longhikes's Xanga

July 2009 Messages

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:36:57 GMT

I was privileged to be able to speak three times this summer at the Soldotna Nazarene Church while Pastor Bruce Hardesty was on a short sabbatical. For the three messages I chose to do a blitz exposition of Paul's second letter to Thessalonica. I believe all three topics are vitally important to believers today. To hear a copy, you can right-click and copy the following links below (MP3 files - about 16 MB each):

2 Thessalonians 1 - "You Are Worthy" - http://tinyurl.com/det2Thess1
2 Thessalonians 2 - "Day of the Lord" - http://tinyurl.com/det2Thess2
2 Thessalonians 3 - "Four Letter Words" - http://tinyurl.com/det2Thess3

Sermon Recordings

Fri, 08 May 2009 05:57:44 GMT

Some have recently asked for some recordings of messages I have given at Peninsula Grace. I plan to convert several of them from cassette to mp3, then make them available on the web.

One of my favorite message series covered the Gospel of John. One Sunday, after a major world disaster, I spoke on how we can respond when life hurts. The talk was taken from John chapter eleven; the raising of Lazarus from the dead. To get a copy right click the following link and save the mp3 file to your computer: http://tinyurl.com/detJohn11a
I was intrigued with how effective Jesus was at breaking through the barriers people set up against the gospel. His example of talking to the Samaritan woman gives ideas of how each of us can similarly break barriers that separate us from others. To get a copy right click the following link and save the mp3 file to your computer: http://tinyurl.com/detJohn4
During one of my extra long hikes, I was reading and meditating on Psalm 8 about the glory of God. Of course that made for a great hike! Shortly thereafter, I was able to preach on the subject. To get a copy right click the following link and save the mp3 file to your computer: http://tinyurl.com/detPsalm8
I usually try to preach through entire Bible books in a series. Some are short, some are long. One of the recordings I have gives an example of how I like to introduce a new series. It is the first message out of four on 2 Thessalonians, giving an overview and introduction to the series. To get a copy right click the following link and save the mp3 file to your computer: http://tinyurl.com/det2Thess
The most recent recording available is a message I gave while preaching through the gospel of John. The date was February 26, 2006 and the specific Scripture is John 14:7-14. This is an example of an expository sermon. (My apologies: the recording quality isn't the greatest -- it drops the quieter parts of the message.) You can listen to or download the message at http://tinyurl.com/detJohn14b
Another message is on the subject of Communion. We had a church communion service planned for Sunday evening April 24, 2005, so I spoke about the meaning of the ordinance and gave practical ways to prepare for the service. This is an example of a topical sermon. (Again the recording quality isn't the greatest, but you can get most of it.) You can listen to or download the message at http://tinyurl.com/detCommunion

Just for Fun ... and Punishment:

An American businessman is in Japan on a business trip, but he can't bring himself to sample the local cuisine, so he asks the concierge at his hotel if there's any place nearby to purchase American food. The concierge tells him he is in luck, there's a new pizza place just down the block, and they deliver. The businessman gets the number, returns to his room, and places his order.

A short time later there is a rap on his door and the pizza is here. Famished, the businessman takes the box from the delivery guy, throws open the lid and takes a big whiff, but then starts sneezing and choking. He asks the delivery guy, "What did you put on this pizza??!"

The deliveryman bows deeply and says, "We put on pizza just what you order: 'pepper only.' "

The Family

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:00:59 GMT

Here's what my family looks like! My, they are as good looking as they are intelligent! Sue is still the greatest wife ever. Bethany completed her Master's Degree in Counseling from Grace College. She is on a trip to the Ukraine right now, and she starts her new counseling job at Nakenu in Kenai, Alaska in two weeks. Her goals are to get her license (to counsel) and pay off school loans. David is working at Mad Anthony's restaurant this summer before going to Paris for two semesters starting in October. Language training while attending university in Paris, then student teaching in Indiana and his degree is complete. Katie is home for the summer working at a fishing lodge. Michael has one more year in high school. They all four make Sue and me very proud.

My new challenge

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:52:23 GMT

I'm excited to announce my new job! I have joined the mission endeavor call Integrated Community Development International. It was started by Jim Hocking about 4 years ago when he was given a well-drilling operation in the Central African Republic. God has blessed ICDI in amazing ways in those four years. I am now on board as Chief Operations Officer (USA). You can check out much of what this mission does at www.icdinternational.org .

Paraphrase of Romans 9:30-10:13

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 21:07:38 GMT

[Here's part of one of my assignments for a class in Romans. I pray you are able to truly get to know Jesus Christ and trust everything he says.]

