A New Home for the Kolstad Family

On August 1st, we will own our 2nd home (we sold our first home a little over a year ago). This "new" home was built in 1939 but has been kept up very well by the current homeowners of 31 years. We hope our out of town guests will drop by to see it very soon! We're certain our new house will be great for fellowship, rest, and hospitality. We praise the Lord for His many blessings!

A Favorite New Hymn

How Sweet and Awful Is the Place

These lyrics were written by the great hymn-writer, Isaac Watts.


How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast
Each of us cry with thankful tongues,
"Lord, why was I a guest?"

"Why was I made to hear thy voice
and enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice
And rather starve than come?"

'Twas the same love that spread the feast
that sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste
and perished in our sin

Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send thy victorious Word abroad
and bring the strangers home.

We long to see Thy churches full,
that all the chosen race
may with one voice and heart and soul
sing Thy redeeming grace.

Kevin DeYoung on being relevant

"Whatever lasting impact John Calvin has had on the church of Jesus Christ, and on the whole world for that matter, is owing to his commitment to understanding and explaining the word of God. From sermons to lectures to letters to tracts to treatises to confessions to catechisms to books, his adult life was consumed with one thing: the word of God–the word as a summons to obedience, the word as a blueprint for reform, the word as the foundation for all truth.Calvin’s confidence was not in the world of technology and progress. He would have scoffed at Bultmann’s now laughable line from several generations ago that “it is impossible to use electric light and the wireless [radio] and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits.”Calvin’s confidence was not in man’s potential or the triumph of the human spirit.

He would have equally scoffed and been frankly embarrassed by the well-known Reformed Church pastor, Robert Schuller who argued that self-esteem was the New Reformation and that “Christians should hold to these truths: I affirm that I will never be defeated, because I will never quit...I affirm that if I’m totally dedicated I’ll eventually win.”Calvin’s confidence was in the Word of God, and that’s why his theology and vision of the world continues to capture the minds and hearts of people in the 21st century. That’s why five hundred years later we remember his birth. That’s why Calvin the preacher and expositor has millions more spiritual children than Erasmus the scholar and hermeneutical skeptic. Strive for relevance in your day, and you’ll may make a difference for a few years. Anchor yourself in what is eternal and you may influence the world for another five centuries.

I’m all for young people dreaming big dreams. Go out and change the world. Make a difference. Discover a cure for cancer. Write a best-selling novel. Become president. But remember, your “glory” (and mine) will not last. Your great accomplishments will fall away–either in your lifetime, or in a generation, or at the end of all things.No one will care about your GPA and SAT scores in ten years. If you win a state championship, you’ll be forgotten the next year you don’t. Your beauty will get wrinkles and trim figure plump. Write a great book and it will gather dust in a library some day. Have a big famous church, it won’t last forever. Be an important person in your field, you still be unknown to over 6 billion people in the world. Build an amazing house, it will crumble some day, if it doesn’t go into foreclosure first. All of our achievements and successes are destined to be like dead grass and faded flowers.But...the word of our God stands forever. The word about Babylon in Isaiah 40 stood firm. and so will his word in our generation. All God’s declarations about himself and his people are true. All his promises will come to pass. Our only confidence is in the word of God. John Calvin was a man, an imperfect, sinful man, but a man that God used enormously because he put his confidence in the word of God.

We do the memory of Calvin no disservice to admit that he had weaknesses. He was physically frail and could be emotionally volatile. No one lamented his own weaknesses–physical and spiritual–more than himself. And no one understand general human weakness better than Calvin. The universe of Calvin’s thought was one where man was small and God was very big. He had no problem being thought of as dust, or a worm, or grass, because he knew that’s what he was compared to the infinite glory, splendor, and holiness of a sovereign God.

