Nehemiah's Wall FOUND!!!

Click here to read a recent article about how the elusive wall of Nehemiah, the one he led the construction of in something like 52 days in the mid to late 400s BC that encompassed the city of Jerusalem, has been found--further proof for the veracity and historical reliability of the Bible from beginning to end!!!

My favorite line: "'We were amazed,' she said, noting that the discovery was made at a time when many scholars argued that the wall did not exist."

No irrational leap of faith needed to believe the Bible's true! In fact, with all these facts supporting the Bible it seems the one depending on "faith" is the one who denies the Bible is true.

Please Pray Tomorrow Morning

Hi everyone!!! I'm very sorry I haven't been updating this very frequently. I have had quite the week, and it's not letting up at all as the weekend draws near.

I'm posting now to ask you, again, to pray for me. Aside from weekly preaching, which I'd also love your prayer for, I am speaking tomorrow at our church's MOPS ministry (if you've heard of that) called Navigating Motherhood.

This is an evangelistic ministry at our church so tomorrow morning I'm scheduled to make a case for the deity of Christ before about 50 to 80 unbelievers who come to Compass every Friday morning. Just so you know, I just found out there are even Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons in the crowd, aside from many who think they're Christians but probably aren't.

Please pray for my preparation time, which is going to start right now, that it would be fruitful and protected from distraction as well as that tomorrow I would be clear, accurate, passionate, practical and persuasive in what I say.

I am supposed to start speaking around 10am, so I thank you in advance for what God's going to do through your prayers tomorrow morning.

Minor Controversy over a God-Centered God?

I thought I'd make you aware of what I thought was a minor controversy brewing on the blogs between Ben Witherington and John Piper about the God-centeredness of God.

You can read Dr. Witherington's discomfort with a self-centered God here and Dr. Piper's response to him here.

I wrote "a minor controversy," but if Piper is right (and I think he is) than there is nothing minor about the God-centeredness of God.

Thanksgiving 2007--Ugh!!!

This was an interesting year. It started off normal, hanging out with my family (the half that will have me over at least) to enjoy each other along with turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, etc. It was nice. I talked with a couple single guys from my mom's small group while trying not to eat everything.

It was not a very joyous night, at least not for me, because there was a gaping hole in our guest list--the first Thanksgiving without my grandpa. Last year he had lost 30 pounds and was not eating much at all (not hungry when a tumor the size of a large grapefruit is in your stomach), but he ate so incredibly well on Thanksgiving--if I remember correctly that was the last night he drove himself too. I miss him so deeply it hurts...a lot.

Anyway, after dinner I went to a movie--a pretty good one called August Rush--but when I came out to my car I found my cell phones (one personal & one from the church) stolen along with my iPod. It wasn't until today that I realized my wallet was stolen too, and that was only after a man called who found a lot of my stuff in an alley about a mile away from the theaters.

Needless to say, this holiday can take a hike, but I was thankful for a couple things. That iPod is invaluble to me because of all the information I had stored on it. All of it's gone, but I'm thankful I didn't freak out, get mad, scream, cuss, etc. I was calm, and I can only attribute that to the grace of God. Oh yeah, all the contacts on my personal phone are gone too, which really sucks, but thankfully, I've been relatively calm and collected about that too.

The hardest part for me is not that someone was in my space, but that I just don't know what God's idea was in doing all this. I thank Him that my car wasn't ruined (you can't even tell anyone broke in), no one was hurt, and so far as I can tell there has been no movement on my accounts (even my social security card was found!). In fact, and I don't say any of this to brag but to demonstrate God's kindness to me, I've been praying for the salvation of the person(s) who did this much more than that I'd get my stuff back.

Actually, I don't remember praying to get my stuff back (though I had to have while pacing back and forth out side of Best Buy looking for my stuff in the hands of those camping in line for this morning's 5am rush), but praying that I'd trust God in the midst of this and not be so attached to my stuff that I care more about my joy in it than my joy in God.

I don't know why I wrote all that--maybe just to get it off my chest and definitely to tell you about how great God's been to me through this. It's late and I'm going to bed. Ciao!

Stem Cells w/o Embryos?

As I've been saying on this blog for some time now, embryonic stem cell research (ESCR)--the destruction of a little human to harvest its stem cells--aside from being immoral and evil is now found to be unnecessary according to scientists here.

