Rappin’ With Rick

I really hadn’t planned on going.. I thought 96% would be good enough. Then Nikki told me she had read that not going to where the totality of the eclipse could be seen would be like going the gate of the Grand Canyon, but not going in to see it. That really hit me, because several years ago I gave some friends a lot of grief for driving past the Grand Canyon on their tour of the West.

So yes, Marilyn and I joined in a CCC caravan to see the eclipse. Several others from our church had planned on going to other locations, and while we couldn’t get into the park where Jonathan had made reservations, he did direct us to Chester, the home of the cartoon character who encouraged me to eat spinach. We left at 6:00, thinking the traffic would be bad, but had smooth sailing, and made it to Barb’s Bounty where parking spots had been be made online for $110. Waiting for several hours gave us quality time together.

When the action began, the sky was clear, and the glasses came out. We saw chunks of the sun being covered by the moon until the sky went dark, the cicadas started singing, and the corona around the sun came into full view. It went so far beyond the pinhole view of a partial eclipse I saw as a child that I can’t even put it into words. It was totally awesome!

On the six hour drive home where traffic on Route 4 often came to a complete stop, I heard on the radio that the temperature on the surface of the sun was 11,000 degrees, but the temperature in the corona exceeded several million degrees. Then, when I opened the Chronological Bible for my morning read on Tuesday, the heading was “The Lord’s Refining Furnace.”

The reading from Ezekiel 22 included these words: “As silver, copper, iron, lead and tin are gathered into a furnace to be melted with a fiery blast, so will I gather you in my anger and my wrath and put you inside the city and melt you. I will gather you and I will blow on you with my fiery wrath, and you will be melted inside her… and you will know that I the Lord have poured out my wrath on you.”

I doubt that many who viewed the eclipse thought about the judgment of God, but I found it enlightening to realize that as we enjoy the warmth and life – giving energy that God sends to us from the sun, His judgment is merely hidden from view by His grace. I thank God for that, but I do pray we never forget that some day His wrath will be in plain sight.

May we have eyes to see both His grace and His essential righteous judgement.

God Bless, Rick

This Sunday is going to be a FULL day. We’ll begin with worship, then head to the fellowship hall to say goodbye to the Sanners, and then those considering going to Mexico next summer will meet with Andrew during the remainder of the Sunday School hour. Then, after everyone heads to lunch and a brief nap, all are strenuously encouraged to head back to the church at 3:00 for MOVING DAY!.

No, we’re not going anywhere. We are “simply” moving everything out of the classrooms so carpet can be laid in them and the hallways beginning on Monday. After the rooms are cleared out, we’ll also be tearing out the remaining baseboards. How long will all this take? I have no idea.

If it takes so long that we get tired and hungry, we’ll order in some pizzas. If it goes quicker than that, we’ll call it a day and head home. Whatever it takes, we’ve got to get it done, so we need everyone’s help. And if you’ve got anything that makes moving heavy stuff easier, like a hand cart or burly uncle, please bring it with you.

But wait, that’s not all! Guess what we get to do on the following Saturday? Yep, we get to put everything back in the classrooms for Sunday School the next day. Once again, we’ll need everyone’s help. If we start at 10:00 we should be done before lunch, or perhaps a late lunch.

I trust what happened during the building of the tabernacle will happen this Sunday. “And everyone whose heart moved them, both men and women came.”

God Bless, Rick

As we noted last Sunday morning, David’s heartache was caused by someone with whom he had worshiped, and Peter told us not to be surprised by fiery ordeals that come to us because of our faithfulness to Christ. A prime example of someone who has experienced such heartache and fiery attacks because of his commitment to Christ and the truth of His Word is Kent Paris.

As you know, we support Kent and his Nehemiah Ministries to those who are sexually confused and in need of godly guidance. Kent has been at the forefront of ministry to homosexuals for nearly forty years, and has faced threats, litigation, lies and slander misrepresenting his heart, his person, and his ministry. I found what he shared in his latest newsletter to be even more upsetting than most he has to share.

After hearing him speak at Lincoln Seminary, a co-pastor of an emerging megachurch invited him to hold a seminar for the church leadership. After the four hour seminar, the lead pastor came up to him and said, “Kent, your story is powerful and convincing. I agree with everything you taught here this morning. But I cannot risk having you come up here and speak on Sunday morning, nor to our youth. You see, our sons are the youth leaders and neither they nor most of the youth hold to yours and my view. I cannot risk offending or losing them or any of the youth. Beyond that, we are in a major building program and I cannot risk alienating or upsetting any of our tithing members.”