In a culture like ours where everyone has their thing, their schtick, it’s worth remembering that Calvin’s thing was always the word of God and the glorious God he met there.God’s promises are sure and his declarations are always right. Opinion polls will come and go. Focus groups can say what they want. Pundits will wax eloquent on everything under the sun. God’s word will still be true. The word is our compass pointing us in the right direction. It’s the North Star, fixed and firm. We may wander and waver, but the word will remain. It’s like a stately evergreen in a field of grass and tulips. The grass will get green. The tulips will have their day. But the evergreen alone will survive the winter. It will not be moved. Humans are weak, failing, and temporal. The word is strong, abiding, eternal.

This is one of the great paradoxes of life. We all want significance. We all want affirmation. We all want to leave a legacy. Some seek significance in work, some in performance, others in stuff, a lot of people in family. Yet, we all have a God-given sense that for all our bluster and bravado we are still grass. But we all want to bloom. So we pour our lives into degrees, and professional advancement, into ministry, and business, and houses, and kids. All the while, knowing deep down that life is fleeting and passing us by and we desperately need to take hold of something that is eternal.

This is the paradox of permanence. The only way our lives will ever touch that which is eternal is to admit that our lives are hopelessly temporal. John Oswalt in his commentary on Isaiah remarked, “If I insist I am permanent, then I become nothing; if I admit that God alone is permanent, then he breathes his permanence on me.” You want a legacy? You want to transcend your own meager existence? Let go of your vain supposed success and grab hold of the word of our God.

“This is the one I esteem,” says the Lord, “he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66:2).The truly significant people in this world know that God is everything and they’re nothing. Fads and fashions will rise and fall, but the word will keep on accomplishing its purposes. It will outlast us all. So let our reading, memorizing, catechizing, and preaching be saturated with the word. Let our songs, ministries and mission submit to the word. May all of our theological questions, relationship questions, family questions look to the word. May every new doctrine, new movement, new church, and new book be tested against the word. May all our living and dying be undertaken with the firm conviction that God is true though everyone were a liar (Rom. 3:4). God's word is smarter, clearer, truer, and speaks to people's deepest needs more than you and I ever could. So try thinking a few less original thoughts and people just might find you relevant in 500 years. “A voice say, Cry out. And I said, What shall I cry? All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isa. 40:6-8)."

Posted by Kevin DeYoung
http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/

1 Year and Counting

July 1st marks the 1 year anniversary of our time here in Freeport, Illinois. I have been a vocational pastor for just over 4 years now and a senior teaching pastor for a year. To serve Christ's precious church as an undershepherd is a tremendous delight and a great privilege indeed (1 Peter 5, Hebrews 13:17).

I am blessed to have a fine group of fellow leaders working alongside me each and every week (our deacons, trustees, and church intern). Their humility is a wonderful model for our entire congregation (myself included). I am also blessed to have a like minded associate-pastor who is willing to get his hands dirty in the ministry "foxholes". Steve loves Jesus, the Word of God, and people.

Our congregation has put the entire focus of our church back on the Lord Jesus Christ and that has made all the difference. Biblical unity is grounded in the truth. Our fellowship in Christ is sweet and the common gospel confession we share is the bond that knits our heart's together.

The Word of God is again central in our morning and evening worship services. We have enjoyed 37 expositions from the book of Revelation. We are currently in chapter 5 and have been blessed to study every single verse (2 Timothy 3:15-17). Chapter 1 presents a vision of the glorified Christ in all of His post-resurrection glory. Chapters 2 & 3 are Jesus' letters to 7 churches and the type of congregations/people that exist in every century of church history. Chapters 4 & 5 illustrate heaven's worship of God, the Sovereign Creator and Jesus, our blessed Redeemer. We also have enjoyed an O.T. survey through much of the Older Testament, a series on a Biblical Theology of Worship, and a series of topical expositions on Biblical Preaching.

For those of you who continue to pray for us, thank you so very much! We know God continues to work through prayer and it is our delight to testify this day to His unchanging faithfulness.

My favorite verse in Scripture remains the same though its meaning grows sweeter every sing day. Joshua 1:9, Have i not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you may go.

Do you love the local church?

