripture. It is said that one of Charles Spurgeon's most famous sayings goes something like this. "When you cut a man he should bleed bibline."

Because of this neglect of the Word of God we must ask some serious questions of ourselves. Do we really believe the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scriptura? That is, do we hold to and really live the truth that "Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience?" If we were to be examined in court as to whether or not we truly believed this would there be enough evidence to convict us? Could we name all sixty six books? Could we find Habakkuk? Is Bible intake a part of our daily lives?

These are tough questions. But they are needed questions. Christians throughout the centuries have believed that Scripture is the primary tool that God uses in salvation and sanctification. We are not conformed to this world by the transforming of our mind and the only way our mind becomes transformed is to feed on the Word of God. In fact, the Bible even tells us to read, study,a and memorize the Word of God.

Joshua was told to never let the Words of the Law depart from his mouth and to meditate on them. The kings of Israel were to copy their own book of the Law so that they would not depart from it. David in Psalm 119 asks the question, "How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to your Word." Ezekiel is told by the Lord God to prophesy to the dry bones of chapter 37, "O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord." The last time I checked, bones did not even have ears. We move on into the New Testament and when Jesus was tempted by Satan His first response was, "Man does not live by bread alone but on every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God." In John 17, Jesus proclaims, "Sanctify them in the truth, Thy Word is truth." The apostles used the Old Testament Scriptures in order to present Christ as Lord and Savior. And then the apostle Paul gives Timothy his marching orders. What was young Timothy to do? Read 2 Timothy 4:1-2. "I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction."

So if the Word of God is so important then we as believers must have a revival of Bible intake. The Bible must saturate our lives. But we must read it. We must study it and we must memorize it. The Word of God should flow freely from our mouths as we speak to our spouses, children, coworkers, friends, relatives, and neighbors. Our lives should be Bible saturated. Which turns our attention to our worship service.

How many of you reading this can honestly say that your church services are saturated with Scripture? I have sat through services where the Scripture was hardly looked at. I have heard preachers apologize for the number of verses they read for their preaching text. And these did not even read a whole chapter. If the Bible says that the minister is to pay close attention to the public reading of Scripture then obviously God means for the Bible to guide and be central in our worship services. There should be much Scripture read in a church service. Does your church have an Old Testament and New Testament reading? What about the Psalms? What about the music? Is it happy-clappy music or is it the Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that exalt the Savior and cause you to think deeply at the wonder and majesty of the God of the universe?

The Word of God cannot be a "lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path" if I never read it and never hear it in the worship services. Worship services that neglect Scripture have more in common with the golden calf incident in the book of Exodus than you might imagine. Remember Aaron said the calf was the "God who brought you up out of Egypt." Then he said, "Tomorrow will be a feast to the Lord (YHWH)." That's right. Aaron the priest, the brother of Moses, was neglecting the Word for the desires of the people. Neglecting the Word is a slippery slope.

Let's listen to the Word of God about the Word of God in Hebrews 4:12-13.

12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Revive Us Again Part 2

2006-10-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

In the last post I talked about what the church must do in order to please the Lord. Understand that revival is a move of God and not man moving God to action. These two steps that I outlined in the last post are simple obedience to the Word of God. When the Apostle Paul outlined ministry for Timothy he did not tell him how to be successful. He told him how to please the crucified Lord which is real success. So I talked about a need to return to biblical preaching and historic Christian doctrine. Today I will discuss the third need.
3. We must return to a biblical model for the Christian family. Let me say right up front that this may be the hardest. The day in which we live sends the family many unbiblical often contradictory messages. Women are now "empowered" to rule and reign dictatorially in many households all over our country. We are told that if we decide to have children, who are at best inconveniences, we are to let them have freedom of expression and our authority as parents is greatly limited. So if we do decide to have our 1.3 inconveniences then we must put them in daycare and preschool and let the government raise them. If this was just going on in the non-Christian families in our country it would be one thing. But it is altogether another thing since the church greatly encourages this behavior. Many offer daycares and on Sunday morning for worship they ship the kids off for crafts and fun in a different part of the building. Most Christians think this is normal. Let me say to you this is not the biblical model. Allow me to outline some principles from Scripture.
A. We are commanded to bring children into the world. The Lord God told Adam and Eve to be "fruitful and multiply." What most Christians do in our day is more like subtraction than multiplication. Of course the selfish, worldly excuse is ever present. "Oh, we can't afford more than one child." What this meant to be well meaning excuse translates to is this: "If we have more than one child it will interfere with all the worldy goods and pleasures that we want to accumulate." Now I am not calling anyone into question who is physically unable to have more children or no children. My wife and I know what it is like to want more children and not be able to have them. God is sovereign and faithful. But if you are Christian and have no physical reason to not have more children then you should have more. Ask the Europeans that this distaste for children has created in their countries. Europe is fast becoming bred into a Muslim continent. Why? Because the Muslims are the only ones having children.

B. Children are a blessing from the Lord. Contrary to the communist-feminist movement in America, children do not hold us back or limit our productivity. They actually are a God given blessing and should be treated as such. Think about how badly Abraham and Sarah wanted children. What about Hannah, Samuel's mother? Psalm 127:3 says that "Children are a blessing from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward." I have heard so many married, Christian people in distress when they find out they are going to have a baby. Have they not read?

C. Children are to be raised to be Christians. Psalm 78:5-7 says, "5 For He established a testimony in Jacob And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers That they should teach them to their children, 6 That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, That they may arise and tell them to their children, 7 That they should put their confidence in God And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments..." Where did this nonsense come from where we have to allow our children to choose if they want to be Christians or not? Have we totally forgotten about the total depravity of humans? We are commanded to raise children to be Christians. We teach them the Bible, we teach them the faith and we trust in a sovereign God to change their hearts. We command them to repent and believe the Gospel knowing that God is the author of life and eternal life. We tell them that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. And we pray for their souls. We pray for their conversion. We ask our heavenly Father to regenerate the dead souls of our children to life so that they can repent and believe. And if our gracious God so chooses to save them we pray for them throughout our lives.

How else will we and our children be able to stand against the flesh, the world, and Satan?

D. Men are to be examples of faithfulness and godliness to their wives and children. Men, the responsibility of raising your family and protecting and providing for your family rests squarely on your shoulders. To do anything less calls into question your salvation (see 1 Timothy 5:8). So men your priority is not hunting and fishing. You may not get to do those things. Your priority is not golf. Your clubs may sit in your garage the next quarter decade. Your priority is not the game. Have the cable TV turned off. Your responsibility is to live your life in a manner that will be an example to all around you.

E. Wives are to be submissive homemakers and mothers. Ephesians 5:22 says, " Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord." Titus 2:3-4 says, "3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored." How mush rests on these commandments? Look at the last phrase in Titus 2:5. By not doing these things the Word of God is dishonored. Dishonored is the Greek word where we get our English word, blaspheme.

May the Lord help our families and convict us where we have allowed worldly principles to creep in. Part 3 is forthcoming.

