Author: Alan

Alan is an ordinary guy, living in a small, high plains Colorado town...and humbled to be a minister of God...

Don’t Let an Earthquake Stop You

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Series Finales

As I considered what I would talk about for my final sermon before the Antrim Church…well at least for now…never say never 🙂

As I considered what I would preach about I had multiple options. First, I could have just continued my “Dear Least Important Church…” series, and you could be listening now to “Don’t Be a Sucker.” However, that would be an odd way, short of being unexpectedly being called home by the Lord, to end a ministry.

Or I could do the equivalent of a television series finale…where either we every open question is answered…or everybody is given a happy ending…or things are left in a permanent dissatisfying cliff-hanger. Well…

  • I don’t have all the answers (only the Bible, and the One behind it does).
  • I can’t give everyone a happy ending—we all have to wait for “a cry of a command,” “the voice of an archangel,” and “the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16) “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20)
  • As for leaving you with a permanent cliffhanger…well…that would be cruel wouldn’t it?! 🙂 Beyond that, I’d have to make it up…unless, of course, instead of moving to California for my new job I just disappear. 🙂

Another option would be retrospective…again…like those that the sneak into television series. I could replay clips from my sermons…and then we could tell by you nodding…or sleeping…how many you remember the originals. 🙂

Or, I could be a bit more biblical in approach, and I could mimic Paul and the Ephesian elders…where, seeing them the last time, he gave that church he loved so much words of advice.

Continue reading “Don’t Let an Earthquake Stop You”

There is a Pony in There Somewhere

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When I listen to my entire iTunes library in shuffle mode I never know what might suddenly come over the speakers. Rock, classical, children's, christian, rap, bagpipe, country, polka, heavy metal…well, the list could go on. I even have some Ronald Reagan clips with which I did not set to "Skip when shuffling," and this week one labeled "Optimism" snuck in between songs. At the end of the selection he told a joke that brightened my day, and I hope will brighten yours: Continue reading “There is a Pony in There Somewhere”

The Debt Collector is Calling (Colossians 2:6-15)

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I’m going to throw off the normal flow of my sermons and we are going to immediately read this week’s passage from Colossians. No intro…well, other than the two sentences I just said. 🙂

Let’s turn to Colossians 2:6-15:

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. (Bold words refer to Jesus…and there is the potential a couple other do too.)

My first reaction to those words can be summed up in a single word:

Amen!

Continue reading “The Debt Collector is Calling (Colossians 2:6-15)”

Mystery Theater (Colossians 1:24-2:5)

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OTR

How many here know what the acronym OTR stands for?

Now…before I asked that question I figured I’d better do a Google search to make sure that there wasn’t some other meaning even more common than the one I’m used to…and visiting Wikipedia I found that…in part…it can also mean:

  • Ă“tr, a dwarf in Norse mythology
  • “An airport that serves Coto 47, Costa Rica”
  • Optical Transition Radiation
  • Off the road tires
  • On the run

And so on…1

But none of those are it…anybody who knows some of my personal history and likes know what it might be?

Old time radio. You know, the golden age of radio when it ruled. When great shows like The Shadow (“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”) and Abbot and Costello (“Who’s on first?”) kept people close to radios (that were more furniture than electronic devices).

As hard as it may be to believe for the kids here, I am actually not old enough to have listened to most of those when they first aired :-), but there was one series that I did listen to every weeknight growing up in Canaan, New Hampshire. With my AM/FM radio…one with tubes and not transistors…where only the AM worked…I would tune to 1210 on the dial…and not tune digitally…where you know exactly what frequency you’ve got…I had to use a good old analog one where sometimes you have to have very accurate wrist action to get the exact spot you want.

The reward for getting 1210 was receiving WCAU out of Philadelphia (now WPHT)…and hearing CBS Mystery Theater with E.G. Marshall narrating. For those who haven’t spent some quality time on the AM dial, that set of frequencies is fickle, with atmospheric conditions greatly affecting what you can, or can’t, tune in. (That’s why you can listen to stations much further away at night.)

Continue reading “Mystery Theater (Colossians 1:24-2:5)”

Traditores Radio Stats for January 26, 2012

Traditores Radio’s Best Day Yet

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I realize this may seem sad to people with "real" radio stations (or successful Internet ones)…but I’m pretty excited that yesterday was Traditores Radio’s best day for listenership ever:

Traditores Radio Stats for January 26, 2012

Praise God for even a single person who listens to the gospel for a single minute!

Please also be sure to start sharing our new simple URLs for Traditores Radio, tradio.in (for the main page) and tune.tradio.in (for a basic player that is also smart phone friendly).

P.S. And overall things are lookin’ really up!:

https://traditores.org/2012/01/traditores-radio-best-day-yet/

Fear or Friendship

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In yesterday’s Bible reading this quote made me think a bit:

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, "You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die." Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the athick darkness where God was. (Exodus 20:18-21, English Standard Version)

"…that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin."

Basically, God will do whatever it takes "that [we] may not sin" and I fear that the vast majority of us could use a good scaring right now.

