Msg #1351 We Worship The Christ

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

Concerning the birth of Christ Matthew gives us Joseph's perspective and wise men who traveled from the east, Mark is virtually silent, Luke tells of the taxing decree, crowded inns, angels and shepherds, but John presents tremendous insights that are often overlooked. Before addressing His birth John reveals five of His character traits. In the beginning Christ was with God; in itself, an interesting morsel, that before birth he existed. The Christ was God, and Creator of everything, and He was Life, and He was True Light. When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, his name was the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. Today the world has this pretense of celebrating his birth. Roman paganism attempts to enshrine a day of longest dark in an aviance of their holy mass and penance. American commercialism enshrines the purchase of trinkets and gift giving to all. Martin Luther's protestantism honors the evergreen tree more than that purveyor of everlasting life. The humanist manifesto holds out for distraction, a fat red man with tiny reindeer. It is John who clarifies that the Light shined and the darkness comprehended it not. It is John who pens that Christ was in the world and the world was made by Him and the world knew him not. Alas, John writes the sad truth that He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. There are ills and ilks in the world that comprehends not, many traditions and isms in those who received not, but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. God in the flesh. His name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Christians worship Him everyday.

An Essay for week #51 Sun, Dec 22, 13

Published at www.GSBaptistChurch.com/ppulpit/biblesays13.epub

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Systematic Theology Blog www.theology.GSBaptistChurch.com 

Msg #1409 Reflections on Isaiah

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

There is a book in the Bible that contains 66 chapters just like the Holy Bible contains 66 books. It has a theme change after 39 chapters just as the Holy Bible changes from the Old Testament to the New. The redemption of man is the theme of both books. The writings of the Prophet Isaiah are worthy of a detailed study. In it is manifest the very heart and mind of God. In it is manifest the deplorable nature of man. In the shadow of a stiff-necked, rebellious people, called the Children of Israel, you see mankind lurking. Focus, and you also see the Americas lurking there. Meditate on this book, and you can see the dark shadow of your own individual rebellion manifest. God's plight, God's compassion, and God's pending judgment open this book, even as it opens the Holy Bible. The plea to “Come now, and let us reason together…” is prelude to great promises for the redeemed at the end of time. But, alas, between the two, stands God's song “Judge between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard…” America is clearly guilty of all six woes listed in Isaiah chapter 5. And now our root shall be as rottenness, and our blossom shall go up as dust. Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them. Recession, Obama-Care, Sodomy, Wars, and rumors of them, “For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. (Isaiah5:25b)

An Essay for week #9 03/02/2014

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Msg #1410 Isaiah the Prophet

What The Bible Says
Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

Isaiah the prophet walks onto the page of our Bible and records sixty-six chapters which reflect its sixty-six books. Who is this man and are there more of them around? Nestled between the lines of 2Chron26:22 we find Isaiah as a young scribe in the courts of the king. Ussiah was king when Isaiah was born, schooled and so employed. Custom puts him in his late thirties in this verse and the chapter puts him in position to see the moral decay of the king he had known all his life. Isaiah's hero was exiled as a leper till his death, and Isaiah says, “In the year that king Ussiah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” A prophet is one who takes a message straight from Jehovah God, draws breath and says, “Thus saith the Lord…” Prophets never stray from the words of His Book. Don't use the modernist's bible that has what scholars think God meant to say as taken from the texts of Alexandria Egypt. Isaiah 6 gives seven things that caused Isaiah to be an extraordinary prophet. 1) He saw the Lord on the throne and not a human; 2) he saw greater creations giving God worship and awe, 3) he saw the LORD of Hosts as Holy, holy holy; 4) he saw the earth full of God's glory; 5) he uttered the seventh woe of his book, “Woe is me for I am undone… of unclean lips”; 6) from the altar God anointed his mouth and purged his sin; and 7) Isaiah had the greatest ability of all, avail-ability, saying, “Here am I; send me.” Get a checklist number it one to seven, and be a prophet of the Most High God.

