Two Sermons To Get You Going

Both Southern Seminary and Boyce college are already swimming in the deep waters of academic study. Boyce has been going since the 11th and Southern since the 18th.

And, as always, coming with the semester comes the great sermons and Bible teaching at Alumni Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday.

I wanted to call you attention to the sermons preached by the President of the seminary, Dr. Albert Mohler, and the dean of theology, Dr. Russell Moore the past two weeks. Both sermons were excellent!



"The Year of Living Dangerously"





"Predestined to What? Why the Doctrine of Election Is So Hard to Believe" (Rom. 8:26-9:6)

How Does a Christian Over Come the World?

Book list for Fall 08

A new fall, a new semester of school. Thus, I begin my third semester of college here at Boyce College. And like the last two semester I will not deprive people from knowing what books I am reading for class.


For Greek 1:

The Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce

Preaching 1:

The Goldsworthy Trilogy by Graeme Goldsworthy

Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All of Scripture by Dennis Johnson

The 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching by Wayne McDill

Religion in the Public Square:

Political Science: 10th (or 9th) edition

The Divided States of America by Richard Land

Marriage and the Family:

The Book of Romance by Tommy Nelson

When Sinners say "I Do": Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage by Dave Harvey

Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp

The Works of Jonathan Edward

WSC is selling the works of Jonathan Edwards for $25. This a great deal if you don't already have Edward's works.


I have learned that WSC has sold out of the works. Sorry to everyone that did not get there soon enough.

The Importance of the Old Testament

These are quotes taken from a book that I am reading for Preaching 1. The author is Dr. Graeme Goldsworthy.

Basically, the Old Testament is not the history of man's developing thoughts about God, but the whole Bible presents itself as the unfolding process of God's dealing with man and of his own self-disclosure.

The most compelling reason for the Christian to read and study the Old Testament lies in the New Testament. The New Testament witnesses to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the One in whom and through whom all the promises of God find their fulfillment. These promises are only to be understood from the Old Testament; the fulfillment of the promises can be understood only in the context of the promises themselves. The New Testament presupposes a knowledge of the Old Testament. Everything that is a concern to the New Testament writers is part of the one redemptive history to which the Old Testament witnesses. The New Testament writers cannot separate the person and the work of Christ, nor the life of the Christian community, from this sacred history which has its beginnings in the Old Testament. (page 18-19)


To understand the whole living process of redemptive history in the Old Testament we must recognize two basic truths. The first is that this salvation history is a process. The second is that this process of redemptive history finds its goal, its focus and fulfillment in the person and work of Christ

Failure to Grasp this truth - largely because the proper study of the Old Testament has been neglected, has aided and abetted one of the most unfortunate reversals in evangelical theology. The core of the gospel, the historical facts of what God did in Christ, is often down-graded today in favor of a more mystical emphasis on the private spiritual experience of the individual. Whereas faith in the gospel is essentially acceptance of, and commitment to, the declaration that God acted in Christ some two thousand years ago on our behalf, saving faith is often portrayed nowadays more as trust in what God is doing in us now. Biblical ideas such as 'forgiveness of sins' or 'salvation' are interpreted as primarily describing a Christian's personal experience. But when we allow the whole Bible - Old and New Testaments - to speak to us, we find that those subjective aspects of the Christian life which are undoubtedly important - the new birth, faith, and sanctification - are fruits of the gospel. This gospel, while still relating to the individual people at their point of need, is rooted and grounded in the history of redemption. It is the good news about Jesus, before it can become good news for sinful men and women. Indeed, it is only as the objective (redemptive-historical) facts are grasped that the subjective experience of the individual Christian can be understood. (page 20-21)

From The Goldsworthy Trilogy, by Graeme Goldsworthy.



I had never heard about Graeme Goldsworthy until I cam up here to Boyce. Although, after listening to some of his lectures and reading his book my whole understanding of how to read the Old Testament is changing! I am seeing Christ in the pages of Scripture so much consistently and much more clearly because of Dr. Goldsworthy's works. I highly recommend them to you.

Last spring, Dr. Goldsworthy gave a few lectures here at Southern. here are the links,

The Necessity and Viability of Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology and Its Pastoral Application

Begone Unbelief

Begone unbelief, my Savior is near,
And for my relief will surely appear:
By prayer let me wrestle, and He wilt perform,
With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm.

Though dark be my way, since He is my Guide,
’Tis mine to obey, ’tis His to provide;
Though cisterns be broken, and creatures all fail,
The Word He has spoken shall surely prevail.

His love in time past forbids me to think
He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink;
Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review,
Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through.

Determined to save, He watched o’er my path,
When Satan’s blind slave, I sported with death;
And can He have taught me to trust in His Name,
And thus far have brought me, to put me to shame?

