A leader with no path
Aimless wrath
in isolation, desolation
Look for the center
Dare not enter
Corrupt creation, sure damnation
Feed the ego
Never let me go
Quiet frustration, desperation
How can love be?
Can One love me?
New foundation, restoration
In the time it takes you to read this, as many as fifteen people may die in the United States alone. None of us knows when our time is up. Are you ready? Jesus told us no one knows the day or hour, but things seem to be shaping up for His return. Are you ready? Persecution of Christians is growing around the world and even here. Are you ready? When your faith is attacked, are you ready? When someone comes to you and asks why your hope remains, are you ready?
It’s time to get ready!
13 Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, 15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. (1 Peter 3:13-16 NASU)
36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. 37 “For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38 “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. 40 “Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 “Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 43 “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44 “For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. (Matthew 24:36-44 NASU)
I hope you will join us this Sunday at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple as we begin to learn how to be ready. I’m ready to see you there!
I have the honor of speaking at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple again this Sunday. The subject on my heart is a difficult one. I keep asking the Lord if it’s the right one, and He has given me no leave to present any other. Thus I bring to you the question that I often wrestle with. How tolerant should a church be when it comes to obvious sin?
Our society is big on tolerance. In fact the word has grown to mean something far more when used by certain groups. We are expected not only to tolerate immorality but to embrace it. Our acceptance and approval is demanded. This attitude has crept into our churches. Some denominations are now openly accepting of gross immorality. Where do we think it will stop?
Maybe a better question is, “Where do we think it started?” What has set some churches on such a path? I think there are several answers to that question, but one answer must certainly be that we turned a blind eye to the sin in our own lives and in those of our congregation. Wishing to “hate the sin and love the sinner” and taking out of context Jesus’ admonition not to judge lest we be judged, we look the other way.
Surely we are to treat the sinner with love and compassion. Such are we all without the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. It would be contrary to God’s commandments and His very nature if we were to shun or exclude them. The sinner is welcome within the walls of the church, for therein he should find salvation.
But what happens when no transformation occurs and we continue to pretend there is no problem? What happens when someone new comes in and sees our tacit approval of sin? Might he or she be led into the same? Might we then participate in the harming of the one we would save? What of the unrepentant person? Are we not enabling them to continue, just as the spouse of an alcoholic will sometimes do from misguided love?
I would be delighted if you would join us this Sunday as we explore 1 Corinthians, Chapter 5.
This is an election year, and the date is coming up fast. If you haven’t registered to vote I hope that you will do so and prayerfully consider the choices you make.
Each election cycle, the political parties meet and decide on their platforms. In a physical sense, a platform is a raised flat area on which one can safely stand. Metaphorically, that’s what the party platforms are about. They lay down a set of principles and ideas that are meant to form the foundation on which each candidate will govern. Though individuals may not adhere completely to the party platform, it tells you something about them that they will run under the banner of a particular party. I urge you to read the platforms of the major parties prayerfully and make your choices with that in mind.
I want to ask you a more important question. What is your platform? What are the foundational principles and ideals that govern your life? Do you indeed stand on them? Do you live what you say you believe? Does your belief touch every area of your life?
Our nation’s problems didn’t start with the politicians. They started with the people who chose those politicians. If we will not choose leaders who reflect Godly principles, we will get what we deserve. If we are not devoted to knowing God’s laws ourselves, we cannot hope to select leaders who will uphold them.
Jesus is our rock. He is the foundation on which everything must stand if it is to survive. Everything that we think, believe, and do should be subjected to the standards found in His word. I would be delighted if you would join me at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple at 2:30 on Sunday to explore His word together starting with Matthew 7:15-27.
That’s probably not the real word, but I do not doubt that there is a clinical word for it. Everywhere you go now there is hand sanitizer. We can’t seem to go more than a month or two without some scare story breaking about all the nasty bugs that live in some public place. This morning the headline I saw concerned airport security lines.
Can we get some perspective please? Yes, everywhere you go where lots of other people have been is likely to have lots of germs. Yes, you should exercise reasonable caution, especially if you have any condition that would make you unusually susceptible to infection. No, there is no reason to go about in fear of catching something from everything you touch.
