"Good Night" with my boys (AUDIO - LISTEN NOW)

My nightly routine consists of driving home, coming inside the house, and getting mobbed by Noah asking me to play hide-and-seek (“pay hy-deek”). Well, we eat dinner, play, and do various fun things before bed time.

Stephanie normally puts our daughter down and I put the boys to bed. At bedtime, we pray, sing a song, and a set of normal questions are asked and answered (water, food, books, etc). But last night, a great thing happened. You see, sometimes there are breakthroughs or moments that bring so much joy that…it just makes being a dad so much fun. All of it is great, but the part that made my heart sing with proud-fatherly joy was about half way through when I was singing to Noah.

So tonight I did the same thing, only I brought my iPod with the recorder adapter to capture it. You can listen to it and share my joy below.

Now, I must apologize, because for some reason the recording sometimes jumps and skips a few seconds. I’m trying to figure it out, but until I can get a better recording, here’s something that, I hope, will make you smile. So, if you here the skips, it is not because of editing, its because of the recording.

Praise God for little children.

- by the way, the recorder was in the breast-pocket of my shirt...so the kids didn't know what was going on...for most of the time, any way.

Reflections on My First Sermon

This past Sunday I was blessed with an opportunity to preach my first actual sermon. I have taught in Sunday school, Awana, and in other formats and settings in the church, but I have not ever been able to preach (not teach) a sermon (not a lesson) to the congregation.

The difference between preaching and teaching, as I understand it, is one of presentation. In other words, it is a style difference rather than a substance difference. When I teach a lesson, my purpose is more to illuminate what the Scripture says and means, but when I preach my goal is to persuade someone of that truth and call to action or to conviction.

To be fair, I don’t think that I teach in a sterile teaching way, there is some exhortation and calling for action or conviction in whatever I do. But when I went to preach (and as I prepare the two or three other messages that I am being asked to deliver this summer), my goal was not to preach on a passage that the congregation had heard 17 times before and walk out not being confronted by the Scripture. My goal was to dig a bit deeper (or broader) and call our attention, as a church, to the cause of discipleship. Truth be told, I didn’t really think about the word “discipleship” as being a focus of my message until days after I had delivered it, but it may be a good summary of my overall emphasis.

I want to let the actual sermon that I gave stand on its own, so I will not try to re-preach it here. I pray and hope that it is a beneficial, and (more importantly) a correct, understanding and communication of the substance of the Scripture at hand. Knowing that it is not a full and complete revelation of the truth contained in the verses, my desire is that my small sliver of understanding was extracted correctly from the text and presented clearly to the audience.

Please click here to listen to my first sermon.

Christian Homosexuality Debate...

I came across a blog post of a link to a radio broadcast debate between an evangelical (biblical) pastor and a gay “Christian” author and apologist. The audio is worth listening to if for no other reason than to hear the arguments of both sides. The real fun (now) is in the comments of the post itself. Have fun!

FIDE-O: Audio: Men Burning For Men

Sola Fide Sermon

My good friend, Stuart, has been given the opportunity to preach during the Sunday evening services at Ambassador Baptist church. He recently finished a series on the 5 Solas of the Reformation. Regrettably I have not been able to attend these services as I am serving in a different ministry at the same time. However, Stu's sermons are posted on the church's website. I encourage you to listen to the sermon from 10/22/06 service where he goes through Sola Fide.

Click here to listen to this sermon. You can also right click this link and then select "save as" to save this sermon onto your computer.

May God bless you through the preaching of His Word.

An Important Message for Evangelicals Concerning Roman Catholicism

About 1 year ago (sometime in May or June) I was given a sermon/lecture concerning Roman Catholicism focusing on the Pope and the Papacy. But before I talk a little bit more about this lecture, let me bring forward some of my background as it relates to this issue.

I grew up in a Christian home where we attended an Assemblies of God church. When I was in the eighth grade (or so), my parents decided to seek a better church for us to fellowship and worship in. Over the next two (or so) years we went to a few different churches, but I never felt comfortable with them. Finally, we settled in at a local church (LeMars Bible Church, called LBC), and my parents have been there ever since.

Over the course of my life, I have attended a Pentacostal church (Assemblies of God), a charismatic church (Cornerstone Faith Center - I never liked this church because even as a child I could sense the "ickiness" of the health and wealth gospel), a non-denominational Baptist-style church, and now I attend a very good fundamental Baptist church. I bring up this history for a few reasons.

First of all, my theological formation started out more on the Pentacostal and Arminian side and has developed (through study and agony) to be conservative, Baptist, and Calvinistic. So the first reason is to show the diversity of my exposure to various doctrines and traditions.

The second reason that I bring this up is that even though the various churches had different doctrines on Spiritual gifts, doctrines of the roles of men and women, different worship style, various preaching styles, and other issues, one thing remained consistent. These churches agreed on the essential truths of scripture - the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the inerrancy and infallibility and sufficiency of the Bible, and the message of salvation - the gospel.

The gospel message that I was given as a small child by Mrs. Sylvia Shultz is the same message that was proclaimed to me at LBC, at Ambassador Baptist Church, and it is the same one that I proclaim. Salvation is by grace alone through faith apart from works in Jesus Christ alone.

As a child (and now as an adult) I have had close friends and family members who were not Christians. Some of them professed to be Christians and even went to churches, some were basically irreligious. I also have and have had family and friends who are Roman Catholic. The gospel message that these people knew (and was established in their confirmation classes) was not the same gospel.

The gospel of Roman Catholicism is as different from the Biblical gospel as that of Mormonism in that they both are false, and they do not save. I say this not as a stick in the eye of a Catholic who might be reading this (although, that is unavoidably going to be the outcome). I say this to make plain that there is no fellowship of the faithful or believers that can exist in any real form between those who confess a biblical gospel and those who confess the doctrines of Rome.

There have been moves recently to reconcile the Protestants with the Catholics which many (on both sides) vehemently disagree with. For, even if traditional Roman Catholics disagree with my conclusion that their system is false (they charge Protestants with being false), they agree that our systems are so vastly different that there is no way to be acceptable to both Protestants and Catholics in any real theological sense.

With that background....

The lecture that I was presented was delivered by John MacArthur. He articulated, very well, in one message some of the very reasons why Catholicism and the true gospel message are not compatible. In fact, he opens his message by saying that if a Roman Catholic hears this message, they will surely be offended. But it is not the purpose of offending people or inculcating "anti-Catholic" sentiment that either he preached this message or that I talk about it here. It is to defend the gospel of Christ, defend Christ Himself, and to call out to those who are lost with the truth.

You can listen to the message as it was played on the Way of the Master Radio program. It is divided up into two parts (the two portions of the show) by clicking below:

• Click Here for Part 1
• Click Here for Part 2

For my brothers and sisters who desire to reconcile with the Catholic Church, I hope that this will help articulate or clear up why there can be no "blurring" of the distinctions between Catholicism and true Christianity. For my friends and relatives inside of Roman Catholicism, I hope that God will open your eyes, show you the false system that you are in, and call you out of it.


Soli Deo Gloria - Solus Christus - Sola Fide - Sola Gratia - Sola Scriptura