A Straying lamb
The Shepherd loved His little lamb,
And gave it His tender care…
And followed it with His loving eyes
As it wandered here and there.
And as He sat by His grazing flock
Who so meekly His voice obeyed,
He pondered sadly His little lamb
As again and again it strayed.
The little lamb had a loving heart,
And adored His Shepherd, true,
But would turn aside and seek his own way
As lambs will so often do. Continue reading
From Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Hacienda Heights, California.
A sermon by Rev. William Cwirla. Luke 18:1-8 / 21 Pentecost (Proper 23) / 17 October 2010 /
Persistence. That’s the key idea in today’s Gospel. Persistent prayer. Think of how easily we get discouraged. We quit when things don’t go our way. We leave when things get uncomfortable. When the going gets rough, we check out. We pray, and when God doesn’t deliver on our terms, we hang up and stop talking. We have a case of spiritual ADD, I’m afraid. Our attention wanders, our prayers falter, we are easily discouraged.
Jesus told a parable about persistence in prayer. It comes immediately after Jesus’ teaching His disciples about the suddenness and speediness of His coming, and how there will be no time to get things in order, and how for the remainder of this life they should be like a bunch of buzzards and live off His death, for “where the body is, there the vultures will gather.” Continue reading
From the Beacon Deacon Web Site
Suppose you’re traveling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign.
1. A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (knocks it over with his car), ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.
Charles Spurgeon’s classic devotional: Morning June 28.
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:2)
Image: Dr Joseph Valks / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
[…] It is ever the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He insinuates, “Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of his children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus.” All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. Continue reading
Matt Chandler on “The Point of the Gospel: Jesus Wants the Rose.”
Our faith isn’t intellectual; it is experiential. We don’t know about God, we know Him. At the University of Chicago Divinity School, each year they have what is called “Baptist Day.” It is a day when the school invites all the Baptists in the area to the school because they want the Baptist dollars to keep coming in.
On this day each one is to bring…… a lunch to be eaten outdoors in a grassy picnic area. Every “Baptist Day” the school would invite one of the greatest minds to lecture in the theological education center. One year they invited Dr. Paul Tillich. Dr. Tillich spoke for two-and-a-half hours proving that the resurrection of Jesus was false. He quoted scholar after scholar and book after book. He concluded that since there was no such thing as the historical resurrection, the religious tradition of the Church was groundless, emotional mumbo-jumbo, because it was based on a relationship with a risen Jesus, who, in fact, never rose from the dead in any literal sense. He then asked if there were any questions.
By GV Swart – 22 May 2010
The conference was held at Kerk Sonder Mure in Centurion, which was kindly provided to the organisers free of charge. In itself I believe a charitable gesture and certainly not a cheap one. The venue is state of the art modern church buildings / auditorium with all the expected bells and whistles. Sound systems, lighting, stages, projection systems, CCTV in various areas, large auditorium seating +/-2000, other smaller conference rooms, kitchen areas, gardens, parking lots, guards on duty, foyer with book stalls, etc.
First impressions on arrival were formed by a large GDOP (Global Day of Prayer 2010) banner prominently positioned on the corner outside the building. organisers, participating speakers, presenters and audience members who were gathering within the building, however, presented quite a different picture. Wonderful how God works to enable His Truth to be promoted via all means. The venue certainly had no relevance to the message which issued from it; simply a set of walls enclosing a group of God’s people for a few hours.
Prof William Lane Craig, Pastor Ray Ciervo and Mike Willenborg, three Americans from what constituted the main body of the Faith and Reason team 2010, did presentations. Details of each presentation are far too extensive to mention here. Suffice to say that their impeccable preparations, evident depth of knowledge of the subject and most strikingly, their motivation by means of true faith made for an event which I will certainly not easily forget. Once again it glaringly exposes the dire need for quality impartation of the Word in our country, and the severe lack of guidance with which we currently struggle. Another fact which comes to mind is that these speakers needed no media assistance (TV, music, slideshows, side acts) to bolster their presentations.