Here is a great quote from a new book linked below:

Perhaps Christians are leaving the church because it isn't tolerant and open-minded. But perhaps the church-leavers have their own intolerance too--intolerant of tradition, intolerant of authority, intolerant of imperfection except their own. Are you open-minded enough to give the church a chance--a chance for the church to be the church, not a coffee shop, not a mall, not a variety show, not Chuck E. Cheese, not a U2 concert, not a nature walk, but a wonderfully ordinary, blood-bought, Spirit-driven church with pastors, sermons, budgets, hymns, bad carpet and worse coffee?

The book Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion is now available.

Evolution is Not Morally Neutral

One of the main reasons why the Holy Angels and the Holy Saints honor Holy, Holy, Holy God in heaven is because of His work of creation (see Revelation 4). The theory of evalution is not spiritually neutral! It is a slap in the face of the Omnipotent Creator. It questions the veracity of one of God’s greatest miracles. It detracts from God’s transcendent glory! So I repeat one more time, evolution is not morally neutral!

Revelation 4:9-11 And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, "Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created."

Hero Worship and Holy Emulation

Hero Worship and Holy Emulation
By John Piper

I have unanswered questions about how to navigate the new world of media-driven celebrity attention to pastors. As Advance09 started in Durham, North Carolina, the News & Observer ran the headline “Celebrity Pastors Visit for Conference.” One might wish they had printed: “Imperfect, Passionate Pastors Come to Serve.” But that’s not news.

When I say media-driven attention, I am not mainly thinking about radio, TV, and newspapers. They are almost irrelevant. I mean Internet media. Most churches have websites. Sermons and articles and books are available. Often there is audio and video. Recently, for example, John MacArthur and Alistair Begg joined many others, including Desiring God, in making their online audio sermons free.

What happens then is that anywhere in the world people can read, watch, or listen. If they are helped, they can click in order to share it immediately with others anywhere in the world, who in turn share it again. This is what is meant by viral spreading.

Tens of thousands of linkings may take place almost instantly—through blogs, Twitter, texting, Facebook, and a dozen other sharing tools. This means that what a pastor does or says may be known in hours by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. This contributes to media-driven celebrity status.

Then stir into the mix that some pastors write books. There is a mystique about authors. “Author” connotes authority, or creativity, or wisdom. Authors are generally thought to be interesting people. I think very often these conceptions are not true. But for some, the fact that an author writes is more significant than what he writes.

What is the meaning of the attention given to well-known pastors? What does the desire for autographs and photographs mean? The negative meaning would be something akin to name-dropping. Our egos are massaged if we can say we know someone famous. You see this on blogs with words like “my friend Barack” and the like. And I presume that, for some, an autograph or a photo has the same ego-boost.

However, I don’t assume the worst of people. There are other possible motives. We will see this below. But it is good to emphasize that all of this is more dangerous to our souls than bullets and bombs. Pride is more fatal than death.

When I say “our souls” I mean all of us—the signature-seeker, the signer, and the cynic who condemns it all (on his very public blog). There is no escaping this new world. The question is, How do we navigate it for the glory of Christ, the crucifixion of self, the spread of truth, the deepening of faith, and the empowering of sacrificial love?

Here is one small contribution. In spite of all the legitimate warnings against hero worship, I want to risk waving a flag for holy emulation—which includes realistic admiration. Hero worship means admiring someone for unholy reasons and seeing all he does as admirable (whether it’s sin or not). Holy emulation, on the other hand, sees evidences of God’s grace, and admires them for Christ’s sake, and wants to learn from them and grow in them.

This theme is strong in the New Testament.

“Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us” (Philippians 3:17).
“What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9).
“And you became imitators of us and of the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 1:6).
“[Do] not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12).
“You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness” (2 Timothy 3:10).
“Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Timothy 3:14).
“Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity” (Titus 2:7).

The old Puritan Thomas Brooks comments on holy emulation in The Secret Key to Heaven: Bad men are wonderfully in love with bad examples.... Oh, that we were as much in love with the examples of good men as others are in love with the examples of bad men. Shall we love to look upon the pictures of our friends; and shall we not love to look upon the pious examples of those that are the lively and lovely picture of Christ? The pious examples of others should be the mirrors by which we should dress ourselves. He is the best and wisest Christian...that imitates those Christians that are most imminent in grace.... It is noble to live by the examples of the most eminent saints.