And, if you're as uninformed as Bill Handel (KFI 640 AM radio host in LA) who says ESCR is the most promising stem-cell technology, don't forget this very valuable chart. Do know, the reason the ESCR side is empty is not because the government has banned ESCR, but has only refused to fund it.

Preached @ TMC!!!

Hi Everyone!!!

I just wanted to let you know that God REALLY used your prayers today at The Master's College. When I got there the guy who plans the chapels, Pete, said "When John MacArthur found out a TMS grad was speaking he decided to be here," to which I literally screamed "What!?!" as my stomach dropped. He was just kidding though (ha ha, reeeeeeally funny!)--thank God (you notice yet that I struggle with the fear of man?).

Just so you know, I scrapped Psalm 100 (I just couldn't make it work no matter how hard I tried) and instead spoke from John 13:34-35 on the absolute, unquestionable necessity of Christians to love every Christian...period! I tried really hard (which means I got little sleep last night) to be accurate with what I was saying about the text, as well as clear, passionate, persuasive and practical.

Well, in God's kindness I got some good feedback from a small handful of students, my friend Austin who made this all possible got some good feedback and Pete told me he and the school really needed that message and he told me he'd love for me to come preach again next semester.

He and I got to talking more about some of his church experiences and some of my experiences at TMS, and then out of the blue he asked if I'd speak at the Truth & Life Conference in January--a yearly conference for college students that he told me attracts between 1 and 2000 (this year's line up is John MacArthur, David Wells and James MacDonald). So, it looks like I'll be doing a workshop there next year!

All the while, Pete's asking me to speak at Truth & Life and explaining the conference and I'm thinking "What in the world is happening right now?" I don't know what God's up to and I do not consider myself worthy in the least to be doing any preaching from God's Word, let alone at this conference or any conference, but I want to make sure all of you know how grateful I am for you, your prayers and your support.

In a very real sense, you were a blessing to the students and faculty of TMC this morning too because of your prayers for them and me.

Messages on the Trinity

Just in case you were wondering how my recent 2-week series at The Refuge on the Trinity went, I wanted you to know that it did not turn people off or away.

Rather than hurting the ministry, which is conventional "wisdom" for pastoral ministry today when it comes to teaching doctrine to Christians--let alone those in college & their 20s--just the opposite has happened.

Actually the ministry grew, newcomers came back for more and the Christians have a renewed zeal to study the Bible and reach out to, rather than run away from, cultists (Oneness, JWs, Mormons) and false religions (Jews, Muslims) who explicitly deny the Trinity.

Thank God for His marvelous grace for blessing His Word when we talked about Him--Father, Son and Holy Spirit!!!

Preaching @ TMC!!!

Hi Everyone!!! I am blogging right now to let you know that I will be preaching at The Master's College chapel this Monday morning and I am thoroughly TERRIFIED!!!

By a "fluke" of providence my friend Austin was walking past the man who plans chapels yesterday. Earlier this semester Austin had asked him about getting me in there for a chapel, so Austin asks if he'll be able to fit me in, to which he replied something along the lines of "I was looking at him for next semester, but we had a cancellation for Monday. I know it's short notice, but do you think he'd do it."

Austin told me he'd call me and ask, and then it came out that the cancellation was JOHN MACARTHUR who is to address the students and faculty on Faculty Day (I don't know if this is a special day or whether every Monday is Faculty Day). After I regained consciousness, my training under Prof. Alex Montoya kicked in so all I heard ringing in my ears was "You NEVER turn down a chance to preach! EVER! You don't call in. You crawl in!"

I put all this here, both to make you laugh, but also to beg you for your prayers, not only for me and the preaching (at around 9am Monday morning), but for the students and faculty in attendance.

As of now (Thursday night) I'm going to preach on Psalm 100, but I'm open to changing it should my studies reveal something I think would be more appropriate for the audience. I chose this text because I want to really challenge the very well-taught students and faculty as to their emotions for God. Psalm 100 has 7 imperatives, 7 commands for our emotions as we relate to God, many if not all of which are sadly disobeyed on a constant basis.

Any suggestions for something better? Let me know, but more importantly PLEASE PRAY!!! (especially since I just went to the TMC site and saw a couple professors on it and had a short moment of panic--I'm such a man-fearing sinner so please pray for my heart too)

Christianity & Culture

The blog at New City Church gave one man's opinion as to the top 20 books on Christianity's relationship to culture. Sadly, I've only read three--looks like I've got work to do!

