A message from Charles Spurgeon

From "Morning and Evening" by Charles Spurgeon

"Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved." Mark 16:16

Mr. MacDonald asked the inhabitants of the island of St. Kilda how a man must be saved. An old man replied, "We will be saved if we repent and for sake our sins and turn to God." Yes," said a middle-aged woman, "and with a true heart too." "Yes," rejoined a third, "and with prayer"; and a forth added, "It must be the prayer of the heart." "And we must be diligent too," said a fifth, "in keeping the commandments." When each of them made their contribution, feeling that a very decent creed had been made up, they all looked and listened for the preacher's approval, but they had aroused his deepest pity. the secular mind always maps out for itself a way in which self can work and become great, but the Lord's way is quite the reverse. Believing and being baptized are not matters of merit to be gloried in--they are so simple that boasting is excluded. It may be that the reader is unsaved--what is the reason? Do you think the way of salvation as laid down in the text is dubious? How can that be when God has pledged His own word for its certainty? Do you think it too easy? Why, then do you not obey it? Those who neglect it are without excuse. To believe is simply to trust, to depend, to rely upon Christ Jesus. To be baptized is to submit to the ordinance that our Lord fulfilled at Jordan, to which the converted ones submitted at Pentecost, to which the jailer yielded obedience on the very night of his conversion. The outward sign does not save, but it portrays our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus and, like the Lord's Supper, is not to be neglected. Reader, do you believe in Jesus? Then, dear friend, dismiss your fears--you will be saved. Are you still an unbeliever? Then remember there is only one door, and if you will not enter by it you will perish in your sins.

New Pro-Life site.

There is a new site out there for the pro-life side of the battle on the abortion issue. Evangelist/author, Ray Comfort has a 33 minute documentary called "180". This viral video has been taking the internet by storm. Since its debut on YouTube on Sept. 21, It has had over 1.5 million views, and hundreds of thousands of dvd's have been handed out on college campuses around the United States.

The "180 Movie" shows how bad the education system here is in America, by showing that there are college students that seem to have never heard of Adolf Hitler. Also, you will see Ray Comfort make a logical comparison to the Holocaust during WW2 and abortion in America today. Finally you will see people who were pro-choice change their minds and take a pro-life stance on the spot.

Regardless of what your stance is on abortion, I recommend checking the video out, and keeping an open mind.

Charismatics Criticizing Charismatics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B80juCbaXU

Remembering 9/11

Without a doubt, it is a moment in history that people will never forget. Inspired by radio rebroadcast that I had to listen to on my 10 hour drive, and all of the memorial footage on TV, I will try to be brief, and relay what I remember about that day in my life. Just please excuse the grammar and spelling.

It was my freshman year in college, and I was in my political science class when the first plane hit. We received word in class of what had happened and the teacher turned the TV on and for the rest of the class we just watched. After the class I head back to the dorm, and then head out to report to my national guard unit for the first time (after being active army for the previous two years). At this time I knew it was a terrorist attack, and upon learning what my unit's mission was, I had no doubt I would be making a trip overseas, I just had no idea when.

Upon returning to campus and getting to my dorm room, I find out that the rest of the classes for the day had been cancelled. A few people on the floor where crying. By this time, the entire attack was over, for me the most difficult part was what happened after that. I'm not sure if it was that day, or a few days later, but in one of my classes (this one consisting of everyone on my floor in the dorm) we just had a discussion about what happened. Me being the oldest person in the class, and the only one with a military background, I was getting asked a lot of questions.

I found myself trying to figure out how to tell young adults, some of them barely 19, most 18, what would motivate someone to do such a thing. It was really difficult explaining to them how in the real world everything isn't sunshine and lollipops. I was also having to explain what it was taking so long for the U.S. to take military action. When that class was all said and done, most people just went back to their rooms except me and one other person. I don't know if she knew someone who was killed in the attacks personally, or was just really emotional, but all I could do then was give her a shoulder to cry on for what might had been the next hour or two.

That is all I feel like sharing.

