26th DBFA Conference

This year’s Deaf Baptist Fellowship of America was hosted in Silver Spring, MD by Hampshire View Baptist Deaf Church. The conference was inspiring, filled with Biblical preaching and great fellowship. Some of the sermons are memorable! Preachers preached on various topics including lukewarmness, servant, depending on God for strength, discouragement, leadership, temptation of Christ, the Word of God as the Sword, revival, “I will build my Church”, encouragement, usage of the Internet, and family. I found myself to be touched by the Word of God that I made several decisions. The Lord is using the conference and fellow preachers to encourage me in the Lord. I thank God for DBFA that it provides an avenue for Deaf Independent Fundamentalist Baptist people to fellowship and encourage each other in the Word of God. I might will post pictures if pictures come out clear.

Wanting Nothing

As I mentioned in my last post, deer hitting my car was one of some situations where God is increasing our faith in Him even though I want to waver in my faith in God. Moving to Delavan to build a Deaf ministry and the coming of first son/daughter caused us to look up to God even more than ever. My wife and I have experienced the faithfulness of God while we were in college, being poor. God had provided us with a 4 years education at Bob Jones University which we are still paying off the loans. Since we got married, we did not really need to “depend” on God because we both have jobs. However, God is leading us to pull up roots from Chicago area to Delavan, WI. We knew that it would be a drastic change in our finances moving right after our first baby’s birth. Different situations that we have experienced this year always bring James chapter 1 to my mind making me plead God for more wisdom and more faith in Him. I’m going to quote verses from James and make comments.

Jam 1:1-8

(1) James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

(2) My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

This verse is very strange once you think about it. The verse said that we should consider the situation to bring joy to us once we are tested by God. I don’t think it means we should say “Praise the Lord” every time bad situation happens. But through the situation, we consider that it’s God’s plan and should be excited to see what God leads us after this situation.

(3) Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

“Patience” – I like the word “endurance” better as shown in modern translations. The testing of our faith cause us to be more enduring for present and for the future. Isaiah said “For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed” (Isaiah 50:7).  

(4) But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

“Perfect work” gives the idea of letting your endurance to mature because you can be fully matured and complete in God, desiring nothing other than what God provides.

(5) If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

(6) But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

(7) For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

(8) A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Different situations will show that you really don’t have enough wisdom from God to deal with situations. Instead of backing off (like many do), ASK God who gives freely (“liberally”) to all men without scolding (“upbraideth not”). However as verse 6 says, ASK in FAITH without doubting (“wavering”). Because the man who asks in doubt is double-minded as shown in verse 8 who is not stable/decisive in his spiritual life as opposed to being enduring which causes maturity in your faith. ASK in faith for wisdom/guidance to deal with your trials.  

Deer in the Lights!

My wife and I were in Delavan, Wis. last weekend. We have had a great weekend of visiting and follow up of people who have attended the church in Delavan so far. We also developed a Discipleship lesson reviewing plan of salvation to make sure that person actually understood the aspects of salvation. The person affirmed that she understood and indeed got saved on May 17th the night of Deaf tent crusade in Elkhorn. Praise the Lord! The church had 12 in attendance for Deaf Sunday school class with 10 Deaf and 2 Hearing. Taught on Matthew 14 about feeding 5,000 people. Explained that Christ would fully satisfy your needs spiritually and physically. That lesson is exactly what we will need to realize that night!

After a great ice cream fellowship with my good friend at Dairy Queen, we drove the route 12 to our home. Around 10:30 PM, our car hit a deer in its head. The deer only damaged our car’s right mirror and handles, and scratched the paint in some places. We were so relieved there wasn’t too much damage to the car. However, we discovered more damage Tuesday. The passenger’s window got shattered. Guess must be a delayed reaction to the deer’s hit.

But the weekend was very awesome and encouraging to us to see God working in these people’s hearts. Will add another post to elaborate more about the deer situation and how it impacted us.

Deaf Baptist Fellowship of America

I have to share a BIG praise! We thought we wouldn't be able to attend this year's Deaf Baptist Fellowship of America at Silver Springs, MD because of financial reasons. I have prayed that if God wants us to go, He will be providing finances. Indeed, God did provide us with finances that were beyond what we expected! To Him be the glory now and forever! Also a couple graciously invited us to stay at their residence in MD. I am looking forward to attending this year's DBFA and am desiring to see what God is and can do in different Deaf churches and ministries all over America.

