Mark Dever on Children (Mark 10:13-16)

Children are not burdens. They are blessings.

Mark Dever - For Children Only - Mark 10:13-16 from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

Tocqueville on Christianity and Islam

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Excerpt from Pajamas Media:

"Following his first sojourn in Algeria, Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the famous 1835 work, On Democracy in America, compared Islam’s lasting impact with that of Christianity (and the latter’s possible disappearance), in an October 1843 letter to Arthur de Gobineau:

If  Christianity should in fact disappear, as so many hasten to predict, it would befall us, as already happened to the ancients before its advent, a long moral decrepitude, a poisoned old age, that will end up bringing I know not where nor how a new renovation. … I closely studied the Koran especially because of our position with regard to the Muslim populations in Algeria and throughout the Orient. I admit that I came out of  that study with the conviction that, all things considered, there had been few religions in the world so dreadful for men as that of Muhammad. It is, I believe, the major cause of  the decadence today so visible in the Muslim world and though it is less absurd than ancient polytheism, its social and political tendencies, in my opinion much more to be feared. I see it relative to paganism itself as a decadence rather than an advance.

Nearly 170 years later, it is a bitter, tragic irony that the harshest and most valid critiques of General Stanley McChrystal — leveled by military officers in Michael Hastings’ now infamous Rolling Stone essay (“The Runaway General“) — hinge upon the general’s ignorant and willfully misconceived formulation of the same timeless Islamic doctrines so plainly elucidated by Tocqueville."

Homegrown Tomatoes

Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon and lettuce and homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden
Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one

Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' and diggin'
Every time I go out and pick me a big'n

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and homegrown tomatoes

You can go out to eat and that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice

Eat `em with eggs, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the side put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see

When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes

Isaiah 10:5-12:6 -- The Root of Jesse

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Opening thought:  If you have a garden, you know something about pulling up weeds. I was explaining to Luke and Rachel the other day about weeds. I told them that they have roots, roots that will grow a new weed in only another day or two if you don’t take them out of the soil and throw them away. On the other hand, you don’t want to accidentally uproot your vegetables. If you do, they will die. No root, no fruit.

Today we are going to talk about a Root, a Shoot from a stump, a Man that Isaiah says fulfills the promises and sets aright the things of this world. This root cannot be uprooted. This root is a righteous one.

Pray and Read:  Isaiah 10:5-12:6

Contextual Notes: Isaiah 10:1-4 belongs with Isaiah 9 and gives the basis for northern Israel’s judgment. That judgment was fulfilled during the early years of Hezekiah’s reign (2 Kings 18:9-12). Then Assyria turned its attention to Judah (10:11). Beginning in 10:5, God declares Assyria’s judgment because Assyria destroyed rather than disciplining Israel (10:5-19). A remnant remains which God will preserve (10:20-34). The flow of the passage now gives us the primary message of these chapters. 

The Holy One of Israel, the Messiah, will one day come and the kingdom of God will replace the kingdoms of men. That Root of Jesse, empowered by the Holy Spirit, will judge in righteousness and bring peace even to nature (11:1-9). All nations will submit to the Lord and Israel will return to their homeland (11:10-16). In that day Israel will praise the Lord for their salvation and make him known to all the world (12:1-6).

One of the blessings of preaching through a book of the Bible is that we have the benefit of locking in on the context of a passage of Scripture, so that it does not somehow stand alone, but we have the understanding of what goes before and after that passage. Today’s section is a great example. Isaiah shows us the great vision of the Man whom he calls the Root of Jesse. We can gain insight because Isaiah has used this image before at 4:2.

Key Truth: Isaiah wrote Isaiah 10:5-12:6 to show Israel that restoration of themselves, the nations, and the planet will come at the return of Christ.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about living a holy life in light of coming judgment and salvation.

Sermon Points:

1. The Root of Jesse is our Sovereign Judge (Isaiah 10:5-34)
2. The Root of Jesse is our Righteous King (Isaiah 11:1-9)
3. The Root of Jesse is our Glorious Rest (Isaiah 11:10-16)
4. The Root of Jesse is our Salvation Song (Isaiah 12:1-6)

Exposition:   Note well,

1.   THE ROOT OF JESSE IS OUR SOVEREIGN JUDGE (Isaiah 10:5-34)

a.   10:5: God’s sovereignty enables him to use even Israel’s enemies to accomplish his purposes. Isaiah calls on Judah to see God’s hand in the painful experience with Assyria they are about to encounter.

b.   APPLICATION: Some of us find ourselves in a painful time right now. We have received a diagnosis or a report card or have a relationship not doing well. Look for God’s hand in this circumstance and praise him through it. He is there, and he is there for your good, not your harm.

c.   10:7: While God is using the Assyrian army as discipline, Assyria’s motive is rooted in godless arrogance, pride, and greed. God will punish the king of Assyria (10:12). It is intent that makes a difference. God is not as concerned about outward actions as he is about motives. He will judge both actions and motivations.

d.   10:17: In a single day – the destruction of Judah’s enemy, Isaiah said, would happen in a single day. And it did (2 Chronicles 32:20-21: ²⁰ King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out in prayer to heaven about this. ²¹ And the LORD sent an angel, who annihilated all the fighting men and the leaders and officers in the camp of the Assyrian king. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he went into the temple of his god, some of his sons cut him down with the sword. Isaiah 37:36 – ³⁶ Then the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!). The historian Herodotus wrote that a disease came into the Assyrian army through mice and fleas (10:16), killing 186,000 men.

