We moved

I'm going to discontinue this blog since it is too much work trying to keep two blogs going.  You can check out my active missionary blog here:  To the ends of the Earth...Peru   This blog tells of our life on the mission field in Peru as we seek to advance the Kingdom of Christ throughout the Andes.

Jesus Died for....ME

Baxter's advice to Pastors

Advice to Pastors

Richard Baxter

1. The ministerial work must be carried on purely for God and the salvation of souls, not for any private ends of our own.
2. The ministerial work must be carried on diligently and laboriously, as being of such unspeakable consequence to ourselves and others.
3. The ministerial work must be carried on prudently and orderly.
4. Throughout the whole course of our ministry, we must insist chiefly upon the greatest, most certain, and most necessary truths, and be more seldom and sparing upon the rest.
5. All our teaching must be as plain and simple as possible.
6. Our work must be carried on with great humility.
7. There must be a prudent mixture of severity and mildness both in our preaching and discipline.
8. We must be serious, earnest, and zealous in every part of our work.
9. The whole of our ministry must be carried on in tender love to our people.
10. We must carry on our work with patience. We must bear with many abuses and injuries from those to whom we seek to do good.
11. All our work must be managed reverently and use not holy things as if they were common.
12. All our work must be done spiritually, as by men possessed of the Holy Spirit.
13. If you would prosper in your work, be sure to keep up earnest desires and expectations of success. If your heart be not set on the end of your labors, and you long not to see the conversion and edification of your hearers, and do not study and preach in hope, you are not likely to see much success.
14. Our whole work must be carried on under a deep sense of our own insufficiency, and of our entire dependence on Christ.
15. We must be very studious of union and communion among ourselves, and of the unity and peace of the churches that we oversee.

Name this Heretic

Here are some quotes from someone that the "Christian" world adores. Can you name this person:


“We never try to convert those who receive [aid from Missionaries of Charity] to Christianity but in our work we bear witness to the love of God’s presence and if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men — simply better — we will be satisfied. It matters to the individual what church he belongs to. If that individual thinks and believes that this is the only way to God for her or him, this is the way God comes into their life — his life. If he does not know any other way and if he has no doubt so that he does not need to search then this is his way to salvation.”

This was asked the following in regards to the Hindus they worked with, “These people are waiting to die. What are you telling them to prepare them for death and eternity?” She replied candidly, “We tell them to pray to their Bhagwan, to their gods.”

“I’ve always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic”

“I love all religions. … If people become better Hindus, better Muslims, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there.” Or in another place, “All is God — Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, etc., all have access to the same God.”

”When the priest is there, then can we have our altar and our tabernacle and our Jesus. Only the priests put Jesus there for us. … Jesus wants to go there, but we cannot bring him unless you first give him to us.

Who is this heretic?  Mother Teresa

These quotes are taken from an article by Tim Challies. You can read the whole article here.

In conclusion:  Doing "righteous" deeds can not make a person righteous or in a right standing before God.  All of the works of both Hitler and Mother Teresa leave them each equally condemned before God.  This is what the Gospel is about.  That is why Jesus needed to come and reconcile us to God.  This is why we need the imputed righteouness of Jesus applied to us.  Our best efforts send us to Hell. 

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus name 

Would you have murdered the Jews if forced to by Hitler?

Waiting for a vision to know God's will? Read the Sciptures instead.

For the last 4 or 5 months I have had the opportunity to talk to so many people about discernment.  It seems that everyone that I run into is struggling with finding out what God wants them to do.  I always hear the red flag warning phrases like:  "God told me" or "I had a dream" or "I feel that God is leading me" or "I want to do this but I don't know if it is God's will" and on and on.

These feeling based assumptions cause more problems in people's lives than anything.  Instead of reading the Scriptures to understand how the will of God works, people wait for an angel to come down and direct them or for a dream or vision or open door.  When people say that, "God told me" or they are waiting for an answer, they are really basing their decisions on their own feelings.  They are trusting in their own deceitfully wicked heart to feel what is the right thing to do. 

