These two portraits of the family were taken Saturday, Sept 1 at about 4 pm. You might notice that we have one more on the way. I am holding Haydn, Jackie is holding Louise. The top row from left to right: Josh and Chara Watson, Christa and Dewayne Bryant, John and Laura Wilson, and Tara Sanders. We number eleven today, but with God's grace twelve in October.The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
In the early 1800s many church leaders grew weary with the strife and division among Christian denominations. They believed that the Lord wanted His people to be united, and all of the bad-mouthing and exclusiveness of the denominations shamed the name of the Lord. Their divisive ways caused people to fall away from Christ in disbelief (John 17:20-23).
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
They believed the acceptance of human opinions, creeds, councils, practices, and names caused this divisive and hateful condition. They left Europe to find religious peace in
They rejected human opinions and inventions, since these things find their authority not in God’s word but in men. They believed that “nothing ought to be inculcated upon Christians as articles of faith; nor required of them as terms of communion; but what is expressly taught, and enjoined upon them, in the word of God.” (Thomas Campbell, Declaration & Address, proposition 3). They said, “We speak where the Bible speaks, and we are silent where the Bible is silent.” They wanted unity in essentials, freedom in matters of opinion, and love in all things.
The true religion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed upon the waves of time. (Francis Bacon)
“Loyalty to the restoration principle does not necessarily involve being loyal to the teachings of Stone, the Campbells, Walter Scott, John Smith or to any other man or group of men who have lived since their day. It involves only being loyal to the New Testament.” (Raymond Kelcy, “The Restoration Principle,” Abilene Christian College Lectures, 1954, 119.)
They believed the way to unity was through every person accepting the truth.
If the church was to please God, it would have to return to what God willed in the New Testament. Restoration is necessary, because repentance from error is necessary. One cannot remain in error and still please God.
“It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is not love and it is not friendship if we fail to declare the whole counsel of God. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie.” Adrian Rogers (Berean Call, Dec. 1996, 3).
By casting off manmade doctrines and practices, the church could restore the doctrine, worship and organization of the New Testament church.
The intent is not to start a new denomination, but to restore the church according to the ideals of the New Testament. Jesus built His church before any denomination existed. His church is not denominational, inter-denominational, or even non-denominational. The church Jesus built was undenominational. It could never approve of unifying the truth with error.
Churches of Christ strive to "do Bible things in Bible ways and call Bible things by Bible names." They believe they must “discard from their faith and their practice every thing that is not found written in the New Testament of the Lord and Savior, and to believe and practice whatever is there enjoined.”
The Restoration movement grew out of a conviction that the Bible is the complete and final authority. Just as a seed will produce only after its own kind, so the seed of God’s word will produce the same Christianity today it did in the first century (Luke 8:11).
Some believe the primary goal of restoration is to unite all churches. They believe Jesus’ prayer for unity in
Christ did not pray for a unity that sacrifices or compromises the truth. Indeed, it is our faith in the truth that unites us. Christian unity is not ecumenism, where groups unite but maintain conflicting and contradictory beliefs and practices. To be faithful and true, Christians cannot ignore or approve error. Uniting with those who worship in error sells out the truth for compromise.
God has always expected His people to come out of sin when they learn the truth. Repentance means that one leaves sin and embraces the Lord’s will.
· When the church at
· Jesus further warned Thyatira not to “tolerate” Jezebel and her teachings but to repent (Rev. 2:20-23).
The work of restoration, then, is actually soul-winning, since it leads a lost soul out of sinful error and back into life. If this is true for an individual, how much more true it is for a group of individuals or a church.
Sat Aug 11, 2:00 PM ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Homosexual Lutheran clergy who are in sexual relationships will be able to serve as pastors, the largest U.S. Lutheran body said on Saturday.
The resolution passed by a vote of 538-431.
"The Church ... has just said 'Do not do punishments'," said Phil Soucy, spokesman for Lutherans Concerned, a gay-lesbian rights group within the church. "That is huge."
The ELCA, which has 4.8 million members, had previously allowed gays to serve as pastors so long as they abstained from sexual relations.
