fundamentalism by blunt instrument
Sunday was a wintry day. Attendance down a bit. For us, winter means temps around freezing, but usually very little snow if any. Also, for us, winter only lasts for about two weeks. Spring should be here in mid February.
Two prayer emphases in this message: 1. What it means to constantly pray for others. 2. What I must do to bring about the answers to my own prayers.
It is a blessing to be back home again. Our people exhibited the grace of God in their thoughtful cards and letters to us concerning our recent sorrows. It is wonderful to be on the receiving end of this ministry because it is evidence that our own ministry among these dear folks has not been in vain. God is working in their midst, and I feel privileged to be God’s agent in bringing about some of that work – especially in those who have been converted and discipled almost exclusively through our ministry. I tell you, there is no greater thrill than this! 3 Jn 4.
Now for the sermon summaries…
On Friday we laid my dear mother-in-law to rest. Her remains lie on a hillside in rural Tennessee, next to her husband, in the midst of numerous extended family, and awaiting the resurrection. We alternate between joy for her current state and sorrow for our loss. We are self-centred creatures.
Sunday our family worshipped together at Grace Baptist Church of Dacula, pastored by our friend, Dave Wood. We heard a great message on stewardship in the AM and another message on Christian relationships from 1 Cor 6 in the PM. We also heard Andy Efting give a good lesson from Isa 13. I was struck by the need for faith – Isaiah was telling people to believe him when he said a great nation would come destroy Judah, and also that great nation would be destroyed by another great nation. In between, Isaiah described the yet future day of the Lord. In the midst of Ahaz’ day, Isaiah’s hearers must have wondered what he was talking about. It doesn’t matter what day we live in, a life right with God must be lived by faith in the Word of God – no matter how hard or strange that word may seem to us.
The music in all the services was stirring. I think we are especially sensitive to the message of spiritual songs now as we continue to mourn the loss of Debbi’s mother. Our daughter-in-law played a violin special of the Old Rugged Cross in the PM service. It is an arrangement she played for grandma’s funeral two days before. She told us she wrote the arrangement specifically for the funeral. As I read the hymn while she played, fresh tears formed.
You might pause to pray for Pastor Wood’s family this week. His mother-in-law is also about to pass on to glory, also dying from cancer. Our hearts go out to our brethren in need, but we know that another saint is about to enter glory, for which we thank God.
One of our deacons keeps me updated by e-mail and phone while we are away. Our pulpit supply preacher this time was coming from Vancouver, but missed the first ferry, causing him to miss the first service. Undaunted, my deacon took out a message he had been working on for some time and went ahead with the first service. Our guest speaker from Vancouver arrived in time to cover the second and third services. The report was a good day and good responses from our people.
I will get home later this week and post links to audio.
Praise the Lord for continued blessing and opportunity to serve Him.
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Christmas vacation ends, a New Year begins, we press on in our ministry, looking forward to good days to come.
Our New Years Sunday begins the day before my two University students head back to school. My number two son and number three child, Rory, is our Guest Speaker for two out of three services this Sunday.
Our morning service marks a return to Romans, our current expositional series. Romans 1.8 is a good verse for a church looking forward to the New Year.
First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
I spoke on the delight Christians ought to have with one another – their thanksgiving to God for the fact of faith in the heart of a fellow believer. This delight enables disparate people to work together in common cause of the gospel.
I do thank God that we have true believers in our local church. None of us are what we desire to be, but thank God we are not what we were by nature either.
For our Bible lesson, Rory led us through the commands God gave to Israel to remember Him. Though Israel failed, God’s persistent commands to succeeding generations are evidences of His grace. Now in the New Testament era, all men are called to remember the God of Israel. Do you remember, or are you numbered among the many failures of Old Testament Israel?
Rory gave us a study in the failures and futures of the disciples who heard these words. Judas, Peter, the whole band all failed the Lord to greater or lesser degrees that night. They failed to remember even those things he taught them that very night. They failed to remember Who it was they followed. The disciples were restored by God’s grace, save for Judas. All men may likewise enter into restored fellowship and service for God because of the Lord’s work on the cross. May your life be lived in remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ.