Sakkie Spangenberg & Hansie Wolmarans (non-Christians)
Prof. William Lane Craig and Prof. Michael Licona (Christians)
Faith & Reason Conference – Christians vs Non-Christians
By Grant Swart.
Faith & Reason Conference Gauteng debate took place on Wednesday evening, 12 May 2010 at the University of Pretoria.
TOPIC: “How should we understand the narratives about Jesus’ resurrection?”
Participants:
Prof. William Lane Craig and Prof. Michael Licona (Christians)
Prof. Sakkie Spangenberg and Prof. Hansie Wolmarans (Non-Christians)
The Americans are learned, and obviously very adept and experienced at this type of debate. They are unphased by inferior arguments, especially when such arguments are completely unsustainable, undefendable and ridiculous. Their knowledge of the Word and the power which it has in Truth, puts them into a different league on the floor, naturally. Praise His Omnipotence.
One of those nice to haves……….. 🙂
Enjoy !!
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Articles placed or written on this blog are generally the position held by, and in agreement with, the blog administrators’ opinions. Further commentary by the administrators of this blog will therefore be limited. Public comments which do appear in response to the articles on this blog, are not necessarily representative of the opinion of the administrators of this blog or to be regarded as necessarily Biblically correct.
Placed by Avalon
The precise phrase “river of life” does not appear in the Bible. However, Revelation 22:1-2 does refer to “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” The Apostle John, in his vision of the New Jerusalem, describes the river as flowing “down the middle of the great street of the city.”
The “water of life” referred to here cannot be physical water as we know it because Revelation 21:1 tells us there is “no longer any sea.” He goes on to say that there is no need for sun or moon because the glory of God and the Lamb give it light (Revelation 21:23). This would indicate that the hydrological cycle as we know it on earth does not exist in the New Jerusalem. Therefore, the water flowing from the throne is literally the water of eternal life, crystal clear to reflect the glory of God in a dazzling, never-ending stream. The fact that the stream emanates from the throne tells us that eternal life flows from God to His people.
Ray Comfort
But those 100 or so celebrities were just the tip of the iceberg of those who died in the past year. If statistics hold true, more than 54 million died in 2010, and 54 million will die in 2011. If my number comes up, I’m ready. Are you?
Here then is the “everlasting gospel” one more time for 2010. I hope you will listen. I would be so delighted to hear that you have given up battling against God, and surrendered to His will:
Each of us will die because we have broken God’s moral Law. Let’s see if you have broken
“What sort of New Year’s Resolution should a Christian make?”
The practice of making New Year’s resolutions goes back over 3000 years to the ancient Babylonians. There is just something about the start of a New Year that gives us the feeling of a fresh start and a new beginning. In reality, there is no difference between December 31st and January 1st. Nothing mystical occurs at midnight on December 31st. The Bible does not speak for or against the concept of New Year’s resolutions. However, if a Christian determines to make a New Year’s resolution, what kind of resolution should he or she make?
Continue reading
John MacArhur from Grace to You
On June 12, 1944, just six days after D-Day in World War II, a young lieutenant named Richard Winters led his men to the outskirts of Carentan. As the officer in charge of Easy Company, of the 101st Airborne, he was tasked to clear the large French town of its German defenders. It would be a small battle, but it played a significant role in the massive effort to rid the world of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
As Winters led his company up the road toward town, the company started taking machine gun fire from a German MG42. The men instinctively dived for cover into ditches on either side of the road, and stayed there–they froze. Not only was the success of the mission in jeopardy, but the men were easy targets for enemy machine gun and sniper fire.
What happened next proved to be the turning point in the battle for Carentan–it’s the stuff legends are made of. Lt. Winters went into the middle of the road and, with bullets hissing past him, started yelling at his troops to get up out of the ditches and engage the enemy. His words, coupled with his heroic action, motivated the men to get up, get in the fight, and gain a decisive victory over the Germans.
For the Love of His Truth 