It is his sermon titled IF MY WORDS ABIDE IN YOU. It was preached January 4th 2009.

This is a wildly encouraging sermon. It will challenge you and bless you. Take 48 minutes to be inspired.

the first 16 minutes of the sermon Piper quotes Psalm 1, Psalm 16, Psalm 103, Part of Matthew 6, Romans 5, Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 13.

If you aren’t blown away by that…. well…. you will be

i plan on listening to it again on my next trip and sharing it with my wife as well.

adios for now.

That is still true. The word of God is our very life. How can we expect to grow in our salvation if we are not craving the word of God? “Like new-born babes crave the pure spiritual milk of the word THAT BY IT you may grow in regards to your salvation.” 1 Peter 2:2.

We grow in Christ BY TIME IN THE WORD. We prove that we are disciples of the LORD Jesus by abiding in His word. “If you ABIDE IN MY WORD you are truly my disciples.” John 8:31.

The word of God is useful to train us and shape us into all that we need to be to honor God. “all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be EQUIPPED FOR EVERY GOOD WORK.” 2 Tim 3:16,17. How in the world can we expect to have the resources for ANY good work much less EVERY good work if we are not faithfully spending time in the word?

The word of God is valuable for overcoming sin. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word. I have hidden Your word in my heart so that i won’t sin against you.” Psalm 119:9,11. Who among us does not battle the enemy of sin? And how shall we find victory apart from the word of God?

The word of God gives us vitality when we meditate on it. “Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by rivers of water. His leaf does not wither, he bears fruit in season, whatever he does will prosper.” Psalm 1:1-3

These are just a handful of the verses i love most about the bible. There are scores of other verses that we must bury in our hearts. But even if we just take these above verses into consideration it causes me to raise the question: When did the Christian decide that the Bible should be bent and molded to suit the situation at hand? Is the Bible the standard for life or isn’t it?

(it IS by the way)

How then is it that our churches are full of pastors preaching frivolity? Why do men and women base doctrine and theology on experience and personality rather than scripture? How can we ignore verses that don’t fit in with our world view and call that acceptable?

THE BIBLE IS THE STANDARD FOR LIVING.

Let our hearts break at the abuse of the scripture, the ignorance of the word, and the ignoring of truth. Let our battle cry be:

“To the law and the testimony! If they speak any word apart from this they have no light within them.” Isaiah 8:20

i am concerned that some of the “church” movements of today while effective in seeing people saved are also failing in some of the primary duties of the body of Christ.

I’ll be out of pocket for the next few days but soon i hope to have this blog up.

i’d love to know your thoughts as i prepare to write this blog.

so… what makes church, “church”?

In 1 Samuel 2 we find out that Eli (the priest) has two very wicked sons (Hophni and Phinehas). They were sleeping with temple prostitutes and taking sacrifices to God as their portions which did not belong to them and various other wicked things. Eli did try to rebuke his sons but wasn’t very convincing and in fact the boys “would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the LORD to put them to death.” 1 Sam 2:25. Then later in the chapter God curses Eli and his line to utter destruction (but we’ll come back to that).

Chapter four the Philistines whoop up on the Israelites and take the Ark of the Covenant and kill Hophni and Phinehas. Eli hears about it and falls out of his chair and dies of a broken neck (he was a very fat guy). Phinehas’ wife is in labor and gives birth to a son, names him Ichabod (which means the glory has departed) and then she dies. It would appear that Eli’s line is finished and we won’t hear about him again until we jump to…..

1 Kings 2:27 (which says) “So Solomon expelled Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, thus fulfilling the word of the LORD that he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.”

So that is a bit of history… and had always left me wondering what had happened to Eli’s line between 1 Sam 4 and 1 Kings 2… NOW HERE IS WHAT I PICKED UP TWO DAYS AGO….

In 1 Sam 14 we find Saul and his army (along with his son Jonathan) going to war against the Philistines. We find a priest going along with them “including Ahijah the son of Ahitub, Ichabod’s brother, son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the LORD in Shiloh”.

Catch this now: Ahitub was Ichabod’s brother. clearly the older brother because remember that both of Ichabod’s parents died on the day he was born. Now 1 Sam 4 doesn’t mention Ahitub but now we know that it is clear he was there and was likely serving as priest along side his wicked father.

