FAMILY ISSUES FOR PRAYER – I was finally able this week to catch my grandson Ben on AOL to see how the family is doing. Ben has been quite ill with a severe lung infection that antibiotics were very slow working but that has finally passed. His new heart is doing well as is his adjustment to rejection meds. His son (my great grandson) Logan is handling the chemo treatments well. He has had a new MRI on the brainstem tumor but they haven’t received the results yet. Ben’s wife Meaghan, is being kept very busy running Ben and Logan back and forth to the hospital in Portland. Ethel, Ben’s mother is adjusting well to her new circumstances. / Betty had another chemo treatment this week that takes about four hours following after seeing the doctor so it really shoots the day. She is weak and has some bone pain. They have scheduled another C-Scan and bone scan before her next treatment to see if the new chemo is helping. / I am having a lot of heart skipping, wore a monitor for a couple weeks and my internist wants me to check in with a cardiologist and that is scheduled for June 26th. This all seems a lot for our family but people graciously ask and we are grateful for your many prayers and continued faithful support.
ETHANOL CRISIS – A friend sent me an interesting 7-page report on this subject. The reason I keep bringing the topic up is that I believe this is leading to increased inflation, food shortages and assorted problems that help set the stage for the conditions prophesied to take place during the biblical tribulation period in Revelation. The government is subsidizing agribusiness to turn corn and soybeans into ethanol that actually costs more to produce than what it supposedly saves in trying to help the gas dilemma. What was first intended to help meet the oil/gas crises is turning into a nightmare. Raging prices of grain is running up food prices and creating shortages in many parts of the world. What we really need to do is more drilling for oil in our own country and using what resources we have. Also a return to nuclear development that environmentalists forced cutting back on a number of years ago. You can read the article for yourself at http://us.f821.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?box+Inbox&MsgId+6675_789904_2083_24… That is one long address. Add to this growing problem the terrible flooding and loss of crops in Iowa, Indiana and elsewhere, the problem is increased even further. Corn right now is priced around $8.00 a bushel. Can you imagine the resulting price increases of food products, including meat? Add to this the delivery costs because of gas and diesel prices and you can see how critical things are becoming. The potential of the prophecy in Revelation 6:6 doesn’t seem so difficult to imagine. The “denarius” in this verse is the equivalent of a day’s wages for a “quart” of wheat, etc. I saw a loaf of bread at the grocery store yesterday priced at $4.29.
DOCTRINE – Reading the “Den” by Dr. Charles Woods (lorchurch@aol.com if you’d like to receive his interesting writings just let him know) this week dealing with the subject and importance of “Doctrine,” I was reminded of an early preaching experience in my first church plant. A new family had joined our church with children the age of ours. After attending for a while the lady in the family started to tell me repeatedly, “Don’t preach doctrine all the time.” I began to get a little tired of being told to not preach doctrine so I prepared a sermon using every verse in the New Testament that used the word “doctrine” and defining it’s meaning. As was my custom, after the service I went to the door to greet people as they left the auditorium. As the lady came through she said, “You preached that sermon to me this morning, didn’t you?” I smiled and said, “Yes I did.” That was the last admonition from her about preaching doctrine. I believe that was the first and only time I ever preached a sermon specifically for one particular person. Keep in mind that doctrine is simply that which is taught. Had I followed her advice I would have had nothing to preach.
THE EMERGING CHURCH - During the evening service for the summer, the pastor has asked one of our sharp young men to teach a series on “Apologetics.” He has spent the past couple weeks defining the subject and then this week he included the topic of “The Emerging Church.” I don’t know how many of you are familiar with this new movement but you will no doubt be hearing more about it as time passes. It is a movement that is endeavoring to develop a new church to overcome and correct church practices of the past. Much like those who have endeavored to remove denominational identifications in the past, thinking it detrimental to reaching people, this movement is going beyond that to try and remove any commitment to doctrinal preaching to supposedly replace it with worship that includes a lot of ascetics and music. This movement is the most watered down and meaningless effort I can imagine in an effort to take us away from truth and sound biblical teaching. It is hard to define and to pin it down to a particular doctrinal position, basing its practices more on experience and feeling than any particular belief. While claiming to base its position on the Word of God it actually takes you away from the Word, it’s truth and the sound doctrines that have differentiated Christianity from false religions over the centuries. To my mind this is moving us into the apostasy of the last days, taking the world toward the coming rapture, tribulation and time of the antichrist. Beware!
WHERE TO FIND NEW OIL – Earlier in this “Musing” I mentioned the need to drill for more oil in our own country. I read an interesting ad in U.S News & World Report for June 9th, 2008 that answers this question. The ad indicated that we can find “enough oil to power 60-million cars for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 160 million households for 60 years” right here in the United States. That is “112 billion barrels of oil and 656 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, just on federal lands.” The article goes on and on with similar information about what our federal and state governments is restricting the use of. In a reasonable period of time we could bring to an end the use of price gouging Arab oil. I have just read that it costs the Saudis $2.00 a barrel to produce what they are presently charge nearly $140.00 a barrel for. I think what is happening is that the Arab countries are smart enough to know that their time in running short to sell their products and they are taking us for all they can while they can. When our politicians finally wake up to our own potential, along with the new technologies coming out, we will no longer need Arab oil. I wonder how long our politicians are going to endanger our national economy by their failure to act.
VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL – Churches across the land are gearing up to conduct their annual V.B.S. ministries this summer. This has always been a productive and fruitful time. All the years of my ministry I conducted this outreach to children. They were always successful and blessed times for winning boys & girls for Christ. Pray for many decisions again this year.
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