Catching up

Hello all,

Things have been going well at New Testament. The Lord has blessed with visitors from time to time.

We had an enjoyable Father's Day on Jun 15.08 with a BBQ following the morning service. We are looking forward to a two day church campout in July at Shunda Lake. If you have an interest in attending the camp email myself for details. Pastor Charles Hollingsworth will be guiding all those interested in a Hike up Mount Coliseum. Pastor Hollingsworth will also be preaching some challenging messages from God's word during the two days. In addition to the Hike up Mount Coliseum there will be nature trails on the camp grounds that some may be interested in. There will also be fishing for any fishermen/fisherwomen among the group!

My family purchased a canoe a few weeks back and finally got a chance to put it on the water yesterday. We went to Lake Islet East of Sherwood Park. We saw pelicans, loons, dragon flies, leaches the size of small eels :( and much more.

We had a good day in church this morning with Pastor Coldwell preaching on prayer. One verse that stood out to me was 1Samuel 12:23 which reads "Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way:" I like that phrase where Samuel says that "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you." Sometimes as a Christians we wonder why we need to pray to the Lord about the needs of others as He knows the needs of everybody much more than we do. We don't really understand how prayer works but we know it is something God wants and we also know that "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." - James 5:16 We need to be diligent to bring each other in prayer before the Lord. Pastor Coldwell made the statement that if we are spending time in prayer for each other it will help keep the spirit of unity. If Christians are praying for eachother they won't be bickering with each other. One caveat exists to this rule, the prayers prayed must be done is good faith. These prayers shouldn't be those where we are looking down our nose at others praying that the Lord would straighten them out without taking thought to our own faults as Matthew 7 reminds us to do.

If you have never visited our church we would love to meet you.

Minister Medic

Daily in the Word

Hello all, our Good Friday fellowship in March went well with lots of good preaching.

We have started a new course called Daily in the Word on Wednesday nights. Our goal is to train and mentor our new believers in the way of the Lord and to train everyone how to disciple and train new believers.

We are excited to see what the Lord has done in our church so far and anticipating what the Lord will do in the future.

We are starting a series of Christian appologetics for our devotionals for Friday night youth night. We are looking at what makes up a Bible believing Christian. Our youth night is currently at 6:30 PM on Friday evening at the Winterburn elementary schoo gym. We play floor hockey followed by a devotional. Hockey sticks and other equipment are provided. While this activity is geared towards the youth we have several adults playing and welcome all who would like to join. Our floor hockey season comes to an end in mid May and will probably be replaced by outdoor soccer. Please call myself at 914.5016 to confirm that hockey is on before coming out for hockey as we have some weeks in which the gym is not accessible. We are very appreciative to the Winterburn elementary school for the use of the gym.

Take care,

Minister Medic

Whats happening at New Testament Baptist

Hello all,
Its been a little over a month since I wrote last.

We've done a lot of things as a family over this last little while and a lot of exciting things have happened at NTBC as well.

My family and I went on a little trip into the Seattle, WA area for a wedding making a stop at some friends on the way. It was a good trip overall but we did encounter many problems on the way (eg. Clara throwing up on the table at the wedding reception, car troubles 1500 km from home, myself coming down with the stomach flu, etc). Having said all that it was still a great trip.

I have been working hard between my job, studying for messages at NTBC and my Bible college correspondence course from Crown College, and trying to make family time. Emily has been a great help to me trying to assist wherever she can. We did, however, have a 2 week period where our whole family was sick with chest colds, stomach flues or both so that put a few things on hold. Now we are all doing great and things are getting back to normal.

At NTBC we are gearing up for our annual Welsh Memorial Good Friday Fellowship. It should prove to be a great day of preaching and fellowship.

We've really had some blessings in the last little while. James solidified his salvation at Chill-out and was baptized last Sunday. Donny and Crystal got saved last Sunday morning after Mrs.Coldwell went through the plan of salvation with them. Donny was baptized in the evening service after Pastor Coldwell was able to talk about salvation and baptism. Praise the Lord!!

