Mile High Rev

REVved - Passion Week 2007

Tomorrow kicks off the annual observance of Passion Week – Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter.  (Actually, it starts for me tonight at 6:00 pm at our Saturday night service.)  Here’s an overview of what’s coming in the week ahead.  If you live in the area and would like to join us for one or more of these services, I’d love to see you there.  If you have other plans, or your own church services to attend, I’d appreciate your prayers – while this a very exciting week ahead, it’s also a spiritual marathon (10 services in 8 days) and requires complete dependency on the Lord.

Palm Sunday – Sat. 6:00 pm, Sun. 8:45 & 10:45 am

Good Friday – 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00 pm.  (Includes Lord’s Supper & participation in pounding nails into wooden crosses.)

Easter – 6:30 (Sunrise is 6:27 am), 8:00, 9:30, and 11:15 am

REVealing - God's "Nothings"

God’s “nothings” are His most positive answers.  We have to stay on God and wait.  Never try to help God to fulfill His Word.

– Oswald Chambers

This was on my daily prayer calendar yesterday.  I’m still mulling it over.  I suspect that all of you are familiar with God’s “nothings.”  Perhaps Chambers’ perspective will encourage you today as it did me yesterday.

REVealed - Kingdom Come: The Final Victory

Tim and Jerry’s final installment in the Left Behind series, Kingdom Come, is being released on April 3.  It’s a fictionalized treatment of the coming Millennium on earth (not heaven) - an earthly kingdom that will last for 1,000 years. The Bible doesn’t provide much description of this time period, so the authors are undoubtedly going to rely on theological basics and their sanctified imaginations.  I can’t wait to read it…as I’ve read the whole series.  (I like finishing things!)  I think Jerry and Tim will be on Good Morning America on the 3rd, so watch for that. I’m ready for the book to be panned by non-dispensational Christians, but as with all the previous volumes, if God uses it to bring one lost soul to Christ, it will be worth it all! 

Kingdom Come: The Final Victory (Left Behind: Sequel - Main Products): Books: Tim F. LaHaye,Jerry B. Jenkins.

You will notice that you can also find the link to this book in the left hand column on my blog under – “Books Currently on the Top of the Stack”

REVved - Janet Wanted Me to Know What God Did Through My Dad in 1973

Since I decided to preach through the Book of Romans at my church, I've been asking God to confirm this decision.  I've also asked Him to help me make meaningful applications, because the book is so heavily theological.  I want people to feel moved in their hearts as well as in their minds.  So, I've been I praying for God's help in coming up with supporting materials for the sermons.  He recently helped in such a spectacular way that I couldn't wait to blog about it...but I wanted to ask permission to share this with you.  I did and I now have the permission.

Here's the story.  I was preparing to preach on "hell" a few weeks ago.  God's "Wrath."  Romans 2:5-11 make it clear that the "bad news" (hell and judgment) is as much a part of the Gospel as the "good news" (heaven and forgiveness).   So while I'm planning the sermon, I keep thinking to myself  -"I don't want to preach on hell.  People are going to think I'm old school and outdated.  I know this sermon is going to make people mad.  Why in the world do I need to talk about hell?   What difference will it make?"

On Friday of that week, Jan went to check our emails and found an email from a woman whose family knew my parents in 1973.  I don't know the lady.  Her name is Janet.  Never met her.  She doesn't know me.  But, she knew my dad and mom and had been searching to find me on the Internet.  Here's why.  She wanted to tell how God used my dad's preaching in her life.  Guess what he preached about that God used to change her life?  Right.  Hell.

I'm going to omit some of the personal details and edit a tiny bit for length, but I have Janet's permission to quote from her email, so here goes:

"The first time I met your dad was in 1973 at Grace Bible Church in Defiance, Ohio.  My husband, two young children and I had been going to church there about a year.  The church had been praying for our salvation.  The reasons we started going to church was to get the kids into Sunday School.  We tried cleaning ourselves up and being respectful church going people. Of course, it didn't last.  When our pastor announced that there were going to be evangelistic meetings the coming week, we didn't know what he was talking about.  We didn't even know what the word meant.  When we didn't go the first night, the pastor came to our house and left something.   So we went for the rest of the week.  That was a Tuesday night.  Well, we fell under conviction.  Finally on Thursday night my husband had stayed home with our youngest and my oldest and I went anyway.  He (your dad) preached about the heart.  I will never forget when he used the verse in Jeremiah 17:9.  I was cut to the heart.  I knew that was me!  When he gave the invitation, I knew I needed to go forward but I just couldn't make myself do it.  So I left the church and went home.  I was so under conviction and convinced of my sin and what I so rightly deserved.  I was afraid all the way home that I would wreck the car and go to hell.  We only live about five miles from the church.  So when I got home I sent my son into the house with a message for my husband that I was going back to the church.  When I got back to the church our deacon's wife met me at the door and asked if she could help me.  I told her that I needed to be saved.  She took me directly to Brother Stan.  (<--That's my dad.)  He took me into the pastor's office and led me to Christ.  What happened that night changed my life forever.  The following Sunday morning my husband and my sister were saved as well.  Your mother led my son to Christ either that year or the following year and then my daughter after that. 

Let me tell you that the first person I look forward to seeing when I get to heaven is Jesus and the second person I look forward to seeing is Brother Stan.  I loved him so much and always will.  I hope this has been a blessing to you as it has been for me to be able to share it with you."

