Regardless of where you stand on that question, every Christian ought to at least understand that God has called His people to assemble together to worship Him.  This is as clear in the New Testament as in the Old.  The Jerusalem church is described again and again as being together.  Paul and his cohorts established local assemblies, not rogue Christians who saw no need of assembly because they were in the church universal.  Christians are urged not to forsake the assembly.

The rather obvious reality is that we are meant to gather regularly to read God’s Word and to hear it preached, to sing praises and offer up prayers together as one body, to meet with God and to edify one another.  This is called “worship.”  It is, according to Hebrews 10, an entering into the presence of God through Christ – something which requires assembling together.  It is a formal audience with God.  Like Sabbath, it is something which by definition is differentiated from the rest of life.

Now it is obviously true that in all of life we serve God and glorify Him.  “Whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”  Paul meant “whatever choice you make in matters of liberty of conscience,” but his point is the same.  Something as mundane as eating or refusing meat can be an act of service to the Creator and should be done with His glory in mind.  But it is not worship.  There is a differentiation which comes in the assembly – that formal audience with the Almighty.

So what are we to think of the Christian who says that all of life is an act of worship?  It sounds nice, but it is unrealistic.  Replace “worship” with “service” and you have a great truth, but retain “worship” and you lose something precious by flattening the contours of the Christian life.  When you worship, your sisters and brothers – who share in the Spirit – enable you to approach God in a unique manner which should not be defined away.  That uniqueness is critical in the Christian life precisely because it cannot be duplicated.  The Christian does not duplicate it in his prayer closet; neither does the pastor duplicate it in his study.

All of life really is not worship, but consider: if life is lived in the service of God and to the glory of God, and if in that life the assembly of the Saints is our opportunity to approach God in a unique way and worship Him, is not that time of worship the crowning moment of life?  Is it not the reason for which the Christian lives?  Should not public worship be the central reality of every Christian life?

All of life is not worship; all of life is crowned by worship.

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For more information concerning Confessional Baptist covenant theology visit www.1689federalism.com

I trust that all of us desire to lead sinners to Christ in the most biblical and God honoring way possible. I’m sure that all who read this blog want to be used of the Lord to bring their unsaved friends and family members to Jesus. But how do we do this and from whom can we learn? This is where I have been extremely helped by Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley’s new book entitled Prepared by Grace, For Grace. This work teaches us from the great Puritans themselves how to do this most noble work in a way that squares with Scripture. Not only is this volume a helpful clarification on what the Puritans taught about this matter and a great antidote to much of the easy believism that is so rampant in our day, but it is also a prod to do the work of spreading the glorious gospel to the lost.

The publisher describes the book like this:

Few teachings of the Puritans have provoked such strong reactions and conflicting interpretations as their views on preparing for saving faith. Many twentieth-century scholars dismissed preparation as a prime example of regression from the Reformed doctrine of grace for a man-centered legalism. In Prepared by Grace, for Grace, Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley make careful analysis of the Puritan understanding of preparatory grace, demonstrate its fundamental continuity with the Reformed tradition, and identify matters where even the Puritans disagreed among themselves. Clearing away the many misconceptions and associated accusations of preparationism, this study is sure to be the standard work on how the Puritans understood the ordinary way God leads sinners to Christ.

Here is what Derek Thomas writes about it:

“I can think of no abler team of writers in the world today to tackle the important issue of preparatory grace, with all of its attendant law-gospel implications, than Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley. As with legalism, preparatory grace suffers from verbal abuse partly through ignorance of the real issues, and partly through prejudice for its supposed attempt to usurp gospel grace. Beeke and Smalley have provided us with a plethora of historical and theological material to enable us to walk through this controversial but important issue. It has been suggested that to understand the relationship between law and gospel is to be a theologian; on this score, these authors are theologians par excellence.

More information on Prepared by Grace can be viewed here:

http://www.heritagebooks.org/prepared-by-grace-for-grace-the-puritans-on-gods-way-of-leading-sinners-to-christ/

And here

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2013/06/leading-sinners-to-christ.php

Rob Ventura

We live in a world filled with competing truth claims. Every day, we are bombarded with declarations that something is true and that something else is false. We are told what to believe and what not to believe. We are asked to behave one way but not another way. In her monthly column “What I Know for Sure,” Oprah Winfrey tells us how to handle our lives and our relationships. The New York Times editorial page regularly tells us what approach we should take to the big moral, legal, or public-policy issues of our day. Richard Dawkins, the British atheist and evolutionist, tells us how to think of our historical origins and our place in this universe.

