Two Minutes With The Bible ~ Unions Or Unity?

Unions Or Unity? 

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

Berean Bible Society

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Here is a company of Bible-believing Christians joined together in, let us say, an evangelistic endeavor. All are trusting in the shed blood of Christ for salvation, though some are Baptists, some Presbyterians, some Episcopalians and some represent other denominations.

Are all these believers one? Yes, in Christ, for “there is one body” (Eph. 4:4).

What united them? The “one baptism” (Eph. 4:5) by which the Holy Spirit unites all believers to Christ and to each other: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles…” (I Cor. 12:13).

Yet these same believers, all trusting in the finished work of Christ for salvation, remain sadly divided as far as fellowship in the work of the Lord is concerned. They may have blessed fellowship in their evangelistic endeavor, but at its conclusion they go back to their mutually exclusive church organizations.

The reason? Basically it is that they have confused “the gospel of the kingdom,” proclaimed by Christ on earth and His twelve apostles, with “the gospel of the grace of God,” proclaimed by the ascended, glorified Lord through the Apostle Paul (Acts 20:24; Eph. 3:1-3).

Striving over baptismal modes and meanings, most of them still require their particular forms of baptism for entrance into their churches, while explaining at the same time that the ceremony has no saving value and that it is not required by God for entrance into the true Church.

Can’t we stop being Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists and just be Christians? Why should the Church of Christ remain divided and weak, when God says:

“WE BEING MANY ARE ONE BODY IN CHRIST, AND EVERY ONE MEMBERS ONE OF ANOTHER” (Rom. 12:5).

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To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Precious Pets Linky

I learned from my good friend at Blackberry Lane this week, With A Grateful Prayer And A Thankful Heart, is hosting a linky party featuring our beloved pets. At first I thought I'd be too busy to participate (going through some minor home renovations) but now it seems I have the time to write at least a brief post.

I've had many cats and dogs through the years. My favorite companion is a dog.

When Maxie died, I felt like I'd died with her. I really didn't want any more pets for awhile. It hasn't even been a year, and I still miss her terribly. But, life goes on.

Newest to the menagerie is Sam and Jack. Or as we call them The Jack Russell Terrorists! I should have named them Destruct-o and Mauler as they are known to destroy any toy within their eye sight. *lol* Anyway, I think they're kinda cute, even if they don't have fuzzy schnauzer faces.

 Sam (left) and Jack destroying playing with a new toy.

"We're just two wild and crazy guys!"

Sam looks like he's saying, "Whatchya doin' Mommy?"

Lucy and Jack taking a nap.

Lucy, the 12 year old Boxer, was unsure of the new crew at first, but now she's warmed up to them and they are nearly inseparable. I think they bring her a lot of comfort in her old age. She's ailing a bit these days. Her hind legs are starting to atrophy terribly from her disability. Big dogs are such good fun but I think this will be our last one. It's going to really hurt when she's gone too.

Ride Safe,

Two Minutes With The Bible ~ God For Us

God For Us 

by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

Berean Bible Society

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Many people, even religious people, suppose that God is against sinners. “Do what is right,” they think, “and God will love and bless you, but do what is wrong and He will be angry with you and curse you.”

Perhaps this view of God comes from the fact that many Scripture passages, especially in the Old Testament, reveal God as the Enemy of the workers of iniquity. But He is the Enemy of the workers of iniquity as such — as workers of iniquity, not as individual persons.

In Ezek. 18:23 God asks: “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die… ?” And in II Pet. 3:9 we learn that when God might have judged this world for the crucifixion of Christ. He delayed the judgment because He is “longsuffering” and “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

The Apostle Paul, referring to the crucifixion, declares that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5:19).

How could He have shown sinners more conclusively that He desires their good than by imputing their sins to Christ and telling them that He is not imputing their trespasses unto them? Their trespasses will be imputed to them, of course, if they reject God’s provision of salvation through Christ, but for the present it is a wonderful fact that we can go to any sinner and say on the authority of God’s written Word: “Your sins have been paid for; God is not holding them against you. Will you accept His love and receive Christ as your Savior?”

