2007 National Leadersip Conference - Day 2

This is the second in a series of posts regarding the National Leadership Conference at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary in Lansdale, PA. The first report can be found here.

For those of you who have never been to a National Leadership Conference, Wednesday and Thursday are the two big days of the National Leadership Conference, with Tuesday only having an evening session and Friday only having sessions up until lunch.

One of the nice things about the National Leadership Conference is meeting up with other friends in ministry. For lunch, Matt Jury and I joined a group from Hardingville Bible Church including Pastor Mark Franklin, Pastor Dave Field and John and Rocco. We had an interesting meal. I won’t comment much regarding lunch because it was probably one of those "you had to be there to understand" type of moments, but imagine a group of six big men in a lady-like health food cafe and you will get the start of the picture of us at lunch on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the day began with a General Session by Dr. Doug McLachlan, Pastor of Fourth Baptist Church of Minneapolis, Minnesota, former President of Central Baptist Theological Seminary and author of Reclaiming Authentic Fundamentalism.

In General, the General Sessions are running around a common theme - Our Unique (... fill in the blank...).

Dr. McLachlan’s General Session focused on Isaiah 6:1-8 and dealt with Our Unique God in a presentation entitled: No One is Holy Like the Lord - a reference to the truth expressed by Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:2. Dr. McLachlan focused on five graphic stages regarding the encounter of Isaiah with "The Holy One of Israel."

The first stage dealt with "The Prophet’s Vision" and dealt with the fact that Isaiah saw God in His holiness - on His holy throne, with His holy angels, etc. He also reminded us that John 12 indicates that Who Isaiah saw was Jesus. (Kind of interesting considering a recent online conversation I had in which a lady was trying to claim that Allah and Jehovah God were the same.)

The second stage dealt with "The Prophet’s Conviction" and dealt with the fact that seeing God’s holiness brought about in Isaiah a utter sense of his own sinfulness and ruin.

The third stage dealt with "The Prophet’s Confession" and dealt with the response of Isaiah in admitting his own sinfulness and confessing this before God. (It seemed to me that the second and third stage were very closely linked in the presentation so that it was hard to distinguish them - but considering the context of Isaiah 6, that makes sense.)

The fourth stage dealt with "The Prophet’s Redemption" and dealt with the fact that the solution to Isaiah’s problem was taken care of by God, not by Isaiah. "Once it was God’s holiness that kept us from God, now it is God’s holiness that brings us to God" - the Holy Sacrifice reconciled us.

The fifth stage dealt with "The Prophet’s Commission and dealt with what Isaiah pledged - that he would go and proclaim the unique God.

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good presentation of a very familiar passage.

The second General Session was on "Our Unique Savior" by Pastor Danny Brooks from Heritage Bible Church in Greer, South Carolina. Pastor Brooks had one of those sessions that you never want to have as a speaker at a gathering like this - he had the dreaded after lunch session.
Pastor Brooks dealt with John 1:1- 18 and focused on the Uniqueness of Christ as Our Savior.
By way of introduction, Danny dealt with the three terms in his title - Our (which reminds us of the closeness of association we have with the Savior and with one another) Unique (one of a kind) Savior (someone who rescues from harm or danger).

As Dan continued his introduction, he reminded us of the uniqueness of Christ in regards to the founders of the various religions of the world and then began to deal with John 1.
The focus of the message was on the fact that Our Savior is Unique in His Person and Our Savior is Unique in His Ministry.

In dealing with His Person, he spent some time dealing with the fact that Jesus is God and Man.

In dealing with His Ministry, he reminded us that the Savior Who resides with man (v.14) ministers grace and ministers truth.

Pastor Brooks is one of those guys who always looks young. He still looks pretty much like he did back in the days when he was in The Printing. He also has a great memory. He still remembers my name even though I am a nobody who he has only seen on a few occasions since college and even in college I was a nobody in Inter Society Council when he was the President of ISC.

The presentation was well-done (despite the bad time slot) and the connection of the Person and Ministry of Christ reminded me of the connection to what Christ taught the disciples on the Emmaus Road in Luke 24 (regarding His Person and Work).

The evening General Session on Wednesday night was by Dr. Stephen Jones, the President of Bob Jones University (my alma mater).

I am not sure that I have ever heard Dr. Jones preach before. I sat next to him in chapel back when he was a Senior in the Academy and I was a Freshman at BJU and I have seen him at some other functions over the years, but I can’t remember having heard him preach.
Dr. Jones preached on Psalm 51 and did a good job of handling the text and encouraging us to consider the Merciful God that we serve.

After reminding us of the situation of David’s sin and the distance between David and God because of David’s sin, he encouraged us regarding God’s Great Mercy.

Psalm 51 points out for us the Sinner’s Appeal - David had finally come running back to God and his only appeal was for God to have mercy on him. David’s appeal was not based on David’s position or anything in David - but rather on the character of God and God’s lovingkindness.

Psalm 51 also points out the Sinner’s Acknowledgment - looking at the different meanings for the words "sin", "transgression", and "iniquity" in the passage and being reminded of the utter inability for David to handle things on his own.

Psalm 51 also encourages us because of the Sinner’s Restoration. David was to have his joy restored, his ministry restored, and his testimony restored.

Overall, the General Sessions on Wednesday all dealt with familiar passages, but were encouraging in their nature.