How do we sift through all these claims? How do people know what to think about relationships, morality, God, the origins of the universe, and many other important questions? To answer such questions, people need some sort of norm, standard, or criteria to which they can appeal. In other words, we need an ultimate authority. Of course, everyone has some sort of ultimate norm to which they appeal, whether or not they are aware of what their norm happens to be. Some people appeal to reason and logic to adjudicate competing truth claims. Others appeal to sense experience. Still others refer to themselves and their own subjective sense of things. Although there is some truth in each of these approaches, Christians have historically rejected all of them as the ultimate standard for knowledge. Instead, God’s people have universally affirmed that there is only one thing that can legitimately function as the supreme standard: God’s Word. There can be no higher authority than God Himself.

Of course, we are not the first generation of people to face the challenge of competing truth claims. In fact, Adam and Eve faced such a dilemma at the very beginning. God had clearly said to them “You shall surely die” if they were to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17). On the other hand, the Serpent said the opposite to them: “You will not surely die” (3:4). How should Adam and Eve have adjudicated these competing claims? By empiricism? By rationalism? By what seemed right to them? No, there was only one standard to which they should have appealed to make this decision: the word that God had spoken to them. Unfortunately, this is not what happened. Instead of looking to God’s revelation, Eve decided to investigate things further herself: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes … she took of its fruit and ate” (3:6). Make no mistake, the fall was not just a matter of Adam and Eve eating the fruit. At its core, the fall was about God’s people rejecting God’s Word as the ultimate standard for all of life.

But if God’s Word is the ultimate standard for all of life, the next question is critical: Where do we go to get God’s Word? Where can it be found? This issue, of course, brings us to one of the core debates of the Protestant Reformation. While the Roman Catholic Church authorities agreed that God’s Word was the ultimate standard for all of life and doctrine, they believed this Word could be found in places outside of the Scriptures. Rome claimed a trifold authority structure, which included Scripture, tradition, and the Magisterium. The key component in this trifold authority was the Magisterium itself, which is the authoritative teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church, manifested primarily in the pope. Because the pope was considered the successor of the Apostle Peter, his official pronouncements (ex cathedra) were regarded as the very words of God Himself.

It was at this point that the Reformers stood their ground. While acknowledging that God had delivered His Word to His people in a variety of ways before Christ (Heb. 1:1), they argued that we should no longer expect ongoing revelation now that God has spoken finally in His Son (v. 2). Scripture is clear that the Apostolic office was designed to perform a onetime, redemptive-historical task: to lay the foundation of the church (Eph. 2:20). The foundation-laying activity of the Apostles primarily consisted of giving the church a deposit of authoritative teaching testifying to and applying the great redemptive work of Christ. Thus, the New Testament writings, which are the permanent embodiment of this Apostolic teaching, should be seen as the final installment of God’s revelation to His people. These writings, together with the Old Testament, are the only ones that are rightly considered the Word of God.

This conviction of sola Scriptura— the Scriptures alone are the Word of God and, therefore, the only infallible rule for life and doctrine—provided the fuel needed to ignite the Reformation. Indeed, it was regarded as the “formal cause” of the Reformation (whereas sola fide, or “faith alone,” was regarded as the “material cause”). The sentiments of this doctrine are embodied in Martin Luther’s famous speech at the Diet of Worms (1521) after he was asked to recant his teachings:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience…. May God help me. Amen.

For Luther, the Scriptures, and the Scriptures alone, were the final arbiter of what we should believe.

Of course, like many core Christian convictions, the doctrine of sola Scriptura has often been misunderstood and misapplied. Unfortunately, some have used sola Scriptura as a justification for a “me, God, and the Bible” type of individualism, where the church bears no real authority and the history of the church is not considered when interpreting and applying Scripture. Thus, many churches today are almost ahistorical—cut off entirely from the rich traditions, creeds, and confessions of the church. They misunderstand sola Scriptura to mean that the Bible is the only authority rather than understanding it to mean that the Bible is the only infallible authority. Ironically, such an individualistic approach actually undercuts the very doctrine of sola Scriptura it is intended to protect. By emphasizing the autonomy of the individual believer, one is left with only private, subjective conclusions about what Scripture means. It is not so much the authority of Scripture that is prized as the authority of the individual.

