Johnny Cash

Justin Taylor notes that today would be Johnny Cash's 77th birthday. I can honestly say that Johnny Cash's music normally wouldn't be my style, but I have come to love it. His honesty about struggles with sin and His need for a Savior have been moving and encouraging. Sure, there are lots of bands that sing about these things within Christian music, but none as real or raw as Johnny Cash. Below I will post two of my favorite songs by the man.

The first deals with the theme of our Ash Wednesday service last night and is entitled "Redemption."



The second is about the final judgment called "When the Man comes around" Everytime I hear it I get chills. (Note: I don't really care for the video accompanying the song as it's message really has nothing to do with the song, but it was the only decent video on youtube I could find with the song)

Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy

This is comedian Louis C.K. on the Conan O'Brien show. I felt this was incredibly poignant commentary on the attitude a lot of us struggle with. In this time of economic stress will we remember how blessed we are and continue to bless others, or will we incessantly complain about what we don't have or have lost?

(Warning: Louis C.K. is not a Christian performer. The clip you saw was edited for television. If you seek out other material know that it is intended for adult audiences and most likely will contain crude humor and profanity. Since this blog is connected to a Christian church I felt this warning was appropriate.)

HT: Paulson

Welcome to the Church?

In yet another embarrasment, the Episcopalian Church has just ordained a Bishop in Michigan who also just happens to be an ordained Zen Buddhist! Very little doctrinal standards, an endless quest to be "relevant" and a lack of any core identity in Christ unfortunately has torn this once great Body apart. I really do have great sympathy for those within Episcopalianism that feel their Church has been stolen from them; it has. Pray for them.

As the story I linked to also goes on to tell us, The Presbyterian Church USA has decided to ordain non-celibate homosexuals as ministers, elders and deacons. In both of these bodies, (P.C.U.S.A. and the Episopalian Church) attendance has been steadily dwindling for quite awhile. The irony is that both of these bodies began going more liberal in their theological convictions in order to "draw people in;" it didn't work. It never does. When the gospel's compromised, the church is compromised, and it isn't long before it becomes little more then a social gathering at best. Pray for them.

Debt Preaching

In light of this last week's sermon on giving, this short humorous clip from Matt Chandler is surely appropriate. In it he details how a Pastor should not preach on debt, and how a Pastor should preach on debt.

HT: Between Two Worlds

GIVING

This week's sermon was about giving. You can listen to it here.

My New Pulpit!

Hats off to Dann Bowman, Dave Bowman, and Dana Loeb for making this beauty from scratch!

Questions and Answers

Last week we began a new event at Victoria. After the service once a month we are going to take questions from the congregation (and others if they be there) about the faith, society, whatever. So I figured it might be a good thing to post some of these questions here on the blog and my answers to them.

Question #1: What does the Bible say about alcohol?

Answer: The Bible says that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 10). This means that alcoholism is forbidden and must not be allowed in the Believer's life at all. The Bible says that we must submit to the governing authorities (Romans 13); therefore, people under the legal drinking age are not permitted to drink alcohol at all (except in very small amounts for Communion). The Bible says that we are not to be stumbling blocks (Romans 14 & 1 Corinthians 8) to others; so we probably should not drink around those who have had alcohol problems or currently do.

That being said, the Bible nowhere forbids drinking alcohol in total. Jesus' first miracle was to turn water into wine (not grape juice) for a wedding feast (John 2). Timothy is urged by Paul to drink a little wine for a stomach problem he was having (1 Timothy 5:23). Biblically speaking, alcohol if used properly, is a gift from the Lord.

Let this guide you: Whatever is not done in faith is sin. Whatever is done in faith is not sin.

Giving? Not so much

The largest study on Christian giving was just published. Its findings aren't very encouraging. It turns out 25% of all professing Protestants give not a single penny to a Church all year long. Those professing to be Evangelicals give 1 and a 1/2 % of their annual income to the Church. Those within the American Church who say that their faith is very important to them earn a combined income of $2.5 trillion a year (Hey, we could pay for about 3 stimulus bills!). Therefore, if we tithed, according to the researchers, we could give another $85.5 billion than we do now. The story has lots more interesting details that are worth checking out.

Third Brothers

Timothy Keller has just released a new book entitled "The Prodigal God." (His previous book "The Reason for God" was one of the best Christian apologetics books I've ever read) In the new book, Keller discusses the parable of the Prodigal Son in detail. In it he spends quite a bit of time distinguishing between the elder brother and the younger brother. Marvin Olasky in a World magazine article today asks how the Church might be a third brother. Check it out here.

Appreciation

It's not always the case that we come across stories in the news that make us smile (especially these days), but I have found one. In a day where it seems "Wall Street Fat Cats", with their large compensation packages, are public enemy no. 1, I read today of a bank owner who gave away 60 million dollars of his own fortune to his bank's employees. Why did he do it? Because he wanted them to know that the bank truly couldn't be successful without them. He appreciates them.

