Pastor’s Blog, May 2007
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Progress digitizing Faith Assembly recorded sermons: March 8, 1995
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Acts 17
9:00 a.m.
The camp meeting was very good, and I am looking forward to how God may lead in
the future. I will report more specific things as they come up. Without
attempting to predict what direction things might take in the days ahead, I can
at least say that God granted a public demonstration of reconciliation between
myself and a brother named Tim Neely. He is the pastor of another assembly here
in northern Indiana — in fact, it was his assembly, along with a group from
south of Indianapolis, who sponsored the camp meeting.
I want to make it clear at this point that the need for
reconciliation was the result of things that had happened from both sides.
Brother Tim publicly acknowledged his part, and afterwards, I requested that we
might embrace one another before the assembly; but, I want to make it clear that
in seeking reconciliation, my purpose was to convey that I also acknowledge my
own share of responsibility for things that happened, and I will be conveying
that more personally to Brother Tim in the near future, as God gives opportunity
for us to draw closer.
But, what happened this weekend was clearly God’s doing. I
did not go to the camp meeting knowing there was going to be any special kind of
reconciliation. Brother Tim and I had not been in contact, sorted out our
differences, and laid plans ahead of time to put on a glorious public show of
unity. That kind of thing has taken place at other times and places out of
political motives. This, brothers and sisters, was a work of God.
My fervent hope is that as a result, and growing out of this
reconciliation, God’s work may be strengthened and grow in both assemblies. We
both desire to serve God, to minister to His sheep, and to seek the lost sheep.
We are not competing. I look forward to the coming days; yet, I know that it
will continue to be a battle, a warfare to overcome the powers of evil, the
spirits of division that have so long only brought more and more fragmentation.
But praise God for one victory, and I’m taking this as a turn around that will
be the first step in a new day, a day when God will fulfill the vision we’ve all
had for a regathering of scattered sheep, and a restoration of God’s work.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Acts 14
9:30 a.m.
Before we go back to the camp meeting, I wanted to post a couple of pictures of
the progress I am making on the trailer superstructure. However, so this page
will continue to load quickly, I am posting that as a separate page. Please
click this link: Trailer Project
Friday, May 25, 2007
Acts 14
11:10 p.m.
Interesting day at work. I had to resend a fairly large order to a customer in
Australia. The order had been sent by air mail in February, but so far it had
not gotten through. But, now there have been many significant changes in the
postal service, and it turned out to be less costly to mail the package at a
higher class of service than I had been able to do before. But in the process,
it was quite a learning experience concerning the new international mail
services, requirements, and fees. I actually saved $1.85 by purchasing the
postage online, directly from the postal service.
This evening we were at the friends property where the
campout is being held. We are not staying overnight (or I could not be blogging
right now!), but we did get to meet some of the people. We will be going back
before noon tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Acts 11, then on through 13
2:10 p.m.
Most of this morning, after the first blog, I was running around to get a new
“all-in-one” for our study computer at home, as the old one would no longer feed
paper. Actually, I had bought one yesterday, but when I went to install it,
there was a bug in the installation, and it just would go so far, then come up
with an error message, and then it would completely undo the entire
installation. I finally figured out a way to get it to work, but some
maintenance functions were unavailable. So, I decided to return it this morning.
I ended up getting a completely different brand, and drove back home and
installed it this morning. It was more complicated than I have told you, but
that is the gist of it. Now, I have a sermon to prepare.
8:50 a.m.
Time flies. I don’t. No great news to report. Certainly not compared to the
greatest news, that our sins can be forgiven and our bodies can be healed
through the blood of Jesus poured out at Calvary, if we will only believe!
This weekend we will not be having meetings here at Faith
Assembly, so we can attend a campout at a friend’s property, to get together
with some folks we don’t see very often. Then the following two weekends,
including the week in between, we will be having guests from Texas who have been
regularly connecting to our meetings through Paltalk. And, through all of this,
we need to finish building the new superstructure on our trailer in preparation for our coming
vacation trip.
In any case, this doesn’t really leave me a lot of time for
blogging, and I really should get back to other things now.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Acts 9
2:10 p.m.