What are we to say? There are actually Gentiles out there who had no interest in righteousness at all, and now they are righteous, having obtained a righteousness that comes by faith. At the same time, the nation of Israel, who has a whole law-reinforced culture of pursuing righteousness, isn’t righteous. And why not? Because they skipped the simple faith-way, and tried to get it by hard effort. They stumbled over the stumbling-stone. The Scriptures talk about this very thing: “Watch out, I lay in Jerusalem a stone that everyone is going to trip over; it’s a rock that people misjudge and think they can get over, but they end up flat on the ground. But whoever trusts in him, using him as their life’s cornerstone, will never regret it.”

Brothers, what I really, really want, and my prayer to God for the nation of Israel, is that they will be saved. From personal testimony, I know that they really want to please God, but they just don’t know how to go about it. Not to make excuses, but, they had no idea about the righteousness that is a gift from God, and since they were so intent on achieving their own righteousness, when God made his offer, they said “No!” The whole purpose of this law-based-culture-ever-pursuing-righteousness is really to get you to stop it all and believe in Christ, at which time all that elusive righteousness is given to you lock, stock and barrel.

Moses describes law-based righteousness like this; “their source of life will be the very laws they obey.” But faith-based righteousness says this; “Don’t be worrying about whether you can do something spiritual enough, or great enough, to deserve Messiah’s blessing.” What does it say? “Faith is so close to you, it’s like the word on the tip of your tongue, it’s a simple decision of the heart, the kind of faith we are talking about: All it takes for you to be saved is to say the words “Jesus is Lord” and to believe in your heart that God did absolutely everything you would ever need to do, in and through Christ. Now, the way to be declared truly righteous is by believing with your heart. And the way to attain salvation is by confessing with your mouth. As that Scripture we read said, “whoever trusts in him, using him as their life’s cornerstone, will never regret it.” And there is no difference in the way of salvation for Jew and for Gentile – there’s only one Lord who is Lord of everyone and who richly blesses everyone who calls out to him for help, for “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Darkroom - great sound and great fun

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 21:11:03 GMT

I'm in a real recording! You can hear it at www.myspace.com/darkroommusic !

Here's what's up. David is in an excellent band in Winona Lake, Indiana. The group, called "Darkroom," has just completed a CD and when I was visiting in the fall I was able to play trombone with David on trumpet for one of the songs. The song is called "six eight four four." Go to the site and listen and tell me what you think.

In addition to keyboard, background vocals and some solo vocals in various songs, David also plays a nice xylophone part on the song "Windsor Knots."

We don't know the future God has planned, but there's a great chance you will be hearing more from this group in the future!

God's Dilemma?

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 21:37:29 GMT

In my Prophecy class, one of the required readings is "Plowshares and Pruning Hooks" by Brent Sandy. Near the beginning (under the title “Streets of Gold?”), Dr. Sandy suggests that God has a dilemma communicating to us about heaven and the spirit world, and about his own attributes (pages 25-27). This dilemma makes prophecy something that we cannot always take at face value, since there are no adequate words or symbols to really tell us what God is doing and what the future will be like. Thus there's no real way to know whether the streets of heaven will truly be made of gold.

This assertion seems to have two components. First, that the spirit world and heaven are unknowable, since things we have not experienced cannot be known by us except through our own previous experiences. And second, that God is limited in his communication with us by very inadequate words.

I tend to think that both components are in error.

First, I think that the spirit world and heaven are very knowable. As humans we are not only physical but spiritual. We "fit" in a spiritual heaven with only little adaptation. We can understand angels because we are persons as they are. We can communicate with and understand God, since we are made in his image. If God made mankind partly that we would fellowship with him (walking together and talking in the Garden of Eden) then he created us with the capacities and similarities to himself that make such communion not only possible, but full and rich.

God wants us to know about heaven and the spirit world. For instance, God purposely designed the furnishings of the tabernacle as models of the true furnishings in heaven. (See Hebrews 8:5 and 9:23-24.) I suggest that one reason is so that we will better understand heaven now, and that we will feel quite at home in heaven when we get there. (This assumes we have either experienced the tabernacle or studied its detailed descriptions in the Scriptures.)

Jesus made clear in John 14 that there was nothing of knowing God the Father that the disciples lacked, if they only knew Jesus. He rebuked them for worrying the idea that God was holding out on them, and that somehow the Scriptures, and Jesus’ presence, were inadequate in giving them a true understanding of the Father. To (over)emphasize the point, I suggest that we know MORE about the Father than we do about the Son! Why? Because Jesus continually spoke the words of the Father, not his own words, and he continually did the will and works of the Father, not following his own will and works.

