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...Must..have...more.....sleep!

Tue, 06 May 2008 01:17:05 GMT

Actually, sleep is overrated. No doubt you all thought I was sleeping given the whole week between my last post and this one. Yes, I'm kidding. Actually, I've had a lot going on lately, so there's more to post about.

Good news, Mitch's work was dumping laptops and I got one. This post is being prepared on it, actually. No pics. I'm not enough of a camera guy for that.

Last weekend, Mr. Florance invited a group of guys from the church to come up to his cabin for the weekend. We had a blast, literally. An explosive weekend. Went at things with both barrels. Okay, enough with the bad puns. We went skeet shooting......Shotguns...blast....explosive... both barrels....forget it.

The first day I started off with a brilliant airball...shot...thing...Then traded off the next two with a hit and a miss. Hitting 6 straight at that point I promptly missed the final 4, finishing off the day with 7/13. Fair, but I should've done better.

Kyle, probably hitting something. He beat me...though, I don't remember how many he got...just a second...

...ah...the official word is 10/13 for that day. Not bad. Whupped my 7 good and proper.

Note to all, this blog has rarely taken an editorial stance, but as certain subjects of said trip were often in the water, some pictures have been deemed inappropriate for the general public. We apologize for the resulting inconvenience this no doubt affords you and humbly promise to do better next time. In lieu of water pics...

We headed down to the marina by way of a fishing cove in which some of our party fished. I caught up on some sleep from the night before when we drove all night to get to the cabin (admittedly, I didn't drive - kudos to Kevin and Stephen on that).

Drew fishing. He's good at that, you know. Jonathan in the background

Stevo, Kevs, J-Mac and me. ...I can explain the peace sign...really...Does the wind on my shirt make me look fat?

On the way back from the marina, the boat sprung a leak and we sunk (okay, the last part didn't quite materialize, but it was semi-marginally close). The problem didn't end up being too bad and the boat was actually back and working a day or so later.

No jet-ski pictures. Kinda hard to get pictures out on the lake while cruising at 60mph without seatbelts. But just to keep you nice folks happy:

I modestly wore a shirt while riding the jetski. You're welcome.

Can't see it to well unless you enlarge the pic, but Drew just vaporized a nice, round, orange skeet. He's shooting with the Westons' new Mossberg Maverick. Personally, I'm partial to the double barrel one. Roughly a hundred years old, that baby has a lot of history behind it and it sure is fun to shoot. We also had the Florance's Remington. I interchanged between them and on the second day I ended up tying Kyle at 17/21 appiece. (I suspect we were the only two crazy enough to keep score.)

Kevin cooked breakfast for us. Jonathan Stevens and Mr. Ouatu took care of the other meals. They all did a great job. Obviously the whole weekend wouldn't have been possible without the Florance's hospitality and I know we all were very blessed to be invited up for the weekend. Thanks!

Talking of important theological subjects such as the eternality of hell, serving God with our whole hearts and laying up treasure in heaven...okay, so maybe that wasn't what we were talking about in this conversation, but it did get covered briefly in a conversation one night. Sadly it didn't get continued.

Ok, so I wrote all the above while babysitting at Stu and Lisa's last night. The rest got detained till tonight. (Come to think of it, it's probably long enough for two blog posts, but anyway...)

Someone fade me....hit me?...Ah. I'll call and raise you three matchsticks.

Hmm, how'd that photo get on here. Card playing isn't approved in all circles....or squares for that matter. I can explain, really. It was almost entirely all chance and we had relatively good conversations while playing (and subsequently avoiding sunburns), between choruses of, "Dude, you are sooo lucky", and, "I haven't had a hand worth betting the farm on in two hours" and, "too rich for my blood". Ok, I'm kidding. It was mostly just relaxing time to get out of the sun and well, the alternative was dirt biking. My mother probably wouldn't have approved of the latter, anyway.

Speaking of which...

Stephen getting ready to get taken for a ride.

Me. (Profound.)

Most of us...James had to leave earlier that day, sadly. Mr. Florance, Mr. Ouatu and Jonathan McIntire were up at the cabin.

I don't think that's too immodest...is it? Anyhow, there we are, hanging out in the water, swimming, and...treading water (more likely just standing on the bottom). Good times.

Anyhow, things've been relatively busy this month. Stamp prices change in a week. I've got jury duty in two weeks (maybe).

Swimming party and Memorial Day baseball game coming up (probably another blog post there) and a vacation to Tennessee (See you soon, Grandpa and Grandma!) with probably yet another blog post after that depending on whether I have pictures or anything like that. With the last two Children's Institutes and this trip, it's been pretty wild. Things will probably slow down after that, though, I expect. Anyway...see you around.

Do you ever get deja vu?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:47:02 GMT

So I thought I'd finished, but then I found myself on stage as the King's Steward, Mr. Hockenstock and Justin the dog again. Grief, I thought I'd finished those roles. And I had to tell my story again to the same group of kids I'd told it to a year ago. At least I changed it slightly.

Two CI's in under a month. I'm starting to get a reputation for running less than boring teams. Actually the team was more responsive this time and more obedient. We ranged from 5-9 kids, though most of the time it was 7-9 kids. Lot of younger ones. Cristin and Kendra were my assistants and they did a good job. I took advantage of Cristin by dropping several fun things on her like the 'Strongholds in my life' illustration and several crafts.

We played some ultimate frisbee on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday, I did so bad that after I dropped out, our team started winning! (Actually, the other team gave us one of their players which made the teams even).

Saturday night after the CI, we played some charades which was entertaining. I was the only non-Weston/Stevens family member there. Fun times, though.

Rocky Balboa, our team mascot, which Andrew, a boy in our class made. Night 1 was design and the kids used wire cleaner to make stuff. Andrew made Rocky. Later, someone added a mini "Jesus is my Captain" hat on him and the trend went on from there. On your left hand side is a treasure of my heart box, and a chain of command. On the right is a tower of truth. Around his neck is a round of applause. There are several love stickers on him. One is a flower and sun, one is a rainbow, one is Kevin, Kyle and Emily...sort of, and I don't remember the other. One fell off, though. I think it was the rainbow.