God gives us freedom in making decisions.  If your motivations are pure and the decision is not sinful in any way, we really have a lot of freedom to make choices.  Should you move to another state?  Well, ask yourself why you want to move.  Is the reason sinful?  Will it help you grow spiritually?  Use biblical discernment to make your decision and then, if everything checks out, get off your butt and do something.  Otherwise you just sit around in a dumb stupor doing nothing but wasting your life.  Like the man that really wanted to go to China to proclaim the gospel.  He struggled because he just didn't know if it was the will of God.  He prayed about it for 30 years and then died.  If he would have understood biblical discernment then he would have jumped on a plane 30 years ago. 

There are some things we don't have to pray about because God has already revealed His will in the Scriptures.  Should I share the gospel with my neighbor?  Yes.  Should I help the widow across the street?  Yes.  Should I take revenge on my enemy?  No  Should I sue my ex-coworker who is a Christian?  No.  God has already revealed His will in the Bible and if we read it then we will discover it and be able to make decisions much easier and with more confidence.  For all of your decisions that are not black and white in the Bible, use biblical discernment.  Look at your motives, look at the benefits to glorifying Christ and your own sanctification, and look at any potential for sin and then make your decision.

There is so much more I could say about God's providential will and His revealed will and more on biblical discernment but instead of me writing 200 pages why don't you just read these great books.

Two great books on biblical discernment that I highly recommend if you are confused about what you are supposed to be doing are:

1)  Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will, or, How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Impressions, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky by Kevin DeYoung

2) The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment by Tim Challies

Paul Washer - Quenching the Spirit

Open-Air preaching at Helena street party.

So much has been happening that I have been too busy to blog but we have got to share the gospel with so many people lately. Amazing things happened when I was in Sidney, MT for a week. My missions blog tells the story here.  My friend Brandon come over from Sidney to hang out and do some street evangelism for a few days before we leave the country.  We hit alive at 5 with TJ and got to share the gospel with a ton of people.  Some conversations went very well and some did not but the gospel was proclaimed. 

Brandon was so burdened that he stood up amongst several hundred people and open-air preached.  The band wasn't playing yet but there was a lot of noise and commotion until Brandon yelled, "Can I have your attention" in a voice like Whitefield.  Everyone in the place stopped and turned to us.  Brandon began to speak about the fact that everyone would die one day and he asked them where they would go when they died.  Some people mocked.  Brandon kept going into the gospel.  At this time the band found out what was going on and they cranked up the speakers that were playing the radio about as loud as they could go in order to drowned out Brandon's voice.  He spoke louder but eventually had to quit because the music became deafening. 

When you go into the devils dark territory and begin to send out a great light, he will do whatever it takes to send you back to where you came from.  And this night the devil had many of his slaves ready for action.  But greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.  Brandon opened his mouth for the Kingdom of Christ to be advanced and hundreds of people heard a short gospel message.  This is more lost people than the average Montana church preaches the gospel to in a year.  This is the means that the Kingdom of Christ has always been advanced.  Praise God for the boldness that He gives us and may He give His servants a renewed sense of boldness today and that they take this new boldness and proclaim that gospel to anything that breaths.

Matt Chandler - Horrified

All I have is Christ

The Spirit of God is still working on the street!

It had rained for 3 days straight but when I called TJ to see if he still wanted to go share the gospel at the “Alive at 5” street party, he was all for it. Alive at 5 was, of course, cancelled so we just hit the walking mall. TJ shared the gospel with a whole bunch of teenagers that mocked him the whole time. I almost can’t stand witnessing to a group of 13-17 year olds. Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and kids today have no fear of the Lord, they are very stupid. Most of them are not capable of having a conversation about anything but a cell phone or iPod. I guess I am ranting a little but I want to find their derelict parents and slap them around for giving their 13 year old kid a cell phone and some cash and turning them loose to run the streets all night.

We gave out a lot of tracts to the surprising amount of people walking around in the rain. The first person that I shared the gospel with was an older lady with some meditation beads which is what I used to start off the conversation. She told me all about them but didn’t really know much. We talked for a while about different beliefs and what she thought happened when a person died and then I swung to the Scriptures and the Law which brings the knowledge of sin. She now was not a happy camper and advised me, in a daring command, that she wasn’t the person I wanted to talk to about this stuff. I took it as a challenge. We went through the law and I was able, by the grace of God, to share the whole biblical gospel with her. She admitted to breaking God’s law but said she was going to heaven because she wanted to. Everyone wants to go to Heaven, they just don’t want the God of the Bible there with them. She finally got sick of talking and stormed off.