e.   But there is more to this single day. Isaiah uses the term in 9:14; 10:17; 47:9 to refer to the destruction of wickedness in a single day. Revelation 18:8 picks up Isaiah’s idea in describing the judgment on the woman Babylon, “Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”

f.    In the book of Esther, the evil Haman sent dispatches throughout Persia to liquidate the Jews ‘in a single day’ (Esther 3:13), but this is the book of the Great Reversal, and instead, Haman was hanged on the gallows he erected for Mordechai. Zechariah writes of the Coming Great Reversal. God says, “I will remove the sin of this land in a single day” (Zechariah 3:9).

g.   Just as the Assyrian Army was gathered to destroy Jerusalem and all the enemies of Judah were destroyed in a single day, so one day at Calvary, the hordes of hell gathered to destroy the Holy One of Israel, but in a Great Reversal, Christ Jesus destroyed them through his own death in a single day. In a single day, he overthrew death and hell and made a way where there was no way, bringing life and hope and restoration to everyone who would receive him.

h.   10:20: The results of discipline: Those who survive the invasion will ‘truly rely on the Lord.’ Suffering purges those who will not believe and deepens the faith of those who do.

i.    APPLICATION: Are you surrounded and hounded by enemies? We serve a Sovereign Judge. Have you been betrayed or cheated on? We serve a Sovereign Judge. Do you face mistreatment and prejudice? The Root of Jesse is our Sovereign Judge. Have you been falsely accused and harassed? The Root of Jesse is our Sovereign Judge. Do you sit here today without the personal assurance of salvation in Christ? The Root of Jesse is our Sovereign Judge. He will judge fairly and perfectly, and if you are without Christ, you will be judged with a sentence that lasts forever in hell. The Root of Jesse is Sovereign because he has all power and authority to do whatever he chooses. He is our Judge because he sits enthroned over the universe. One day the Root of Jesse will take up your case. What will the Sovereign Judge rule? Will he rule against you because of your wickedness, or will he rule in your favor because of He Himself was your Savior who defeated your enemies in a single day?

2.   THE ROOT OF JESSE IS OUR RIGHTEOUS KING (Isaiah 11:1-9)

a.   11:1: The stump of Jesse – Jesse was the father of David (1 Samuel 16:1; Ruth 4:22). With the title, Branch (4:2; 6:13), identifies the person here as the Messiah, the descendant of David destined to rule the earth. The word here for ‘shoot’ is netzer, the same word from which we get the word, Nazarene (Matt. 2:23).

b.   11:2 The Spirit of the Lord – (1 Sam 10:6; Luke 3:21-22). This man filled with the Spirit will have wisdom and understanding (Gen. 41:39; Exod. 31:2-3; 1 Kings 3:12; Eccl. 2:26), abundant counsel and power (Judges 15:14: Dan 5:14), and knowledge and the fear of the Lord (Psalm 111:10). It will produce a righteousness and justice, the same word pair found in 1:27; 5:7, 16; 9:7, all referring to the Messiah.

c.   11:3-5 – Messiah will judge with a pure motive in contrast to 10:7-11 and 6:9-10. As God, Messiah knows perfectly, so he can judge with perfect righteousness. His decisions, so unlike human government that takes note of a person’s wealth and social standing, instead will be in favor of the poor of the earth. He will enforce that judgment absolutely with the rod of his mouth (Psalm 2:9: You will rule them with an iron rod; Rev. 12:5; 19:15).

d.   APPLICATION:  Jesus is coming back. He will rule on his father David’s throne at Jerusalem. Some view this as the millennial reign of Christ on earth. Some view this as eternity when Christ will reign forever, but the similarities are so close, the important thing is that the Root of Jesse will one day reign in righteousness. He will right every wrong. He will correct every injustice. He will rule with absolute purity. Our frail governments will cede their authority to the king of kings. That should give you great hope. He is your king, if you have a personal relationship with him. He ever lives to make intercession for you. He is your righteous king, and he loves you and favors you.

3.   THE ROOT OF JESSE IS OUR GLORIOUS REST (Isaiah 11:10-16)

a.   11:10 – A banner for the nations: Here it is a standard or a flag, raised with the intent of rallying people around it. The term ‘peoples’ indicates the Gentile nations. Isaiah sees a messianic age in which all the nations will have a knowledge of Christ. Our God is a missionary God!

b.   11:11 – “a second time:” Many find this phrase significant. Some of the Jews returning to the Holy Land after the Babylonian Captivity, partially fulfilling the OT predictions of a regathering. In 70AD the Jews were scattered among the nations a second time, as the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and expelled all the Jews from Judea. This second diaspora was more severe than the first, and Jews settled in every nation of the earth but their own. Some take this “second time” to mean a second regathering in the end times, perhaps beginning in 1948.

c.   ILLUSTRATION: The author of Hebrews teaches us in chapter 4 that hearing Christ and believing in Him will give us Rest, just the opposite of what Judah wanted to do (Isa. 6:9-10).

d.   APPLICATION:  Are you resting in him? Do you find your rest in Christ Jesus? Being a Christian does not mean you work harder to be good. It means you rest better in Him and allow His Life to be lived through you. That rest is for all the nations. Our God is a missionary God! Therefore our lives must be missionary lives. We must pray, go, and give until all have heard the good news of Jesus Christ. What are you doing to be part of Christ’s commission to go to the nations? Are you raising the banner of Christ at your work? Are you raising the banner with your friends? Are you raising the banner with your family? Are you making Christ known in your circle of influence?