I finally have time to blog. Yesterday was my wife’s birthday. The children had
all decided to get her a new stove for her birthday, and there had also been
talk for some time about replacing our second refrigerator (Doesn’t everyone
need two? It’s so we only have to go grocery shopping once a week.). It hit me
Wednesday that my wife’s birthday was the next day, and no one had done anything
yet about the stove. So, I headed out a little after noon and went to several
stores pricing stoves and refrigerators, comparing features, of course, and got
back to the office a little after 2:00 p.m. Right away I had to start working on
the evening teaching, but first I messaged my one daughter that I had shopped,
and if we could schedule it right, I could show her what I found, and we could
buy, and they could be delivered the next day, on the day of my wife’s birthday.
Well, everything converged around 5:30 or so, and we went to the store and
purchased the appliances.
It didn’t leave me much time to put notes together, but the
teaching was already prepared in my mind, on the parable of the sower from
Mark’s gospel. The main points being that the parable is not about different
kinds of seeds, but different conditions of soil, followed by three points: the
cause of the different conditions; the results of the different conditions; and
how to correct the bad soil conditions; all, of course, with appropriate
practical applications for our own lives.
So, then, Thursday, I called our LP gas provider, and asked
them if they could send a man out to convert the stove and install it (convert
from natural gas orifices to LP gas orifices, and make sure the installation was
according to legal building codes). I said I would let them know as soon as we
heard the delivery truck had left the store (because the store had told us they
would give us a call). Around 2:00, my wife called and said the delivery truck
was already there! So, I dropped what I was doing, called the LP gas people, and
headed home. By the time I got there, the old refrigerator had already been
taken out, the old stove was being unhooked (they had to wait for me to shut off
the gas, because my wife did not know where the valve was located). Meanwhile,
the LP gas guy had done part of the conversion on the new stove while he was
waiting for me. The next thing we had to do was make more room for the new
refrigerator. It is about 6 inches narrower, but about 8 inches deeper from
front to back than the old refrigerator. The back of the refrigerator is toward
the right side of the deep freeze, so we had to slide the deep freeze left about
8 inches to make room for the new refrigerator. So, after I had cleared some
things out of the way, the freezer was shoved, and in the process, my left hand
was severely pinched between the left end of the deep freeze and an electrical
box on the wall, and held there for several seconds, because the guy on the
other end didn’t catch on immediately to what I was yelling about! It made a
deep, purple groove, but I told the guy out loud that I have Jesus to take care
of it. It was quite painful, but my Great Physician took the pain away
immediately and healed me, and there is no sign whatsoever remaining that it
happened. Then we realized we would also have to move a shelf that was above the
deep freeze, so I went out to the shop and got the tools I needed for that, and
with my wife’s help, finished that in a couple of minutes. The delivery guys
meanwhile had moved the stove into place, and the LP gas guy was working on
installing a valve on the line next to the stove, which code now requires. While
he did that, the delivery guys helped me put the new fridge in place. They
normally would be expected to install the handles as part of the delivery, but I
told them that I could do that, because I wanted to reverse the opening
direction of the doors at the same time. So, the head delivery guy had me sign
the delivery paper, and they left. Now the gas guy told me I could turn the gas
back on, and then he continued setting up and converting the burner orifices for
LP gas, while I started working on removing packing materials from the
refrigerator, and then reversing the doors. Standing in front of the fridge, the
door from the kitchen is on the right, so it is logical to have the doors to
open to the right, toward the kitchen door. We always had to walk around the
doors of the old fridge before we could open it, because they opened to the
left. I didn’t get the doors switched before the gas guy finished on the stove,
so I stopped to watch him demonstrate how to operate the totally electronically
controlled oven before he left. After he left, I finished reversing the
refrigerator doors and installed the handles. Everything worked out, so, my
daughter Vreneli was able to prepare supper using the new stove, while the food
from the old refrigerator was put into the new one. Of course, it did not pack
it out as it had the old one. So, we have a new stove with a 5 cubic foot
convection oven, and a new 21 cubic foot second refrigerator, with plenty of
room for that week-at-a-time grocery shopping stocking up!
As some of you may know, we have several birds for pets. The
parakeet pair is “in a family way” just now, and for some reason, the male
cockatiel thinks it is now his duty to drive the father away from the mother, so
he will go inside the parakeet cage and not let the father bird in. Solution: a
quick project of making a door with a hole in it too small for the cockatiel. It
took me three tries, but I made a nice door that can easily be slipped in and
out, and has a perch on each side.
