Feb 21, 2019 | Wednesday
The most obvious Biblical truths must be taught as often as the most difficult and complicated. Perhaps they need to be taught even more, because we might assume that our neighbors understand them as clearly as we do, when that is not always the case. Sometimes a...
Feb 17, 2019 | Sunday Evening
The Lord has a great many wonderful names and titles. Each of them reveal different aspects of His nature and His relationship to creation. Thousands of pastors and Bible teachers have taught through them – blessing their churches.. That is something I have...
Feb 14, 2019 | This Sunday in Baptist History
This little note may not be as serious as most, but it is interesting. On this day in 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected as the third president of the United States by the House of Representatives. Elder John Leland who had been a neighbor of both Congressman James...
Feb 14, 2019 | Wednesday
I really hesitated about addressing this verse tonight. Some of you have waded through deep snow , driving on ice, to meet here. Some will be getting home quite late and yet you still come. If this devotion is all you come away with, you might think the blessing...
Feb 10, 2019 | Sunday Morning
How much of a roll does God play in the affairs of men? That is a theological “hot potato,” and it has been for centuries. It may be the single most divisive subject among today’s Baptists. This church has lost members because they couldn’t see what I...
Feb 8, 2019 | This Sunday in Baptist History
John Meglamare was born in 1730. His parents were Presbyterians, and through them John grew up very concerned about his soul. But concern is not enough. Prior to his conversion he moved to North Carolina where he began to hear the gospel preaching of several Baptists....
Feb 7, 2019 | Wednesday
At the meal where Mary anointed the feet of the Lord Jesus, there was some murmuring about waste. In Mary’s defense, Jesus said, “Let her alone; against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you, but me ye have not...
Feb 4, 2019 | Sunday Evening
There is a word in verse 6 which I will take as the spring board for our message this evening. In that word we have an opportunity to speak about the ministry – the human side of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Also in this short epistle, the Lord has revealed...
Feb 3, 2019 | Sunday Morning
With this message I’d like to start a brief series of lessons on this unique and interesting epistle of Paul. From the outset, it’s appropriate to ask: “Why is this letter included in the cannon of the scriptures?” It is the only letter of Paul which is...
Jan 31, 2019 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Henry Toler, was born into a humble but respectable family in King and Queen County, Virginia. You’d think that after the War of Independence the people of that place would have changed the name, but these were not English monarchs. And you might also think that once...
Jan 31, 2019 | Wednesday
I don’t understand why, but in reading these proverbs I will pass over a few unimpressed to expound them. But then there will be another, expressing the same point, and it will slap me in the face. For example, we have read the word “slothful” in one...
Jan 27, 2019 | Sunday Morning
The Christian life involves a continual struggle for balance. Just think about that for a moment. Christians are both fleshly and spiritual beings, and our carnality wants to be dominant. But we can’t let that happen. To put it another way, we live in the world, but...
Jan 24, 2019 | This Sunday in Baptist History
On this day in 1682, under William Penn, a decree of religious freedom was granted to the people of Pennsylvania. Penn, as you may know, was a Quaker. The first Baptist pastor to take advantage of the liberty in that colony was Thomas Dungan. To escape the persecution...
Jan 24, 2019 | Wednesday
I wonder how many people born after the year 1984 know the meaning of the verb “to fret?” I picked 1984 because that is the year which begins the age group sometimes called the “Millennials.” Those are people who began growing up about the...
Jan 20, 2019 | Sunday Evening
I have said recently that I have a dream where our church becomes somewhat like the church in Antioch. I admit that it is an ambitious dream. It’s perhaps not as ambitious as the dream being celebrated tomorrow. But why not? Why can’t we dream big if it is for the...
Jan 19, 2019 | Timothy Parrow
Dear Pastor and Brethren: End of Year Review I like to do a review of each year’s work and blessings at the end of each year and beginning of each new year to see what has been accomplished and to ask the Lord’s blessings for future spiritual and numerical...
Jan 17, 2019 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Henry Sharp was a deacon in the First Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia. He was also a slave owner – as were most of his neighbors. When he recognized that the Lord had saved one of his slaves, George Leile, and that the Holy Spirit had given him gifts fit for the...
Jan 17, 2019 | Wednesday
A month ago when I first noticed this verse looming on the horizon I mentally groaned. How can I teach this verse without in some way hurting those men who don’t have good wives? And what about our unmarried ladies? I certainly don’t want them to think they are not...
Jan 14, 2019 | Sunday Evening
Elijah was one of the truly great men of God. No one should try to deny this. At the end of his life “Elijah went up by a whirlwind into Heaven, and Elisha saw it.” Then about 920 years later there he was with Moses meeting with Christ Jesus at the...
Jan 13, 2019 | Sunday Morning
Out of all the Old Testament Hebrew festivals, sacrifices and rites, Christians are usually more familiar with the Passover than any other. In I Corinthians 5:7 Paul declared to a congregation made up mostly of Gentiles– non-Jews – “Christ OUR passover is...
Jan 10, 2019 | This Sunday in Baptist History
J.N. Hall was ordained to the gospel ministry on this day in 1872. Hall had a keen mind and eloquent manner of speech, enabling him to be greatly used of the Lord. While editing different Baptist journals throughout his life, he preached an average of a sermon a day....
Jan 10, 2019 | Wednesday
Jacob and Esau were about as closely related as physical brothers could ever be. They were the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah. We can probably assume that, for the most part, their first few years were nearly identical. They played together, learned together and...
Jan 6, 2019 | Sunday Morning
This is one of the great, great events in the lives of those who surrounded the Lord Jesus. I have preached from this chapter three times, as far as I know. One message was entitled “The Gospel according to Lazarus,” and was exactly that – a gospel...
Jan 3, 2019 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Mihaly (Michael) Kornya was born in 1844 in a Hungarian community whose name I cannot pronounce. He was granted a limited education because he was the son of a farmer. Eventually he became a share-copper and at the age of 22 married an 18 year old girl named Maria....
Jan 3, 2019 | Wednesday
Some people think that the Christian ministry is limited to a select few – like pastors and missionaries. But in truth the Lord dispenses His gifts and responsibilities in packages of fives, tens and even singles to all His children. And the King of kings expects us...
Dec 31, 2018 | Sunday Evening
According to some people’s numerology the Biblical number 40 refers to testing, trial or probation. 40 comes up 146 times in the Bible, and many of those references do point to testings and trials. For example, the twelve spies reconnoitered Canaan for forty days,...
Dec 30, 2018 | Sunday Morning
At times around here we share some friendly ribbing about “Biblical numerology.” There are some who put special spiritual significance on the numbers we find in the Bible, and there are others who don’t. Those who do sometimes say that 6 is the number of...
Dec 27, 2018 | This Sunday in Baptist History
Zacharius Morrell is our subject for today. J.M Carroll declared that to Morrell “is due as much, or more, than to any other man, the right beginning and right foundations of organized Baptist work in Texas.” Zacharius Morrell was born in South Carolina in...
Dec 27, 2018 | Wednesday
Why isn’t the world flocking to the Lord for salvation? Of course there is man’s native depravity and the hatred of the Lord which automatically comes from that. But these two things are expressed in a variety of ways often in an effort to deny the reality. We hear,...
Dec 24, 2018 | Sunday Evening
There are several instances where the Bible describes important or significant periods of time. Once in a while, because of special circumstances there are universal lessons in them. Last week we considered the seven days after Noah’s entrance into the ark before...
