The Plodding Preacher

I am driving a rental car during my holidays this week. Yesterday, the warning light on the dashboard came on to tell me that I had low tire pressure.  Sure enough, when we checked, the front right tire was low.  We immediately stopped at a service station and put air in all the tires.  Still the light remained lit.  So this morning we went to a tire service centre and had tem check the tires again.  This time we removed the front right tire and resealed it.  The attendant then filled the tire, checked the pressure on the other tires and sent us on our way.  Guess what?  The warning light is still on.  After checking the car manufacturer's website, I discovered that if the sensor doesn't reset itself, the only option is to take it to a dealer who has the special tool necessary to recalibrate the sensor. Now most of us in life blow through the warning lights that come our way with way too little thought.  But what do you do with a warni...

Today I drove from Portavogie, Northern Ireland to Templeglantine, south of Limerick city in the south of Ireland.  That is pretty close to crossing the whole of the island of Ireland on the diagonal.  It took just less than six hours.  For a Canadian like myself, that seems absolutely amazing.  Six hours of driving from my home in Ontario will barely get me to the edge of the next province.  Crossing the country takes days.  How small Ireland seems by comparison. As I sit here recovering from the drive, it occurs to me how small the universe is to our God.  He doesn't take 6 hours to get anywhere.  He traverses the billions of light years of space in an instance.  He is present everywhere at once.  There is nowhere one can go from His presence. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the mo...

Gary Millar 13 years ago, I made my first trip to Sydney. I came at the invitation of John Chapman and David Mansfield to spend a month working with the Dept. of Evangelism in the Sydney Diocese. It was a real eye-opener for me. Everywhere I went, it seemed like people were doing evangelism. Guest events in church. Dialogue dinners, evangelistic barbecues, men’s events, women’s events. You name it, it was happening. Everyone was learning Two Ways to Live, and new courses were coming out regularly. I went back to Dublin humbled, challenged and refocused on getting the gospel out more courageously and effectively. But 13 years on? It could just be me, but I’m pretty sure that evangelism has slipped down our agenda. Church planting has, it seems, taken up the headspace that was once occupied by evangelism. And much as I love church planting (it’s what we did in Ireland), it does provide more places for people to hide who don’t want to talk about Jesus to their friends. Similarly...

Be assured, there is nothing new in theology except that which is false. C. H. Spurgeon

JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN By Kevin Deyoung Oddly enough, it’s sometimes progressives who are most eager to move the culture backward. As we reflect in horror at the utter callousness with which some persons and organizations speak of (not to mention crush) the tiniest humans, it’s worth remembering that the ancient world was unabashedly open to the killing of children. For starters, they had almost none of the sentimentality we have towards kids. There was no Disney, no summer camps, no play dates. Family life–even if there was such a thing–certainly did not revolve around children. In general, children, were useful at best, burdens at worst, and almost never coddled. If there was one dominant fact regarding children in the ancient world it was their high mortality rates, especially among infants. Many newborns were stillborn or died in labor. Those who made it safely out of the womb often went hungry. There were too many mouths to feed and too little food. As a result...

Planned Parenthood: "Unborn babies aren't human. . ." ". . .but their body parts are."

I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am. John Newton

"Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength... It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less."   Charles Spurgeon

I have noticed a trend among those who make the radical left argument for whatever popular debate is going on.  Whenever a conservative makes a point, she is asked how many homosexuals/Muslims/Mormons/Immigrants she actually knows.  The liberal who asks this question assumes that if the conservative actually knew any of these people personally she would realize that her argument is invalid. Or perhaps, the conservative would be able to put a real face to the "enemy" and would be more compassionate like the liberal. The problem in this argument comes from the fact that many liberals cannot conceive that conservatives actually believe in something called truth.  Moreover, the conservatives may actually be among those dinosaurs that believe in unchanging truth.  We Christians particularly ought to fall into this category because we are supposed to believe that we have an unchanging truth revealed by an unchanging God.  If this is true, it is irrelevant whether I ...

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn't rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”   ―   Timothy Keller ,   The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

Canada is a nice place to live. Unfortunately, like all western democracies, we as a nation have consistently been turning away from the God who has been so gracious to us.  We have enshrined evil in our laws and have celebrated its presence in our culture.  We pride ourselves on being among the world's most tolerant people, but we are growing in our intolerance for all things related to Jesus. So, while my prayer on this day is still that God might bless Canada, I realistically recognize that if He were to judge us according to our works, wrath would be the consequence.  So, for this Canada day, my prayer will be for mercy and grace.  My prayer will be the very prayer that is enshrined in our national anthem. Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer, Hold our Dominion in thy loving care; Help us to find, O God, in thee A lasting, rich reward, As waiting for the better Day, We ever stand on guard. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for...