Of the four speakers at this years conference (John MacAthur, Jerry Bridges, Randy Alcorn, and Helen Roseveare) the most beneficial for me was Jerry Bridges. His “Four Essentials for Finishing Well” were biblical and practical. His second point in that list: Daily appropriate the Gospel in your life, was one of those “Aha” moments; a principle you knew you ought to have known but didn’t. His illustration of the sexton used on a navy ship to make minor course corrections at sunrise and dusk helped to make very clear the essential need for a daily time with the Word of God that goes beyond mere “devotions.”

Helen Roseveare, a “retired” missionary to the Congo from Belfast, helped focus me on doing the “one thing” God has called all of us to do - and she showed from Scripture how God’s “one thing” is really “three one things.”

MacArthur, as always, was just excellent exposition and practical application of 2 Corinthians 4 during his two sessions. The word coming through him was convicting and encouraging, and the Q & A session with MacArthur and Piper, hosted by Crossway’s Justin Tayler, was a study in contrasts: Piper with his melancholy, almost depressed, personality and MacArthur with his Type-A, “I don’t have time to be depressed,” personality made it clear that one’s spirituality doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with one’s moods! Both MacArthur and Piper are deeply spiritually disciplined men, yet neither approach the ministry and its burdens in quite the same way.

Each sessions time of praise and worship has been outstanding! At least 45 minutes at the beginning of each session of worship led by Bethlehem’s worship team. It has been God-honoring and Word saturated and I wonder why the worship at my own church comes no where near it. I know the answer - it’s the hearts of people and not the programming of the worship that make all the difference. You have to want God - really want God - to see Him on display in worship. You have to be willing to surrender - to let loose - and letting loose has never been at the top of the Baptist’s “To Do” list.

It’s Piper this morning and then off to the airport and home.

Never in a million years would I have thought I would find myself cheering on the New York Yankees. I am now. Read my previous post, Cleveland Rocks? , if you need to know why I hoping for a Yankees sweep in the ALDS.

I flew out of Detroit at 8:40 am today and after a brief layover in Chicago I am now settled in to my hotel room in Minneapolis. I am in Minneapolis for DesiringGOD’s National Conference which begins tonight at 7:15 pm CT.  John MacArthur is tonight’s speaker.

Sharing the same flight with me was Dr. Sam Storms, founder of Enjoying God Ministries and author of Signs of the Spirit as well as a previous guest on The Paul Edwards Program. We had never met until we shared the Super Shuttle ride from the airport to the Hilton where we are both staying during the conference. Turns out he was in Dallas for 13 years and a fan of the Texas Rangers, as was I when I pastored in Arlington. It made for a great non-theological conversation from the airport to the hotel!

Now it’s time to grab some dinner and then off to the conference. I’ll be posting updates throughout the conference.

About a month ago, when the Detroit Tigers trailed the Cleveland Indians by a game and half in the American League Central, I thought it would be a great experience to take my 14 year old son to one of the three games the Tigers would play in Cleveland in September as they battled for the division title. So on August 22 I bought two tickets for the Tigers/Indians game to be played at Jacobs Field on September 18. Who knew on August 22 that on September 18 the Tigers would trail the Indians by four and half games? The Tigers needed to win two out of three in Cleveland if they stood a chance at catching the Indians for the division.

I picked my son up from school on that Tuesday afternoon and we made the three hour trek from Detroit to Cleveland. It was a beautiful night in Cleveland when we made our way to our seats in Section 556 in the upper deck behind homeplate. The game was obviously a sell out and excitement - Cleveland Indians excitement - was in the air.

Seated to my left was a father with his young son. He was obviously a true baseball fan. He struck up a conversation with me. I told him we had just drove in from Detroit. We talked throughout the night about the strength and weaknesses of various players on each of the teams. When the Indians got a hit or scored, he cheered. When the Tigers got a hit or scored, I cheered. In between we were both just fans of the game, conversing about its fundamentals and enjoying the atmosphere.

The other 41,000 plus Indians fans, however, were not such baseball purists. The usual drunks around us were obnoxious as each Tiger player came to the plate. But those “fans” also showed their total ignorance throughout the night.

