Some Thoughts on Fathers

With this week being Father's Day and our "Father-Son Camp-Out" last night for Fellowship Baptist Church, I have been thinking a lot about fathers this week, as I am sure many others have been as well.

It does not come as much of a surprise to anyone who looks around to see that we no longer live in a "Father Knows Best" society. In fact, just the opposite is usually true today. It is very rare to see a father portrayed in the media as someone who knows anything - and this has been going on for years. Television has portrayed fathers as inept for years. Whether it is Homer Simpson or Al Bundy or Tim Taylor, the television father is often a goofball who can't quite get anything right.

Not only are fathers portrayed as inept by the media, they are also portrayed as irrelevant. From the Murphy Brown episode of the eighties (and yes, Virginia, Dan Quayle was right) to the "couples" like Rosie and her pal being promoted as good parenting to the repeated celebrity adoptions by single mothers, the role of the father in these situations is seen as unnecessary. Other than supplying a necessary physical ingredient, the father is often out of the picture.

It is not just the media, however, that indicates a lack of importance of the father. A new term has risen up around these parts that underscores the seeming irrelevance of the continued involvement of fathers in the life of a child in today's society - "baby-daddy." When I first heard the term, I thought the person was just talking fast and was speaking about the baby's daddy. However, I have heard the expression a number of times since then and the best that I can understand this new term is a noun that refers to the person who physically fathered the child. It is often used in the context as an expression that marks out the fact that this is not the husband or even the (current) boyfriend, but was the one who "fathered" the child. In some ways, perhaps this is actually a better term, since "father" should be referred to one who actually has more to do with the child's life than providing seed. (Anyone else out there in a place that uses this expression? I did hear it in passing one day on a television show, so maybe it is a more national thing than I think.) The usage of this term and the promiscous relationships that are represented by this again show that an involved father is not part of today's view of fathers.

When you look at the life and ministry and message of Jesus Christ, however, you see that He had a much different picture of fathers. The term "Father" was a term that He frequently used. It was with the phrase "Our Father which art in Heaven" (Matthew 6:9) that He taught His disciples to address God in the Lord's Prayer. It was by this term that He challenged the disciples to be perfect "even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48)." It was by this term that He reminded us that "your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things" (Matthew 6:18) and that "how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matthew 7:11).

Not only did Christ often use "Father" to refer to God the Father, He also often expressed positive expectations of human fathers. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father is eager to forgive. In the teaching on prayer, he shows that he expects that fathers will give good things to their children when He asks "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?" (Luke 11:11)

When you stop to consider the Biblical picture of a father (best seen by the Perfect Father), some of the things you will find is that in the Bible a father is to be given honor (Ex. 20, Eph. 6), a father is expected to discipline out of love (Heb 12), a father gives good gifts (Matt 7, Luke 11), a father pardons (Luke 15), a father comforts (2 Cor 1:3) and much more.

We need to get back to a Biblical picture of fathers (and The Father), rather than allow ourselves to be caught up with the world's way of thinking about fathers.

A Father's Day Poem

Below is a poem I wrote for Father's Day a couple of years ago. I printed this and put it on some wooden bookmarks and gave them out for Father's Day at church. I think I have posted this before.


A Father's Day Poem

I must be careful
as I live as father,
Love my dear children,
not count them a bother.

Teach them truth
in the way that I live
Show them God's wisdom
in the teaching I give.

Walking in Christ
as I walk before them.
Pointing them always,
always toward Him.

And this is my prayer,
as I pray all my days,
That they live for Christ,
both now and always.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Yes, I am still alive

I know that you have not heard from me lately. I imagine that not many of you care, but some of you are still coming by and checking things out occassionally, so I will at least put something up today, especially in light of the fact that Pastor Don Johnson has practically called me (and others) out about our lack of writing in this post and Pastor Chris Anderson has "tagged me" in this post.

I will wait until Chris is back from vacation to respond to his tag - I'm sure that will disappoint everyone.

I have just about completed my reading and review of "When You Pray" by Philip Ryken. I hope to submit it to Jason Button of the SI staff by the end of this week. (I was actually hoping to submit it today, but we'll see.)

This coming weekend is our second annual "Father-Son Camp-Out" for Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury. Last year we had a great time as we camped out by the Nanticoke River at the Insley's. The Nanticoke is a beautiful river and the time of fellowship with the men was great. I am looking forward to this opportunity of fellowship again.