Why should I complain of want or distress,
Temptation or pain? He told me no less:
The heirs of salvation, I know from His Word,
Through much tribulation must follow their Lord.

How bitter that cup, no heart can conceive,
Which He drank quite up, that sinners might live!
His way was much rougher, and darker than mine;
Did Jesus thus suffer, and shall I repine?

Since all that I meet shall work for my good,
The bitter is sweet, the medicine is food;
Though painful at present, wilt cease before long,
And then, O! how pleasant, the conqueror’s song!

-John Newton

From Cyberhymnal

Experience in Lakeshore

Well, I got back from Lakeshore Mississippi around two weeks ago. Yes, yes, I know that this post is coming late. You can look at the post before this one to find out why. But late is better than “not at all.” So, here is the late report of Lakeshore...

We left from Louisville at about 6:45 Thursday morning. Five of us piled into a five person vehicle and made our way to Lakeshore. It was an eleven hour trip (stopping to eat included) so we got there around 5:45 that evening. We worked after supper until there was no light in the sky. The next two days were constant work.

Now let me break off and explain who we are and what we did down there. We is defining five people, including myself, that are members of Immanuel Baptist Church. Doug Thorpe, Ashlea Davenport, Kristi Rhodes, Jill Edwards, and myself. What we did was small construction projects on houses being built by Lakeshore Baptist Church. So, we sanded dry wall, nailed hurricane strips, Tyvecked part of a house, and other small things while we were there.

That is how Lakeshore runs it's building ministry. They have different teams build a little on a house. One team will put the frame up. Another will put the outside ply-boards up, etc. No one team sees a house built from start to finish. It is doing a little bit there and a little bit here and leaving the next part for the next team.

Back to our time, that is what we did the two days we worked. Sunday, we attend the service at Lakeshore. That afternoon Doug and myself got to spend some time with paster Don Elborn and be an encouragement to him. That night we started our way back to Louisville.

I really enjoyed the time we spent down there. The trip was short, but we were able to provide a little help. It was a good time of service to the people of Lakeshore and fellowship with my fellow Immanuelites.




If there were somethings that stood out to me while we were down there it was the depravity of man and the need of regeneration by God in each person's life. Three years after Katrina hit and there was already a newly built Casino on the beach and a Porn shop right off the main city road. Very little time went by after this major disaster and people are right back in the sin they were in before.

After seeing these sights I pondered, “Don't you think that people would think twice before they leap back into the lives they once lived? I mean, a major storm just wiped your whole town off the face of the map three years ago. Shouldn't you have a little more fear of God before your eyes because of it?”

Now, don't hear me saying that “God brought Katrina upon America to punish this nation for it's wicked action!” I am no saying that I know this was a judgment from the Lord to punish sins. Though, I do believe that God caused Katrina (Isa 45:7), it is that I do not know the motives for such actions.

Even still, after a calamity like that happens it is right to step back and ask, “Is God angry at me?” It makes sense that people would begin to question some of their ways and lifestyles because of a disaster. People, however, were not doing that. On the contrary they were going right back into their sins.

With these things in my head I read this verse later on that night, “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.” (Gen 8:21) The context for this verse is God establishing a covenant with Noah after the flood. Noah made a sacrifice to the Lord and as the verse says it pleased the Lord. Then the Lord says that He will not curse the ground on account of man. I believe that the curse mentioned here is what took place in chapters seven through eight. Namely, the great flood. That is the most obvious curse to be referencing. Then God gives the reason for not cursing the earth again, because the intentions of man's heart is evil from his youth. The problem with this world is that evil resides in every man's heart.

What verse 21 is saying is that changing man's sin problem in this world cannot be brought forth by external influence upon him. The problem of evil in this world dwells in the heart of man. To just change the outside influences whether it be paternal, maternal, cultural, philosophical, or what have you does not solve the evil in his heart.. There must be a change in the inside of man.

The flood bears great witness to this. Even though the world began a fresh with a rigtheous man at the helm and no evil cultural influences, man still falls into sin. One does not have to go far into the Bible to discover that man found himself in the same predicament as before the flood. A disaster of immense magnitude will not remove the evil in this world.

So what will bring about this change in man? It will be by a work of God, but not one done outside of man. It will be a work done on the inside, “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 4:6)

I was reminded while sitting on my bed of human depravity and and need for divine regeneration. Send a horrendous storm upon evil people that takes everything that they have away from them. They, however, will return to the sin that they live in before the storm. Their only hope is the salvation that God brings when He sovereignly moves into someone's heart by means of the gospel. Then their eyes will be open to the Savior who satisfied the wrath of God on there behalf. And the holy Spirit will do a work in their heart that truly changes their desires regarding sin.




Here are some pictures from the trip. You can see the temporary building for Lakeshore Baptist and the old steeple. The Mobile Relief Unit is where we stayed while we were there.