The Plodding Preacher

I have come to the conclusion that none of us in our generation feels as guilty about sin as we should or as our forefathers did. Francis Schaeffer

I have heard a number of different pastors speaking about forgiveness lately.  The question that has been upon their lips is "Can we forgive someone who does not want to be forgiven?"  For many the answer to the question seems to be "No."  After all, if a person refuses to repent and change the behaviour that caused the offense, then there is no possible way that we can enter into relationship with them.  For example, if someone has borrowed money from me and not returned it, I am not obligated to continue loaning him money.  The argument then is that I have not truly forgiven the person if I refuse to allow him to take advantage of me again. I think this debate has occurred because we have confused forgiveness with reconciliation.  This is understandable because in our eternal forgiveness in Jesus Christ, we have at the same time been reconciled to a holy God.  Forgiveness of our trespasses has resulted in reconciliation with God and Christ. However, we do have

The one temptation that comes from having your own blog is the temptation to posts items that really only appeal to oneself.  I try to resist this temptation, but today I surrender.  I post this redirect specifically because my two children will particularly identify with Stephen Altrogge's article. Five Signs You Were Definitely A Hardcore Church Kid January 28, 2015   by   Stephen Altrogge   2 Comments I was born at church. Well, not exactly. Technically my mom gave birth to me at a hospital because she wasn’t into that whole home-birth / midwife / Amish paradise thing. But my dad was the senior pastor of our church before I was born, which meant that I was practically in church from the day I was born. Over my thirty-two plus years I’ve met lots of other hardcore church kids, and through my interactions with them I’ve discovered one fundamental truth: we are all weirdos. Church kids tend to have a lot of things in common. We are sort of like a fraternity, minus all t

That line comes from the old hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and is part of the verse: O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a   fetter , Bind my wandering heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, O take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above. Recently I overheard someone ridicule that line.  They weren't prone to wander.  However, I think the writer juxtaposes the idea perfectly with the parallel line "prone to leave the God I love. " As a child of the king I love Him with all my heart, but as long as I am still in this old sinful body, I will also constantly be faced with the temptation to wander.  Praise God, it is Christ through the Spirit He has given us who seals our salvation.  Despite my frailty and tendency to wander, Jesus keeps hold of me.

Thirteen years ago we asked: What should be the defining sound of corporate worship at Bethlehem, besides the voice of biblical preaching? We meant: Should it be pipe organ, piano, guitar, drums, choir, worship team, orchestra, etc. The answer we gave was “The people of Bethlehem singing.” Some thought: That’s not much help in deciding which instruments should be used. Perhaps not. But it is massively helpful in clarifying the meaning of those moments. If Bethlehem is not “singing and making melody to the Lord with [our] heart,” ( Ephesians 5:19 ), it’s all over. We close up shop. This is no small commitment. James K. A. Smith , writing last year, made a similar point. While there may be a few exceptions to what he says here, I think he’s exactly right with regard to the main thrust of Christian congregational worship. 1. If we, the congregation, can’t hear ourselves, it’s not worship. Christian worship is not a concert. In a concert (a particular “form of performance”)

The King shall come when morning dawns, And light triumphant breaks; When beauty gilds the eastern hills, And life to beauty breaks. Not as of old, a little child To bear, and fight, and die, But crowned with glory like the sun, That lights the morning sky. O, brighter than the rising morn, When He victorious rose, And left the lonesome place of death, Despite the rage of foes;– O, brighter than that glorious morn, Shall this fair morning be, When Christ, our King, in beauty comes, And we His face shall see. The King shall come when morning dawns, And earth’s dark night is past;– O, haste the rising of that morn, That day that aye shall last. And let the endless bliss begin, By weary saints foretold, When right shall triumph over wrong, And truth shall be extolled. The King shall come when morning dawns, And light and beauty brings;– Hail! Christ the Lord; Thy people pray, “Come quickly, King of kings.” —John Brownlie Hymns of the Russian Church

