My Eyes are Dry, my faith is old.
My heart is hard, my prayers are cold,
And I know how I ought to be,
Alive to You and dead to me.
Oh what can be done, for an old heart like mine.
Soften it up, with oil and wine.
The oil is You, Your Spirit of love,
Please wash me anew, In the wine of your blood
My Eyes are Dry, my faith is old.
My heart is hard, my prayers are cold,
And I know how I ought to be,
Alive to You and dead to me
words by Keith Green
Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul;
Friends may fail me, foes assail me,
He, my Savior, makes me whole.
Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.
Jesus! what a Strength in weakness!
Let me hide myself in Him.
Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,
He, my Strength, my victory wins.
Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.
Jesus! what a Help in sorrow!
While the billows over me roll,
Even when my heart is breaking,
He, my Comfort, helps my soul.
Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.
Jesus! what a Guide and Keeper!
While the tempest still is high,
Storms about me, night overtakes me,
He, my Pilot, hears my cry.
Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.
Jesus! I do now receive Him,
More than all in Him I find.
He hath granted me forgiveness,
I am His, and He is mine.
Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.
There is a lot you can learn from Hymns. Especially when they are base on good sound doctrine as this one is.
Been too busy to report much lately. We are still studying Romans 8:28-30. We have been going over predestination and election. Very interesting subjects. Well as you can see we have settle on our new boys name Solomon Blythe Miller. Solomon of coarse is out of the Bible and Blythe is an old English word for cheerfulness. Keep Laurie in your prayers she is really working hard at the hospital.
“… the laws of GOD are not simply external statutes, published and passed by some congress in heaven; rather, the laws of GOD reflect HIS very character. They are an expression of GOD HIMSELF. So to break any of GOD’s laws is to live against GOD. It is to live contrary to HIM” Mark Dever
I have been reading 9 Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever and he made this statement about the laws of GOD. I got to thinking about this.We know GOD cannot sin. (1 John 3:5) That is because HE cannot go against HIS very character. GOD cannot lie steal murder. Because GOD does not change his character.(1 Samuel 15:29) We however do lie steal covet murder and so on.(Romans 3:10-18) That is why “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this judgement…” (Hebrews 9:27) GOD will judge us by HIS very character known to us as the ten commandments. The punishment for this is Hell. (Revelation 21:8) BUT GOD so love us that he gave us HIS only begotten SON… (John 3:16) The only way to save us or change us was for there to be a sacrifice. That sacrifice was JESUS. HE paid our debt. So because of JESUS we now have a new heart with GOD’s character upon us (Galations 2:20)
GOD has answer my prayers! I want to praise GOD for every thing he has shown me lately. I want to praise HIM for giving me the strength to stand up for HIM. I want to thank HIM for using me. I pray that I stay humble and remain in HIM as HE teaches me more and guides me through these last days. Why do I give all Glory to GOD? Becuase I could not have written the e-mail I wrote or even sent it to the church without HIM! How do I know HE was at work? By the very e-mail I received from my pastor…..
"I am honored by your convictions, beliefs, research, and passion for pure gospel message. I, too, agree with Piper (and have read several of his books and even been to his church in Minnesota) and am disturbed by the quotes you listed. I guess I have not been exposed to these kinds of teachings from the emergent church.
My suggestion is that you stop attending that class, which of course, is what you are already doing. Adult II is a class of young couples, and the teaching approach is the traditional bible study method. The couples may be a few years older, but the two of you would fit in. A few of the couples were on the marriage retreat.
I would greatly hate to lose the two of you from our church. Your passion for people and truth are needed. However, as your pastor who wants the best for you and your wife, I want you to be in the best church for you. If you feel like you cannot worship, serve, and grow in this fellowship, then it is better to find another fellowship than to just stay at home.
Having said that, please don't leave this fellowship too quickly. Give Adult 2 a try before you do!"
Please, if you have been praying for me and my church don't stop. My pastor still has a lot to go through over the next few weeks. Pray that GOD's Truth is preached and taught in my church. And as always please give GOD the glory for that is why we are here.
Some were wondering what I was going to say to my church since my Monday meeting. Well here is the letter for all its worth.
