Sep 17, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Unlike New England, the Colony of Virginia nodded towards the Church of England as the only legal religious denomination within its borders. But the priests and prelates in Virginia arrived with the same hypocrisy and licentious behavior which drove the Puritans from...
Sep 17, 2020 | Wednesday
The book I am currently reading is entitled, “An Anthology of the Early Baptists in Rhode Island.” It is 600 pages of historical documents from 17th and 18th century. To say the least, it is difficult, but sometimes interesting, reading. As you should know, Rhode...
Sep 14, 2020 | Sunday Evening
This chapter begins on the first day of Tishri – the Jewish New Year according to one calendar – and the seventh month of the year according to the other. It was also the first day of three important Festivals – Trumpets, Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement. On this...
Sep 10, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
John Taylor Jones was born into a Massachusetts Congregational family. While he was attending Andover College in preparation of becoming a Protestant minister, the Lord taught him the truth, and he began to attend the Baptist’s Newton Seminary. He was baptized and...
Sep 10, 2020 | Wednesday
This evening, we are dealing with a couple things which have always confused me. We have all heard good Baptist people refer to the Sunday morning service as a “Worship Service,” but I’ve often wondered where the worship is. My preference is to think of the 11 o’clock...
Sep 4, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
At the close of the Revolutionary war Robert Carter was one of the wealthiest men in Virginia, owning 70,000 acres. He was a friend of other rich and powerful people including Thomas Jefferson. On this day (September 6) in 1778, Carter faced an audience of about 400...
Sep 3, 2020 | Wednesday
Our text this evening are the famous words of verse10 – “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Let me begin with a warning, I run the risk of making a few people slightly angry with me. How can I anger people by talking about joy? By destroying their misconceptions....
Aug 31, 2020 | Sunday Evening
This will be a relatively short but somewhat convoluted message this evening. I approach it with some trepidation, because I’m venturing into territory in which I have never felt particularly comfortable. But I’m hoping that it will be a blessing to you. Prior to the...
Aug 27, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Historians are pretty-well agreed that an Anglican from Gloucester, England, named Robert Raikes, started the first Sunday school. It is also well-known that it had nothing to do with the Bible. At a period when there were no child labor laws, Sunday was the only...
Aug 27, 2020 | Wednesday
We are now introduced to Ezra the scribe – at least as far as our study in Nehemiah is concerned. Of course, he has a ten chapter book of his own, which immediately precedes Nehemiah. I’ve referred to him in passing several times, but here in chapter 8 he stands front...
Aug 24, 2020 | Sunday Evening
Praying over this chapter, the Lord didn’t lay on my heart any more specific sermons. This is mostly a long list of names which were important at the time and were far more interesting than they are today. But there are a few incidentals from which a lesson or two...
Aug 23, 2020 | Sunday Morning
This will not exactly be a gospel message, even though that is my usual intention for a Sunday morning. Spurgeon once told his students: “Every message should eventually come around to the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel.” And in a round about way, if you hang in...
Aug 20, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
In 1886 J.H, Spencer wrote “A History of Kentucky Baptists from 1769 to 1885″ in which he said, “If a traveller had passed through the whole breadth of the settled portions of North America, in 1799, he would have heard the songs of the drunkard, the loud...
Aug 16, 2020 | Sunday Evening
On four occasions the Samaritan, Sanballat, tried to take Nehemiah away from his work on the wall. Apparently in a most friendly fashion he said, “Come, let us meet together in some one of the villages in the plain of Ono.” Maybe the first time it was an invitation to...
Aug 16, 2020 | Sunday Morning
On a scale of 1 to 10 how fearful are you? 8, 5, 2 ??? For example, do you fear the Corona Virus? Apparently millions of Americans do. Do you fret about whether or not the government is going to force us all to receive their virus vaccination? Does your blood pressure...
Aug 15, 2020 | Timothy Parrow
Partial Return to Normalcy We seem to be experiencing a partial return to normalcy here in Stillwater. However, medical mandates remain in place concerning mask wearing and social distancing. We have begun to translate for Latino men once again in court. We also had...
Aug 13, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
We’ve often mentioned the persecution which the early Baptists faced in the Commonwealth of Virginia. By most accounts there were 43 Baptist ministers jailed there for preaching the gospel before religious freedom became common. Most of these jailed preachers were...
Aug 10, 2020 | Sunday Evening
As Bible-based Baptists we believe Romans 15:4 – “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written – for our LEARNING – that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” When studying through a book as we are doing, one of my...
Aug 9, 2020 | Sunday Morning
There was a man who attended our services off and on for a couple years, but who finally had enough and left. He had strange opinions about a great many things, most of which were conjured up in his own head. I say that because it was nearly impossible to reason with...
Aug 6, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
On this day in 1804 John Gano departed this life while at his home near Frankfort, Kentucky. He had spent his long life in the service of his Saviour, first as an itinerant preacher, then as the pastor of two of the most important churches in America at Philadelphia...
Aug 6, 2020 | Wednesday
With our last message, I was thinking that we’d move on to chapter 6. But I couldn’t get the last verse of this chapter out of my mind. I found it disturbing that Nehemiah would speak to God this way. And this isn’t the only time he prays like this. Nehemiah 13:14 –...
Jul 31, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
The father of William Button was a faithful deacon at the church in Horsleydown which was pastored by John Gill. William was saved by God through that church and was baptized the same day as John Ryland, Jr, who later became a well-known Baptist preacher. William...
Jul 26, 2020 | Sunday Evening
I saw an article the other day which was entitled – “Social Justice; America’s New Religion.” I didn’t take the time to read it, but I thought “Yes, I can see that.” Since casting aside the God of the Bible, Americans have made the creation of new religions one of...
Jul 25, 2020 | Timothy Parrow
A Good Resuming! As I hoped in our May report, we have resumed our Sunday morning service beginning on the seventh of June. As we did not have a Sunday School session the first two Sundays, one of the children asked when we were going to have Sunday School again. So...
Jul 23, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
In late 1681 William Screven was given authority by the Baptist church in Boston to attempt to build a church in Maine. Screven took his responsibility seriously, and the following year he asked that the Boston church oversee the organization of an autonomous church...
Jul 20, 2020 | Sunday Evening
Have you ever been corrected by one of the religious morality police for referring to “MY church?” “My church meets on the corner of 12th and Spokane” – “My church is a fundamental, landmark congregation” – that sort of thing. Has anyone, dressed in the spotless robes...
Jul 19, 2020 | Sunday Morning
This morning I have the pleasure to consider several of the most beloved scriptures in all the Word of God. What Christian has not been moved at some point in his life by the words of John 14 – “In my father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have...
Jul 18, 2020 | This Sunday in Baptist History
It was Christmas day in 1766, in a poor Welsh home, that a baby boy was born. His parents decided to name him Christmas. As a child, after the death of his father, Christmas Evans had no opportunity for an education. When he was fifteen he still could not read. But at...
Jul 16, 2020 | Lessons on Bible Trivia
It was Christmas day in 1766, in a poor Welsh home, that a baby boy was born. His parents decided to name him Christmas. As a child, after the death of his father, Christmas Evans had no opportunity for an education. When he was fifteen he still could not read. But at...
Jul 13, 2020 | Sunday Evening
Are you familiar with Shakespeare’s famous soliloquy from Hamlet? You may think you’re not, but I am reasonably sure you have heard some of it. It goes like this: “To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The...
