May 8, 2022 | Sunday Morning
Do you believe in God? Do you really believe in God? I can ask that question in the context of a sermon, because no one has to take it personally. There are a lot of pitchfork Christians in churches. When the preacher lays something objectionable at their feet, they...
May 5, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
John Bates was born in Bugbrook, England in 1805. As a twenty-two-year-old, he moved to London to find work, and it was there he found the Saviour. He was born again, baptized and joined the Eagle Street Chapel, pastored by the Baptist historian, Joseph Ivimey. Two...
May 2, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Evening
The Almighty God, Elohim, created the universe between six and ten thousand years ago. And it goes without saying that God did not create Himself. A corollary to that point is that God has always been. The Lord God is eternal, not just in the sense of the future, but...
May 1, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Morning
In keeping with my Canadian blood, I feel like I owe you an apology, but as a Christian evangelist, I feel otherwise. I want to return to the subject of redemption this morning. Last week, in two messages, we looked at redemption through the “precious blood of Christ,...
Apr 28, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
While the War for Independence was being waged in America, the Baptists in England were watching with great interest. The 1689 Edict of Toleration, as its title stipulates, provided some degree of religious toleration, but as long as there was one religious...
Apr 28, 2022 | Wednesday
Peter reminds us that God’s saints have been purchased out of sin’s market place by the blood of Christ, “as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” We often refer to the Jesus with the words of John the Baptist: “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the...
Apr 25, 2022 | Timothy Parrow
Dear Pastor and Brethren, A New Visitor A new visitor has come to our services twice. Her name is Kim Williams. She professes to know the Lord and comes from a church in Virginia. She works for OSU here in town, and lives with her son, Matthew, who is working on his...
Apr 25, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Evening
This morning I dealt with the doctrine of redemption. Perhaps I should say, I introduced the doctrine of redemption. Because, as I hope many of you recognized, I didn’t say anything about the blood of the Redeemer. Peter says, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not...
Apr 24, 2022 | Lessons on Bible Trivia
Fifty years ago, when I asked people if they were going to Heaven, most replied that they didn’t know for sure. That question led to opportunities to explain that we CAN know the destination of our eternal soul. We can know without a doubt that we are children of God....
Apr 21, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
On this day in 1854 James Voller preached his first message as pastor of the Bathhurst Baptist Church in Sydney, Australia. It was only twenty-three years earlier that the first Baptist worship service was given to the Lord in that country. Something which made...
Apr 21, 2022 | First Peter, Wednesday
The Lord Jesus was in the midst of His short period of public popularity. The last verse of Matthew 4 tells us that “great multitudes of people” followed Him. At that time He was in northern Galilee, but people came from as far away as Jerusalem and Judea. In order to...
Apr 18, 2022 | Sunday Evening
Let’s say there is someone living in the White House whom you really like. You agree with his life-style, his politics, his foreign policy and his domestic agenda. The man is not just a professed Christian; it looks like he really is a child of God. Then one day your...
Apr 14, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
For several reasons, I rarely present anyone from the 20th century in these little histories. Today, I’m going to make an exception. Florence Almen had been serving in a Baptist mission in French Equatorial Africa. After a short furlough in America she bought passage...
Apr 14, 2022 | Wednesday
I no longer feel the same way, but when I was a child I had a silly dream; a wish. I dreamed about trading places with the eldest son of Elizabeth II, the Queen of England. Remember, I am a Canadian and my parents were loyalists. My father was born in England and both...
Apr 7, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Joshua Morse was born on this day in 1726 when his parents were living in the colony of Rhode Island. Even though his grandfather was a Baptist, his parents were not, and Joshua was not raised in the light of the Word of God. Nevertheless, at the age of sixteen he...
Apr 7, 2022 | First Peter, Wednesday
Picture yourself on a walk to the park with your tiny, toy poodle. (It may take a lot of imagination.) Ahead you see a mother with a 6-year-old child, and the child is holding the leash of a 90lb. pit bull terrier. The dog sees you and your dog, bearing its teeth,...
Apr 3, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Morning
The Apostle Paul referred to a man he knew fourteen years earlier who had been caught up into Paradise where he heard “UNSPEAKABLE words, which it is not LAWFUL for a man to utter” here on earth. It was God who refused to permit discussion of what that man saw in...
Mar 31, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Abraham Marshall was the son of Daniel and Martha. When he was just a baby, his parents began an effort to evangelize the Mohawk Indians in rural Connecticut, but when Shubal Sterns invited them to join him, they moved to Sandy Creek, North Carolina. While serving...
Mar 31, 2022 | First Peter, Wednesday
The Tapestry of Salvation – First Peter 1:10-12 I know very little about the ancient art of weaving, and I know even less about the making of tapestries. But I know that a tapestry is a piece of fabric with a picture, or design, woven or embroidered onto it. We have a...
Mar 27, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Morning
Some of you have heard me say that when I was eight-years-old, my family moved from Calgary, Alberta to Omaha, Nebraska. For a boy that age, it was a life changing event. As he was making his plans, my father, asked us whether we’d like to fly or take the train. I...
Mar 24, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
The baby born on this date in 1828 was given the name of his father, Edward, a Baptist preacher who served the Lord in Virginia. When Edward was only eight years old, his missionary-minded father moved the family to Alabama. Eventually, the Lord saved the soul of...
Mar 24, 2022 | First Peter, Wednesday
Peter was writing this epistle to Christians who were living in the Roman provinces east of Greece and northwest of Israel. Many of them were Jews. They had become Christians because God graciously revealed their Messiah to them and gave them faith to trust the...
Mar 23, 2022 | Timothy Parrow
Dear Pastor and Brethren: Blessings amidst Difficulties. Although the difficulties of January continued into February there were blessings as well for which to praise the Lord. We have learned to thank the Lord for the difficulties, but the blessings sure do bring...
Mar 20, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Evening
(To listen to this message click here.) Last Sunday we looked at Peter’s words: “ready to be revealed in the last time.” You “are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation READY to be revealed in the last time.” The message had four points: God’s...
Mar 17, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Samuel L. Straughan was ordained to the ministry on this day in 1806. He was raised on a Virginia farm and had only two or three years of formal education. But it is said that “during his childhood, he exhibited a sobriety and manliness of character much beyond his...
Mar 17, 2022 | First Peter, Wednesday
As we have seen, Peter begins his letter by praising God and magnifying salvation by grace. He reminds us that our deliverance from sin and our adoption into the family of Jehovah is absolutely secure. That is because salvation is rooted, not in us, but in the Triune...
Mar 14, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Evening
Have you ever wondered what the relationship that the Apostle Paul might have had with Peter? For example, did they have any contact before Paul’s conversion? If so how did that affect them later? Did Saul of Tarsus ever come close to directly persecuting and...
Mar 13, 2022 | First Peter, Sunday Morning
The Lord Jesus gathered His disciples around Him and gave them some instructions about their ministry. He said, “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. And fear not them which kill the body,...
Mar 10, 2022 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Before the establishment of the first permanent Baptist church in America, there was an attempt to organize a congregation just south of Boston. Six godly men, the principle leaders in the attempt, were arraigned before the General Court in Boston on this day in 1639....
Mar 10, 2022 | First Peter, Wednesday
Last October Judy and I traveled to Ohio and the Winton Place Baptist Church where I was scheduled to preach. Pastor Daniel Holt had made a reservation for us to stay at the Marriot Hotel in north Cincinnati. We drove up to the front door of that hotel, walked in,...
