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Orphan Care is Gospel Reenactment

“When we were on the outside without hope and home, Jesus brought us into his family (Ephesians 2:12-13, 19). What Jesus did for us is the Gospel.

Today there are millions of orphans in the world without hope and home. When we give orphans hope, when we bring orphans into our families, we reenact the Gospel.

When a church provides hope and homes to children lost in the foster care system, it reenacts the Gospel.

When churches create partnerships with other churches around the world in order to care for orphans, the Gospel is reenacted many times over before a watching world.

Orphan care is Gospel reenactment.” (Source: Dan Cruver, 2009)

12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Eph 2:11-13 NASB)

It’s About the Gospel

a followup to this mornings post…

A-Haitian-policeman-with--004What Happens to a follower of Christ on the far side of the wilderness? It’s hard to say what happens individually to everyone, but it is certain to be life changing.

This afternoon Silas posted a generous offer to visitors of his website and his art work. From now until April 11, 2013, 100% of all painting sales will be donated to New Horizon Home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Silas and Bianca are tender toward the gospel mandate to the nations and especially to those tender to the heart of God, orphans.

Visit Silas Thompson Fine Art and pick a painting today. Price list is here.

P1010894

New Horizon Home is more than a simple orphanage, not that an orphanage is simple. New Horizon Home International is a global gospel outreach. Alex Viellard, director of New Horizon Home International desires to see bible centered, gospel preaching churches and pastors in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It’s about the Gospel.

May the Glory of the LORD fall down on his people.

1 The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
And the [desert] will rejoice and blossom;
Like the crocus 2 It will blossom profusely
And rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy.

Isaiah 35:1-2 (NASB)

Haiti Revisited

Moses met with the Lord on the far side of the desert (Exodus 3:1). There the LORD spoke to Moses from a burning bush.

It was not in some favored vacation spot, where a cool breeze and soft pillow are sought after. It was no weekend retreat that promised comfort and plenty to eat. Rather, it was on the far side of the desert that Moses was forever changed.

  • It was out of a pit, and into slavery that Joseph found favor with God.
  • It was in desperate loneliness that Jacob met the Lord.
  • It was the year that King Uzziah died when Isaiah saw the Lord.
  • Abandoned on Patmos, John wrote Revelation.

It was from a Haitian jail that God showed me things about his Glory I had never seen. In great physical discomfort I found comfort. In what felt like hopelessness I found hope.

Many things crossed my mind during those God breathed days. Two things I thought would never happen; one, I thought I would never see Alex, Junior and Florence again, and second, I thought I would never be able to engage in orphan ministry in Haiti again. Two years ago,  the Lord allowed Renee and I to attend Alex’s wedding and next week Steve McMullin and I return to Port-au-Prince to consider a life long partnership with New Horizon Home.

Followers of the Lord don’t get to set the stage and arrange the scenery and then work up an experience.  The Spirit does not work that way.  It may well be in the unlikeliest place or on the darkest day, thought to have been abandoned by God that God may likely summon you to the far side of the desert.

Eastside Baptist Church, in Twin Falls, Idaho will courageously be sending Steve and me to investigate what the Lord wants from us now. New Horizon Home is an orphanage home for 20 children who have been orphaned, abandoned, or rescued from a life of slavery. Our assignment is to consider the work and bring a report back to the Lord’s people at Eastside to act on what we hear from the Lord. I will have a prayer guide for praying saints ready by the end of the week. Contact me for information on the prayer guide. The Lord invited Jeremiah to ‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ (Jeremiah 33:3)

It is our intent to consult with God on this matter. Pray that we listen and obey.

Paul Thompson, Carla Thompson CourtDaySteve

A Man Needs a Good Roadmap

“I never met a man who did not want to be a great father.” Scott Brown

I’m happy to announce that Eastside Baptist Church will be hosting a conference this coming fall designed to call out fathers to look to God through the sufficiency of Scripture to be Godly fathers.

