Friday, May 31, 2013

Landscapting Update




Charity is in charge of the two decks and the flowers, that is not what I can do. But Charity is great


I want to make steps going down the hill. This is the second attempt, but not finish yet.



This is the project that I did 05 30 and Charity put in the flowers. We dug the hold and she planted them.  We went and picked up a scop of good soil dirt to plant the flowers.


Today's project was this tree.  I cleaned out the rocks that were in the ground and placed them around the tree, and finished using the dirt we bought.

These three trees are in the up coming project. I am trying to figure out what to do?
This project is going good. The three trees in the back are what Charity likes

A closer look at the project we did yesterday.
This view is looking down to the bottom of the property

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Effectual Calling and Regeneration


The New Birth 


 
We have, let me remind you, been asking how it is that the call of the gospel becomes effectual in certain people. And in the last lecture, we began to answer that question by saying that the call becomes effectual in men and women as the result of the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration. It becomes effectual because in these people there is now a principle which was not there before which enables them to respond to this spiritual truth, this divine truth, that comes to them.

 And that is the difference between believers and unbelievers, those who are saved and those who are not. The latter have the ‘natural mind’, they are in the flesh, they are not spiritual, and that is why these things mean nothing to them.

 But they mean everything to the others and that is because they are now spiritual, and they are spiritual as the result of regeneration. 

The whole article is here:  http://www.monergism.com/effectualregeneration.html

Brian:s Landscaping Home In Manchester OH

Rob and Ill Temple took Charity and I on a trip to Manchester OH to the home of Brian ?
He is 86 years old and moved into the cabin when he was 72 years old.  He has done everything to this place.  He lives where there are these rocks and he has taken them out of the river bed and made this beautiful landscaping place. At 86 he seems to be doing very well. He loves to work and wha ta wonderful place he has.  I was totally inspired by the work he has done  05 27 2013



























Monday, May 27, 2013

The Manner In Which We Preach

WHAT ROLE DOES THE BIBLE HAVE IN OUR CHURCH AT RIVERS OF JOY BAPTIST ?
 I have seen several ladies like this over the years.

The lady was angry:  “You don’t tell me what I’m expected to do!  All you do is talk about God!”

What is seems you do is explain what the text says about God and who He is and what He does. Romans 9 does that a lot. 

I might admit that while I spend a lot of time in the sermon about how good and great and authoritive God is, I had a relatively brief invitation to the people to seek more of God.  

I learned from John MacArthur that preaching is only as good as God will bring the message to the hearer’s heart and mind.  When I finish with the text, I step back and leave room for the Spirit to spend time with His followers, to offer His own applications to the sermon.

So what kind of preacher/teacher do I need to be that will give the best results?  What kind of results do you want Charles?  Well, I would like people to live like Christ. To reflect His likeness. 

How are you going to get people to do that? Well, make them feel guilty?????   Many preacher do that.

Other preachers give a number of life principles that is a do list of instructions that is designed to help them learn how to live a Christian life of does and don’t. Well that might work.

I could be like Moses. His work was to ride herd on a throng of mostly-unbelieving Israelites (Hebrews 4). Sounds like a lot of preachers today.  A church of unbelievers who need to be whipped into action.
On the other hand is there another way of preaching to bring about change in the lives of people?

I could have a lot of counseling and self-help guides that will instruct people in “steps-to-success-with-God. That should do it.  Being there and done this a lot.
So what just what is the answer than: Well, what does the Bible teach us, (via John MacArthur years ago):
Apart from the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians2) and the New Birth, that is the coming of the Spirit to live within us – is the only “how to” that makes a difference in us (John 3 and 2 Corinthians 3)'

Here is the point preachers, if we really want to see change that is real, and transforming application, listen to the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit is so good and effective in speaking to the spiritual dead souls, or deaf souls.  And hear this, only the Spirit can stir the will to any authentic works that God want to appear rather than the work of the flesh.
 Here it is preacher, without the active presence of the Holy Spirit on Sunday or Wednesday, in  the listener’s heart, no preacher stands a ounce of making that person who is sitting in the pew into more than a nicely polished Pharisee. 
  
I want more than just to get people to cultivate compliance to rules on conduct.  What I want is to invite those in the pew to Jesus who offers us “rivers of living water’s (Rivers of Joy ) by His Spirit’s coming into our lives, hearts, John 7:38-39 will do.  