This & Last Week in History

Since I've forgotten to do this recently, I thought I'd let you know some highlights from the dates of last week and this week in church history.

Aside from many interesting events that you can read about here, last week...

• Constantine defeated Maxentius at Milvian Bridge after having a "vision" of the symbol of Jesus, which paved the way for Rome to become a Christian empire (AD 312)
• The very important Council of Chalcedon (in modern Turkey) begins to address heresies about Christ that were not addressed at Nicea (451)
• Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany (1517)
• The British Parliament passes the Supremacy Act officially making England Protestant (1534)
• George Muller converts to Christianity (1825)
• Jim Elliot writes in his journal "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" (1949)
• John Lennon ignites controversy when he tells reporters the Beatles are "more popular than Jesus" (1966)

And, click here to read that this week...

• Martin Luther is born in Eisleben, Germany (1483)
• The Massachusetts Bay Colony makes it a capital offense to deny that the Bible is the Word of God (1646)
• American journalist Henry Stanley finally finds Scottish missionary David Livingstone in Central Africa and utters his famous introduction, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." (1871)
• Gideons International places its first Bible in a room at the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountains, Montana (1908)
  
• Evangelist Billy Graham is born in Charlotte, North Carolina (1918)

2 Murdered in Nigerian Jihad

This article describes the effects of a violent jihad against young Christians in Nigeria where one man was killed with a sword and another, a Sunday school teacher named Henry Emmanuel Ogbaje 24 (pictured), was bludgeoned to death.

Iranians Becoming Christians

The author featured in this article suggests the deep dissatisfaction with the Islamic regime in Iran has created a growing interest in Jesus Christ in that country.

Christian Sacrificed to Hindu 'Goddess'

Click here to read about Vipin Mandloli, a 27 year old shepherd and convert to Christianity from Hinduism who was allegedly shot as a sacrifice to the "goddess" Kali "a bloodthirsty ‘goddess’ [that] is even given human sacrifice."

And this article describes the increasing persecution Christians are facing by Hindu extremists / fundamentalists in one region in India -- a country I thought was more progressive because so many of our companies were doing business there -- while this article makes it clear that this persecution is widespread in that country.

Pictures from Hawaii

In case you'd enjoy them, I wanted you to know I uploaded some photos from my recent trip to Kauai here.

Did U Hear What China Banned @ The Olympics?

Read here that the organizers of the 2008 Olympic Games in China have put the Bible on the list of items that athletes are banned from bringing with them to Beijing.

Divorce in the Bible

Though the controversy has died down, last month saw a bit of a firestorm ignite over the Bible's view of divorce when Christianity Today devoted their cover and a 4-page article to the issue of divorce.

In summary, the author David Instone-Brewer argues that the Bible gives us four grounds for divorce that make it acceptable in God's eyes: adultery, abandonment (the two traditional grounds), abuse and neglect (emotional or physical).

I found out about it at a staff meeting last month when we spent about an hour talking about it. Within a couple days, I saw posts about it on blogs and responses to the article by such prominent evangelicals as John Piper (which, by the way, Dr. Instone-Brewer responded to here), Al Mohler (click here to a page where you can download his radio show on this topic) and Andreas Kostenberger (here and here).

I wanted to make you aware of this ongoing debate, which though it seems to me at least that it's died down in our circles, has gained national attention thanks to a new article about it in Time Magazine online here.

U Believe in the Trinity? Prove it!!!

This is the only illustration of the Trinity I know of that does not lead to or directly teach heresy.

I spoke on this topic tonight, and I'll post here what I gave the people at the 20s ministry of Compass Bible Church. I tried to summarize the Bible's teachings that, when combined, become the doctrine of the Trinity. Here is what I gave them:

The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity

Definition: “God eternally exists as three persons--Father, Son & Holy Spirit--and each person is fully God, [yet] there is one God” (Grudem).