In a couple of weeks we will be having our second Vacation Bible School at Fellowship Baptist Church. We are using the Regular Baptist Press VBS material called "Rescue Zone." We had in the twenties for our first-ever VBS last year. This year, we are hoping to have a few more as we try to reach out to some additional children in the area around the church.

My job at WM is going well, but is very tiring. Having both husband and wife working nights is a tight juggle with kids. Trying to schedule our nights so that one of us is home with the kids every night and still get in the needed hours has been an interesting juggle. When we were first married, we were able to both work full-time nights, but we could both be gone on the same nights because we had no children at home to be watched.

I have been trying to figure out some additional sources of income (like many others, I am sure). I have not had much progress in this area, however. I have been thinking of starting a couple of side blogs that would have as their purpose to provide some useful information and to provide a revenue stream, but I really do not know if these things actually make any normal people money. I have thought about doing a site of links for Christians (in fact, I even started a blog for this site - here - but have not posted anything but my introduction - and have not put up any ads on it, yet.)

I also have toyed with the idea of doing a "This Day in History" type of site and made a couple of test-posts on a blog for this at http://whathappenedonthisdate.blogspot.com/ , but I am not sure about that either.

I was wondering if any of my readers have any experience with Adsense or with affiliate programs and if they would like to share that experience. I cannot imagine that it is really that worth-while, after all, Jason must have felt that the adsense ads were more problem than they were worth at SI, since he dropped them a long time ago and Greg only had them up briefly on www.currentchristian.com.

Anyway, I am rambling. I hope to make a useful post soon.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Free Download of Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor

I have long wanted to do a book discussion here at A Thinking Man's Thoughts (similar to what Chris has done with the Ryle's Holiness - but actually completing the book :) ) and one of the two books that I have thought about starting with is Richard Baxter's classic book on ministry entitled The Reformed Pastor. I hope to start this discussion after I finish reading and reviewing the two books I am currently reviewing for SharperIron (This Little Church Stayed Home and Ryken's book on The Lord's Prayer).

A lot of you may already have the book and have already read it (I will admit that I have read a decent chunk of it, but not finished it). However, it is currently available for a free download from www.christianaudio.com. Here is the link - Free Download of Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor (Note, the list price is $22.98 and you need to enter this coupon code at check-out to receive the free download - May2007.) You do need to register for the site to qualify (e.g. give them your email address and other information), but this is a good deal for a good book.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

HT: Ken Fields

Free Books

EISENBRAUNS, which specializes on ancient Near East and Biblical studies, has been offering a free book to the first 25 people who responded by sending an email to their marketing department.

I read about this over at Jason Button's blog (Theosource), but thought I was probably too late by the time I saw it. However, I visited the site and decided to give it a try - and I received my book in yesterday's mail.

You have no control over the book that you will receive and the material is not always conservative, but I received a book that I am looking forward to reading entitled, The Uttermost Part of the Earth: A Guide to Places in the Bible by Richard R. Losch.

The book came quickly and as advertised and even the shipping was free.


The note that Jason posted that alerted me to this said,

Yes, this is real, not a late April Fools joke. To win your free book, be one of the first 25 to send an e-mail to marketing at eisenbrauns.com with your name and address. These are new, recently published books, we choose from over 25 titles and we pay the freight!"

I looked for the quote on the site and could not find it except in an RSS feed, but when I sent an email, I got a positive response and now I have a free book.

So, stop over at www.eisenbrauns.com and look around and see if you can get a free book.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Simple Church book review posted on Sharper Iron

As I mentioned two posts ago, my review of the book Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger was soon to be published on Sharper Iron. Well, it has now been published.

You can find the review here.

Feel free to comment there or here.

I will also be publishing it here at a later date.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

A Question about a Gospel Presentation

Here is a practical and theological question for you:

If you needed to distill the Gospel down to something that would fit into a 2 x 3.5 inch space on a piece of paper (such as a brochure), what would you include and why? This space would allow you to write "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country" 12 times without any formatting, so we are dealing with a very limited space.

I am the type of person who generally spends at least a half of an hour with explaining the Gospel when I deal with a person who expresses interests in salvation, so this "distilling" is a little difficult for me and I would like to enlist the wisdom of other believers.