The germ scares are just part of it. We regularly see reports of some new discovery that common things we partake of every day will kill us in the end. Yet we have not lived this long on average since the times of the early Old Testament. It seems we’re doing a lot more right than we are wrong. We should be wise in what we choose to subject ourselves to, but I for one will not live in fear of death by hand rail or plastic basket. I’m much more afraid of the guy TSA let through the security line untouched lest they be accused of profiling while they molest my wife in her scooter.
I’ve seen this as a third party. Now I get to experience it myself. They really do mean well. They see that you are suffering and they want to help. They have just the thing that will cure what ails you. Everyone miraculously acquires MD next to their name. With home remedies to hospital horror stories, they’ll all explain what you should and shouldn’t do and why.
To all I say, I appreciate the thoughts, but for the most part I think I’ll listen to the doctors. It’s not that I trust them implicitly. In fact I don’t think anyone, whether or not they’ve got alphabet soup after their name, really understands everything that goes on inside of these wonderful creations God gave us to live in that we call bodies. Sometimes the doctors are wrong. My wife is living proof that sometimes they can be very wrong. I am a skeptic by nature, but when confronted with advice from someone who has studied for years and practices what he or she has studied every day versus a well-intentioned neophyte, I’ll probably listen to the doctor.
Let me suggest a couple of things that will really help. Pray, and listen. Pray, because the Great Physician is able to heal perfectly and without any guesswork if He so chooses. Listen; because that’s the best thing a good friend can do most of the time.
This Sunday I am preaching at Bartimaeus Baptist Temple and I’m going back to my favorite subject. I talk about it a lot, but this time I will try it from a different
and I hope more meaningful perspective. I don’t think there is another
word in the English language that is so abused. We love our spouses.
We love our families. We love our friends. We love our pets. We love
our stuff. we love good food. Some of us are even blessed that we
could say we love our jobs. Hopefully all of us here love Jesus. What
does that mean? We use the term so loosely that it’s hard to tell.
I
think that part of the word’s overuse is due to our tendency to
illustrate by exaggeration, but in so doing we have robbed it of its
meaning and power. The Greek language in which most of the new
testament was written used four different words where we have just one.
I hope that you’ll join me as we explore what love is together. In the
meantime, I’ll leave you with this thought from 1 John 4:10.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
All that net neutrality does is change who benefits. It is argued that the consumer benefits, but here’s a case in point to illustrate why that isn’t so. Granted this is a specific case, but it exposes the mentality with which the concept is being pursued. How long will it be before the FCC finds grounds to prevent anyone from charging for tethering. That will mean a serious jump in data traffic on mobile networks, which will increase the cost of maintaining those networks. If the mobile carriers cannot charge the users of this function for the additional data they consume, then they will have to raise the rates for all of us. Thus we will all be paying for service that most of us have no need to use. If there is no additional charge for it, more of us will use it, driving data usage even higher and making it cost more. Hey Big Brother, hands off! If I need tethering, I’ll pay for it.
Verizon to pay $1.25M FCC fine; forced to allow tethering apps | Politics and Law – CNET News
Verizon Wireless is no longer allowed to block apps that allow people to use their 4G LTE smartphones as Wi-Fi hotspots. And the carrier will pay the Federal Communications Commission a $1.25 million fine, the government agency said Tuesday.
The FCC has been investigating Verizon’s business practices for the last 10 months to make sure that its 4G LTE service complies with so-called open access rules that were established as part of the 700 MHz spectrum auction in 2008. Verizon is using this spectrum to offer its 4G LTE service.
I think it’s a question that all of us ask at some point in our lives as we endure suffering or witness the suffering of someone we love. If God is good, if He is loving, if He is all powerful and all knowing, why do bad things happen? It can be especially difficult for us if we have been taught that suffering is not supposed to be part of a believer’s life. When it comes, as it inevitably will, our faith can be thrown for a loop.