Revive Us Again Part 1

2006-10-16T06:26:00.000-07:00

This picture is of the First Baptist Church of Gulfport, MS after the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina swept through the Gulf Coast. This photo is a physical description of what has been spiritually happening in churches all over this country. Facts are facts and the scariest of all facts concerning the church is that the institutional, denominational churches all across our nation are dying. I get no pleasure out of this whatsoever and I do not believe our Lord does either. So as I have read and studied revivals over the last few years I have come to some conclusions about what must happen if the churches of America do not end up like the churches of Western Europe.

First, the leaders of these churches must stop the business mentality of overseeing a church and become an undershepherd of the souls of the people that God has placed them over. They must lead and feed the people and give their lives to the building up of the spiritual lives of their flock. However, this will not happen until we have a move of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts and minds of the pastors in our nation. Sadly, many of those pastors are not very concerned about what God has said in His Word anyway. So understand that if revival happens in our nation it will be God sent and not people contrived.

But, have you ever wondered what this revival would look like? Many think that the results will be more people in Sunday School and worship. Some think that America will again become a Christian nation. But what these views show is the lack of understanding that we all are in need of revival instigated by God. Many just think everybody else needs revival when in fact they are the ones most in need of an awakening. So here is what I think this revival will look like.

1. There will be a renewal of biblical preaching in our pulpits. I know that only a handful of preachers in certain liberal denominations will even admit to not preaching the Bible. Many who claim to preach the Bible or biblical messages are simply taking the Bible as the prooftext for their latest methodology. Biblical preaching is book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. And yes it may take months or even a year or two to get through a book of the Bible this way. But if we believe what the Lord Jesus believed, that the Word of God is truth, then we as preachers and teachers will approach the Word of God in the same manner. There will be a commitment by preachers to forget the building programs, the latest and greatest outreach method, all of the church growth conferences and the like, and he will get himself in the study on Monday morning and find out what God has said and then communicate that truth to the people of God on the Lord's Day. What this commitment to biblical preaching will result in is a new passion for Christian doctrine. Charles Spurgeon said, "The Scriptures must be made the infallible foundation of all teaching; the ruin, redemption and regeneration of mankind must be set forth in unmistakable terms."

2. There will be a return to personal and corporate holiness. Yesterday our fellowship looked at 1 Peter 2:11-12 where Peter informs us that we are to have our inner lives and our public lives guarded against the pervasiveness of sin. In the context of 1 Peter, it is obvious that personal and corporate holiness is the greatest evangelistic opportunity of the church. A holy life will result in persecution that results in questions about why Christians live like we live. And by the way, just because you go to church on Sunday does not warrant personal holiness. Just because your congregation sings songs about personal holiness does not mean your congregation is living in holiness.
There has been a disturbing trend over the last few generations. Many pastors of fifty years ago or so gave up the preaching of the Bible and made Sunday worship an evangelistic crusade. The preaching of the Bible was "supplemented" by various Bible studies and discipleship training that ended up being "fill in the blank" spirituality or worse, a going around the room to see what a passage meant to everybody. Results? Many of these well meaning Christians who thought they were doing the best thing for the kingdom of God lost their children to the faith. You can see this in churches all over the country. Many churches have only the older generation and relatively few of the 20,30, and 40 something crowd. Many of the mega-churches have siphoned off these people attracting them with entertainment and a plethora of programs. But many of these people are jaded with the church and their parents because what their parents did was far different from what they said. This is a lack of personal and corporate holiness.
So if we will be revived, I believe that we will see a rediscovery of the need for personal holiness and corporate holiness and a denial of the program centered, man pleasing activities of the church that act as a placebo for the real problem. Let me say this about evangelism, it is much easier to witness to someone you have never met than it is to evangelize someone that you work with day in and day out especially if you lack personal holiness.

Stay tuned, I will post part 2 soon.

Shopping for Books Online

2006-10-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

I buy quite a few books online. There is a great service I wanted to let you all know about that is absolutely free. Here is the link. http://www.fetchbook.info

What you will find here is a way to search out the book or books you are looking for with information like the title, author, or ISBN. The service will then show you the prices on the internet of this book from lowest to highest. It even gives you a link to the place that is selling it. It is a great service and most of all its free.

The Supremacy of Christ and Truth in a Postmodern World

2006-10-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

A friend from Kansas City, Jason Dawson, sent me via email a link to Dr. Voddie Bauchum's sermon at John Piper's conference. It is well worth your time to listen. Enjoy and may God bless you. Have a wonderful Lord's Day.
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/EventMessages/ByDate/1831_The_Supremacy_of_Christ_and_Truth_in_a_Postmodern_World/

Disclaimer

2006-10-10T06:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you who read my last post and you were wondering if I was serious, the answer is no. The post was tongue-in-cheek, I promise. Grace Fellowship does not even have a kitchen committee. So if you happened to not get the joke involved please accept my apology, take a deep breath, and smile. And please do not send any donations.

Since you are reading this, click the link and go visit my wife Dani's blog. http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-cjmKkLw1eqhTxeEDTbF281LV

My favorite post is about the Geico Commercials.

Guaranteed Church Growth

2006-10-09T06:35:00.000-07:00

We at Grace Fellowship Church have found the long held secret of real church growth. So many of the pastors in our country have been searching for some type of method that will secure real growth. They travel desperately from conference to conference spending vast amounts of money in order to discover the latest method that will aid them in growing their church. Many have found these methods to work but have noticed a few problems.

They have been told to ease up on the theology and that will help the church grow. But many pastors who adore and relish in the Word and the doctrines flowing from the Scriptures have complained. They will say, "We are a mile wide and an inch deep." In other words the people who have become many have not grown spiritually. Some pastors have had many people join the church only to have most of them leave without so much as a word. They find it impossible to "follow-up" on these people and find out where they have gone. Other pastors have embraced the "Field of Dreams" method. This method says, "If you build it they will come." So they energize their congregation to build facilities. They invest millions of dollars in their church campus offering the people around them such amenities as gymnasiums, soft-ball and soccer fields, bookstores, coffee shops, restaurants, child care, and the list goes on and on. They grow in number but deep down they know the people that are coming are just coming to use the facilities.

Other pastors have just given up. The books and material are too expensive. Their church budgets will not afford them attending a lot of conferences. They have figured out what "worked" somewhere else will not work where they are. This is frustrating. Others have given up because their flock will not cooperate. So instead of putting out resumes they have just settled in for the long haul content to draw their salary and pray they live until retirement. But my brothers I show you a better way.

We at Grace Fellowship have outlined a guaranteed church growth program. If this does not work after you have implemented all three simple steps we will gladly refund you the entire purchase price of the kit. Okay, there really is no kit and we are giving these three steps at absolutely no charge. But offering a money back guarantee makes for a better commercial.

Here are the steps.

