When Adam and Eve fell?

When Joseph was sold into slavery?

When Job’s faith was tested?

When Jesus was crucified?

When the Apostles were persecuted?

When trials come our way?

Here’s the big announcement…

Having recently been somewhat ‘removed’ from the church where we were members, several families have come together in an effort to continue meeting as a church.  We are currently meeting on Sunday evenings in my house where those who attend have to listen to me talk for an hour or so.

Anyway, four of those of us who left the church are preachers.  The four of us met together last Tuesday evening to discuss what our visions for the future are.  We all came up with basically the same answer…Establish a Church in this community that is founded upon the regular exposition of God’s Word in order to reach our area with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to provide a place for the continued growth of others who have been left without a church home through no fault of their own.

I think we have pretty much settled on a name, and we know what we believe, and we know what our vision is for the church, but we still have a lot of work to do in drawing up those documents, taking care of the legal issues, and securing a place for corporate worship.

From all of you out there in blog-land we would request your prayers as we are seeking to fulfill God’s will for our lives as we understand it here in Loudon County, Tennessee.  Above all, pray that God would use the faithful, clear, and uncompromising proclamation of His Word to bring forth fruit.

Thank you.

My life, and consequently, this blog is going through a time of transition right now.  We’re not going anywhere, just realigning. 

Exciting news coming up this Monday!!!

PROVERBS 23:23

Introduction: Proverbs 4:5-9  The book of Proverbs puts a well-deserved emphasis on knowledge, wisdom, instruction, and understanding.  In our text we are told to ‘buy truth’, and not to ‘sell truth’.

I.    Buy The Truth

A.    What does it mean to ‘Buy Truth’?

1.    Acquiring
2.    At any cost Matthew 13:44-46
3.    For the treasure 3:13-18

B.    What do we need to go along with Truth?

1.    Wisdom (Recognizing truth)
2.    Instruction (Conforming to truth)
3.    Understanding (Knowing truth)

II.    Do Not Sell The Truth

A.    What does it mean to ‘Sell Truth’?

1.    Trade
2.    For lesser things
3.    For lesser pleasure

B.    How can we keep Truth in its proper place?

1.    Remember the search
2.    Remember the cost
3.    Remember the value 16:16

Conclusion: John 14:6  Jesus is the Truth, and,  Matthew 11:25-26 the Source of all Truth.

Dan Phillips posted this at the Pyromaniacs blog.

Quote:

You have been, are, or likely will be in the position of looking for a church. Consider this as you weigh preachers. Does he lay it out for you, in a manner befitting an honest man openly serving God by serving the priesthood?

Or does he base major points on mysteries, deep knowledge, revelations, visions, special in-depth studies, things you have no possible way of seeing nor verifying?

If the latter, my advice would be to head out the door, and never turn back.

Go read it all.

By Jeremy Weaver

Here’s the outline of the last Sunday School lesson I preached taught at a Church of which I was a member. May God use the memory of it to bring repentance.

LUKE 11:46-52

Introduction: Jesus spent much of His time either confronting legalists in His day or warning His disciples about the dangers of legalism. Although there are many more, in these verses we find three marks of legalism, and the reasons they are poison to Christianity.

I. Burdening Men

A. The act of burdening men
B. The inaction concerning the bearing of the burdens

II. Building Tombs

A. The murder of the prophets
B. The burial place of the prophets
C. The punishment for this sin

III. Blinding Sinners

A. The key of knowledge
B. A locked door
C. Hindering those who would enter

Conclusion:The sin of this Church is the same as the sin of the Pharisees and Lawyers. We have taken away the clear preaching of the Scriptures by focusing details. While the legalists in Jesus day were looking at the letter and missing the message, the legalists among us are looking at the translation and missing the message. We have burdened men with a translation that we ourselves have trouble understanding. We have taken the work of the Reformers and Puritans in giving us God’s Word in our language and dishonored their memory by taking away the pure and clear meaning of Scripture and hiding it under a grave of beautiful, archaic language. We have taken the key of knowledge away from poor uneducated sinners who would desire to enter into God’s rule, and put them under our rule, hindering them from entering the Kingdom of God. May God grant us mercy.

We’ve all met them, they are unbelievers who have been exposed to just enough of the “Gospel” to build up a tolerance against it. Its like being infected with cowpox and now smallpox has no effect against them.

Truth be told many times its the “Gospel” that is shown on TBN or that Joel Osteen has talked about (although I don’t know that Joel Osteen has actually talked about the Gospel) so if you talk to them about the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18), or the wages of sin (Rom. 3:23). They hold up their hands and say that they’ve heard it before as they are walking away.

So I’ve have this friend who I’ve worked with for quite some time and we’ve had the discussions about God, evolution, the Bible, interpretation of scripture, Gnostics, reincarnation, truth, we’ve talked about everything.

So his Mom is dying, and I’ve offered him what comfort I can give him, as he said to me he appreciates my concern because I’ve gone through this with both my parents so I know what it is to watch your mother or father fade away from sickness. And I ache to tell him its okay, his mom will be in heaven which I have no possible way of knowing. And he’d thank me politely and smile that patient smile because he is sure she’ll be reincarnated into something else. Which is both horrifying and sad at the same time.

So pray for my friend, pray that God’s will be done and that the true Gospel be presented to him (1 Cor. 15:1-4), that God’s Spirit will open his heart (Acts 16:14), and that God will have mercy on me and give me the right words to say to him.

June 11, 2008

Update: His mother died last night.

Galatians 2, Romans 14, and Luke 11:46-52.

Posting will continue to be sparse.    Bye.

My good friend sent me an email for this video I know its a little late but on the same day I received this I also received an email from another dear friend telling me how his son is doing in the Marines.  And so I thought it would be good to show this and remind us all of the sacrifices made by our fathers, mothers, brothers, sons, and daughters when it comes to the freedom found in this country.

This probably contains spoilers, but I don’t know how much that matters with a movie of this nature.

‘Expelled’ does what it sets out to do, that is, it raises awareness of the ‘blackballing’ of ID from the scientific community.  While Ben Stein’s own worldview does come through in his treatment of Darwinism, it is not the center of the movie.  The theme of the movie is that of Darwin’s detractors being ‘expelled’ from any forum in which some very important questions could be posed to Darwinian theory.

Ben Stein argues that the proponents of ID deserve a place at the table of Science based not upon the validity of their arguments, although he does not discount their arguments, but on the grounds of ‘Freedom of Inquiry’, which is one of the traits that has made our nation great.

He also points out the fact that while Evolutionists cite crystals, or aliens as the source of life on earth, they regard the theory of a ‘designer’ to be ridiculous.  But it is not simply the issue of a ‘designer’, as the alien theory suggests, since the alien would have been a ‘designer’ of life, but ‘who’ the designer would turn out to be.

The film is also disturbing as it shows the implications of a world based on Darwinian theory as found in history.

So, without giving away a whole lot of the movie, let me simply say that the movie is worth seeing, even if only from a ‘Freedom of Inquiry’ veiwpoint.