The Reformers would not have recognized such a distortion as their doctrine of sola Scriptura. On the contrary, they were quite keen to rely on the church fathers, church councils, and the creeds and confessions of the church. Such historical rootedness was viewed not only as a means for maintaining orthodoxy but also as a means for maintaining humility. Contrary to popular perceptions, the Reformers did not view themselves as coming up with something new. Rather, they understood themselves to be recovering something very old—something that the church had originally believed but later twisted and distorted. The Reformers were not innovators but were excavators.

There are other extremes against which the doctrine of sola Scriptura protects us. While we certainly want to avoid the individualistic and ahistorical posture of many churches today, sola Scriptura also protects us from overcorrecting and raising creeds and confessions or other human documents (or ideas) to the level of Scripture. We must always be on guard against making the same mistake as Rome and embracing what we might call “traditionalism,” which attempts to bind the consciences of Christians in areas that the Bible does not. In this sense, sola Scriptura is a guardian of Christian liberty. But the biggest danger we face when it comes to sola Scriptura is not misunderstanding it. The biggest danger is forgetting it. We are prone to think of this doctrine purely in terms of sixteenth-century debates—just a vestige of the age-old Catholic-Protestant battles and irrelevant for the modern day. But the Protestant church in the modern day needs this doctrine now more than ever. The lessons of the Reformation have been largely forgotten, and the church, once again, has begun to rely on ultimate authorities outside of Scripture.

In order to lead the church back to sola Scriptura, we must realize that we cannot do so only by teaching about the doctrine itself (although we must do this). Instead, the primary way we lead the church back is by actually preaching the Scriptures. Only the Word of God has the power to transform and reform our churches. So, we should not only talk about sola Scriptura, but we should demonstrate it. And when we do, we must preach all of God’s Word—not picking and choosing the parts we prefer or think our congregations want to hear. We must preach only the Word (sola Scriptura), and we must preach all the Word (tota Scriptura). The two go hand in hand. When they are joined together in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can have hope for a new reformation.

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There are a number of passages in the Gospels which speak of the Pharisees, but one brief interaction summarizes the major elements of their theology and practice.  It is found in Matthew 15:

1 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

8 “‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

And what do we learn about the Pharisees from this?

The first element of Phariseeism is clearly implied, and Jesus makes it even more clear elsewhere: Pharisees were moralists.  That doesn’t just mean that they believed in morality; if that were so, every member of every religion ever would be a Pharisee.  Rather it means that they saw personal morality as the path to redemption.  It is why they became so adept at popping up in every situation to point out perceived sins.  Only a moralist could be concerned with whether or not Jesus’ disciples washed their hands.  This central element of their theology is what Jesus had in mind when He told the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  The one saw that righteousness was unobtainable and relied on the mercy of God.  But the other – the Pharisee – thought his own moral character was enough for him to draw near to God.

The second and closely related element of the Pharisaical theology is explicit in this passage: Pharisees were legalists.  This means that they multiplied legal regulations never found in Scripture.  The law detailed ceremonial washings for various occasions, but dinner was not one of them.  They did not even pretend that the issue is biblical, asking instead why the disciples broke “the tradition of the elders.”  The elevation of human tradition – what Isaiah called “the commandments of men” – to the level of God’s law is legalism.  It is not surprising that those who see personal morality as necessary to salvation would soon multiply the regulations of the law.

But the third element of Pharisaical theology is unexpected: The Pharisees were antinomians.  That seems impossible, but look at what Jesus asked: “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”  He then offered up one commandment out of the Ten and demonstrated that the Pharisees habitually broke it.  They talked a great game on the law, but when it came to actual moral commands which God expected them to follow they managed to re-write the law.  Their tradition bound both them and others to a set of extra-biblical regulations, while at the same time exempting them from the laws of God.

