MY NAME

1 Peter 3:15

     but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, (ESV)

1 Peter 3:15

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Juliet

Romeo & Juliet

Act II Scene II

     If you have received any e-mails from me, or noticed the way I sign most things, when I am able to, I sign my full name. There are reasons that I do. First, I have come to really like the name my parents gave to me at birth. This does not come from any since of egotism, but from the knowledge of what my first and middle name means. Second reason is that I have also found out that I can use my name as a witnessing tool.
     No, one can really fault poor Juliet, in her teenage naivete, did not have thew knowledge that names have meanings. Both my first and last names have Hebrew origins. My first name is really a question, and the last can be seen as the answer to that question. It also can be used to share the Gospel. Let me show you how.
     In the Hebrew, Michael is a question: Who is like God. In Luke chapter eighteen, a rich young ruler comes to Jesus and addresses him as "good master." Jesus' questioned him on why the young man called Him "good", and that only God can really be called "good." Romans chapter three points out that all have sinned against God, and that there are none of us are "good." God is the only one that is perfectly holy and righteous. We have all willingly strayed from God, and need a Savior to atone to God for our sins.
     Now, here is where the answer comes into view. In the Hebrew David means "beloved." In Scripture, who one who is referred to as God's beloved? The answer can be found in Scripture like Matthew 12:15-21:

 Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all 16 and ordered them not to make him known. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:

 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
He will not quarrel or cry aloud,
nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;
 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not quench,
until he brings justice to victory;
and in his name the Gentiles will hope.” (ESV)

     The beloved of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. (c.f. Mat. 3:17, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:35) Jesus is also the one who is like God because He is God, and the One who was sent as the Redeemer of all who would put their trust in His saving work on the cross.

     Romans 1:7 also refers to believers in Christ as "beloved of God." Believers are beloved of God because He identifies them with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Your servant in Christ

Michael David Hotard

SELAH

     There are many things that we can use when we converse with those around us that can lead into our sharing the Gospel with them. Think about it.

    

    

You Are In Danger

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S GREATNESS

SPURGEON QUOTE

The Church of God, in a very special manner, calls Jesus "our Lord," for there is not, and there cannot be any head of the Church except the Lord Jesus Christ. It is awful blasphemy for any man on earth to call himself Christ's vicar and the head of the church, and it is a usurpation of the crown rights of King Jesus for any king or queen to be call the head of the church, for the true Church of Jesus Christ can have no head but Jesus Christ himself. I am thankful that there in no head to the church of which I am a member save Jesus Christ himself, nor dare I be a member of any church which would consent to any headship but his.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"Jesus Our Lord"

sermon no. 2806

Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit

MACHEN QUOTE

But if any fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christain movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words it was based on doctrine.

J. Gresham Machen

Christianity and Liberalism

MACHEN QUOTE

"If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are equally false, or at least equally uncertain"

Christianity & Liberalism

John Gresham Machen

1923

HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY, AND EAT MOR CHIKIN

     It was on a Monday, on the fourteenth day of the month of March, in the year of out Lord 1921, in Eatonton, Georgia, that Samuel Truett Cathy was born.
     Mr. Cathy is the founder of Chick-fil-A. His first restaurant opened in the year 1967 in Greenbair Mall in Atlanta, GA. His restaurants still practice the policy of being closed on Sunday so that its employees are able to attend their church services and spend time with their families on that day.
     Mr Cathy is a member of the First Baptist Church in Jonesboro, GA, and also has taught Sunday School there for over 50 years.
     Happy 90th birthday Sam Cathy!

PANEM ET CIRCENSES

NEWS ALERT!!! - Lindsey Lohan to appear in court today!

NEWS ALERT!!! - Charlie Sheen goes wacko!

BREAD AND CIRCUSES

     The above well known phrase was first said by the Roman poet Juvenal (ca. 100 AD). He was then referring to the Roman government's practice giving free wheat to Roman citizens, and providing entertainment to its citizens through events like the circus games. This was the basic plan of Roman politicians to win over votes by giving free food and entertainment.
     Today, we have a federal government that is spending like a drunken sailor (oops. I must apologize to all drunken sailors. They, unlike the United States government, spend their own money.), and at any moment might be forced to default on its loans. We have a President who defied court rulings, thrown aside the U.S. Constitution, which he swore to protect, and acting in the role of a de facto dictator. The Middle East is on fire with revolutions that could see radical Islam in control of those countries.
     In all of this, what is most of the mainstream media focusing on? The daily goings on of the celebrity. What is the average American concerned about? Who will be the next American Idol?
     Most of us are trifling in trivia while the world is falling apart around us. Here is the worst part of it. Most American Christians' lives are focused on the minutia of things that have no eternal value.
     As Christians, we have the Gospel. We have the answers to the questions that most people around us are not asking, and will not ask on their own unless they are confronted by what should concern them the most. Without Christ as Lord and Savior......they are PRESENTLY (c.f. John 3:36), and will, if they do not repent to God a put their trust in the completed work of Jesus Christ on their behalf, have their end under the eternal wrath of God in the Lake of Fire (c.f. Revelation 20:15).
     We who truly have put our trust in Christ, can not be distracted by the trivial of this world. We need to be about the work of being the heralds of the Gospel to a lost and dying world.

SELAH

EPHESIANS 5:13-16

     But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible,
     for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
     Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,
     making the best of the time, because the days are evil.

EPHESIANS 5:13-16

MACHEN ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

    
This is a long qoute from Prof Machen's book, but it is well worth reading all of it.