Tower of truth which I made. Gotta build those in your life to help protect those bad thoughts from coming in. Though, why a 'thought protector' is on the hand instead of the head, I don't know. Not too many bad thoughts comin' in through the hand. If you look on the bottom left, you'll see three unclear stick figures of the CI bosses.

Treasure of my heart. Annoyingly unclear. All these pics were taken on my camera phone. Trying to get the lighting not too bright and it still decently clear just wasn't working for me.

Round of applause. Cristin made it....I stapled it on Rocky's neck.

The sun, a flower and...this big blue thing. Probably water. Don't blame me, artistry isn't high on my list of accolades.

I'm trying to decide whether I should call this, "Everybody Loves Richard," or "Poor Richard". Maybe I'll be prosaic and call it, "Richard with Stickers".

The CI bosses weren't sharing the love...stickers.

Drew basking in the relaxation of organizational bliss. He had his kids in boxes (of tape - see the ground). Wish I'd thought of that.

On Thursday, Mom, Mitch, the Kilgours and I went to Knotts Berry Farm for the day. That was pretty cool, hanging out with all the family.

Stu, Lisa, Julie and Tiffany with sunglasses. I thought she looked cute in those goggles, so I snapped a quick one.

Abbie and a rooster out by the entrance.

Xcelerator. 200 feet up, 200 feet down. Shot out of the station (just off the right side of the picture) at 80mph in 2 seconds, flying up over the top at a 90 degree angle and down the same way. Tiffany loved it. Sadly, she was a little bit short and the second time she tried going on it, they didn't let her. Hilarious watching the way she got excited after being on it. All of the kids loved it, though. At her age, rides like that gave me nightmares. I got clutchy on "It's a Small World". jk.

Work has been nice lately. Thing's have been slow since April 15 and I've gotten free time to study and read. Spurgeon's autobiography, Calvin's Institutes, some MacArthur books. Lot of Bible reading, too.

Looks like in the next two months I'll be speaking a couple of times at Carmel Village doing sub work. If all works according to plan, I'll be speaking on Romans 5:8, which is an incredibly humbling and overwhelming passage to study, I've found. God's been working on me with it in different ways that I don't feel like sharing on an online blog.

Guess that's all for now. So long.

Miss me?

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:25:30 GMT

Hasn't been that long...has it?

Anyhow, my last post must've been too long, too controversial, too boring or just a dud, because the only one who commented was Kyle (and I had to beg him for a week to get that. Just kidding). In all seriousness, though, despite being firmly rooted in my beliefs on the biblicity (great word, that) of my theology, I'm not gonna do posts like that often (I don't think) because...uh...because....I'm not going to. (End note: I'm not trying to pressure anyone into commenting, that was a total joke above).

So I was in Georgia for about a week and half (Thursday, April 3-Monday-April 14) doing a Children's Institute and hanging out with the guys + a few others. First Children's Institute leading a team, actually, though I attended a few about ten years ago. Two weekends (Friday evening, Saturday morning to evening with a 20 minute break for lunch, Sunday morning and evening with afternoon off. Then the following Thursday evening, Friday evening, Saturday with a more substantial lunch break - hour or two - and Sunday morning and evening with a parent presentation Sunday evening).

Sunday night we drove up to the Ceausu's house and spent Monday and Tuesday there until heading back Wednesday afternoon.

No, I don't have pictures. Rough, huh? Don't no one start crying on my shoulder.

Actually, I may get some up in a few days depending on various unforseeable and totally unpredictable future occurrences of which I know little.

Over the two weekends, our team had 16 different kids, though only a max of 13 at one time. Figures it was on a Saturday. The first night we had about 6-7, I think and it increased to about 13 by Saturday morning/afternoon with some kids moving between teams. Don't ask. We had kind of a rowdy team with some kids who definitely presented their own problems. But they were fun to work with, though tiring. We ended up with about 8 for the second weekend and those ones stayed pretty constant that whole time.

There were about a dozen of us from church. It was a huge blessing to get to see and spend time with Andrew Ouatu again after only seeing him a couple of times in the last six months. On the lesser end, it was a definite bummer not having Brian and Jimmy there...but, school calls. Fortunately, I had a more lenient schedule.

The Ceausu's came down from Tennessee to help out with the seminar and it was good to see them again. They brought along four young folks from their area: Kayleen, Darleen, Joleen and Byron Waltman. Joleen worked on my team and Byron and I stayed together, with a man named Daniel (from the church we worked at) and his parents. I would've felt a little more comfortable having all the guys together, but hey, who am I to argue with God? As it turned out, there were apparently quite a few people who wanted us to stay with them and it was necessary to split our group into small groups to please all of them (not to mention avoiding placing the burden of all of us on one family). But our hosts were very kind and hospitable towards us and went out of their way to make us comfortable, so it was good.

While in Tennessee, we took a hike up to a waterfall in the Smoky Mountains and while I was posing for a picture, my left eye contact popped out (presumably into the waterfall). Figures, huh? It's not as if it hadn't popped out before, but it just picked a grand time for it. I didn't feel like throwing a fit on top of the waterfall, so I sighed, made sure everything else was still in place and started hiking back.

It's hard to really describe the week in detail. All attempts to do so feel either too corny or too serious. I'm obviously in the wrong mood for a blog post. But think happy thoughts: I could always drop another theological treatise on all y'all.

So long.

