Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

May 21, 2023

Scripture Reading: Luke 13:6-9

Christianity is not a religion with no disagreements.  It is full of them.  Here are some examples. 

There are churches that teach that:

• The earth is flat,
• The universe is only 6,000 years old,
• There were no giants on the earth; Goliath was only seven or eight feet tall,
• There were dinosaurs on the earth, but there are churches that don’t know exactly when they were on the earth,
• Noah’s flood was world-wide; the earth’s population was reduced to eight people 4500 years ago,
• The entire population of the world lived in the land of Shinar and spoke only one language about 4300 years ago,
• All creatures of the earth are created equal,

Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

May 7, 2023

Scripture Reading:  Genesis 8:11:

“And the dove [bird] came in to him [flew back to Noah who was still in the ark] in the evening; and, lo, in her [the bird’s] mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off [from the live olive tree]: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.”

If the waters covered all the earth, higher than the tallest mountain, wouldn’t the oceans cover all the different kinds of trees, including the olive tree, in most instances by many miles?  Wouldn’t the flood destroy all vegetation with its salt derived from the oceans?  So, how could the dove, fly from the ark and retrieve a live olive leaf shortly after the flood, if all the trees and all the vegetation had been destroyed for over a year?

Genesis 7:4: “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.”

According to this mistranslation, does it mean that the flood was world-wide?  That there were no giants, no evil seed line and no one else left alive on the earth?  That there were only eight people, of the same race, on the earth just 4500 years ago?

Daniel

by Jim Jester

April 23, 2023

SCRIPTURE READING: Daniel 5:10-12

Daniel is said to have descended from the royal family of David, a true Israelite. He was carried into the Babylonian captivity when he was very young, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim of Judah, in 605 BC.

The ten northern tribes had long been taken away in the Assyrian captivity, never to return to the land of Israel as a whole. The siege of Judah by the Chaldeans covered many years. While King Jehoiakim had been captured, the city of Jerusalem with subsequent kings remained until the final assault by the Chaldeans in 586 BC.

Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon (the Chaldeans) and did not know the God of the Israelites. Through the events described in the book of Daniel, the king came to “praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven.”

It is fully established that it was Israelites (not jews) who were captives of the Chaldeans in Babylon

Jeroboam

by Garry Maddux

April 16, 2023

Opening Scripture Psalm 49:12-20

Like today the modern Israelites are under punishment again. We have also followed the ways of Jeroboam.

After the death of Solomon, the 12 tribes were split (Judah, and Benjamin), and the other 10 northern tribes were. Jerusalem was the capital of Judah and Sechem was the capital of the northern tribes. Jeroboam was made King of the Northern 10 tribes while Rehoboam was the king of Judah.

The story of how Jeroboam came to power...

Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

April 2, 2023

Scripture Reading:  Romans 7:4

Who was the Apostle Paul’s brethren?  Paul said in the Holy Scriptures that he was of the tribe of Benjamin of the kingdom of Judah/Israel (Philippians 3:6).  So, his brethren would be those of the tribes of Israel.  He also predicted that his brethren would become dead to the marriage law and would be remarried to the resurrected Christ. This cannot be applied to anyone else besides Israel, for they were the ones that were married to Him previously.  One can only be REmarried if they had been married once before.

by Pastor Jim Jester

March 19, 2023

SCRIPTURE READING: Isaiah 53:1-8

Every year on Good Friday, or Passover, Christians take time to meditate on Jesus’ sacrifice for us in a humiliating and torturous death by crucifixion. It’s a time to dwell on what our Lord suffered for us, in all its pain and intensity, without rushing straight ahead to the good news of resurrection and new life.

The seven last statements of Jesus Christ from the cross reveal much about our Savior’s personality. The first two words reveal his deity; the remaining five reveal his humanity. One of the ways Christians have traditionally meditated on the events of this day is by reading and reflecting on the seven last words of Jesus from the cross.

A person who anticipates being crucified does not prepare a speech for the occasion. Even less so Jesus, who had advised His disciples: ”But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.” (Matt. 10:19-20)

So let us spend some time at the foot of the cross and listen to the precious words and try to understand their meaning. Perhaps they will reveal God to us more than the longer speeches of Jesus, which involved some preparation, whereas the words on the cross were spontaneous expressions of himself.

Copied from the sermon notes of Pastor Don Elmore

February 19, 2023

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 2:11-12

Dispensationalism is a very popular and widespread way of studying the Bible. But it only originated in the late 1500s with the pen of one of the Catholic Jesuits.  It was picked up two-and-a-half centuries later in the teachings of John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren in the United Kingdom and Ireland.  Then the doctrine was spread through the channels of:

• The writings and speeches of Darby and Americans James Inglis, James H. Brookes, Dwight L. Moody, Cyrus I. Scofield, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Harry A. Ironsides, Arno C. Gaebelein, J. R. Graves, Billy Graham, R. A. Torrey, Gary North, Pat Robertson, Renald Showers, D. J. Kennedy, R. C. Sproul, Arthur Pink, etc.
• A series of major prophecy conferences in the 1880s,
• The more than 100 Bible institutes founded in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century,
• Publication of the Scofield Reference Bible which was published in 1909.