I'm crying again as I type this.  Dad preached the simple Gospel.  He taught people that there were two destinies - heaven and hell.  He was courageous and bold.  And God used him to impact so many people...who probably will be standing in line with Janet to see him in heaven after they get their time with Jesus.  I'm blessed to have such a godly heritage.  And....motivated to keep preaching the Gospel no matter what people say...or don't say!

REVrant 24.12 - Moral Law and the Molestation of a Three Year Old

I preached last weekend on God’s “moral law” – from Romans 2:15 – the Bible says that the moral law of God is written on our hearts, and that God holds us accountable for it.  We have no excuses for “not knowing” what is right and wrong.  I thought of it again as I read the linked article about the molestation of a three year old girl by a former church elder in Indiana.  (The article is not for the faint-hearted.)  The 57 year old man admitted that he molested the three year old while he was babysitting.  He’s facing a sentence of 42 to 108 years in prison.  While his actions alone are abominable beyond words…unbelievably, there is now a controversy in the church that the victim and the victimizer both attend(ed). (The victim’s family has left.)  The father of the (anonymous) victim sums it up – “It’s a disgrace that the church would embrace a criminal and turn it’s back on the victim, especially one that’s a young child.”  You read it and see what you think.

Family of Molested Girl Leaves Church After It Embraces Attacker.

After reading it, I thought back to the sermon in which I mentioned that prison inmates have an uncanny sense of moral law in that there is an unwritten (but widely understood) code of conduct that they apply to each other.  When a child abuser is sent to prison, he can expect to be held accountable beyond the sentence levied by the courts.  The inmates have particular indignance for someone who abuses a child.  Reminds me of Matthew 18:6 – “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” 

REVved - How's Your Judgment?

“Good judgment comes from experience and often experience comes from bad judgment.” 

 

REVolting - Colorado Town Devastated by Tornado

DenverPost.com - Holly devastated by tornado.

Located about 235 miles southeast of Denver, the little town of Holly was hit by wicked weather yesterday.  A tornado damaged 60 homes, destroying 5 of them.  A couple and their three year old were literally blown out of their house into a tree, and the 28 year old mother later died.  10 others were injured.  As you’ll read in the linked article, one resident said it looks like a “giant lawn mower” went through town.  Please join me in praying for this tight-knit community that has been devastated by this violent tornado.

Incidentally, it’s snowing right now in Denver. “Springtime in the Rockies!” 

 

REVerie - Dog Performs Heimlich Maneuver

Woman Says Dog Saved Her by Performing Heimlich Maneuver

This is one of the most touching stories I’ve read in years.  45 year-old Debbie Parkhurst, of Calvert Maryland, was eating an apple last week.  The apple lodged in her throat, and she started having trouble breathing.  Her dog, 2 year old Toby, a Golden Retriever, saw what was happening, knocked her to the floor, and started jumping on her chest, effectively administering the Heimlich maneuver.  He then licked her face to keep her from passing out.  Unbelievable.  God works in mysterious ways! In this case, through a life-saving dog!

Debbie,and her Golden Retriever, Toby.

(For the record, I performed the Heimlich maneuver on my mother-in-law in Michigan a number of years ago….but I didn’t lick her face afterwards.)

REVrant 24.11- The Pope is Right

Pope: Hell Is a Real Place Where Sinners Burn in Everlasting Fire 

In a very straightforward statement that lines him up with the majority of evangelicals around the world and throughout history, Pope Benedict XVI recently said – “Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanize the faithful.”

He added: “Hell ‘really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more.’" 

“Nobody talks about it anymore.”  I did recently.  Two weekends ago, I preached from Romans 2:5–11 and addressed the subject of “wrath avoidance.”  My bottom line assumption?  That hell is real, that judgment is coming, and that there is a way to avoid hell – through faith in Jesus Christ. 

I find it intriguing that Catholics around the world have to decide whether or not they agree with their Pope…and more importantly, whether they agree with the Bible!  I do.

REVrant 24.10 - Teaching The Bible in Public Schools

It will come as no surprise to you that I am 100% in favor of the proposition on the front of this week’s TIME Magazine – “Why We Should Teach The Bible in Public School.”  I’ve been saying this for years.  It’s the most important and influential book in human history.  The printing press was invented to mass produce copies of this book.  It’s the bestselling book of the year every year.  It’s a striking literary masterpiece.  To refuse to teach the Bible as literature in public schools is the height of intellectual dishonesty.  We say that we want to expose students to great literature in history – how can you fairly omit the Bible from this category?

According to Religious Literacy, polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the Bible holds the answers to “all or most of life’s basic questions.”  Pollster George Barna has dubbed us a “nation of Biblical illiterates.”  Only half of U.S. adults know the title of even one Gospel.  Most can’t name the Bible’s first book.  This trend extends to Evangelicals as well – only 44% of whose teens could identify a particular quote as coming from the Sermon on the Mount.

Granted, as a Christian and a pastor, I believe the Bible is the Word of God and has the power to change lives.  I preach it every week.  However, set that aside for a moment (if you can…).  I’m not asking for preaching of the Bible in public classrooms.  I simply expect intellectual fairness and courageous rejection of bias against the Bible within the school systems that my tax dollars are going to support!   

Check out the final paragraph in David Van Biema’s article – “But in the end, what is required in teaching about the Bible in our public schools is patriotism: a belief that we live in a nation that understands the wisdom of its Constitution clearly enough to allow the most important book in its history to remain vibrantly accessible for everyone.” 

The Bible should be taught in public schools!