4.   THE ROOT OF JESSE IS OUR SALVATION SONG (Isaiah 12:1-6)

a.   12:2 – Isaiah plays on the significance of his own name, which means, “God is my salvation.”

b.   The call to put away fear is followed by a call to praise (12:4ff) for the wells of salvation.

c.   Jesus told us to go to the nations (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8; 9:15).  After this Isaiah will turn to the nations until chapter 27, pronouncing judgment on all them.

d.   This thanksgiving hymn brings to an end this section of Isaiah, just as in chapter 5. And just as the end of the Torah.

e.   APPLICATION:  When Jesus becomes Lord of your life, he places a song of praise there. Your heart overflows, thanking him for what he has done for you. Christ is our song. He is beautiful, our sweet, sweet song. Do you have that song in your heart? Perhaps you do not because you do not know him as your Savior. Let me invite you now to respond to Him, giving your life to him and making the Root of Jesse your Salvation. He will make your heart sing. Perhaps you are in Christ, but you have forgotten that glorious song. You have drifted. Sin has clouded the sheet music. You no longer sing the song of salvation as you once did. Today is the day to renew your walk with Christ. Let the Root of Jesse restore the Joy of your salvation (Psa. 51).

Invitation: Come to him today, won’t you?

The Controversy

The last of a series on Southern Baptist history . . . 

Center of the Southern Baptist Controversy

The Controversy. The Conservative Takeover. The Conservative Resurgence. Whatever you call it, a change took place in the late 20^th century in the Southern Baptist Convention. There has always been a diversity of opinion among Southern Baptists, but in the 20^th century for the first time, the integrity of the Scripture began to be questioned in the upper echelons of Southern Baptist educational and denominational life in stark contrast to the millions of Southern Baptists in the pews every Sunday.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary had always been a lightning rod, and rumors became widespread of creeping liberalism among faculty at Southern. It was not the first time. Crawford Toy had been kicked out of Southern for his Unitarian views in the late 19^th century. By the 1950s, liberal charges were being made against Southern Seminary, and its reputation for controversy regained ground. It was the era of the Cold War, the specter of Communism, the suspicions of McCarthyism, and the nuclear age. SBC seminary professors were now going on sabbatical to Continental Europe, breaking out of their insular Southern Baptist world, and imbibing German liberalism and higher criticism. They came back different people. They were now budding liberals who taught the spiritual resurrection of Bultmann, and no longer accepted the idea of Biblical inerrancy.

Duke McCall (1914 -   )

In this swirl of suspicion, a Southern student named Clayton Sullivan published Called to Preach, Condemned to Survive: The Education of Clayton Sullivan. Sullivan wrote that he had always just wanted to preach the Word, so he went to Southern Seminary, arriving believing the Bible but left a Ph.D. disbelieving it. Sullivan struggled to get his degree, then went back to Mississippi with no real answers. Sullivan wrote his dissertation during a stir in Southern Baptist life in 1957 called the Lexington Road Massacre when thirteen professors were fired at Southern, ostensibly for liberalism. In reality, though, liberalism was a smokescreen. The faculty at Southern from the beginning had run the seminary, but Southern’s President Duke McCall (1914-    ) was in a power struggle with them to gain control of it himself. The best way for Duke McCall to take control was to run off thirteen faculty members who stood against him. More of them were conservative than liberal.

In 1963 another controversy erupted at Southern Seminary, this time it was the Ralph Elliott Controversy, an Old Testament professor at Midwestern Baptist Seminary who had studied under the esteemed Dr. Clyde Francisco at Southern. Ralph Elliott’s book published by Broadman Publishers, The Message of Genesis was written to help Baptists handle the explosion in our knowledge of science and space age technology in the 1960s. Elliott affirmed the higher critical method of Biblical interpretation, which denies the authority of Scripture and said that Genesis 1-11 is mythology. Aghast, Southern Baptists asked, “Why is he teaching in one of our seminaries, and why did Broadman publish such a thing?” An embarrassed Broadman pulled the book off the shelves. Elliott’s seminary president called him in and told him he could keep his job if he promised not to republish the book with another publisher. Elliott refused, and he lost his job, not over academic freedom as some charged, but for insubordination to authority. Suddenly, Elliott’s friends, including his mentor Clyde Francisco, were nowhere to be found. No one came to his support. The lesson? When you are about to be fried, friends get scarce.

In 1991, Ralph Elliott wrote The Genesis Controversy in which he vented that Clyde Francisco had taught him everything he knew, but he never came to Elliott’s aid when Elliott wrote what Francisco had taught him. Why was Francisco not investigated? Elliott asked. In his Southern Baptist tell-all, he revealed that his professors at Southern taught students at the seminary not to teach what they were learning the same way in the churches or they would be fired. Elliott wrote that professors called their method, Double Speak. Elliott said he would not play that game. If he was a liberal, he would be a liberal all the time and not hide his own real views that he had formed from what Francisco and others had taught him in seminary.


Then in 1969, the Broadman Commentary Controversy erupted. Southern Baptists by this time had six seminaries, so there were enough scholars to write a commentary series for Southern Baptists. G. Hinton Davies wrote volume one, Genesis-Exodus, from a higher critical viewpoint. Southern Baptists were annoyed, and Broadman again pulled the volume. Clyde Francisco, by this time retired from Southern Seminary, rewrote the volume. The Broadman Commentary series would continue to be written, but deliberately be obscure toward the literal interpretation and authority of Scripture. As a result, its usefulness was limited.

W.A. Criswell (1909-2002)

Conservatives saw the liberal direction of their denomination, but they felt powerless to stop it. Some conservatives gathered around the pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, TX, Wally Amos (W.A.) Criswell. Criswell was a first-class, stirring preacher committed to the inerrancy of Scripture. When one conservative group which had lost hope in the SBC’s direction came to him to ask him to lead them out of the SBC, Criswell emphatically said, “NO.” He believed any rebellion would be doomed to failure, and it would be best not to make waves. But later he wrote a book that stirred the SBC’s grassroots, Why I Believe the Bible is Literally True, which Broadman published in an effort to clean up its image. Criswell’s point: “It is time to take a stand for the Word of God.”

