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The Midst of the Debate

The Proverbs tell us, “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” This verse needs to always be handy when it comes to battles within the church. To take a stand on anything, means that there will be conflict. In the midst of that conflict, sparks will fly, just as iron sharpens irons, unless of course, you belong to one of the denominations in which heated discussions are looked down upon under the guise of improper decorum.

The doctrine of paedocommunion—the teaching that since children are members of the covenant through baptism, they should be and are admitted to the Lord’s supper—has become a hot-button issue recently. This is especially true since the PCA General Assembly ruled that those who hold to this doctrine can no longer take an exception to the Westminster Confession and be accepted as pastors. They declared that paedocommunion strikes at the vitals of the faith.

In conversations with those who fully agree with that decision, the reasoning offered is often the same as that given by Baptists for why they will not baptize their infants: “What if the child who partook grew up and left the faith? Then what?”

Baptists make the same argument when it comes to baptism, and both groups want a person to be able to make a credible profession of faith before being admitted to their particular sacrament.

The problem with this is that both groups are focusing on the subjective natures of the sacraments instead of the more important objective nature. The objective nature focuses on what God is doing, both in baptism and the LORD’s Supper. In other words, He is marking us as His own through baptism, and feeding us spiritually through the LORD’s Supper. It is His work. Not ours.

The subjective nature focuses on man. Whenever we do that, we are failing miserably.

At least the baptist are consistent in their views. The child cannot come to the table, until he has been baptized, and cannot be baptized, until he is makes a profession of faith. In Reform circles, we baptize and then divide the body up in two tiers, those who can come to the table and those who cannot. We divide the loaf. We divide the body of Christ. (The very thing Paul was warning the Corinthians agains).

Those who defend the PCA’s position will continue to bar the children of their congregations from the table. They are raising a bar that should not be raised. This is the same thing the Roman Catholics did before the Reformation. They only allowed clergy to partake. Both groups are making the same argument, with the difference being where they place the bar.

Jesus had something like this happen to Him during His earthly ministry.

13 Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” 15 And after laying His hands on them, He departed from there (Matthew 19:13-15 LSB).

Here we have the principle laid before us: Children are a part of the kingdom of heaven, therefore, being members of the visible church, and being baptized, they too are to come to the table and feast, knowing that the LORD is good.

Yet some cannot have this because they feel that a child must make a profession of faith. Why? Do they not believe in the baptism given? Can we not just trust the Spirit to move when and where He pleases? Must we erect a test for those who should not be tested at all? They were born into the covenant and should have all the privileges of the covenant. Yes, they should be taught and catechized. But let us trust the Lord to move in them in His timing. Otherwise, we are starving the very children who need nourishment.

This view fails to meet the pattern we are given in Scripture. The same arguments that all good Reformed Christians make in baptizing our children, are the same arguments that should be made in allowing them to come to the table. They are members of the covenant, therefore, they should dine at the table of their King. As He has told us, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

There is a lot more to be said, but this will have to suffice for now.

DIY: Side Bed

Here is the side bed from August 2022, when we bought the place. I really don’t understand why people have grass grow up to the house like this. Granted, they did plant a struggling rose bush, and I’m sure the tree popped up on its own, but alas, the rest looked liked they didn’t realize they had a yard.

This shall not be!

The new and improved side bed. It was, like everything else, 4 years in the making.

The only plants I would never plant again in Texas: hydrangeas. So difficult to keep them alive. In fact, having anything green in Texas means your water bill will be rather high.

The work was worth the effort.

DIY Curb Appeal: Four Years in the Making

It’s been four years since we bought our home, and now we are selling it. The entire time, I always tried to make improvements upon it because this was the corner where God gave me to take dominion.

As you can see, the previous owners were not that concerned with the front flower bed, or… anywhere else when it came to the yard. You can see that in the brown grass.

Here is a broader view.

I don’t quite have the same angle as the ones above, but you can see the entire yard. Not a brown patch in it, and the front bed is much more lush.

I think you can see the front bed more clearly, along with the row of canna indica, or Indian Shot by it’s common name. I got that from my sister’s ranch. She had a ton of roots in garbage bags, and was giving it away. Since it came from our father’s house in Houston, it has sentimental value. Plus, it grows like crazy in the summer, and will take over everything if you let it.

You can also see a bunch of it against the house. There is also a lot of ferns growing there, a crape myrtle, and two Live Oak trees that will need to be transplanted as some pointl

Sexual Immorality — A Sermon on 1 Corinthians 5:1-8

I obviously never published this when I preached it. 

After having worked the Corinthian church over for their pride, arrogance, and self-sufficiency, the Apostle Paul then turns to deal with their leniency. The leadership of the fledgling church had failed to deal with a man who had fallen into sexual perversion. But it was worse than that. The leadership not only failed to deal with the man, they actually gloried in his sin.

This sermon deals with Paul’s rebuke of the leadership, and shows that all of the sexual perversions of our day are just as condemned as the man at Corinth. God’s design is clear from Scripture. The only acceptable sexual relationship we have been given by our creator is that between a husband and wife, man and woman. Anything else, is an abomination and an attack on the imago Dei, the image of God.

This sermon was preached August 28, 2022 at Waco Reformed Church.

In Memory of Birthday Girl

It’s hard for me to remember a time when Birthday Girl wasn’t the resident queen of the pasture at the family ranch. I know there was a time when Custer was the king, but he was never as gentle, and loving as Birthday Girl.

My sister informed us of her passing today. She was almost 32 years old. Most of the following pictures were taken back in 2013. We will all miss her.

All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2024. 