It is right and risky to aim at being worthy of emulation. It is more foundationally right to aim at being helpful. It is essential in both that we be amazed that we are forgiven through Christ, and that we serve rather than seek to be served.

This does not answer all my questions about navigating these waters, but it helps.
Always in need of your prayers,

Pastor John Piper

The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards

Check out this book here http://www.ligonier.org/publishing_reformationtrust_catalog_unwaveringresolve.php

Jonathan Edwards is well known as perhaps the greatest theologian the United States has ever produced. He is equally noted for his preaching and writing. But in this Long Line Profile, Dr. Steven J. Lawson considers the unique focus and commitment with which Edwards sought to live out the Christian faith.

Lawson examines Edwards’ life through the lens of the seventy resolutions he penned in his late teens, shortly after his conversion. Lawson is quick to note that in writing these resolutions, Edwards was not merely seeking to bolster his own determination. As Edwards himself said before writing the first resolution, “Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions . . . for Christ’s sake.” Edwards knew he would never keep his resolutions in his own strength.

The resolutions cover everything from glorifying God to repenting of sin to managing time. Drawing on Edwards’ writings, as well as scholarly accounts of Edwards’ life and thought, Lawson shows how Edwards sought to live out these lofty goals he set for the management of his walk with Christ. In Edwards’ example, he finds helpful instruction for all believers.

Why don't I blog more often?

Why don't I blog more often? That is a good question. Here is my short answer to a very fair question.

1. The primary reason is that each and every week my main writing project is the Sunday morning sermon. In total 15+ hours are spent trying to craft sermons from Biblical texts that will be doxological, edifying, and convicting. I normally don't have time to edit down the sermon manuscripts into helpful blog posts. My primary ministry is to my family and my church family.

2. I also have 2 children under 3 (Evelyn and Jude) with a third baby on the way (due date is Jan 15). Funny story. As i finished writing this blog my daughter brought me a broken glass. "Here dad!" As you well know, trying to be a good father and a loving husband requires lots of time.

3. When i do have spare time I am typically quite tired. Surfing the net, doing home improvement tasks, watching sports with my wife, reading a good book, or something like this normally takes precedence over blogging.

4. These days their are a million blogs out there to read. My personal favorites are Pyromanics and Albertmohler.com Some of these Christian blogs are very helpful and instructive. Plus my readership is quite modest.

Some great advice

I came across this great quote today.

“I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ, at his judgment-seat, you will think you have had enough.” -- John Brown, to a newly ordained young pastor.

Attacks on Biblical Womanhood

Because the Days Are Evil
by Carolyn Mahaney

Biblical Womanhood Series Current Series

I was in bed with a stomach virus one morning and wanted to distract myself from how miserable I felt, so I turned on the Today Show. Co-Host Ann Curry was interviewing two moms who recently wrote a book entitled Getting to 50/50. The point of the book is this: A woman can have a great career, a great marriage, and be a great mother—all by getting her husband to share equally in the responsibilities in the home. Thus the title, Getting to 50/50.

These two authors were very pleasant and gracious. They were not the militant, angry type who can easily offend many. And they weren’t men bashers; in fact, they seemed to want to pursue a loving relationship with their husbands. And yet, the premise of their book is in direct contradiction to Scripture, which assigns men and women equally important, yet different roles (Gen. 1:26-27, 2:18, 21-24; 1 Cor. 11:7-9, 1 Tim. 2:12-14). These women believe that there is no difference or distinction in the roles men and women are assigned. They want men to take on fifty percent of the woman’s role and women to assume fifty percent of a man’s role. Their assertions fly in the face of God’s creation design and mandate—and they do it all with a smile.After watching the interview, I turned the TV off. Instead of distracting myself from how sick I felt, now I felt sick and depressed!