So that is what a Pharisee really is: a moralistic, legalistic antinomian.  Too many in our lawless age assume that this is oxymoronic, that legalism and antinomianism are and must be opposites.  This is simply untrue.  Legalism and antinomianism are instead the twin children of moralism.  Here is how it works.  Say you want to get to heaven on the basis of your own morality; you’ll find pretty quickly that the commandments of God are very difficult to keep.  This is especially true once you encounter Jesus’ teaching on the meaning of the law.  Remember how the Rich Young Ruler had his pretentions to morality smashed?  After claiming to be a law-keeper, he heard the truth from Jesus, and he went away sad.  Read through Matthew 5 closely and you’re likely to have your own sad moment as Jesus explains the deep spiritual application of the law.  Moralism cannot coexist with the moral law of God; the depravity of man won’t allow it.  The moralist, then, is forced to do two things: he must abandon the actual laws of God which genuinely apply to him, and at the same time he must concoct some new, easier set of rules which can be followed.   That is what the Pharisees did, and it is what modern-day Pharisees must continue to do.

So what would we expect a real, modern-day Pharisee to look like?

Well, in the first place, he would say or at least imply that true Christianity can be judged entirely by actions rather than by beliefs.  He might, for instance, suggest that until Christians look and act exactly like Christ they are not really Christians.  Of course Christians are supposed to act like Christ; that is the essence of Christian morality.  Remember: believing in morality is not moralism, but if we understand what Christ-like-ness really is, we won’t expect Christians to actually attain to it perfectly.  The Pharisee, however, will, because he is a moralist.  Meanwhile, in keeping with his deeds-not-creeds philosophy, he will downplay the significance of all doctrinal disputes.

Furthermore, the modern-day Pharisee can be expected to discount the law of God.  True Pharisees will object to the most obvious commands.  Perhaps, for instance, they will conclude that the Bible’s teaching on sexuality isn’t all that important and that Christians shouldn’t make too big of a deal about it.  That would fit in perfectly with a philosophy which was arguing 2000 years ago that the Bible’s teaching on honoring your parents wasn’t all that important and that God’s people shouldn’t make too big of a deal about it.

Finally, having jettisoned the morality of the Bible, the modern-day Pharisee will doubtless invent a whole new set of rules and regulations for Christians to follow.  Maybe he’ll say that Christians need to do more service outside the church than in, even though that’s pretty much the opposite of what Paul taught in I Timothy.  Or maybe he’ll argue that Christians need to eat lots of meals with Muslims and Buddhists, which of course is nowhere to be found in the Bible anyway.  What would recommend commandments like these, though, is that they’re pretty easily followed, at least as compared to the thorough, heart-mind-and-soul morality demanded by our Lord.  Remember, if you’re going to be a moralist, you have to pick a law which you are capable of following!

That is at least a biblical picture of what a modern-day Pharisee might look like.  Thank goodness we don’t actually have anyone like that in the church today!

“We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ (Acts 4:12). We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is ‘of him’ (1 Cor 1.13). If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects (Heb 2:17) that he might learn to feel our pain (Heb 5:2). If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross (Gal 3:13); if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgement, in the power given to him to judge.In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain and from no other” (Institutes 2.16.19).

Consider His love; it is eternal, unchangeable, and fruitful. “These three qualifications of the love of Christ make it exceedingly eminent, and him exceeding desirable. How many millions of sins, in every one of the elect, every one whereof were enough to condemn them all, hath this love overcome! what mountains of unbelief doth it remove! Look upon the conversation of any one saint, consider the frame of his heart, see the many stains and spots, the defilements and infirmities, wherewith his life is contaminated, and tell me whether the love that bears with all this be not to be admired. And is it not the same towards thousands every day? What streams of grace, purging, pardoning, quickening, assisting, do flow from it every day!” (John Owen, Works, II:63).

Judges 4 and 5 is an historical account of the victory of Deborah and Barak over Jabin and Sisera. Deborah was a prophetess in Israel, and unusually, a female judge. Barak was a Jewish military commander. Jabin was king of the Canaanites, and Sisera was the captain of the Canaanite hosts.

After twenty years of abuse by Canaanites in the Promised Land, Deborah and Barak arose to inspire Israel against her intimidating foes. Judges 4 is the prose account of their victory. Judges 5 is the poetic account, where the heavy accent falls upon praise to the Lord for remembering His people in His mercy. Take a few minutes to read these two chapters now.