No, unsaved friend, God is not against you. He loves you and provided abundantly for your salvation by paying for your sins Himself at Calvary. This is the essence of “the gospel of the grace of God” (See I Tim. 2:4-7). Will you believe it? Will you trust Christ now, acknowledging Him as your Lord and Savior?

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To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Real freedom took real courage #TEAParty

Below is what I received in an e-mail yesterday from Fox News. I thought it would bare sharing. True patriotism is not flying a flag, wearing a uniform, or spouting the allegiance. It's the liberty given by our Creator God that lives in all men's hearts. But freedom isn't free. We have a tyrannical government running roughshod over our liberties. It may be drawing near to the time of watering the tree of liberty again.

Ride Safe,
Sparky

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FOX News First: July 4

Real freedom took real courage
By Chris Stirewalt

Political courage these days is generally defined as a politician doing something that might make it harder to get re-elected.

Real civic leadership has always been about convincing people to do what’s right and hard rather than what’s popular and easy. Courage is part of that. People are less likely to follow a leader who asks them to sacrifice and struggle when he or she will not.

But now, that sacrifice generally refers to a politician having to spend more of other peoples’ money on a primary election contest or, in rare cases, moving to a lucrative career in punditry or influence peddling sooner than expected.

The courage of defying voters to give lobbyists and press hounds what they want in exchange for a lobbying job or to join the press pack is not exactly shivering with the troops at Valley Forge. In fact it’s not really courage at all.

On Independence Day, Americans do not celebrate actual independence from Britain, which didn’t formally come until the signing of the Treaty of Paris on Sept. 3, 1783. Nor do we celebrate the start of the revolution that would make us free, which began in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775 and lasted for eight years.

What we celebrate is the act of declaring our independence; the ratification and signing of a document that was meaningless without the might of arms to make it so. What we celebrate are the ideas in the Declaration of Independence, that most remarkable piece of political writing in history, and the courage of the politicians who engaged in what was seen by the duly established authorities as treason.

King George III claimed to derive his authority from God and had dominion over the official religion of the land. These rebels were said to defy even Heaven in what they said and wrote in Philadelphia that sweltering summer.

A cottage industry has sprung up around diminishing the sacrifices and nobility of the Founding Fathers. And to be sure, they were flawed men. For those who seek to find the flaws in the American experiment, it is perhaps irresistible to see its founders in a negative light. Perhaps it would just seem impossibly square to extoll their virtues. Cynicism sounds savvier, especially for those who struggle to see the arc of history.

But as you celebrate today, remember the story of Richard Stockton. He was born to a wealthy New Jersey family that helped found what we now know as Princeton University. Stockton had even been given the chance to travel to London to appear before George III to make a presentation to the king from the college’s trustees.

Stockton had struggled to find a way that the 13 colonies could be self-governing but still subject to the crown, the kind of compromise that would later come to Canada and other British possessions. He argued for such a deal and even counseled with leaders including Edmund Burke on crafting such a plan.

Back at home, Stockton was elected to the Second Continental Congress. By 1775, the burden of taxes and punitive laws imposed by the crown convinced him that George III had no intention of granting autonomy. When discussion turned to declaring independence, he was prepared to sign. With his pen strokes, he, a celebrated and elite British subject, became an outlaw and a rebel.

Before the year was out, Stockton would be captured by loyalists, have his estate looted and burned and be turned over to the British army in chains. His family fled and Stockton was thrown in a prison in New York where he was badly mistreated and left in failing health.

Stockton endured his captivity and was eventually released after George Washington protested the abuse. But Stockton’s health never recovered and he would die at home in 1781 without living to see the country he helped found victorious and independent.

So the next time somebody tells you that politicians today lack courage because they refuse to defy the will of their constituents to please lobbyists and pundits, remember Richard Stockton and what real political courage looked like. It wasn’t about K Street expense-account dinners and celebrity status. It was about sacrificing everything for the sake of an idea.

