Vacation Bible School

This week is Vacation Bible School week at Pleasant Ridge. We hope to have 50 or so kids from the surrounding neighborhood participate. Please be praying for us, that the Lord would:

• Give us a good testimony before the children and parents (Matthew 5.16)
• Help us teach the word of Christ faithfully and passionately (1 Thess. 1.5)
• Produce much fruit in the lives of children and parents (Luke 8.4-15)
• Give us His strength and endurance through a long week (1 Peter 4.11)
  
  

Thank you!

P.S. Here's a plug for the folks that write our VBS curriculum. This year's curriculum is called Things Hidden. I highly recommend these materials to any church (or individual) wanting to do a simple VBS (or Backyard Bible Club) where the focus is on God, His word, and His Son!

Southern Baptists at Sardis

This message by Voddie Baucham is a must listen! It will take you about an hour (which you PRBC folks should be used to!), but it will be well worth the time.

Next week, I'll make it the featured audio in the sidebar.

And no, for my friends in North Mississippi, this is not an ad for a church picnic at our beloved Resevoir!

'Tickets to the Garden of Eden'

Got to see the new Creation Museum (in the southeastern 'burbs of Cincinnati) this Saturday. It really is a wonderful place. The crowds were big (hint: try going during the week)...so we didn't get as up-close a look as we would have liked. But what we saw was really splendid. At every turn, the Bible is being taught, read to you in multimedia productions, and explained scientifically (yea, whoda thunk it!).

Best of all. This museum is not just about Genesis 1-11! It was VERY clear that the main goal was to spread the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They defend Genesis mainly to help visitors see the very real difference in the world before the fall...and after the fall; and to demonstrate our need for, and God's provision of the Savior. The tour is laid-out as follows:

*Creation (Gen. 1-2)

*Corruption (Gen 3-5)

*Catastrophe (Gen 6-8)

*Confusion (Gen 9-11 + confusion in our modern day)

*Christ

*Cross

*Consummation

The last three phases aren't given in museum-style, but in a tasteful and moving video presentation in which an archeologist tells the story of Jesus...and how His life, death, resurrection, and return provide God's answers to sin and degredation.

Overall museum highlights include:

*A state of the art planetarium, glorying in the Creator God by taking you on a tour of the universe. Special effects-wise, this is, in my opinion, one of the most amazing presentations I have ever seen.

*A life sized rendering of a section of Noah's ark - demonstrating just how possible it was for such a magnificent structure to be built using only primitive tools; and showing how the ark is a type of Christ.

*The book store. They actually sell Christian books! Really! No Jesus clocks. No angel figurines. No prayers of Jabez on canvas. But great stuff on creation (obviously), good homeschool materials, and a whole bunch of Edwards, Murray, Lloyd-Jones, and the Puritans.

So check it out. And if you're an out-of-towner, you have a place to stay!

An Exciting New Way to Share the Gospel!!!

Check this out. Hilarious, but perhaps effective!

Jesus goes Green?

There is a pretty important election coming up next year, and it has had me thinking. One of the political issues among people of my generation has been (and will continue to be) the environment…and not without warrant. All of us would do well to take good care of this green earth God has placed in our temporary care (Genesis 1.27-30). Perhaps my children will grow up as the generation of hybrid cars and windmill power. That would be a step forward, in my book.

So I have been thinking lately about this planet of ours—specifically in Romans 8. Do you know what God says is the environment’s biggest problem? Pollution? Global warming? Shrinking fuel deposits? None of the above. So what is the biggest problem that faces our environment? Humanity (Romans 8.19-22)! Human sin has brought a curse on the very ground (Genesis 3.17-19). So much so that Paul says that the earth groans beneath the weight of the sinners that occupy its soil (Romans 8.22)!

I think that happens in two ways…

1. Because of Adam’s sin, God put a direct and immediate curse upon the ground way back in Genesis 3. So things just don’t work like they should. That’s why we have droughts in some places and floods in others—and why we have earthquakes and tornadoes, etc.

2. It also seems to me that the curse on the ground extends to the fact that, since Adam’s day, mankind has continued in selfishness and greed…thus, continuing to degrade and devalue God’s creation. And all of us should, as the greens are reminding us, find ways to do better.

So what will be the breakthrough answer to our environmental concerns? Biodiesel? Nuclear energy? Recycling? They all have their place. But what does the Bible say is the ultimate solution to our green issues? Resurrection! Listen to Romans 8.20-21: “For the creation was subjected to futility…in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into (HERE IT IS!) the freedom of the glory of the children of God!”

When will the creation be “set free from its slavery to corruption”—from its pollution, its famine, its shrinking natural resources, its wildfires, and its hurricanes? When Jesus returns, and the children of God are glorified! When Jesus returns, he will create a new heaven and a new earth—a new created order without the curse of sin. And those who inhabit that new earth will no longer be sinful! So God’s direct curse will be removed from the ground…and so will man’s continued degredation! The return of Christ and the glorification of His people is God’s final solution to global warming, to the oil crisis, and to pollution!

So…let’s be good stewards of the earth here and now. But let’s also pray and witness toward the return of Christ. That is, in the end, the best thing we can do for the environment!