We had a sound system donated to NTBC back in the fall but were unable to get it going as neither Pastor Coldwell or I know how to set up sounds boards, etc. A couple days ago a friend named Harry came and set it up for us. This will really be a blessing for some of the older folks that could use a little extra bit of wattage to hear the preaching :)

Well, I had better get going and get ready for church. Hope to see you out!

Minister Medic

Church Covenant Courses

Hello all,

Just a little reminder that we are having Church Covenant Courses again this Wednesday evening. Please try remember to bring your copy of the Covenant.

Its good to go over the Covenant and church constitution to make sure we are all on the same page and to reaffirm our beliefs.

I recommend that everyone make their best effort to be out for the service

Please be thinking about what prayer requests you should bring before the church. There are so many people to pray for. Its easy to forget about their needs and consequently forget to pray for them.

Take Care,

Minister Medic

Getting caught up

Hello all,

We had a great Christmas and New Years. We tried hard to keep Christ high during the holidays.

We really enjoyed the Christmas party that New Testament had over at the Vaals house. It was nice to have another chance to get to know eachother a little more in a social way.

We also enjoyed the New Years Service that was over at Victory. A number from New Testament went over and took in the service. Some went on the hay ride that was early in the afternoon. I was unable to go to the sleigh ride as I worked a little later.

This season was nicer than some in that we were a little more organized in having people over for dinner and going over to others for dinner. It was a time of renewing friendships.

Now that the holidays are done we are looking forward to turning our full attention to the ministry again. We have Hockey night starting back up on Friday night. We are looking forward to that and hope to see some from the community come out to that.

We hope that you had enjoyable holidays.

Take care,

Minister Medic

Chrismas Party - Dec. 14.07

Hello all,

Just a reminder to all the folks from New Testament Baptist about the Christmas party that will be at the Vaal's house on Dec. 14.07. It will be at 6:30pm.

We will have games (Pictionary, etc), a Chinese gift exchange, Christmas songs, a Christmas devotional and a Christmas story reading.

Feel free to invite your friends and family.

What to bring

1. A wrapped Christmas present worth approx. $10 for the Chinese gift exchange.

2. Some holiday snacks/appetizers/desert items.

If you have any questions email Greg at greg@newtestamentbaptist.ca

Minister Medic

Lack of knowledge

Hello all,

I have recently been meditating on Hosea 4:1 - 6. God talks about how His people have a lack of knowledge of Him in their land. He goes on to talk about the wickedness that is in the land and how His people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. We may think that the wickedness we are experiencing right now is all new, it really isn't.

I think the most disheartening part of this passage is not that the people have a lack of knowledge of God because we could remedy that by getting the gospel out there. The really saddening thing is where God says in verse 6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee..."

People don't want to have a knowledge of God. They are too busy for Him. This lack of a desire to have a knowledge of God is what is destroying our people today, just like it was back in Hosea's day.

If people have a desire to learn about God He will meet them wherever they are and reveal Himself to them. It doesn't matter if they are in the furthest, darkest corners of a rain forest. If they want to find Him He will be found. But, if people don't want to find Him He will hide himself from them and their destruction will be great.

Even though the majority of people in our country do not want to have a knowledge of God we still need to get it out there for those that do have a desire to learn and for any hardened hearts that God has been working on.

Must go. Have a good day.

Minister Medic

The ready Christian

Today I was reading about Ezra the "ready scribe". I was impressed with his attitude and doubly impressed with how the Lord blessed him for his attitude.

Ezra 7:6 says "This Ezra went up from Babylon; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given: and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of the LORD his God upon him"

Compare that verse with verse 10 of the same chapter.

Ezr 7:10 For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.

The blessings that Ezra received at the hand of God was in response to him being a ready scribe and because he "prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statues and judgements". The word "ready" in this context means "quick, skillful and diligent". Ezra was diligent as a scribe and had prepared his heart to seek the Lord.

Those that have trusted the Lord as their personal savior can only be really successful in the work of the Lord when they have a ready and diligent mind to study the Lord's Word and when they prepare their heart to serve Him.

Thats all for now.

Have a great day today,

Minister Medic

Monday Nov. 12.07

Hello all,

We had a great day in church yesterday. We had three new visitors come out to the services. We had a special prayer and moment of silence for the veterans.