“During our conversation Monday, Pastor you had said that you sense that I was not feeling any better about the whole thing. Well, you were right. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that I just wanted to agree and have peace in the class. I don’t understand it. I went and did what I promised and look into the whole emergent conversation (movement, church) and I still did not find any reason to believe they are headed for Truth. (name left out for a reason) said that I just don’t understand what they are saying when they say things like
“…I heard one well-known Christian leader … say it like this: The traditional understanding says that God asks of us something that God is incapable of Himself. God asks us to forgive people. But God is incapable of forgiving. God can’t forgive unless He punishes somebody in place of the person He was going to forgive. God doesn’t say things to you—Forgive your wife, and then go kick the dog to vent your anger. God asks you to actually forgive.
And there’s a certain sense that, a common understanding of the atonement presents a God who is incapable of forgiving. Unless He kicks somebody else.”
or things like this
“The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic childe abuse – a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed….Such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement ‘God is love.’ If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by His Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil ”
I think it is clear on what they are saying. They do not believe or understand in the doctrine of salvation. I will let John Piper tell you what it is
God did not ordain the cross of Christ or create the lake of fire in order to communicate the insignificance of belittling his glory. The death of the Son of God and the damnation of unrepentant human beings are the loudest shouts under heaven that God is infinitely holy, and sin is infinitely offensive, and wrath is infinitely just, and grace is infinitely precious, and our brief life—and the life of every person in your church and in your community—leads to everlasting joy or everlasting suffering. If our preaching does not carry the weight of these things to our people, what will? Veggie Tales? Radio? Television? Discussion groups? Emergent conversations?
God planned for his Son to be crucified (Revelation 13:8; 2 Timothy 1:9) and for hell to be terrible (Matthew 25:41) so that we would have the clearest witnesses possible to what is at stake when we preach. What gives preaching its seriousness is that the mantle of the preacher is soaked with the blood of Jesus and singed with fire of hell. That’s the mantle that turns mere talkers into preachers. Yet tragically some of the most prominent evangelical voices today diminish the horror of the cross and the horror of hell—the one stripped of its power to bear our punishment, and the other demythologized into self-dehumanization and the social miseries of this world.
The whole thing causes me to think of Galatians 1:6-9
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”
I guess I am tired of this “conversation” and it does not seem that I am going anywhere with it. I will not be showing up in Sunday School at all but I have not made up my mind about leaving the church altogether yet. I could not be silent about what my heart wanted to say. So I said it. I am willing to talk but not willing to budge on the issue. Thank you so much for listening.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Pray for me during this time.
"And yet incomprehensibly, in this Christ-diminishing, soul-destroying age, books and seminars and divinity schools and church growth specialists are bent on saying to young pastors, “Lighten up.” “Get funny.” “Do something amusing.” To this I ask, Where is the spirit of Jesus? “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead” (Matthew 8:22). “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44). “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). “Some of you they will put to death . . . But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Luke 21:16-19)."
If you have not had a chance to read the article I quoted from yesterday from John Piper. Give it a chance now! Preaching as Expository Exultation for the Glory of God It has so much to say right now then I could ever write here in this blog.
Well, they have done it to me. I have become frustrated, confused and angry. I am an emotional man. Ask anyone and they will tell you that I have passion. My soul passion is to see that the Gospel is sent to the entire world and my second is that the Truth of GOD is preach and taught in my local church.
Well, I have not talk about the meeting I had on Monday about the emergent in my church. Manly because I guess the shock was still there. I really wanted to resolve this in a way that only left me believing that the Truth of GOD is being preached and taught in my church. I must admit while I was there in the meeting, I felt a little nervous and did not feel that I presented my point correctly. I listen to a lot and spoke some and left feeling comfortable. Then about an hour or two later it all hit me! I just compromised my belief by leaving that meeting and letting that emergent Sunday School teacher stay in the place of teaching! What was I thinking! OH I remember it was the fact that I did not have all my facts straight and he caught me on that. Well, I have done MORE research on the so call conversation.
First let me make a point. The emerging conversation talks about going back to the original church to find out what it believed and say that "this is Truth". While doing that they change core Truths of GOD to fit their understanding. One being Hell. They have been known to say that Hell is not eternal but temporal place of punishment for GOD will redeem all things to HIM. Then what did CHRIST died for?
I have more on this but need to go prepare dinner but you will see a lot on this in the next few weeks.
A good friends of the family (The Brawleys) gave me a book to read that he just read. The Great Omission by Steve Saint. I dont k now when I will get started on it but I am going to give it a try soon. I have a new goal: Read two books each month. If this goal goes well I might add more books to the goal. Laurie and I have cut out TV and add reading to our entertainment. I really am enjoying this endeavor!
Chris Under Grace 