We got out of the rain at Starbucks and tried to start up a conversation but there was none to take it. Some of the punk kids that TJ witnessed to early were there. One of the kids, too loudly, told his friends that the Jesus freaks were here. I stood up and asked the kid what he had said and he got scared and said we were the people that talked to them about Jesus. As we left, they mocked us more. Again…derelict parents to blame.

I next found a man in his 50’s that did have alcohol on his breath but we had a great talk. He grew up Catholic like me and also saw the hypocrisy in the church. I shared my testimony and then we talked about God’s justice and the necessity of God punishing law breakers. He thought he would go to heaven because he believed in his heart that he would because he was good. That changed after we went through the law. God began breaking the man down in the pouring rain. He admitted his sin and the state of his soul. I gave him the good news and explained Jesus as our sin-bearing substitute to satisfy God’s justice. It seemed to make sense to him. He was very convicted as we parted ways and he said he had a bible at home, which is where he was heading.

I tried to share the gospel with some “ultra runners” but these people have their own culture that is centered around themselves. They openly mocked me and Christianity and showed their indignant hatred of Christ.

That last two people that I shared the gospel with is the type of God-ordained encounter that we always hope for. The couple was in their late 20’s and they both grew up Catholic. The guy was actually kicked out of the Catholic church when he was in his teens because he asked too many questions about the Bible that the priest couldn’t answer. The two questions that the priest couldn’t answer and that he still had never found an answer to were very common and simple questions to answer for anyone who actually knows the Bible. He wanted to know if the Bible talked about dinosaurs and why incest was deemed good when Adam and Eve first started populating the earth. I answered both questions and then went into the law. The guy actually went as far from Catholicism as he could and now believed in reincarnation. He soon admitted he had no basis of his beliefs other than it sounded good. As we talked about sin and the justice of God with many illustrations both the guy and his wife had a change of countenance on their face as God was beginning to reveal to them their sin and break them down. I explained the glorious cross and they stared at the ground, realizing the predicament they were in but didn’t really know how to take this substitutionary atonement. I explained repentance and urged them to believe. They knew they would die one day like the rest of all the living. We shook hands and parted ways to let the Spirit of God continue to work in them.

Are you encouraged by these stories? Do you know what will happen if you don’t share the gospel? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. You will never see God work in these glorious ways. God will continue to fulfill His purposes and God will continue to raise up His obedient servants to proclaim the gospel to the perishing but you will suffer loss. You will never experience God in this way. If only you would die to yourself and get out of your easy, comfortable lifestyle and do something. When you see God working in people before your eyes, you become so revived and on fire that you can’t imagine wasting your life doing anything else. The world stops. Your priorities change. The world fades away. Do something, do something, do something for the glory of Christ and the advancement of the Kingdom.

Are you striving to retire?

Wake up call = Paul Washer

Names and Attributes of God 2011 Conference



Jeff Smith from Denver, CO preaching

The Wolf Creek Men's conference on the Names and Attributes of God took place last weekend.  It was such a great conference and we all had great fellowship, building new friendships and strengthening others.  Some amazing things happened at the conference and we could see God in it.  It is a very amazing thing to get a room full of men together singing and worshiping God.  We had great music thanks to Fellowship Baptist Church of Sidney supplying their men to lead us.  One of the funniest things that happened was when Tim Killillay prayed over John Wallace that if John never glorified God in his preaching that God would strike him dead and preach through his corpse.  This is Mr. Killillay.  We all understood what Tim meant but we all joked about it the rest of the weekend.  I do believe that in the conference, God was glorified, the burden of others were carried, Christians were fed spiritually to overflowing, new friendships were made, and the Spirt of God was present.  Here are some pictures.




Fellowship Baptist Church Worship





We never starved at the conference



Michael Saville from Helena preaching



Myself preaching on Jehovah Jireh



Good Conversation



Surprise, Surprise, Jordan Hall preaching on the Wrath of God



John Wallace of Big Timber



A few of the Wallace boys



I was also ordained on Sunday, which was a great honor.  Leo, Rob, Jeff, John, Matt and Jordan prayed over me and commissioned me to a life of misson work in Peru.





