RECALL The maker of all human beings is recalling all units manufactured, regardless of make or year, due to the serious defect in the primary and central component of the heart. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named Adam and Eve, resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect has been technically termed, "Subsequential Internal Non-Morality", or more commonly known as S-I-N, as it is primarily symptomized by loss of moral judgment. Some other symptoms: a) Loss of direction b) Foul vocal emissions c) Amnesia of origin d) Lack of peace and joy e) Selfish, or violent, behavior f) Depression or confusion in the mental component g) Fearful The manufacturer, who is neither liable or at fault for this defect, is providing factory authorized repair and service, free of charge to correct this SIN defect. The number to call for the recall station in your area is: P-R-A-Y-E-R. Once connected, please upload your burden of SIN by pressing R-E-P-E-N-T-A-N-C-E. Next, download J-E-S-U-S into the heart. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, the JESUS repair will replace it with: a) Love b) Joy c) Peace d) Longsuffering e) Gentleness f) Goodness g) Faith h) Meekness i) Temperance Please see operating manual, HOLY BIBLE, for further details on the use of these fixes. WARNING: Continuing to operate the human unit without correction, voids the manufacturer's warranty, exposing owner to dangers and problems too numerous to list and will result in the human unit being permanently impounded. For free emergency service, call on J-E-S-U-S. DANGER: The human units not receiving this recall action will have to be scrapped in the furnace. This Action was Authorized by: The Creator.

Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the Gospel is to be dead. You don't have to be smart. You don't have to be good. You don't have to be wise. You don't have to be wonderful. You don't have to be anything...you just have to be dead. That's it.

behavior, belief, and belonging are three ways to categorize the elements of Christianity also deliverance, discipline, and diligence (taken too far they become passivity, presumption, and paranoia)

Christianity can be condensed into four words: admit, submit, commit, and transmit.

In the spring of 2002, I left work early so I could have some uninterrupted study time before my final exam in the Youth Ministry class at Hannibal-LaGrange College in Missouri. When I got to class, everybody was doing their last-minute studying. The teacher came in and said he would review with us before the test. Most of his review came right from the study guide, but there were some things he was reviewing that I had never heard. When questioned about it, he said they were in the book and we were responsible for everything in the book. We couldn't argue with that. Finally it was time to take the test. "Leave them face down on the desk until everyone has one, and I'll tell you to start," our professor, Dr. Tom Hufty, instructed. When we turned them over, to my astonishment every answer on the test was filled in. My name was even written on the exam in red ink. The bottom of the last page said: "This is the end of the exam. All the answers on your test are correct. You will receive an A on the final exam. The reason you passed the test is because the creator of the test took it for you. All the work you did in preparation for this test did not help you get the A. You have just experienced…grace." Dr. Hufty then went around the room and asked each student individually, "What is your grade? Do you deserve the grade you are receiving? How much did all your studying for this exam help you achieve your final grade?" Then he said, "Some things you learn from lectures, some things you learn from research, but some things you can only learn from experience. You've just experienced grace. One hundred years from now, if you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, your name will be written down in a book, and you will have had nothing to do with writing it there. That will be the ultimate grace experience."

Once upon a time, a poor widow sends her young son Hans into the village to fetch a simple meal, but along the way into town he discovers a lump of gold. Thrilled, he heads back home to show his mother his amazing good luck. But no sooner has he started back than he meets a knight, who persuades him to exchange the gold for the knight's steed. 'The better for plowing!' the knight assures the boy. "Then a farmer along the way explains that the widow can't eat a horse, so why not exchange the horse for the farmer's cow? After making this reasonable bargain, the boy continues home but then meets up with a neighbor with a goose under his arm. Of course the widow wants a meal today, says the neighbor, so why not exchange cow for goose? Done. Finally, nearly home, he meets up with a boy who tells him that if he exchanges the goose for a whetstone he can keep his knife sharpened for slaughtering any number of geese in the future. Done again. But when he gets home he notices this clumsy stone in his pocket and, puzzled at its presence, throws it away before crossing the threshold of his home, none the sadder and certainly none the wiser.

Did you hear the story of that important business executive who boarded the New-Orleans-to-Washington train? He was a heavy sleeper and he needed to be awakened in order to get off the train in Atlanta about five o'clock in the morning. He had a very important business engagement there so he found a porter and told him, "I want you to awaken me in order that I might get off the train at five o'clock in the morning. Now I'm a heavy sleeper," he said. "It doesn't matter how much I fret and fuss and fume or what I do to you — I have to get off the train in Atlanta. If you have to remove me bodily," he said, "you get me off that train in Atlanta." "Well, the next morning he awakened about 9 o'clock, having slept all night and having missed Atlanta, found that he was speeding toward Washington. He located the porter and really poured it on with all sorts of abusive language, almost attacking the poor guy bodily. After he left, someone said to the porter, "How could you stand there and take that kind of talk from that man?" The porter said, rather bewildered, 'That ain't nothin'! You should've heard that guy I put off in Atlanta!'" "Many of us not only fail to get off at the right station, we miss the train — and too many of us, I'm afraid, miss the train of the total gospel message. That's the reason we have to read the rest of the story — and we have to think about the walk from Emmaus."

Paul the Apostle goes into a synagogue in the diaspora. He's asked to speak to the congregation. He steps up onto the bimah and says: "I have some good news, and I have some bad news. Which would you like to hear first?" The head rabbi replies, "Good news and bad news? Tell us the bad news first. The good news will console us." Paul says, "Okay, here's the bad news. The messiah has come, but he's been killed." "What!" exclaims the rabbi. "That's terrible news! What could possibly be good news?" Replies Paul, "The good news is -- that's good news!"

Bad News, Timothy...

Paul refuses to circumcise Titus, even when it was demanded by many in the Jerusalem crowd, not because it didn’t matter to them, but because it mattered so much that if he acquiesced, he would have been giving the impression that faith in Jesus is not enough for salvation: one has to become a Jew first, before one can become a Christian. That would jeopardize the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus. To create a contemporary analogy: If I’m called to preach the gospel among a lot of people who are cultural teetotallers, I’ll give up alcohol for the sake of the gospel. But if they start saying, “You cannot be a Christian and drink alcohol,” I’ll reply, “Pass the port” or “I’ll think I’ll have a glass of Beaujolais with my meal.” Paul is flexible and therefore prepared to circumcise Timothy when the exclusive sufficiency of Christ is not at stake and when a little cultural accommodation will advance the gospel; he is rigidly inflexible and therefore refuses to circumcise Titus when people are saying that Gentiles must be circumcised and become Jews to accept the Jewish Messiah.

Self-Idolatry

If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.