Christians – By the Book

I recently preached on Biblical Sexuality at the Gettysburg church of Christ. I tried to cover the issues relating to living before God in our sexuality.

Sexuality within marriage is like a fire in a fireplace. Sexual activity outside of marriage is outside of God’s plan, its “Exo-marital, like starting a fire in the middle of your family room. One burns in a good way, the other destroys.

To often we paint some pretty gray lines around what we want to do and say “these ones are ok”. God doesn’t approve of that. We have to live our life His way, not ours. We must be obedient to what the Bible teaches, not what people say about what it teaches.

Have a listen and tell me what you think.

Over the past several weeks the videos of Japan and the utter destruction of the tsunami has left me with one recurring thought/question. What do you do when there is no place to run?

Whether as a fast rising flood is seen washing away life as these people knew it. Where can you run when the water that is coming is 30 to 40 feet high, as seen from this ground level view?

The question is do we live life, never thinking there is an end coming for us too?

At the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19) God tells His Lot to “flee”.

Gen 19:27-29 Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28 He looked out toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of that region. As he did so, he saw the smoke rising up from the land like smoke from a furnace. 29 So when God destroyed the cities of the region, God honored Abraham’s request. He removed Lot from the midst of the destruction when he destroyed the cities Lot had lived in.

John warned the false teachers of the day to flee, but in this case, flee the false way they lived and do the works that match how a follower of God should be.

Matt3:7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? (Luke 3:7; Matt 12:34; Matt 23:33) 8 Therefore produce fruit that proves your repentance, (Luke 3:8)

So the question is do we live our life going from day to day without considering our condition before God. The time to consider such a question is before the end comes, not as you see it approaching with only seconds to spare. Think about it NOW. Hebrews 9:27 tells us we will ALL die and then we will ALL face judgement before God and His Christ.

Heb 9:27 And just as people are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment, 28 so also, after Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, to those who eagerly await him he will appear a second time, not to bear sin but to bring salvation.

Ezek 33:10 “And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you have said: “Our rebellious acts and our sins have caught up with us, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?”’

God has always showed his faithful people how to live and what to do. People as in Ezekiel’s day, sometimes figure out that they are not living right before God and ask a similar question. God is the provider of a way to flee.

Psalm 25:12 ​​​​​​​The LORD shows his faithful followers the way they should live.

Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, 5 even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved 6 and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God 9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them

So if you are reading this, God has given you time … use it wisely and ask the question of yourself. If you determine that you are not safely within God’s grace, read Act 2:14-41 and think about when these men were pricking in their heart, what did Peter tell them to do … now go and do like wise.

I was recently able to get a series of lessons from a semi-retired preacher I know . I will be putting them up on the site as time permits. I think you will like them.

I recently preached about the relativistic way in which people view life, creation, God and the scriptures.

We find God’s absolutes standing in stark contrast to the world’s relative way to look at things.

Romans 3:4 (KJV)
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.


The world’s religions are much the same … it’s a “you’re OK, I’m OK” … let’s not judge each other that troubles me the most. A broad group of psycho-babel folks push this type of thinking and it’s not. And it’s about time we Christians started living life like its the truth.


John 14:15 (KJV)
If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Acts 5:29 (KJV)
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.


Well, it’s about time that somebody got the message right, at least commercially. Its time for the church to get this message right too. God calls us to have our roles by His design. In Genesis, God made us male and female, let’s return to acting like it.

So here is an easier read for you:


Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that's what they did. But somewhere aling the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by Disco, Latte by foamy non-fat Latte, men werer stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhoog and androgyny. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since Bad Guys, WE NEED HEROES. WE NEED GROWN-UPs. We need men to put down the palstic fork, step aaway from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It's time to get your hands dirty. Its time to answer the call of MANHOOD. IT'S TIME TO WERE THE PANTS.


I for one will be buying Dockers and supporting this “Man-Ifesto”. I invite you to be a man and wear the pants too.

I hope they will be coming out with the complementary Woman’s line of skirts, blouses and dresses.  Modest and fashionable should never go out of style.

I just finished emailing them my thanks (Contact Levi’s)

"Wear the Pants", the Dockers Man-Ifesto.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

As a 50+ year old husband and father of three, I praise you for pointing out how our culture has degraded and that its high time for men to start acting like men again. Gentlemen, not just males.

While I believe you (Levi's) have been part of the problem, I'm very glad to see you recognizing some of the problem(s).

I will now start buying Dockers with joy, limiting my distrust. I have blogged you on my website (www.chbtb.com) and I will be sending the knowledge of your stand to my friends and contacts.

Now I ask you to return some more of the traditional clothing that I grew up with to the racks. I further challenge you to complete the other half of the coin, by coming out with a "Wear the Skirt" or "Dress like a Lady" promo that highlights modest and fashionable dresses, skirts and blouses.