When Providence Knocks

God has been giving me a lot of opportunities to share the gospel lately so I thought I would share a few of them.


The Miners

In Big Timber there were a bunch of hard-bitten, wretched miners waiting for the mine bus to take them to the Stillwater mine where they are enslaved. These guys vile, almost as bad as me. I walked up to the group and handed out tracts. One guy, the most outspoken and obnoxious man started in on me right away. He mocked the tract with a string of cuss words that he cleverly wove together. Once I started talking to the miners about death and where they would go when they died, the obnoxious man jumped in and told me to leave and that this was no place to be doing what I was doing. He asked if I was scared and I said that I wasn’t scared at all. He then backed off so I was able to share the gospel with the rest of them. They were hardened but the seed was planted. Some of them ripped up the tract in many pieces in front of me, without reading them.

The mystics

Around the corner I ran into a couple guys and a girl. I struck up a conversation and we ended up debating about the things of God for a long time. They had no logic to their arguments and were stuck on the bizarre idea that they could make their own truth.

The canoeist

I ran into a guy that was canoeing from three forks on the Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. He said he was going on the trip to lose himself and be out of the world. He said he used to be a Christian but when he was walking down the street in Vegas, God pulled him away and brought him into judgment and then put him back on earth. His said he is now condemned and the Bible is not true. We got into quite a heated debate. He said he used to be an apologist but he must have been a bad one. He was totally closed to the gospel and would not let me explain the cross.

The tattoo man

I talked to a man that had naked women tattooed all over his body and of course he was wearing a cross and proclaimed he was a Christian. I asked what he thought it took to get to heaven and he said to be your true self. All I could think of is that we are all depraved, vile beasts who deserve Hell so if that is all we have to do to get to heaven then we are all in.

The Tramps

TJ and I witnessed to these two tramps, which the name they called themselves. They were just your typical traveler, homeless guys, one young and one old. The old man knew everything, just ask him, but the young Indian kid grew up under the care of a father who was a pastor but he knew nothing. They tried to take us down many rabbit holes but we stuck to the gospel. We talked and looked over Scripture for over a half hour and then a cool thing happened. The Indian kid who could barley even read started reading passages of Scripture. I thought this was glorifying to God because here was a huge wretch that was desperately lost and he was reading the very words of life. Praise God.

The Sikh

I saw a guy with a turban on so I went over and talked with him. He was a Sikh from India. I asked him a lot of questions and just let him dig holes. We talked about the consciousness and what is was and where it came from. We talked about the god inside of you and the point of life and reincarnation and a bunch of other eastern thought. His wife came and pulled him away before we could get into the gospel though. I guess you don’t need to go to India to find a Sikh, they are here too.

The nations are here! But who will go there? How will those in India hear the gospel without a preacher? How will the preacher get there if no one sends him?

What are your retiring from?

So what are you retiring from?  I have heard of pastors retiring but I am not sure why and from what.  I'm still reading George Muller's autobiography and am continually amazed.  God used Muller for so much.  Not only did God use Muller to pastor a church of 1200 people, start schools that taught over 123,000 students, distributed publications by the millions, support numerous missionaries, to build 5 buildings in his orphanage and care for 10,024 orphans before he died, God also brought in 75 million pounds by prayer only and answered 50,000 requests which 30,000 of them were in the same hour or day that they were asked.

Now this is amazing enough but Muller surprises me yet again.  He actually started his overseas mission work at the age of 70.  Most people retire and die soon after at this age but no Muller.  God, by His grace, allowed Muller and his wife to be missionaries from the age of 70-87.  He traveled over 200,000 miles and to 42 countries by boat, horse, foot, wagon and other various means as an elderly man.  Some of the countries include:  England, Scotland, Ireland, America, all over Europe, Canada, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Russia, Poland, India, Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, In his old age in the mission field, he preached 5-6000 times in many languages.  Now that is a good retirement.  All was possible only by the sustaining grace of God but when you have Godly desires to advance the kingdom of Christ, God provides the grace and means to accomplish them.  Retirement should be going to work full time for God.

