2012 Sermons

by Pastor Mark Downey

August 13, 2012

Scripture Reading:  Psalms 4:1-8

As you may have noticed, we are not looking at ordinary light, we looking at biblical light.  We first started in Genesis and are going straight through the Scriptures to expand our understanding of this subject as it dovetails with the concept of baptism.  I do not mean the denominational ritual of full body immersion in water that corresponds to the practices of ancient pagan cults.  I do mean the baptism or full mentality of immersing ourselves in the Word of God as it relates to the shining light of glory.  It does not rain on a bright sunny day and neither does the darkness of evil prevail when there is a shining light of God. 

In recent years, bottled water with fancy names has become very popular because of apprehensions about tap water containing contaminants.  I was watching this gag survey on TV where they devised all these exotic names of bottled water and filled these exotic-shaped bottles with water from a garden hose, and asked people in a ritzy restaurant for their opinions.  The results were hilarious; going from one fake label of water to the next.  I mention this anecdote because, by the same token, the church doctrine of a type of dunking baptism goes way beyond what the Bible teaches about water and baptism.

The Bible indeed speaks of water baptism, quoting John the Baptist, "I baptize you with water unto repentance" (Mt. 3:11).  John was baptizing with water, but the baptism by water was a baptism of repentance… not water.  It was for the remission of sins, not getting completely wet.  Water is symbolic of God's Word, as we read in Eph. 5:26, "The washing of water by the Word."  It is used to clean the spots and wrinkles that defile our lives.  The priestcraft would have you believe that the word ‘baptize’ means to immerse. But do we immerse ourselves in water or the Word of God?  If it is the Word, then we can proceed to repent, which means to change our lives from sin to righteousness.  It is the effect of turning to God and acknowledging our need to move from darkness into His marvelous light.  It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention and by the same token God has given our race the creative resources to obey the standards of righteousness in order to be blessed and to be a blessing to others; and that’s really the kind of Paradise I want to live in.  We need not be made to feel guilty for not going through the traditions and rituals of man.  When we open our eyes and ears to the shining light of glory, we have declared and confessed our need to be washed clean; a new creature in Christ. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of wet Christians who are still in the dark.  Why is this?

by Pastor Don Elmore

August 5, 2012

Scripture Reading:  Deuteronomy 7:1-4

What happened to America?  When we were young, things were a lot different:  no illegal drugs, no rock and roll music, no dirty movies, no sexual revolution, no massive unpayable debt problems, no locked doors in many of our neighborhoods, no open homosexuals on television and movies, no same-sex marriages, and our families were not being torn up by divorce, and our moms were staying home with their children, etc.  It didn’t just “happen.”

During the last half-century, someone stole our culture!  And they replaced it with a new and very different one in its place--a sleazy and decadent place in which we live today.  The story of “how” and “why” is one of the most important parts of our nation’s history—and practically almost no one knows the story.  And that is the way our enemies what it to be.

by Pastor Mark Downey

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 60:1-5

'The Shining' is the title of a weird novel and movie by jewish author Stephen King, but we're not interested in mystically demented literature or movies.  However, we're going to be looking at the fantastic, spectacular and wonderfully brilliant subject of biblical light.  Why?  Because the Scriptures have such a rich reference to not only literal light, but figurative light as well.

by Pastor Mark Downey

Light is God and His word dispels the darkness.  Darkness is ignorance of His word.

Part 1:  Definitions of light and examples of Old Testament light as metaphor and literal.  Different kinds of light explored in the book of Job.

Part 2: Where's there smoke, there's fire and where there's fire, there's light. But some people want to throw water on the shining of God's glory, as we learn more lessons from the Old Testament prophets. We examine the poetic books of Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and discuss how we live each day to the glory of God as a manifestation of the shining light of glory.

Part 3: Summing up the proposition that light, water, radiance, cleansing, repentance, baptism, purification, separation, glory and other revelations of biblical awareness all have a common denominator giving the Christian a direction towards finding the truth.

by Pastor Brian Jones

July 22, 2012

Available in audio only

Discussed in this audio:  Peace in church, peace in marriage and peace in your personal walk with God.

Scriptures include:  Psalms 29:11, James 3:13, Proverbs 6:16, John 13:34-35, Ephesians 5:20, Ephesians 6:1, Acts 5:29, Proverbs 21:9, I Peter 4:14, Galatians 5:15, Hebrews 12:6, I Corinthians 6:9, John 16:33, I Corinthians 5:9, Psalms 26:5-12, Phillipeans 2:1-4

by Pastor Don Elmore

July 15, 2012

Scripture Reading: Revelation 12:9-10

I will begin by quoting from a book written about Freemasons.  It tells a great deal about who is/was a Freemason and the deeds that they did or accomplished.  It also tells that symbols “play a key role in the world of Freemasonry.” 