An Essay for week #10 03/09/2014

In audio at www.GSBaptistChurch.com/audio/gs140309.mp3

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Msg #1408 Listening Skills

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice 

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.(Phil. 2:5) The mind God speaks of here is a mind of comforting love, fellow-shipping spirit, and bowels of mercies.(Phil. 2:1) Doing what he asks fulfills our joy,(2:2) and ignoring what he asks, produces selfish strife and vain glory.(2:3) This concept is of paramount importance when addressing our daily conversations. Crippled communication, the downfall of any relationship, is most exasperated in the marriage relationship. An unconscious judgmental fault finding attitude invades each of us. We become insensitive, critical, impatient fault finders and nothing hurts a spouse more than such critically impaired communication. Conscious repair and maintenance of our communication skills comes about by letting the mind of Christ be in you, and fixing your listening skills. Normal listening is only 20% efficient. Thirty if you shut off the tv, radio, video, computer or any other distraction. Forty if you maintain eye contact throughout the conversation. Fifty if you listen with your heart as well as your ears. Sixty if you do not interrupt or jump to conclusions. Seventy if you repeat what you heard her say. Eighty if you break silences to keep them from becoming negative feed back, using approving eye contact, smiles and a squeezed hand with your nonverbal communication. Ninety if you learn to show appreciation and thankfulness for what she just shared with you and avow never to break that confidence to another. And your listening skills will surge to 100% when all your nonverbal responses say “what you have to say to me is important to me because you are important to me.” All of us could move our listening skills up a percentage or two. Husbands should not surge to the 100% level overnight, you will give her a heart attack.

An Essay for week #8 02/23/2014

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Msg #1406 Homes In Need Of Manliness

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice 

Even in a society in blind rebellion against what their Creator dictated for mankind, marriages can find great peace in following his roles in marriage. The curse in Genesis 3 put enmity between serpent and women, pangs of childbirth, and the husband ruling over the wife. For the man, because he listened to the voice of his wife, God put a curse on the ground, thorn, thistle and sorrow in his harvest, sweat on his brow as he produced food, and a return to the dust from whence he came. Mankind rebels against, and strives to alleviate each of these naturally occurring phenomena, but when a couple accepts God's conditions and they live in the roles he has established, there is great fulfillment with God's blessing. God is very clear here; “I will therefore that males pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands … and females adorn themselves in modest apparel… with good works, learning in silence with all subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” For the woman-libber, progressive-liberal, and other nonbelievers, God's bluntness is offensive and not 'PC'. For the modernist, casual christian, and mere evangelical, his clarity is embarrassing. But for the Bible believer who is coming to know God better and trust him more, his words bring perfect peace and a new way of life. Half our homes are raising children without fathers, and fathers present are often girlie men. There is great benefit from a husband's authoritarian leadership, manly testosterone, and strong discipline. Coupled that with a wife who will surrender to God's role for her and a home becomes a paradise. 

An Essay for week #6 02/09/2014

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Msg #1407 Relationships: Salvage Before Severing

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

”Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” (John 4) The subject of severed relationships is painful. Jesus uses it on the woman at the well to cut through a veneer and expose a broken life. On this Sunday, after Valentine's Day, after focusing on maintaining good relationships, attention is turned to the critically impaired relationships. There is nothing as hurtful in life as a severed relationship. The marriage relationship, sealed in a sacred vow, the parent-child or grandchild relationship sealed in blood, so too siblings and even intimate friendships, each of these relationships hold a portion of our soul and spirit in a delicate but certain grip. Each of us have one of these relationships in serious fracture, that is the nature of life. Each of us have or have seen one of these relationships severed; and wished more steps were taken to salvage it. Valentines, perched in the dead of winter, points toward a coming spring which marks an emphases on love. Use it to put some focus on a fragile, fracturing relationship. It is worth setting aside grudges, pride, and hurt feelings to shower our relationships with selfless love. Anything we can do to keep a relationship from severing is worth a supreme effort. Relationships fail because of unforgiven wrongs, followed by pride, and culminating in a grudge. Jesus, the fixer of all relationships, was innocent, but God in the flesh was wronged, he was rejected, he was reviled, but yet he said, “Father forgive them.” A Christian can do what he did. “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” (1Peter.2:21)

An Essay for week #7 02/16/2014

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Msg #1405 A Secure and Significant Valentine