The rest of the evening I finished scanning my first set of
slides. There were a total of 136, which were loose in a box. After I finished
scanning, I organized the originals and put them in plastic pages with pockets
for 20 slides per page, that go into a special binder just made for storing
slides.
All that activity is why I did not blog. And, it isn’t going
to be getting any less busy between now and when we get back from our vacation;
so please, don’t expect me to blog every day, and maybe not even every other
day, always.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Acts 8
4:15 p.m.
So you know I have not disappeared from off the face of the earth, here I am. I
am through Acts 8, and keeping busy with a number of things I can blog about
later. God bless.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Acts 4
8:45 a.m.
The last couple of days I have not blogged. Does that enlighten you? At least
you know it was not as if I had blogged, but it did not get through somehow! In
my spare time I have scanned a lot of old slides, while continuing to learn how
to use the scanner more efficiently. Yesterday, we began our next project, what
was building a new superstructure for our trailer. We bought our first round of
materials, which was mainly the wood and some metal brackets for connecting the
wood together at various places, to produce a good, rigid structure. As to the
lumber, we needed 8 pieces of 2x2 lumber 10 foot long, and 4 2x2s 8 feet long.
But, 2x2s are typically very crooked. We checked both untreated and treated
lumber, and the treated lumber was better, but neither one had 10 foot lengths.
So, as we were starting to figure out how many 8 foot pieces we would need if we
used all 8 foot lengths, I thought, Wait! They probably do have 10 foot 2x4s, so
let’s see how much they cost. Well, it turned out that an 8 foot 2x2 was $2.39,
which is about 30¢ per foot of 2x2, and a 10 foot 2x4 was only $3.69, which is
37¢ per foot of 2x4, but only 18½¢ per foot of 2x2, a saving of nearly 40%! So,
instead of 8 2x2s we just bought 4 2x4 10 footers, and 2 2x4 8 footers.
I also
bought a new table saw, because my old one (pictured below, in one of the
pictures of the porch project), started making some very nasty sounds, which told me
that I might suddenly be without a saw at all, if I didn’t get a new one. The
old one was a 2.5 hp Craftsman, which allowed a maximum of about a 13 or 14 inch
measured cut; the new one is a 3.5 hp Hitachi, which has a rock solid extendable
table, allowing a maximum measured cut of 24½ inches, meaning I can split a 4 x
8 sheet of plywood, or whatever, lengthwise.
So, when we got back home, I put the new table saw together,
and its first job was a good, challenging one: cutting 6 treated 2x4s
lengthwise, each into 2 2x2s, with about a 3/8 inch thick piece left over. I
must say, treated lumber does not feed well in any saw, because it is moist, so
it wants to stick to the table as you feed it. But, the new saw made very clean
cuts, and the leftover pieces were very uniform; So, now I’m wondering where we
will use them. We also had to cut some plywood, not lengthwise, but crosswise,
because we needed pieces 48¾ inches wide for the front and back ends of the
trailer. Those we had to mark and rule and cut following the line by eye. I dare
say we did not deviate by more than 1/32 of an inch at any point. Then we
scribed a curved line which will be the top side, clamped the two end pieces
together, and cut the curve with a jigsaw. Finally, we began the assembly with
attaching some of the frame pieces to the end pieces.
I hope it does not offend anyone that I am more than just a
pastor. I am also a husband and father, and I do enjoy some activities in my
life other than preparing sermons and doing the work of Faith Ministries and
Publications. But, I do believe whatever I do, all my activities must be things
I can do “in the name of Jesus.”
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Acts 2
3:37 p.m.
I did not mention on Tuesday that I had received a film/slide scanner which I
had ordered on Monday. Rene’s parents were missionaries in Peru, and she was
raised there, and they had hundreds of slides which we are going to convert into
digital images. I have a flatbed scanner in the office that can scan slides, but
it is much slower, and not nearly as sharp, because it is not engineered
specifically for a small piece of film. Anyway, I tried a couple of experimental
scans Tuesday at the office. Then, after we had finished the porch project, I
installed the scanner at home and showed Rene how to operate it. In the process,
I found out I had not really understood it fully myself, so I brought it back to
the office yesterday, and figured out how to use it more efficiently. I scanned
42 slides in well under 2 hours, and when I got home after church, I scanned 37
more at a rate faster than 2 minutes per scan. Which means I will doubtless want
to re-scan all the slides that I had previously scanned on the flatbed. I still
have to use the flatbed for any film that is not 35mm size, but by far most of
my photos are 35mm, between color slides and black and white negatives, with a
few color negatives thrown in there now and then for good measure.