      It might seem as though with such laws obscurantism had reached its lowest possible depths. But there are depths lower still. In the state of Oregon, on Election Day, 1922, a law was passed by a referendum vote in accordance with which all children in the state are required to attend the public schools. Christian schools and private schools, at least in the all-important lower grades, are thus wiped out of existence. Such laws, which if the present temper of the people prevails will probably soon be extended far beyond the bounds of one state, [which will] mean of course the ultimate destruction of all real education. When one considers what the public schools of America in many places already are--their materialism, their discouragement of any sustained intellectual effort, their encouragement of the dangerous pseudoscientific fads of experimental psychology--one can only be appalled by the thought of a commonwealth in which there is no escape from such a soul-killing system. But the principle of such laws and their ultimate tendency are far worse than the immediate results. A public school system, in itself, is indeed of enormous benefit to the race. But it is of benefit only if it is kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free possibility of the competition of private schools. A public school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them then to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought at least to be free.

J. Greshem Machen

Christianity and Liberalism (1923)

R.C. SPROUL QUOTE

"You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true."

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE GOSPEL OF LUKE: OUR TRINUNE GOD

Luke 3:21-22

     Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened,
     and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am pleased."

Luke 3:21-22

     One of the most unique, and misunderstood, doctrines of Christianity is that of the Trinity. Classical Christian doctrine teaches that we serve one God, and within that one God there are three distinct and eternal persons:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
     One of the first criticisms that is often heard against this doctrine is that the word "trinity" is not anywhere in the Bible. This argument is a canard, and can be easily dispelled. It is true that the word "trinity" is not in the Bible, but the Trinity is seen through the Bible (clearly in the New Testament, and hints of it in the Old Testament). Luke 3:21-22, cited above, is a an example where all three members of the Trinity can be seen in the account of the earthly life of Jesus.
     Throughout it's history, the Christian church has been confronted with many misunderstandings of what the Trinity is. Some of these misunderstandings have led some to herecies to which the church as a whole had to come together to address and denounce.
     Some have attempted to describe the Trinty through visual illustration that we see around us every day. There is the example of the chicken egg: 1. the shell 2. the albumen 3. the yolk. There is also the example of the experiment where scientist took a drop of water, put it in a vacuum tube, brought the temperature inside of the tube to a certain level, and observed that the drop of water was able to be water, ice, and steam at the same time. These types of illustrations can be very tempting in our trying to explain or teach the doctrine of the Trinity to another, but they should be avoided because there is no earthly example that can be used to try to understand what the Bible is teaching when it reveals the Trinity to us. Some of the illustrations that are often used could lead to a heretical understanding of what the Trinity really is.
       The Christian church had to face one of these herecies in the third century in the teachings of Sebellius, a theologian. Sebellius taught that God had manifested Himself in three modes of a single devine Person. He taught that God manifested Himself as Father in the Old Testament, Son while Jesus was on the, earth, and Holy Spirit during the Church age. It is similar to me saying that I am a son, a husband, and a brother, but that is nowhere close to what the Bible teaches on what the Trinity is. Another name that has been given to this teaching is "modalism," the idea that God has had three faces or has worn three masks. This herecy has led to another heretical teaching known as "Patripassionism," the idea that God the Father died on the cross. Again, that is not the Trinity. Why do I focus on this herecy? Because, it is still taught in some cults that claim to be Christian. One of these where it can seen is in the teachings of ths "Oneness Penecostal" movement, and in the beliefs of one of their leading voices, Bishop T.D. Jakes. See if you can tell the subtle hint of Sebellianism in the "Belief Statement" of his church, The Potter's House, on the section about God:

     "There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and existing in three manifestations:  Father, Son, and Holy Spitit."

     Again, this doctrine must be taught with care. A wrong understanding of this crucial doctrine can mean a difference between orthodoxy and herecy, and a difference of heaven and hell. Why is this so? Becuase, if we have a wrong view of God, and we are worshipping an idol of our own imaginations. (c.f. Romans 1:23) The last time I looked at my Bible that was a violation of the Ten Commandments (c.f. Exodus 20:3).    

A FAREWELL TO "THE DOCTOR"

     It was on a Sunday, on the first day of the month of March, in the year of our Lord 1981, in Ealing, a suburb of London, England, that David Martyn Lloyd Jones quietly slip from being asleep to being with his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
     In his early years, LLoyd-Jones was a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, and in 1921 he became an assistant to the Royal Physician, Sir Thomas Horder.
     For two years he struggled with the since that the Lord was calling him to preach. In 1927, Llloyd-Jones returned to his birthplace of Wales, and married Bethan Phillips. That same he accepted his first invitation to be the minister of a small church in Aberavon, Wales. In 1939, he would move to London to become the associate pastor of Westminster Chapel alongside G. Campbell Morgan. Morgan would retire as pastor of Westminster in 1943, leaving Lloyd-Jones to be the sole pastor of the church.
     During his years of ministry, he became a champion of the historical doctrines of Christianity against the liberalism that was becoming common in many of the Christian denominations.
     Because of his earlier years of being a medical doctor, and his reputation as a Christian theologian, many have referred to him simply as "The Doctor."
His many books are still in circulation to be bought and read. Audio of many of his sermons can be heard on websites like Youtube, or can be dowload to a mp3 player from websites like Oneplace.
     D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a great jewel of the Christian church that was given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ that should not be forgotten of set aside. Through his many books, writings, and sermons he can still speak to the church today.