1. Stop counting people. The reason to stop counting people is because it is fruitless and often very depressing. If people are on vacation, have had a family emergency, or have found some other reason for not attending church then Monday morning will be awful. The pastor will be close to suicidal because the numbers were not up on Sunday. He will immediately listen to the sermon tape from Sunday and hear how terrible he did because it is obvious to him that he has single handedly driven all the people from the church. Maybe we need to start a "Pastor's Monday Morning Hotline." So stop it. No more counting!

2. Start eating together every Lord's Day. Not only is this great fellowship but the calories flow like a river. Think of all the casseroles and mashed potatoes and deserts. Think about all the godly conversation between bites of cheesy chicken delight. This is a guaranteed way to grow the church. Do I have biblical support for this? Probably not but it really works. The support is probably tucked away in some obscure passage that the Byzantine Text addresses.

3. Instead of counting people measure your growth in pounds. That is correct. This is measurable growth. Weigh everyone. You can even hide the fact that you are weighing them by holding a mandatory health fair every six months. Now I know there will be some in your church who have a wonderful metabolism that will simply evaporate those extra calories into thin air but the rest of the people will carry the weight for them.

This will make interesting conversation for the wise pastor at the next denominational meeting. "So, Bob. How large is your congregation?" "Earl, when I got there three years ago they weighed 18,000 pounds. We are now up to 24,373 pounds. The growth has been amazing." Earl walks away scratching his head. This will also make for great slogans for the church. Insert your church name in the blank. "__________ Church: Come and Be Fed!" "_________ Church: A Place to Grow." "__________ Church: Just Like Mama's Kitchen." I could go on but I will not. Okay one more. "__________ Church: Better Than a Buffett."

If you can use these three steps and feel lead to do so, please send all donations to the Grace Fellowship Church Kitchen Committee.

Why Cover Them?

2006-10-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you who do not know who this man is, he is none other than Fred Phelps. Phelps is the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. His church has been notorious for picketing the funerals of dead soldiers and others. Their latest target was the victims of the Amish school shootings in Pennsylvania. Beside the obvious spiritual sickness that permeates this church what I would like to blog about is why there has been so much coverage of them. I think it has something to do with the train wreck syndrome. We just can't look away.

But this is why we should look away. If the media would stop covering this circus then they would go back to their little church in Kansas and before too long be a distant memory. What I am saying is that Fred Phelps and company have gotten way more press than they deserve. So my message to CNN, Fox News, and others (if they were listening and I am sure they are not and will not) would be to ignore the Phelps and they will go away. Keep the cameras off of them and the microphones out of their face.

But I am sure the news media will keep flocking to the Phelps' protests like buzzards to a gut wagon. Why? Because the American public enjoys train wrecks. Here is the secret to becoming famous in our day. Do something outrageous. Do something that scars your image on the brain of the American public. How sad is this?

Puritan Passion for Lost Souls

2006-10-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

The gentlemen to your left is the Puritan pastor and theologian of Puritan spirituality, John Cotton. Cotton lived from 1584-1652. He was a pastor in England and spent nearly two decades as a pastor in New England. He published a book that was very influential in the spiritual lives of Puritans on both sides of the "big pond." The book was a compilation of sermons that he preached mainly from one verse. This verse was 1 John 5:12. Eleven sermons came from this sentence: "He who has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life." The remaining five sermons in the book come from the following five verses. The book was called Christ the Fountaine of Life. Cotton was so influential in Puritan life that when he sailed for New England a man proclaimed, "I saw the Lord departing from England when Mr. Hooker and Mr. Cotton were gone."

The reason I am posting about the Rev. Cotton is because his words shatter the myth that staunch Calvinists are not concerned about the lost. His passion for people having a sound conversion spills over from the sermons he preached. Cotton used the analogy of how we would react if we were to find one of our children or family members dead. We would weep and cry. He with great biblical accuracy compared the soul without Christ to a cadaver. Here is the quote. "Weep for these children, and those friends, that husband, or wife, or brother, or sister; weep for every soul that is in an estate of sin and death, they are so many dead corpses."

There are a lot of people who claim to have a great passion for the lost. And for that I am thankful. I am thankful that they preach Christ. However, when is the last time you weeped over your unconverted children, friends, co-workers, or family members. I must confess that tears have not filled my eyes often enough over the lost souls around me. May God place within all of His children a passion for the lost that John Cotton had.

A Dog's Life

2006-09-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

This black spot in the midst of these pillows and blankets is our dog Brodie. If every dog has his day then every day is Brodie's day. He is spoiled to say the least. My oldest daughter wrapped him up in a blanket like a baby, placed him on this pile of pillows, and then covered him up with another blanket. Before I went to bed I walked into the girl's room and noticed this... Well sight.

You would think that any self-respecting male dog would jump up and at least pretend he was not enjoying this. But not Brodie. He simply stretched his front paws out, stuck out his tongue, and went back to sleep. To the best of my knowledge I think Brodie got up about 7:30 this morning from his "bed."

Brodie has quite a nice routine. He gets up when he is ready and comes into my Father in Law's room which is also my office. I fix Tito's breakfast every morning which Brodie shares after he comes in from his "walk." He shares all three meals with Tito and this has only furthered the extent of Brodie's pride.

Brodie has worked his way into being a full fledged family member. Not too long ago he ran away. We found him the next day at someone's house. But you would have thought a family member had died as depressed as everyone was for those hours.

He returned to cheers and applause and even a few tears. Now he is the king of the house... well sometimes. It is a dog's life.

A Holy Life

2006-09-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

In church I have been preaching through the First Epistle of Peter. We have spent a lot of time dealing with the process of sanctification or being holy. Peter commands that we as believers are to be holy because the God who called us from death to life is holy. One of the easiest things to do is to tell others to be holy. Preachers are tellers and we work to understand God's Word in order to tell God's people what He has said. But just as much as we speak and preach we must appropriate what we have learned toward our own sanctification. Springing from the life of the exegete should be an overwhelming desire to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord who rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Last night as I was reading I ran across a great quote by the person pictured to your left. This man is William Perkins who wrote the book, The Art of Prophesying, which is a great book on the importance of biblical preaching and effective ways to deliver the sermon. He emphasized the need for study and for a proper delivery of what has been studied. As most Puritans taught, Perkins advocated a plain style of preaching. In other words he avoided Greek and Latin phrases in sermons in order to "show off" the education of the preacher. A good way to describe the plain style of preaching in modern terms is "putting the cookies on the bottom shelf." But Perkins did not stop at sermon preparation and delivery. He jumped squarely into the personal life of the preacher. It is if he is saying from centuries ago, "Okay preacher, how's your sanctification going?"

Here is the quote. "God abhors godly speech which is not joined with a godly life." If anything can be said about the Puritans it is this: They sincerely desired to live out the faith that they claimed to have. It was not enough to say the right things or even to proclaim with all of the passion and fire of John the Baptist the right things if these were not in union with a holy life. In our day of talking points and a lack of spiritual depth across the board we would do well to come into contact with some Puritans. In the days of the Puritans there would be no debate over whether Jesus must be Lord of someone before He can be their Savior. There was no separation of the the two. Lordship and salvation went hand in hand. Salvation was a supernatural act of God where a sinner was changed outwardly and inwardly resulting in more and more submission to Christ and mortification of the flesh.

