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Baptist Message

"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

FIRST PERSON: How to stay at one church for 32 years

By Louis Husser ROBERT, La. (LBM) -- On a dreary Sunday morning in January 1992, my family and I drove from our home in Picayune, Mississippi, to the little town of Robert, Louisiana. I had been asked to preach in view of a call to be the senior pastor of what was then known as First Missionary Baptist Church of Robert (and later became Crossgate First Baptist Church). I told my wife, “If the church does three specific things we will not be coming back.” In all honesty I am not sure why I accepted the invitation to interview for this position. I was formerly a senior pastor and the experience, to say the least, had been tumultuous and not one that I wished to repeat. On our drive home, we laughed as we discussed the three “forbidden things,” as the church did all three and that I had accepted their invitation to return the very next Sunday! I wanted to build men. My heart burned to teach the word by example and to allow God to work through my human efforts to change the lives of families by building strong men to be the spiritual leaders of those families. The only way I knew to accomplish this was to be in a leadership role as the senior pastor. My confirmation of this call occurred that day at that little church in … [Read more...]

Back-to-school praying

By Steve Horn ALEXANDRIA, La. - Since I was four years old, this time of the year has meant “Back to School.” I have either been in school, Linett’s been teaching school, I’ve been teaching, or our boys have been in school. Many years, more than one of us were involved in school at some level. We’re still “going back to school” with Dru. This is a time ripe for prayer. Let me encourage us to be praying about all things “back to school.” Pray for our teachers — What a mission field they have! Pray for our students — Pray for their physical safety and spiritual safety. Pray for our Baptist College, Louisiana Christian University. Pray for our BCM’s — You know the importance of engaging new students and reengaging returning students in the early days of this new semester. Pray for our churches — Back to school time is prime time in the life of the local church. Ministries that have been put on pause for the summer are starting again. Pastors have been waiting to get through the summer to launch new ministries. Let’s pray for kingdom impact this fall. The Bible tells us to pray at all times and pray for all things. The “all things” right now is “back to school.” In a former community where I lived, a … [Read more...]

Holy boldness

In exile in the wilderness, King David prayed, “O Lord, hear me as I pray; pay attention to my groaning. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for I pray to no one but you. Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly” (Psalm 5:1–3 NLT). … [Read more...]

With God, there is hope for our nation

By Steve Horn ALEXANDRIA, La. - In 1928 one of our American submarines, S4, sank off the eastern coast on a dive after routine maintenance work. Divers made contact through Morse code. After initial exchange of how many on board, what is your condition etc., the divers received the message from those on board, “Is there any hope?” In the midst of the circumstances, what a penetrating question! Many are still asking that question today about America. Is there any hope? I am confident that there is hope, and I am confident that we find our hope in God. Our hope is not in Washington but in Heaven. Our hope is not in the Constitution but at Calvary. Our hope is not in more laws or less laws or better laws, but in a strict observance of the law of laws—God’s Holy Word. Our hope is not in the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, or any forthcoming party; our hope is in repentance, revival, and a spiritual awakening. Until we as believers understand these things, I’m afraid “There is no hope for America!” But there is always hope. I have heard before that our national anthem is among the most difficult songs to sing. Maybe that explains why we usually only sing one verse of The Star-Spangled Banner. Did … [Read more...]

Extravagant love

Some believers today are more interested in knowing how little they can give to God than how much they can give to Him. They want to know what is the least they can do and still technically be a Christian. How much can they get away with and still go to Heaven? … [Read more...]

How Mike and Kelly Johnson keep family first

Thanks to the mainstream media, the only thing most Americans know about Mike Johnson (R-La.) as a family man are the contrived controversies over a purity event he attended with his daughter, his covenant marriage with wife Kelly, and the “creepy” anti-porn software he installed to protect himself and his boys. … [Read more...]

My reflection on the ministry of Billy Graham

By Steve Horn “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” - 1 Corinthians 2:2 NIV ALEXANDRIA, La. - Today, in Washington, D.C., a statue of Billy Graham will be unveiled. My understanding is that the statue depicts Graham pointing toward an open Bible. John 3:16 and John 14:6 are inscribed on the statue. This inscription is appropriate for the evangelist who in his last public sermon preached: I have one message—that Jesus Christ came, He died on a cross, He rose again, and He asked us to repent of our sins and receive him by faith as Lord and Savior, and if we do, we have forgiveness of all our sins. My earliest memory of Billy Graham is watching his Crusades on television as a child with my mother. I would later in life learn that Billy and my mother shared November 7as a birthday. Indeed, he was the most famous preacher of my lifetime. The quality, however, that I admire most about Graham is that he never set out to be famous, just faithful. As I have reflected on Graham’s life, I note these characteristics. He was a man of integrity. Early in his ministry, he wrote out four principles to govern his ministry. He and his associates agreed together that they would secure … [Read more...]

Would Jesus preach “Critical Theory” today?

By Ron F. Hale “My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism,” declared  Karl Marx (1818-1883). If only he could have heard and heeded the poetic words of James Weldon Johnson: "Young man – Young man – Your arm’s too short to box with God." Marx was a mere mortal, foolish to think he could dethrone the Almighty, yet the cultural rot and toxic ideology being witnessed on many university campuses today--spring from the mind of this revolutionary. The Frankfurt School was founded in 1923, in Frankfurt Germany on the campus of Goethe University. After the rise of Hitler’s Nazism, even secular Marxian intellectuals of Jewish decent were not safe in Germany. The school folded with Dr. Max Horkheimer receiving an invitation and home on the campus Columbia University in New York City in 1934 and remained until 1950.  Sometimes called the “Horkheimer Circle,” these academics and social scientists, included men like T.W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, Geog Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamen. Critical Theory is synonymous with the Frankfort School. These men trained others to translate the ideology of Marxism from economic terms into practical cultural terms. This new revolution would not promote … [Read more...]