Kent responded by saying, in part, “By refusing to address the centrally important subject of gender…you are preventing those within your church who are struggling with gender confusion from hearing God’s truth. You are essentially resigning these precious people to deception and likely immoral lifestyle. Silence will bear bad fruit in your young people who are being fed this garbage by our culture and Media daily.”

May God always give us the strength to teach the truth with love and grace, but also in faithfulness to His Word. And may we never let possible consequences keep us from doing so.

God Bless, Rick

In Leviticus 14 we read that if someone comes to the priest and says, “Something like a mark of leprosy has become visible to me in the house”, that the priest should inspect it, quarantine it for seven days, and if it spreads, that “he shall have the house scraped all around inside, and they shall dump the plaster that they scrape off at an unclean place outside the city.”

If you walked the halls of the church last Sunday, I’m sure you know why I shared this interesting tidbit from Leviticus. It surely looks like the walls have been hit with leprosy! Let me assure you, however, that the thousands of spackle patches were put there intentionally to cover up push pin holes, as well as a variety of dings and dents and bigger holes, to get the walls ready for a new coat of paint and some upgrades to hallway accessories.

Yes, we decided to have the hallways painted before the new carpet is laid. And yes, we finally picked out the new carpet tiles that will be going in the hallways, offices, classrooms, and fellowship hall. We are also going to replace the beat-up baseboards with vinyl cove moldings, so those in the hallways will be removed before the walls are painted during the week of August 7th. But don’t despair, you’ll get a chance to be a mover and shaker and ripper-upper on August 13th.

Yes, the carpet is scheduled to be laid in the hallways and classrooms during the week of August 14th, and the fellowship hall the following week. To save over $2000, we’re going to move everything out of the classrooms and offices, and remove the remaining baseboards, before they begin. Then, on Saturday, August 19th we’ll move everything from the fellowship hall back into the classrooms. We are going to need lots of help to get everything moved out of classrooms, closets and nooks and crannies, but with your help we can get it done. For as they say, “Many hands make light work.”

And yes, while there will be a lot of heavy lifting and hauling, there will also be lots of light work for the kids to do. So plan on making it into a fun family time at church. We’ll plan on beginning around 3:00 on the 13th.

God Bless, Rick

I recently got an email from Bill(y) Carroll, and yes he did sign it that way, which I loved! Anyway, he asked if I would write out a metaphor I had shared with him twenty-two years ago about baptism. He said he had shared it hundreds of times with people who had questions about baptism, and recently shared it with a leader in his church who is convinced that a person’s sins are not forgiven until the moment of baptism because it’s in that moment that you come in contact with the blood of Christ. He just wanted to make sure he hadn’t strayed far from the way I had said it. In asking for it, however, he actually stated it better than I remembered it, and when I told Marilyn about it, she said she’d never heard me say it. So, for Bill(y), Marilyn, and anyone else who might have wondered about the relationship between salvation and baptism, here goes.

As we noted in our study of I Peter last Sunday, Peter does state that baptism saves us, not by removing dirt from our flesh, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience. And at his conversion, Paul was told to rise and be baptized, and wash away his sins. He then explained in Romans 6 that we are buried with Christ through baptism, and if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall share in His resurrection. There is apparently, therefore, a direct connection between baptism and the forgiveness of sins. In fact, I believe something even sacramental happens in baptism, because God does something for us in baptism that goes far beyond what we are doing. But to suggest that the moment before baptism a person is lost, and when they come out of the water they are saved, may be going too far.

I think when Jesus told Nicodemus that unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of heaven, He painted a picture of a process, and not just a singular event. It’s true that a birth is an event, but the baby is alive before coming forth from the womb. And Jeremiah’s call and John the Baptist’s leap indicate that the Spirit works prenatally. To suggest, therefore, that a person cannot be spiritually alive before baptism, in my opinion, goes against the picture Jesus painted.

I’ve come to believe that when someone comes to faith in Christ a spiritual conception takes place, and that that new life continues to grow spiritually “in utero” until the moment of birth. Baptism, then, is the birth, when the person is actually born again. He is alive in a “prenatal” relationship with Christ before that moment, but at baptism that relationship becomes “postnatal”.

I think this understanding avoids the pitfalls of baptismal regeneration on the one hand, and baptism as nothing more than a symbolic act on the other. It recognizes that baptism as a physical act saves no one, but when done in faith it assures the believer that they have indeed been washed in the blood of Christ and made acceptable in the sight of God.

At what point in the process of coming to life in Christ our sins are actually forgiven might be as hard to prove as when life actually begins in the womb. What’s not open for debate is that if you believe that Jesus died for your sins and you have been baptized into Him, your sins have been forgiven. The moment it happened is, in my opinion, of little concern.

God Bless, Rick