I will be so bold to say that the Puritans would not be able to stay in too many churches in America as pastors if they lived in our day. They preached too much and for too long. They demanded holiness from the lives of the church members. They regularly practiced church discipline. On top of all these they flat out refused entertaining anyone for any reason in the worship of God. They preached the Law to the hard hearted and the Gospel to the broken. We can learn a great deal from these godly men who lived out what they spoke. Were they perfect? Of course not. But they would be the first to acknowledge their shortcomings.

A Passion for the Lost

2006-09-19T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I am not ashamed to firmly hold to the five points of Calvinist as outlined by the Synod of Dort. I like the T.U.L.I.P. I am not afraid of a systematized theology. As a matter of fact I believe that it is very healthy to come to a firm grip of one of the most important of all doctrines, the doctrine of salvation. I do not claim to understand everything about salvation and I am sure there will be things revealed to us when we get to Heaven. An infinite God cannot be fully comprehended by finite man, nor can we fully grasp all of His ways. He is God and I am not nor would I want to be.

Many of my fellow Calvinists have been accused over and over of not having a passion to see lost people saved. Personally I am with Charles Spurgeon who reportedly prayed, "God save the elect and elect some more!" I think the attack has come by our non-Calvinist brothers because of a major misunderstanding. The non-Calvinists think that if we Calvinists do not employ their methodology then we have no passion for the lost. This is simply not true. Personally, I and my Calvinist brothers want to have a biblical methodology for evangelism. Let me go ahead and get this out of the way in the beginning and clear the air. I am against the sinner's prayer and I am against the alter call. I find these two practices completely unibiblical. The only sinner's prayer I find in the Bible did not contain anything about Jesus coming into the person's heart or life and there was nothing about a personal relationship with Jesus. The Publican who would not lift his face toward heaven simply said, "God be merciful to me, the sinner." See Luke 18:9-14.

That is a short sentence but gushing with theology. First we find the Publican's acknowledgement of his total unworthiness to approach a holy God. The Bible says that he would not even lift his face toward heaven. This is the first and crucial step in repentance. There is not a single person who can truly repent without first acknowledging their ugliness before God. This publican understood that if God so chose to strike him dead and send him to an eternal Hell, God would be justified and righteous in doing so. So many people are lost who think they are Christians for this reason. They think god owes them salvation. That was the attitude of the Pharisee in Luke 18:10-12. In verse 14 Jesus made it clear that the Pharisee was not justified. Second in this blossoming passage is the fact of the Publican's repentance. He said, "God be merciful to me, THE SINNER." He pulled no punches. He did not blame anyone else for his sins. He made no excuses. He acknowledged that he was THE SINNER. This is true repentance. He is not simply acknowledging that he has sinned but rather he is stating a biblical fact. That fact is that people are sinners by nature not just in deed. You do not sin and become a sinner, you sin because you are a sinner and so do I.

Finally I want you to see that he does not ask God into his heart and life nor does he ask Jesus into his heart. He does not ask God to become his buddy or his best friend. He asks for what we all must have if we are going to be saved and that is mercy. There are only two ways that people can relate to God. He is either your Father or your Judge. If you have not received mercy from the Judge you cannot call God your Father. See 1 Peter 1:17.

So we must not try to lead people to make a decision. I think the song, I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, has had more of an influence on most people's theology rather than the Bible influencing it. We must have a proclamation of the Law of God to show our wretchedness before God and then a proclamation of God's wrath and mercy evidenced at the Cross. There is absolutely no other way to proclaim the Gospel.

The Frustration of Sola Scriptura

2006-09-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

The Bible is the Word of God. As a matter of fact the Apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:23 that the Word of God is living and active. For you Greek types you will know that the participles living and active (for you who are not into Greek, participles are verbs that sometimes function like adjectives) agree in gender and number with "Word" and "God" in the text. So they could be describing the Word or God who gave us the Word. I think Peter did this on purpose so that we will understand that God and His Word are living and abiding or remaining. In other words, God's Word will be done away with when God is done away with. And we know that the Lord is not going anywhere.
For Christians this should offer much comfort and encouragement. Creeds and confessions remind us that the Word of God is sufficient for life and all matters of faith. Christians throughout the centuries have held to Sola Scriptura and even before the 16th Century.

So what is so frustrating about this? Honestly, to me there is no frustration. But it is obvious in many this causes much frustration. We see this in the disagreements that often arise in the Christian world. People argue doctrine but often this ends up being a debate over what works and not what the Bible teaches.

Over the last few months I have been following the debate in Southern Baptist circles over Calvinism. I have been shocked and disappointed at the lack of Biblical exegesis in this debate. Even the "debate" between Dr. Al Mohler and Dr. Paige Patterson was more talking points than digging in to see what the text of Scripture teaches. I know that I probably live in a dream world and I am sure I will be told that I do not understand the rules of debate and what can and cannot be discussed. The anti-Calvinists will lob the age old accusations against Calvinists that basically say that Calvinists are guilty of following a man's system and do not love lost people. Calvinists will lob their own accusations of the inability of the non-Calvinists to accept the total depravity of man and the sovereignty of God in salvation. When will this stop? I am afraid there may never be a time when the two sides sit down and do some serious exegesis and see what the text of Scripture says. After all that is what is meant by Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone).

Any debate, whether it be over the use of charismatic gifts, the interpretation of biblical prophecy, or any other doctrine should be settled by the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scriptura. But that would be frustrating wouldn't it? It would require work. It would require eyesight strain and mental fatigue. It would require coming into contact with the living and abiding Word of God and the living and abiding God and as I remember in the book of Exodus when that happened people trembled and were very afraid. It is much easier to deny Sola Scriptura by your actions and just say that you hold to it when in fact (and you will forgive my Latin) what you hold to is Sola Pragmatica (Pragmatism Alone). Pragmatism simply defined is the idea that if it works it must be correct.

What is the solution? "Let God be true and every man a liar." Let's get together under the banner of Sola Scriptura and let's have in the words of one of my old high school principles a "come to Jesus meeting." What he meant was it was time to get some things corrected. Let's take the time to evaluate everything that we do, and I mean everything, in light of the living and abiding Word of God. If it is not in Scripture then may God give us the grace to cast it far from us. But how frustrating would that be?

Fun Group (Grace Fellowship Church)

2006-09-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

I can say without a doubt that this group of people who meet together for worship on Sunday is a fun group. We love the Lord and His Word. And we love each other. There is always sweet fellowship when we gather and it never seems anyone wants to leave. The Lord has truly blessed us.

