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“Your Comment Contains Profanity”

GE

The childhood fear of having my mouth washed out with soap haunted me this evening as I was responding to some push back from my column this morning in the Times-News.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to write a regular column for the Times News. They are kind to publish my 500-700 word column in a rotation with 5 others in the Magic Valley. Today’s post generated a small amount of discussion via www.magicvalley.com (the online version of the Times-News).

In my attempt to dialog with some of those commenting, my original reply was rejected with this statement: “Your comment cannot be accepted due to the presence of profanity, please remove any objectionable content from your comment and try again”.

At first I thought, ‘wait! what?’ I looked at my comment again and again and could not figure it out. I thought the word “sin” or “sinner” was the problem so I substituted the phrase “offend” or “offend God”. It still got rejected. Then I began to fear that my mom might see this and the taste of soap in my mouth washed over me.

This is my original attempt, can you find the profanity?

[Reader], my column today was to the church at large. The reality of it all is that all have sinned and have fallen short of perfection. That reality leaves me humbled and thankful for a Redeemer. I’m happy to tell all who want to hear what it takes to redeem a sinner like me. You are not forced to listen or agree. I’ll hope you’ll look at that work of the cross again. See your sin? I saw mine. I owned it and its cost was death. Cry out to God for forgiveness. Rise up a new creature in Christ as you turn from your sin.

“O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.”
~ Fanny Crosby – circa 1872

When Those Who Preach Don’t Know God

Today (October9, 2014) at 5 p.m., mountain time, we will know what the courts will say in regard to Idaho’s defense of marriage. In the mean time I’ve received messages like this in response to my calling the church (Eastside Baptist) to prayer.

“OK, well in my place of worship my pastor fully supports gay rights. I’m a bisexual Christian I married a man when I was 19 and that man cheated on me and divorced me and with man or woman I’m happy and God is happy to call me his child and is proud that I spread love throughout the state.. So keep your rude remarks to yourself.. Same sex is here to stay and God is proud of his same sex children.”

When I’m in conversation with someone that goes here I recognize immediately that this person has found a church that will make them feel good about their sin. But the greatest tragedy in this conversation is when she said… “in my place of worship my pastor fully supports gay rights.” As a result of that kind of apostasy, the people begin to assert other lies about God being proud to have practicing bisexuals spread love throughout the state.

She has great capacity to spread love throughout the state as a converted repenter, no longer in the practice of depravity. When the grace of God rests on a persons life it is the result of a costly grace. Few people want to submit to that kind of grace, they want a cheap grace that doesn’t call them out of the sin they are in.

I don’t doubt that she believes what she’s saying. There is little doubt she is passionate about her belief, more so than many professing conservative “Christians”. The problem is that it is a belief based on lies.

In his sermon “Backsliding”, Richard Owen Roberts says:

“The religious leaders had joined the backsliding hosts. The priests failed to ask, “Where is the Lord?” Those responsible for handling the law did not know God. The pastors also transgressed against the Lord, and the prophets joined the forces of Baal. Thus, all the religious leaders engaged in activities totally devoid of spiritual benefit.”

7 “I brought you into the fruitful land
To eat its fruit and its good things.
But you came and defiled My land,
And My inheritance you made an abomination.
8 “The priests did not say, ‘Where is the LORD?’
And those who handle the law did not know Me;
The rulers also transgressed against Me,
And the prophets prophesied by Baal
And walked after things that did not profit.
Jer 2:7-8 (NASB)

Preachers, be sure this Sunday, when we speak the oracles of God that we don’t spew a spiritual poison that makes our hearers twice as fit for hell as we would be for such blasphemy.

The Fight Against God

Many are prepared to say that the war raging in the land for the definition of marriage is over. Look at nearly any online dictionary and you will agree, the modern English language has redefined marriage to include same-sex partners.

The agenda to redefine marriage from a biblical worldview has launched the attack in a strategically smart way (this should not surprise anyone.)

The battleground is messy, like any battleground would be.