Pastor Colwell and myself went out on visitation. Praise the Lord for the good weather! We met a few people that we would like to follow up on in the future.

Don't forget about the Church membership course that Pastor Coldwell is going to be starting the next Wednesday evening (Nov. 14,07). Basically this course is going to cover is "How can you benefit from the church and how can the church benefit from you".

Be sure to invite others out to Floor Hockey on Friday night. We have had a good season so far and with some good turnouts.

Take care,

Minister Medic

Remembrance Day

Hello all,

The church membership courses were postponed until Wed. Nov. 14.07 This course is sure to be a blessing to all.

Pastor Coldwell and I were privileged to be able to go to a church planting seminar put on by Earl Jessup at Victory Baptist Church. The methods that Brother Jessup uses are both Scriptural and practical. We are searching the Lord's will about using these methods in starting an Independent Baptist Church in St.Albert in the next couple years.

We are looking forward to the service tomorrow (Nov.11.07) We will be having a special Remembrance Day service. Lord willing we will be doing some door knocking in between services so if you are able to join in passing out John and Romans that would be much appreciated.

Take Care,

Minister Medic

Church memership courses

I just wanted to remind everyone that Pastor Coldwell is going to be starting a series of messages for the next 3 or 4 weeks on church membership. These start this next Wednesday Nov. 07,07.

These are courses that are valuable to those who are considering church membership and those who are already members. It is good to be reminded from time to time of the role of the church and our roles within it.

Please make every effort to make it out to these messages and then join us for prayer after the study.

Minister Medic

Sunday Nov.04,07

Hello all,

We had a great service yesterday at New Testament Baptist.

We had Jeremy and Amanda Johnson missionaries to South Africa in our Morning Worship Service. They presented the ministry that they believe that the Lord would have them do there. They highlighted the number of people in South Africa with HIV/Aids. One statistic is that one in three pregnant women are HIV positive. The average life expectancy is 43 years. The number of orphans in South Africa is in the neighborhood of 20% of the entire population. That is so unbelievably sad. On of the saddest things is that if the younger generations aren't brought up to learn about God they will follow in their parents footsteps and these problems with be perpetuated. We need to get the gospel out to these people.

Jeremy Johnson preached on the duty of every believer to reach their mission field and talked about some of the things that we allow to get in our way of witnessing to the lost.

In the afternoon we had some that went out on visitation, passing out John and Romans and trying to talk to people about the Lord. Lets pray that the Lord's Word will get into the hearts of some of the people in the Spruce Grove area.

We looked at Philippians 2:1 - 4 for the evening message. The main thrust of these verses is that Christians need to focus on each other and not on themselves. We need to attempt to work together in the ministry in unity. As humans we all have so many different ideas on which way a church should go but as Christians we need to focus on finding God's will for our church and doing these things in unity. We need to have one mind as Philippians 2:2 says.

Please pray for the Coldwells with their needs for utilities for their trailor. These utilities are coming but some of them could come sooner than later given the temperatures that we have right now and the temperatures that we are likely to have soon.

Please pray for the communities around us that the Lord will shed abroad the light of the gospel in the hearts of the people in these communities. So many people have blinded their eyes to the truth.

Remember that there is a missions conference on this week at Victory Baptist (www.victorybaptist.ws). I am planning on going Monday and Tuesday evening in addition to the seminar on Tuesday morning on church planting by Earl Jessup.

Don't forget about Floor Hockey at the Winterburn Elementary School Gym at 6:30pm on Friday evening. All ages are welcome.

Talk to you later.

Minister Medic

Catching up

I haven't been on this blog for some time. I thought I should write and share some of the highlights of our spring and summer.

Most reading my blog would probably already know that we had a second child on April 24,07 - Clara Catherine. She is now 6 months old and doing great.

Life is going well for us. We have had some large decisions to make this year. We believe that we successfully found God's will in these areas.

We are now members of New Testament Baptist Church. We were sent out of our old church, Victory Baptist Church to serve at New Testament. I am serving as the Assistant Pastor there. Our goal is to be there for upwards of 2 years. We have wondered if the Lord would have us start an Independent Baptist Church in St. Albert. I have personally have had a burden for that community for a number of years. The question is - are we the one's called to that town? In the interim period we want to be faithful and "give our best to the Master" at New Testament Baptist Church.