My comments:I wanted to share a website with you that is a good idea to visit. It is www.familywatchdog.us
When you visit this site you can enter your address and a map will pop up with your house as the small icon of a house and red, blue, green, dots surrounding your entire neighborhood.
When you click on these dots, a picture of a person will appear with an address and the description of the crime he or she had committed.
This site was developed by John Walsh from Americas Most Wanted. Another tool to help us keep our kids safe.
Therefore, O faithful Christian,
search for truth,
hear truth,
learn truth,
love truth,
speak the truth,
hold the truth,
defend the truth
till death.
- Jan Hus
1. I wish to have preached the gospel of Christ to one billion people, including people on every continent and in every state of the
2. I wish to have the ear and the confidence of the President of the
3. I wish to overcome the sin in my life and develop the spiritual disciplines that keep me focused on God’s purpose and will.
4. I wish to see college students and young adults everywhere convicted with the truth and zealous to share God’s will.
5. I wish to see the Bible return as the most influential moral, doctrinal, and spiritual document of our time.
6. I wish to develop some ground-breaking tools for evangelism and spiritual growth, so that those who have not entered a church building might nonetheless hear the gospel.
7. I wish to train thousands of men who desire to preach the gospel.
The new document -- formulated as five questions and answers -- restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which riled Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation." The commentary repeated church teaching that says the Catholic Church "has the fullness of the means of salvation."
"Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one church," said the document, released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy’s Dolomite mountains. The other communities "cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said.
The document said that Orthodox churches were indeed "churches" because they have apostolic succession and enjoyed "many elements of sanctification and of truth." But it said they do not recognize the primacy of the pope -- a defect, or a "wound" that harmed them, it said."This is obviously not compatible with the doctrine of primacy which, according to the Catholic faith, is an ‘internal constitutive principle’ of the very existence of a particular church," said a commentary from the congregation that accompanied the text.
Ratzinger is feeling his oats. He is predictably standing for his traditions and asserting his place of primacy in the world of Christianity.
The truth is. The pope can't save anybody. He has no holes in his hands. There is only one Savior and one Lord, and that is Jesus. The idea that there is apostolic succession is a fallacy beyond credibility. For those who would like to know about Peter being a pope, apostolic succession and other such matters, please take a look at:Many people have been taken in by false doctrine over the years, so this doesn’t make my story unique, unfortunately. However, I hope that in sharing my story it will help someone else from having to experience this firsthand, and show the pain and agony that false teaching can and does produce. All that I describe here was done in the name of religion and most times in the name of Jesus.
I was a young man who had an enormous thirst for the truth and knowledge very early in my life. My grandmother raised me for the majority of my young life (that is another story for another time). Every night she would read aloud a chapter of the Bible to me. I loved to hear her read, and the first real book I owned was a very large book of Bible stories. I learned to read from that Bible story book and the Bible. But my grandmother did not take me to church on Sunday, because the church was too far out of town and we did not have any way to go. My grandmother never owned a car or learned how to drive. In retrospect, I see that she used that as an excuse not to go. But on Sunday mornings we would get up and watch the “Gospel Singing Jubilee” and other TV religious shows like the “Lamp unto My Feet”. This is where my religious roots lie.
When I was around 12, the preacher of the church that we “belonged” to come around to talk to my grandmother, and asked why we didn’t go. My grandmother gave a myriad of reasons why she didn’t go, but I spoke up and said I’d love to go if I had a way. He said he would make sure I had a way to church. I began to attend “church” then. It was a holiness/Pentecostal denominational church that we “belonged to”. I loved to learn more about God and Jesus, and was quite intrigued to watch everyone “whoop, holler, jump up and down, and speak in tongues”. I wanted to learn more, so that I could do all that too. I studied the word, learned more and more, and at 13 obeyed the Gospel and was baptized. But I did not “get the Holy Ghost”. I began to wonder why I couldn’t speak in tongues though. I was told it would come in time.