~~~
Our attendance was ‘down’ to 44 this Sunday, but some of our recent visitors were in that number, returning for their third Sunday in a row. We are hopeful for a good new year in the Lord’s service.
Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
I am taking time on New Years Day to catch you up on last Sunday. Somehow, this week we have managed to fill almost every day with activity. Last night was our New Years Eve fellowship, check our Photo Gallery for pictures. Wednesday is our regular prayer meeting night, then Thursday we have our monthly Bible study in a town north of us. Friday my kids and I are going skiing up island. What was I thinking when I scheduled all this?
We did have some new visitors last night at the New Years Eve fellowship. I preached the gospel in our short service last night, so we pray the Word will bear fruit.
On Sunday, I preached the morning message and had my oldest son, Duncan, home for the holidays to preach the other two. If you take the time to listen to his Bible study lesson and compare it with his notes, you may see that he didn’t finish. He did run into our time schedule (not overly time conscious, but…). I went to the back of the room and drew his attention to my watch. He was pretty smooth as he wrapped it all up, I thought.
Anyway, Duncan is working on his M.Div. at Bob Jones University. He has grown in his preaching ability tremendously. I am kind of partial to him, but I think if you listen, you will see that he is well trained and tries to be a careful expositor.
Now for the summaries…
This Sunday, 12.23.07, we had only one sermon. A brief summary appears below.
Matthew presents the Gospel record thematically, not chronologically. Many of the events of Mt 12, for example, occur before Mt 5-7 in time. In his 12th chapter, however, Matthew is forcing us to make a choice about Jesus. He does this by displaying the Master as tender and compassionate to the needs and weaknesses of men. He also displays the irrational antagonism of Jesus’ enemies to this. Then he quotes Isaiah, describing the gentle compassionate character of the Servant, applying this to Jesus. We are left with a stark decision to make. Will we Gentiles trust Him? Is he really the son of David? Or is he the son of the devil [Beelzebub]? Which?
~~~
Our second service involved our Children’s Christmas Play. You can find pictures here. [I was preaching from the middle of the stable in Bethlehem this Sunday!] Our little children were thrilled to dress up as shepherds, angels, and sheep. Our big kids seemed to like it, too.
In our third service we played the video of Duncan and Meg’s wedding. Duncan and Meg are here for Christmas with us and it seemed appropriate to find a time for our folks who couldn’t attend to see the record of the event. I was a little uncertain about using one of our service times for this, but my wife reminded me that I preached ‘for an awful long time’ at the wedding. I guess I did.
Our folks, most of whom have seen Duncan grow up, were delighted to see the video. I messed up the singing of the hymn at the beginning of the service because my mind was 21 years away, thinking about a little lad on the seat of yellow Ryder truck carrying us from SC to BC and our place of ministry. They had to stop me and we started over.
We had visitors again this Sunday, a crowd of 59. The year has been very good for us and our church. We will see what the Lord has for us in the New Year.
May all of God’s richest blessings abound to you and your families this Christmas.
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
This Sunday we had the privilege of having my son’s father-in-law, Brad Calhoun with us for our services. I searched the vast reaches of the internet to find a term to describe the relationship between parents of two people married to one another. Alas, I found none, hence my own ‘smart-alecky’ term, ‘outlaws’. We are delighted to expand the circle of our family to include these outlaws.
Brad and his wife Sarah have been Baptist Mid-Missions missionaries in Quebec for many years. They led their church in Matane, Quebec to the stage where the church has its own building and was able to call its own Quebecois pastor. We thank God for this, but for the Calhoun’s, it means leaving behind dear friends and disciples and moving to a new place of ministry. For them that means a move to the pastorate of a church in the mountains of western North Carolina, the place where Brad grew up. We ask the Lord to prosper them in this new ministry.
Rather than attempt to give you summaries, I will link you to the audio for each message. First, the morning message, After Darkness Light, a message in keeping with our Christ and the Nations series and giving some of the background information concerning the work in Quebec.
Next, Brad gave us his slide presentation, narrating the history of the work in Matane. Our church has been supporting the Calhoun’s in this work for a number of years, so we were very pleased to hear this report on The Ministry in Matane.
Last, we had our afternoon message on Living like Jesus, a message about following the light that we have and questioning the impulses of darkness around us and in us.
