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               A few weeks ago in the Sunday Afternoon Forum class, a class member asked a question about 2 Thessalonians 2:7. This verse says, “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.” When I first heard the reference mentioned, I…

Continue Reading Hard Questions

            Three weeks ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Flagstaff, AZ quite alone because I no longer have my life’s companion. Snow was falling and quickly ruining my chances of getting on the road early in the morning to make my way home. My Bible reading for the week had brought me…

Continue Reading Hidden In the Heart

               Two weeks ago, I mentioned watching a movie about the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was born in Poland in 1906 and died in one of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps in 1945. Prior to World War II, he resisted the rise of Naziism both in their genocidal atrocities against the Jews and others and…

Continue Reading Pretended Piety

(written at Pastor’s return to the pulpit in March 2025)             This morning, I am thankful to return to the pulpit of the Berean Baptist Church. Although I enjoy visiting with Christians in other parts of the country and I especially rejoice when I meet others closely aligned with us on the doctrines of the…

Continue Reading Back At Berean

            The past weeks spent in Kentucky have given me opportunity to think about our place in the world and the purposes for which God put us here. Our lives are but a vapor that passes away which leaves us pondering what good we really do. Since recently dealt the blow of my wife’s death,…

Continue Reading The Legacy of Our Lives

I thought how different the preaching styles are of those coming out of independent Baptist colleges today. In the past seventy-five years of fundamentalism, preachers adopted the style of the tent revival circus atmosphere of men like Billy Sunday. Many consider him a hero even though much more is thought of his style and his…

Continue Reading Pondering Preachers and Pulpits

            Since moving to California more than twenty-five years ago, one of the most missed aspects of life in Kentucky is the pronounced and distinct change in seasons. There are times when these changes are only slight because of unusual weather years but this is not what I experienced when I was home in the…

Continue Reading Snow and Righteousness

               This week when I sat down to write the bulletin article, one of my grandchildren asked if I ever had trouble deciding my subject. You have heard me comment on this several times that deciding on bulletin articles is much more difficult than deciding on what my sermon should be. Each week I preach…

Continue Reading Unity of Heart

(We originally published this article in February 2025) Knowing I must write articles with timeliness to meet printing deadlines, I sometimes write far in advance. I am sure you noticed last week that I must have written before my dear wife Pam went to be with the Lord, which left some of the wording a…

Continue Reading Ribbons and Markers

(Original January 2025) As I sit to draft this article early on Sunday morning, I look out the window to see snow falling leaving a fresh blanket of white across the valley behind my daughter’s house. This is where Pam and I spent last summer with her in the hospital and then in this same…

Continue Reading The Righteousness Of The Saints

              In the past few weeks, our studies in Mark have taken us to the family matters of marriage and children. The timing may seem odd for us since most of us are beyond the years of children in the home where we raise them and give them our guidance. Though my children left the…

Continue Reading Home And The Bible

               Each morning as I enjoy breakfast and each evening before going to bed, I read news articles and various personal interest pieces. I often come across strange information which I suppose is the reason they pique my interest. Sometimes these articles prompt my thoughts for the subjects of bulletin articles. Here is the title…

Continue Reading You Must Be Joking

               For the past several weeks, I have been climbing through old sermons with the curiosity of discovering how my sermons have evolved from the beginning and are there any new ways that characterize my approach to my subjects. My research has not yielded any radical shifts in doctrines or methods. It seems I am…

Continue Reading To Babel And Beyond

I cannot count the number of times I have explained my anxiety when unable to write sermons far ahead of the time I need to preach them. There is a method to my madness which usually centers on the inability to do advance planning for the illnesses that too often hinder our regular schedules. Since…

Continue Reading A Short Circuit In The Pulpit

               Most of the time when I write bulletin articles, I want them to reflect a positive beginning to our Sunday mornings. We are not strangers to the devil’s tricks as he often tempts us to stay away from church with faux illnesses, or short of keeping us home, will do everything he can to…

Continue Reading A Beach Chair In Glory

               With last week’s bulletin article, I gave you a brief introduction to systematic theology. There are a few reasons I am set on this course of thinking. One of these is there is not a day that goes by that I am not working in the middle of the doctrines of the faith as…

Continue Reading Is It That Hard To Figure Out?

For the past few weeks, I have used my nighttime devotions to review the doctrines of the faith in the format of systematic theology. Some of you may not understand these terms and are not clear what we mean by systematic. Do not feel too bad about not knowing this technical term because you are…

Continue Reading Systematic Faith

Last week’s message brought us to the ending of Mark chapter 8 in which Jesus introduced the radical thought that He would soon die on the cross. If you will allow me to expand, I want to take us back there. As we examine verse 34, Jesus did not directly say His manner of death…

Continue Reading Nothing Less Than Everything

               Our Sunday morning subject last week and again today relate to the command of the Lord Christ to hoist up our cross, to take it up and follow Him. We learn in these messages that living for Christ is not an easy road to travel and will often leave us scarred, harried, and worn…

Continue Reading Pick It Up and Lay It Down

Each Monday morning I begin a list of items on my to-do list that is virtually the same each week. I must prepare a new sermon for a future day that is about two months or more away. I must polish a sermon I wrote about two months ago awaiting for this Sunday to arrive.…

Continue Reading May All Who Come Behind Us Find Us Faithful