What I learned from my Pastor ~ Mar. 28

We finished chapter 9 and were astounded once again that despite horrible plagues and death, people will still refuse to repent.

Pastor Jack pointed out that God deploys a troop surge of horsemen to an attack of shock and awe to bring people to repentance.

1. The commanders of these troops:

A. Christ

B. Trumpeting angel

C. Four angels

2. The invasion of these troops: God’s exact time

3. The mission of these troops: Kill

4. The number of troops: 200 million

5. The appearance of these troops: Weird

6. The power of these troops: Mouths

7. The outcome of the troop surge: No repentance

A. Demon worship
B. Idol worship
C. Murders
D. Sorceries
E. Immorality
F. Thefts

His action points: Repent of idolatry and go with the gospel!!

What I learned from my Pastor ~ Mar. 21

Attack of the Locusts was the title of the sermon from Revelation 9:1-12. Pastor Jack pointed out that these demon-creature-things are from the abyss and their mission is to torment. The commander of these troops is Satan.

We are definitely getting into the weird section of Revelation, but Pastor Jack always does a good job of applying these truths by pointing out concrete facts that we can take hold of today. He noted:

Satan is a destroyer, a deceiver and a devourer BUT Christ is a redeemer, a revealor and a restorer.

Truth is our primary defense. Know the truth and the truth will set you free.

**On a side note, Timothy provided some humor in the midst of the sermon. Thanks to Phil's quiet sarcasm as Pastor Jack showed a video, Timothy learned a vocabulary lesson. It went something like this:

As a video began of a locust swarm, the commentator had a definite British accent (think BBC films). Phil said quietly, "Stinkin' Brits." (Hopefully this doesn't offend anyone - but I had to repeat it to get to the punch line.)

Timothy was sitting between us and was looking down at his coloring page at the time. In a few seconds, the video ended and Pastor Jack began to preach. He opened by showing a picture of a very large locust. About that time, Timothy looked up at the screen and said, "Those Brits are disgusting." To which Phil immediately burst out laughing and said, "Those aren't Brits, those are locusts." Timothy replied, "well those locusts are disgusting, too."

Let's just say that Phil did not hear the next couple minutes of the message because he was laughing (silently). I am also pretty sure that restrained laughter had something to do with Jim's shoulders shaking as well!!

Thanks, Tim, for the laugh. We shared this with Pastor Jack, and he too thought it was quite funny...and very pleased he has a captive audience in a 4 year old.

What I learned from my Pastor ~ Mar. 14

Shock and Awe was the name of the sermon Pastor Jack gave on Revelation 8:6-13. This passage covered the first 4 trumpet judgments. Pastor Jack gave four warnings associated with these four judgments. They are:

1. God will judge those who refuse to believe the Word of God that abides forever (Is. 40:8)

2. God will judge those who store treasures for themselves and are not rich toward God. (Matt. 6:19-20)

3. God will judge whose who seek anything than Jesus to satisfy our thirst. (John 4:13-14)

4. God will judge those who love darkness rather than light. (John 3: 19-21)

ACTION: Repent and turn to the one, true, living GOD!

What I learned from a guest Pastor ~ March 6

As I mentioned here, Brenda found a church for us all to attend in Flagstaff as we spent the first Sunday of our Spring Break in Arizona.

Steven Cole is currently teaching through the book of James on Pilgrim Radio. We located the church easily, snuck in just a few minutes late and felt right at home with fellow believers we had never met before.

Pastor Cole was teaching through the book of 2 Peter. His message was entitled, "Mockers and the Coming Judgment" with 2 Peter 3:1-7 as his text.

His main point:

"In spite of mockers who scoff at the prospect of Christ’s coming, God’s Word promises that He will come in judgment of the whole world."

1. When mockers attack the faith, God’s Word is our sure foundation (3:1-2).


2. When mockers scoff at the prospect of Christ’s coming, it is because they willfully ignore that God created the universe and judged the wicked in the flood by His word (3:3-6).


3. When mockers scoff at the promise of Christ’s coming, it is because they willfully ignore God’s word about the future judgment (3:7).

He offered two applications based on these verses for each of us to consider:

A. To move away from the truth that God created the world by His word of power is to move toward skepticism and licentious living.


B. To move away from the truth that Christ is coming again to judge the world is to move toward skepticism and licentious living.


He concluded with,

"Our tolerant culture that doesn’t want to make any moral judgments has swayed many Christians to minimize the biblical truth of God’s judgment. Some deny the eternality of hell. Others believe that God will ultimately save everyone. If you move in that direction, you move toward skepticism of God’s Word and, eventually, toward moral relativism. If you are a Christian—a follower of Jesus—the bottom line has to be, “What does God’s Word say?” It clearly says that God created the world by His word, judged the world at the flood by His word, and will judge the ungodly when Christ returns by His word. Thus we must stand firm on these truths and out of love warn everyone to flee the wrath to come."

Crazy Love Quotes

I finished reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan a month ago, but have had a hard time finding spare moments to blog.

There are several good reviews by more articulate people than me, so I decided to share a few quotes/sections that stood out as I read.

Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives. Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control. (pg. 42)

Lukewarm people tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their heart and lives. (pg. 69)

True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity. ...this whole swimming-upstream, pursuing-Christ, taking-up-your-cross, counting-the-cost thing isn't easy. It's so hard, in fact, that Jesus said the road is narrow and few will find it. (pg 97)

But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through. (pg 124)

A person who is obsessed with Jesus knows that the sin of pride is always a battle. Obsessed people know that you can never be "humble enough." and so they seek to make themselves less known and Christ more known. (pg. 138)

Nowhere in Scripture do I see a "balanced life with a little bit of God added in" as an ideal for us to emulate. Yet when I look at our churches, this is exactly what I see: a lot of people who have added Jesus to their lives. ... asked Him to join them on their journey, to follow them wherever they feel like they should go, rather than following Him as we are commanded. The God of the universe is not something we can just add to our lives and keep on as we did before. The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is not someone we can just call on when we want a little extra power in our lives. Jesus Christ did not die in order to follow us. He died and rose again so that we could forget everything else and follow Him to the cross, to true Life. (pg. 193-194)

Recommendation: Read it and be challenged to think a little differently.