We are involved with the youth group at New Testament. We have floor hockey every Friday night during the school year. This is held at the Winterburn Elementary School Gym. We are very fortunate to have access to this gym right now as there are many sports teams that are struggling to have a place to practice.

We are also active in the neighborhoods around us door knocking and sharing the gospel. Please pray that the Lord will open the hearts of people that we come in contact with and that we might see some souls saved.

We are amazed at how the Lord has provided for our church. We had been planning to grade the field behind the church for a sports field. We had hoped to do it this year but thought that we weren't going to be able to do that as we had other needs that were more pressing. The Lord directed a developer to donate hundreds of dump truck loads of dirt to the church. This developer has also agreed to grade the land after the dirt is moved around.

The Lord also blessed with the donation of a comprehensive sound system that will help the seniors in our congregation hear much better. The Lord saw our need and met it - Praise His name!

Emily and I were blessed to be able to go to the National Pastors Conference hosted by Pembina Valley Baptist Church in Winkler, MB. in Sept of this year. As always, we heard some really good preaching and had our souls stirred for the Lord.

The list of blessings could go on and on but suffice it to say the Lord has been good to us.

Till next time.

Minister Medic

Prophesies of Christ and their fulfillment 2

Here is a second prophesy of Christ and its fulfillment

2.Christ is the promised Seed of Abraham.

Prophesy

Genesis 18:18 “Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

Fullfillment

Acts 3:25 “Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.”

Don't we have an awesome God? None of His prophesies have failed. We can trust Him to be true and faithful.

-MinisterMedic

Prophesies of Christ and their fulfillment

I am doing a study on the prophesies of Christ and their fulfillment. I thought I would share one of these promises with the corresponding fulfillment each day.

1. Jesus Would be the “Seed of a woman”

Prophesy
Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

Fulfillment
Gal. 4:4 :But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” (Luke 2:7, Rev. 12:5)

Stay tuned for more prophesies of Christ in the following days.

MinisterMedic

Bible Institute at Victory Baptist Church

Hello all, I just wanted to let you know that we have started posting Pastor Harness' Bible Institute on the web. We are putting it there for anyone to listen to but in particular for those that are in the course that are unable to attend a particular class. The address to these files is as follows. (You can either copy and paste this into your browser or click on the link "Bible Institute" under the links section.)

http://www.archive.org/details/BibleInstitute

Look for the grey box on the top right/center of the screen. Click on the desired file. This will stream the file to you. If you are on dialup or satellite you can go to the bottom of the site and download the file to your computer and listen to it offline.

If you have any questions let me know.

Greg

Seeing the Lord

Seeing the Lord



It appears that Moses' spiritual life isn't recorded prior to the event with the burning bush on Mount Horeb recorded in Exodus 3. The Lord supernaturally caused this bush to burn without it being consumed. It is interesting that after the Lord revealed himself verbally to Moses he was afraid to look at the Lord. Exodus 3:6 records God as saying "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God."

We know that no man ever has or ever will behold the full glory of God while in the flesh. John 1:18 says "No man hath seen God at any time". Moses knew that he could not look on God and survive. It is very likely that Moses' relationship with God was quite minimal at that time and that he had not spent much time communing with God or even at all. As you read Exodus 3 and 4 you see instances of serious doubt in Moses' mind. He even asks the Lord in Exodus 3:13 "Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?" He wasn't even sure what to call God. God answers him with simply but powerfully with "I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

It is intriguing to see that later in Moses' life, after he has seen the Lord work many mighty deeds, that he asks God in Exodus 33:18 "I beseech thee, shew me thy glory." Now he has come to the place where he knows God. He has a personal relationship with Him. God has told Moses that "I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight." It isn't that Moses is cocky now. No, he now appreciates God for who He is and craves His glory. We know that God grants him his request but protects him by only allowing him to see as much as his frail human body could handle by only showing him His hinder parts and by shielding him with His hand.

