Missionary's Day

Moving

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:41:42 GMT

From now on, I'm blogging at a new location. http://davebunnell.wordpress.com/
For the time being this blog you're reading may stay up, but there will only be new posts at the new weblog. Go there to sign up for updates if you wish. Blessings to you.

Get Ready

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 12:34:25 GMT

Get ready now for Christ's return, and stay ready until He comes. That's the theme of this morning's message from the church on Luke 12:32-40. You can listen to the recording of it online here.

Why God blessed America

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:23:32 GMT

�May God be gracious to us and bless us; look on us with favor, so that Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise You, God; let all the peoples praise You.� --Psalm 67:1-3

It's Independence Day week in America. As we ask God to continue to bless America, we should remember two things: 1) Let's give thanks for the fact that He already has blessed us abundantly, and 2) Let's remember the reason He blesses a nation, as His word tells it in Psalm 67 quoted above-- God's blessing on a nation is so that He will be known in all the earth, through His people's witness, and so His great salvation will be experienced by all peoples.
We know it is a time of economic downturn; however, even now Americans are the most financially blessed people on the earth, and much more so than other lands. We also know that our country has seen a spiritual and moral decline in our generation; however, even now we are among the most blessed nations on earth, with religious freedom, a strong evangelical church, and unlimited availability of the word of God and the proclamation of it in our land. Much has been given to us already, and much is required of us. Most of the world does not have either the financial blessing or the spiritual blessings we take for granted. God didn't bless America because He liked us better than everyone else. He blessed us because He wanted us to be a blessing to other nations, and to proclaim His glory around the world.
So even if times are tough, I encourage you to be involved in Great Commission works around the world, so that God has a reason to continue showering our land with His favor.

Christ's Victory in Death

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:15:03 GMT

Tonight's home fellowship Bible study from 1 Peter is online here.

Creation Conclusion

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:10:06 GMT

Today's message at the church concluded the four-part series on creation with a look at Genesis 2:18-25, about God's creation of marriage and His good plan for it. You can hear the message online here.

Creation part 3

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:32:05 GMT

Tonight our home fellowship continued the series on creation. You can listen online to the study of the first half of Genesis 2 here.

Cigarettes & Legalism

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:20:31 GMT

Anywhere the word of God is found, legalism also shows up. In different places it might take different forms due to cultural leanings. In America, the legalists might forbid ministry opportunities to those who dance or play cards or watch movies (regardless of their content), or even have facial hair. All of those things are seen as wholesome activities in the body of Christ in Romania (as long as the aforementioned movies are wholesome.)
Here in Romania, the legalists' number one pet peeve is smoking. We've even had experiences where people were evangelizing with us and told the lost, "if you repent and give up cigarettes, God will forgive you and make you His child."
Now, I'm not "pro-smoking" by any means. The smell of cigarettes is worse to me than the smell of a baby's soiled diaper. It's disgusting, and being around smoking and tolerating it tests the limits of my politeness. My personal preference would be for everyone to be forbidden to smoke anywhere in my presence.
But my dislike of smoking is a fraction of how much I recoil at legalism.
It is seen here, as a highly controversial statement at best, and heresy at worst, when I say, "If I meet someone who has faith in Christ and find out he is a smoker, that does not cause me to question his salvation. But when I meet someone who teaches, 'you aren't born again if you don't quit smoking,' I definitely question THAT person's salvation, because he is presenting a message that is at odds with the gospel."
If these legalists are saved, at the very least they are limiting their availability to be used of God to bring about His glory. To say the power of the gospel is about helping people quit smoking, something even an atheist with willpower can do, is to cheapen the cross. We need to exalt Christ. We need to magnify His grace. We need to talk about His power to change lives from the inside out, and to deliver a soul from great transgressions, not just quibble over questionable things like whether a Christian would smoke.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the great men of God of our time, was used of God to bring about great revival, and is still being used of God to move people to know and love and serve Jesus long after his death. He was a smoker, though, throughout his ministry. Even though he was publically criticized for it, he never stopped. And I just don't believe God owes the legalists any apology for blessing Spurgeon and using his ministry.
The challenge is to find what areas of our ministry we've become legalistic about, placing our preferences on the level of God's commandments, so that we can be people full of grace and truth, and be used of God for His glory. I am praying tonight that God will show me any such area of falseness in my teaching, so that I can correct it, as I pray He will show it to the people who deny the cross by preaching a "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved as soon as you put out that cigarette" message.

Creation part 2

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:10:28 GMT

This morning's message was part 2 of 4 of our teaching series on creation. You can listen to it online here.

Creation or Evolution--Audio study

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:30:19 GMT

Our home fellowship tonight was the beginning of a four-part topical series, the next two Thursdays and Sundays on the topic of creation, studying Genesis 1 and 2. Here is the recording online for your listening pleasure.