Remind God of His Promise

From Charles Spurgeon's "Faith's Checkbook" Remind God of His Promise May 28

And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good. (Genesis 32:12)

This is the sure way of prevailing with the Lord in prayer. We may humbly remind Him of what He has said. Our faithful God will never run back from His word, nor will He leave it unfulfilled; yet He loves to be enquired of by His people and put in mind of His promise. This is refreshing to their memories, reviving to their faith, and renewing to their hope. God's Word is given, not for His sake, but for ours. His purposes are settled, and He needs nothing to bind Him to His design of doing His people good; but He gives the promise for our strengthening and comfort. Hence He wishes us to plead it and say to Him, "Thou saidst."

"I will surely do thee good" is just the essence of all the Lord's gracious sayings, Lay a special stress on the word surely. He will do us good, real good, tasting good, only good, every good. He will make us good, and this is to do us good in the very highest degree. He will treat us as He does his saints while we are here, and that is good. He will soon take us to be with Jesus and all His chosen, and that is supremely good. With this promise in our hearts we need not fear angry Esau or anyone else. If the Lord will do us good, who can do us hurt?

From the Faith's Checkbook Mobile Devotional Android app - http://www.WhitneyApps.com/fcb

We May Speak for God

From Charles Spurgeon's "Faith's Checkbook" We May Speak for God May 19

Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth. (Jeremiah 15:19)

Poor Jeremiah! Yet why do we say so? The weeping prophet was one of the choicest servants of God and honored by Him above many. He was hated for speaking the truth. The word which was so sweet to him was bitter to his hearers, yet he was accepted of his Lord. He was commanded to abide in his faithfulness, and then the Lord would continue to speak through him. He was to deal boldly and truthfully with men and perform the Lord's winnowing work upon the professors of his day, and then the Lord gave him this word: "Thou shalt be as my mouth." What an honor! Should not every preacher, yea, every believer, covet it? For God to speak by us, what a marvel! We shall speak sure, pure truth; and we shall speak it with power. Our word shall not return void; it shall be a blessing to those who receive it, and those who refuse it shall do so at their peril. Our lips shall feed many. We shall arouse the sleeping and call the dead to life.

O dear reader, pray that it may be so with all the sent servants of our Lord.

From the Faith's Checkbook Mobile Devotional Android app - http://www.WhitneyApps.com/fcb

Is this really happening in America?

Use your freedom of speech and religion to preach the gospel in public while you can in the good ol' USA. I say that because things like what is in this video are happening more and more.



If you cannot see the video click on this link here.

Surgery for Healing

From Charles Spurgeon's "Faith's Checkbook" Surgery for Healing May 14 Come,

and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. (Hosea 6:1)

It is the Lord's way to tear before He heals. This is the honest love of His heart and the sure surgery of His hand. He also bruises before He binds up, or else it would be uncertain work. The law comes before the gospel, the sense of need before the supply of it. Is the reader now under the convincing, crushing hand of the Spirit? Has he received the spirit of bondage again to fear? This is a salutary preliminary to real gospel healing and binding up.

Do not despair, dear heart, but come to the Lord with all thy jagged wounds, black bruises, and running sores. He alone can heal, and He delights to do it. It is our Lord's office to bind up the brokenhearted, and He is gloriously at home at it. Let us not linger but at once return unto the Lord from whom we have gone astray. Let us show Him our gaping wounds and beseech him to know His own work and complete it. Will a surgeon make an incision and then leave his patient to bleed to death? Will the Lord pull down our old house and then refuse to build us a better one? Dost Thou ever wantonly increase the misery of poor anxious souls? That be far from Thee, O Lord.

From the Faith's Checkbook Mobile Devotional Android app - http://www.WhitneyApps.com/fcb

Death of Bin Laden

While I do share a feeling of relief with people when I got the news of his (Bin Laden) death, I do feel a bit uneasy about it.  The reason that I feel this way is because there are people celebrating his death.  Many of these people celebrating are Christians.  The Christians are who this blog is directed at.  So before responding, please read everything and seriously think about it.

I do not know how any christian can celebrate the death of a man who is probably in Hell.  Think about it, the fact that anyone could end up in Hell should horrify us deeply, yet some of us are celebrating the fact that Bin Laden is now in Hell.  The horrifying truth of Hell should motive us to share the gospel with people, including people like Bin Laden, yet so many of us won't even do something as simple has hand out a gospel tract or leave one where a person is likely to find it. 