What aspects of the Gospel would you include?

What verses would you include?

Would you write the points in your words and include references or would you have less points and quote the verses that you did use instead?



A couple of things to clarify as we begin:

1. If you choose to actually include the whole thing you would place in such a space, please do so - warning, if I like enough, I might steal it.

2. If you want to indicate which elements that you think are essential or at least most important to include in this type of situation, please do so. Feel free to even argue about why you think they are most important or necessary. However, once you have made your point and/or counterpoint, let's not take the thread down long rabbit trails.

3. In your comments - and in your responses to other people's comments - please remember that no one is claiming that things not included are not important, we are trying to work with a limited situation.


I would love to hear your thoughts,

Frank

Hello, again

I know it has been awhile since I last posted, but I plan on doing better.

As most of my regular readers know, I started a new part-time job a few weeks ago. This has made things a little bit busy and it has taken me a little bit of make some adjustments.

With the second job, blogging has been put a little further back on the back burner (okay, it was temporarily taken off the stove). I have actually written some things over the last few weeks, but they are on my notebook and my PDA (I wrote part of what will become a post while on lunch break at WM) and I have not been opening up my notebook where I have internet access as much. I also have generally blogged at night, but since I am at other places at night ... well. You understand.

Anyway, I am planning on adding a couple of posts over the next few days. On one of them, in particular, I would really like to have some input.

I also have finished reading and writing a review of Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger's book entitled Simple Church. This review will be posted on SI soon and then after that I will be posting it here and on The FFBC Blog. I am also in the process of reading and writing two other reviews for SI (This Little Church Stayed Home and When You Pray: Making the Lord's Prayer Your Own) and may be writing a couple of reviews for A Thinking Man's Thoughts on some secular books that I have read lately.

I have also been in the process of researching and trying to develop an additional income stream or two to be able to focus more on the things at the church without working a regular secular job. If anyone actually has some really good ideas, let me know (I hope this is not soliciting a lot of spam :) ).

Anyway, this is just to update things while I had a minute. An actual real post should be coming by Monday night (or maybe Tuesday).

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Oops, I never did this officially, yet

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Our 2007 Thinking Man's Tourney Time winner for the 2007 NCAA Men's National Basketball Tournament was Brother Sam Knisely from Pennsylvania.

Second place went to Brother Ron Bean from Virginia.

I finished in third place, with Brian Morris and Andy Rupert rounding out the top five.

Congratulations Sam and Ron for a job well-done.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Fraudulent News by Oliver North

I know this article is a few weeks old. I read it awhile ago and meant to highlight it, but did not get around to it at the time.

Mr. North has written an excellent piece on the current state of American journalism and argues that "fraudulent news is not only bad for morals, the environment and morale, it can also be disheartening and sometimes downright deadly."

In the article he hits on a number of "hot-button" issues - from global warming to terrorism to Muslim extremism to the "lost tomb of Jesus." It is a short article, but worth the read - even if I am a little late in putting it up here.

So, take a couple of minutes and read "Fraudalent News" by Oliver North.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Maryland Passes Stupid Bill

I don't generally make a lot of posts regarding politics, but this one needs some comments.

Earlier today, the Maryland House of Delegates approved a bill that makes Maryland even more irrelevant in the area of Presidential politics. Our local paper, The Daily Times, writes about the bill in this article - Maryland poised to be first to approve Electoral College change.

Maryland is setting itself up so that the voice of the citizens of Maryland are irrelevant when it comes to the election of the President of the United States. The bill awards Maryland's electoral votes (currently 10) to the winner of the national popular vote. This is just plain STUPID!

Think of some of the effects of this bill.

1. It ignores the choices of Maryland voters. Maryland voters could vote overwhelmingly - even unanimously - for a particular candidate, yet the state's electoral votes would go for that person's opponent if the opponent won the national popular vote.

2. It makes Maryland even more of an afterthought in campaigns. Maryland has 10 electoral votes. This places Maryland in a tie for 18th most electoral votes. Not exactly anything to brag about, but nothing to sneeze at either. This bill tells Presidential candidates that they can skip Maryland except for fundraisers - after all, why worry about the votes in Maryland when you can mine for extra votes in a more populous state? You get twice the bang for your buck - you campaign in an effort to win that states electoral votes and you get Maryland's thrown in with them.