E. Glenn Hinson

In a reaction to the popularity of Criswell’s book, professors in SBC colleges and seminaries formed the Association of Baptist Professors of Religion. The move was not wise, because their anti-Criswell stance made it easier for professors to be identified who were left of center. Polarization also happened on the conservative side. In a reaction to the ABPR, conservatives in 1971 established the Criswell Institute of Biblical Studies. In Memphis, TN, Gray Allison founded Mid-America Seminary as a counter institution to the six liberal SBC seminaries funded by the Cooperative Program.

On August 26, 1976, three Southern professors – G. Willis Bennett, E. Glenn Hinson, and Henlee Barnette -- signed off on a thesis which would ignite a huge controversy. It was entitled A Sociological Analysis of the Degrees of ‘Christian Orthodoxy’ Among Selected Students in The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary by Noel Wesley Hollyfield, Jr. Each of the three professors would later lead attacks on the Conservative movement in the SBC, especially Hinson. Called the Hollyfield Thesis, the research asked three questions about the beliefs of students in each program and discovered a disturbing trend. The professors’ approval of this thesis did tremendous harm to liberal control of the convention. The research showed Southern Baptists that they were paying to have professors destroy the faith of those who attended their seminaries. A revolt by the conservative majority would soon be afoot.

	Diploma students	1st year M.Div.	Final year M.Div.	Ph.D / Th.M
I know God really exists: I have no doubts about it.	100%	74%	65%	63%
Jesus is the Divine Son of God: I have no doubts about this.	100%	87%	63%	63%
I believe the miracles happened as the Bible said they did.	96%	61%	40%	37%
Jesus was born of a virgin: completely true	96%	66%	33%	32%
Belief in Jesus Christ as Savior: absolutely necessary	100%	85%	60%	59%

Conservative Revolt begins

H. Paul Pressler, III

H. Paul Pressler, III was a Texas state appellate court judge in Houston. In the late 1960s, frustrated at the reports of liberal theology he received from Baylor University students whom he had taught in youth Sunday School, he went looking for authentic men of the Word of God in the SBC who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. In 1967, he met Paige Patterson and Richard Land at the Café du Monde in New Orleans. Pressler understood the SBC Constitution, and he had developed a strategy he hoped would transform the SBC, restoring it to its conservative roots. Pressler had learned his strategy in an encounter with a man named Bill Powell, who led a bus ministry at a church in Durham, NC, and who was head of a group called the Baptist Faith and Message Fellowship.

Pressler put forward his plan to Land and Patterson. Local churches select messengers each year to the Convention. The messengers elect the President. The President appoints the Committee on Committees which in turn appoints the Committee on Nominations which in turn appoints the Boards of Trustees who determine who will be seminary presidents, professors, international and North American missionaries, and writers of Sunday School literature. Judge Pressler believed that if SBC messengers would elect a conservative president for ten consecutive years, then the Convention could be changed, and a conservative resurgence could take place. Patterson and Land agreed to work with him.

Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)

In 1979, Judge Paul Pressler and Paige Patterson worked hard across the SBC to get Adrian Rogers (1931-2005) of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis elected over moderate Jimmy Allen. Pressler and Patterson were accused of fundamentalist politicking, and though Allen admitted he was looking for votes himself, he was defeated. Adrian Rogers became the first conservative SBC president elected with 52%. It was not a new thing to try to control the SBC presidency. Small groups always had, but the difference was that Pressler and Patterson were out in the open, and their agenda was clear. They published their intentions in state Baptist papers. The moderates had underestimated the conservatives and lost.

But something strange happened. In 1980, Adrian Rogers decided not to run for a traditional second term. Conservatives scrambled and put up Bailey Smith, but the moderate/liberals had no real candidate.

Cecil Sherman (1927-2010)

That is when Cecil Sherman (1927-2010) of First Baptist Church, Asheville, NC, sounded the alarm and led the liberals. He led a counter movement that would resist the resurgent conservatism. He and Daniel Vestal would lead a movement which would eventually become the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Moderates/liberals shouted that this whole controversy was just about politics and control, thus the “Conservative Takeover.” Conservatives/fundamentalists shouted that the controversy was all about theology and the integrity of Scripture. The truth was that both were true to some extent. Liberals did not want to let go of the denominational political control which threatened their theology, and conservatives needed political control to effect theological reform in the SBC.

Charles Stanley

Each year, the Conservatives were able to win consistently the SBC President’s seat. After Rogers’ 52% victory in 1979, Bailey Smith won in 1980-81 with 60%. Jimmy Draper won in 1982-84, and at the height of the Controversy, the swing year of 1985, Charles Stanley of First Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA, won. The 1985 Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas was the Monster Convention. Keith Parks, president of the Foreign Mission Board was upset that conservative Charles Stanley was nominated, and the liberals, too, worked hard to get their churches to vote against Stanley. Forty-five thousand registered messengers and a very large number of unregistered guests packed the place.

In 1985 as well the Peace Committee began meeting to iron out differences. Conservatives who were unsure if this whole resurgence would actually work along with liberals who were scared it would, met to come up with some compromises and parity agreements for seminary hiring so that each side could retain some power. The unofficial goal was, “let’s stop fighting.” Twenty-two persons on the Peace Committee were divided between conservatives like Adrian Rogers, Jerry Vines, and Charles Stanley and moderate/liberals like Cecil Sherman, Bill Hull, and Winfred Moore. Two were in the middle – Hershel Hobbs and Charles Pickering.