I am considering posting different preachers' sermons on this blog. But no promises since we might will be busy exploring the Washington, D.C. area anyway! I am praying that this year's conference would bring unity and same mind set among different Deaf churches and ministries. I am hoping that this conference would be benefitical for young Deaf preachers who are the future of DBFA.

Off-Tracked Teachers

In my last post, I discussed about Paul charging Timothy to challenge others not to teach different doctrines and that goal of the challenge is love that is matured for God and for others because of having pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith.In the next 2 verses (1 Timothy 1:6-7), Paul spoke about the off-tracked teachers that are swerved away from the charge of verse 5.

Imagine a Metra (Chicago version of Amtrak service between Boston and Washington, D.C.) zooming down the tracks then all of sudden a guy, who worked with the levers that change tracks for a train, decided that the train isn't supposed to go that way. The guy pulled a lever that caused the train to swerve to other track causing confusion for the train engineer, conductors, and customers. The train that was swerved cause many schedules to be flushed in the toilet to borrow a Hearing English idiom.

The teachers, who doesn't practice sound doctrine as in challenging people to mature in love from having a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith, have swerved themselves from the charge and wandered themselves into vain janglings (discussions). Janglings is a word I imagine a puppet who kept on talking but its without a voice.

These people also desired to be the teachers of the "law" (verse 6 and 7). But Paul said that they do not understand what in the world they are saying and do not understand the things about which they proclaimed that they know about!

I can recall a handful of people who are exactly like that. They tend to discuss in different Deaf churches/ministries about insignificiant things like tithing, which versionis right, clothes, criticizing others, and pastor's mistakes, causing unnecessary tensions.

There was a guy who used to attend a church where I attended. The guy ALWAYS came up to me and argue with me about these things I mentioned above just because I graduated from Bob Jones University. He mentioned that he want to "reform" my mind to his truths. He said he should be a teacher. He spend countless hours surfing the Net looking for more things to criticize. But, sadly, I asked him one time if he has read the Word of God once in the previous two weeks. He could not answer the question. As of right now, he doesn't attend the church and is cooped up in his apartment alone with his computer. I still pray whenever I think of him that he can come to the church with a great attitude of a matured love that was from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.

The verses challenged me to have a sound/healthy doctrine and view of the Scriptures, desiring to be a teacher of the "Word."

Next posting will cover 1 Timothy 1:8 to 11.

Aim of our Charge

I am trying to re-memorize 1 Timothy again. I did memorize almost to chapter 4 but never got around to memorize the whole epistle. I am trying to review chapters 1 to 3 then move on to memorize chapters 4 thru 6. Hopefully I will be able to memorize entire 1 Timothy.

I have always found 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy to challenge me as a minister to Christ's church to have a pure life, pure mind, pure motives, and pure preaching of the Word. For this post, I will focus on the first 5 verses of 1 Timothy.

First two verses already show that Jesus Christ is equal with God. And that Jesus is God Himself. Notice two "and"s in the first two verses connecting God and Christ Jesus. In Greek language, "and" ("kai" in Greek) can show parallel, connection, and sameness. For these verses, "and" shows the sameness between God and Christ Jesus. Paul tends to exalt Jesus Christ as God Himself (i.e. Colossians 1).

Paul then informed Timothy the reason he urged Timothy (which Timothy did comply) to stay at Ephesus. The reason is that Timothy may challenge certain persons at Ephesus not to teach any different doctrines and not to devote themselves to myths (possible early signs of Gnosticism) and genealogies (which is very popular with the Jewish people). Why these people should not devote themselves to these things? Because it leads to wild guessings and to more questionings rather than edifying people from the Word.

Then Paul gave the main thrust of the epistle to Timothy, "now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned" (KJV). The result of our charge in our sermons should be love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith! We should strive to encourage people to grow in pure heart (Psalm 24:3-5), good conscience (1 John 1:5-10), and real faith that bring forth good works (James 2:17-26). We should apply this verse to our lives first before encouraging believers to grow in these areas. Interesting that result of growing in these 3 areas is having love. Many Evangelicals say "love, love, love, love" is very important while many Fundamentalists say "holy, holy, holy, holy" is very important. This verse debunks both of these. If we want to have a true love, we must grow in pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. There must be balance between love and holiness in our lives.