Because of the nature of our church, we seem to have more than our share of it. And as if what we have isn’t enough, more is always on tap. We’ve been praying for our pastor’s daughter’s various ailments for some time now. Our pastor is sick again with a recurring condition, and I have just learned that at best I have migraines and at worst something called temporal arteritis. An inflammation of artery that can cause headache and eye damage among other things.
I’m sure that over the years many have spoken to our church on this topic, but I will do it again. I pray that the Lord will show us all something we have not seen before. This I know. I trust Him. He will accomplish His purposes in us. God is good. I hope you will come to Bartimaeus Baptist Temple at 2:30 this Sunday and be encouraged.
8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. 10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. 11 To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 5:8-11 NASB
It still doesn’t feel quite natural to refer to myself as a preacher. I know we’re all supposed to be preachers. I know the calling I’ve had since I was a little boy. It still seems like a job that’s well beyond my ability. It seems arrogant or presumptuous of me to take that title, even though I do believe that God gave it to me. Now I dare to go further and speak of preaching as if I had some idea what I’m talking about. My few rough sermons hardly qualify me to opine on what one ought to preach. I suppose the urge to do so anyway is part of the drive that compels me to preach in the first place.
The word “preach” has come to have negative connotations in our society. I’m using it because it is the word God used when he spoke to me, but even I find it a little uncomfortable. I hope that is not for the same reasons I suspect society has come to shun it. The word has become associated with condemnation. To be “preached at” is to have your faults spread out before you with no room for defense. No doubt some “preaching” is out of line, but I think the deeper problem is that we need to have our sins exposed and we rebel against the truth.
I think of it in terms of delivery more than content. When I listen to someone who has learned to present a preacher affectation, I find myself tuning out. I see an actor, not a preacher. There’s a difference between being a good speaker and being a good performer. A good speaker I can appreciate. A good performer I might enjoy in a theater but not in front of a congregation. I’m looking for substance rather than style. I do not doubt that my bias in this area has kept me from receiving truth from honest men who happen to have been trained that way.
Having said that, I have not been one to be overly critical of delivery. That’s a good thing, because if I am to be judged by my own standard, I would be found seriously lacking. My brief experience has helped me to form or to firm some ideas of what is most important for a preacher. There are two things, intertwined and equally important. On one hand to always speak only the truth, and on the other to always call sinners to repentance.
If I am afraid of any aspect of my calling, it is to be found misrepresenting His Word. On many occasions I have approached a passage of scripture with an idea of what it says and how to present it only to learn upon further examination that I was wrong. In many cases I did so because others had shared it with me that way. Sometimes I even find it difficult to let go of the way I see it, but I must preach the Word faithfully. Twisting it to get my message across is unacceptable, even if the message itself is truth. From time to time I may use a passage that is part of a greater thought to illustrate a point, but even this makes me uncomfortable. The Bible is not a series of disconnected phrases that can be mixed and matched to suit our pleasure. It is a collection of historical accounts, poetry, and letters, each intended to communicate thoughts and ideas in whole. We would not cut a novel or a letter from a loved one into tiny pieces, reading them in random order and perhaps leaving parts entirely unread. We would read it from start to finish. Letters we would typically read all in one setting. Obviously this doesn’t fit well into the usual format of a sermon or the time allotted to deliver it, but I try at the very least to explain the larger context from which a passage is taken. I am sure my methods will mature with time, though at present I’m not sure how best to communicate the truth of the whole when I only have time for a very small part. I find myself falling into typical patterns even while feeling dissatisfied that I have done so.
Then there is the heart of our message. The truth of the Good News that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. As long as I even suspect that one person hearing my voice has not committed to Jesus as Lord, how can I but repeat the call? The same Bible that teaches me about Heaven also teaches me about Hell. If I believe that Hell is real and that anyone might go there, what kind of monster would I be to turn my back on them? The love that binds me to my Lord compels me to call out, “Stop! Repent and turn to Jesus before your time comes!” So it is that whatever I preach about, I almost always bring it back to the message of repentance, and the more I think on it the less frequent it is likely to be that I will ever speak without that plea.