Two for the price of one

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:22:21 GMT

I recently wrote up a paper arguing against the Arminian principles that Christ died for all men, also that God chose us because He foresaw that we would choose Him. (Extra post below the sermon paper)

From Justin, with love:

Man's Inability Overcome by the Mercy of God

Today, we see a large portion of Christianity subscribing to theories like, "God chose us because He knew we would choose Him" - This is deceptively similar to the truth and a much easier truth to believe, yet the bible denies it. Also, "God must have died for all men otherwise He is not fair" - God has no moral obligation to die for all men; He is not an equal opportunity redeemer. The equal opportunity only comes to the extent that all men are offered the choice of choosing or rejecting God. However, all men, even the elect, will ultimately reject Him without God's mercy. When faced with the scriptural proof against these ideas, the most common answers are, "We cannot understand everything about God" and "This is not really an important doctrine to understand because it will not change how we live for Christ". I'll say right up front - Calvinism is a hard doctrine. But it is also biblically clear. It is hard because we've been misled regarding biblical truth and because it doesn't fit with our twisted human ideas of fairness.

Man is totally incapable of doing good.

"...we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, as it is written, 'There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one'."

David says this in Psalm 14 and then Psalm 53. Paul quotes it in Romans 3 and does so in a context that clearly means that man is not able to choose God. Also,

"...by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the law comes the knowledge of sin."

Verse 25 states, 'whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.'

So then Christ's blood is the propitiation or appeasement of sin. Our problem we face then is whether or not Christ's blood simply removed the inability of man to choose Him on his own or whether it actually paid the price of appeasement for a select few.

We know that we are justified by faith and that God's grace allows us to be saved - 'By grace you have been saved through faith...'. So is the grace of God simply the death of His Son and the ability now to choose Him? No. Christ came into the world with a specific purpose of dying for the sins of His own, not to make it possible for those He knew would choose Him to do so.

In Romans 9, Paul states that before their birth, Jacob was chosen while Esau was rejected. So we see that God never intended to save Esau, that Esau was cursed before having drawn breath. Even saying that God knew Esau would reject Him will not do. A clear decision to reject Esau was made before his works and therefore made it impossible for him to do anything about it.

God's sovereign choice is not based on the knowledge of a future believer's decision. For it says, "That God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but of Him who calls." And again, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." God is not unjust. All men were doomed to hell, yet God chose to have mercy on a group to redeem them. This was not based on their decision, yet they are responsible to God for all decisions, despite His will being the factor - 'Why does he still find fault, for who has resisted His will?' (Romans 9).

Acts 13:48 reads, "When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."

Appointed has nothing to do with foreknowledge of a future act.

Firstly, saying that foreknowledge means that God looked down the pages of time and saw our future decision to choose Him is the height of absurdity. A simple wordsearch will find a problem with this view in 1 Peter 1:20: "He" - that is, Christ - "indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world..." What are we to say? Did God look forward through the pages of time, see that Christ would die and simply say, "Oh! I will make Him my redeemer!" Laughable? Yes, but that is what the Arminian view would have us believe - That God simply looked ahead in time and saw that we would accept Him.

To foreknow something cannot mean that because otherwise one would have to add to it. Christ did not 'foreknow that we would accept Him and predestine us'. 'Whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son'. (Romans 8:29). Christ 'knew' us. He didn't 'know something about us', he literally knew and had a relationship with us, before we ever accepted Him. That is the only way this word makes sense logically and not surprisingly, it fits in with the rest of scripture!

Secondly, Christ appointing us is a choice, not a response. They believed because they were appointed, they were not appointed because God foresaw that they would believe.

"He who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To Him the doorkeeper open, and the sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out." John 10:2-3.

"I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep...you do not believe because you are not of My sheep...I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish." John 10: assorted verses.

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you...You did not choose Me but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain..." John 15:13-14,16.

Christ dies for His friends, those who will do what He commands. And again, He chose us, not vice versa. If God had chosen us based on a knowledge of our future choice of Him, how could He say that we did not choose Him?

"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him;"..."It is the spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father." John 6.

This word for draw is used 5 times in the New Testament. James uses it to describe the rich dragging believers to the judgment seats. John uses it to speak of Peter and the other fishermen dragging in their nets. In Acts, Luke writes that the owners of the slave girl whom Paul healed drew (or dragged) them into the marketplace to the rulers. And in Acts 21, the people draw Paul into the temple. Drawn means dragged. God drags us into Heaven - in love, not by an unwilling force that we reject. He gives us a new nature by the washing of regeneration and we are happy to be drawn in. We would reject Him without that regeneration by the Spirit. Find me a Christian unhappy with being drawn into God's love.

'Granted by the Father'...Basically, we would reject God on our own. We're evil, we're depraved, and we’re unable to choose Him. God did not choose us based on foreseen choice, 'No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father'. If God simply knew we would believe, how would that work? God allowed to believe those whom He knew would choose Him? It's a faulty paradigm on the nature of salvation and completely ignores (and tries to circumvent) God's sovereign choice.

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12.

To say that God chose us based on a future desire that we would have for Him is to say we are not truly depraved and we are not truly unable. It denies that God effectually calls us, rather, it suggests that those whom God chose will choose Him on their own. Not so. Even with the redeeming action of the cross, we will not accept God without a new nature, which has been given us by the Spirit.

"He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." Titus 3.

"I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me." Romans 10.

Now, if we are unable to choose God on our own and must be drawn to Him and regenerated to choose Him, why would God make it possible for those He did not choose and had not called or regenerated to accept Him? He had not extended that mercy to them. They would not seek Him without His help.

God died only for the elect. "He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption." Hebrews 9:12.

Is this unjust? When you have an arm like God's and can tell me what it was like at creation from personal experience, you might earn the right to question God's decisions. It is impossible for God to be unjust. Why? Because justice is not something God chose to be, it is simply His nature. God is just. So if God seems unjust by our standards or ideas, our ideas of justice are incorrect. Nothing, including God, can act different from its nature. God cannot sin or do anything contrary to His nature and goodness. However He is also just and by His nature must punish injustice. But He chose to pardon some by the propitiation through His Son.

Paul exhorts us in 1 Corinthians to give glory to God in all that we do. Nothing that we do is to be done that does not include that. God created man to glorify Him. He created the church as a bride for Christ. He redeemed us so that He might show His mercy through us. Why did God not die and redeem the whole world? More importantly, why did God die for any of us? God allowed some to go to hell to show His divine wrath. Does not He have the right to do so as our Lord and sovereign?