How many of you pray for lost souls, in hopes that they may come to Christ?  I know of at least one pastor, who prayed that Bin Laden would be saved.  How many of you have done that?  Jesus said "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". (Matt. 5:44)  How many of you have applied what Christ said to this situation? 

A pastor, was talking about Hitler, but it applies in this situation as well.  This pastor said that he was just living up to his human potential.  Something that we all have the ability to do.  We all have it in us to do the things that Bin Laden has done, only by God's grace are we held back from doing it.  People call Bin Laden evil, and say that he did evil things.  I don't disagree, but I use God's standard of good and evil.  According to God's standard we are all evil, we all do evil things.  We are not capable of doing anything good, unless we do it through Christ.  Without Christ everything we do is dirty, rotten, and evil. 

So, before you go off celebrating this man's death, think about what you would really be doing in the light of God's truth.

It's About The Cross

If you can't see the video click here or here. This is the reason that we celebrate Easter.

Of course there are Unicorns

If you can't see the video click on this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWHJMz2Neog&feature=player_embedded

C’mon Big Boys!

The following blog is taken from the Wretched Newsletter available at Wretchedradio.com.

Imagine that you are a shepherd who spies a wolf inside your sheepfold, what would you do?

A. Wait seven years until the wolf devoured one of your sheep.

B. Whisper, “Psssst, there seems to be a hairy creature near you, Dear Sheep.”

C. Yell, “Wolf! Wolf! Run for your lives!”

If a shepherd isn’t willing to cry, “Wolf,” then he isn’t a good shepherd. He is a shepherd who has become pre-occupied with other things.

To be fair, a shepherd has many duties; he must feed, seek out green pastures and tend to the sick or wounded sheep. But no shepherd can forsake his duty to protect the sheep against predators.

Pastor Rob Bell is a wolf.

Pastor Rob Bell is inside the sheep gate.

Pastor Rob Bell is devouring sheep.

Where are the shepherds?

Yes, we have heard some responses. Some. But they have been rather tacit in their condemnation of Rob’s latest book, “Love Wins.” One high profile blogger stated that he simply doesn’t understand why Rob is a threat to his seminary or church. Really?

>Rob Bell does not believe hell is eternal, conscious torment.

>Rob Bell believes that there is a second chance to believe in Him AFTER you die.

>Rob Bell believes that just about everyone (Buddhist, Baptist and Muslim) will go to heaven.

There is simply no way a shepherd can claim, “I didn’t know that this wolf was out there.”

>Rob Bell is making more television appearances than Ryan Seacrest. He is everywhere.

>Rob Bell’s other books, “Velvet Elvis” and “Sex God” are best sellers.

>Rob Bell’s Nooma videos are shown in hundreds, if not thousands, of churches.

What more does a fellow have to teach to raise the attention of the evangelical heavy hitters? Furthermore, Rob Bell is not new to the scene with his heretical teachings (yes, I used the “h word”), he has been at this for years.

How did this happen? I think that 21st century shepherds might be living in a 20th century world. The internet, twitter and Facebook allow the wolves to creep in through gates that didn’t exist even 15 years ago. The under-shepherd needs to understand that false teachers are worming their way into unsuspecting Christian homes MORE than ever before.

The already busy pastor must continue to feed and tend to the sheep, but more than ever, he must be on the alert for the wolves that Jesus warned about.

Keep Your Laws Off My Body!

The following blog is taken from the Wretched Newsletter available at Wretchedradio.com.

Michelle Obama doesn’t want us to eat high calorie foods. To her I say, “Keep your laws off my body.” Hollywood doesn’t want us to smoke. To them I say, “Don’t impose your morals on me.” If I want to be a big fatty with lung cancer, who are they to tell me what to do with my body?

While the liberal left has no problem playing the “keep your laws off my body” card when we defend life and marriage, they have no compunction about imposing their values on us. Frustrating? Yes. Annoying? Certainly. But that does not rise to the level of danger that the seeker sensitive church possesses when it does the exact same thing.