Evolution a fact? Nope. Not even a theory.

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:40:07 GMT

Some of the more bombastic among atheists are fond of saying the evolution of all species from a common ancestor is not just a theory, but a fact.

What a jump in logic they have made, though, to assume that �theory� status is the worst-case scenario for their belief system.

The scientific method, as you were taught in gradeschool, basically goes like this: A hypothesis is an idea that someone comes up with about something in science and nature. Then, a plausible hypothesis will see evidence of its probability gathered over time. When enough evidence is available that it is likely true, this infant hypothesis graduates to the adolescent-like state of �theory.� By then the hypothesis is supposed to have been tested and demonstrated to be a likely truth. After a time, when room for doubt has been completely removed, the evidence having proven it, not just substantiated its plausibility, then the theory matures to adulthood, becoming a scientific law.

For example, gravity is a scientific law. Biogenesis (the fact that life forms are only produced by other life forms, never by non-living material) is a scientific law. The constancy of the speed of light is a theory. The distance from us to the stars is theory. That all life forms are made up of microscopic cells, even, is referred to in the scientific journals as �cell theory.�

But before we discuss whether evolution has progressed enough to be a law, an undeniable fact without plausible alternatives, we need to not just skip over the first question. Is it even worthy of �theory� status in a scientific sense? Has this belief system actually met the standard of evidence that the grand jury can indict it of probability, based on the evidence? Not really.

When we refer to evolution as "theory," we're being far too kind to the Darwinists, granting them far too much benefit of the doubt. At best, their belief is a hypothesis based on speculative philosophy. They not only fail to bring to the table sufficient evidence of a scientific theory--but they ask us to accept their beliefs without any evidence at all, basing their teachings on mere assumptions from point A to point Z.

�But the fossil record proves evolution, doesn't it?� you ask.

No, as Dr. Kent Hovind is fond of pointing out, if you have a fossil, the only thing it proves is that something died. It does not prove that said something ever had offspring at all, much less offspring of a different kind from itself. And why, he rightly asks then, would you dare to assume that the fossil in your hand was capable of doing something no life form on earth today can do, namely mutate into another lifeform with more advanced gene code, coupled with survivability and the ability to reproduce?

What's worse--their evolutionary hypothesis is not just unproven, not just unsupported by evidence, but implausible. It is literally incredible. The evolution of species from a common ancestor not only didn't happen--it COULDN'T happen.

Want evidence of that? Take their favorite example of late that they say points to the �fact� that we are not a special creation, but a member of the animal kingdom called homo sapiens, which descended most recently from ape-like ancestors. That example is this: They say humans and chimpanzees are 98.4 percent alike in genetic code. The conclusion they wish you their listeners to jump to is the belief that we, therefore, are more than 98 percent the same thing they are. If they are scientifically-minded, though, they are being deceptive intentionally. Because if they aren't just ignorant, they are aware that 1.6 percent difference in DNA structure is actually an uncrossable gap, even given millions of years of time. The geneticist who heads the human genome project, an evolutionist himself, has pointed out that 1.6 percent of our DNA comprises 48,000,000 nucleotides, any three of which �would be fatal to the animal� if changed.

That means we are 16 million fatal genetic changes away from chimpanzees. 16 million generations of genetic change happening over billions of years, and every single time it had to work, meaning the animal produced still had to survive the mutation and be able to reproduce the next generation, or break the chain and have to start the evolution over. These 16 million generations of change would have taken billions of billions of billions of billions of years, when you consider we have 6,000 years of history to look at, in which we have seen it happen not even once, much less 16 million times.

Billions of billions of billions of years. No one claims the universe is anywhere near that old. And even if it were, we are now just talking about how long it would take for one primate to turn into another, not to mention how long it would take slime on a rock to evolve into people smart enough to create the computer you're reading this on.

Since the genetic code of all living things is so tightly locked against change, everything reproduces according to its own kind, just like Genesis 1 says, making the Bible the only scientifically accurate account of how life continues over generations.

And worser still--even if there WERE some way that the various species could have evolved from a common ancestor, said ancestor couldn't have existed to begin with, because even a one-celled life form could not have come into being apart from the Creator. The scientific law of biogenesis proves this. And that is a law, equal with the law of gravity in the weightiness of its evidence, and more substantiated than the theory that you and all living things are made up of cells, even though you have actually seen cells under a microscope.

Evolution is an implausible idea. It would take such a miracle to make evolution work, that only an all-powerful all-knowing God could have done it. And He says He didn't.

So no more of this nonsense about evolution being a fact. Evolution, as a belief system, has never made it past the embryonic stage of evidence-gathering. It has not even been birthed properly into a theory yet.

When we Christians call it a theory, we're just being polite.