Millions of people watch this show. And no doubt, many of the women watching were convinced of the rightness, the wisdom, and the attractiveness of these two woman’s assertions. “The days are evil” it says in Ephesians 5:16. And this form of evil is attractive and persuasive. We are living in days where biblical womanhood is being assaulted and undermined by feminism. Over the past fifty years, the ideology of the feminist movement has so permeated our culture and even the church, that today many of its tenets are simply assumed and accepted.

That’s why we blog about biblical womanhood. We want to help women discern the evil of feminist ideology gift-wrapped in pleasant and appealing words. We want to encourage women to receive God’s grace and strength to fulfill one hundred percent of the role to which He has called them.

Is the President really saved?

From albertmohler.com

The issue of homosexuality presents all morally serious persons with an unavoidable question: What is the moral status of homosexual acts and relationships? One way or the other, some judgment on this matter will be made.

Are homosexual acts inherently wrong, dishonorable, and sinful? Or, is homosexuality morally neutral, with specific sexual acts and relationships determined to be either right or wrong by context and intention? Are homosexual acts morally good and honorable? These assertions of moral judgment represent something of the range of possibilities and cover most of the main alternatives.

Most Americans come to moral judgments by a complex and often confused process that combines moral intuition with emotivism and some (often quite minimal) knowledge of the history of moral judgment. Add to this the fact that most Americans are highly influenced by popular culture and mass opinion. In the end, as many observers have argued, most Americans are probably moral pragmatists at heart.

On an issue as controversial as homosexuality, moral confusion abounds. Americans respond to questions related to homosexuality with a range of often inconsistent and contradictory moral judgments. Ask a question about same-sex marriage one way and you get one answer. Change the question slightly, and you might get a very different response from the very same person.

President Barack Obama recently signed a proclamation designating the month of June as "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, 2009."

The President declared:
Forty years ago, patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn in New York City resisted police harassment that had become all too common for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Out of this resistance, the LGBT rights movement in America was born. During LGBT Pride Month, we commemorate the events of June 1969 and commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans.

President Obama is not the first American president to make such a declaration. In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed a similar executive order declaring June of that year as "Gay and Lesbian Pride Month."

Climbing the Mount of God

We are going to climb Mount Sinai this Sunday and begin Revelation 4 & 5. Pray for me!

Where have we been???

My sister graduated from college on Friday and then we had our first Kolstad family reunion (since 2003).

How to View the Swine Flu

By Dr. Al Mohler for entire article click here http://www.albertmohler.com/

...The outbreak of swine flu now dominates the headlines and news programs, with at least 150 deaths in Mexico already recorded even as the disease is now confirmed around the world. For many years medical authorities have warned of a coming influenza pandemic -- a modern plague -- that could kill on a magnitude similar to the 1918 outbreak that killed over 100 million persons worldwide.

Writing in The Atlantic in 2005, Michael Specter called influenza "Nature's Bioterrorist." As Specter explains, "A pandemic is the viral equivalent of a perfect storm. There are three essential conditions, which rarely converge, and they are impossible to predict. But the requirements are clear. A new flu virus must emerge from the animal reservoirs that have always produced and harbored such viruses--one that has never infected human beings and therefore one to which no person would have antibodies. Second, the virus has to actually make humans sick (most don't). Finally, it must be able to spread efficiently--through coughing, sneezing, or a handshake."

Is this outbreak of swine flu the harbinger of a hellish pandemic? It is far too early to say, and there is no justification for jumping to that conclusion. Nevertheless, it is a clear warning. Even in a normal year 36,000 Americans die of the flu. We are made of fragile stuff.

Experts on pandemics suggest that the question is "when" and not "if" this threatened pandemic will come. Michael Specter offers a sober warning: "Infectious-disease experts talk about pandemics the way geologists talk about earthquakes; the discussion is never about whether 'the big one' will hit."

The public discussion about swine flu and the threat of a breakout pandemic should prompt Christians to think seriously and soberly about what all this means. Biblical Christianity has much to say about disease and sickness, and the Christian tradition is rich with thought about how Christians, churches, and pastors should think of sickness, disease, and death.