I think the notion that the Father is mysterious and unknowable is foreign to Scripture. Yes, he is infinite, so our growing knowledge of him will never end, but that is a totally different idea than saying that it is difficult to know what he is "really" like.

The second component in God's "dilemma" is that words are inadequate to communicate God's message. Again, I disagree. I tend to think that words are quite adequate. In contrast to Sandy's assertion that language is a human invention, it appears that God created language and fully communicated to Adam on the same day Adam was created. If God created language, then it makes sense he would have created it sufficient to its primary task, the task of communicating God's message to man.

I love Brent Sandy's creative communicating style. His use of "babel" on page 25 is great. It also reminds me that at Babel the many diverse languages we experience today were also the supernatural creative product of God. The subsequent degeneration and shift in languages (as any good Englishman would complain) has not taken away the inherent capacity of language to communicate about God and communicate with God. The work of Bible translators serves as a daily witness to this ability.

I think Sandy has much good for us to consider in "Plowshares" yet there needs to be some caution. If part of his foundation (God's dilemma) is wrong, then everything that depends on that foundation may also be false.

The response to "will we walk streets of gold?" is not to question the ability of the words of Scripture to communicate to us. The response is to investigate whether the perfectly communicating words of Scripture indeed tell us those streets will be of gold.

Free Will and God's Sovereignty

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 19:47:55 GMT

I have been doing most of my writing lately in my class work, and in discussions with other Trinity Theological Seminary students. I'll try to copy some of those posts here on Xanga to let you know some of my (academic - I admit) thinking.

Here's a recent answer I gave in discussion with a fellow student (in my class on Romans) who posed the following questions:

"So does God save one because He knows in advance that one will (1) repent, (2) have faith, and (3) convert? Or does God save one only after one has done those three?

"How does one come to repentance, faith, and conversion? On one's own? Is it because God caused us to? If the latter, then something lurks behind those three that you mentioned, and is even more basic.

"And to really go for the rabbit, in Romans 8:29, is God's foreknowledge the same as predestination, or are those two things different?"

My response:

Thanks ... for the response and the welcome. Like you, I'm a lover of questions. So I'd like to take a stab at answering this one. I'll give a brief look at the basis for my personal thinking, then a short answer.

You ask some great questions. Yet I fear they border on being dangerous.

Great questions, because "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings." It seems to me that to gain understanding in how life and salvation work, is to gain understanding of God, which is our life-long pursuit. So we ask, how is one saved? What must a person do to be saved?

Dangerous, because on this topic particularly, like others with apparent antinomies, we are constantly tempted to deny Scripture. Instead of accepting Scripture's answer to "how is one saved?" we suspect God is holding out on us and we ask "but how is one 'really' saved?"

God has proclaimed that each person has a real decision to make, and God doesn't save a man unless (and until) that man chooses to submit to God. And God has also revealed his glory by telling us of his election, predestination and calling. The antinomy tempts us to question whether our decision is really decisive, or (in my opinion, worse) to question whether God really does control all this mess.

My best insights in this matter (I mean preaching, teaching, counseling, real-life insights based on sovereignty-free will) have always come from forcing the two warring ideas closer together. I force myself to say "God chose before creation for me to be saved by my own free choice." I say, "I freely chose to be saved, and God made sure that I did." The more I fully accept the truth and reality of both truths the more chance I have of understanding how they fit together, without denying either.

Jesus apparently was very comfortable with the antinomy. More than that he knew how to "use" it.

Jesus used the gospel first. He preached the gospel of repentance, the gospel of the kingdom. It is not, "perhaps you have been elected." Not, "if you are lucky God has made a provision for you." Rather, it's "anyone who" and "repent and you will ..."

Jesus seemed to use election most often AFTER someone rejected him. Yet this in no way took away the legitimate offer to them to believe! For instance, in John 6, Jesus gave an invitation (v. 35) acknowledged their rejection (v. 36), responded by teaching about God's sovereignty (37-39), then makes a re-offer (40). At this the Jews (Jewish leaders, I believe) rejected him again (41-43), to which Jesus gives another dose of election, saying "No one can come to me unless the Father ... draws him!" (44-46). After all this, Jesus makes another open offer (to the rejectors, and any other hearers) "If ANYONE eats of this bread, he will live forever" (47-51).

So that is the basis of my approach. How can both be fully true?

So about foreknowledge, I believe that foreknowledge is determinative. When God foreknows, he chooses someone to be saved. (God chooses to work things out so that individual will CERTAINLY and FREELY choose to submit to God - smile.) I think that a Bible word study will support this view. Also, philosophically, I think it is impossible to "know ahead of time" unless the future is "planned." God knows all "possible" futures, since he knows his options in planning it. To "foreknow" is to have picked an option.