"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?" Romans 9.

God's actions are not entirely understood to us. We cannot totally understand God, but at the same time, to reject that which He has revealed, particularly in relation to His saving grace towards us, is an act of arrogance. When we understand God's plan of redemption for us scripturally, we are humbled by the knowledge that, based on nothing we've done - not works, thoughts, desires, actions (rather, despite them, being evil) - we've been elected for salvation. It may be humbling to think that God would allow those who sinned against Him into Heaven, but how much more so that He chose we who, without His interference, would reject Him forever? Yet one will say, "God must offer salvation freely to all men, or He is unjust." In what way? It is because God is just that He punishes sin. And because He chooses to extend mercy to one and not the other, this makes Him unjust?

These scriptural principles we've gone through clearly show God's plan. One might quote from Romans 11:33-34, "Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable His ways! For 'Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has became His counselor?" One must readily admit that all cannot be understood about God. God is not like us. Yet, to say we cannot understand what He has revealed to us is to say He has been unclear. It is a refusal to glorify God in His majesty to say that we 'cannot understand' this truth that has been made so evident.

God created us to glorify Him. He is glorified by our Christ-like actions in His name. He became man to redeem us from sin, even us whom He chose before man was created. He did not foreordain based on our future choice, but on His mercy. God is eternal, yet we see that His choice is not an action of merit or feeling on our side - those come as a result of His grace bestowed upon us. The whole world was sinful, yet God rescued and showed mercy on a small group to be His bride, justified, sanctified and glorified in His image. He did not die so that anyone might accept Him. But He died for anyone, Jew or Gentile who would accept Him. Depraved and unable to on our own, He drew us to Himself. His death on the cross was to show mercy to those few of us whom He had chosen for Himself. The scripture is full of this truth. 'Many are called, yet few are chosen'. 'Whosoever believes in Him will not perish', because God has redeemed and kept him by His power. To Him be glory forever.

End notes: When the Bible says all in relation to Christ dying for all, it does not mean He died for every person to ever live. In the first place, all must be qualified by saying that it does not refer to angels. All is an inclusive term, however, if one does a word study, it quickly becomes obvious that the word must always be understood in it's proper context. When the Bible says, "At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow", it means everyone: "Those in Heaven, those on earth and those under the earth" - even Satan will bow the knee to Christ. All, in that case means everyone. However, "As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive." All men are not made alive in Christ for there is a hell created for Satan and his angels and for those who reject God.

Also, when we read that King Herod was troubled of the news of Jesus' birth, we are told that all Jerusalem is troubled with him. This does not mean that every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem was troubled over it. In the first place, not every man, woman or child even knew of this. And it's unlikely that even those that did know of it were all troubled. Finally, in Matthew 3, we read, "Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to [John the Baptist] and were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins." You may wish to believe that every single person without exception - including the Pharisees and king of Jerusalem - were baptized and confessed their sins to John, however, for my part, I am perfectly happy believing that this simply refers to many, not a complete amount.

We cannot be too quick to change verses from what they say to mean something else, simply because we don’t like them. At the same time, when two things (ie. Christ redeeming the elect vs. dying for everyone in the world) disagree, we must understand that ‘all’ is a reference to a certain large amount, not a total encompassing amount. And in relation to the sovereignty of God, the alternate understanding of all seems best.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Apologies for any unclarity above - I wrote that last night between 1-2 AM. Also, please do not comment asking me, "Did you really mean _____?" Enjoy the Word.

Last Sunday night, I preached from Hebrews 11:6 in evening church. You will forgive my apparent arrogance when I say that it was not my first sermon I ever preached if I finish by noting that it was actually the second. At Carmel earlier that same day, I preached to about a dozen old folks and four Westons. Apologies to the Westons, being forced to hear it twice.

The sermon was called, the Nature of Faith and, because the verse states that we cannot please God without faith, it seemed to me that in order to understand the verse, we must first know what faith is.

The Nature of Faith

Clinking on the blue link above will get you a download of a zip file which has the file on it. It's definitely rough, but I'm working on it. ;)

Note. I do not intend to regularly post sermons or theological treatises on my blog. However, the paper was more in answer to some discussions I've been having recently and felt the need to respond to in a way that I can clearly state biblical truth without being held back. The sermon mp3 was just fun since it was #1 and I thought it would be cool to put it on here. My ego isn't that big yet, that I know of. Honestly, I'm not a good speaker.

What will Heaven be like?

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 03:22:19 GMT

Will there be sagebrush in Heaven? And will there be tumbleweed? And will we be able to watch replays of God incinerating the sacrifice in the first service in Israel that cost Nadab and Abihu their lives? Random. Don't look at me, it's Rick Holland's question, not mine....But now that I think on it, I think I'd like to check out the videos of Mount Carmel, or perhaps Jacob's ladder? ;)

Ok, so this last week was the annual Shepherd's Conference at Grace Church. What? Where? Yes, I know you know I'm a big fanboy of the doctrines of Grace; Seven point Calvinist. The five initial ones, plus I don't approve infant baptism and I affirm a future for Israel as a country. As John MacArthur says, "I'm a biblicist." Grace church. Great name. Anyway, Dad, Kevin Weston, Kyle Stevens and myself got up early and drove down past Hollywood to the three day conference.

Dad. Driving. Hi Dad

Kyle.

Kevin.

I'm a little excited. I didn't get enough sleep and I had too much hot chocolate. That'll do it, y'know.

'nuff said.

I got some pictures of us standing in line for our nifty badges (though no pictures of said badges), sadly, they didn't turn out too good.

I was trying to get a shot of Kyle with a do...uh...not...-ing. ;) He just happened to have a napkin on his plate. :D

Breakfast was actually decent. They had too much fatty stuff, though, like donut things. In my defense I only had one. Though I was nearly tempted beyond what I was able. Man, those things almost taste too sugary.