At the onset, we must remember that sickness and death are part of the curse. Every single disease and malady can be traced back to Genesis 3 and humanity's fall into sin. Adam and Eve were the first humans to taste life and, after their sin, they were also the first to taste sickness and death. While only a few sicknesses can be traced to specific sins (such as sexually transmitted diseases), in reality the whole enterprise of sickness and death is rightly traced to sin, both individual and corporate. The New Creation that is coming will know no sickness and death, for the curse is reversed in Christ. Yet, even as we await the coming of the Day of the Lord, in this life we will all know the pangs, pains, perplexities, and perniciousness of disease. We are headed for death.

Nevertheless, we should be thankful for modern medicine, and the invention of both antibiotics and antiseptics. The germ theory of disease is a relatively recent human achievement, and the widespread use of effective antibiotics dates back only to the midpoint of the last century. While thankful for these medical advances, we are reminded that humanity will never finally triumph over disease and death. The curse is beyond our power to reverse.

At the same time, Christians have honored Christ by ministering to the sick. As Thomas C. Oden reminds us, "Christian ministry prays in good conscience for healing, although it does not tempt God by making faith contingent upon a particular healing. Ministry never prays that sickness or pain be increased. Ministry consistently is on the side of fighting affliction, not increasing it. Meanwhile, it does not view pain as an absolute evil out of which no good could ever come."

Martin Luther, no stranger to sickness, taught his congregation to use medical means, but to place trust in God alone. "Rather you should go on in simple faith, and when you are in danger and trouble, you should use whatever means you can, lest you tempt God. But if you find that these means, which God has created to dispel danger or sickness, supply neither the desired help or the remedy, then cast your care and your life on God and commit yourself to the direction of His wisdom and goodness."

Paper Pastors

From Dan Phillips at http://teampyro.blogspot.com/

..."But others do attend a church — physically. They come in, they sit down. They sing, they may give financially. They may look at you, Pastor, as you preach.But you know their heart belongs to another.

Their real pastor isn't you. It's Dave Hunt. Or it's John Piper. Or it's John MacArthur, or Ligon Duncan, or Mark Dever, or David Cloud, or Joel Osteen. Or it's Charles Spurgeon, or D. M. Lloyd-Jones, or J. C. Ryle. Or Calvin, or Luther, or Bahnsen, or de Mar, or R. B. Thieme, or J. Vernon McGee.And they're such better pastors than you are! You know they are!Why?Well, paper pastors are never in a bad mood. They're never cranky, or sleepy or sick. (Especially the dead ones.)They've never just had someone else pull their guts out with a rusty fork, and then had to turn and listen graciously to your complaint about the translation they preach from, or argue about a Greek word you can't even pronounce. They don't have a family who loses the time you use. They never half-listen, never have an appointment that cuts short their time. Their office hours are your office hours. They're available 24/7, and everywhere, at your whim, and you always have their undivided attention.

What's more is they always have all the answers! They can tell you with complete confidence and masterful eloquence. They never stammer, guess, nor search their memory. And they can prove it — whatever they're saying! With footnotes!And these paper pastors maintain the perfect distance. If you don't want to hear something, they don't press it — or you can instantly shut them up, snap! They never ask you to do something uncomfortable and follow up on you. They never persistently probe an area of sin, in you, in person, eyeball to eyeball... nor will they. Church discipline will not be a threat with them. Ever.Because they don't know you from Adam.

Yet how many pastors know that there are people in their flocks, thinking, "John Piper would never say it that way. Dave Hunt says that what he just preached is heresy. John MacArthur isn't like that. Mahaney says that... Mohler says that... Lloyd-Jones said...."So, because it's awkward for your pastor to say it to you — and because I've no church who'd suspect I'm talking to them, at the moment — I'll just tell you plain:Brother, sister: John Piper isn't your pastor. John MacArthur knows nothing about you. Dave Hunt never got on his knees and prayed for you. Lloyd-Jones won't come to your house when you're recovering from surgery, or one of your children shatters your heart, or your marriage is shaking and rocking and barely hanging on. Charles Spurgeon won't weep with you as you weep.You could buy or not buy _____'s next book, and he'd never know it. But if you're in a manageable-size church with a caring pastor and you're suddenly gone next Sunday, he'll be concerned. He may call. He may ask if everything's okay.