Jump ahead again to 1 Sam 22… Saul is seeking to kill David. David has fled Saul and has spoken to the priests in the priest city. A wicked fellow (and a servant of Saul) sees David talking to the priests and rats him out to king Saul. (this dude’s name is Doeg the Edomite). Saul comes to the priestly city with his army and Doeg and has Doeg put all the priests to death: “Then the king said to Doeg, ‘You turn and strike the priest.’ and Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five persons who whore the linen ephod. And Nob the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant. But one of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar escaped and fled to David.”

So see this; the one guy that gets away is this guy named Abiathar (remember him from 1 Kings?). He will serve David for 42 years (roughly… give or take a month). He is the only guy of Eli’s line that survives this slaughter. He is the grandson of Ahitub (Ahitub obviously had two sons at least… Ahimelech and Ahijah ). Ahitub as you will remember was the brother of Ichabod and the grandson of Eli the priest.

Now here is where it gets really cool… why was Doeg such a punk? Why was he even in the priestly city to begin with? Why does the scripture say that he was “detained before the LORD”?

For that answer we have to go back to the curse that God speaks over Eli in 1 Sam 2:

(God talking here to Eli) “Behold, the days are coming when i will cut off your strength and the strength of your father’s house so that there will not be an old man in your house forever…the only ONE of you whom i shall not cut off from my altar shall be spared to weep his eyes out to grieve his heart, and all the descendants of your house shall die by the sword of men.”

I’m not sure if you caught all that but basically what we see happening in 1 Sam 22 is a DIRECT fulfillment of what God says in 1 Sam 2. Eli’s entire house is cut off. They are all put to death by the sword of man…. furthermore ONLY ONE ESCAPED… and what does 1 Sam 22 say? “But one of the sons escaped!”

We see then that the reason that Doeg was “detained before the LORD” was specifically so that he could be God’s instrument in carrying out God’s curse on Eli. David would say to Abiathar “I have caused the death of all the persons of your father’s house.” But in fact when we see the entire picture we see that in fact Eli, Hophni and Phinehas are the guilty parties.

I used to hate Doeg and i used to wonder why God didn’t say anything about the slaughter of all of his priests… now i get it.

How good it is that the Holy Spirit still teaches us and allows us to understand the bible better.

Sermon Point: WHAT GOD SAYS HE’S GOING TO DO… HE IS GOING TO DO!

I am sure you are disappointed that this isn’t ground breaking, but i still love putting the pieces together.

have a great day!

“THE SHADOW is a passionate plea for people to behold Christ. It is drenched in truth and saturated with rhetoric. This collision of Old Testament scripture and stimulating poetry fueled in me a deeper affection for Jesus.  May the revelation of God through this study renew your sense of awe and wonder of our unsearchable God, and move your heart to respond in worship.”
Matt Boswell: Worship Pastor at Fellowship of the Parks

BOOK:
AUDIO CD:

Journey with Ryan through the ten year study he did while waiting and praying for his wife.  If you hope to be married someday or are married now and just want some more insight into what the Bible has to say true love looks like, this is the book for you. With sincerity and practical Biblical instruction you will learn what marriage should look like before you even walk the aisle.  Seek to understand what it means to love those around you with patience and kindness.  Let the Holy Spirit walk you through the pages of the Scripture as LOVE NOTES unfolds profound Biblical truth for you in easy to understand language.  This book is a MUST for all believers seeking to have their lives reflect Christ more deeply on a daily basis.

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6:30 – Thursday nights – College Hills Baptist university room

Fall 2009 Teaching Schedule

THE SEVEN PILLARS OF THE Four56 From Ephesians 4:4,5,6
September 17- One Father
September 24- One Lord
October 1- One Spirit
October 8- One Faith
October 15- One Body
October 22- One Hope
October 29- One Baptism

THE SIX MARKS OF BEING A DISCIPLE OF JESUS
November 5- Loving God more than Others
November 12- Loving God more than Self
November 19- Loving God more than Money

SPECIAL THANKSGIVING SERVICE
November 24-Special Thanksgiving Fellowship/service (Pending)

SIX MARKS OF BEING A DISCIPLE OF JESUS CONTINUED
December 3- Abiding in the Word
December 10- Loving the Brethren
December 17- Bearing much Fruit