As long as Planned Parenthood is allowed to do business as usual within the region, no document declaring Twin Falls a “Welcoming City” can be taken seriously. It is a flaw in logic to say we welcome all while at the same time being silent about abortion.
Planned Parenthood is not an official function of the city and neither is the refugee center. My appeal to the city in the “Welcoming City” resolution process is to not consider the actions of one without the other. The city has no jurisdiction over either unless there is direct violation, need for an event permit on public property, or any other matter that requires official city action.
I’m not interested in distracting the city council from their duty. As far as I’m concerned the city officials are best when they are doing their duty. A “Welcoming City” resolution is not their duty. If they pick this matter up as a duty, then I want fairness to all within the city, not just one or select segments of the population to be considered.
While the city works through the drafting of a resolution to declare the city of Twin Falls a “Welcoming City”, please consider writing the Mayor, City Council, and city staff reasonable letters to not present or accept any resolution until the ongoing abortion of babies in the wombs within our city limits is answered. Appeal to them as a reasonable person with compassion.
To declare the city a “Welcoming City” while babies are aborted all year long in silence is a contradiction in responsible logic. The city will likely adopt some kind of a “welcoming city” resolution; shouldn’t it have something to say about the most vulnerable in the city?
The timeline is unknown as to when the city council will act on such a resolution, but when it does, we must be prepared to give a reasonable rebuttal rather than an emotionally charged vent or confused response. Whatever is said in public or private must also be done with respect to authority and honor to our God.
Tonight at 6:30 p.m. Mountain Time, Zach Hunter, pastor at Jackpot Baptist Church in Jackpot, NV will we preaching in our series through the book of Ephesians. Don’t miss out on this. May it be a blessing to you that you would gather with us in person tonight at 204 Eastland Drive North in Twin Falls.
If unable to gather with us in person join us via streaming here. Be sure to sign our guestbook that you are watching online HERE. Thank you.
Eastside Baptist Church has just been established as a disaster relief emergency shelter for anyone displaced due to ongoing regional flooding in Southern Idaho. If you are aware of anyone needing this kind of assistance please send them to 204 Eastland Drive North in Twin Falls, Idaho. The shelter is open 24 hours a day and will be available at least through the weekend and longer, as needed, as flood waters are displacing people from their homes.
Share this information throughout the magic valley.
Published in the Twin Falls Times News on Saturday, February 4, 2017
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There is little argument that the most familiar name in all of history is a man named Jesus.
What is at stake however, is who this Jesus is.
The Muslims have a Jesus, the Mormons have a Jesus, the atheists have a Jesus, Jehovah Witnesses have a Jesus, Universalists have a Jesus, and evangelicals have a Jesus. It may not be popular to talk about it, but all of these (and more) have at the core, a different Jesus.
What do you do when there is not enough space in the column to show how different all beliefs are? You look at one source and compare all others to that Jesus. I will do this by looking at the Jesus of the Bible.
Consider a few claims made in the bible…
Jesus is the third person of the one triune God (John 14:16, 24)
Jesus is the one and only begotten son of God. (John 1:14)
Jesus is the creator of all things. (John 1:3)
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:15)
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Jesus. (John 14:6)
Jesus is the redeemer of repenting sinners. (Matthew 1:21)
Jesus is uncreated. (John 1:3)
Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:11)
If we get this wrong: that Jesus is eternal, uncreated, creator, redeemer, the image of the invisible God, and more claims made in the Bible, we get everything wrong. Everything!
Don’t just take my word for it. Look at the Bible and compare this Jesus with the Muslim Jesus, the Mormon Jesus, and a secular Jesus.
Honest and truthful conversation today is what is most needed. It helps us unearth truth. It is more helpful to acknowledge that there may be some things that appear to have similar emotions and thoughts, but faiths built on feelings rather than truth is the most dangerous action one could ever take. It is a clear truth: we don’t have the same Jesus.
The same Jesus cannot be the Jesus of Bible and at the same time truthfully be the same Jesus of all the others.
Don’t get this wrong. If truth is being pursued, then search with all of your being for truth.
In the Lord’s way and in the Lord’s timing, He has blessed and is blessing Eastside Baptist Church with a generation of Children.
Never in the history of Eastside Baptist Church has there been a season quite like this one.
Five years ago Eastside asked God Almighty to forgive her of trusting in the methodologies of men and began a renewed path to trust in the Lord by trusting the sufficiency of Scripture as our primary instruction for training our children; meaning we stopped all age graded segregation of our children, we stopped providing ongoing systematic separation of children from parents when families gathered together on the Lord’s Day.
It felt strange at first, many were confused about what we were doing (and still are), some thought we don’t care about children and youth.
Today, God has has given us more children than we’ve ever had and more children than we could ever build facility for if we still segregated the children.
I want to share with you a short moment in yesterday’s (1/1/2017) gathering. We committed and recommitted ourselves to the duty God has given us, the church, and the family.
Here is a short clip from that gathering yesterday when we committed ourselves unto the Lord in our duty to obey Him.