God gave you the pastor He gave you.

God told Paul to tell you: We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13)

God told the writer to the Hebrews to tell you: Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Hebrews 13:17)

Your flesh-and-blood pastor can't compete with these paper pastors for the same reason you can't compete with paper women and paper men.Because they're not real."

Preaching on the topic of sex....

The Rape of Solomon's Song
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009
By John MacArthur from http://www.shepherdsfellowship.org/pulpit/Posts.aspx?ID=4168

Apparently the shortest route to relevance in church ministry right now is for the pastor to talk about sex in garishly explicit terms during the Sunday morning service. If he can shock parishioners with crude words and sophomoric humor, so much the better. The defenders of this trend solemnly inform us that without such a strategy it is well-nigh impossible to connect with today's "culture." (In contemporary evangelicalism that term has become a convenient label for just about everything that is uncultured and uncouth.)

Sermons about sex have suddenly become a bigger fad in the evangelical world than the prayer of Jabez ever was. Everywhere, it seems, churches are featuring special series on the subject. Some of them advertise with suggestive billboards purposely designed to offend their communities' conservative sensibilities.

Quite a few pastors have earned widespread media coverage by issuing "sex challenges" to church members. These are schemes that make daily sex obligatory for married couples over a specified time—usually between seven and forty days. (How people are made accountable for this is a question I'm afraid to raise.)

I would be the last to suggest that preachers should totally avoid the topic of sex. Scripture has quite a lot to say about the subject, starting with God's first words to Adam and Eve ("Be fruitful and multiply"—Genesis 1:22). God's law has numerous commands that govern sexual behavior, and the New Testament repeatedly reaffirms the Old Testament standard of sexual purity. Finally, in the closing chapters of Scripture we are told that sexually immoral people will be cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8). So there's simply no way to preach the whole counsel of God without mentioning sex.

But the language Scripture employs when dealing with the physical relationship between husband and wife is always careful—often plain, sometimes poetic, usually delicate, frequently muted by euphemisms, and never fully explicit. There is no hint of sophomoric lewdness in the Bible, even when the prophet's clear purpose is to shock (such as when Ezekiel 23:20 likens Israel's apostasy to an act of gross fornication motivated by the lust of bestiality). When an act of adultery is part of the narrative (such as David's sin with Bathsheba), it is never described in way that would gratify a lascivious imagination or arouse lustful thoughts.

The message of Scripture regarding sex is simple and consistent throughout: total physical intimacy within marriage is pure and ought to be enjoyed (Hebrews 13:4); but remove the marriage covenant from the equation and all sexual activity (including that which occurs only in the imagination) is nothing but fornication, a serious sin that is especially defiling and shameful—so much so that merely talking about it inappropriately is a disgrace (Ephesians 5:12). Above all, Scripture never stoops to the lurid level of contemporary sex education. The Bible has no counterpart to the Hindu Kama Sutra (an ancient Sanskrit sex manual supposedly transmitted by Hindu deities.) Nothing in Scripture gives any vivid how-to instructions regarding the physical relationship within marriage.

That includes the Song of Solomon.

For the full article please click on the link above.

View From the Pulpit

From http://unashamedworkman.wordpress.com/

Discouraging sights from the pulpit:
yawning
sleeping
incessant talking
closed bibles
folded arms
phones being checked
people walking out (rejecting the message)
people taken ill

Encouraging sights from the pulpit:
bibles being examined
note taking
leaning forward with interest
people walking out (under conviction)
tears
joy at the truth preached

President Obama on Islam

Full article from foxnews.com http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/06/obama-arrives-turkey-strengthen-ties/

Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, underscored his personal connection Monday with Muslim culture and said the United States seeks "broader engagement" with the Muslim world than just the fight against Al Qaeda.

"We will listen carefully, we will bridge misunderstanding, and we will seek common ground. We will be respectful, even when we do not agree. And we will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over centuries to shape the world -- including in my own country," Obama said. "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them."

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