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice 

A youth pastor gets to ask many young couples, “Exactly why do you two want to get married?” The answer rarely changes, “We are in love.” Love has more depth than mere teenagers can understand, but marriage has more depth than most adults ever grasp. Love is three dimensional and two directional. It has a physical dimension, an emotional dimension, and a spiritual dimension. A person is designed to both give love in these three dimensions, and to receive love in these three dimensions. Anything less results in frustration of ones deeper purpose. God sets up marriage for leaving father and mother, and cleaving only two a spouse for love in all three dimensions. For a fulfilled purpose this must include two additional aspects, each having the three dimensions. Leaving and cleaving to only one for giving and receiving love, for giving and receiving significance, plus for giving and receiving security. That's nine dimensions. Missing any one of these dimensions in marriage produces a frustrated, unfulfilled individual. People are complex, relationships are complexer. Deal with it. Imagine going through life, a year, or even a week, being significant to NO ONE. The married need to show physical, emotional, and spiritual significance to their spouse. How significant have you made your spouse feel? Marriage itself is designed to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual security to the husband and wife. How secure have you made your spouse feel? It behooves us all to focus a little more on God's design for our marriages, it is a mirror for his security, significance, and love for us. It is February. A good time to explore and inspect all nine dimensions and both working directions of our marriages. And so to for our relationship with our Creator and Lord Jesus Christ. 

An Essay for week #5 02/02/2014

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Msg #1404 Got Life? Eternal Life?

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice 

No less than five instantaneous things happen when you get saved. First Conversion, being repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21) Romans 10 indicates what initiates conversion, but conversion is accomplished by God, not by flesh. Second you're Justified, being a declared justification. Perfect Job, from the land of Uz, wanted his words and actions justified, or proven right. James, servant of God, wants ones profession of faith to be justified, or proven real. But the Justification at salvation is not a proving of right, it is a declaring to be righteous. We are already proven deplorable. Now we are declared just-as-if-I'd-never-sinned. It is declared Justification, which is not of works. One is also Quickened in salvation. An old English word not used by Protestants or Evangelicals who think it synonymous with regeneration. It is not. One goes from eternal-death to eternal-life, you're quickened when you're saved. It is a good Bible word. Jesus loved using it and the Psalmist put it in verse thirteen times. Once quickened, the only way one could loose salvation is if God reached into the soul and killed what he just quickened. He won't. We are saved eternally. In an instant at the moment of salvation one is 1) Converted, 2) Justified, 3) Quickened, 4) Indwelt, and 5) Wholly Immersed into Christ. If you always believed but were never converted, you're lost. If you never had a head on collision with God, you cannot get saved a little at a time. If you don't know that you are saved, “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life…. These things have I written unto you … that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” Got Life?

An Essay for week #4 01/26/2014

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Msg #1402 Repentance Toward God

What The Bible Says

Good Samaritan's Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice

The Epistle to the Hebrews which so keenly addresses “So-Great-Salvation” and the Priest who secures it for us, stalls momentarily in chapter five. The concern is that readers might not be grounded in the seven first principles of the oracles of God. Three of them listed in chapter six have to do with securing So-Great-Salvation, two are doctrines about “whats-next” after So-Great-Salvation, and two are doctrines of what happens when one misses So-Great-Salvation. They make an awesome outline. Consider here the three necessary ingredients for So-Great-Salvation. “The principles of the doctrine of Christ” is first up. Christ, (Hebrew – Messiah, English – Anointed-One) is God. Jesus is Christ. The child born “unto us” shall be called “the mighty God, the everlasting Father.” If one does not understand the trinity they are not alone, but if one does not believe in the trinity they cannot believe the principles of the doctrine of Christ and “Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, … he that believeth not is condemned already… He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John3) The second principle is “the foundation of repentance from dead works” and close behind is the third “the foundation of faith toward God.” Jesus said “Except ye be converted… ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 18) Conversion is both repentance and faith detailed in Acts20:21 as “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.” Dead works is spelled penance, and the Latin Vulgate Bible replaced every occurrence of repentance with penance. Consequently the religion of Christendom is primarily trusting in dead works. The message preached here is, trust Christ, repent or perish.

An Essay for week #2 01/12/2014

Published at www.GSBaptistChurch.com/ppulpit/biblesays7vol.pdf

in ebook GSBaptistChurch.com/ppulpit/eight_volumes_of_penny_pulpits.epub

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