When I was just a little kid, we used to play follow the leader. There was a kid in our neighborhood who was a bully.  He ordered all us kids around, and we generally did whatever he wanted us to do. Once in a while he would mount his bike and round up all the kids in the area for a game of follow the leader. You played, whether you wanted to or not.  You didn’t dare refuse or you’d be in trouble.  So we’d get on our bikes and take out behind…

            When you read Hebrews 11, it is easy to focus on what you might consider the “great” acts of faith.  Noah prepared an ark.  Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea on dry land.   But there is also a three-word phrase in that chapter that describes the lifestyle of Abraham, the father of the faithful: “dwelling in tents” (11:9).

            A tent back then, just like we think of it today, was a temporary shelter.  They were made of leather or animal skins or cloth. …

            I had almost gone past the poor little thing before I saw him.

            I was walking near a concrete drainage ditch when I heard him flapping furiously in the shallow water.  It was a little bird. It had somehow fallen into the ditch, gotten its wings wet and could not fly out.  Time and again it tried, but to no avail.

            I almost walked on.  Suddenly it struck me.  He can't help himself.  If I don't do…

The consideration of this question “should” be a very personal one.  We are more than a little fortunate to work and worship with a group that has many workers.  Still there is room for each of us to reflect on either what more can I do or, what can I do.

In Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, he speaks of his relationship with both Timothy and Epaphroditus.  In 2:19 beginning we read of Timothy ~ “But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy…

            Few things in life last for 40 years.  Those that do don’t always function at the same level as they once did.  This June 17-20 will feature the 40^th edition of the Southside Lectures.  They are as vibrant and effective as they were when they began in 1980.

            The number 40 is frequently used throughout the Scriptures.  Forty days and nights of rain during the flood.  Forty years of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness.  Forty days that Jesus fasted before being tempted by the…

            WARNING!  We see this label everywhere.  We find it on appliances to keep people from electrocuting themselves and on coffee cups to keep people from burning themselves with the hot liquid.  The apostle Peter gave us a warning at the end of his second book to not get carried away with error or to lose our stability (2 Pet. 3:17).  These warnings are meant to be life-saving: both physically and spiritually.  Thankfully, with this warning Peter gives the solution for what we need to do in order to not get carried…

            Christians are familiar with the responsibility of parents to bring up their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph.6:4).  As a result of their love for the Lord and their children, many are very conscientious in this area.  And, many are ultimately rewarded with godly, mature, devoted offspring.

            On the other hand, there are godly parents who do exactly as described and get the opposite results.  It’s tragic, heartbreaking and discouraging.

            The discouragement is often…

            “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

            This well-known commandment makes it very clear what our responsibility is when it comes to assembling with the saints. Faithful attendance is a direct command and we should desire to gather together with those of like precious faith to worship…

            It is almost unfair to try and write a discourse on the providence of God in so short a space, seeing that His providence touches every facet of our lives–from here to eternity.

            The term has been damaged by mis-use and mis-applications of various sorts. If it can be viewed in our lives, it has to be done mostly retrospectively and not prospectively, seeing that we don’t always know if a certain happening is God’s providence or a “time and chance happens to them all”…

    In a sermon several years ago now, Brother Bowman remarked how “Hope is the apparatus that reaches out into our future and affixes itself to that for which we long.”  I can still remember how much I liked the way this sounded, I wrote it down immediately and have obviously committed it to memory.  It wasn’t until a few more years had passed that what had been a really neat way of framing a concept took on a great deal more significance.  My Mother returned to the Lord in 2013 after 40 years away … this expression now had…