With the score tied at 1 in the second inning, the Tigers had 6 hits to the Indians one. The fans around us were saying things like, “Detroit really sucks,” and “Yeah, Detroit hasn’t been any good for years.” My 14 year old son pointed out to me that the score was TIED, the Tigers had five MORE hits than Cleveland and, oh by the way, Detroit was in the World Series just last year! Which team honestly sucked?

By the 7th inning stretch, with the Indians up 7-4, the entire stadium of 41,000 “fans” began loudly chanting “De - troit Sucks!” What was up until that point just the rantings of a couple of drunks became for me a real indication of just how far sportsmanship has eroded in our culture. 

I attended about 50 games at the Ballpark in Arlington when I lived there from 1997 - 99. I’ve attended about that many at Comerica Park since 2000. NEVER have I experienced the level of anomisity toward an opposing team like I did that Tuesday night in Cleveland. It’s one thing to root, root, root for the home team. What my son and I experienced was borderline psychotic hatred for the opposing team.

Why? Why was it necessary for 41,000 fans to expend such energy expressing their hatred for the Detroit Tigers - one of the best teams in baseball - rather than simply cheering on the home team? I think it’s because in our competitive culture it is no longer enough to win. Now the mob must swoop in for the kill like a pack of hungry wolves, emotionally devouring the perceived enemy.

My entire attitude about the City of Cleveland has changed. I actually had thought at one time in my life I might like to live in that city, broadcast The Paul Edwards Program from there, and join Parkside Church where Alistair Begg pastors.

Not now. Not ever. Walking out of Jacobs Field during the 7th Inning Stretch that night, I was never prouder to be from Michigan, never prouder to be a Detroiter, and never prouder of the team that was losing that night with grace and dignity in front of 41,000 of the worst examples of Baseball “fans” I have ever seen. The City of Cleveland owes Jim Leyland and his Detroit Tigers an apology. Don’t hold your breath - unless you happen to be driving through Cleveland.

At the risk of giving away 75% of my show prep sources, these are the five blogs I visit every day without fail:

1. EvangelicalOutpost.com
2. HughHewitt.com
3. RealClearPolitics.com
4. AlbertMohler.com
5. DesiringGOD.org/blog

That Monday is widely considered to be the first day of the week - and Sunday the last - is confirmation of the triumph of the secular over the sacred. That most people dread Monday is confirmation of the seculars’ inability to do for the soul what the sacred does.

God designed that we begin our week in repose - in a state of rest, silence, and quiet - with our minds focused on Him as the source of every good and perfect gift. To take God seriously when He says, “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy,” is to resign yourself utterly and completely to dependence on Him. No productive labor is to take place on that day, and yet the One who commands us to cease from labor is the One who created us to produce. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the command for man to produce and to reproduce comes prior to man’s fall in the Garden, not after. Work - productive labor - is not a curse. Dreading it is.

Yet because God created man in His own image, man works just as God worked. Yet God is not dependent upon that which He creates as is man. We depend upon what we produce to sustain our lives (as any economist will tell you). And so to keep us from becoming too dependent upon that which we produce, God asks us to stop producing for a 24 hour period each week, partly I think to prove our dependence upon Him and not upon that which  our hands can produce, and partly to keep us from killing ourselves. Your local cemetery is filled with the corpses of CEOs, managers, sales professionals, housewives, and ministers who ignored the Sabbath command.

The fact that we have honored Monday by moving it to the first day of the week, at least in our minds and attitudes, indicates the value we place on our own labor as a priority. The actual first day of the week, however, is the one on which our Savior was raised from his own Sabbath rest of sorts, having three days earlier finished the work His Father sent Him to accomplish. It is this same first day of the week we honor as the Christian Sabbath. What does it say about our faith that Monday is more important to us than Sunday? After all, the same sniffles that keep you out of the pew on Sunday would never keep you out of the plant, or office, on Monday!