Today, Eastside Baptist is committed to the Lord to obey him with respect to every child given to her duty both here and abroad. Locally, thirty-eight children belong to families of Eastside Baptist and forty-five children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Over eighty children under direct order of God to teach and instruct.
We can do it our way or God’s way. We are slaves of God, so we choose to do it God’s way regardless of the outcome.
The Christmas weekend was filled with great moments.
As always, there’s something about snow fall on Christmas. Even though it is statistically low to actually have a ‘white Christmas’ we have enjoyed two in a row here in Twin Falls. I had multiple times to gather with my biological family and my church family. All of those times were treasured times.
Christmas Eve at Eastside:
In those rare years that Christmas actually lands on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) it is even more special for me to gather with my church family on Christmas day.
(The sound did not record properly on the Lord’s Day so there is no archived recording of this gathering)
Snowy conditions made travel to the church house difficult, but I’m not known for cancelling a regularly scheduled Sunday morning or Wednesday night prayer gathering (this may have made me unpopular with my children from time to time when they were younger). There are legitimate times to cancel a gathering and I’ll leave that door open for that possibility, but I’ll reserve it for the kind of day that will be memorable. (My practice of not cancelling is not an indictment against churches that do.)
I’m of the opinion that if I was out of milk on this same day and had a box of cereal in the cupboard, would I go to the grocery store for more milk? I don’t even have to really think about this, the answer is nearly automatically, ‘yes, of course I would go get milk.” Is not God more important than milk? Of course he is. So why would I let a lesser thing cause me to put my life at risk but hope my church cancels a worship gathering? This kind of thinking may have some legitimate flaws in thinking, but It is what I would do if I were out of milk.
So, yesterday, after a weekend of sleet, snow, freezing rain and the more fresh snow, followed by howling wind most of the night I gathered at 204 Eastland Drive North with a band of believers for our regularly scheduled Sunday morning worship service. (no audio recording available.)
Then my grown children and their lovely wives gathered at our home, along with my mom who now lives in Twin Falls. During this time we read Scripture together, shared gifts with each other, ate lunch together and played a game of Monopoly. During this time I like to always give a verbal and written blessing to my family. The verbal is more general and applies to all of our households. The written is personal.
I’ll share with you the verbal (which is also written but I do speak it out loud). As the patriarch of my family now, more than ever I must be an honest blesser of my household.
I first drafted this in 2014 and have tweaked it with a few additional lines over the past three years.
The Thompson Home: (originally drafted in 2014)
May our homes be homes where the will of the Lord is sought after with feverish hunger.
May our homes be homes where the bible is read, heard, loved and taught.
May our homes be homes where the glory of God and his favor rests in our neighborhoods.
May our homes be homes where mercy falls and warriors rise for war. May God give us these kinds of homes…
May our homes be homes where husbands are faithful, true and strong.
May our homes be homes free from slavery of the flesh
May our homes be homes that are filled with songs of the redeemed.
May our homes be homes where the shout of joy is heard among the saints. May God give us these kinds of homes…
May our homes be homes where wives provide sanctuary and rest.
May our homes be homes where the Lord is not only called Lord, but is also a welcomed Lord.
May our homes be homes that glow bright with the Lamp of Scripture.
May our homes be homes where strangers meet Christ. May God give us these kinds of homes…
May our homes be homes with the sound of children.
May our homes be homes where the beauty of Christ is upon display with child-like faith.
May our homes be homes where the warmth is felt from the fire of God that comes from the family alter each day.
May our homes be homes where godly men and women are raised and homes where missionaries are sent. May God give us these kinds of homes…
May the grace of God be tasted by all who reside and enter these homes.
May the songs of our faith be the soundtrack of our homes.
May the sound of the Gospel never be missed with the words spoken in our homes.
May the mercy of God be the motivation of all activity in our homes. Oh, might God give us these kinds of homes….
Since May of 2010, Eastside Baptist Church has been archiving sermons from Sunday morning gatherings. Currently there are over 330 sermons available in .mp3 downloadable files.
I want to share with all of my pastor friends and members of churches looking for a place to archive sermons to give consideration to SermonAudio.com.
Some friends of Eastside living out of state paid for the first year of expenses (and have paid for it every year since.
The uploading of sermons to SermonAudio.com is easy and convenient for the low level tech users (like me).
It’s easy for those looking for your sermons to find them easily. SermonAudio.com archives, categorizes, offers storage for .pdf uploads, easy searching for any past sermons, a personalized page for your church, easy sharing of sermons in all social media outlets and embedding into personal blogs and church webpages. It is really easy.
SermonAudio.com is host to some of the best preaching in the land today. Ministries and preachers such as, Grace to You, Answers in Genesis, Joel Beeke, Steve Lawson, Voddie Baucham and many more…
If you sign up right now, SermonAudio.com will wave the one time setup fee of $150.00 and you can sign up for only $1.00. Click HERE for more details and registration link.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about how I find SermonAudio.com useful in my preaching ministry.
If you are in Twin Falls, Idaho on Christmas Eve I hope you might consider joining me at Eastside Baptist Church, 5PM.
During the Christmas Eve service we will sing Christmas Carols, Scripture Reading and a Christmas message from Luke 1:67 entitled “The Horn of Salvation”