3. It specifically goes against the concepts that the framers of the constitution tried to use when they set up the electoral college in the first place. This was set up as a protection for the "smaller states," but now a smaller state is advocating getting rid of it. Go figure!

Now, Maryland's law still needs to be signed by the Governor - he is expected to sign it - and a number of other states need to pass similar laws before Maryland's law would take effect. Here's hoping that there are not that many other stupid states.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

All is lost - oh, not really

If you have been following the posts on The Thinking Man's Tourney Time, you know by now that Sam Knisely has nicely moved in to the lead of our little NCAA Men's Basketball Bracket Challenge for 2007.

With the loss by UCLA (did they even show up or is Florida actually that good?) to the Gators, Brother Knisely moved into first place in our tournament and Brother Ron Bean moved into a second place tie with me. Both of them have chosen Florida to win it all, so Sam will win the overall title, while Ron has a chance to move into second place. Of course, I am rooting for Ohio State tonight, although I don't really care either way.

The good side of having my teams all gone is that I don't find myself like I did on Saturday - wanting to root for Ohio State, but feeling obligated to root for Georgetown because it would help my bracket more (by not giving Sam and Ron the points for an OSU win).


So, without further delay, the current standings going into tonight's NCAA Men's Basketball Championship are as follows.

1. Sam Knisely - 219 points (47 correct)
2. (tie) - Ron Bean - 216 points (46 correct)
2. (tie) - Frank Sansone -216 points (42 correct)
4. Brian Morris - 207 points (41 correct)
5. Andy Rupert - 199 points (43 correct)

Sam, Ron, Brian, Andy, and John Kjaer (who is in 7th place) can all add to their point totals tonight. Sam, Ron & Brian have Florida winning it all and Andy and John have Ohio State University winning it all.

On a related note, a certain blogging Pastor friend of mine is gloating over the alleged fact that he had picked all four Final Four teams and selected the correct two teams to advance to the championship (you can read Chris' comments at http://mytwocents.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/final-four-check-final-two-check).

I would make two quick comments regarding this post by Chris:

1. Based on his previous comments on my blog at this post, my calculations would indicate that Chris has at best 43 correct picks with a chance for 44 tonight. While that is nice and it beats my 42 correct picks, it doesn't stack up to our Thinking Man's Tourney Time. Even Andy Rupert (who is in 5th place in our Tournament) has the same amount of wins as Chris - and has also picked OSU, so Chris cannot pass him even if OSU wins. Beyond that, Ron Bean (who is currently tied for second) has 46 wins already and Sam Knisely has 47 wins aleady. Both of them also have OSU vs. Florida in tonight's game, but both have Florida winning over Ohio State.

2. I think Chris needs to re-read, this post - or at least the book upon which the post is based :).

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Goodsearch and Blog comments

As some of you may have noticed, I have updated a few things on my blog over the last week or so.

One of the updates that I made was adjusting the categories so that clicking on the categories no longer takes you to the "fake" blog that I created as a work-around for the fact that blogger did not have that feature previously.

I have went through a number of the older posts and added labels, but I have not made it through all of the old posts to add new labels to them yet. I also decided that while I may have a bunch of labels that I actually use on posts, I don't think I will include all of them as side categories. Of course, you can always click a label at the end of a post to see what else has the same label.

I have also added a link to Goodsearch. Goodsearch is a search engine that is powered by Yahoo! and gives money to the charity of your choice each time you use them to search - supposedly about 1 cent a search. Obviously it will not add up to much unless a whole bunch of people use it, but it could perhaps bring in a little extra cash (for instance 10 people performing 5 searches a day would add up to $182.50). Some of the bigger organizations like Cystic Fibrosis Foundation have earned $3,120 according to the Goodsearch web-site, but we are a small church. Goodsearch also offers a Goodsearch toolbar that can be downloaded and used to search with Goodsearch from whatever web-site you are browsing. You need to indicate which charity you would like to get credit for your searching. If your church is not signed up, our church (Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury) is on the list of approved charities for which you can search. (This Goodsearch link and the one on the side of the blog take you to the Goodsearch sight with Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury prepopulated in the "Who do you Goodsearch for?" section. ) If you use the Goodsearch toolbar, make sure you choose your charity manually (where the toolbar says "My Charity"). I started using this a few weeks ago before putting up the link to make sure that it worked without causing any problems. I use the toolbar primarily. The toolbar also has a popup blocker, which is a nice feature and works pretty well.