It’s hard to engage in public forum or face to face conversation because the language of hate has been turned upon the ones who carry the message of love. Those who love are accused of hating, they are accused of being bigots, they are accused of being barbarians and backwards. They are told to get used to the new America, one that is finally free for all to do as they please.

This is what the conversation has looked like for me in recent days on the matter in public forum, emails in response to blog posts and conversations with friends.

  • Paul Thompson, perhaps you could look at it like this: There are “God ordained ways” of doing many things that we, and you, no longer follow; for example, how to properly conduct genocide, own slaves, stone children to death, own women, and sacrifice animals are all among the deed that God ordained to be done “just so” in his “specially approved way”…Just add marriage to your list, please, so that we can finally end the thousand-years-reign of inequality, injustice, bigotry, and hypocrisy to finally enter a new era of peaceful acceptance. Thank you.

  • Whose God? Yours, the Muslims, the Hindus? There are so many to choose from. Seriously.


  • If you don’t like gay marriage…don’t marry a gay person


  • Ok well in my place of worship my pastor fully supports gay rights. I’m a bisexual Christian I married a man when I was 19 and that man cheated on me and divorced me and with man or woman I’m happy and God is happy to call me his child and is proud that I spread love throughout the state.. So keep your rude remarks to yourself.. Same sex is here to stay and God is proud of his same sex children


  • Paul: This is not about christ, christ SHOULD have nothing to do with this discussion. Unfortunately people like you can involve Jesus and impose your own fear of homosexuality onto the population

The reaction to the Supreme Court decisions this week is not at all surprising. It is difficult to not let the comments distract or derail the message of calling all people everywhere to repentance. There is nothing more natural than for anyone who has crowded God out of their worship than to be offended when a biblical worldview is expressed.

What is more natural for anyone who has begun to worship and serve the very things they’ve created rather that the Creator who made them? Now, until all of us repent of this arrogance and turn to God, all we have to save ourselves is the romantic idea of love and fulfillment of a self navigated path born in decadence.

The use of godly language only exposes the overwhelming evidence that the heart has been busy deceptively leading to a faithless relationship with God. The best way for a deceived heart to gather momentum is to draw others into their circle of corruption. And then, of course, a grand place to launch the greatest front on truth is to sow that seed of deception in the heart of a lazy western church being led by men and women who think they can prevail against the God they have crowded out of their lives and churches.
Decadence is nothing new. The temptation to do as one pleases without regard to God is constant with all people. The powerful indictment against the church today is that she is in great need of revival. The problem in our land is not homosexuality, the problem in our land is that many pastors are afraid to speak biblical truth into the culture. There is a backslidden condition that has the church is a place she has not been in, or better, not known she is in for a very long time.

They are in the church and the pulpits across the land. They serve on committees and teach bible study groups. Consider it…

  • How many Christians will attend your mid-week prayer gathering this week?
  • How many homes will gather the family together tonight to pray and give priority to Christ?
  • What will the church people complain of this week?
  • Christ-likeness is made light of in the church as much as it is out of the church.
  • Consider how many times you pray, “thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,” while you steadfastly refuse to do the will of God.
  • Many will say “amen” when the preacher speaks of marriage between one man and one woman while they laugh out-loud in their home with the children watching degenerate characters made heroes to the family while suffering saints are not even prayed for.

This day we are in today, is not a secular problem. The day we are in today is a spiritual problem where the saints of God have grown cold and quiet. The church of the Lord Jesus has lost her militancy. Our land rarely looks to the church seriously any more. She’s made a circus of the church and looked at as the same kind of silliness as we do of the furniture store going out of busyness (again) or the car lot with a gimmick to get you on the property.

As in Jeremiah’s day, the Lord says, “what iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?” (Jeremiah 2:5) In their vanity they have determined that God is no longer important or relevant.

My plea is to the church. Marriage needs to be defended, but we must stop blaming the homosexual for the decay of the nation. Look to an arrogant church caring only for herself and the advancement of her “brand.”