All in all, a good day. We had 67 in the service this week with a couple of interesting visitors (besides our own family visitors). It was one of those weeks where almost everyone connected with our church all showed up on the same day. Even with that there were a couple of people away. Nevertheless, we were blessed to see all those who did come. We also saw some pretty significant spiritual steps taken in a couple of lives, so we are grateful for that.
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
The busy season is upon us! I suppose this is not a good time to be trying to set up my new web venture, but we want to be ready to use it not only as a resource for our sermons but as an evangelistic tool by the time January rolls around. Much is yet to be done, but we are stepping forward bit by bit.
I am going to adapt our sermon summaries in this space a bit since I am now providing both audio and outline on the web site. I will do less summarizing and try to sum up the appeal the main idea of the message had to me as I prepared and delivered it.
Here are the latest instalments:
Have you ever considered the difference between Judea and Galilee? Galilee is part of the old northern kingdom of Israel, and as far back as the judges was only tenuously held by the Israelites. Galilee always had a Gentile influence. During the time of Christ, Galilee held a mixed population of Jews and Gentiles. Why did Jesus spend the bulk of his ministry there?
Isaiah spoke of a light that would come to lighten the Gentiles. Think about what it meant for the Gentiles of Galilee who saw the light of Christ right in their presence? And think now of the light of Christ in our Gentile world? And think about the many many nations immigrating to our shores – Christ is a brilliant light for them as well.
All of this light is wrapped up in the name ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’. What grace God brought down to man!
Do you ever get discouraged in prayer? Do you faint along the way? Do you know that the Lord doesn’t want you to feel that way?
The parable of the friend at midnight is a picturesque promise (and kind of a backhanded one at that) that the Lord answers prayer. You can count on it. And you can always count on the Lord’s answer being good, better than you could ask or think.
But it does seem that the answers start with the asking. The Lord wants you to ask. Do you feel your prayers lack? Then ask. Do you feel the Lord is far away? Then ask. Just ask and keep on asking.
A good deal of our spiritual life is simply missed because we do not pray.
~~~
BTW, for our afternoon service, the message on prayer, we had a couple from Singapore show up for a visit. We are kind of excited about that, after I just finished preaching about the Lord being a light to the Gentiles, and the nations moving to Canada. May the Lord shed his light into the hearts of many nations from right here in Victoria!
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Yes, boys and girls, that last bit is true. We now have a website for Grace Baptist Church of Victoria. You can find it at gbcvic.org.
My delay in posting our sermon summaries is mostly due to the usual headaches in starting something about which I know next to nothing, i.e., setting up a website. Thankfully, tools are available and I had done some work on a proposed site some years ago. So what you see is our quick temporary site. We have plans for more later, including an experiment at using it as an evangelistic tool. This blog may also migrate over there also, but time will tell on that.
Now for Sunday’s sermons. We began our annual Christmas series this last Sunday. Our theme this month is the missionary theme, Christ and the Nations.
What is a nation? The UN has 192 members, FIFA has 205 members. The World Christian Database says there are over 13,000 people groups in the world. These groups comprise ‘nations’ by some definitions. How did they all begin? For what purpose did they all begin?
The idea inherent in the notion of nations, nationalism, and nationality is division. This is the theme of Gen 10. You see God repeatedly noting ‘their nations’ and emphasizing ‘division’ in this chapter. The immediate cause of the division is revealed in Gen 11: Babel. But the story of the cursing of Canaan in Gen 9 is also linked – a prophecy of imminent division. The ultimate cause is the sin of mankind.
Cause, however, is not purpose. Why division? What purpose does it serve? Is it merely judgement? The division of Babel is a curse, but it is intended to drive men to God. See Ac 17.26-27 and Ac 15.16-17.
What should the nations do with all the frustrations of language, culture, race, ambition, etc.?
- Turn to God.
What should they do in Sudan over the school teacher who ‘insulted the prophet’ over the teddy bear she allowed her students to name ‘Mohammed’? What should the teacher do?
- Turn to God.
What should Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and, yes, even Israel do with the frustrations they have with one another?
- Turn to God.
What should you do with the misunderstandings, frustrations, divisions, conflicts you have with your family members and church brethren?
- Turn to God.