We hit this passage on Sunday and R.C. Sproul weighs in on his interpretation.  You can find the original article HERE . First of all, He said that to His disciples and only to us indirectly, if at all. He is speaking to the first-century church, and He makes the statement that the works they do will be greater than the works that He performed ( John 14:12 ). Let me tell you what I don’t think it means. There are many today who believe that there are people running around this world right now who are performing greater miracles, performing miracles in greater abundance, and actually doing more incredible acts of divine healing than Jesus Himself did. I can’t think of any more serious delusion than that, that somebody would actually think they have exceeded Jesus in terms of the works He has done. There’s nobody who comes close to the work that Jesus did. Some say that perhaps we can’t do greater works than Jesus individually but that corporately we are able to exceed in power the

The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism. God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes. Os Guinness

Last Sunday I mentioned in passing the foolishness of certain "trip to heaven" books available today in evangelical bookstores.  This week a brave young man who was the principal character in one of those books published a godly response to his own supposed story.  By the way, this same young man is still confined to a wheelchair due to the injuries he sustained in the accident that supposedly took him to heaven.  I hope you applaud his honesty and bravery (and theology) as much as I do. An Open Letter to Lifeway and Other Sellers, Buyers, and Marketers of Heaven Tourism, by the Boy Who Did Not Come Back from Heaven Please forgive the brevity, but because of my limitations I have to keep this short. I did not die. I did not go to heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention. When I made the claims that I did, I had never read the Bible. People have profited from lies, and continue to. They should read the Bible, which is enough. The Bib

There is a great TV commercial that has run for some time here in Canada.  It is advertising a sleep-aid product.  The camera focuses on a woman tossing and turning in bed as a digital clock progresses through the hours of the night.  A voice-over relates the thoughts that are supposedly going through her mind while she is unable to sleep.  As the time passes, the thoughts become ever more frenetic and irrational.  The final thought expressed as the alarm clock reads 3:00 a.m. is "what if the hokey-pokey really is what it's all about?" Every time I see that commercial it makes me laugh.  Probably I find it so funny because I often find myself in the same situation.  I often have trouble sleeping and some of the most wild and irrational thoughts can come to my mind in the early hours of the morning. I would suggest there is also a bit of a warning in this commercial.  We humans pride ourselves on our ability to reason - to think clearly about the world around us.  Unfo

O.K.  I confess that I am an old guy and that I might be out of touch, out of date and just a wee bit cranky.  Maybe I am missing something in this whole selfie phenomenon because the technology to allow this process is relatively recent.  After all, in my day, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the person taking a picture was the one person guaranteed not to be in the picture.  Taking the picture meant that you had to be behind the camera rather than in front of it.  Therefore, all of the pictures I took were of other people or the sights that I saw.  I am sure that if it had been physically possible, there would have been those from my generation that would have been the star of their own photo-show - but it just wasn't. Now the technology is available, and everyone is doing it.  In fact, some do it so much that their facebook page is festooned with nothing but self-portraits.  There they are taking a trip, trying new makeup, eating supper, going to bed, and so on and so

This week at our church has been set aside as a week of prayer.  As part of that observance, we put together a "Daily Bread" style devotional on prayer.  Each entry was contributed by one of our missionaries or pastors. Day Seven Pastor Keith brought our week of prayer to a conclusion with his thoughts on 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13.  "Let us pray that we may abound (without limitations) in love for one another.   In this time when the generation gap and diversity of personal likes and dislikes, can easily lead to division, may that abounding love help us reach beyond such preferences.   Paul adds “and for all”.   A church where love abounds will have a heart that longs to see those not yet believers come into a personal relationship with Jesus."