Now how about you do the same and let them know that you appreciate their promotional ad and what it stands for.

I am in my fifties and remember a time when nobody had a computer or a calculator.  So yes, I used to use the TRS-80, the Atari 800 (Great Machine, back in the day) and a desktop XT class PC, first with CPM, and then with DOS. Then I used the GEM UI instead of that Windows 2.0 junk.  I was forced to move to Windows 3.1 because some of the software we used required it.

Then I got my first “portable” PC, it was 26lbs and only ran when the cord was plugged in, but at least I could take it with me to a customer’s location, because they didn’t have one, or had none to spare. We booted and ran everything off of 5 1/4″ floppy disks, until I got my 20MB hard disk, WOW! so much space, I could never fill that up!

Boy have times changed.  Now our portable computers weight less than 5lbs and run for 6 hours on a battery.  We can do everything with them and we still complain about Windows. Email, IM, Web browsing and all the standard office apps.

Now our phones can do half of what our notebooks can do. They can do Email, IM, Web browsing and we can even touch our docs and spreadsheets.

We should be amazed, every day!

Wednesday morning I got up early, 4:20am to be exact, and by 9 in the morning, I was standing in Jacksonville FL, a mere 728 miles from my home in Maryland.  In less than 5 hours, I had eaten breakfast, driven about 60 miles and flow 700+ miles. AND, I expected to do the same in reverse that evening and sleep in my own bed that same night!

Can you imagine trying to explain that to one of our founding fathers? The 60 miles I drove would have taken 4-10 hours by horse or 2 1/2 days by foot.  The 700 miles would have taken several weeks to a month by ship, winds depending. Over land, this would have taken approximately ~450 hours, which is between 57 and 75 days.  Just think of how many meals, beds, changes of clothes one would need. The cost was enormous and the supplies need would be tons.  I didn’t even take a tooth brush or a change of underwear.

The founding fathers would have had so much more to worry about, from the horse that would get left in Baltimore to transportation in Florida.  We just rent a car in minutes and we are off and running.  We really are blessed to be living in America in the year 2009.  Would that we would marvel at want we can do and that we would be thankful to God.

Sometimes you will hear someone at a church giving announcements say something like this, “here is a secular announcement”.  Dictionary.com defines secular as:

of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests.

If everything I do is supposed to be to God’s honor and glory, is there a part of me or my time that I set that aside from this task?

1 Cor 10:31Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

If not,  I have to take every thought  captive for Christ and nothing is “secular” to me any more.

II Cor 10: 3-5 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

That means the way I golf, work, fish, farm, pray, talk and think … all of it is to be done to God’s honor.  If we actually did this, I think that would change the way we are as Christians, and the way that Christians are thought of.

With all the hubbub aout AIG and the bonuses that they “may” have to pay to there Exec team, remember the REAL crooks that gave them the money, our President and the swindlers in Congress and the Senate.

You see, the truth is, I don’t care if AIG folds and goes out of business.  That goes for greed happy banks and auto makers that over extend themselves too. Business is self governing in a truly free market.   Its not the job of the congress to bail out people that can’t manage their way out of a wet paper bag.

If our government could run a business well, then the trains would be on time and the Post Office would out do FedEx and UPS.  Ha!  Medicare would be an example to us all!  It is, of how NOT to do something.

Where in our Constitution does Congress get the right to open our wallets for a private enterprise? NOWHERE!!!  We need to hold our Congress to doing what the Constitution allows it to do, and nothing else. Let the market kill the bad businesses and support the good ones.

Just say NO, to BailOut Dough!

I was discussing the whole OSX, EULA and Aplle products issue with a friend in Ithaca NY.  He is a MacBook and iPhone user.  As we discussed the concept of Apple as a hardware company, he blurted one “Apple’s not a hardware company, its an experience company”.  He went on with his belief that Apple wants you to experience something different.  That is why thy limit the hardware, control the software, DRM management and such.

When I asked him about what he thinks Apple will do with the OSX86 movement, he replied “ignore it, while making valed threats against it”.   He thinks Apple will use it as a seeding grown for moer Mac sales … he maybe right.  I asked about my model of a no support for non-Apple hardware version of OSX and he doesn’t think Apple will take the money and run. At $149 per copy and virtually no support costs, I think Apple is foolish to walk away from this nearly free revenue.  With just a 100,000 unit sales, Apple would net about 15 million in revenue.  If you hit a million users, Apple could be looking at $150 million in revenues, directly from Microsoft’s customer base.  If you get a little silly and 10M users switched, you could get $1.5 Billion in sales.  All of these sales don’t include the possibility of each user buying iWork , iLife and a further Apple hardware product.  This is a large revenue opportunity!

If he is right and Apple is really an experince company, they’ll waste this opportunity too.