Church, where have you been? Repent! Then call all sinners to the place you have found your hope, the place of the cross. The soul who looks at their sin on the body of Christ doesn’t have to be told to stop your decadent ways, He sees holiness and knows he is ruined in his current place of arrogance. He humbles himself and repents, then turns to Christ.

Reader, look at that cross again. See your sin? You own it and its cost is death. Stop fighting and cry out to God for forgiveness. Rise up a new creature in Christ as you turn from your sin.

 

 

Call To Prayer

Early this morning (TimesNews), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Anthony Kennedy, issued a temporary block on yesterday’s ruling to over rule Idaho’s defense of marriage. This ruling is only temporary and appears to be only a formality in the judicial process.

But this is the day that the Lord has made. Church, don’t miss this moment. This moment is not our moment to shout a victory, this is our moment to gather in humility at the church-house and pray. Even though many don’t see the church of the Lord Jesus the Christ as relevant, we have been given the moment by our Lord.

This is a call to all born again believers to prayer. I’m calling in the Lord’s people of Eastside Baptist Church to gather at 6:30 p.m. tonight. I’m calling upon husbands and fathers to gather your family this evening during the evening devotion/worship time to prayer for the sanctity of marriage in the state of Idaho.

Church, if there is ever a day to cry out in repentance it is while it is still called today.

This is not a day of reprieve, this is a day of spiritual battle.

1 To You I lift up my eyes,
O You who are enthroned in the heavens!
2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
So our eyes look to the LORD our God,
Until He is gracious to us.
3 Be gracious to us, O LORD, be gracious to us,
For we are greatly filled with contempt.
4 Our soul is greatly filled
With the scoffing of those who are at ease,
And with the contempt of the proud.
(Psalms 123:1-4 NASB)

 

Words I’ll Never Say

Today, I have drawn a line in the sand, I will be bond by a higher court than the court in the land. I will not be able to ever say: “Applicant A, you may now kiss Applicant B”.

Church of the Living God, we must speak into this matter. We must speak with care and compassion as we speak as boldly as ever.

Today, the federal appeals court in San Francisco has ruled against the state State of Idaho. God have mercy upon the Land. My hope is not in a Supreme Court, a court of appeals or the court of public opinion. My hope is in Christ.

Will the church awaken now? We are in a land that is hostile toward God. The people in the land grow in their arrogance with every ruling. This is a good day to be the church of the Lord Jesus the Christ. Speak church, speak! Stay on the wall and speak truth in love.

Applicant1and2
www.magicvalley.com

Arrogance grows as “life moves on as normal”. See the grace of God in that he has not delivered a final judgement upon you yet.

Today (October 7, 2014) in SAN FRANCISCO (AP) : “A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down gay marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that gay couples’ equal protection rights were violated by the bans.”

God , your creator, has given his blessing to the partnership union for sexual relations and childbearing to unions between one man and one woman, in a covenant relationship. I don’t hate anyone who wants to fulfill their love for another person. There is a God ordained way and there is an arrogant way. Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Submit to Christ.

1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:1-8 NASB)

Today at New Horizon Home

Today, because God moved His people to kindness, the girls at New Horizon Home are well fed with nutritious food. The girls are growing stronger every day. They are cared for by loving women who work hard. The home is directed by the good administration of Alex Veilliard. May the news of God’s care reach far and wide. May the Lord’s church be encouraged. May His name be declared great among the nations.

NHHFood

 

The Fall of Sodom and Gomorrah

The fall of Sodom and Gomorrah has long been noted as being linked to homosexuality. Where there is biblical argument that these were cities that allowed this sin, Scripture shows that there was something much closer to home to all of us that brought the judgement of God upon the cities. “Arrogance, abundant food, careless ease and not helping the poor and needy…” these are the things that God charged against Sodom and Gomorrah. (Ezekiel 16:49)

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, by not making a ruling, that lower court decisions will stand on the issues of same-sex unions. This sinful lifestyle is the fruit of arrogance. What does that mean for Idaho? What does this mean for the United States of America? Historically when the Supreme Court rules on social or biblical issues it is nearly impossible to change. Unless the Lord intervenes, the once God fearing land of America will arrogantly thumb her nose at God and rebel against His word.