As we are in a different dispensation we don't expect God to deal with us the same way He did with Moses and the other patriarchs. We can, however, view God with our spiritual eyes. As we grow closer to the Lord we should desire to "see" his attributes more and more, and we won't fear what we will "see". II Corinthians 3:18 says "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." The previous verses in this passage speak of the vail that Moses had to put over his face after seeing the glory of God because the children of Israel were not able to look on him. Their eyes were (and still are) blinded, but we can look with "open face" upon His glory. Our lives will be so enriched when we view God as He really is, as we look for His goodness, His faithfulness, His Holiness, His longsuffering, His tenderness and many more such attributes. Take steps in your daily lives to behold the "glory of the Lord."

Minister Medic

Clean hands

Here is a devotional from Pastor Paul Chappel that I really liked and thought I would pass on. Too many people like to get too close to sin and think they will be okay.

CLEAN HANDS

“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”

2 Corinthians 6:17

One of Susannah Wesley’s daughters came to her one day wishing to do something which was not altogether bad but which was not right. When she told her daughter not to do it, her daughter was not convinced.

It was late and Susannah and her daughter were sitting beside a dead fire. Her mother said to her, “Pick up that bit of coal.” “I don’t want to,” said the girl. “Go on,” said her mother. “The fire is out, it won’t burn you.” “I know that,” said the girl. “I know it won’t burn me, but it will blacken my hands.” “Exactly,” said Susannah Wesley. “That thing which you wish to do won’t burn, but it will blacken. Leave it alone.”

The Bible tells us not to even touch the unclean thing. Even if we do not think it is so terribly wrong, we must understand that it will blacken our hands.

God wants us to live pure and holy lives. Is there something that is blackening your life? Give it to God and let Him cleanse you. If we wish for revival to come, we must each examine our own lives and make sure we are right with God.

Paul Chappel

April 9.06

Hello all,

I have been quite negligent of late with this blog but alas I am back.

I don't know about you folks but my life has been quite hectic as of late. We have been down a couple medics at my work due to sickness and injuries so I have worked a fair amount of overtime. At the same time my wife and I have been working on home renovations. We started what we thought was going to be a cheap (maybe $50) project of tiling the countertop in our bathroom. The people that had our house before us painted over a very 70's looking countertop but stains started coming through the countertop so we had to do something about it. After all the costs were factored in we were told that it would cost us about $200 to tile the countertop. We decided that was not the cheap fix we were looking for and instead bought a countertop for $72 and put that up. Now I just have to finish form fitting it to our mildly bumpy wall. We also put new taps, towel racks (x2), and toilet roll dispensor in. We painted the upper part of the wall a moss green and are putting up wainscotting which we are going to paint a cream color. We plan to put new lino down too. Anyway, enough about the renos.

Our little baby has a cold right now so she is fairly miserable which does have a trickle down effect to the rest of us but its not too bad.

Talk to you later,

MinisterMedic

Jan. 23.06 - Daily musings

Hello all, I hope you all had a great Sunday. Ours was enjoyable. We were in our own church this Sunday. We might be ministering next Sunday in the other church that I have mentioned in previous posts.

In my devotions today I came across a number of good verses. One of them was in Prov. 2:17 which talks about the strange woman.

It reads "Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forsaketh the covanent of her God.'

I am sure this is a familiar verse to many. It got my mind thinking. I am guessing that part or all of this covanent could be referring to chastity. God has commanded chastity many times throughout scripture. However I am curious to learn more about this covanent that Solomon is referring to. As you know, a covanent is something that is made between two or more parties. With God's covanents there is either a blessing or a curse to be had if one does or does not fulfill the covanent. Here are some more verses on the subject that refer to the covanent but that do not answer what the covanent precisely is.

Ezekiel 16:8, 59. 60 "[8]Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covanent with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. [59] For this saith the Lord God; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covanent. [60] Nevertheless I will remember my covanent with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covanent."

I realize that this is referring allegorically to the children of Israel but I think there is an application to individual people. So what exactly is this covanent? There is probably a scripture that does detail it. Secondly, is this covanent one that has to be agreed upon by both parties, namely God and us individually or is is one in which God has laid the ground rules and if we break it we are in breach of this covanent? If you have some insight and some scripture on the subject feel free to mention something under comments. Please note: I would appreciate it if all comments could be Bible based and not based on personal opinion.

Talk at you later.

- Minister Medic