Whoever took this picture on the Shepherd's Conference site must've taken it right when they opened up or maybe during the middle of a session. Why? Every other time that it was open one could barely move around in it. Full. Plus, they had a free gift for all in attendance of a $50 gift card for the bookstore, so...

With my fifty bucks I got a book called "Preaching the Cross" by Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Al Mohler, C.J. Mahaney, John MacArthur, John Piper, R.C. Sproul. For those who haven't heard of a few of those guys, Dever is pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist church in DC (incredible speaker. If you get the chance, he has a ton of sermons online free to download. I'd link to it but I don't have the time just now and it's really pretty easy to find); Mohler is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (appointed president at the young age of 33, he turned the place around from an exceedingly liberal college to a more Bible based seminary); Mahaney is from Josh Harris' church, former senior pastor there before turning the reins over to Harris; Ligon Duncan...I'm less familiar with. Those four were really close friends and wanted to do a conference called Together For the Gospel and they invited the other three (who you should be familiar with) to join in. The book in question has one chapter from each which was essentially the sermon they preached at that first conference. Great stuff.

I also picked up "The Forgotten Spurgeon" by Iain Murray, a book my Dad informed me caused him to move from four point Calvinism to five point Calvinism. Honestly, I don't see where four point...ah, forget it. But the more I study...just saying. I don't get them.

I also picked up a little book by John MacArthur called "Why Believe the Bible?" Can't go wrong there. :D I also got about a dozen free books that they give out every year (just to clarify, it is different books every year. I'm just saying that they give out a dozen(ish) books every year, not the same twelve books every year) which I will not list off here.

...Okay, fine, I know that's not fifty bucks. So I picked up a NASB MacArthur Study Bible. Man, I wasn't going to. I had thought about getting it before I went, but it was twenty five bucks and I was hesitant to spend that much. I mean, I knew I'd use it, but I already had a NKJV MacArthur Study Bible with similar notes and a normal NASB. Why get this one? Why? Uh...well, the next day they dropped it to 15 bucks. For a book that sells new for like $50 normally...how could I resist? Besides most of the rest of the books I was thinking about were already in my Dad's library. Wish I could've found that two volume autobiography of Spurgeon by Banner of Truth...no luck, though. Those sold quick, plus they were pricey and my Dad already did have them.

Day 1: General Session: John MacArthur; Message: Why Every Calvinist Should Affirm a Biblical Ecclesiology - Or, what's wrong with the church-growth movement/'Church of the Tares'. Great title, church of the tares. Honestly, though, that's what it is. Trying to build a church around unbelievers by 'finding-the-key-to-their-heart' simply for the purpose of having a large congregation is absurd.

There he is. He may well be the top living expositer of the Bible. He can preach, too. Let me tell you. Wow. Now, I'll admit I don't agree with him 100%, but I can guarantee that even on the stuff I disagree with him on, he's studied it way more than me. This guy studies his Bible. If you've never heard him speak, you've done yourself an injustice.

After MacArthur, we went down to the basement to listen to Rick Holland. That was one of the seminar sessions. There's about 8 general sessions that everyone goes to and four seminar sessions. Actually there's probably twenty-something seminar sessions, however you can only go to four. They have about 6 options for each timeslot and we opted for Rick Holland. I'd heard him speak on mp3's from the archives of Shepherd's conferences past, and it was well worth it to hear him live. He was speaking the first part of a series they had going on (by four different speakers) on preaching. Holland's was the first one and dealt with preparing yourself before the sermon. He also had a great line, dealing with interpretation, "It (the passage) never means what it never meant", though I think he was quoting someone else who's name escapes me.

Tom Pennington, former assistant to MacArthur, now serving in Dallas(?). He was speaking on Psalm 1 and the way of righteous vs. the path of the ungodly (which is like chaff which the wind drives away). Unfortunately, this one I was having trouble concentrating on because of my lack of sleep the night before. I later fixed the problem with caffeine via pepsi cans (free, I spent no money at the conference). My notes suffered as a result also.

After this we went to the hotel and checked in, hung out, chatted about what we'd learned, ate pizza and hung out...again. Then we headed back for the evening session, or, in my Dad's case, by way of the book store.

Christopher Parkening! Good stuff.

MacArthur spoke(after some special music, some good, some...well, as my Dad always says (I think), "It's not what I would've chosen.") I'm not going to get into the whole praise and worship music debate. Personally, give me the old hymns. But without arguing either way, I have one question: Why, when the drum with the backbeat comes in do several dozen hands suddenly find their way into the air? Not to dwell on the subject of hand raising, I don't have anything in particular for or against it, but I find it interesting, to say the least, that those hands do not go up during hymns, rather, during praise songs with a drum and only when said drum has started doing it's thing in a big way (which it does tend to do, doesn't it?). Maybe I'm being legalistic. On the other hand, to quote Rick Holland, "Most people who say something is legalistic really mean that it's convicting to them." To close positively, hearing three thousand pastors singing hymns with a small orchestra early in the morning of the first day was an absolutely wonderful way to start the week.

MacArthur spoke (you knew I'd get here eventually) on the story of the widow's two mites in Luke. MacArthur noted that given the context of the passage (blasting the lawyers and pharisees), and given that Jesus did not praise the widow for her action of giving all she had (or condemn the rich for giving less), it's entirely possible (if not likely) that Jesus was concerned about the widow's action being foolish given that she may have believed it was giving her some reward in heaven. He compared it to modern day older women giving their money to faith healers and prosperity preachers on the promise of some return or favor of God. Not sure I completely agree, but he had an excellent point on the context and what Jesus actually said about the widow.

That night, we went back to the hotel and Kevin, Kyle and I went down the gym and worked out. Or rather, they worked out while I watched...jk. I actually did do a little bit.

Next morning....

There's me...coming out of the shower. Yeah... I look it.