Pastor Decisional

2006-09-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

Before I begin I must give credit where credit is due. Martin Luther was not the only Reformer as you know. There was one who is considered by most as the peacemaker in the group. His name was Erasmus of Rotterdam. So I am in debt to Erasmus not only for the results of his published Greek New Testament but for a dialogue entitled "Julius Exclusus." Second I am indebted to Mark Noll and his wonderful book, Turning Points, where he gives in full this dialogue on page 187.

Of course I have changed the names and the dialogue. Plus I don't believe that Peter actually guards the gates of Heaven. I have changed the name to Pastor Decisional to highlight the heinous belief in our day of decisional regeneration. Luther said that if anyone thinks he can do anything toward his salvation, even an act of his own will, only added sin to sin. So I hope you enjoy this dialogue, or maybe you will be convicted by it.

Pastor Decisional: What the devil is going on? The gates are not open? Somebody has monkied with the lock.
Peter: Maybe you have the wrong key. The Lord Jesus gave us the key.
Pastor Decisional: It's the only key I've ever had...
Peter: Who are you, anyway?
Pastor Decisional: Why I am none other than Pastor Decisional, the greatest soul winner since the Apostle Paul. Can't you see my plaques for leading in baptisms in my denomination for twenty years straight? Who am I you ask! And look I have the key!
Peter: The key does not look at all like the one the Lord Jesus gave me. As for all the souls you have won I don't recall anyone coming in here speaking your name. As for your plagues, I walk on much more beautiful gold and jewels everyday here. Tell me again, what have you done for the church?
Pastor Decisional: What have I done? When I came to the church she was a poor wretch. They believed this silly doctrine of the sovereignty of God in salvation and I fully convinced them that salvation was up to them. I taught them the real meaning of election. I told them that God voted for them and the devil voted against them so the deciding vote was theirs. Because of my correcting of this centuries old misunderstanding of sovereignty and election I was able to rescue many souls from hell. Remember I told you I led my denomination in baptisms for twenty straight years. I built four new buildings for the church and each one bigger each time. There was not a Sunday morning in my whole pastoral career that there was not someone being saved or joining the church. Our baptistry was so busy that we had to chemically treat our baptistry like a swimming pool. After all this success I wrote a book on evangelism and as a result we had a push for a million baptisms in one year.
Peter: How many people do you think have been saved as a result of all you have done?
Pastor Decisional: We kept very accurate records at our church and the sum total as of last Sunday was 750,000 souls saved.
Peter: How large was your church?
Pastor Decisional: We had the largest church in our association and state and we ran four thousand in Sunday morning worship.
Peter: The blind leading the blind! The church did not look like your church when Christ founded her. The Apostle Paul and I did not speak of thousands of decisions and the building of great edifices. We spoke of shipwrecks, chains, dangers, suffering, plots against our lives. These are the glories of the Christian minister. I ask you, leader of your denomination, have you never thought how the Church began, increased, and was established? Was it by new evangelistic programs and alter calls, and the establishing of new cutting edge programs, or even building new buildings and gymnasiums? Was it even established by passing legislation? It was by patience, the blood of the martyrs including mine, by prisons and stripes. You say that it increases by your doings, new evangelism strategies, and building projects. Woe unto you, Pastor Decisional.

Where Were You?

2006-09-11T05:49:00.000-07:00

Today is the fifth anniversary of this generations Pearl Harbor. Can you like me remember exactly where you were when you heard the news of the planes flying into the Towers and the plane flying into the Pentagon? I was in my first semester of seminary in Kansas City and was studying Hebrew in the library on campus when I heard someone say in a rather distressed voice that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. My first thought was it must have been one of those single engine planes that had seriously flown off course. But what I saw on television changed my mind quickly, especially when I watched the second plane fly into the second building. I rushed immediately home to be with my family. I wanted in that time of distress and uncertainty to be near my wife and then my two young children.

Do you remember how you felt? I have to be honest and say that it did not take long for me to feel very angry. I felt sad for the families that day who lost loved ones. But I wanted immediate and decisive revenge. But five years later the memories are still fresh. I hope that I am a little more mature than I was then.

What do we do now? It seems five years later we are safer. There have been no attacks in our nation. We are in the midst of fighting what is becoming a very unpopular war in Iraq. I do not know the answer. Politics seem to confuse me because I see things in very black and white terms. I do not fully understand all that goes into political maneuvering.

So what do we Christians do? Is it legitimate to hate the terrorists who hate us? The Lord Jesus answered that question in Luke 6:27-28. "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."

I am not advocating pacifism here because I do not think the Lord Jesus is. What would happen if we as believers would take up this mantle and begin to pray for Muslims? What would happen if we would have a God stoked love for men such as Bin Laden and we understand that when he does die he will spend an eternity in hell apart from the presence of God? Have you thought about how horrible that is? Some may say he deserves it but so do we. Apart from Christ we are all God's enemies. What if we began as a nation to do good to the people in these Muslim nations who suffer daily under the oppression of these radical leaders? After all it is the young men who are strapping the bombs to themselves and dying alongside their victims. When is the last time you heard of one of the leaders of these groups actually becoming a martyr? Sounds fishy to me.

Why pray for the Jihadists? Because they live lives that are lived for a lie. They die for a lie. It is honorable to die for the truth but how horrible to live your life, die willingly for what you believe is true, only to face an eternity of punishment in Hell. We need to pray that the Lord would invade the Muslim world with the same kind of outpouring of the Gospel message that happened in the Book of Acts. That is the hope of the world.

Do You Long for This Also?

2006-09-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Over the last few years I have had an intense feeling that we Christians are missing something very important in our lives. What is it that we are missing? One word, community. Now I know there have been many who have advocated a new program in their church in order to encourage community. But the simple fact is community cannot be canned in the latest church program for sale at your local Christian book retailer. For much of the church the whole concept of community has been lost. We are now hyper-individualistic. I think we can blame this problem on the English translation of the Bible specifically dealing with the word "you." For instance in English "you" can be both singular and plural. Here in the south we have solved this linguistic problem and maybe we should have a new Bible version, the SET. I know, my northern brothers and sisters want to know what SET stands for. It stands for the Southern English Translation. Here is how the problem would be fixed. When we run up on a plural "you" we will simply translate it as "ya'll" or its possessive, "ya'll's" (pronounced yallses). For instance take an often misapplied passage of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 6:19. The ESV says, "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." Now the SET could fix this problem. It would read which by the way is the literal reading, "Or do ya'll not know that Ya'll's body(this is singular) is a temple of the Holy Spirit within ya'll, whom ya'll have from God? Ya'll are not ya'll's own, 20 for ya'll were bought with a price. So glorify God in ya'll's body." See how that solves a problem? I know that it may present a problem for all of ya'll that seldom use ya'll in your daily vocabulary. For my friends who were not raised in the south please substitute ya'll and ya'll's for you guys and yous guys'. I guess that means we need another translation and that one would be called the NET. What was my point in all this? Oh yeah. Community.