God is the answer to the divisions of this world. And when we turn the page from the division of the nations, we see these words: "These are the generations of Shem…" God also formed the nations to form a nation from whom would come the One Man who would bring to an end all the divisions of the world.
Leviticus 3 discusses an offering called the ‘peace offering’. It was a voluntary offering made with fire as a sweet savour to the Lord. It would be offered in the case of a vow, or as a matter of confession, or as a matter of freewill thanksgiving. The offerer may also have to offer a guilt offering or sin offering in order to purify himself before participating in a peace offering. The ‘fat portion’ of the offering belonged to God and was burned on the altar. A portion of that which remained belonged to the priest, but the rest belonged to the offerer and was consumed on the spot in a meal of fellowship with God.
The NT parallel is our communion feast. If we have been purified by the blood of Christ, and if our manner and walk is pure, we may freely eat. We eat the offering of Christ himself, in communion with himself. We drink the blood of the new covenant, being made one spiritual blood in the family of God.
For the believer whose heart is not right with God at this table, the Lord offers Rev 3.20:
NAU Revelation 3:20 ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
~~~
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
I see I have posted nothing since our last sermon summaries. It has been a busy week with a few of my men as they helped me repair my deck. I thought it would be a two day job. I should know by now to multiply my time estimates by at least 2 and a half. At least the job is pretty much done, just a few finishing touches left this week if the weather cooperates. Now for this week’s sermons:
I told our people today that my aim was to make the message of Romans personal, as if the letter was written personally to them. After all, as Paul addresses the letter, it is to a local church, made up of real believers – and only believers. These believers are seen in the three terms describing the church in Rome in 1.6-7: called of Jesus Christ [belonging to Christ]; beloved of God [just as Christ is God’s beloved, so we, in Christ, are beloved], called saints [named as holy ones, by virtue of the new birth].
The people addressed by ‘to all that be in Rome’ have these three characteristics, clearly and distinctly they are Christians. This is a Baptist idea. The local church should attempt to maintain an exclusively regenerate membership by careful examination of applicants and purging of false professors who may accidentally be admitted.
But the infinite blessing of the passage is that which is offered the local church of Rome by God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace & peace. For grace, I like this line I found in Donald Grey Barnhouse: "Love that goes upward is worship; love that goes outward is affection; love that stoops is grace." [Donald Grey Barnhouse, Romans, Vol.1, p. 72.] Peace is the Hebrew part of Paul’s formulaic greeting – it is a regular formula, but full of meaning. The Hebrew concept is shalom, wholeness, well-being in the whole person. This is the blessing offered to the local church at Rome, and I believe, to every local church through time since then. This is what makes the letter to Romans personal. I closed with this application:
1. Does God have any less care for you or for this local church than he does for the ‘Grace Baptist Church of Rome’ in ad 57?
I have prayed with some of you when you made things right with God. At that moment, I believe God our Father stooped down from heaven and spoke grace to you and our Lord Jesus Christ gave you peace.
I have sat by your bedsides in the hospital, offering prayers for your physical well-being. At that moment, I believe God our Father stooped down from heaven and spoke grace to you and our Lord Jesus Christ gave you peace.
I have walked to graves with some of you, and will probably do so again… At those moments, I believe God our Father stooped down from heaven and spoke grace to you and our Lord Jesus Christ gave you peace.
2. Our union as a local church is created in the love of God and the grace and peace offered personally to you in Jesus Christ.
Our conclusion invited anyone who is outside the beloved to repent of their sins and enter the household of God.
We continue our series on prayer, begun last week. The Lord’s answer to the disciple’s prayer, "Lord, teach us to pray" is first of all to give us the prayer we call "The Lord’s Prayer". This is similar to the record given us in Matthew 6, but the differences in the passages make it clear that the same teaching was given on two separate occasions. The fact that the Lord taught the same thing twice indicates that it was a regular feature of his teaching and highlights the importance placed on it by the Holy Spirit. Understanding and practicing the concepts in this prayer is vital to our spiritual lives.
There are essentially five petitions in this model prayer as given in Luke:
There is much more that could be said about the Lord’s prayer and these petitions. May God bless our study and meditation on these Scriptures.
Regards
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
The latest audio from the GBCvic
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