A very happy Independence Day to you and yours from the Fox News First team and the whole family here at the Fox News Washington Bureau.

What July Fourth Means To Me by Ronald Reagan #4THJULY

Editor's note: When he was president, Ronald Reagan wrote the following piece for Independence Day in 1981. Aide Michael Deaver later wrote: "This 4th of July message is the President's own words and written initially in his own hand." Contrary to media fiction, many of Reagan's speeches, commentaries, and other papers were written by Ronald Reagan alone in his own hand. 


What July Fourth Means to Me 
By Ronald Reagan
StrangeMilitary.com 

For one who was born and grew up in the small towns of the Midwest, there is a special kind of nostalgia about the Fourth of July. 

I remember it as a day almost as long anticipated as Christmas. This was helped along by the appearance in store windows of all kinds of fireworks and colorful posters advertising them with vivid pictures. 

No later than the third of July - sometimes earlier - Dad would bring home what he felt he could afford to see go up in smoke and flame. We'd count and recount the number of firecrackers, display pieces and other things and go to bed determined to be up with the sun so as to offer the first, thunderous notice of the Fourth of July. 

I'm afraid we didn't give too much thought to the meaning of the day. And, yes, there were tragic accidents to mar it, resulting from careless handling of the fireworks. I'm sure we're better off today with fireworks largely handled by professionals. Yet there was a thrill never to be forgotten in seeing a tin can blown 30 feet in the air by a giant "cracker" - giant meaning it was about 4 inches long. 

But enough of nostalgia. Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth. 

There is a legend about the day of our nation's birth in the little hall in Philadelphia, a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words "treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe," and the issue remained in doubt. 

The legend says that at that point a man rose and spoke. He is described as not a young man, but one who had to summon all his energy for an impassioned plea. He cited the grievances that had brought them to this moment and finally, his voice falling, he said, "They may turn every tree into a gallows, every hole into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. To the mechanic in the workshop, they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom, the Bible of the rights of man forever." 

He fell back exhausted. The 56 delegates, swept up by his eloquence, rushed forward and signed that document destined to be as immortal as a work of man can be. When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors. 

Well, that is the legend. But we do know for certain that 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor. 

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough. 

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart. 

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton. 

Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt. 

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world. 

In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation.
 
It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. 

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. 

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. 

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. 

Happy Fourth of July, 

Ronald Reagan 
President of the United States

Obama Worst President EVER #EpicFAIL #ImpeachObama

No Throw Back Thursday today. It's more like Throw UP Thursday with this creature still in office. As we all but Barry the Chum Lord prepare to celebrate our nation's history tomorrow, here's an interesting fact:

Obama Worst President Since WWII: Poll

I think it's pretty self-explanatory why he's the most hated, reviled, disgusting leader we had since that time. I won't elaborate here. Too busy trying to make ends meet.

Also, another good read on how he's trying to kill American culture:

Is Obama Trying To Kill Us

Totally agree. He HATES America and trying to kill us.

Comments?

Ride Safe,

It's Been A Draining Day

Oil, that is ... Black gold ... Texas tea ...

*lol*

While we sit on the sidelines, awaiting to see which way Tropical Storm Arthur heads, we decided that this would be a good day to perform all the necessary oil changes here at the Red Bird Acres residence. Seems like, everything came due at the same time anyway. Might as well bite the bullet and get 'er dun!

The (almost) all house 16K generator is purring like a kitten again ...

My Suzuki V-Strom anxiously awaits me for another ride ...

... and, of course, Hubby's pretty new Honda after over 2,800 miles, finally needed an oil change.

So, thanks to my husband's perseverance, expert knowledge and my handing out lots of ice tea, we're good for another 3,000 or so miles. A well maintained bike is a happy bike. It's a good feeling having so many projects completed in such a short period of time.

Now, we can play!

Ride Safe,