Two voices immediately came to the fore: Adrian Rogers and Cecil Sherman. The committee could not even agree on their problem. Conservatives were upset over the erosion of orthodoxy. Moderates could not understand why the SBC was fighting. Everything had been going fine as far as they were concerned. Parity agreements were one bone of contention for the Peace Committee. They were essentially last ditch efforts by liberals to keep their seminary positions. The goal was to hire based on a parity of conservative and liberal professors at each seminary. The agreements never worked because the seminaries conveniently never interviewed any conservatives, defending their inaction by saying they could not find any conservative scholars.

In the end the Peace Committee put out a survey for Baptist employees and pastors which found a diversity of opinion in the SBC. Many did not believe in the Bible. Conservatives pointed to the survey results and said, “That’s the problem.” Cecil Sherman eventually walked out of the Peace Committee saying the deck was stacked against his faction. After he left, the moderate opposition evaporated. Later in 1986, Winfred Moore would walk out saying he was not interested in being part of a 'police committee.'

In 1986, the six seminary presidents, under pressure from conservatives on the Peace Committee, issued the Glorietta Statement, an anemic document stating that the Bible "is not errant in any area of reality." The statement had little meaning but it was the closest the liberal seminaries could come to a statement on inerrancy. As a result, the presidents were hanged in effigy by their faculties for what they saw as caving in to conservatives.

Conservative Homer Lindsay, Jr., of First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, FL, walked out of the Peace Committee in protest that the conservatives would give anything away to the liberals when the conservatives had the momentum. In 1991, Southern Seminary trustees voted in the youngest president in its history, Albert Mohler. He was their hatchet man, and he cleaned the liberals out of the seminary and replaced them with inerrantist, mostly Calvinist, professors. Southwestern Seminary trustees elected Cambridge Ph.D. Ken Hemphill as president there, a likeable conservative mostly outside of the controversy.

Paige Patterson (1942-    )

Southeastern Seminary, by far the most liberal of the six, was viewed as the property of the moderates. As late as 1987-88 the liberals thought Southeastern would be given to them in an agreement to divide up the seminaries by theological persuasion. Instead, Southeastern would go from being the most liberal to the most conservative seminary. First Lewis Drummond, a nice guy conservative, became president, but he had constant battles with his angry, liberal faculty.

Then conservative scholar Russ Bush, author of Baptists and the Bible, a conservative treatise on Baptists’ historical high view of Scripture, was unanimously voted down by the liberal faculty for seminary vice-president, so the now-conservative board of trustees appointed Bush academic vice president to oversee the very faculty that had unanimously rejected him.

On the rumor (begun only as a joke on campus) that Paige Patterson (1942-    ) might come as President of Southeastern, fifteen professors resigned. Once the joke got to the SBC's conservative leadership, they thought it would be a great idea to make Patterson president, so the trustees elected him in 1992. At the first faculty meeting, as a joke, Patterson, a firearms hobbyist and big game hunter, laid a loaded .45 caliber silver pistol on the speaker’s stand saying, “There’s mine. Where’s yours?” Southeastern, which had been selling off land to stay afloat financially, had an enrollment below 500. Once Patterson took the presidency, enrollment surged to 2700 in a few years.

Jerry Rankin (1942-    )

In 1990, the Sunday School Board, later Lifeway (1997), was debating two candidates to head the board, and they were deadlocked on Patterson or Hemphill. They eventually compromised on Jimmy Draper. Today Lifeway is led by Thom Rainer. At the Foreign Mission Board (International Mission Board since 1997), President Keith Parks, an avowed moderate but a great missiologist, angrily resigned in protest of a new conservative board of trustees and joined CBF Missions. Trustees replaced Parks with Jerry Rankin who retired in 2010.

CBF founder Cecil Sherman

Once the moderates had realized they had lost it all, now what to do? In 1981, a liberal and politically left-wing group departed the SBC and became the Alliance of Baptists.

In 1991, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship led by Cecil Sherman, formed from those who disliked the new direction of the SBC. “We are no longer Southern Baptists,” they said. They were Cooperative Baptists, co-opting a hallowed SBC term to name themselves. While claiming to be the sole inheritors of “historic Baptist principles” of soul competency, liberty of conscience, separation of church and state, and the priesthood of the believer, they actually used those genuine Baptist principles derived from a doctrine of Biblical inerrancy to ‘liberate’ themselves from belief in Biblical inerrancy. They then endorsed liberal social issues, and affirmed left-wing politics including pro-abortion and pro-homosexual positions. While claiming historic Baptist distinctives, they created a new kind of Baptist that their historical forebears would have found unrecognizable.

2010 SBC messengers voting

The conservative resurgence succeeded by uniting ordinary Southern Baptists on the importance of one issue: Biblical inerrancy. By wisely choosing one issue that resonated with Southern Baptists, the Southern Baptist Convention did what no other major denomination has done – returned to its conservative values and roots. The secret? Southern Baptists’ historic polity of a congregational form of government. Control rested with the people, and when the local congregations were informed about what was happening at the highest levels of their agencies and seminaries, they revolted. Thus the conservative resurgence.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Southern Baptists having overcome the liberalism of the last century, turned their focus to a Great Commission Resurgence (Matthew 28:18-20). In 2010, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a realignment of Convention and Cooperative Program funding to focus evangelism, church planting, and missions toward the least reached peoples on earth. Since the SBC’s founding in 1845, Southern Baptists have taken pride in reserving 50% of Cooperative Program funding for international missions.