Judges 5 describes Israel’s God as marching onto the battlefield and leading His people into war. At His very presence the creation itself trembles. The Canaanite army was doomed from the beginning.

This invisible Deity used visible means to accomplish His victory through judgment. Deborah is the main heroine and human leader. That shamed the Jewish men since she was filling the gap of their leadership failures. Her service also magnified God’s power because by her He proved He can deliver His people even by using “the weaker vessel” (1 Pet 3.7). No doubt many take offense at my saying so, but the biblical worldview of gender differences and roles (e.g., 1 Tim 2.12-13) helps us appreciate how this passage accentuates God’s glory. Barak went forth only because Deborah prompted and supported him. “Barak said unto her, If thou wilt go with me, then I will go: but if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go. And she said, I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honour; for the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Josh 4.8-9).

Another woman highly praised in this thanksgiving song is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, identified in terms of her relationship to her husband, her better-known lord (1 Pet 3.6; cf. Eph 5.22-24). Judges 4 relates how that she was in the right place at the right time when the dreaded evil Sisera had fled the battlefield and sought refuge in her tent. Jael was God’s instrument of severe judgment upon him when she lulled him to sleep with milk and a soft place to lie. Wily Jael rendered the general completely unconscious and totally defenseless. Then with praiseworthy zeal she drove a sharp tent stake right through his temples into the ground. She gave him what he deserved and freed the Jews of him once and for all. Now Sisera suffers eternal humiliation. He did not die valiantly by the sword of a brave, muscular Jewish soldier. No. Household tools in the hands of a housewife have made him a mockery forevermore.

The exquisite poem of Judges 5 exults in all this to the praise of Israel’s warrior God, the true Captain of the Lord’s triumphant hosts. One lesson? Don’t mess with God and His people!

The poem’s closing touch describes Sisera’s anxious mother awaiting his return. “Why hasn’t he come home yet?” she muses. “Surely he is delayed because they are dividing the spoil taken from slain Jews. They are gathering virgins and expensive tapestries and souvenirs of their triumph. Soon he will be home,” this idol-worshiping mother assured herself. Little did she realize that the toddler she had reared into a prime servant of Satan had gone to meet his Maker. While she worried, his head was firmly attached, like the corner of a tent, to ground now soaked with his blood.

We should realize this grisly tale is all about Yahweh revealing His glory by the way He finally treats His friends and His foes. The hymn closes, “So let all thine enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might.”

The Lord is calling us to self-examination. You either love Him or hate Him. Neutrality is impossible. As long as your heart is hostile, the record of this redemptive-historical event is the announcement of your doom. If you are fearing God and repenting of your sins, turning to Him for mercy now instead of waiting for what you deserve, then you have a clean record and a new heart. By the power and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have changed sides and become one of those who love Him and keep His commandments.

One dark day many centuries later, the only righteous man among us strode forth onto a battlefield of sorts and confronted the Devil directly. Christ came to receive the wounded heel prophesied long before, that He might crush Satan’s head (Gen 3.15). Jesus suffered excruciating agonies and incomprehensible anguish to redeem His chosen people. Not a housewife’s wooden mallet, but a Roman centurion’s cruel hammer was heard again and again on that day, noisily pounding sharp spikes through His hands and feet, and nailing Him to a cross as one condemned and accursed of God (Gal 3.13). Like Jael, that centurion was also God’s instrument of victory through judgment. “It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief” (Isa 53.10). Jesus was crucified and slain by wicked hands as a fulfillment of God’s determinate counsel and foreknowledge (Acts 2.23). God’s spikes and hammers have delivered His chosen people once and for all.

You have not understood the gospel until you realize that Jesus was pierced in the place of the guilty. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (1 Pet 3.18). This Savior who was crucified is now risen as the believer’s assurance of triumph over all enemies—sin, death, hell, and the devil. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom 8.32).

So, which will it be for you, Sisera or the Savior? The tent stake through your skull, or union by faith with the crucified Christ? In Jesus’ name I forewarn you that God still has spikes and hammers aplenty for the vast multitudes who persist as His enemies.

