March 2019 – Page 5

Many of my sermons … OK – most of my sermons – have to do with repentance and salvation. A lot of pastors are accused of preaching a narrow cross-section of the Bible, and not the entire Bible. There are prosperity preachers, and doom-and-gloom preachers, and Old Testament-only preachers, and New Testament-only preachers, and preachers who never mention Satan, and preachers who don’t even use the Bible for their sermons. Some preachers scream to get their message across – while other preachers are soft-spoken. Some rely on bells and whistles to appeal to a younger crowd.

I consider the Reverend Billy Graham to be my TV Pastor. I met him while he was in his mid-90s – not in-person – but on television for the first time. I started watching 30-minute editions of his crusades from the late-1960s through the mid-1990s on TBN just a few years ago. I had never seen them before, but I’d been told that my sermons were very Billy Graham-like. Not knowing what to think I did some research, and I started checking him out. I concur. He was one of the greatest preachers of all-time. Millions were rescued and saved by our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ because of the Good News that Reverend Graham brought to the masses. I like his style, as he also preaches mostly about repentance and salvation.

Today our Lead Pastor Bob preached an amazing sermon on salvation using Luke 19:1-10 as the centerpiece of his sermon. I followed that up by leading our church body in Communion with Scripture on salvation from Acts 26:13-18. Neither one of us knew what the other would preach on today, but we flowed right in to each other. God’s Glory was at work today at Living Waters.

Next Sunday I’ll be preaching a full sermon. The title of my sermon is “Present & Future”, and it’s about repentance and salvation. See that’s my specialty. I can preach on repentance and salvation eternally. I have 12 years and 6 months (150 months) of first-hand experience in this area. I preach what I know.

Here’s an excerpt from my sermon for next Sunday:

The Bible says it’s getting late. Time is running out. Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost over. The day of salvation will soon be here. (Romans 13:11-12)

You see we were saved. Past-tense. Salvation began. For me it began during the 3RD week of August of 2006. Salvation continues. Present-tense. It’s ongoing. And salvation will come again. Future-tense. We will be saved when we are victorious over sin and death when Jesus – our Lord and Savior – returns in glory !

He is our Judge. On that day of judgment – He alone – our Judge – who gave the law – has the power to save and to destroy. Many will be destroyed. Some will be saved. I want to be saved again. I want each of you to be saved again. I want my whole family to be saved. I believe we will all be saved.

Every Friday night I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 10, 20, or 30 years ago (rotating each week). Here it is – for the week ending Sunday March 05TH 1989:

“I Beg Your Pardon” – Kon Kan
“You Got It (The Right Stuff)” – New Kids On The Block
“Straight Up” – Paula Abdul
“She Wants To Dance With Me” – Rick Astley
“The Lover In Me” – Sheena Easton

GREAT music there. A young 21½-year-old version of me was dancing day and night to the hottest hits in the land. You can’t get more “club in 1989” than Kon Kan’s “I Beg Your Pardon”. That song still sounds awesome today – 30 years later.

Back in the day my local Top 40 radio station -Y-100 (Miami Florida) – used to “daypart” where they would play “adult-friendly” mainstream pop music during the work day, and then at the top of the 3 o’clock hour right after station identification they would let loose with a song on the radical fringe. Think “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (Guns N’ Roses), “Bad Medicine” (Bon Jovi), “My Prerogative” (Bobby Brown), “It Takes Two” (Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock), and “I Beg Your Pardon” (Kon Kan). Once any of those “radical” songs came on – you knew that the work day was almost through, and it was time to party en Miami !

But that was then, and this is now. I’ll return to the “now” – which is so much more greater than the “then” – this Sunday with Scripture, and this Monday with the soundtrack of my life during this first weekend of March of 2019. I think I’ll have a new # 1 smash on the new chart. Enjoy your weekend my friends !