Health Camp Waco

Picked up Joey around 6:30 p.m. on Friday night and headed back down south to Health Camp here in Waco. It’s a burger place that has been around since 1948. They have the best malts, shakes, and burgers around. It’s a legend.

By the time we got there, so did everyone else. We waited in line for about 25 minutes, just to place our order. It was worth it.


All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2024.

 

 

 

 

“I Came to Send Fire”

My sermon at Waco Reformed Church on March 10, 2024.

This morning, we are going to see that His steadfastness goes beyond the cross. He is not just seeking to save us. He is seeking to establish a Kingdom, in which those who are saved are made citizens. In establishing His Kingdom, He is also exercising judgment over all the other kingdoms of man, including Jerusalem.

Whenever God brings abundant grace to His people, He also brings abundant judgment to those who reject that grace, and this is what we see in our text. It has eschatological implications, both for those who belong to Him, and those whom have rejected Him.

For His hearers, the implications were more immediate for the judgment was coming to the fruitless fig tree.

 

 

Feast of Weeks and Communion Bread

Communion — A Meditation

One of the changes that we made since establishing Waco Reformed Church was to move from unleavened bread, to leavened bread in communion. We did this partly because of the parable of the leaven found in Matthew 13:33 Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.”

This is a kingdom parable, showing that the kingdom will continue to grow until it is all leavened.

We chose to use leavened bread because not only does communion point back to Christ’s death, and helps us proclaim His death until He comes, but it also points to His coming, showing that He will not come until the kingdom has fully grown and covered the earth.

But this is not the only reason we use leavened bread. It also points to the Feast of Weeks found in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 23:15-22, the Feast of Weeks.

In Leviticus 23, we have the Passover, followed by the feast of firstfruits, and that is followed by the Feast of Weeks, which begin on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after the feast of the firstfruits began. Given that this is the day the Spirit was poured out on the people, it has become a special day for Christianity.

The point here is that it was during the feast of weeks that the church celebrated their first communion after the LORD’s ascension. They did not have unleavened bread, but leavened bread as was prescribed in Leviticus 23:17.

You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord.

So while the LORD’s supper was instituted during the Passover, it is not strictly tied to the Passover. We often think of communion as a replacement for the Passover, therefore, it must have a one-to-one correlation. But this not quite correct. Communion replaces all the feast days, and represents all the feast days. It is the fulfillment of all that the feast days represent.

The disciples, on the day of Pentecost, had no problem observing the LORD’s supper using leavened bread, for it was all the bread that was available.

Unleavened bread was not available to them, because you had to remove the leaven from your homes for 7 day prior to the feast.

They used leavened bread, which we are told in Leviticus: They are the firstfruits to the LORD.

Let us join in together at Christ’s table, and enjoy the firstfruits to the LORD.

The Death of a Fool

We come to the last sermon from 1 Samuel 25, in which we look at the death of a fool, namely Nabal. In a sense, he dies three times in our text: drunkenness as a form of death, his heart turning to stone, in the second form, and finally death itself, for the third form.

But like all fools, it’s not the last death Nabal faces. There is one more death he faces, known as the Second Death, according to the Apostle John. It is the worst death, for it never ends, never ceases, as the LORD tells us.

 

David, Abigail and the Fool — Part 2

In this sermon, I continue showing that feminism has no place in the Christian life, for its roots are in the fall and in Satan himself. While feminist are deceived by Satan, not all are. Abigail is one such woman. She seeks to remain in the sphere in which God placed her, serving her husband, even though he is a fool, and persuading David against murder.

Enjoy the sermon.

 

David, Abigail and the Fool

Here is my second sermon on the role of women in the church. See last’s week’s sermon, Let Your Women Keep Silent. I recognize that this may not be a favorite topic of many, but what I’m preaching is what God’s word declares about the role of women in the church and the family, and subsequently, the role of men in both these spheres. This topic is most necessary. The evangelical church has given itself over to feminism, which is rooted in Satanism (see part of my sermon below). This should not surprise us since the goal of feminist is to exalt the woman over and above men, to have women serve where men serve, and force men to serve where should serve. The Church been doing this faithfully, for the feminists, for far too long. It’s time for the Church to be faithful to God’s calling, God’s created order, God’s roles for men and women, and return to what Scripture declares. No amount of camouflaging feminism, by calling it complementarianism will do. We must return to biblical patriarchy, for God is the ultimate patriarch, and His word is patriarchal.

Please enjoy the sermon below.

 

Feminism is Rooted in Satanism

What I didn’t say, because this is new to me as well, is that modern feminism is actually rooted in Satanism. Augusto Zimmerman, in his article Women Under the Spell, shows that early feminist were all committed Satanist, in that they saw Satan, or the Serpent, as the hero of Genesis 3, and not the villain. They looked to Satan to free them from the shackles of God and the patriarchy He established in society.

He wrote… “leading figures of the early feminist movement, such as the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the actress Sarah Bernhardt and the poet Renée Vivien, viewed God as the precursor of patriarchy and Satan as an ally in the fight against it…”

“Nineteenth-century feminists singled out Christianity along with the state as a key institution supporting the subjugation of women. In such a view, “the Christian ideal of wifely obedience, and marriage as such”, was seen as “incompatible with woman’s right to govern herself”. So they viewed Satan as a positive figure and Christianity was an obstacle that had to be removed for women to be emancipated.”

In other words, early feminists, wanting to throw off the shackles of God (see Psalm 2), aligned themselves with Satan in order to gain their freedom from God’s ordain order in society. They took the story of Genesis 3 and turned it on its head.

It’s OK though. The bible does speak to the feminist:

She was loud and rebellious, Her feet would not stay at home.

For she has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men. Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death (Proverbs 7:11, 26-27).