The advancement of the Kingdom of Christ

Sometimes I feel that if I don't tell someone about the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ, I will die.  This fire has been kindled lately. 

I was traveling down the road and came to the town of Big Timber so I stopped by my friend, John Wallace's church/coffee shop to visit.  It was raining out but I saw two guys standing in the rain smoking so I asked them if they were ever taught to get out of the rain and then gave them a gospel tract and started up a conversation.  One grew up Catholic and the other Lutheran and both were lost.  We talked about sin and the justice of God.  They started getting uncomfortable and justified their sin.  They said they were going to take my first point of advice and get out of the rain and into their car away from me.  I told them that I never got to tell them the best part.  I tried to explain the atonement of Christ on the cross but they had no interest and got into their car.  Oh to be surrounded by the gospel and openly reject it.  It would be better to have never been born than to know the gospel and reject it. 

Oh how I weep for the countless sinners that I talk to that are just like these guys.  We would all be the same if it wasn't for the unfathomable grace of God that was given to us.  Oh that the grace of God would be poured out like rain on a bunch of Hell deserving sinners like us and the kingdom of Christ be advanced.  Brothers, we should be crying out to God for His Kingdom to be advanced for His own glory.  We should weep when the name of Christ is not glorified like He deserves.  Come Lord Jesus, quickly.

The Marriage Song - very funny

Mariology, part 7

The Rosary

Beads that represent prayers. There are 5 sets of 10 prayers that are dedicated to praying to Mary and there are 5 beads in between each set of 10 Mary beads that are to be prayed to the Father. So when doing the Rosary, Catholics pray 50 prayers to Mary and 5 prayers to God. The 50 prayers are “Hail Mary” and the 5 are “Our Father”


This un-biblical and blasphemous act of praying to Mary would totally disgust Mary if she ever knew about it, but she doesn't. Mary has never heard a single prayer from anyone because she was a mortal human that sinned and needed to be saved by Jesus Christ and is now in Heaven where she worships her Son like the rest of Heaven. She can't hear a single prayer from anyone, anymore than your dead grandma can't hear your prayer. Praying to dead people is cultic.

Mariology, part 6

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary


The perpetual virginity of Mary means that the Catholic Church believes that Mary was a virgin before, during and after the birth of Christ. In the official catechism of the Catholic church from the Vatican, which can be found here , In part 1, section 2, chapter 2, article 3, paragraph 2, number 499 they state this belief.
499 The deepening of faith in the virginal motherhood led the Church to confess Mary's real and perpetual virginity even in the act of giving birth to the Son of God made man. In fact, Christ's birth "did not diminish his mother's virginal integrity but sanctified it." and so the liturgy of the Church celebrates Mary as Aeiparthenos, the "Ever-virgin".

They also claim in number 501:

501 Jesus is Mary's only son.

The Bible clearly teaches that Mary had children with Joseph after Jesus was born.

After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. (John 2:12)

4While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. 48But he replied to the man who told him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" 49And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Mathew 12:46-50)

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2Not the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. (John 7:1-3)

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and) his brothers. (Acts 1:14)

18Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. 19But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. (Galatians 1:18-19)
Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56And are not all his sisters with us? (Matthew 13:55-56)

It is quite odd with all the references to Mary having other children, and now the Bible is naming them, that the Catholic Church holds to the doctrine of Mary as a perpetual virgin.

To justify these verses of Scripture that clearly state Mary had other children after the birth of Jesus; the Catholic church invents new doctrine in number 500 of their catechism:

500 Against this doctrine the objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus. The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact James and Joseph, "brothers of Jesus", are the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom St. Matthew significantly calls "the other Mary". They are close relations of Jesus, according to an Old Testament expression.

Notice how they can’t defend their doctrine using Scripture so they use the tradition of the Catholic church, which is exalted higher than Scripture. They ignore what the Bible says and stand on how the Catholic church has always understood these passages. Sometimes the Catholic church will say that “brothers” and “sisters” were general terms that really could refer to any kind of kinsman, including cousins. This is true in the Hebrew language. However, the New Testament is written in Greek, which is an extremely precise language. It makes a clear distinction between the words used to describe family relationships.