This week at our church has been set aside as a week of prayer.  As part of that observance, we put together a "Daily Bread" style devotional on prayer.  Each entry was contributed by one of our missionaries or pastors. Day Six Frank and Brenda Bale chose John 14:14 for their meditation today on prayer.  In particular, they addressed what it means to pray in Jesus' name.  Too many in our world treat that phrase as a magic formula as they make their demands of God in prayer.  "Name it and claim it" has become a catch-phrase for huge segments of the Christian community.  However, prayer ought to be a profound act of submission on the part of God's people.  Jesus taught us to prayer that the Father's will might be done on earth as in heaven. To append the phrase "in Jesus name" to a prayer is also a recognition of our deep dependence upon Christ.  The only right we possess to enter into the throne room of God with our petitions lies in the s

This week at our church has been set aside as a week of prayer.  As part of that observance, we put together a "Daily Bread" style devotional on prayer.  Each entry was contributed by one of our missionaries or pastors. Day Five What is the best thing that you can pray for another Christian.  We often pray for each other for health, financial and family issues, but in today's prayer devotional we are challenged to pray like the apostle Paul.  Nick Rachevsky reminded us from Philippians 1:9-11 that the apostle Paul prayed for character on behalf of the Philippians rather than just physical and material needs.  This fits so well with the overall tone of the Scriptures.  Christ did not die for us just so we would have an improved situation - so that circumstances would be favourable towards us.  Christ died to make us new people in Him.  We ought to pray for one another that the process of God conforming us to the image of his own dear son (Romans 8:29) would be continue

This week at our church has been set aside as a week of prayer.  As part of that observance, we put together a "Daily Bread" style devotional on prayer.  Each entry was contributed by one of our missionaries or pastors. Da y Four For his devotion today, Gary Stairs, our Word of Life missionary, chose Philippians 1:3-4.  In that verse the apostle Paul says of the church in Philippi that he gives thanks upon every remembrance of them. "This has always challenged me personally! I find it difficult to have a thankful heart and thankful prayer life when things go wrong, when criticism and failure come my way and the walls seem to close in and confine my perspective to a very narrow view of God's motives and His ways of working things for His Glory! When life puts me in the middle of disappointment and frustration I am often unable to pray and genuinely give thanks." "So, I often have to remind myself. When I pray I need to thank God for every remembrance

This week at our church has been set aside as a week of prayer.  As part of that observance, we put together a "Daily Bread" style devotional on prayer.  Each entry was contributed by one of our missionaries or pastors. Day Three "In the busyness of the lives we find ourselves in today, prayer is a heroic act of faith.  It takes faith in our Great God to believe that prayer is a productive use of our time." Andrew Chambers, pastoral intern

This week at our church has been set aside as a week of prayer.  As part of that observance, we put together a "Daily Bread" style devotional on prayer.  Each entry was contributed by one of our missionaries or pastors. Day Two Today's devotion by Wally and Jeannie Stephenson was on 1 Thessalonians 5:17.  Pray without ceasing seems impossible if our concept of praying is limited to our private devotional prayer life.  I don't have the time to spend all day with my prayer list, doing nothing but praying.  I admire Jeannie's candor in admitting how difficult it is to spend long hours in prayer.  However, I love the way she has responded to this command to constantly pray. "Throughout the day as I watch events around me, I enjoy a more spontaneous prayer life.  I pray for safety as IC see cars at out four-way corner.  I ask God to give peace to the couple outside the Laundromat arguing almost to fisticuffs; for strength and patience for the young mother whos

This week at our church has been set aside as a week of prayer.  As part of that observance, we put together a "Daily Bread" style devotional on prayer.  Each entry was contributed by one of our missionaries or pastors. Day One I love wonder.  Today our missionary Barry Speck called us to wonder in the sovereignty of God - particularly as it relates to the people in our lives.  There are over seven billion people living on this planet today.  Any of us could have been born anywhere on this planet, yet God has ordained that we are here and that the tiny portion of those seven billion who are around us are the people He has chosen to be in our lives.  When you think of it, the odds are staggering for any particular person to be a part of our lives.  Doesn't that change how you look at your wife, your children or your best friend?  Out of all the endless possibilities, God has chosen these people to be part of our lives. Have you thanked God today for the people He has