1I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
3He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
8The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Outside attacks against God - Buses seem to be the trend
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,450445,00.html
As you may recall a few weeks ago, we discussed an atheist group launching a "anti-God" campaign on London passenger buses. Well, where is someone riding through the streets of America today saying, "The British are coming!" Because that same campaign has launched in Washington DC.
My favorite quote from this news report is:
Edwords said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."
Seems to me that these people are falling exactly into the Romans 1 mentality yet again.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
My prayer is that as someone reads those ads, a true Christian will use that to preach Christ and true repentance to someone.
As you may recall a few weeks ago, we discussed an atheist group launching a "anti-God" campaign on London passenger buses. Well, where is someone riding through the streets of America today saying, "The British are coming!" Because that same campaign has launched in Washington DC.
My favorite quote from this news report is:
Edwords said the purpose isn't to argue that God doesn't exist or change minds about a deity, although "we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."
Seems to me that these people are falling exactly into the Romans 1 mentality yet again.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
My prayer is that as someone reads those ads, a true Christian will use that to preach Christ and true repentance to someone.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
"Blessed be the name of the LORD."
Many times we as Christians overlook small details in Bible "stories" that hold profound truth about ourselves and, more importantly, about God.
Take, for instance, Job's children. The book of Job outlines the story of their demise:
Job 1:18 - 19 states:
While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
We don't know much about Job's children other then these facts: they liked to party. Job 1:4 says, "His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them."
We also know that Job was a concerned Father. He worried that their lifestyle would lead them astray. Job 1:5 outlines Job's prayers and concerns with his kids: "And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did continually."
Note that Job did this "continually" - always worried about his children as any good parent should. He was terrified that God would punish his children for their "lifestyle" or even their "thoughts" so he offered prayers for their safety and for their hearts to be right before God.
Given that "back story"(as it were), one might believe that Job would be upset with the events around their death: Upset either with them, thinking they had sinned, or with God, for destroying them.
But he was neither. Job 1:20 - 22 relates how Job reacted:
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Note verse 22: "In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong."
Job responded in a very godly way. Knowing that this could happen, knowing that his kids were not living correctly, knowing that God is to be "feared" (Job 1:1), Job reacted strangely by worldly standards.
We know the rest of the story of Job, but did you catch the one little bit of glory from the life of Job's kids. Whether they were doing wrong or doing right, they were created for this purpose. God wanted to receive glory from their lives through their father's honoring of God as God. They were created to die this horrible death: Predestined as it were.
Even in the Old Testament story of Job, we see what the apostle Paul was telling the Roman believers in Romans 11:33 - 36:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Many people focus on Job through this book and rightly so. But don't miss out on the messages sent in just a few verses of God's Word: Everything is to God's Glory!
Take, for instance, Job's children. The book of Job outlines the story of their demise:
Job 1:18 - 19 states:
While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you."
We don't know much about Job's children other then these facts: they liked to party. Job 1:4 says, "His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them."
We also know that Job was a concerned Father. He worried that their lifestyle would lead them astray. Job 1:5 outlines Job's prayers and concerns with his kids: "And when the days of the feast had run their course, Job would send and consecrate them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, "It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did continually."
Note that Job did this "continually" - always worried about his children as any good parent should. He was terrified that God would punish his children for their "lifestyle" or even their "thoughts" so he offered prayers for their safety and for their hearts to be right before God.
Given that "back story"(as it were), one might believe that Job would be upset with the events around their death: Upset either with them, thinking they had sinned, or with God, for destroying them.
But he was neither. Job 1:20 - 22 relates how Job reacted:
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Note verse 22: "In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong."
Job responded in a very godly way. Knowing that this could happen, knowing that his kids were not living correctly, knowing that God is to be "feared" (Job 1:1), Job reacted strangely by worldly standards.
We know the rest of the story of Job, but did you catch the one little bit of glory from the life of Job's kids. Whether they were doing wrong or doing right, they were created for this purpose. God wanted to receive glory from their lives through their father's honoring of God as God. They were created to die this horrible death: Predestined as it were.
Even in the Old Testament story of Job, we see what the apostle Paul was telling the Roman believers in Romans 11:33 - 36:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Many people focus on Job through this book and rightly so. But don't miss out on the messages sent in just a few verses of God's Word: Everything is to God's Glory!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Gospel Urgency
From the "Pulpit" online blog of the Sheperd's Fellowship:
http://www.sfpulpit.com/
Gospel Urgency
October 27th, 2008
(By Richard Baxter)
Oh, if you have the hearts of Christians or of men in you, let them yearn towards your poor ignorant, ungodly neighbours. Alas, there is but a step betwixt them and death and hell; many hundred diseases are waiting ready to seize on them, and if they die unregenerate, they are lost forever.
