Baker Preaches on His 100th Birthday

In the year 1908 Theodore Roosevelt was the president of the United States. This was also the last year that the Cubs won the World Series. You could also buy a first-class stamp for a mere two cents. However, something else worthy of notice took place that year as well. That was the year that preacher W.L. Baker was born, and exactly 100 years later on August 3, 2008, Baker stood before a congregation of almost 500 in Mt. Juliet, TN to deliver a sermon as they celebrated his 100th birthday and his almost 80 years in the Gospel ministry.
"I thought I was going to get all of this when I got to heaven," W.L. Baker said on his 100th birthday. He was speaking to the incredible honors that he had been given on this day, some of which included citations from Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen and President George W. Bush.
On this morning, Baker stood and preached from Deuteronomy 34. The article in which I found this story, which can be found here , gave us a few quotes from his message:

"Moses linked his whole life to a worthy cause and he spent all of his last day on earth climbing, and I hope to do the same," Baker told the gathering.

"On Moses' last day, when he climbed the mountain, the Lord was waiting for him at the top," Baker said. "I am excited about that time when my last day comes and my Lord greets me in death and smiles. Until then, I want to press on.... God didn't put us in the world to look at small things, but big things."

He challenged the audience: "You are not living for today. This morning you are living for eternity."

Baker took classes at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for one year, but after that he decided to move to Louisville, KY to attend the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he later graduated in 1932 (Haze and Elijah would no doubt agree that this was indeed the correct decision). Baker's time in these wonderful institutions allowed him to have close and personal contact with some theological giants, such as L.R. Scarborough, W.O. Carver, George W. Truett, A.T. Robertson as well as a few others. His age also makes him Southern's oldest living alumnus.

The article continues:

"There's no way to describe how much those two years meant to me," Baker said of his studies at Southern Seminary. "Dr. [E.Y.] Mullins was gone by then, but Dr. [John R.] Sampey was there and Dr. Carver was one of my instructors. Anyone who went in Dr. Carver's class and stayed long and didn't come out with his heart burning for missions, then something was wrong with him."

The most valuable lesson he learned at Southern Seminary? Baker does not hesitate with an answer: "Love for the Bible. They instilled in me a great love for the Lord and the Bible."

One must ask the question, "How does one man stay so long in the ministry?" Baker answers the question simply: "Memorize the Scriptures." Baker is noted for being able to recite the Sermon on the Mount and has presented it from memory in more than 50 churches. He said:

"I would tell young ministers to memorize as much of the Bible as possible while they have the mind to do it." He continued: "The highlight of my life along that line was when I was at my first church and I was wrestling with the problem of what to preach the next Sunday. I wrestled with that quite a while and in three or four weeks was doing it again, and I felt an impression come to me, 'Why don't I preach Jesus' sermon?' So I committed the Sermon on the Mount to memory and it has been the greatest blessing in my ministry."

It's amazing how he very quickly breezes over the fact that he would just memorize the Sermon on the Mount as if it were not big deal. The sermon on the mount is three chapters, or 111 verses long. If you memorized one verse a day it would still take you almost three months to memorize it. 100 years old, and the man still has an unbelievably sharp mind. What a gift from God he has and what a blessing he is to us.

From "Pulpit Magazine" - The Young, Restless and Reformed

Here is an interesting link about a book. It caught my attention. Thought I would share it with everyone.

From the Sheperd's Fellowship and Grace Community Church:

http://www.sfpulpit.com/2008/08/19/young-restless-reformed/

No Credit for Christianity

A judge has upheld a ruling that textbooks that teach creationism and deny the teaching of evolution as "fact" does not teach critical thinking skills. Thus students should not receive credits for those courses.

The story as posted on Foxnews.com:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402761,00.html

Romans 1:22 - 23:

"22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."

I would like to have the judge visit the Creation Museum myself.

Homosexual Rights Hurt Gay's Pride

As is usually the norm, there has been a great buzz going around about this year's Olympic games. But in 2008 there has been a lot of controversy over the fact that there will be a lot of athletes competing in this year’s games that are gay. This has caused quite a stir in the media and many cheer the "courage" to come out and let everyone know that they are gay. While others are out right hostile and angry about their positions.

However, one of the more recent developments is quite different and interesting. The American Family Association has a new policy this year and that being that using the word "gay" is not allowed in any form, but instead they are to use to word "homosexual" whenever this situation is referenced in any way.

If for some reason I even thought what the AFA was doing was a good idea, I would be able to see the fact that this could cause some real problems, just as it did for one athlete in particular. His name is Tyson Gay and he is a swimmer for the United States. Rather than explain to you what a problem this was for him, I will simply show you the following article titled "Homosexual Eases Into 100 Final at Olympic Trials":

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.
His wind-aided 9.85 seconds was a fairly cut-and-dry performance compared to what happened a day earlier. On Saturday, Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heat and had to scramble to finish fourth, then in his quarterfinal a couple of hours later, ran 9.77 to break the American record that had stood since 1999.
One of the men who talked about challenging Homosexual in the 100, his former Arkansas teammate Wallace Spearmon, failed to make it to the final by the slimmest of margins. The top four runners advance from each semifinal, and Spearmon finished fifth in his-all of .001 behind Michael Rodgers.
Spearmon, twice a medalist at world championships in the 200, was last out of the blocks and managed to make up a lot of ground, but it wasn’t quite enough. “Aim to win. Got fifth. Feelings are hurt,” Spearmon said. “I’ll make the team in the 200. That’s about it.”
Homosexual didn’t get off to a particularly strong start in the first semifinal, but by the halfway mark he had established a comfortable lead. He slowed somewhat over the final 10 meters-nothing like the way-too-soon complete shutdown that almost cost him Saturday.
Asked how he felt, Homosexual said: “A little fatigued.”
When I read this the first time, I laughed out loud due to the sheer lunacy of the article. Can you picture what probably happened? Tyson Gay probably arose early the day after his world record swim in excitement to catch the morning paper and rather than giving himself a well deserved pat on the back, he merely drops his head in disappointment when he sees the title of the article "Homosexual Eases Into 100 Final at Olympic Trials.”

As if this guy didn't get made fun of enough by his friends growing up due to his last name, someone then has to go and publish an article like this. This is such a statement of where we are today as a culture. Rather than being rational about something as simple as this should have been, we want to change it just in case we offend someone. But our society never deals rationally. Why would we expect them to ever do anything else?

I simply do not understand why it is no longer acceptable to call someone “gay.” The people ARE gay! What is the big deal? Those in that lifestyle are the ones forcefully promoting their sexual preference with such pride. Why is this even an issue?

Personally, I would not take issue with almost any name that someone could come up with to describe my being a heterosexual. I am so incredibly comfortable with my sexual preference that even if someone came up with a name and intended it as derogatory based on my sexual preference, I would wear that name with pride. But apparently those who are gay feel differently.

Wherever Tyson Gay is, I hope his friends are not giving him too hard of a time over this. He is the victim of some weird circumstances. I wish him the best throughout the rest of the Olympics. Hopefully he will do well enough to make the papers again, and on the following day arise merely to see the name “Gay.” I’m sure he will wear that name with pride, but as we have seen, he will probably be the only one.