What difference would it make to your week if you began looking at Sunday as the first day of the week rather than the last, and Monday as the second day of the week rather than the first? Rather than viewing Sunday as the finish line - a goal to be worked toward all week - we view Sunday as God intended: as the starting line, with everything that follows in the secular rat race that begins on Monday following from and being shaped by the way in which we honor God by remembering to keep His Sabbath holy. 

At the end of Creation week God not only rested, He also reflected. How much of the curse of dreading the beginning of another work week might be lifted if I used the Sabbath in the way God did: to pause and to look back on all of my productive labor the previous week and pronounce it, “Good”? How much more might I anticipate the opportunity to be productive in the coming week if in dependence upon God I simply paused on the Sabbath to value the productive quality of the previous week, and by virtue of my rest – my ceasing – express my total dependence on God to sustain me, not only on the Sabbath, but every day?

Hugh Hewitt points us to a new web based ad from the Giuliani campaign. Given my own ire at the treatment General Petraeus received at the hands of the Democrats prior to, during, and following his testimony before the joint meeting of the House Armed Services Commitee and the House Foreign Affairs Committe, I point you to the ad below:

HT: Hugh Hewitt

The reactions from conservatives and the Christian community to comments made by comedian Kathy Griffin during her Emmy award acceptance (taped on September 8 and aired on E! Entertainment Television on September 14) have been swift and pointed. William Donohue of The Catholic League is leading the charge, characterizing Griffin’s speech as “obscene and blasphemous” and a “vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech.”  John Gibson of FOX News’ Big Story says Griffin “blasted Jesus.” Lauren Green, the religion correspondent for FOX News, says Griffin insulted “a man who preached love and acceptance.” What, exactly, did this comedian say that has the entire Christian community on the defensive?

A lot of people come up here and they thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn’t help me a bit. If it was up to Him Ceasar Millan would be up here with that damn dog. So all I can say is, “Suck it Jesus! This award is my god now!”

Kathy Griffin is well known for her vulgarity and her obscenity. There is a sense in which the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is commending her profanity by recognizing her with this award. To their credit the Academy edited  the offensive remarks when the Emmy’s were broadcast,  but why are we shocked that an atheist Hollywood actor would deny Jesus had anything to do with her talent, and would we really want her to give Jesus credit for such an act?

Christians would deny that Muhammad or Buddha or Confucius had anything to do with their talent. In doing so are we guilty of blaspheming another religion’s God, or are we just singularly committed to our own? Griffin’s comments are not blasphemous as much as they are creedal. When Kathy Griffin says, “Suck it Jesus! This award is my god now,” she is making a statement of faith, albeit a humanistic, atheistic one.

Without question Kathy Griffin was “taking the name of the Lord in vain.” But Griffin herself admits He isn’t her Lord. I would argue that some Hollywood actors who take the podium and thank Jesus for their award may also be guilty of taking the name of the Lord in vain - if it’s just mere words with no heart and no evident commitment to Jesus to back them up.  The name of Jesus doesn’t have to be used in a profane way to constitute a violation of the third commandment. It merely has to be used in an empty, meaningless way. We who live to honor Jesus are often guilty ourselves of taking the name of the Lord in vain in little and big ways every day. When, without thinking, we say things like, “Thank God,” or “Thank You, Jesus” in response to the minor successes we experience ( i.e., we got the copier unjammed or we finally succeeded in getting an internet connection), are we not also guilty of using Jesus’ name vainly?

Jesus words, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,” come to mind in relation to some celebrities who tip their hats to Jesus in the way Griffin refused to do. Of course Griffin carried it a step further by profanely challenging Jesus to “Suck it.” That certainly goes beyond a flippant use of Jesus’ name. Hers seem to be the words of a person who deep down knows she needs Someone besides herself to thank, and resents it.

Growing up in the independent Baptist tradition, and having served as a pastor in that tradition for nearly 25 years, I think qualifies me to suggest that Baptists - at least the variety I’m familiar with - have a less than serious attitude toward the Lord’s Supper. Most Baptist congregations - fearing the Sacrament will become a ritual and lose its meaning - observe the Table (or “Communion”) at least once per month, some once per quarter, and then in ways that appear more “tacked on” to the service rather than as an integral part of the worship.