The land needs God fearing people to cry out to God in humility for repentance.

Oh that God would heal the land.

Oh that the church of the Lord Jesus the Christ awaken and cry out to God.

Church, you are as needed today as you ever have been to raise up an army of God fearing men and women. May the Gospel banner be advanced even today.

Provider Farms

Do you like farm fresh produce? Have you been looking for a place to buy farm fresh produce? Every Monday, Todd and some of his family pull into the parking lot at Eastside Baptist Church for residents in the Magic Valley to come get their produce. Sometimes, like today, there are even a few of the new Provider Farms critters on site for my viewing pleasure.

GE

Visit www.ProviderFarms.com for more information on what produce they have to offer in the Magic Valley. Place an order before next Monday. Don’t forget to come in and say hello too.

You’ll find Todd and his family kind and fare in their business dealings and I think you will be pleased with the value and product they deliver. Be sure to tell Todd I said hello.

 

 

 

GE

Open Letter to Magic Valley Baptist Association

Dear Larry Kelley, Moderator of the Magic Valley Baptist Association,

I count it a joy in the Lord to partner in the advancement of the Gospel with you. I’m grateful for our common doctrinal position and for the diversity we have in regards to that expression in our unique locations. It is a blessing to count you as family.

I’m looking forward to gathering with you on October 11, 2014 in Jackpot, NV for our annual meeting at Jackpot Baptist Church. Brother Jeff, please express appreciation to the Lord’s people at Jackpot Baptist Church for their hospitality. It will be a joy in the Lord to gather with you soon.

I’ve been reading some history of Baptists in the intermountain west and I’m encouraged to read of the founders of the Magic Valley Baptist Association. There is a rich history of men and women being used of God to plant churches throughout the Magic Valley.

It was in October of 1957 that members from area churches first gathered to constitute the Magic Valley Baptist Association. Prior to the formation of the Magic Valley Baptist Association, most churches in the area belonged to a large association known as Twin Buttes Baptist Association, churches from Eastern Idaho, Magic Valley, and Treasure Valley were all part of this large association. All churches were part of the Baptist General Convention of Arizona, an even larger area. It wouldn’t be until 1964, just 50 years ago, that the Utah/Idaho Southern Baptist Convention would be formed. This region is still large and travel is difficult in the winter months, but gathering with gospel partners is as important today as it was in the early days. But great effort was made because the fellowship with other churches in the region was needed and appreciated.

I’m looking forward to gathering with you on October 11. I’m hopeful to see you and hear news of all that God is doing in our association.

For the Gospel,

Paul Thompson
Eastside Baptist Church, Twin Falls, Idaho

the Early Utah/Idaho Baptists

I’m enjoying some research for the upcoming 50th year anniversary of the Utah/Idaho Southern Baptist Convention. Like many other places, there is always a ‘back-story’ of the years before the formation. This history is not thoroughly documented, but what I have found has the framework of a faithful bible believing people who would clear a way for the coming 50 years of westward expansion of Southern Baptists.

The best resource I’ve found is written by E.W. Hunke Jr. In his book, “Southern Baptists in the Intermountain West” he documents the history of the early pioneers bringing the gospel west in the early 1900’s but notably, Southern Baptists coming in the 1940s and beyond.

Two Baptists of great interest to me as I begin the research is Harold Dillman and J.B. York.

J.B. York arrived in Idaho in 1887, but Southern Baptists wouldn’t begin planting churches until 1945.

In many places in the west pioneers investigated the new land, settlers cleared the land and planted crops, and naturally communities began to emerge. As the great westward expansion began to do all of this, churches were always quick to call for volunteers to go. People who sat in meetings hearing the invitation would move west with their family and a bible.

I’ll be sharing some of the discovery with you over the next few weeks. It’s a fun one.

“Please come over into the “Macedonia” of the West and help us – with your prayers, your preachers, and your purses!” (Fred McCaulley, 1949)

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