I have been involved in one form or another in the public ministry of God’s word for over 35 years.  In those years I have taught or preached nearly 3,000 times.  Over the past several years I have noticed a general sense of weariness or fatigue in the ministry.  I now believe I have been battling discouragement.  This discouragement, for me, has been rooted in what I will term a ‘theologically informed pessimism’.  This reality was exposed recently in my own preaching on Paul’s defense before Agrippa and Festus as recorded in Acts 26.  Paul had every reason to be discouraged and pessimistic in bringing the gospel to these men.  He was seeking to present the truth to men whom he knew were dead int their sins and trespasses.  They were furthermore from a group (the rich and powerful) were conversions are rare (see 1 Cor. 1:26-29).  He also knew that the core message he brought (Christ and Him crucified) was offensive and foolish to the very men he sought to reach.  What struck me and convicted me is not only that Paul preached the truth anyway (always the faithful plodder), but that he did so with such passion.  When Festus tells him that his great learning has driven him mad, Paul pleads with him that his message is one rooted in truth and reality.  When the King mocks Paul’s attempts to ‘convert’ him, Paul tells him that desires all men to have what he has (with the exception of his chains).  How often had Paul faced just this kind unbelief, skepticism, and rejection?  And yet, he carried on.  And he did so in hope.

In this light, I have been meditating upon Paul’s word to the Corinthians as found in chapter 9. He is dealing with subject of teachers and preachers receiving a financial reward for their labor.  In that context he says, 1 Corinthians 9:10 ..[it] is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.

Paul makes his argument based upon a certain ‘truism’.  Those who plow and sow and thresh do so in hope.  They do not do it merely to be faithful to their task.  They are thinking of all the lunches and dinners down the road that make the labor and toil worth it all.   I have labored all my ministerial life to be faithful.  In the midst of this I have at times lost hope.  I have taught with a desire to please God but, at times, with little hope that it would do anything.  That it would change people or help people or convert people.  Why?  Because of what I so often  seen and experienced.  But God’s word is powerful.  It does sanctify and it does save.  It is a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces and a sword which cuts into the inner being of saints and sinners.  I am repenting of my pessimism.  I am taking up God’s Word with fresh hope.  I do so as one who plows and one who sows anticipating the fruits of my labors.

At the 2012 ARBCA General Assembly a resolution was passed designating a Thursday in May as a day of special prayer for home and foreign missions. Pastors of ARBCA churches are encouraged to meet in a central location to entreat the Lord that the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ will conquer the hearts of many and that churches will be planted both here at home and around the world.

Here are some of the requests suggested for foreign missions this year:

Our missionaries, national pastors, and chaplains:
Oscar Bloise, Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Jamaica
Matthew Brennan, Clonmel Baptist Church, Ireland
Daniel Durand, Reformed Baptist Church, Montreal, Quebec
Stan Line, Grace and Love Christian Church, Bogota, Colombia
Jorge Molina, Mountain and Light Grace Church, Carlos Paz, Argentina
Raymond Perron, Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of Quebec
Chris Powell, Covenant Baptist Church, Toronto, Canada
Obed Rupertos, Grace Community Bible Church, Santiago, Chile
David Vaughn, Aix-en-Provence, France
Chaplain Patrick Joyner, Camp Lejeune, NC Chaplain
James Galyon, Fort Hood, TX
The need for more missionaries
God’s persecuted people
Those places in our world where the gospel is still to be heard
The work of Bible translators
The multitudes in the darkness of false religions
Sam Masters, Cordoba, Argentina
Olivier Favre & Regis Bourdulat, Switzerland
The work of the gospel in Israel
The work of the gospel in Cuba
Here are suggested requests for Home Missions:

Grace Fellowship Church, Bremen, Indiana: Prayer for Aaron Hoak and the work in Warsaw, Indiana
Grace Baptist Church, Hartsville, TN: Prayer for John Miller and the work in Clarksville, TN Grace Covenant Church, Gilbert, AZ: Prayer for Rob Cosby and the work in Tucson, AZ Heritage Baptist Church, Mansfield, TX: Prayer for Bob Curley & Steve Garrick and the work in Georgetown, TX
Prayer for David Hendrickx, Santa Theresa Reformed Baptist Church New Mexico, and the work in Juarez, Mexico
Hope Reformed Baptist Church, Tinley Park, IL
Crosspoint Church, Asheville, NC

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