Also yesterday I read through Acts 2:21. But I didn’t have
time to blog. I finished through the end of Acts 2 today. And, we have another
major project coming up, which is to remodel our camping trailer (cargo only,
not a pop-up or camper) for our coming trip to the Badlands area of South
Dakota.
Note: The entries for Monday and Tuesday contain pictures, slowing down the loading of the page, so I have moved them to a page of their own. Click here for The Porch Project.
Sunday, May 6, 2007
John 19
4:35 p.m.
I don’t really have time to blog just now, but when I get time, I will tell
about the project I did yesterday (Saturday), and just catch up on blogging in
general.
Friday, May 4, 2007
John 17
2:00 p.m.
Well, I didn’t have time to blog yesterday, but I sure had a full day! First, I
did read through John 16. Then, I started on my usual Thursday project of
editing the recording of the Wednesday night message. Now, we have had a 1986
Dodge van for about 9 years, and it was time to take it out of service, for a
number of reasons. I found a salvage yard what was willing to pay me a nice
little sum if I could drive it in. Well, I couldn’t get it started, so, on
Tuesday, I called and asked how much if they had to come pick it up, and it was
only a little less — about what you would expect to pay for a tow — so I said
okay, and arranged for that to happen on Thursday. So, while I was working on my
message, I was waiting for them to call and let me know when they were ready to
come pick it up. But, also, my daughter Hannah was moving into an apartment, and
I was planning to help her. So, I let her know that I would be going back to
Larwill at 10:00, whether or not the salvage yard called me. Understand, I live
in Larwill, and work in Warsaw, about 11 miles west of Larwill, and Hannah lives
in one of the dorms at Grace College, within half a mile of where I work. That
is as of yesterday morning. She is moved now into her apartment. But, this was
yesterday. Well around 9:30, the salvage yard called, and I arranged that they
would come and pick up the van at 10:30. Perfect. About then I got a text
message from Hannah, and we confirmed I would pick her up in front of her dorm
at 10:00. I came to a stopping place on my message editing, and closed up shop.
I picked up Hannah and went to Larwill. While Hannah and others were helping get
her things from her old room (She still lived at home when she wasn’t in the
dorm, so she had a lot of her stuff in “her” room at home; but, now she will be
living on her own, at least for a while, so she was getting all her stuff.), I
worked on fixing a chest of drawers she was going to take. Only minor repairs on
that. While working on that, the man came from the salvage yard to pick up the
old van. He paid me the money, I signed the title over to him, he loaded up the
van, and left. I finished fixing the dresser, and then we started loading. In
the process, I broke another drawer (or so I thought — it turned out it was
broken before I laid hands on it), so I had to fix that, too. We managed to fit
everything into the new van without having to use the trailer. Hannah drove my
car, and Rene and I went in the van, back to Warsaw (actually the apartment and
Grace College are both in Winona Lake, right next to Warsaw). The first thing we
did was eat lunch at the Grace College cafeteria. Then we went to the apartment
and unloaded. The first thing I did was put together a table that I had
disassembled as part of the loading process. While I did that, a whole crew of
guys and girls who were directly or indirectly friends of Hannah’s unloaded
everything else. Some of them got ready for a surprise party for another
friend’s birthday. Then, Rene and I drove the empty van to the church to pick up
the matching chairs and bench seats that went with the table I had just finished
assembling. When we got back, the party was going on, and we got a bite of cake.
Hannah still wanted a couple of smallish love seats I had in storage, so she and
several others came with me when I was ready to go back to the office to get
some more of my own work done, but before which I took them to my storage unit
and got them the love seats. Then I came back to the office for the rest of the
day. I called the insurance agent to get the van off of our insurance policy,
then kept working on the message, which I did not finish. I came to a stopping
place a bit before 5:00 p.m., and went on home, and felt like I had already had
a full day. But, then, Sarah wanted to take a walk at Deniston, a nature reserve
4 miles from our house, so I drove, and she came along, and I even took a few
pictures of my own while I was there. Nothing earth shaking; but, I don’t want
to get totally out of practice, you know! So, I definitely had a full day
yesterday!
