I need to get up to speed and read everybody’s internet conversations.

This is incredible.  What an awesome topic.  I have been meditating on this theme since our past Sunday School lesson on “Salvation”.

Several thoughts . . .

1.  My wife and I were recently in Salt Lake City listening to Celtic Woman.  I was spellbound for two and half hours this Tuesday night.  Have you ever heard the song, “The Voice”?  All I could think about was the merciful, efficacious calling of God upon my life in S.E. Idaho.

2. But let me throw out some quick humor before I check out again (It has been very busy this week):  The LDS Authorities love and appreciate Calvinistic theology.  Don’t you guys all know that?  For almost 200 years, they have kept the KJV Bible together and untouched, even despite what their first prophet tried to do with his pen. 

3.  Seriously, here is a humble adomonition from the translators at the close of the KJV preface:

Many other things we might give thee warning of, gentle Reader, if we had not exceeded the measure of a preface already.  It remaineth that we commend thee to God, and to the Spirit of his grace, which is able to build further than we can ask or think.  He removeth the scales from our eyes, the vail from our hearts, opening our wits that we may understand his word, enlarging our hearts, yea, correcting our affections, that we may love it above gold and silver, yea, that we may love it to the end.  Ye are brought unto fountains of living water which ye digged not; do not cast earth into them, with the Philistines, neither prefer broken pits before them, with the wicked Jews.  Others have laboured, and you may enter into their labours.  O receive not so great things in vain:  O despise not so great salvation.  Be not like swine to tread under foot so precious things, neither yet like dogs to tear and abuse holy things.  Say not to our Saviour with the Gergesites, Depart out of coasts; neither yet with Esau sell your birthright for a mess of pottage.  If light be come into the world, love not darkness more than light: if food, if clothing, be offered, go not naked, starve not yourselves.  Remember the advice of Nazianzene, It is a grievous thing (or dangerous) to neglect a great fair, and to seek to make markets afterwards: also the encouragement of S. Chrysostome, It is altogether impossible, that he that is sober (and watchful) should at any time be neglected: lastly, the admonition and menacing of S. Augustine, They that despise God’s will inviting them shall feel God’s will taking vengeance of them.  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but a blessed thing it is, and will bring us to everlasting blessedness in the end, when God speaketh unto us, to hearken; when he setteth his word before us, to read it; when he stretcheth out his hand and calleth, to answer, Here am I, here we are to do thy will, O God.  The Lord work a care and conscience in us to know him and serve him, that we may be acknowledged of him at the appearing of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, to whom with the Holy Ghost be all praise and thanksgiving.  Amen.

Nicely written.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite in the I- 15 Corridor.  Some might think the KJV translators were involved in a conspiratory cover-up about who God is and what He does.  I don’t.  May the God of the reformation, Who is clearly declared in the KJV Bible, advance His Kingdom by sovereign grace. 

Verily, He will.

4.  Have you ever watched the movie, Emma Smith?  She sings the hymn, “Come Thou Fount”.  I can’t think of a better hymn on the sovereign grace of God in salvation to be broadcasted almost every week.  I do love the God of John Calvin.

Later, friends.

And maybe I can try to catch up on some internet threads . . .

Christ with me, Christ before me,  Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I rise, Christ to shield me.

Here is a nice song that I think can be derived in some of the wording ideas from St. Patrick and “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”.  Yes?

Lisa Kelly sings beautifully here.

Click here for the action in Rexburg, Idaho.

Interesting pics.

Friends, I think we need to write more songs about Jesus Christ here in the Intermountain West.  Would you agree?

After spending time in Hebrews 1:1-4 this weekend, I have been jotting down all kinds of words.  Here are some thoughts that I penned yesterday (and of course, I had to throw in an Idahoan simile).

Who is so void of understanding as to doubt concerning the eternal being of the Son? for where has one seen light without effulgence?

The Sun is never seen without effulgence, nor the Father without the Son.

Man’s Problem – A. Guilt before God 1. Not righteous

The Solution in Christ – “Through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19)

Man’s Problem – 2. Not understanding

The Solution in Christ – “The Son of God has come, and has given us understanding” (I John 5:20)

Man’s Problem – 3. Not seeking God

The Solution in Christ – “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10)

Man’s Problem – 4. Turned away from God

The Solution in Christ – “You were . . . straying . . . but now you have returned to the Shepherd” (I Peter 2:25)

Man’s Problem – 5. All have become useless

The Solution in Christ – “These qualities . . . render you neither useless nor unfruitful in . . . Christ” (2 Peter 1:8)

Man’s Problem – 6. No good works

The Solution in Christ – “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:10)

Man’s Problem – B. Slavery to sin

The Solution in Christ – “Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8:2)

Man’s Problem – C. Facing death

The Solution in Christ – “He who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life” (John 5:24)

Man’s Problem – D. Facing the wrath of God

The Solution in Christ – “Justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (Romans 5:9)

– taken from the Fundamentals of the Faith workbook (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009), p. 44.

There is a green hill far away,
outside a city wall,
where our dear Lord was crucified
who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell,
what pains he had to bear,
but we believe it was for us
he hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,
he died to make us good,
that we might go at last to heaven,
saved by his precious blood.

There was no other good enough
to pay the price of sin,
he only could unlock the gate
of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has he loved!
And we must love him too,
and trust in his redeeming blood,
and try his works to do.

Yes, yes, I just heard this on BYU-Idaho radio.  Please keep singing this hymn on Lord’s Day Sundays.  I love to hear of the penal substitionary atonement of Jesus Christ.

R.C.H. Lenski writes,

Nothing clings and sticks so frightfully close to the sinner as his sin, guilt, and just punishment.  Blood, shed in substitution for him, this alone is able to free him.  I John 1:7. . . .

The great point is the truth that a Messiah who died, who shed his blood is the only possible Messiah; his blood, which is infinitely more precious, valuable, expiatory than all the other blood of Moses’ testament, the readers ought to prize and not turn from as an offense.

Thank God for the spilt blood of Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for my awful sins.

His work is better.  His blood is better.  His name is better.  Behold His Glory, friends.

The Christian Century (May 5, 2009) lists the top five academic bestselling books from leading book publishing companies (pp. 14-15).  Mormons have authored the top two bestselling books for Oxford University Press: (more…)

I have read through the first chapter of Blake’s book, Exploring Mormon Thought: Of God and Gods (2008).

I will pick it up again and start reading.

Later all.  It has been a fine spring.

God is all-powerful.  God is all-knowing.  God is all-loving.

He is so good.

Ok, so I bump into Kerry at the convenience store on the east corner of 1st Street where our church building sits. 

The guy is a podcasting machine . . . over 700 videos . . . unbelievable.  I am telling you all — Kerry is making his mark in backyard LDS apologetics history.

So I connect to his blog tonight.  Lo and behold, he is talking about one of the verses that our church family just memorized several weeks ago.

What a great Bible verse!

We covered Jeremiah 23 tonight in our church Bible study.

There is hardly any prosecution against false prophets and their false prophecies in America, today.

And for the ones that do . . . oh my, they are going to end up as popular as the ancient prophet, Jeremiah.

The holy words of God make Jeremiah stagger like a drunken man.