In 2010, messengers for the first time voted to increase that level to 51% with a view to further, future advancements. The symbolic increase funded 46 new international missionaries among the least-reached peoples on earth. The 2010 SBC also freed the IMB to work with the North American Mission Board in reaching least-reached peoples within North America and encouraged NAMB to focus its evangelism efforts outside the South for the first time, leaving state conventions in the South to take leadership in their own areas in evangelism and church planting.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord

Video: Burl Ives in 1951 sings a song going through my mind today from Genesis 6:8.

1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-36 -- Eli: the father who wouldn't say no

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Hannah presents Samuel to Eli the Priest as Hophni and Phinehas look on

Opening thought:  Happy Father’s Day! The best man in the world I know is still my Daddy. Daddy has worked all his life in the wood industry. For twenty-seven years as a scaler and yard manager with Bowater Paper, manufacturer of both newsprint and magazine paper. Then when they closed his division and he was laid off around Christmas 1997, his great reputation and relationships with wood producers got him a job in a short time running a chipping machine with a crew. Now he manages a lumber yard in Hodges, S.C., and continues to work well past retirement age.

He is the most compassionate man I know. He is the most giving man I know. He has the most integrity of any man I know. I don’t remember ever seeing alcohol in the refrigerator, though we kept a bottle of whiskey in the back of the cabinet strictly to add to sugar to stop a cough. I don’t remember ever hearing a filthy word come out of his mouth, even when a chainsaw injured him or the chimney caught on fire. And Daddy protected us. Often that protection meant saying no. That is, he told us boys no. If it didn’t look like something that would help us or if it looked like it would hurt us, Daddy had no problem saying no.

Today we will look at a man in Scripture who would not say no to his children, and we will see the trouble it caused for his sons.

Pray and Read:  1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-36; (4:1-22)

Contextual Notes:

After the nation of Israel was delivered from slavery in Egypt and finally crossed into the Promised Land after forty years, the people settled within their tribal boundaries and were governed by a series of judges. It was a time, the book of Judges tells us, when everyone did what was right in his own eyes, a day much like our own. One of those tribes did not have a land inheritance, those descended from Levi the son of Jacob. They were called Levites and they served as the priests for the nation. Moses and Aaron were of the tribe of Levi, so Aaron was the first high priest and the book of Leviticus describes their service before the Lord.

Several generations later, Eli was the Levitical high priest, and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas ministered with him before the Lord at the Tabernacle. Eli was a good man. He was a good priest and judge. He did his job well. He enjoyed his work serving the Lord. He lived at Shiloh in a tent adjoining the Tabernacle all his life being faithful.

The Bible is about real life. There are few men in the Bible in whose character we cannot find some glaring fault. Eli’s fault was his fathering. He would not tell his boys no. He avoided conflict with his children. He would not discipline them. He did not have a backbone. He would not stop what he knew was wrong and what would harm his sons and the nation of Israel.

Eli made his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas priests though they lacked their father’s character. Their conduct disgraced and shocked the people so much that “they abhorred the offering of the Lord.”

Key Truth: Samuel wrote 1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-36; 4:1-22 to teach Israel, among other things, the importance of a father.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about being a father.

Sermon Points:

1. Teach your children to respect the Lord (1 Sam. 2:12-17)
2. Teach your children to obey the Lord (1 Sam. 2:22-26)
3. Teach your children to honor the Lord  (1 Sam 2:27-36)

Exposition:   Note well,

1.   TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO RESPECT THE LORD (1 Sam. 2:12-17)

Hophni and Phineas demand meat

a.   Herbert Lockyer calls Eli the man who lacked parental authority. I put it this way: the father who wouldn’t say No.

b.   Eli warned them of their shameful ways, but he did not rebuke or stop them when he had the authority to do so.

c.   He should have exercised stern authority of a father and rebuked them as a judge. Instead, Eli only mildly reasoned with them, “Why do ye such things?” His sons disregarded such a weak and useless protest because their hearts were cold and callous. They no longer had respect for either the Lord or their father.

d.   ILLUSTRATION: Look, I know what it is like to have a pretty little girl with big blue eyes bat those long eyelashes at you while they say, “Daddy, can we get this video please?” The easy thing is to say yes. You want her to have what she needs and some of what she wants. You want her to be happy. And there are people behind you in the checkout line waiting. But what is on that video? What values would that video put in your child’s head? Is the little girl in the video she wants disrespectful of her parents and a smart aleck? So if we let her have it, and she watches it, we turn around and wonder why our pretty little girl is all the sudden obstinate and disrespectful?

e.   APPLICATION: Are you the kind of father who would rather avoid a conflict, and keep your kids happy than help them learn the right way and the appropriate manner to handle things? Yes, it’s hard work and not enjoyable to discipline or say no to your children sometimes, but we have to do that to help them develop into responsible adults.

2.   TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO OBEY THE LORD (1 Sam. 2:22-26)

Eli falls backward and dies

a.   Although Eli could not change his sons’ hearts, he could have prevented their ministry before the Lord. Instead, “he restrained them not.” He wanted to be kind to them, but it was a false and mistaken kindness. A correction at the right time would have saved them from ruin. Eli didn’t need to be harsh or severe, only firm and decided in the matter of obedience.

b.   APPLICATION: The disobedience that is cute when your little boy is 18 months old is not so cute when he is 15 years old. Are you taking care to train your child and your grandchild right now, so that they learn the virtue of obedience? So that they learn that obeying the Lord is the most important thing? If you do not teach them to obey the Lord, then they won’t care what you tell them to do either. And they won’t have any regard for other authorities, and then they will become the responsibility of the county jail. Are you teaching your children to be obedient to you and that ultimately we all must be obedient to the Lord?