Anyway, I am not sure how much blogging I will do in the next week or so. I have done some orientation on Thursday and Friday and I start my first of three night shifts in a row on Tuesday night.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

NCAA Update - UCLA Must beat Florida

Wow! The Thinking Man's Tourney Time has tightened up big-time.

Ohio State managed to keep their heads together even when Oden spent most of the time on the bench in the first half and Georgetown failed to use Hibbert effectively and now my lead in The Thinking Man's Tourney Time is down to 3!

UCLA needs to beat Florida for me to win. A UCLA win would seal the victory for me. A Florida win would give Sam Knisely the victory and moves Ron Bean into a tie with me for second place. A Florida championship moves Brother Bean into second place by himself and moves me into third place.

So, GOOOO BRUINS!!!

Just my thoughts,

Frank

Oh, Oh Alfallo (sp?) has three fouls in the first half. URGH!

Thursday begins a new adventure

On Thursday, I do something I have not done in a long time. I re-enter the secular work-force.

I am not resigning from beign Pastor or anything like that, but, with the expense of the new church building, our church was in need of making some difficult choices if we wanted to balance our books this year.

So, in our January meeting, I took a 20% pay decrease to help us get things back on track. So far, it has worked out pretty well from the standpoint of the church, but for the last few weeks, I have been trying to find a part-time job that I could work around my church responsibilities and around my wife's job. (Missy is a labor and delivery nurse at PRMC.)

Last week I was hired to work overnight stocking at Wal-Mart. I am pretty sure that fellow blogger and very poor NCAA Tournament participant Scott Bothwell also works overnight at Wal-Mart if I remember correctly.

Anyway, on Thursday I have my orientation. I think I actually start working some time next week. The job is a temporary assignment (the store is hiring for a 90--day remodeling project) and I am not sure what our situation will be when the temporary assignment is completed. (They indicated that they will likely hire some of the temporary hires for more permanent positions after the remodeling, but I don't know if I will be chosen for this or if I will need it still at that time.)

I expect I will be trying to streamline some processes in my life over the next few weeks, but I also figure that there are 416 employees at the Wal-Mart that I have not yet met, so "a great door and effectual is opened unto me."

I do not know what the policies are regarding blogging and the job, but orientation is on Thursday and I will probably find out then. If you think about it in the next few days, pray for me and my family as we make this adjustment.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

2007 NCAA Tournament March Madness Update

The Final Four is set. Ohio State versus Georgetown in one game, Florida versus UCLA in the other game.

These should be some good games. This has been a good tournament this year, although without as many of the big upsets that often make the first weekend more exciting.

Things at The Thinking Man's Tourney are heating up. With three games left to play, there are still three of us with a chance to win. At this point, it looks like the key game will be the UCLA versus Florida game. I have picked UCLA to win it all, while the next three players in our little bracket challenge have all selected Florida.

The top five leader board is as follows:

Frank Sansone - 216 points (42 correct)
Sam Knisely - 207 points (45 correct)
Ron Bean - 204 points (44 correct)
Brian Morris - 201 points (40 correct)
Andy Rupert - 187 points (41 correct)

If I am reading the CBS Sportsline information correctly, the top three still have a chance to win, but Brian and Andy have officially been eliminated from winning (Brian can achieve no more than 214 points, which falls below the 216 I already have.)

Sam has moved ahead of Ron in both wins and points after this last round. They both have Florida winning it all, so I don't think Ron can move back ahead.

Just my quick thoughts before taking the kids to school,

Frank

2007 March Madness Update - Elite Eight

We are quickly approaching the end of the 2007 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, and with that, the end of the 2007 edition of The Thinking Man's Tourney Time.

As we have reached the Elite Eight, the top five scoring for The Thinking Man's Tourney Time is as follows:

1. Frank Sansone - 205 (40 correct)
2. Ron Bean - 194 (42 correct)
3. Sam Knisely - 191 (42 correct)
4. Brian Morris - 184 (37 correct)
5. Andy Rupert - 177 (39 correct)

Both Ron and Sam correctly picked seven of the eight teams in the Elite Eight.

With USC's loss to UNC last night, I only have five of the Elite Eight remaining - and I am now missing two of my Final Four.