It was around this time that the kindly old preacher moved on and we received a new preacher, a young man in his early twenties with his very nice young wife. This man saw the hunger in my eyes and took me under his wing. I was so happy to have a male role model in my spiritual life finally, and we began to study the Bible every time we could get together. He had a fire and zeal about him that was electrifying. When I would find a passage of scriptures that disagreed with some doctrine we had, I was told that “scripture was open to interpretation as the Holy Ghost gave men wisdom”. Being young and naiveté, I of course never questioned this. I carried my Bible to school every day, witnessed to everyone I met. I gave testimony during revivals and worship services, and began to preach to the youth of my church and others as opportunity arose. I sang in the choir and took part in every Christmas and Easter play we put on. I still hadn’t “gotten the Holy Ghost” yet, and kept asking why. My mentor told me to be patient and it would come in time. I would listen to everyone else in church “speak in tongues” and wonder why I couldn’t.
I then started mimicking those who were, and no one noticed. I would jibber and jabber the same way that everyone else did, and never did loose control of my speech or my body movements. But then, I kept wondering why I couldn’t really? I still thought that they were really able to speak in tongues, and there was something wrong with me. I wondered if it was because I had done something terrible in my life, or if it was I was the product of an affair between a married man and a separated woman. Or was I just too terrible to be saved. I was even told that a full scholarship would be made available to me to attend the college of this denomination after I graduated from high school to become a minister. I couldn’t tell anyone that I couldn’t speak in tongues, because they all had seen and heard me fake it. I was lying to everyone I truly cared about including God.
So at the age of 16, after preaching, teaching, and believing with all my heart that I wanted to spread God’s word, I thought that God had told me that I was too sinful to do that by His withholding of the Holy Ghost from me. I left the church, God, and everything else that went with it, feeling a failure and alone. There was a gaping hole in my life that nothing could fill.
I began my 20 years of “wandering in the wilderness”. During those years I smoked cigarettes, socially drank, cursed fashionably, and lived what the world would consider a fairly normal life. But I still had this gaping hole in my life. During this time I was married: had a son; was divorced (due to spousal adultery); remarried; and divorced again (due to spousal homosexual adultery).
Then the most wonderful thing happened to me. I met my beautiful wife. She is a member of the Lord’s church and her grandfather was a Gospel preacher. I began to attend worship with her, and began to listen to the Sunday school teacher’s lessons about Jesus, and grace, and Christian love. I had never heard about God’s love for me, only that I should obey what church leaders told me or I would burn in Hell. I began to read my Bible again, and really study His word. The Sunday school teacher was one of the elders of the congregation, and he gave me the “Hurt” Bible study series to take home and complete. I devoured this course, and wanted more. I spoke with this elder, and after we determined that my baptism was scriptural, I was restored and placed membership at the congregation I now attend.
I know now that in 2 Pet 1:20-21 we are told “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”. Also, the “speaking in tongues” that the Pentecostals refer to is not the “speaking in unknown tongues” as they claim, but the “speaking in other tongues” referred to in Acts 2:4. They also ignore the verses 6-11 where all the languages are identified. Also, 1 Cor 14: 27-28 are also conviently overlooked as well. “If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.” The whole theology of the Pentecostal/holiness denomination is what I call a cookie cutter religion. They take the parts of the scripture that fit their beliefs and piecemeal them together into what they call sound doctrine.
All you need to know to “speak in tongues” is how to repeat the names of 4 or 5 oriental car names rapidly over and over, and you can “speak in tongues” as well as any Pentecostal preacher ever could. I was once told by an older preacher that I would be a real good revivalist because I could “cry, sweat, and shout” as well as anyone he had ever seen. I was 15 at the time. Are these really the qualifications of a good man of God?
Am I a bitter man? No I am not, but I do wish to help correct the error being taught by these charlatans in the name of truth. That is why 2 Tim 3: 16-17 are so important for sound doctrine. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” And remember that also in 2 Tim 4: 2-4 “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Now here I am, a faithful member of the brotherhood, and restored Christian, and a man who God has blessed with more than I could ever deserve. I have a beautiful Christian wife, five children (biology gave me a son 23 and a daughter 5, and God made special gifts of my daughter 21, son 17, and son 15). I have a wonderful set of in laws, a loving Christian family, a great position with a stable company, and have once again began studying to preach God’s Word, but this time I have the truth.