Have you hearts of rock, that cannot pity men in such a case as this? If you believe not the Word of God, and the danger of sinners, why are you Christians yourselves? If you do believe it, why do you not bestir yourself to the helping of others? Do you not care who is damned, so you be saved? If so, you have sufficient cause to pity yourselves, for it is a frame of spirit utterly inconsistent with grace. . . .
Dost thou live close by them, or meet them in the streets, or labour with them, or travel with them, or sit and talk with them, and say nothing to them of their souls, or the life to come? If their houses were on fire, thou wouldst run and help them; and wilt thou not help them when their souls are almost at the fire of hell?
(Cited in I. D. E. Thomas, A Puritan Golden Treasury [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977], 92–93)
As this Thanksgiving and Christmas season approaches, let us be thankful to God for our salvation and let us share the Gift of Christ to others around us.
http://www.sfpulpit.com/
Gospel Urgency
October 27th, 2008
(By Richard Baxter)
Oh, if you have the hearts of Christians or of men in you, let them yearn towards your poor ignorant, ungodly neighbours. Alas, there is but a step betwixt them and death and hell; many hundred diseases are waiting ready to seize on them, and if they die unregenerate, they are lost forever.
Have you hearts of rock, that cannot pity men in such a case as this? If you believe not the Word of God, and the danger of sinners, why are you Christians yourselves? If you do believe it, why do you not bestir yourself to the helping of others? Do you not care who is damned, so you be saved? If so, you have sufficient cause to pity yourselves, for it is a frame of spirit utterly inconsistent with grace. . . .
Dost thou live close by them, or meet them in the streets, or labour with them, or travel with them, or sit and talk with them, and say nothing to them of their souls, or the life to come? If their houses were on fire, thou wouldst run and help them; and wilt thou not help them when their souls are almost at the fire of hell?
(Cited in I. D. E. Thomas, A Puritan Golden Treasury [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977], 92–93)
As this Thanksgiving and Christmas season approaches, let us be thankful to God for our salvation and let us share the Gift of Christ to others around us.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Should Your Next Pastor Be a Calvinist?
Tom J. Nettles, professor of Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, thinks so.In the Winter 2008 Founders Journal (www.founders.org), Nettles argues that Calvinist pastors are most appropriate for preserving the historic doctrines of the Christian faith among Southern Baptist churches. Because of their theological commitment to the Doctrines of Grace, Calvinist pastors will strive to maintain conservative doctrines--such as biblical inerrancy and penal substitutionary atonement and so forth--that the vast majority of Southern Baptists have in common. Nettles summarizes why Calvinists are healthy for our churches:
If a church, therefore, gets a Calvinist preacher, she will get a good thing. Several issues will be settled forever and the church will not have to wonder about the soundness of her preacher on these items of biblical truth and their soul-nurturing power. Calvinists have stood for more than just their distinguishing doctrines, but have held steadfastly to other doctrines that are essential for the health of Baptist churches in our day.
In addition to inspiration and substitution, Nettles elaborates that Calvinists will maintain historic Baptist stances on issues such as the doctrine of the Trinity, missions and evangelism, Christ-centered preaching, the holiness of Christian life, regenerate church membership, and religious liberty. As we have personally experienced, the irony is that nowadays SBC churches are extremely leery of Calvinism. However, the fact remains that the Convention was founded upon these very doctrines. Nettles notes this at the article's outset. He says, "Today, however, some Southern Baptists are warning the churches against [Calvinists]. This is a mammoth historical irony that many find difficult to appreciate."
For the entire article, visit the Founders Journal online (click here).
God attacked on London Buses
The following article from Foxnews.com discusses atheist attacks on "religion" and the perceived religious preference on the signage of London Buses.
The message, "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
The full story:
The central message that I take from this is two fold:
1. There arguments are not new.
Psalm 53:1 state, "The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good."
This is just another vain attempt to attack God and pull people away from him and attempt to justify their lostness. In the article one atheist talks about how "thinking" is the "anathema" to religion.
But the Scriptures say, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." (Proverbs 9:10)
2. Every area of Christian expression is being attacked.
Honestly, why attack signage on a bus? Advertisement in this day and age is just "noise" anyway.
It just shows that every attack is fueled by the utter hatred that fallen man has for God.
John 15:18 states that we should not be surprised, "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you."
This also gives me hope though. We must proclaim the true gospel more clearly. Calling all people to REPENT! My prayer is that the Gospel will continue to spread!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Chicago to Start gay "friendly" schools
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/13/gay.friendly.school/index.html
I'm not going to say much on this. Romans chapter 1 comes to mind however (ESV):
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Pray that God would move in America and America's schools.
I'm not going to say much on this. Romans chapter 1 comes to mind however (ESV):
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Pray that God would move in America and America's schools.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)