In some churches the Bible is dismissed or disbelieved.   Here the Bible is but a token and the sermons reflect some kind of cultural political or contemporary bias determined by the preacher.
They say about the Bible, its not really the reality of today’s thought. If God wrote the Bible today He would not have the same views as the Bible did when it was original written.
For the most part the Bible they say is more of a “mythology” in text.  

While in the church where they whole to the authority of the bible it is preached, explained and applied and honored as it is in our church.

SO HOW IS THE BIBLE USED IN DIFFERENT CHURCHES AND PREACHING?
Peter Meads gives three uses to be found in different ministries
1.  BIBLE ROLE #1 Instruction Manual
Peter points out that the Bible is used as a basic instructions before leaving Earth.  BIBLE.   Listen and Obey

Here the bible is held aloft and honoured like a mechanical guide for fixing the care of your life.   The Bible contains instructions that are to be obeyed in order to achieve successful independent living.   The instructions may be moral code or life principles.   The leverage will tend to be greater pressure and some form of guilt. 

2.  BIBLE ROLE #2  Experience Gateway:
Let’s look at it to see that what God is doing in our midst today is what he has always done, turn with me to the narrative of……. role of the Bible

Here the Bible is used  as an endorsement of something to be experienced by the more spiritual.  Using a more obscure corner of scripture, the wording is used to drive home a personal pursuit of profound experience. 
3.  BIBLE ROLE #3     Personal Introduction
Here the Bible is used  to introduce God . God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is reveled and here I really long for you to meet Him.
 The Bible is not honored in itself, like the KJV is to be honored.  But the Bible is a gift from God.  The Bible then is a personal  revelation of God the Father in the person of His Son  by the work of the Spirit, that calls for response for the sake of relationship.  
The leverage hre is to be the presenter’s delight in fellowship with God. 
Some respond with delight in what they see and read and hear in the Bible, learning in and discovering A god that is a delight to know.
 What some learn and are amazed is that God is so wonderful and they discover that God is a delight to know.   They are amazed that God loves them to the point of saving them even when they don’t deserved it at all.

And some will be as a result of knowing God will gradual but profoundly transformational.   In the course of time, these people will seem warmed from the inside-out as the work of God in their hearts spills into their attitudes and actions.
While others will resisted what is being presented by the Bible and the preaching by the preacher.

What most people do in hearing this kind of preaching will be to complain because  their deepest desire is essentially something other than genuine fellowship  with this Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ..

Some just might prefer (1) to be guiled with pressure to perform.  or (2) instructed so they can tick the boxes and press ahead (3) or they might just prefer a super-spirituality that is shaped by something other than the biblical marital motif.
Here is the bottom line my flesh is attracted to role 1 and 2. My heart is stirred by role 3. 

Spiritual Debt

And forgive us our debts. -Matthew 6:12

Sin dominates the hearts and minds of lost men and women, sepa-rates them from God, and is therefore their greatest enemy and problem. It is the common denominator for every crime, immorality, pain, and sorrow—and there is no natural cure: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil” (Jer. 13:23). The natural individual does not even want his or her sin cured (John 3:19).

If sin is our greatest problem, our greatest need is the forgiveness God provides. Though forgiven from sin’s ultimate penalty (cf. Rom. 8:1), believers need God’s constant forgiveness for sins they still commit. The apostle John cautions us, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–9).

Jesus’ act of washing the apostles’ feet (John 13:5–11) is more than a picture of humility; it also portrays God’s repeated, cleansing forgiveness to His disciples. The forgiveness that secures our saving position in Christ at regeneration does not need repeating; but we need God’s practical forgiveness every day to cleanse us from sin’s contamination as we live in this world. Out of God’s vast heart of forgiveness He is ever willing to continually pardon His children (cf. Neh. 9:17; Rom. 5:20).

Ask Yourself
There are probably a small number of things in your life that are clearly in violation of what you know to be right—things that are top-of-mind as you consider again the depths of our sin and our need for God’s forgiveness. Deal with these in prayer today as you repent before the Father and receive His promised mercy.


From Daily Readings from the Life of Christ, Vol. 1, John MacArthur. Copyright © 2008. Used by permission of Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL 60610, www.moodypublishers.com.

Questions To Ask Advocates Of Homosexual Marriage (Part 2)

If you make your son go to bed at 8 P.M. when he's a five-year-old, but you let him stay up later when he's fifteen, are you an inconsistent hypocrite? Advocates of homosexual marriage often accuse their opponents of being inconsistent and hypocritical. For instance, why do you want to base our nation's public policy on Biblical prohibitions of homosexuality, but you don't want us to have laws based on something like the dietary rules found in the Pentateuch? Or if you think the government has reason to give preferential treatment to the heterosexual relationship, because that relationship can biologically produce children, then why don't you outlaw marriage between infertile heterosexuals? Aren't opponents of homosexual marriage being inconsistent and hypocritical?