Men, join me this fall for “the Master’s Plan for Fatherhood” September 13-14, 2013, in Twin Falls, Idaho.

New Kind of Father from NCFIC on Vimeo.

More information here: The Master’s Plan for Fatherhood

Rules of Public Engagement

Last year when I was asked if I would be willing to participate in a new venture with the Times News by submitting an occasional article in the weekly Pastor’s Corner I decided that I should establish some personal guidelines for public engagement should I ever get a response or reply to a column I submit. My personal rules of engagement are simple, but I thought I would share them with you today as my last column has generated some response.  Here is the reply to the column; the Nature of Man. Here is a letter to the editor that appeared in the Times News on March 29.

  1. Be-kind
  2. Be-bold
  3. be-careful
  4. Ask clarifying questions
  5. Quote Scripture often
  6. Don’t take everything personal

 

the Doctrine of the Fall of Man

When is the last time you considered the doctrine (teaching) of the fall of man? Here is the audio recording of last night’s doctrinal study on the Doctrine of the Fall of Man. Below is also the print version of the 1925 New Hampshire Confession and the 1689 London Baptist Confession on the doctrine.

Introduction

Part 1: Gene Lawley

Part 2: Paul Thompson

1925 New Hampshire  Confession (Baptist Faith and Message)

III. The Fall of Man

Man was created by the special act of God, as recorded in Genesis. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27). “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7).

He was created in a state of holiness under the law of his Maker, but, through the temptation of Satan, he transgressed the command of God and fell from his original holiness and righteousness; whereby his posterity inherit a nature corrupt and in bondage to sin, are under condemnation, and as soon as they are capable of moral action, become actual transgressors.

Gen. 1:27; Gen. 2:7; John 1:23; Gen. 3:4-7; Gen. 3:22-24; Rom. 5:12,14,19, 21; Rom. 7:23-25; Rom. 11:18,22,32-33; Col. 1:21.

_______________________________________

1689 London Baptist Confession

The Fall of Man, Sin and Punishment

  1. Although God created man upright and perfect, and gave him a righteous law, which secured life for him while he kept it, and although God warned him that he would die if he broke it, yet man did not live long in this honour.- Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, seduced Adam by her, and he, without any compulsion, wilfully transgressed the law of their creation and the command given to them by eating the forbidden fruit.- And this act God, according to His wise and holy counsel, was pleased to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.
  2. Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them. For from this, death came upon all: all becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.
  3. They being the root, and by God’s appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and their corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. Their descendants are therefore conceived in sin, and are by nature the children of wrath, the servants of sin, and the subjects of death and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus sets them free.
  4. All actual transgressions proceed from this original corruption, by which we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.
  5. During this life the corruption of nature remains in those who are regenerated, and although it is pardoned and mortified through Christ, yet this corrupt nature and all its motions are truly and properly sinful.

Made for the purpose

Made for the Purpose of Preaching

1 And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel. 2 Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. 3 He read from it before the square which was in front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law. 4 Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam on his left hand. 5 Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. 6 Then Ezra blessed the LORD the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. 7 Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, explained the law to the people while the people remained in their place. 8 They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. Nehemiah 8:1-8 (NASB)

Preaching has been an important element for any people known as the Lord’s people. Both Old and New Testaments give examples of this gathering of people for the purpose of hearing an appointed preacher read Scripture and then explain that Scripture. May this continue to be the center of what happens when the Lord’s people gather at 204 Eastland Drive North.

The focus of the gathering is God. And should always be so. I do like that the Scripture does give a glimpse of the work and attention given to the construction of the place where this takes place. It is a public place. It is a place where all who can understand gather. It is a place that is designed for the proclamation of the word. It is an place that must be protected against the influences of the most recent popular trends. It is a place for hearers to understand not a place for intellectuals to boast.

Here are some recent photos of the construction of the podium and pulpit now in place in the new meeting house of Eastside Baptist Church. May the Lord bless the craftsmen.

Platform

PlatformDesignPulpit DeliveryMade for the purpose

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