3.   TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO HONOR THE LORD (1 Sam. 2:27-36)

a.   Eli was twice warned that judgment would overtake him and his sons, but the warning was lost on him. He loved his sons, but not enough to take action with them.

b.   What a pitiful sight Eli is as a father. An old man of ninety years, almost blind, waiting to hear the result of the grim battle between the Israelites and the Philistines. How he trembled for his nation, his sons, and the Ark of God. When the news came of the slaughter of the army, his sons, and the capture of the Ark, he fell off his seat, broke his neck, and died too.

c.   APPLICATION: Do you notice what is important this morning? It is great to teach your children manners and etiquette. It is great to get your children involved in team sports. It is good to get your children in church and to Vacation Bible School and Sunday School and children’s programs. It is good to make sure they get a good education. But the most important thing for you to do as a father is to teach them respect, obedience, and honor for the Lord. If you will teach them that one, the others will most likely fall in place.

d.   You may say, “I did all that, and they didn’t do anything but make all the worst decisions.” Neither Eli nor you are responsible for what goes on in your children’s hearts. But what we can do and are responsible before the Lord to do, is to create a home environment where Christ is loved and honored and worshiped. Our children’s life decisions once they leave our home may break our hearts. That is between the Lord and them. Our responsibility is to point them lovingly to the Cross as their saving station and make our homes and lives such that honor and obey Christ as an example to them.

Invitation:

That brings me to the invitation. The best way to be a better Daddy or Granddad is to give your heart to Jesus Christ today and start walking with him. You cannot teach your children the things in this passage if you have no resurrection life in you yourself. If you want to be a better Daddy or Granddaddy today, I want to invite you to come forward to this altar and pray for your family and your children and grandchildren.

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Pianist Andrea Bocelli on abortion

Isaiah 8-9: Trust and obey for there's no other way

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Opening thought:  Suppose you were in desperate need of a car, so you asked a friend who knows a lot about cars to go with you to an auction to buy one. You get to the car auction, spend a little time looking around and seeing how the whole thing works, and your expert friend advises you to make a low bid on a very nice late model Lexus. Well, you think you might be able to do this stuff yourself. You’ve looked around and seen how it’s done after all, and you ignore your expert friend’s advice . . . and you drive home with a 1972 Pinto.

That’s kind of what happened to King Ahaz of Judah. He didn’t take the advice his expert friend Isaiah gave him about how to lead Judah. He had been on the throne probably less than a year, but hey, he had looked around and seen how this governing thing is done, and he can do it himself. The trouble was, he did not have the experience necessary to know how to deal with the tricky, cut-throat geopolitics of the 8^th Century Middle East.

Pray and Read:  Isaiah 8-9

                   

Contextual Notes: Today is the story of two children, both are signs of God’s work among his people. Ahaz, on the throne probably less than a year, has rejected trust in God to trust in Assyria (ch. 7). Isaiah warns that God will now bring that very nation against His people (8:1-10) so that they can find out how trustworthy man is (8:11-22). Even so, the believer is to fear and honor God (8:11-18) rather than surrender to the panic that leads others to desperate acts of spiritual rebellion (8:19-22). Yet beyond the gloom lies a bright hope. A child will be born, a son will be given who will reign as David’s descendant and bring peace to the world (9:1-7). But first, northern Israel, which has turned its back on God, will be crushed (9:8-21).

Key Truth: Isaiah wrote Isaiah 8-9 to teach Israel  to put their trust in the Lord their Messiah.

Key Application: Today I want to show you what God’s Word says about  trusting Christ everyday.

Sermon Points:

1. Put your confidence in Immanuel (Isaiah 8:1-10)
2. Put your trust in the Rock (Isaiah 8:11-22)
3. Put your hope in the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:1-21)

Exposition:   Note well,

1.   PUT YOUR CONFIDENCE IN IMMANUEL (Isaiah 8:1-10)

a.   8:1-4 – Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz: Speed-spoil-hasten-plunder signifying the speed with which Assyria would attack and destroy Syria and Israel. Isaiah makes out a property deed to symbolize the transfer of property to Assyria. By the time this child grows to become a toddler, just as Isaiah predicted, Damascus and Syria would be plundered by Assyria (734-32 BC).

b.   Ahaz rejected the sign of the best child, Immanuel (7:14). Now he gets a child who is a sign of destruction and disaster to Syria and Israel, who are invading Judah. In the midst of Judah’s and Ahaz’ disobedience and unfaithfulness to the Lord, he still cares for them and is aggressive to take care of his own.

c.   APPLICATION: When God presents you with his direction, he wants you to obey him, not reject his gracious opportunities. What decision is before you right now? What direction has the Lord given you? Why are you not moving forward in obedience? Why do you halt between two opinions? When you reject God’s best, the next best is still from his gracious hand, but it is not as good as he had planned it for you. Be obedient to his call and direction.

d.   8:6-10: Ahaz and Judah have rejected God’s supply and protection (the waters of Shiloah) – despised and rejected by them. Assyria, invited there by Ahaz, would know no boundaries and overflow like a flood over the land, endangering Judah as well. In fact, the Assyrian records we have today mention that Tiglath-Pileser III came into the area like a flood and devastated it.

e.   Faithful witnesses: They were needed to attest to the date and content of Isaiah’s prediction that Syria and northern Israel, which had invaded Judah, would be destroyed soon (8:4) and that Assyria would “sweep into Judah” (8:8). Later, Uriah and Zechariah would establish Isaiah predicted what would happen before the events took place.

f.    Immanuel (8:8, 10): Isaiah ends both verses of destruction with “O Immanuel!” It is a reminder that in the midst of trouble, God is with us. For the faithful, it is comfort that God remains in control of history.

g.   APPLICATION: What kind of trouble are you in? What is threatening you? What in the news is troubling you? God remains in control of history. And he remains in control of your history. So no matter the diagnosis, no matter the child’s behavior, no matter the supervisor’s attitude, no matter the employment situation, no matter the way the orders are going at work, no matter who is in the White House, no matter the issues at the courthouse, no matter the politics in the church house, God is in control. When you know he is in control and you know his character is good and that he has your best interest at heart, you can settle down, command the fear to go, tell the little questioning voices in your head to be quiet, and trust Him. It is called abiding in the vine. Jesus talked about it in John 15. You might want to read it sometime.

