The Plodding Preacher

I tend to be a bit pessimistic in my outlook.  Mark Altrogge writes a fine article on why we should take courage today. There are times in life when we need someone to say to us, “Take Courage!” or “Take Heart!”  Like the time I was about to rappel backwards over a cliff.  I looked down and it was a long, long way and I’d never done this before.  My friend who had secured my rope to a tree assured me, “Just push off backwards.  You’ll be ok.  You’re tied to a tree.” When we are discouraged we need to hear someone say, “Take Courage.”  Maybe you are facing an overwhelming situation.  Maybe you were recently been laid off or face an uncertain future.  Perhaps you are facing a serious health challenge.  Maybe you’re not facing a life and death situation but you’re facing several crazy kids who have the gift of frazzling. But at one time or another we all need to hear God say, “Take courage.”  Here are a few reasons we can: Becau...

Original Article HERE There has been a lot of chatter the last few weeks about Rachel Dolezal, civil rights activist and the former head of the NAACP in Spokane, WA.  Although she presented herself as African American–a bit of a prerequisite for heading up a chapter of the NAACP–it turns out that she is not black after all.   Indeed she was a blonde, freckle-faced white girl born to two white parents.  She has merely changed her outward appearance. Of course, objective facts regarding biology, genetics, and ethnicity have not proven to be a deterrent to Dolezal’s insistence that she is black.  “I identify as black,” she told Matt Lauer.  In other words, I get to decide what is true.  Reality is what I make it. Many have pointed out the similarities between Dolezal’s case and that of Bruce Jenner and his declarations that he is now a woman.  And the comparison has been (rightly) used to expose how intellectually vacuous the transgender cause...

“In the early days of the church….,baptism was a declaration that the believer was definitely identifying himself with that group of people who were called Christians and were despised and hated. To be a Christian meant something. To identify yourself with those who were called Christians meant persecution, maybe death; it meant being ostracized from your family, shunned by friends. And the one act which was the final declaration of this identification was BAPTISM. As long as a man gathered with Christians, he was tolerated, but when once he submitted to baptism, he declared to all the world, I BELONG TO THIS DESPISED GROUP, and immediately he was persecuted, hated, and despised. In baptism, therefore, the believer entered into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. A person might be a believer and keep it strictly a secret and thus avoid unpleasantness and suffering, but once he submitted to public baptism he had burned his bridges behind him.”   ~ Dr. M. R. DeHaan, Radio Bib...

Last week our Sunday School curriculum included Hebrews 6.  The writer of that material took the position that Hebrews 6 is talking about a Christian who can lose her salvation and, once lost, never regain it.  That is not what we believe that the Bible teaches.  Rather, using John 10 and Romans 8:28-30, we taught that Christ does not fail when he saves a soul. In light of that discussion, I think the questions asked in this article clarify the issue very well. Questions to Ask Yourself About Eternal Security by Staff June 14, 2015   Because eternal life is integral to the gospel's promise, eternal security is an integral blessing of the gospel, and to deny it is to embrace a truncated gospel. When we ponder God's promise of eternal security for those in Christ, we can go to these common Scriptures and posit these questions of conviction. John 6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me,...

The town in which I pastor has become the site of the latest church plant of a Harvest Church.  This church is part of the "denomination" (sorry I don't know a better word to use) begun by radio preacher James MacDonald.  Southern Ontario has been one of the most fertile grounds anywhere for this type of church.  Hence it was a great surprise to discover that MacDonald has just announced at the Southern Baptist Convention that Harvest will become a Southern Baptist Church. This announcement has already caused great consternation because of conflicts between SBC church polity and that of Harvest.  My concern is for the many local Harvest churches here in Canada.  Where does this leave them?  Are they expected to become Southern Baptist as well? See the announcement HERE .

If you have somehow missed the news this past weekend, Elisabeth Elliot, one of the most influential Christian women of the last 100 years, went home to be with Jesus.  It is well worth the time to read some of the history of this dynamic lady. http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2015/june/died-elisabeth-elliot-missionary-author-gates-of-splendor.html Missionary Pioneer Elisabeth Elliot Passes Through Gates of Splendor Books by widow of martyred Jim Elliot were staples in many evangelical homes. Kate Shellnutt    

Same-sex “Marriage” and the Persecution of Christians in Canada Lea Z. Singh Canada legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005, the fourth country in the world to do so. During the rushed public debate that preceded legalization, the Christian and traditional understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman had strong support. Polls showed a deep split among Canadians, and the majority ( 52 percent ) were actually against legalization at the time that it occurred. Opponents of same-sex “marriage” were given all kinds of assurances. The preamble to the Civil Marriage Act states that “everyone has the freedom of conscience and religion,” “nothing in this Act affects the guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion and, in particular, the freedom of members of religious groups to hold and declare their religious beliefs,” and “it is not against the public interest to hold and publicly express diverse views on marriage.” But how quickly things change. Since the waters...

Tony Campolo has become the latest "Evangelical" leader to come out and declare that he is now in favour of gay marriage.  In evaluating this move, Carl Trueman writes the following: The saddest part of Campolo’s change of mind, however, is that it will not be enough, as early responses from the gay community already indicate. Even a moment’s reflection on the Bruce Jenner affair or a casual conversation with a teenager would reveal to him that the gay issue is, as far as the secular world is considered, done and dusted. All Campolo has done as an evangelical is modify his sexual ethics to conform to the comfortable, safe, middle-class tastes of modern America. He will shock no-one but evangelicals—and, I might add, only evangelicals unfamiliar with his other work. As the ever lengthening DNA chain of the LGBTQQIAAP lobby indicates, Campolo is just the latest example of a perennial evangelical tendency on matters of culture: He is a day late and a dollar short. And the p...

Randy Alcorn is the director of Eternal Perspective Ministries.  He has written several excellent books on Heaven.  He also writes an excellent blog. Eternity Set in Our Hearts By Randy Alcorn                                Thornton Wilder, the late great American playwright and novelist, wrote the play "Our Town" in 1937, which won a 1938 Pulitzer Prize.  In the play, a character says, “I don’t care what they say with their mouths—everybody knows that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses, and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even stars...everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings...There’s something way down deep that’s eternal in every human being.” This corresponds with what Eccl...

My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of death, of sin, and of judgment need never trouble us, the only safe spot on earth where the sinner can stand—Calvary. D. L. Moody.

This article explains why John Hopkins, one of America's leading medical centres does not do sex-change surgery.   http://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/11/surgical-sex

I have to this point avoided any direct comment on the Bruce Jenner transgender issue.  There are many others out there much more capable than I to speak to the issues involved.  However, the following article caught my attention because the author seems to genuinely care about Bruce.  Bruce Jenner—In Transition Or Psychological Crisis? Olympic gold medalist and former Kardashian husband Bruce Jenner is proclaiming his gender change to the world. Will he be able to find himself inside the spectacle he’s creating? By Walt Heyer              ...

“It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.”   ―   Timothy Keller