Three Step Proof / Argument

1. There is Only One God – Deut 4:35, 39; 6:4; 1 Kgs 8:60; Isa 43:10, 45:5-6; Mark 12:29; Eph 4:6; 1 Tim 1:17; James 2:19
2. The Bible Identifies 3 Persons as Equally God
1. The Father is God: 1 Cor 8:6; Phil 1:2
2. The Son is God: John 20:28; Titus 2:13; Heb 1:3-8; 2 Pet 1:1
3. The Spirit is God: Acts 5:3-4; 1 Cor 3:16, 6:19; 2 Cor 3:17-18
   
3. The 3 Persons are Distinct from Each Other: Matt 28:19
1. The Father is NOT the Son: John 14:23, 17:24; 1 Cor 8:6
2. The Father is NOT the Spirit: John 14:26; Rom 8:26
3. The Son is NOT the Spirit: John 14:16, 15:26

The Trinity is simply an attempt to summarize the biblical data above without contradiction:
1 God (1 what), 3 Persons (3 who’s)

It seems to me, although I'm no expert, that every heresy denies at least one of the three proofs. Either someone posits more than one God (e.g., Mormons, JWs, Hindus, etc.), denies the deity of one Person (JWs, Islam, Judaism, Mormons, etc.) and/or combines distinct Persons into one Person (oneness Pentecostals, modalists, etc.).

I printed this on little cards that I hope they'll keep it in their Bibles so that when they get that knock on the door they'll be ready to engage rather than retreat.

1 Cor 2:14 and 2 Cor 4:4 in Action

What's your reaction when you read things like this (if you can read such tiny print!)?

I know at first I was angry (like I'd be if someone ridiculed my mom or dad), but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the only reason I'm not saying the same thing and worse is because God's been so kind to me, opening my eyes to the truth I once denied and freeing me from the sin that held me captive to lies.

In case you were wondering, 1 Corinthians 2:14 says "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" and 2 Corinthians 4:4 says "In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

Therefore, my anger quickly turned to sorrow and compassion (though not as quickly as I would've liked). I'd love to talk to the person who wrote that, or anyone who agrees.

Update, Thank You & The Trinity

I've been swamped since getting home from Hawaii so I'm sorry for not blogging more regularly. I got off the plane Tuesday morning at 5am at LAX, ran home to shower and go right to work to help oversee the setup for our Fall Fest, Compass Bible Church's fun and safe alternative to / attempt to redeem Halloween. I preach Tuesday nights so I left the Aliso Viejo Towne Center around 4pm to prepare for The Refuge at 7pm (the singles ministry for the college students and those in their 20s that I oversee).

I was back at the Towne Center at 8am the next morning and went home around 11pm, but God richly blessed our efforts as we saw some 4000 people show up on Wednesday night and we gave out some where around 1 ton of candy. The Fall Fest was a great way to introduce the church to the community, and Lord willing many will come visit us. Thursday I was back at the Towne Center to help oversee clean up for about 7 hours, and then crashed!

Now that the weekend is over, I'm in the office preparing to preach tomorrow night on the Trinity. I'm doing a short series I called Mythbusters where we'll bust some myths about Christianity (topics are truth, the Trinity and the Deity of Christ). From there, we'll move into expositional, verse-by-verse preaching through John 17 (there may be some short Mythbuster series in the midst of that too) and then we'll jump into more exposition, this time the whole book of Galatians.

The idea is to spend a considerable amount of time on the person and work of Christ (John 17) before moving into a explanation of the Gospel and its implications for life (Galatians)--don't want to create legalists who live like Christians apart from a real deep focus on Christ first.

However, my work on the Trinity this weekend reminded me that at the beginning of this blog last year I posted four times on the heresy of modalism as embodied in Oneness Pentecostalism (by the way, did you hear about the new movement called Pentecostal Scientology?)--a false doctrine alive and well and making considerable inroads into evangelicalism. They are here, here, here and here.

Many blessings to all of you, and thank you for your prayers for me in Hawaii. It was a very difficult trip for me--not a vacation at all--because every square inch of Kauai reminds me of my grandparents. I pray the Lord will be pleased to bless the short and feeble words I gave at my grandparents' memorial service. Hope you liked the pictures I took!

Free Jonathan Edwards Book

Follow the directions here to download this month's free audio book from ChristianAudio.com, Jonathan Edwards' classic Religious Affections. I can't wait to listen to this...CAN'T WAIT!!!

Also, if you click on the page above you'll see the banner ad that all the digital audio on the site is 50% off until Nov. 4th--an amazing deal (when really, the 50% off price seems to me to be the price the audio should be, but that's just me).