2.   PUT YOUR TRUST IN THE ROCK (Isaiah 8:11-22)

a.   8:14: Jesus interpreted this passage in Matthew 21:33-46, Paul did as well in Romans 9:32ff, as well as Peter in 1 Peter 2:8. The Rock that will cause many to stumble is the sure Rock in which to trust. Do not fear what others fear. Fear the Lord. Put your trust in the Rock.

b.   APPLICATION: If we truly fear God, our respect for his power will free us from fear of current dangers. Truly trust God, and you will know peace.

c.   8:18 – “Here am I” the same phrase as 6:8, and “and the children the Lord has given me” – Immanuel (7:14) and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (8:1, 3). The child Immanuel is seen in the type of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, but this type can only point to the Virgin Born Child. These children are signs and symbols, miraculous signs authenticating his messengers. Verse 18 is cited in Hebrews 2:13 and applied to Christ.

d.   APPLICATION: Just as Isaiah’s family pointed beyond themselves to the Lord’s Word, we are called in our families also, by our lives, to be living witnesses of our Lord.

e.   8:19-22: ILLUSTRATION: Here is a strong allusion to King Saul. In a desperate state of fear, he went to a spiritist, the witch of Endor, to get answers because the Lord had left him. Ahaz is like Saul, in shaking fear and reaching the wrong direction for answers. Like Saul, Ahaz needed to repent, but it was the last thing Ahaz was interested in. He had rejected the Lord, and the only powers he had to access were illegitimate powers.

f.    A Godly fear of the Lord brings a sense of security. Failure to fear God condemns men to panic when disasters come. As they desperately search for help, they have a fearful gloom. How ironic that those who reject God typically end up blaming and cursing Him for their fate (8:21).

g.   ILLUSTRATION: Instead of the God of Life who would one day rise from the dead, these people consult the dead.

h.   APPLICATION: Our children are doing the same thing. Many young people who see no power in the Church, no genuine spiritual life in the people where they went to church, have turned in desperation to Wicca, European witchcraft.

i.    Others of us turn to another form of witchcraft – manipulation. We want to control the situation. We do not want to submit ourselves to anything. We want to make sure the board meeting or the contract or the committee meeting goes our way. We want to get on the phone and put things in people’s heads to turn them the way we want them to think so that they will do what we want them to do. Perhaps a little intimidation. Perhaps a little innuendo that leaves a question in the air. It’s all done to have control and have things happen the way we want them to. The opposite of submission is rebellion. Rebellion often plays out as manipulation. Samuel told Saul in 1 Samuel 15 that rebellion was as the sin of witchcraft.

j.    Are you a controller? Do you manipulate others? Do you manipulate your spouse? Do you maneuver your grown children to control them? Do you insert yourself where you have no business? Do you have the arrogance to think that you know better than anyone else, including the Lord what is best? Arrogance, Samuel told Saul, is like the evil of idolatry. Wonder who your idol is? Do you worship your own opinions as unquestionably the best ones all the time? Are you your own idol? Perhaps repentance is in order for you.

3.   PUT YOUR HOPE IN THE PRINCE OF PEACE (Isaiah 9:1-21)

a.   9:1-2: A Great Light – Isaiah speaks to the most northern parts of Israel which saw the scourge of the Assyrian army first in their invasion. Isaiah promises that those territories, now walking in darkness, will be the first to see a great light. Matthew 4:15-16 interprets for us what is meant, saying Christ fulfilled this prophecy. Galilee would be the home and ministry center of the Lord Jesus. Every time an OT prophecy is fulfilled, it is fulfilled literally, not spiritually.

b.   9:6: A Child Born, A Son Given: This prophetic reference to Jesus illustrates his two natures in one being. The Messiah is a child born, yet also a Son who is given. Jesus came into the world as an infant through the womb of a virgin, but he had existed from eternity as God the Son whom the Father gave to us as a sacrifice.

c.   9:6-7: Justice and righteousness – The prophecy opens with a promise that Zion will be redeemed in justice and righteousness (1:27). The Song of the Vineyard in ch. 5 ends with a vain search for justice and righteousness (5:7) though the Lord of hosts will be exalted in justice and righteousness (5:16). From Isaiah 1-12, this word pair is only found one other time, at 9:6-7 as the foundation of the eternal kingdom ruled by the divine Son. Only through this king will God be pleased with what he finds in his vineyard.

d.   APPLICATION: 9:6-7: This individual must be more than just human. He must be human, but more that that, he must be divine to fulfill these qualifications. This is an explanation of the child of 7:14.

e.   9:8-21: From the reign of the Messiah the text shifts now to the destruction of northern Israel. What’s the connection? Jesus reign is marked by universal allegiance to him as God. Northern Israel’s history was marked from the tragic beginning by rebellion against him. Note the refrain (9:12, 17, 21).

f.    APPLICATION: Those who will not submit to the Lord will surely experience not the blessing of messianic times, but the havoc and ruination that crushed Israel.

Invitation: