Shiny Pipe

IMG_0797
Originally uploaded by AlexBriana&Boys

Genesis 26:32 And it came to pass the same day, that Isaac's servants came, and told him concerning the well which they had digged, and said unto him, We have found water.

A Limited Message or a Limited Fellowship.

A LIMITED MESSAGE OR A LIMITED FELLOWSHIP?

By Dr. David Nettleton

President of Faith Baptist Bible College (1965-1980)

This message, like many, is born out of an experience. It may be some others are going throughsimilar experiences. Therefore, let me recount the one that brought this message to light. I was brought up as a Presbyterian. I was saved at a college that was interdenominational in student body but was managed by the Church of the Brethren. From there I went to a seminary that was not a denominational school, and from there to another seminary that was United Presbyterian. I entered the Baptist pastorate with no Baptist training except that which camefrom reading the Scriptures. A few years later I was drawn into an interdenominational youth movement and was given the leadership of a local Saturday night rally. I cooperated with any who were evangelical, regardless of their associations. I was advised by top leaders in the movement to seek the names of outstanding modernists for my advisory committee. I didn’t do that. But I did follow advice that led me to send all converts back to the churches of their choice, churches I knew to be liberal insome cases. This greatly troubled my conscience, and I prayed and thought about it. Another problem connected with this work was the failure on my part to instruct any converts on the matter of Christian baptism, which in the Scriptures is the first test of obedience. I felt that I should do this in asmuch as Peter and Paul did it. But how could it be done when on the committee of the work there were close friends who did not believe it? By such an association, I had definitely stripped my message and my ministry of important Bible truths that many called “nonessentials.” In the follow-up work it was not convenient to speak of eternal security in the presence of Christian workers who hated the name of the doctrine. Thus the ministry was pared down to the gospel, just as if there were nothing in the Great Commission about baptizing converts and indoctrinating them. I had found the least common denominator and I was staying by it. But my conscience had no rest. Then it was that Acts 20:27 came to mean something to me. The great apostle had never allowed himself to be drawn into anything that would limit his message. He could say with a clean conscience, “I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” Why cannot many say that today? In my case, and in many other cases, it was due to a desire to reach a larger audience and to workwith a larger group of Christians. Many have been carried away from full obedience by a noble sounding motto that has been applied to Christian work: “In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, and in all things charity.” Some things are not essential to salvation but are essential to full obedience, and the Christian has no liberty under God to sort out the Scriptures into essentials and nonessentials! It is our duty to declare the whole counsel of God and to do it wherever we are. Paul had a wonderfully balanced ministry. In his preaching he would never please men, for he knew he could not be pleasing to God if he tried to please men. Yet in his living he testified, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22) “Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved” (1 Corinthians 1:33). What a happy balance this is in the ministry! It is true, humble, and wholesome. Today we are choosing between two alternatives: A LIMITED MESSAGE OR A LIMITED FELLOWSHIP. If we preach all of the Bible truths, there are many places where we will never be invited. If we join hands with the crowd, there will be the limiting of the message of the Bible. Bear this in mind—it is the Baptist who lays aside the most! It is the Baptist who makes the concessions! Think this through and you will find it to be true. We believe in believer’s baptism. We believe in separation. We preach eternal security. We believe in the imminent coming ofChrist. We consider it an act of obedience to reprove unbelief in religious circles. The Sadducee and the Pharisee are to be labeled. But according to a present philosophy, we must lay these things aside for the sake of a larger sphere of service. Which is more important: full obedience or a larger sphere of service? And yet I do not fully believe these are the only two alternatives. It is our first duty to be fully obedient to God in all things, and then to wait upon Him for the places of service. It may be that we will be limited, and it may be that we will not. Charles Haddon Spurgeon did not travel as widely as some men of his day, but his sermons have traveled as far as the sermons of most men. I have recently read a religious article by a great evangelist. He deplores the moral conditions in America. He deplores the conditions in our schools. He speaks against the liquor traffic and against juvenile delinquency. But nothing is said against America’s greatest enemy—THE MODERN UNBELIEF THAT GOES FORTH FROM SUPPOSEDLY CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. The strength of the nation lies in its love of God. That love has grown cold in many churches, and Jesus Christ our Lord is called an illegitimate child, a confused young man,and a dead teacher. That kind of thing needs to be rebuked at the cost of reputation and even at the cost of life, if need be. But as soon as it is rebuked, the man who rebukes it will lose the majority of his following, if he is gaining that following through cooperation with modernistic churches. It is my belief that some of our great evangelists today are thorough Bible-believing Christians. They accept nearly every truth in the Book. It seems they refrain from preaching all the counsel of God for one reason. To them, it is important to reach farther even if we reach with a smaller message. The breach within so-called Protestantism today is as great as the breach between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. We need to make this fact known. But every time we promote the inclusive type of ministry we are covering up a fact that needs to be known. God has given us a great message to preach. It contains the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is not limited to that gospel. He has commissioned us to preach the gospel, baptize our converts, and indoctrinate them (Matthew 28:19, 20). He has given us the very best system of follow-up work, which is the building of Bible-believing churches and joining converts to them. He is calling us to loyalty and obedience. We need no new message. We need no new method. We need only the spirit of obedience found in Paul when he testified, “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel for God.”

So it seems

So it seems that most professing Christians don't believe the bible.
So it seems that the ones that do don't believe in the preservation of the bible.
So it seems that if you talk to a young believer about biblical truth, it makes people very uneasy.
So it seems that among "Christians" all it takes to be saved is the "sinners prayer" what was the passage for that again? oh yeah Notinthebible 10:8-9.
So it seems that when someone feels strongly about something, it means that it's a gift from God and it needs to be excersized. What was that verse? oh yeah... Faith cometh by Emotion and Emotion by Imagination.
So it seems that when "Christians" imagine that God doesn't judge us, that makes it true...
This is, of course, ridiculous.. or So it seems.

Praise God for the new sign!

Praise God for the new sign!
Originally uploaded by AlexBriana&Boys

So here's our new Church sign! it took some doing, but by the grace of God we got it up there.

Carnality

Carnality
1. Pertaining to or characterized by the flesh or the body, its passions and appetites; sensual: carnal pleasures.
2. Not spiritual; merely human; temporal; worldly: a man of secular, rather carnal, leanings.

Spirituality
1. Concern for that which is unseen and intangible, as opposed to physical or mundane.
2. Appreciation for religious values.

When speaking to the Corinthian Believers Paul said,
"1 Corinthians 3:1-3
1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?"

And to the Hebrews that were dull of hearing.
"Hebrews 5:11-13
11 Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing.
12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe."

Everyone as a believer has a responsability to "walk as men." that is to say not as a child. We have a responsability to grow, not to tred water as the Corinthians did.
"1 Corinthians 13:11
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

God does not give us the option to stay spiritual infants. Let's put away childish things, shall we?

"Hebrews 5:14
14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

"Full Age"
Complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc.)From Strongs G5046.

Divorce and remarriage

Clear Biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage.

Let's define some terms.

Fornication:
1. Voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons or two persons not married to each other.

Adultery:
2. Voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse.

Do you see a difference?
Moving on...
Exodus 20:14Thou shalt not commit adultery. (This is transdispensational.)

Dispensational
1. Pertaining to one of several systems or bodies of law in which at several times God has revealed His mind and will to man, or the continued state of things resulting from the operation of one of these systems. (ie. Old Testament Law, New Testament Grace)

Transdispensational
1. Pertaining to two or more of several systems or bodies of law in which at several times God has revealed His mind and will to man, or the continued state of things resulting from the operation of two or more of these systems.

Matthew 5:32But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Please notice in the verse directly above that fornication is used to contrast adultery, and that fornication in this case is talking about an unmarried (in sexual union) couple. They use the term Husband and Wife in the position of espousal, or betrothal.

On Christ.

"On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." How many times have you sang that, but not thought about what it meant. Who is Christ? How do I stand on him? How do I know he's a solid rock?
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
The Word of God is the solid rock we stand on! But people (in my family!) have counted the Word of God an unreliable thing! I have heard PEOPLE IN MY OWN FAMILY say that Job may have been a FABLE! This makes my blood boil! "On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand" In-Deed. Please think about it before you sing it.