What sparked this blog is my reading of an article in the National Geographic magazine on a group of Hutterites in Montana. For those of you who do not know who these people are they are similar to the Amish or strict Mennonite communities. They come from the Radical Reformation or Anabaptist tradition. I am sure that I differ greatly on some theology with these folks but I will tell you where they have the rest of us Christians. They understand and practice community.

They live together and work together. They eat together and when life enters the final years they die together. Every aspect of their lives are intertwined with their community. In my opinion, there is something about this lifestyle that seems very satisfying to my soul that longs to be with my brothers and sisters in Christ as often as I can. They trace their lifestyle of "having all things in common" back to the book of Acts.

I am not an isolationist but neither are they. They interact with the outside world in business and other endeavors. But they live a very simple life filled with fellowship. Their children are brought up in the faith and guess what? They rarely leave the faith or the lifestyle. Most denominations today cannot say that.

This article has caused me to question some things in my own life. Is my life simple enough? What are some ways I have allowed this present age to influence my viewpoint over what is important and what is not? Could I live a lifestyle like these Hutterites live? I think I could and I think I would be very happy doing it. Imagine living beside and working alongside your Christian brothers and sisters everyday. Imagine your children growing up doing chores and playing with the Christian kids that live on both sides, behind and in front of you. Imagine not having a house payment because your brothers and sisters got together and built your house from "having everything in common." I imagine this must be partially what Heaven will be like. We will be with our Lord and with our brothers and sisters never separated from either for all eternity. Imagine...

94 Theses: Putting Them All Together

2006-09-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

I decided to make one more post out of the "New Nail" series. Here are all 94 Theses put together for those of you who are interested.

1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said “Repent” meant that the Gospel could not be believed apart from God gifted evangelical repentance.
2. The word repentance can not be understood as the simple praying of a “sinner’s prayer” either in the pew, at the front of a church at the invitation, or at any other time.
3. True repentance is evidenced by a life that is showing forth the work of the Holy Spirit known as sanctification. Therefore true repentance unto eternal life is not merely inward but externally visible.
4. Therefore repentance is only real when accompanied by the mortification of the flesh commonly called sanctification.
5. The preacher or evangelist therefore can not proclaim a person “eternally saved” who has not shown forth the fruits of repentance over time as if the preacher has some sort of papal authority or insight to truly see the condition of the human heart.
6. The preacher or evangelist can only perform his God given task and that is to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ sinless, crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended, and presently making intercession at the right hand of the Father and command all men everywhere to repent of sin and believe the Gospel.
7. God has not converted a person without bringing that person into subjection to the Lordship of Christ and the authority of Scripture.
8. Therefore all preachers who make claims for the salvation of anyone as a result of their ministry especially salvation based on merely confession and baptism is in error and doing the person who has confessed an injustice by proclaiming them eternally saved when in fact they may not be.
9. The confessor must follow the Biblical command to examine themselves to see if they are truly in the faith.
10. Therefore what a preacher or evangelist says concerning the salvation of a person is useless and meaningless because the Bible says that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are indeed children of God.
11. The greatest evidences for true biblical conversion is a life marked by repentance of sin, continuing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and a commitment and obedience to the Bible, the Word of God.
12. Therefore those who make claims to Christ and are not marked by these three evidences are merely deceived either by their own corrupt mind or by those preachers who assured them of saving faith as a result of a “sinner’s prayer.”
13. Much of the preaching and evangelizing that takes place today would fall into the category of buying an indulgence.
14. In fact much of the preaching has been set aside for the use of concerts and dramas to invoke within a dead sinner a response to the Gospel.
15. Therefore most preachers and ministers have denied Scripture and stopped believing in the power of the Gospel preached as the God prescribed method for sinners coming to faith.
16. This has lead to the deception of untold millions of self-proclaimed Christians who show no fruit of repentance but have been deceived by the indulgence preacher.
17. Those who are won by the preaching of this false Gospel will have to be maintained by much man centered false theology that runs contrary to the Biblical revelation.
18. Therefore most have fallen victim to the idol of pragmatism.
19. They will be condemned eternally, together with their teachers, who believe themselves sure of their salvation because they have prayed a “sinner’s prayer” and "meant it with all their heart."
20. The church must then be on guard against those false preachers and evangelists who propagate a man centered salvation denying the sovereignty of God over salvation and reprobation.
21. The true church must condemn these preachers and evangelists, regardless of how well intended they are, as heretical, demanding their repentance, and biblically educating those willing to conform to the Biblical Gospel.
22. For they do not preach Christian doctrine when repentance is divorced from salvation.
23. The Christian doctrine of repentance is a gift of God and not innate within a dead sinner.
24. Every truly repentant Christian must be assured of their standing before God by the Spirit of God and not by the announcement of the preacher or evangelist.
25. Therefore a so called seeker must be exhorted to seek the grace of God and ask for the gift of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation.
26. Preaching must be done the way that God has given us His Word and that is book by book and verse by verse of those books.
27 Therefore the duty and passion of the preacher of God’s Word is to know that Word, obey that Word, and teach that Word.
28. The preacher is to be given to the task of biblical exposition.
29. Therefore his time will not be taken up with other pursuits but like the Apostles said he must given to the ministry of the Word and prayer.
30. Godly fellow elders and deacons should protect the preacher’s study time so that he can accurately understand and preach God’s Word.
31. The church must understand that the primary responsibility of their pastor is the preparation and preaching of the Word and not acting as a CEO of the church.
32. Therefore, Christians should accept nothing less than accurate biblical exposition.
33. The criteria for accurate biblical exposition has very little to do with oratory ability.
34. Biblical preaching provides the people of God proper hermeneutical understanding of Scripture within its context with proper illustration and accurate application.
35. All sermon application does not end with “you need to pray and read your Bible more.” Various Scripture has proper application to the life of the saved and unsaved.
36. Therefore Christians are to be taught the doctrines of Holy Scripture.
37. They are to be told often that there is nothing more relevant to their lives than the knowledge of God and His demands for their lives.
38. Christians are to be instructed by the preacher regarding holy living just as this is outlined in Scripture.
39. Christians should then avoid and condemn the attempts by preachers to entertain them and often to trick them into bad theology.
40. Preachers should avoid the lure of Satan in becoming a popular speaker because of oratory and entertainment value.
41. Preachers should understand that they are to be careful in illustrating passages of Scripture.
42. Although personal illustrations are at times valuable and often endear the congregation to the preacher, they should be used sparingly.
43. Often personal illustration only serves to distract the hearer from God’s revelation to attention on a story that the preacher is telling.
44. Proper illustration of Scripture should come from the Scripture because God has adequately illustrated His Word.
45. Within the duty of the preaching of God’s Word the preacher is to obey the command of the Apostle Paul and reprove, rebuke, exhort and do so with great patience.
46. The preacher is not to act as a priest and be the mediator between God and man by acting as if the person must come through them to get to Christ.
47. They are to point the people to the text of Scripture by which they are taught the Lord Jesus Christ.
48. In that pointing to Christ the people are to be called to respond to Christ by faith repenting of sin and relying on the Holy Spirit to live a Christ-like life.
49. They do not need to do so by relocating their bodies in a different spot in the church building but rather are to plead with God to change their heart as a result of the revealed Word of God.
50. The preacher should have the attitude of John the Baptist and say as he did about himself and the Lord Jesus, “He must increase and I must decrease.”
51. The members of churches should hold their pastor accountable to the faithful exposition of the Word of God.
52. If the pastor of the church deviates from his calling in faithful exposition and the church allows it, they are just as guilty as the pastor for abandoning his calling.
53. Pastors should also engage in the mentoring and training of the current and future generations of church leaders and elders as well as a future pastor.
54. Pastors and churches must not succumb to the temptation of the error of the modern church in believing that numbers and money are the criteria for success.
55. Both pastors and churches must understand that a pastor will be held ultimately accountable for his doctrine, his exposition, and his faithfulness to caring for the Lord’s people.
56. Pastors must be held accountable for the care and spiritual nurture of their own family.
57. If a pastor neglects the spiritual well being of his family he is disqualified from ministry.
58. The pastor must lead the church in the proper worship of God.
59. The worship of God has been prescribed in Scripture.
60. The Lord desires to be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth.
61. To worship in spirit is to not only be led by the Holy Spirit in the worship of God but also to have the right spirit of humble obedience to God.
62. To worship in truth is to worship according to the revealed Word of God.
63. God has declared that He is to be worshiped and He has given us the means and the instruction for our worship and He will accept nothing less.
64. This is evident in the Bible beginning in Genesis with God’s refusal to accept the offering of Cain.
65. God still refuses false worship.
66. What has been prescribed in worship is prayer, the Lord’s Supper, the reading of Scripture, singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and the preaching of the Word.
67. Churches who avoid these elements or replace them with other non-prescribed elements are participating in false worship.
68. Therefore their worship which may be exciting and emotional is not acceptable to god.
69. Nor is it edifying to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
70. God has ordained these elements of worship for His glory and for the good and enjoyment of His people.
71. The methods of man are a stench in the nostrils of God thus elements like dramas and interpretive dance are not to be a part of the worship service.
72. Singing should be congregational.
73. Solos border on mere entertainment.
74. Therefore all man contrived elements of worship should be done away with immediately.
75. God is not honored or glorified by the constant disobedience to Scripture in the area of worship.
76. Worship of God also includes the responsibility for bringing up the children that He gave us in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
77. Many Christians have failed miserably in this area because they have failed to properly understand their God given responsibility.
78. Therefore churches that advocate programs to relieve parents of their duties and responsibilities of biblically educating their children are in serious error.
79. This has been shown to be the case in many so called “evangelistic” churches that statistics show have consistently lost their children to the faith.
80. Christian parents have allowed the State to educate and often raise their children thus loosing the ability to instill in them the Word of God.
81. Therefore pastors are to teach and preach about the responsibilities of parents warning them of the Satanic lies that permeate our culture and have seeped into our churches regarding our children.
82. They are to be taught to teach their children the Word of God.
83. This should only be supplemented in the worship services of the church through the faithful singing, reading, praying, and preaching of the Bible.
84. A multiplicity of programs such as Sunday School, Awana, Vacation Bible School, or anything else will never substitute for the God ordained responsibility of every parent to biblically educate their children.
85. Therefore as Christians our children should be more familiar with the Word of God than they are the rule books of many of today’s sports.
86. Furthermore it is an unbiblical practice to separate for classes in church by age or grade.
87. It is an unbiblical practice to separate the children from their parents in so called children’s church.
88. Children are not to be entertained but rather are to be instructed in righteousness along side their parents.
89. This includes the teenagers or as they should be called, the young adults.
90. Fathers are to be the spiritual leaders of their home including their young adults.
91. Young ladies should spend much of their time with their mothers and not with their peers being entertained in a youth group. Likewise young men should be with their fathers as much as possible instead of participating in other pursuits.
92. Because these young adults are learning to be Christian adults it is ludicrous to group them altogether in even a spiritual group because they can not mature while spending most of their time with people their own age.
93. Therefore the fathers are the “youth minister” and not a person the church has hired to do this for them.
94. The same can be said for children’s ministers.

