The Sound Word

A friend of mine and fellow pastor has had a very rough year. His wife has had health issues most of her life, and then last year was diagnosed with cancer. Treatments went well, and then infections set in after surgery.  He was accused of untrue things by some of his church board members and went through a church split. He has had health problems of his own, and his wife had been hospitalized and required surgery for health complications in addition to her cancer. Then, just last week, his mother was diognosed with inoperable and terminal cancer as well.  How is it that these things happen? It seems that Christians are constantly answering or seeking to answer the seemingly eternal question of, "why do bad things happen to good people".  While this can be a broad discussion of it's own, I want us to consider a narrow target thought on this issue. In a recent discussion about these circumstances, I wrote a letter to a fellow pastor seeking some advise. When as...

The post shared below was written by Albert Mohler who runs an absolutely excellent blog at www.albermohler.com . It is honest, distinct, intellectual and solid Christian theology applied to our Christian world view. I have written similar posts in the past, but could not have written this better myself.  ----------------------------------------------------------------- Predictably, Mormonism is in the news again. The presence of two members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints among contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination ensured that it was only a matter of time before Evangelicals, along with other Americans, began to talk openly about what this means for the nation, the church, and the stewardship of political responsibility in the voting booth. There are numerous ways to frame these questions wrongly. Our responsibility as evangelical Christians is to think seriously and biblically about these issues. The first temptation is to reduce a...

My heart is one of seeing a radical devotion to Christ among Christians today. Unfortunately, there is a movement currently among the American Christian church where the main focus seems to be on Christian freedom, rather than a Christian lifestyle of holiness and reverence to Jesus.  I have stated before, both here in the blogosphere and in sermons that there is a very real danger in this current wave of teaching coming from youth oriented churches. Anytime we emphasize personal freedoms over responsibility to others (do not stumble a brother), and reverence to  Jesus (be holy for I am Holy), we are on the wrong and very dangerous path. Pastor John MacArthur Despite the fact that I feel as though the bible does not support the Reformed Theology preached by most in the "reformed churches" and pastors of today, specifically the doctrine of predestination as they teach it, I find myself strangely drawn to the teachings of one such man; John MacArthur.  What...

Ephesians 4:11-16 11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love . Hopefully, today’s devotional will truly challenge you. These words are not any easier to right then I know they...

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Any relationship of any type at all is of no value whatsoever if it in fact it is not based on truth. Think about this for just a second. You ask someone, “will you feed my dog for me while I’m on vacation?” and they say yes. But they never feed your dog and your dog dies. Someone who is color blind asks you, “is that red or green? You respond, “it is red”, when you know it is green. Think of the implications at Stop Light intersections alone.  A judge asks a witness in a capital murder case, “is this the man you saw shooting the victim?” and you lie. Or this: “Do you love me?”, and you answer (or are answered…) untruthfully. Without truth, EVERYTHING fails. Every legal, moral and ethical standard is gone. Correction and punishment have no value, and even become unreasonable brutality. Every social norm, every acceptable moral standard – gone. Consider the though...

Matthew 7:5     "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. "  As we look at this verse, we always seem to look at it as one man looking at another man, And why not, it is the proper context of course. Jesus at this moment speaking to the masses, and talking about improper judging of another. So let's address the judging issue first, as we all know this is going to come up in conversation. The word used here In the verses prior), most properly translated "do not judge" is a word that means not to judge right from wrong. In the application of today's post-modern view of mankind, this is most important. Jesus is saying fairly clearly that there is no such thing as 'situational ethics', where something is right (or wrong) for you, but not for me or someone else. He is saying that there is one right, and one right only. This is upheld all throughout scripture i...