Some may wonder how I can be in the lead with the stats like I just mentioned. Well, I run the tournament :). Just kidding. Actually, I have picked the West bracket almost completely perfect (the only game I missed was a first-round mistake of picking Gonzaga over Indiana) and the scoring is such that you are awarded one point per round for getting a game correct, plus the seeding of the winning team. Thus, picking VCU over Duke (which I did) and Winthrop over Notre Dame (which I did) gives you 12 points in the first round for each of those games (1 for the round and 11 for the seeding). As the rounds increase the round points for each victory increases (so, a win by a team in the Final Four is worth 5 points plus the seeding). So, while I have a lead, I believe I can still be beaten, depending on which teams win. Both Ron and Sam have Florida winning it all, while I have UCLA, so we'll see how things develop.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

2007 NCAA Tournament Update - After Round 2

I just realized I had not posted an update regarding the standings for A Thinking Man's Tourney after Round 2 of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament. Since Round 3 begins tonight, I thought I should quickly update this information before those games begin.

After two rounds, I am still in the lead with a score of 182. In second place is Ron Bean with 163, followed closely by Brian Morris (160), Sam Knisely (159) and Andy Rupert (155).

Both Mr. Bean and Mr. Knisely have nailed all but one game in the South Bracket (both incorrectly chose Tennessee to lose to Virginia).

Out of those named above, everyone except for me and Andy Rupert still have all of their Final Four teams remaining. I think I need the University of Southern California (USC) to do well and at least upset the University of North Carolina (UNC) in this round if I want to keep my lead. It would not hurt if Florida went down in this round, either.

Anyway, that is my meaningless March Madness update.

Just my thoughts,

Frank

A Person Who Deserts Deity - Sermon Notes from Revelation 2:1-7

On Sunday night, we continued our week of Special Meetings at Fellowship Baptist Church with Evangelist Ron DeGarde.

For Sunday night’s message, Brother Ron preached a good message on Revelation 2:1-7 on "A Person who Deserts Deity."

In his introduction, Brother DeGarde dealt with some of the details of the 1995 case of Aldridge Ames’ Treason against the United States and the selling of information about a number of
U.S. agents to the U.S.S.R.

He then dealt with three truths about deserters.

I. The Deserter’s Description

A. His Camouflage shows one thing

1. Serving

2. Steadfast

3. Separating

4. Searching

B. His Character shows another thing - Idolatry

1. Robs God of time

2. Robs God of tithe

3. Robs God of talents

4. Robs God of temple

II. The Deserter’s Danger

The deserter’s danger is that God will remove His power.

God has not lost His power, but we have.

III. The Deserter’s Deliverance

A. Remember - deal specifically with your sin

B. Repent - have a change of mind

C. Repeat - do the first works

For a closing illustration, he used the account of the patriot Nathan Hale who faced death and said, "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country." Rather than be a deserter, his stood firm and his life counted.

It was a very well done message and I appreciate the ministry that God has provided through Ron's ministry this week, despite Ron's difficulties with his foot.

Just his (and my) thoughts,

Frank

Sin's Power - Sermon Notes from Hebrews 3:13

On Sunday morning, Evangelist Ron DeGarde took time to remind the folks how we could have a successful series of meetings:

1. We need to be INTERCEDING - praying that God would do a work this
week.
2. We need to be INVOLVED - being faithful to all of the services.
3. We need to be INVITING - encouraging others to come out to the
meetings.
4. We need to be INVESTIGATING - examining our lives in light of
God’s Word.

For the Sunday Morning Message, Brother DeGarde focused on The Power of Sin from Hebrews 3:13.

Hebrews 3:13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any
of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

It was interesting how closely a lot of what he said meshed with what I preached on last week when I dealt with the need of God’s people to turn from their wicked ways.

I. The Subtlety of Sin’s Power

A. Sin has the power to Deceive

Romans 7:11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and
by it slew me.

Isaiah 44:20 He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?

1. It will deceive you about its pleasure

Hebrews 11:25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;

2. It will deceive about its penalty

B. Sin has the Power to Destroy

1. Sin puts men in misery

2. Sin puts men in Hell

II. The Shattering of Sin’s Power

Christ became our Propitiation - Our Substitute that Satisfies

1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Just his thoughts,

Frank