The New 95 Theses Part IV

2006-09-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

Well it’s about time to finish up the 95. Honestly I did not think I would make it this far. Luther had 95 so I decided to stop at 94. Let me go ahead and say that numbers 89-94 are addressed to the unbiblical practice of youth groups. To my friends who are youth ministers I love you but I make no apologies for what I say. Justify youth groups biblically and I will recant. As Luther said, “Here I stand I can do no other. God help me.”

76. Worship of God also includes the responsibility for bringing up the children that He gave us in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
77. Many Christians have failed miserably in this area because they have failed to properly understand their God given responsibility.
78. Therefore churches that advocate programs to relieve parents of their duties and responsibilities of biblically educating their children are in serious error.
79. This has been shown to be the case in many so called “evangelistic” churches that statistics show have consistently lost their children to the faith.
80. Christian parents have allowed the State to educate and often raise their children thus loosing the ability to instill in them the Word of God.
81. Therefore pastors are to teach and preach about the responsibilities of parents warning them of the Satanic lies that permeate our culture and have seeped into our churches regarding our children.
82. They are to be taught to teach their children the Word of God.
83. This should only be supplemented in the worship services of the church through the faithful singing, reading, praying, and preaching of the Bible.
84. A multiplicity of programs such as Sunday School, Awana, Vacation Bible School, or anything else will never substitute for the God ordained responsibility of every parent to biblically educate their children.
85. Therefore as Christians our children should be more familiar with the Word of God than they are the rule books of many of today’s sports.
86. Furthermore it is an unbiblical practice to separate for classes in church by age or grade.
87. It is an unbiblical practice to separate the children from their parents in so called children’s church.
88. Children are not to be entertained but rather are to be instructed in righteousness along side their parents.
89. This includes the teenagers or as they should be called, the young adults.
90. Fathers are to be the spiritual leaders of their home including their young adults.
91. Young ladies should spend much of their time with their mother and not with their peers being entertained in a youth group. Likewise young men should be with their fathers as much as possible instead of participating in other pursuits.
92. Because these young adults are learning to be Christian adults it is ludicrous to group them altogether in even a spiritual group because they can not mature while spending most of their time with people their own age.
93. Therefore the fathers are the “youth minister” and not a person the church has hired to do this for them.
94. The same can be said for children’s ministers.

May God revive the church.

The New 95 Theses or so Part III

2006-08-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

Here goes another round. I am still on the topic of preaching and the duties of church and pastor. In the middle of these I switch to the very controversial subject of worship. Enjoy!