Of course God, in the form of His Son, offered a different approach: Continue reading “Fear or Friendship”

tune.tradio.in and tradio.in

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Once again I’ve stayed up to late playing :-), but out of it you now can take advantage of two short URLs that are easy to remember:

tune.tradio.in — a smart phone-friendly page with a simple Traditores Radio player embedded in it that should work in any browser that supports JavaScript and Flash or HTML5

tradio.in — a really simple URL to remember for Traditores Radio’s home page…so simple that you should share it with all of your friends! 🙂

And…you can still find the home page via radio.traditores.org.

Occupy Sacrilege

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Sometimes it seems more than coincidental that two stories show up at the same time…and although I know it’s just happenstance, today…

“Occupy protesters use Bibles as weapons — literally”

It quotes from a SFGate article:

Police arrested four people in connection with the evening’s occupation of the empty Cathedral Hill Hotel at Van Ness Avenue and Geary Street. “Once they got inside, some of the protesters made it to the roof top and were throwing Bibles at the officers,” Manfredi said.

(Bolding from the article I am quoting from.)

The building was a closed-down hotel, and they stole the Bibles from the rooms.

That’s article #1…#2 is: Continue reading “Occupy Sacrilege”

The Invisible Materializing (Colossians 1:15-23)

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Star Trek

Perhaps others here today also spent too much time while growing up…perhaps even now…watching the original Star Trek series. Assuming you did, when someone mentions “Scotty,” what comes to mind? Do you remember him, after Captain Kirk ordered him to push their engines past their limits, saying something like, “I don’t know how much longer I can hold her together”? Perhaps, instead, his rather rotund figure as movie sequels were released?

Something else?

One of the things that stands out most to me was Scotty’s expertise with the Enterprise’s transporter.

Now, technically it only proves that he is known for operating it, but how many here have heard the phrase…

“Beam me up Scotty”?

Or maybe even said it humorously when you are in a less-than-desirable situation? 🙂

It’s a trekkie’s version of, “Stop the world, I want to get off.”

Even beyond the (fictional) skillful operation a starship transporter by an affable Chief Engineer…there is just something cool about the idea of stuff materializing out of thin air. The invisible…the immaterial…become material.

And as we continue through Colossians in this third sermon (of eleven) in the series, “Dear Least Important Church…,” we (in part) are going to see the most incredible case of that that has ever happened…even more incredible than dissembling all of a person’s atoms in point A and reassembling them in point B. No transporter. No Scottish Engineer.

Just God.

Continue reading “The Invisible Materializing (Colossians 1:15-23)”

An Indian Big Mac

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If you grew up in the 70's you probably remember hearing this jingle (perhaps even sang it yourself):

Two all beef patties,
Special sauce,
Lettuce, cheese,
Pickles, onions,
On a sesame seed bun

What was that an ad for? Do you remember? Or did the title of this article give it away? 🙂

The McDonald's Big Mac has been popular since the restaurant chain first introduced it, and I suspect that little ditty helped propel it's early success (although I am no fast food historian).

However, go to a McDonald's in India (as I did last December) and you will have to change the first line… It is "two all chicken patties." Apart from that, it's the same double-decker sandwich (except that I suspect the "special sauce" varies a bit too).

Do you know why the Big Mac and every other meat burger (other than fish) are almost always chicken and not beef? Because cows are considered sacred by Hindus and 80% of India is Hindu. Thou shalt not eat what you worship, if you know what I mean. Continue reading “An Indian Big Mac”

Traditores Radio “Trending” Up

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In great measure, I suspect, to the Windows Media Guide adding us, Traditores Radio is now up across the board:

Traditores Radio Stats for January 20, 2012

I realize that these numbers aren’t terribly impressive compared to many Internet radio stations, but I thank God whenever I even see a single listener tuned in to the gospel.

Can I get an “Amen!” to that? 🙂

Jesus Versus Religion

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As of starting to write this post, the video below ("Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus") had 14,720,480 views (with 255,425 likes and 37,048 dislikes). I’m gonna make a guess here and say it has struck a nerve. 🙂

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY&rel=0&w=480]

Hearing about it second hand I figured it was going to be a standard false dichotomy between religion and spirituality (or, in this case, Jesus). And it does start off sounding that way when the spoken word poet says, "What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion?"

But, to really understand what Jefferson Bethke is saying, you have to understand how he defines "religion": Continue reading “Jesus Versus Religion”

Inclusivism (More Than “General Revelation”)

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[ This is a portion of a short critique I had to provide as part of coursework for Liberty University. ]

Although inclusivism is mistaken in believing that (with Christ’s sacrifice on the cross) general revelation is “enough,” it is correct in holding that specific knowledge of Christ’s work is not a requirement for salvation. Scripture shows the only prerequisite is faith, that some outside “the fold” keep the Law in their hearts, that God is actively looking at everyone’s hearts, and that He is never dependent on others to accomplish His will (and that He desires all be saved).

Continue reading “Inclusivism (More Than “General Revelation”)”