At the church I pastor our own church leaders have begun taking a serious look at the why’s and wherefore’s of the Lord’s Table. We are examining what it means, both Scripturally and historically, and attempting to determine who should take the Lord’s Supper (young children who have made a profession of faith? visitors to the church who share faith in Christ but are not members of the church?), the significance of the elements as a means of grace and for the presence of Jesus, and whether or not the frequency of the Lord’s Table matters. I’m still working my way through this issue, but my heart tells me that the Lord’s Table should be observed at every main gathering of the church where the Word is also preached and expounded. The objections I hear to this have more to do with the trouble we would have to go to each week to prepare for the Table than they do with biblical reasoning. Rather than tack it on once a month in a way that seems more akin to punching a ticket than entering into genuine communion, the serious nature of the Lord’s Table requires a willingness to be inconvenienced by the preparations necessary to observe it on a weekly basis.

There are three views of the nature of the Table: the Roman Catholic view of transubtaniation which says the wafer and wine (juice) BECOME the body and blood of Jesus upon the blessing of the priest (Jesus IS the elements); the Lutheran view of constubstaniation which says that Jesus is present IN and THROUGH the elements, short of actually becoming the elements; and the view held by most Baptists, Assemblies of God, Presbyterians, and non-denominational churches that Jesus is present AT the Table, not in the elements or the elements themselves, but as the host who invites us to share WITH him at the Table. This last view is the one I would hold. John Piper gives four reasons why “This is My Body” does not mean that Jesus actual body and blood materializes in the elements.

Louis W. Accola, a former Lutheran pastor and now Pastor for Spiritual Formation and Pastoral Care at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Phoenix, AZ, has written a very pastoral approach to these questions in Given for You: Reflections on the Meaning of the Lord’s Supper. The book is short (96 pages) and contains study questions for group discussion at the end of each chapter. He re-energizes the Table with its original intended significance as a place of forgiveness, a place of remembering, a place for the receiving of grace, as a place of witness to the lost world, and as a place from which we can look forward to actually being in the presence of the Risen Lamb, eating and drinking with Him in His Kingdom.

In his appendix he offers Eleven Reflections on The Lord’s Supper which I reproduce here not because I necessarily agree with all of them, but because they are catalysts for my own thinking. I’m including only the points and not Dr. Accola’s extended explanation of each:

1. The Lord’s Supper is gospel, not law.
2. The Lord’s Supper is a sign.
3. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of renewal.
4. The Lord’s Supper is participation in the community of Jesus’ followers.
5. The Lord’s Supper is a memorial feast.
6. The Lord’s Supper is an act of confession.
7. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of repentance.
8. The Lord’s Supper is a sacarament of joy.
9. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of the continued Christian life.
10. The Lord’s Supper is the mode of Jesus’ body and blood.
11. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of hope.

The Washington Post and CNN are spinning the planned transition of Basra, Iraq from British control to Iraqi control as a “pull-out” in the face of their failure to deal with an increased militia presence there. Again, an illustration that the media wants it both ways. They insist Iraq must take more responsibility for its own security and when it does they paint it as a failure of the coalition forces to maintain security!

Hugh Hewitt spoke last week with Major General James E. Simmons, Deputy Commanding General for Support of Multi-National Forces in Iraq. Here’s part of his interview: 

HH: Now there were reports out of Basra a couple of weeks ago that after the Brits have withdrawn that the radicals had taken control of the city. Are those reports accurate?

JS: They are not accurate, and that is a fabrication at best. This was a planned turnover of the Palace and the PJCC to Iraqi control, to the Iraqi legitimate government forces. It was done to standard with, and to well-trained, well-equipped Iraqi Security Forces. There were some peaceful demonstrations that were celebratory in nature, but at no time was any Coalition forces threatened, and the local Iraqi officials under General Mohan, kept a good handle on the situation in Basra.

HH: So what is the situation then in Basra, because that Washington Post story made it sound like the Wild West without the saloons.

JS: It was a demonstration of OMS, or Shia people there that were celebrating, to the best of my knowledge, the return of an Iraqi landmark to the Iraqi government.