51. The members of churches should hold their pastor accountable to the faithful exposition of the Word of God.
52. If the pastor of the church deviates from his calling in faithful exposition and the church allows it, they are just as guilty as the pastor for abandoning his calling.
53. Pastors should also engage in the mentoring and training of the current and future generations of church leaders and elders as well as a future pastor.
54. Pastors and churches must not succumb to the temptation of the error of the modern church in believing that numbers and money are the criteria for success.
55. Both pastors and churches must understand that a pastor will be held ultimately accountable for his doctrine, his exposition, and his faithfulness to caring for the Lord’s people.
56. Pastors must be held accountable for the care and spiritual nurture of their own family.
57. If a pastor neglects the spiritual well being of his family he is disqualified from ministry.
58. The pastor must lead the church in the proper worship of God.
59. The worship of God has been prescribed in Scripture.
60. The Lord desires to be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth.
61. To worship in spirit is to not only be led by the Holy Spirit in the worship of God but also to have the right spirit of humble obedience to God.
62. To worship in truth is to worship according to the revealed Word of God.
63. God has declared that He is to be worshiped and He has given us the means and the instruction for our worship and He will accept nothing less.
64. This is evident in the Bible beginning in Genesis with God’s refusal to accept the offering of Cain.
65. God still refuses false worship.
66. What has been prescribed in worship is prayer, the Lord’s Supper, the reading of Scripture, singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and the preaching of the Word.
67. Churches who avoid these elements or replace them with other non-prescribed elements are participating in false worship.
68. Therefore their worship which may be exciting and emotional is not acceptable to god.
69. Nor is it edifying to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
70. God has ordained these elements of worship for His glory and for the good and enjoyment of His people.
71. The methods of man are a stench in the nostrils of God thus elements like dramas and interpretive dance are not to be a part of the worship service.
72. Singing should be congregational.
73. Solos border on mere entertainment.
74. Therefore all man contrived elements of worship should be done away with immediately.
75. God is not honored or glorified by the constant disobedience to Scripture in the area of worship.

Silly Songs: A Veggie Tale Video or a Church Service

2006-08-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

I will admit right off the bat that I am a fan of Isaac Watts. I love to hear coming from an organ the first notes of Luther's "A Mighty Fortress is Our God." I have taught my children that the hymn "At the Cross" by Watts did not originally say "would He devote that sacred head for a sinner such as I" but rather really says "would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I." I am not opposed to new music. I do enjoy it and listen quite often but my preference in worship are the old hymns. That does not mean I refuse to accommodate or even refuse to allow our church to sing them. I just want to avoid lyrics that are bent on the impersonal pronoun, he. Ambiguity in Christian music I think is unnecessary and downright embarrassing.

I was in a worship service last Sunday night in a local Baptist church because they had invited an evangelist to preach. Doing most of the preaching now for quite some time I figured this would be a great time to hear someone else preach in person. The last two songs we sang before the preaching I had never heard. I hope I never hear them again. The second to last was not too bad but I would really prefer to never think about it again. But the last one would have worked well in a Veggie Tale silly song video. Are you listening Big Idea? I have provided the lyrics to the first verse.

"Who made the mountain, who made the tree? Who made the river flow to the sea? And who hung the moon in the starry sky? Somebody bigger than you and I.
Who makes the flowers bloom in the spring? Who writes the song for the Robin to sing? And who sends the rain when the earth is dry? Somebody bigger than you and I."

A future silly song? I hope not. Bob and Larry may have been too embarrassed to sing this. I was.

The New 95 Theses or So Part II

2006-08-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

The first part of the new 95 had to do with repentance and salvation. Part two has to do with the duty of the preacher. This is for pastor and evangelist alike. Paul told Timothy to preach the Word. So much of the preaching in our day is man centered. Many preachers preach to "felt" needs and not real needs. The need of all humanity is repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is an ongoing need in the Christian life. I am not saying that we only preach what many call a Gospel message but we preachers must understand that all the Bible, Old and New Testaments, point to the Gospel. I recently heard a sermon by J. Vernon McGee called the Countdown to Calvary. I only heard about fifteen minutes but those were riveting. One of his statements was that this world was not created for us to behold its beauty but God in His sovereign wisdom created this world so there could be a cross here upon which His Son would die. Spurgeon said that like all roads lead to Rome all Scripture leads to the Gospel.

Much of the preaching done in our day is merely moral preaching. Preachers consider themselves bold when they lash out at sin that really touches few in their congregation. Obvious sin such as greed and apathy are avoided and sin like homosexuality is attacked over and over. It is easy to take pot shots at "big" sins that are not prevalent in a particular congregation and neglect the obvious. Biblical exposition will prevent this and give God's people what they truly need and that is to be nourished in the green pastures of God's Word.

26. Preaching must be done the way that God has given us His Word and that is book by book and verse by verse of those books.
27 Therefore the duty and passion of the preacher of God’s Word is to know that Word, obey that Word, and teach that Word.
28. The preacher is to be given to the task of biblical exposition.
29. Therefore his time will not be taken up with other pursuits but like the Apostles said he must given to the ministry of the Word and prayer.
30. Godly fellow elders and deacons should protect the preacher’s study time so that he can accurately understand and preach God’s Word.
31. The church must understand that the primary responsibility of their pastor is the preparation and preaching of the Word and not acting as a CEO of the church.
32. Therefore, Christians should accept nothing less than accurate biblical exposition.
33. The criteria for accurate biblical exposition has very little to do with oratory ability.
34. Biblical preaching provides the people of God proper hermeneutical understanding of Scripture within its context with proper illustration and accurate application.
35. All sermon application does not end with “you need to pray and read your Bible more.” Various Scripture has proper application to the life of the saved and unsaved.
36. Therefore Christians are to be taught the doctrines of Holy Scripture.
37. They are to be told often that there is nothing more relevant to their lives than the knowledge of God and His demands for their lives.
38. Christians are to be instructed by the preacher regarding holy living just as this is outlined in Scripture.
39. Christians should then avoid and condemn the attempts by preachers to entertain them and often to trick them into bad theology.
40. Preachers should avoid the lure of Satan in becoming a popular speaker because of oratory and entertainment value.
41. Preachers should understand that they are to be careful in illustrating passages of Scripture.
42. Although personal illustrations are at times valuable and often endear the congregation to the preacher, they should be used sparingly.
43. Often personal illustration only serves to distract the hearer from God’s revelation to attention on a story that the preacher is telling.
44. Proper illustration of Scripture should come from the Scripture because God has adequately illustrated His Word.
45. Within the duty of the preaching of God’s Word the preacher is to obey the command of the Apostle Paul and reprove, rebuke, exhort and do so with great patience.
46. The preacher is not to act as a priest and be the mediator between God and man by acting as if the person must come through them to get to Christ.
47. They are to point the people to the text of Scripture by which they are taught the Lord Jesus Christ.
48. In that pointing to Christ the people are to be called to respond to Christ by faith repenting of sin and relying on the Holy Spirit to live a Christ-like life.
49. They do not need to do so by relocating their bodies in a different spot in the church building but rather are to plead with God to change their heart as a result of the revealed Word of God.
50. The preacher should have the attitude of John the Baptist and say as he did about himself and the Lord Jesus, “He must increase and I must decrease.”

More to come.