By removing God’s laws, both church and state will inevitably replace God’s dictates with laws of their own. Here’s how it works.

No society or organization can run for long without a leader and laws. This is true for two reasons: disorganization leads to disaster and inevitably some power hungry type-A personality will seize control. If we are not a nation under God, then whoever is in power will impose their values in lieu of God’s. The same thing is true for the church.

When a church determines that God’s laws are either out of date or just not working any more, then that church will quickly replace God’s laws with human legalism. No Law, no Gospel. No Gospel, no church. When you have no Gospel, you have no rallying cry and no reason to exist. Quickly the true Gospel must be replaced with another message; typically that message is a life-enhancement gospel.

Unfortunately, what sounds like good news is merely legalism. “If you want your marriage to be better, do this. If you want to be more successful, do that.” Because there is no Gospel to motivate this behavior, these so called life-enhancement messages are mere moralisms.

How ironic! Those who claim that we are living under grace and therefore have no need for the law, end up acting like Michelle Obama and Hollywood. They become legalists who impose their values on us in place of God’s and ultimately rob us of grace.

Galatians 3:24-25 tells us that “the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”

Do not let an ostensibly nice church put you under their laws. If a church does not use the law as a schoolmaster to lead people to grace, grace, amazing grace, then look for the red sign that spells E-X-I-T and run.



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People are against this... Really?

Saw something on the local news the other day.  The public schools are having to make budget cuts, so one high school will not be holding their graduation ceremony at the Metro Center.  Instead they will have it at one of the local "mega churches".  Now I understand some people complaining because the church doesn't seat as many people as the Metro Center does, but there are some people shouting in anger "separation of church and state".  Keep in mind, they are not holding a worship service, or anything like that during this high school graduation ceremony, and they are offering up the building for free, where as the Metro Center would be charging.  Just because it is a church, people are getting ticked off about it.  My thought on it is, I just wonder what these people would had done in our colonial days or even the 1800's and early to mid 1900's when more often than not, the school house and the church where the same building in a town.  Wow, how the view of separation of church and state has changed over the years.  Clearly we don't see it the way the founding fathers did.


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Works of the Law, or Works of Faith.

In the military, soldiers can follow a leader because they fear them, or because they trust them and have faith in them. The ones that obey out of fear of punishment usually just do what they are told, just doing the bare minimum. They also usually are the ones that just complete their contract, and are out of the military after that. The ones that obey their leaders because they trust them and have faith in them, are always the ones with the best looking uniforms, and do more than what they are asked, and go above and beyond the call of duty. They are the ones that, once their contract is at its end, will usually re-enlist for a few more years. Some may even become leaders themselves and stay in until they retire.

What does that have to do with theology?  Well, those that obey out of fear are like those that preform works of the law, or good works in order to obtain and maintain salvation.  Those that obey out of faith, are like those that do works of faith, like repentance and baptism, because we have a saving faith in Christ.  They both obey, but their motives are different, and as a result, when their contracts were at their end, there were different results.  Lets take a look at these types of "good works".

Works of the law are a bit more than just obeying the commandments, but can be seen as any step of obedience in order to gain and/or maintain salvation.  The issues with these types of works is that it takes the glory away from God.  In a way it is insulting to God by saying that what Jesus did on the cross wasn't good enough to pay the punishment for our sins.  It is also in violation of scripture; Ephesians 2:8-9 "8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."  Trying to be saved through works of the law is saying that we are saved by what we do, so that we can boast.

Works of faith are works that we do because of the faith that we have in Christ.  Yes, works of faith do involve obeying the 10 Commandments, but our motive for obeying is different.  We are not obeying through a fear of punishment, or so that we can earn our way into Heaven, and not even to so that we may keep our salvation.  We obey God through our faith in Him and want to do His will.  Abraham, David, etc... had faith in God, and because of that faith they did His will, and obeyed Him.  Baptism is a step of obedience that we do because we have a saving faith.  In James 2:26 when he said "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead." he is talking these works of faith, like keeping the commandments, like confessing our sins, like repentance, and baptism. 


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