Reading John 17 makes me sad. Jesus prayed that His disciples, as well as those who would believe on Him through their word, would all be one in Him, and He and the Father are one. But, He defines His disciples as those He has called out of the world, who are no longer of this world. Where are they? I am not saying we all have to agree on every jot and tittle, but at least we should all be clear that we are no longer of this world, but are citizens of God’s Kingdom. I remember once as I was preaching a series on John 17, the prayer for unity, I was questioned as to whether I agreed with and was following the message, direction, and emphasis of the founding pastor of this work. Because I was teaching on unity! ??? What gives? It was the passion of Brother Freeman that through the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, unity would be restored in the church out of its division into well over 200 denominations. That certainly has not happened, but it does not change the fact that there was a recognition that God’s will is unity in the true Body of Christ. Not among all professing Christians, by any means, for it is abundantly evident that only the tiniest remnant understand discipleship and total commitment to Christ. But, at least it seems we should be able to have unity where there is the common ground of total discipleship. It just gives me brain freeze to think of the continued division among people who even shared the heritage of sitting under Brother Freeman’s ministry! I know I have done my utmost to reconcile. Maybe there is more I could do. I don’t know what. I know that one thing is not negotiable, which is that Faith Assembly continues, because it is God’s work, not man’s. But I don’t see why that should in any way hinder reconciliation and unity where there is the greatest common ground. Oh, well, we will just keep moving on, one step at a time, as we are led by the Spirit. And, we will keep believing, and claiming unity with those who truly belong to Jesus. God is faithful. In Jesus’ name, we want to be, and will be, and are, part of the faithful remnant of true disciples!
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
John 14
7:50 a.m.
So far I have opened the new page for May, and fixed the April page and the home
page hyperlinks to open the May page. Now I just have to fix the hyperlinks on
February and March; then I can really get into a blog. Done.
8:00 a.m.
Well, yesterday, I hurriedly ended my blog so I could run an errand to Fort
Wayne with daughter Vreneli. After that, I just didn’t get back into a blogging
frame of mind. We had a little family Bible discussion, and then other evening
activities. I’d have had time to blog, but it just didn’t come to mind. Likewise
today, I wanted to get the pages updated, but now I should do some reading
before I continue the blog. I will update my reading location at that time.
1:30 p.m.
Okay, I am finished through John 14 now. But, I want to go back to John 13, and
what I said earlier about the time of the Triumphal Entry. On first reading, it
looks like John 13:1–2 might raise questions about the time of the last supper.
It says in verse 1, “before” the feast of the Passover; then right away in verse
2 it says “supper having ended,” as if this supper is before the Passover. Well,
that just is not an option, since the other three gospels make it very clear
that it is the Passover meal. Here, it does not specify clearly that this meal
is not the Passover; so, since the other three gospels agree that it is the
Passover, then we have to take verse 1 simply as a remark inserted to introduce
the account that follows, of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. In fact, mention
of the feast of the Passover in the previous verse really gives a good basis to
confirm that the supper in verse 2 is the Passover. The word translated “before”
has a range of meanings, including the sense of “immediately before,” or,
“leading up to,” or even, “in anticipation of.” Then what follows is the thing
that the “before” was leading up to. A remarkable example of the “immediately
before” idea is the man who could not get into the water fast enough to be
healed, because someone else always got in “before” him. The point is not a long
time before him, but barely ahead of him. So, here in John 13, the meaning is
that as Jesus came to the feast of the Passover, He loved His own, that is, His
disciples, and He loved them to the end. The word “before” just does not
communicate the meaning clearly.
So, why has this been left ambiguous? If the translators had
understood that this supper clearly was the Passover, they could easily have
clarified the passage. Seeing what I have seen recently, it just mystifies me
how there could ever have been any question in the mind of any scholar who
simply takes the Bible for what it says. Why has this not just been the common
knowledge of every Christian? Not to point fingers, but, the fact is, the entire
Christian faith has been influenced by the church calendar developed by the
church of Rome, with its fixed idea that Jesus was crucified on “Good Friday.”
So, because even the Protestant reformers never really broke with Catholicism in
the matter of the church calendar and celebrations, most so-called Christian
churches have followed those errors all these centuries, which has confused the
issue for most professing Christans. But, all you have to do is read. Here is
the link back to the previous discussion: LINK.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
John 13
2:35 p.m.
I am just working on getting a new blog page started for May. I’ll blog more
later.