Rick Holland spoke on Nadab and Abihu and their error in presenting strange fire before the Lord. Now, he's the associate pastor at Grace church...but don't let that give you the idea that he's in any way unqualified for general sessions. He was a great speaker with a great message. It dealt with the idea that (particularly at times of new instructions) God did not accept disobedience or indifference to his specific instructions. We must be careful to do only what God instructs us, not deviating to what we consider is best.

MacArthur had a Q&A session after this where he answered questions ranging from his pen collection (he has no computer and writes all his notes by hand) to the token question on the doctrines of grace (which, for some reason, I can't remember right now). After he finished, another guy got up to give a quick note on his website where he helped people with their tax info which, I don't remember why in particular it was important, but anyway...about 10-20% of the crowd walked out while he was talking. This is a pastors conference, but they actually all left while he was still speaking (not at the same time, more gradual). As he finished, one of the assistants there went up to close out in prayer and remarked that he'd better hurry before everyone left.

I can't blame them too much, I s'pose, with In'N'Out Burger serving free lunches to one and to all. And man, was that line long. Plus they were giving out the free bag of books in the parking lot (which I talked about earlier). Honestly though, leaving early to get in line for In'N'Out?

Thursday afternoon, we had two seminar sessions. First was by Bill Barrick (part two of the preaching series) in which he explained how to perform a proper exegesis of a passage. It was mostly info I'd heard before, but we got a pre-typed set of notes on the subject with good steps for studying the Word. That seminar was in the Worship Center where all the general sessions took place and we loved hanging out in there so much that we stuck around (skipping part three of the series) to listen to Mark Tatlock speaking on the War of the Worldviews today. Biblical vs. Unbiblical, Heavenly vs. Earthly, etc. It was pretty good. He dealt with the problems of having a secular rather than a biblical worldview and the modern idolotry which even christians fall to.

In the evening, after more music, we got to hear Al Mohler. Brilliant man. Unfortunately, I wasn't in a note-taking mood so I don't remember quite as well about it, but he was dealing with why preaching expositionally is important and biblical. He had a great example about a fellow who was taking a shower and read the instructions on the shampoo, "Rinse, lather, repeat." "He's still repeating it," Mohler remarked. There's a blonde joke there somewhere. He related that to reading and studying the Word of God and speaking on it.

Kyle has already spoken about Steven Lawson on his blog post, but I have to reiterate it again. He looks so calm when he goes up, but this guy is a literal volcano. He may look dormant, but put him in a pulpit and he just erupts. It doesn't hurt that he had a great passage to speak on, "The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword" (paraphrase).

My Dad had warned us that he was often the best speaker of the week, but we didn't believe it till we saw it. Incidentally, we all agreed. How does a guy like this get kicked out of his church? Preaching the Bible too strongly. Far too many people don't want to be convicted in church. Sad.

This post is getting lengthy...but as Henry VIII said to his fourth wife, "Don't worry, I won't be keeping you long." We're nearly done, anyhow.

That afternoon, we heard Alex Montoya (who, incidentally, went to Talbot seminary at the same time as my Dad) finish up the fourth in the series on "The Powerful Pulpit". He spoke about how to preach the powerful sermon. Hilarious guy with a lot of good points on what not to do when you preach. Getting bored? Well, as Montoya said, "Where are you going? Sit down, I'm not through yet!" Given that his message was right before lunch, he was taking no chances that his audience would leave early to get in line.

We had hotdogs for lunch. We (read: me) also had more pepsi to keep my eyes open. Let's just say that hotel rooms aren't ideal for sleep. "There's no place like home", but we'll be there soon.

Phil Johnson, director of Grace to You and editor of many of John MacArthur's books. He's also a member of the "Pyromaniacs" webblog and runs the website, "spurgeon.org". Ironically, he even looks a bit like Spurgeon and I found myself wondering during the sermon what Charles Spurgeon's voice sounded like.

He spoke on Acts 17 and how post-modernists use it erroneously to prove their faulty arguments. Acts 17 is Paul speaking to the Areopagus on Mars Hill in Athens. Post-modernism is a denial of truth. Truth is whatever you think it is and it's a rather relative subject. It essentially is a denial of absolutes and has a lot to do with contextualization in the church. Their argument was that Paul goes to Athens, looks around first to see what they believe and then engages in a discussion on their philosophical level in order to reach them. Johnson replies to this by noting that Paul is not in Athens on a mission trip, rather, he's meeting Silas and Timothy after being chased out of Thessalonica. He notes with disgust their idols and, rather than philosophically discussing it with them, he challenges their beliefs and preaches many ideas that are repugnant to them. Far from being respected for his 'respectful tolerance' of their beliefs, many of the Greeks mock Paul after his address. Paul is not trying to act like them to reach them in a type of chameleonesque evangelical tactic, rather, he preaches the truth the way it is and allows God, in His sovereignty to work through it.

After this, we were off until evening.

Kevin and Kyle (waiting in line?...I don't remember).

Coming back from the car, I caught this shot of them almost by accident. It was just there, so I grabbed it before it ceased to be...Apologies for the blurriness in all my shots and special thanks to the Shepherd's Conference for posting a lot of these pictures on their website.

Orchestra, choir (more members in the choir than there likely is in a lot of these pastors' churches; roughly the same size as ours, 90ish) and 3000 pastors (give or take) singing hymns and giving glory to God. Does it get any better than this? We generally sat at about left center field (assuming the choir loft is the batter) in the second to the fifth row usually. Took a lot of early line waiting to get that kind of seats for four guys, but it was worth it.

John MacArthur - preaching on the lordship of Christ and our position as His slaves. A copy of this has got to be around out there and I could not summarize it and do it justice in this already full blog post. This is a sermon which I would class in the "must hear" category. He is dead on in everything he says and it gives one a clear understanding of one's place in God's universe.

Who knew three days could be so impactful? When I was very young, I found 30 minute sermons incredibly long. While listening to these men speak, in most cases, they could have kept going forever without complaint. My only regret was not seeing Dever or Sproul there, but, as Kyle noted, who would I have replaced to fit them in? Tough.