"Certainly" and "freely" do not contradict each other, as many suppose. For instance, when my four children were small, sometimes Sue and I chose to take them on a trip. In going to Washington, D.C. we CHOSE to do the long drive in one day, even though we knew the small ones would CERTAINLY complain along the way. But getting to the hotel and sleeping in the next morning and already being within minutes of the Smithsonian would certainly be better received by all in the long run. When the complaining started, we, as good parents, reprimanded our kids, since they needed to learn to not use their FREE WILL to complain every time things get tough. If I as a weak father know how my choices will determine the (free) responses of my children, how much more does God know how to absolutely determine what we will freely choose to do. Since the choice is truly free, each individual is truly accountable for his choice.

And our preaching (to urge people to submit to God) is not only an act of obedience, but as we will see in Romans, in some glorious way, determinative. If we choose not to preach (which is - O wonder! - a part of God's calling process), some will not have opportunity to choose to believe.

On a personal note: After all these years, it is good to be taking classes again. I want my confident assertions tested and probed by others, and ultimately corrected by the Scriptures. I'm glad we can talk like this as we go along. This talk of preaching makes me miss it all the more. I am on a one-year unpaid sabbatical, working at my brother's construction company 4 tens, to free up weekends for my classes. So I haven't preached regularly now for 7 months.

Pressing on ...

Dan

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 21:54:23 GMT

Last week I attended the Grace Brethren National Conference in California. It was good to see friends again and to encourage and be encouraged. On Tuesday I took the Aerial Tramway up from Palm Springs into the San Jacinto Mountains. From there I hiked to the San Jacinto Peak, and returned the long way via the Pacific Crest Trail. It was 18 miles total. Here are a few pictures from just one of many picture stops along the way.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Sat, 27 May 2006 16:46:07 GMT

Summer Hikes!

I enjoy the calm and subtle challenge of a good hike. The act of walking through wilderness terrain with ever-changing scenery is therapy for the mind and massage for the emotions. (Of course, throw all the poetic thoughts out the window when there are blisters on the feet! Thankfully, now my feet rarely complain.)

Here's the latest schedule of upcoming hikes. If you would like to discuss joining me on any of them, email or call.

June 3 - Push hard to cover several shorter trails down Skilak Loop Road ... about 18 miles total ... join me for one or all ... Kenai River Trail (south), Bear Mountain, Hidden Creek, Hideout Hill.

June 9 - Here's the annual "can't believe we did that!" hike .. about 12 very difficult miles ... lots of steep ups and downs ... up Skyline Trail, then hike the mountain ridges to the east and north, then down Fuller Lakes Trail.

June 10 - One of my favorite family hiking trails, and I'll be doing it with Russ Miller and his wife Joanna ... about 5 miles total ... Skilak Lookout Trail.

June 17 - This wins my prize for the most beautiful trail ... about 15 miles ... up Primrose Trail, by Lost Lake, then down Lost Lake Trail toward Seward.

June 24 - Here's another perennial favorite, one where we always see bears ... about 12 difficult miles ... Harding Ice Field Trail goes along Exit Glacier all the way up to the "other-worldly" ice field.

June 28 through July 2 - Here's easy living at its finest, staying nightly in forest service cabins, with a free day at Devil's Pass in the middle ... 38.5 miles over 5 days ... Resurrection Pass Trail. Do all 5 days with Sue and me, or join us on Friday by hiking up the Devils Pass Trail.

June 28 - Cooper Landing Trailhead to Swan Lake
June 29 - Swan Lake to Devil's Pass
June 30 - Relax, explore the mountains, or hike Devil's Pass Trail
July 1 - Devil's Pass to Fox Creek
July 2 - Worship - Fox Creek to Hope

July 7 or 8 - Definitely my favorite trail, difficult to do in one day ... about 26 continually changing miles ... Crow Pass Trail.

July 15 - This is turning in to my personal annual challenge hike ... 38.5 miles in one l-o-n-g day ... Resurrection Pass Trail.

July 23-26 - Now to do my favorite trail, but relaxed and with Sue and good friends, spread over 4 days, staying in tents ... about 26 miles over 4 days ... Crow Pass Trail.

August 19 - About 23 miles ... Johnson Pass Trail.

August 25-26 - Hike and tent along beautiful Resurrection Bay ... about 12 miles ... Caines Head, Alpine Trail, and South Beach.

Just for PUN...

I went to the dentist with my uncle the other day. He needed new dentures. The
dentist showed him some that only cost a dollar.
The dentist did want my uncle to understand, though, that they were buck teeth.