Gratitude is such an undervalued virtue, but oh how it goes so far. If I was a betting man, I'd say that this banker is going to have one of the hardest working, happiest work forces in the banking industry. The good news for us is that we don't need to have a fortune to exhibit the same kind of character. Even just a "thank you," or "I appreciate you" can really go a long way (although giving lots of money to people is a really nice way of being able to say that!)

How can you show your gratitude to your neighbors for what they do?

CHURCH

What does God want His Church to do?

This week's sermon can be summed up in three words: Receive, Grow, and Go

HT: Lombardoson for the image

Happy Darwin's Day

Today is Darwin's 200th birthday.

HT: Rev. Cwirla

Privileged No More

On this blog we've written a number of times about the waning of Christian cultural influence in the west. Beginning with the Emperor Constantine, and continuing for about 1600 years it wasn't this way. Christians really did have the most power and influence in government, economics and just about everything else. This was known as Christendom. But now I think it is safe to say Christendom is dying or already dead.

It is hard to go from having the seat of power, to being marginalized. As a result, many Christian leaders constantly bemoan all of the problems with the world and sometimes suggest that if we just had Christian leaders in office then everything would be much better (this hasn't worked out so well though as the history of Europe shows us).

The reality is the world today is much more like the world that the early Christians lived in. They were marginalized, not taken seriously and considered foolish. In this environment the Church looked weak and insignificant, but the gospel flourished and people were saved by the hundreds of thousands. In my view, if the Church becomes more effective at bringing the gospel to the four corners of the world, but loses it's cultural status I say rejoice!

We are not here to bring heaven on earth (everytime we've tried it's been a miserable failure), we're here to let people know how they can have heaven after earth. For more on this, check out this latest broadcast of The Whitehorse Inn.

Forgiveness

I found this video on Justin Taylor's blog. As Taylor mentions, ABC surely edited out mention of the gospel, but the video is still a wonderfully powerful example of grace and forgiveness.

Counseling 101?

The Comfort of Government

According to this story, there are some who believe that fascism will appear more attractive to folks as the economic difficulties continue to unravel. Anytime problems in the broader society are labeled "catastrophes," "crisis," "emergencies" etc, this can cause people to look for protection from someone bigger than themselves. If the society does not trust in a God that rules over all these things, and if the majority of the people really like their government then it's natural that they would look to them to protect them from the impending doom. This is how fascism has always spread.

Combine that with the postmodern tendency to consistently look to government for a solution to almost all social ills and it seems to me that the soil is ripe in a number of different parts of the world. I don't know that this is the case in America, nor am I suggesting that the current leadership in Washington is in any way fascist, but is there something to what this guy in the story is saying?

Legalism

You might be a legalist.

Find out here.

Star Wars Retold

For any Star Wars fan it doesn't get much better than this:


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

The Agony of Deceit

Usually I don't spend so much time on one subject as I have lately. But there is so much in the news lately about abortion that I have just had to share. This is the latest agonizing abortion story: At 23 weeks along in her pregnancy, a woman went in for an abortion at a clinic in Florida. The Doctor was terribly late and while waiting to have the abortion done, the girl went into labor and actually gave birth to a live baby. Quickly, one of the clinic's owners came over to the child, cut the umbilical cord, opened a plastic biohazard bag and placed the live baby in there. She then went around to the back and threw the live baby in the dumpster! A few days later, police found the decomposing body of the little girl.

There are so many things I could say about this: For starters, the story that I have linked to says that "people on both sides of the abortion debate were shocked." Really? My question to a pro-abortionist is why? If the baby had been killed in the womb, then no harm, no foul; but since the baby was killed outside of the womb, that is unacceptable?

Secondly, we're also told in the story that the mother, once she saw the child out of the womb, was changed. Once she realized that IT was a BABY, she wanted the child. (This speaks to the importance of supporting Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Most of the time they have very high quality ultrasound machines that clearly show the mother that what is in her womb is truly a baby)

Thirdly, I'd be willing to bet that the woman who killed this baby had never thought of killing another human being in her life. But as a culture we have so devalued young human life that somehow she didn't hesitate in killing a living baby girl outside of the womb; IT wasn't really life.

Finally, for those who are pro-abortion that might read this blog, I ask you sincerely why you wouldn't defend this action? The only difference between the aborted fetus in the womb and the murdered infant was the eight inch birth canal.

Oh how I pray that God would end this devastation.

Brilliant

According to Dr. Veith, this ad was actually banned from the Super Bowl

The Light of the World

This week's sermon was about what happens when the Light of Christ fills our lives. Listen here.