Well, I better stop now. I've spent more time than I have available on this post, frankly. Now the question comes what to do next? Priorities include studying for a test this weekend that I'm nearly ready for, writing a paper on Job for school, reading an autobiography on Spurgeon or Preaching the Cross (mentioned above; these two are more desires rather than priorities, strictly speaking), preparing the month's study info on Ephesians for April and working on a sermon on Hebrews 11:6 (Without faith it is impossible to please God)...Okay...well, there's got to be some logical outlet for this information overload I've just gotten. Seriously, though, with a list of goals like that, deciding the priorities is a job anyone should be so blessed with.

Thanks for reading. :)

"Hey Cisco!" "Hey...Trixie?"

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:33:09 GMT

...It could've been worse. Drew was riding Rolly.

Ok, fine. Riding a horse named Trixie is embarrassing. But I'm proud of that embarrassment.

Ignore all words above this point.

Well, Kyle, Drew and I went horseback riding today...same place we always do. And we got pictures, just like we always do. And I'm going to write a blog post about it, just like I always do.

There's me and Trixie....Trixie and I. (I and Trixie?)

That's my new hat, which was referenced in my last post.

You can't see the heart brand in this one, can you? <groans> That is so wrong.

Happy Birthday, Kyle. (February 23 - He's 22! Go K!)

I don't know how Drew always manages to look so much cooler than me....Rolly doesn't have a heart brand either. How unfair.

The birthday boy again. Naturally I had to post a picture with me in the background.

It was a fun day. We had a good drive up. The 40% chance of rain didn't happen. Cisco (K's horse) and Trixie were both fairly similar, though, Kyle says Cisco had a 'temperament problem'. He kept pawing his foot on the ground when he got irritated. The horses did a pretty good job of obeying, though. We didn't have any problems moving them around. Sometimes they have an annoying habit of just sitting there and you have to fight them for five minutes to get them going. Drew had the hardest time with Rolly. Rolly also didn't like passing Cisco for some reason or other.

So long.

Time flies when you're having fun

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:38:11 GMT

Or does it? I can't seem to find who originated that quote, but either way, I'm thinking they're confusing the issue. If you were to ask me, which you probably wouldn't want to, I would say that there's a simpler way to say it. For instance, "Time flies when you don't look at your watch as much" or "Time flies when you don't spend every second checking your watching to see if the day is almost over". Okay, so it isn't as poetical. Who cares? I never claimed to be poetical.

Anyhow, the day of work is over and I'm home now. Saturday, I came home from work with a nasty cold that turned into a 12 hour-or-less flu...or something like that. Considering the considerably worse versions going around, I consider myself fortunate. But anyhow, that didn't stop the cold and, on Sunday, I spent the day on my back, just hanging out. How one hangs while on his back I'll leave to you to unravel. So today, I spent my workday fighting off the mother of all coughs. Whenever I accidentally managed to cough at an inappropriate time (Read: When someone who might object to a common cold mail carrier), if they made a comment on it, I usually managed to disarm it with some cute comeback. I'd give an example, but they rarely sound right in a text format.

Today I was noting how much people fail to listen. Two in a row, as a matter of fact. First a lady brings up a package, I weighed it, told her the prices and times. She says the cheaper price and then as I'm getting ready to stamp it, she asks if it's 1-2 days. I replied that no, that was the more expensive one (1-3 days, actually). Then the next guy does the exact same thing. I can only surmise that she was considering what she was going to tell Agnes about that new purse she'd seen in Sears and he was kicking himself for not betting on the underdog Giants in the superbowl.

Football. I'm not a huge football fan, frankly. But being stuck home on Sunday from church, there weren't too many options besides bed and reading, both of which get old quickly. So I watched a bit of the New York Rangers/Montreal Canadians game (hockey, for you non-huge hockey fans) and later the superbowl game. The last 5 minutes of the football one was pretty sweet, though. Especially since I was rooting for the Giants. I got a thing for underdogs, generally speaking. That last drive was something else. Ironically, Aaron told me he always roots against New York teams. I am not so bigoted. I only root against teams for personal reasons. The New York Yankees, for instance....

One nice thing about this week was that on Friday, Aaron, Kyle, Drew and I went snowboarding. It was definitely fun, though I didn't see Aaron for most of the day. There weren't too many pictures taken, so I won't bother posting any. Besides, I'm not much of a snowboarder. I like to stick with what I know I can do. If I try doing anything more advanced on the board, I will fall down more. If I fall down more, I will have to stand up again. This falling and standing up again becomes tiresome and wearying. I, therefore, try to avoid it whenever possible.

So earlier today, a man and woman walk in together, both holding cups from Starbucks. I am a self-proclaimed Starbucks-disliker. I don't like coffee (hot chocolate guy, here) and I love to laugh at how far coffee has come. Seems like coffee used to be something guys would drink in cold weather to keep warm, but now it's seemed to have become sort of a cultural status type thing. Think I'm kidding? The guy's cup was some sort of red slurpee/smoothie/shake thingie. The woman had a hot drink of something or other. I find it hilarious. Note to any and all Starbucks readers who read my blog: Very little offense is intended and my remarks are only meant to kid, not offend. All comments are the personal opinions of the people giving them and do not represent the official position of this blog.

I guess that's all for today. Obviously I had nothing much to say, but I felt like spreading it around anyway. Just so you don't feel like you wasted your time, am I the only one who notices every time someone doesn't correctly use the contraction "you're"? (ie. "Your welcome"). I dunno why, but that's always gotten on my nerves, right up there with internet talk like 'r u ok?' and 'u 2'. Fortunately, the latter is more in common with text messaging on phones, which I rarely do, and a few chat users that I don't chat with. My, wasn't this an optimistic post.

...

I had some yummy chicken soup for supper! And pumpkin bars. Bet you wish you had some, too. ;)

Frosty is simply not all there.