But all that opponents of homosexual marriage are doing is applying the same sort of reasoning that advocates of homosexual marriage accept in other contexts. The Bible distinguishes between something like homosexuality, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, something like the dietary restrictions of the Mosaic law. The dietary laws are said to have been fulfilled by Jesus and to no longer be binding as they were in the past (Mark 7:19, Romans 14, Colossians 2:16-17). By contrast, no such thing is said or implied about homosexuality. To the contrary, the New Testament repeatedly condemns it (Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, Jude 7), and the earliest patristic Christians reaffirmed that condemnation. We distinguish between laws that are still in force and laws no longer in force. Just as we do that with the Bible, we also do it in other contexts in life. If a five-year-old boy is told to go to bed at 8 P.M., it doesn't follow that the parents are doing something wrong if they don't enforce that bedtime when their son is fifteen. Some rules only serve a temporary purpose or are only meant to apply in some contexts, not all contexts. We apply laws to non-citizens that we don't apply to citizens. The government acts by different standards during wartime than during times of peace. Etc.

What about the issue of infertile heterosexual couples, which I mentioned above? It seems that the advocate of homosexual marriage is making a faulty assumption here. Why think that the ability to biologically produce children is the only relevant factor? That factor is often highlighted by opponents of homosexual marriage, because it's one of the distinctions between the two types of relationship. But it doesn't follow that no other factor is to be taken into consideration when judging whether infertile heterosexuals should be allowed to be married. Even though that couple can't produce children, there are other reasons for allowing them to be married. For one thing, our marriage laws already allow it. Even if you think a mistake was made by allowing it, we crossed that bridge a long time ago. By contrast, homosexual marriage isn't yet recognized in most places, it's still in an early stage even where it's been recognized by the state, and it involves far fewer people. Such distinctions warrant differentiating between the two situations. Outlawing marriage of infertile heterosexuals would require a lot of additional effort and turmoil that wouldn't accompany retaining a rejection of homosexual marriage that's already in place or overturning homosexual marriage where it recently gained acceptance. Furthermore, it wouldn't be practical for the state to get involved in trying to judge when couples are and aren't fertile. By contrast, we know that a rejection of homosexual marriage is practical. We've been doing it for hundreds of years, and we're still doing it in most places. Considerations like these have to be taken into account. To act as though marriage between infertile heterosexuals is in the same category as marriage between homosexuals is simplistic.

Even if opponents of homosexual marriage are inconsistent and hypocritical by not opposing marriage between infertile heterosexuals, how does pointing out that inconsistency answer their underlying argument for giving preferential treatment to one type of marriage over another? An argument that's not applied consistently can be a valid argument, despite the inconsistency in its application. Does society benefit from the heterosexual relationship in ways in which the homosexual relationship doesn't benefit society? Yes, at least in some cases. (Later, I'll argue that it's so in all cases. But I'm setting that aside for now.) If we have good reason to give preferential treatment to at least some heterosexual relationships, then simply saying that the people who make that point don't apply it consistently is an insufficient response. A good argument applied inconsistently remains a good argument.


 http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/05/questions-to-ask-advocates-of_27.html?





Friday, May 24, 2013

Homosexuality and Homosexual Now in the Boy Scouts of America

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=40372&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0524

GRAPEVINE, Texas (BP) -- Delegates to the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) Thursday (May 23) approved new membership guidelines which open the ranks of the organization to homosexual members. Young men who openly claim to be homosexual may now participate as Scouts.

The decision, the BSA leadership said in a statement, was based on "growing input from within the Scouting family." That input led to a national review of policy, or a "comprehensive listening exercise," resulting in a resolution to remove the restriction "denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone."

Some 1,400 delegates to the National Council approved the change in membership standards by a margin of 61-39 percent, but changes to the adult leadership policy of the organization, which forbids homosexual Scout leaders, was not up for vote and remains in place. Rules on sexual misconduct, heterosexual and homosexual, also remain in place for Scouts and Scout leaders.

Continues on the website.

Just let me say, we are no longer and have not been a Christian nations for some time now.  

And for some that is okay for they are not Christians anyway, and don't want to be.  There fore that is not a problem for them to see what we are seeing in a lot of organizations.


What is really  bad if I might say: now they are encouraging the youth to bee \open about their homosexual.  Sexual orientation should be kept in the house.


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