I will begin by quoting what it says about some of the symbols of Freemasonry:

“All seeing eye:  a diffuse symbol that can be traced back to ancient Egyptian mythology, for Freemasons the eye in a triangle surrounded by radiating beams of light is a symbol for the ‘Great Architect of the Universe.’”

“Pillars:  the two pillars that adorn the entrance area of the meeting room in lodges refer to Jachin and Boaz, the pillars of the Temple of Solomon.  They are expression of justice and benevolence, and thus the cornerstones of humanity.”

“Light:  every Freemason is a ‘seeker of light,’ while those not yet initiated are wandering in the dark.  Light is thus the symbol of initiation.”

We will get a few quotes about their involvement in the American Revolution and the founding of this nation:

by Pastor Mark Downey

July 8, 2012

Scripture Reading: Mark 12:1-12

This is the final installment of ‘The Catholic Menace’ although the damning evidence could go on and on.  It makes one wonder with astonishment how anyone having the racial ability to hear the voice of Jesus Christ can follow a religion of “Fathers.”  “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven” Mt. 23:9.  Some children call their father “papa” and that’s not forbidden, but the papacy insisted upon calling their “bishop of bishops’ the Pope and a substructure of Father-Priests.  But the word "father" also denotes authority, eminence, superiority, a right to command, and a claim to holy reverence. In this sense it belongs eminently to God, and is not a right of men.   White Christians are equal coworkers in the vineyard of the Lord and only God has supreme authority.  Catholics have done much to consolidate church power, but very little to advance the Kingdom of God; Daniel prophesied of an antichrist kingdom that would “Change times and laws” (Daniel 7:25) and Bible scholars have identified this fourth beast as the Roman Catholic Church, that will “Speak great words against the Most High.”  Hey, Israel’s calendar is gone, but we got a catholic Christmas.

by Pastor Don Elmore

July 1, 2012

Scripture Reading:  Jeremiah 30:10-11

We are living in very changing and dangerous times.  The main law enforcer of our nation (Eric Holder) was found to be in contempt of Congress and the Supreme (?) Court of the United States ruled that Obamacare is a tax and therefore is constitutional by a vote of 5-4.  Remember that the Secretary of the Treasury owed the I.R.S. $31,000 that he had to pay before he could take up that office.  Does anyone still believe that the Constitution of the United States is divine?

A lot of the western United States is burning up with uncontrollable fires and the northern part of Florida is under flood conditions.  About 2/3 of the United States is having temperatures between 95-108 degrees.  June was LGBT month in the United States.  In Israeli, they crowned their first “Miss Holocaust Survivor.” I don’t know how they got any contestants if it was a genocide camp as they claim.  I think that our God is judging America and the rest of the Israel nations. 

We will go back in time and study a time in history where we can gain some strength.  We will go back almost 3,000 years when those who were Israel were living in just about as bad a situation as we are today.  And it was when the LORD God asked Jeremiah a question that he answered with an emphatic No!

by Pastor Don Elmore

June 24, 2012

Scripture Reading: Acts 12:1-4

We have been blessed to have some of the best preachers in the world come to our church; Pastor Everett Ramsey, the late Arnold Kennedy, Pastor Ken Kemble, Brian Jones, and William Finck are  some of the many examples of men who have visited with us.  These men are men whom God has given the ability to search the Scriptures and to tell what they have been taught; no matter what the people think about it.  I don’t mean this negatively, but they put out what they know and leave it up to the people to believe in it on their own time.  They know that it is our GOD that gives the increase.  This message will expand on one of the topics that these men believed and taught. 

There are two major errors in misunderstanding or misinterpreting the meaning in Scripture:

1.  Not understanding the context of the message,
2.  Mistranslation of the word or words.

by Pastor Mark Downey

June 17, 2012

Scripture Reading: Matthew 23:24-28

As an artist, it is not difficult to appreciate Michelangelo’s monumental masterpiece in the Sistine Chapel.  It is no secret that Michelangelo’s relationship with the RCC became strained. The artist was a simple man, but he grew to detest the opulence and corruption of the Church. In two places in the masterpiece, Michelangelo left self portraits, both of them depicting himself in torture. He gave his own face to Saint Bartholomew’s body martyred by being skinned alive.  Michelangelo was a devout person, but later in life he developed a belief in Spiritualism (not to be confused with spiritism), for which he was condemned by Pope Paul IV. The fundamental tenet of Spiritualism is that the path to God can be found not exclusively through the Church, but through direct communication with God. Pope Paul IV interpreted Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel 20 years after completing the ceiling, as defaming the church by suggesting that Jesus and those around him communicated with God directly without need of Church. 

Likewise, Jesus showed great courage in identifying the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees as whited sepulchers, a practice that lost the ceremonial import of Levitical defilement around places of unclean corpses and turned into beautification projects as if to honor the prophets to whom the Lord accused them of murdering.