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:45:11 GMT

National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:03:43 GMT

OK, just for the record, you can all skip this post, I'm just writing it out to articulate my displeasure with something or other. In this case, the something or other is National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, (which, ironically, someone mistakenly referred to as 'Secret in the Book' the other day!) On the other hand, what in the world am I doing posting thoughts about this on a public blog that the whole world can read (assuming they're so full of time to grace my rent-a-bin corner of the web). Fine, you got me. Please read it. Please, pretty please and pass the Apple-Grape Martinelli's! ...I will now commence the serious part of my revi...thoughts.

OK, so I liked the first movie. I did, so sue me. So did a lot of people. It played fast and loose with facts but it's not the real world anyway, it just looks like it. This movie was as preposterous (love that word) as the first one, and nearly as fun. However, the writing really has deteriorated, or maybe I'm just biased since I predicted several weeks ago that the movie would be really lame. (I also, btw, predicted the demise of that horrid adaptation of Philip Pullman's disgusting trilogy, The Golden Compass. Last I checked, Rotten Tomatoes had it at 43% from compiled critic reviews and the public disliked it just as much. So much for any sequels) But I also predicted that this movie would make a lot of money and, with the jury still out, I'm sticking with my story.

Am I the only one who thinks Nicholas Cage looks really old and out of shape? Am I the only one who thought way too much of the dialogue felt cheap as though it were written by a junior high kid? Am I the only one who wondered why in the world they forgot about the cool Sean Bean and used Ed Harris as an incredibly boring villain? I mean, it loses at least half a star on my rating just for that.

Wow, three paragraphs and not a word on the movie plot? Hey, I predicted the movie would do well in the box office, remember? If you want to know what the plot is, go see it yourself. :P

And just for the record, I hate sequel teases (Page 47, anyone? If you've seen it, this will be clear. If you haven't seen it, it will not).

Lastly, if anyone else has seen it can you tell me: Are the police really that incompetent in England? Really, now.

Prince Caspian trailer was great and the Goofy short before the movie was worth the money that I still owe Aaron on the price of admission.

OK, so that was a lame blog post. So I'll add a post-it note to the bottom. Critics.

Nice wedding at church last week. Aimee Weston and Jeremy Brownell. More about that on Kevin's blog. There's a link on the side. Lot of cleaning stuff, though Kyle gets credit for the lion's share.

Busiest week at the post office and little to show for it. Oddly, it was rather slow in comparison to recent years. Monday, the busiest mailing day of the year was full as expected. Line from morning to dusk. Tuesday and Wednesday, not so much.

It's really sad when you feel more inclined to ramble about movies you thought were average than on ones you really liked. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), for instance (my personal all time favorite). One day I must post a review of that.

Final note on an extended post, my personal research shows that better than 4/5 people (at my job anyway) say 'Merry Christmas' as opposed to 'Happy Holidays'.

Merry Christmas to all and may God bless you this December.

Perchance to Dream

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:43:10 GMT

A few nights back, yours truly had fallen asleep. It's not so much that I ordinarily just lay in my bed awake, but in this case my brain started considering an odd idea.

So, here I am, in bed. I would suspect it was 4 AM...ish. There were no dreams...I don't think, but just blankness at this exact moment. It was here, at this exact moment that I thought to myself,

"Justin, keep those eyes closed or it will take you another hour to fall asleep again tonight." I'm one of those poor individuals who takes an hour or so to fall asleep. Once I am off in wonderland, I'm officially down for the count. So naturally, it seemed good to me to keep my eyes closed.

I had just decided this when I suddenly wondered, 'But am I really asleep, or merely awake with my eyes shut?' It was here I started trying to consider whether or not it would be possible to consider something like this while sleeping, but, as everyone knows, when one is asleep, or even half asleep, the brain doesn't focus quite as well as it should.

At that point, I promptly...but that's another story.

Just kidding. I actually don't remember what I thought next. My best guess is that I drifted off into sleep, or deeper sleep or...uh...a big, bad dream came along and kicked my complicated discussion off of it's soapbox.

No, I did not make that up. At least, not most of it.

OK, well, if you read that much, I'd hate to make you think you wasted your valuable time on nonsense like that.

Lately, I've been trying to finish editing my paper on the life of Joseph, wade through Jonathan Edwards', "Freedom of the Will", reread Bunyan's, "The Holy War," and listen to an audio book about "The Hobbit", by J.R.R. Tolkien.

While doing this, I have discovered that Edwards is very complicated and that his work should not be read late at night if your brain is in any way tired, because it's impossible to understand in that case. It's difficult in any case, but more so at night.

"The Holy War", is fascinating and eye-opening, though I have read it before (so I suppose I should have said 'eye-reopening'). The Lord granted John Bunyan a lot of insight into this and it's an interesting way to look at Satan's attempt to conquer the soul of man.

In the adventure of the Hobbit, I realized all at once that I'd empathized greatly with the hero, Bilbo Baggins. That's not to say that I feel I'm good at getting my bigger and stronger friends out of scrapes by my great intellect and luck, rather, that I can understand how his head works. At the start of the adventure, he enjoys sitting at home and reading, etc. There's a latent adventuring side of Mr. Baggins, however, which occasionally rears it's head. But throughout all that he goes through, the cold nights, the lack of food, does not drive him harder to finish his quest, rather, it makes him wish all the more that he had stayed at home and never started the journey.

Now, I've never been in situations like him, but when I'm out with the guys doing stuff, I'm the sort who wonders what on earth he's doing out here. Don't get me wrong, I like spending time out there, but there's always that part of me that thinks, "Justin, instead of this cold night on the ground, you could have been in your soft, warm bed right now."

At any rate, what I've done could hardly be construed as roughing it by anyone's vocabulary, so I hardly mind a few discomforts. It simply makes one feel rather adventurous.

Tomorrow, I've got a long day at work. Mondays at the post office in December are always busy. This Monday and a week from tomorrow will likely give me a line from when I open to when I close. Isn't too bad, though, just long hours on my feet. If that's the worst it is, I will be back tomorrow in more or less good spirits while sporting a slightly sore back. Till later, toodles!