The Rest of the Story

OK, I’ve been pecking away at this off & on when I have time. I tried to cut and paste and I believe this time it will work. So I’ll give it a whirl. The OP I have put in brackets and response is between. So here's the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say.

It seems no matter what I say I open a can of worms. People try to put words in my mouth or make fun of what I’ve said. I will not take time to respond to each of you personally as I can’t recall who each individual is. So, if the shoe fits (or in my case, the boot) wear it!

I would like to know whenever I condemned anyone to hell as I have been accused?
God is the judge, we can only be “fruit inspectors”. I could bust my arm patting myself on the back for getting you all involved with posting here and that you miss me so much you can hardly wait for my response. :laugh:

 

I have been criticized for what I post and for not posting. How’s that? Even I see when I made a post that didn’t work out, folks took off on that. I hate to disappoint any of you all but I’ve not read the posts since Monday nor will I take the time. I believe I’ve been accused of saying a woman couldn’t wear pants. Where did I say that? My wife and the females in our household wear dresses to church, around the house and most of the time. They however wear pants when in the barn or out doing chores and it’s 25 F below zero. I never said anything about pants but no doubt someone is convicted that what they’re doing is wrong or something. Well, if we feel it is wrong, then it IS. For James 4:17 tells us “that he that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, it is sin.”

Someone made comment about the fact there are so many registered and so few that post. Well, if you treat everyone who disagrees with you with personal attacks as I’ve been attacked. Then is it any wonder you run them off?

Here we go:

{I'm kind of new to this computer business and new to this forum. In the couple of days I've been here, I've learned considerable.}

I have. I’ve learned many Baptists are worse off than I thought. I thought this site was for debate but some want to sit around and pat each other on the back and comfort themselves with political correctness. I never directly attacked anyone but voiced my viewpoint. Some of you all must surely be convicted by what I said since you took it so personally.

I moved over to Fundamentalist and some of you followed over there to bring up subjects from this forum. I thought Fundamentalist was for fundamentalists but then I see fundamentalist like liberal is a term that varies depending where you’re standing. It amazes me how being called a liberal rankles some folks so. I know to some I am a liberal. So what? If you believe in grace and liberty so much, why does it bother you when you encounter a “fundamentalist” who believes the Bible is true and the New Testament is to be followed to the best of our abilities and understanding? Why do you feel you should take an innocent question like “What is a fundamentalist?” or “Feet Washing, do you, don’t you, and if you do when?” and you run it in the ditch by failing to answer the question but only care to stir of contention and lead the post far from its OP?

 

{I have also become distressed at what appears to be a great drifting away from Biblical teaching and principles amongst the people known as Baptists.}

Well some of you all have sure borne that out. But I guess there are many with “itching ears”.

{I will repeat here some of what I posted under the subject of hair as I reckon some won't read that post.}

I don’t care what post I make, someone is sure to drag the subject of hair length into it. Well, do what you believe the Bible says. I believe a woman shouldn’t cut her hair and a man should. I believe in women covering their heads in prayer and worship. What’s wrong with that. Someone even went so far as to say that was the mark of a cult. I think Brother, you should read the Bible. Just because a Muslim practices veiling doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In fact, much of what the Muslim thinks about our culture and “Christianity” comes as a result of our modernism and a refuse to take a stand when it comes to modesty.

{The time was when it meant something to be a Baptist. Folks kind of knew where you stood simply by saying, "I'm a Baptist" Now they didn't need to know if you were SBC ABC BBF BGC GBC PB or whatever, it was enough to say we were Baptist.
Now, however, so many Baptists are trying to be Protestants. That is, they are trying to be mainline. We've taken in all the modernism of the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, and the like.}

The church I grew up in was ABC. We had been an ethnic denomination that due to lack of other churches of our “flavor” in our area, the congregation joined the ABC. Others of our group remained independent or tried to carry on with the parent organization even though the churches were few and far between. Over the years our church grew very liberal. We got a preacher that when cornered on the subject, he didn’t even believe in the virgin birth. As a result of that conversation we attended a different denomination in town that was Protestant. Their preacher at least believed something but their denomination as a whole was terribly liberal. So, I spent the better part of my growing up in this liberal protestant church.

 

I went off to a liberal “Christian” college and swallowed much of their false teachings. I believed God had made the world by the evolutionary process. I was taught the miracles of the Bible weren’t necessarily really so. Etc.. This didn’t make any difference.

I started to read the Bible for myself and wondered how if Jesus quoted so much from the OT and in particularly Genesis, then how could we know that what Jesus said was even true. So, I went off to school at BBC in Springfield, MO.
Well, when I got to BBC I thought they were “terribly narrow”. At least so it seemed to me at the time with my liberal upbringing.

I then went off to a very liberal Baptist school of higher learning when I decided I wanted to be a preacher. It has been a long and interesting road. While in the liberal cemetery, I really read the Bible for my self. I became convinced that most of the profs. and preachers in that branch of the Baptist church should quit and get an honest job instead of misleading people. I discovered the Bible is not a smorgasbord where you and I can pick and choose. It is God’s word. He is the same yesterday today and forever. He changes not. The grass withers, the flower fadeth, but the word of God stands forever. Now that sounded narrow. It sounds nontolerant. And it sounded old fashioned. Praise God! I saw the light.

Oh, and by the way. To whomever made the comment about ‘AN IGNORANT FARMER’ I have counted my education in the “halls of higher learning” but dung for the sake of Christ. I’ve as many degrees and papers to hang on the wall as most any of you here and probably more than a great many of you. I keep them in a box in the attic marked “wall paper” because that’s what all the time and money spent in the liberal colleges is in my eyes.

 

Read what I Cor. Says about the wisdom of this world. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” I Cor 3:19
I shudder to think if I’d swallowed all that teaching and hadn’t gotten into the Word for my own self. I have been “off the farm” . I have been the hireling and pastured several churches in two different Baptist circles that I would consider “liberal.” I have separated myself. My wife and I decided we wanted to go back to the farm to raise our large family so we have. We are trying to raise them to be God fearing and hard working. We are “old fashioned” any many of our farming methods but we’ve done that so the children have to work, it is more economical and surely is more friendly to our environment. We raise our livestock in a fashion that the Good Lord intended and don’t run a factory farm. We do not live in the community I grew up in but chose to live where people are more conservative and fundamental in their beliefs.

I was raised on the farm by my grandparents. They used to drag me off to revival meetings at the Church of the Nazarene, the Mennonites, and to more conservative Baptist churches in neighboring communities. I remember those precious old times and those dear people. It made me to ask the question in the Original Post.:

{What has happened to the old time gospel?}

God doesn’t change. Why do we think we need to drag the church down to the world’s level? Do we think we have to bring in some “act” to entertain people. Could it be that we’re living in the time the Bible speaks about? II Timothy 4:3 & 4 sounds like the day we live in. “FOR THE TIME WILL COME WHEN THEY WILL NOT ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE; BUT AFTER THEIR OWN LUSTS SHALL THEY HEP TO THEMSELVES TEACHERS, HAVING ITCHING EARS; AND THEY SHALL TURN AWAY THEIR EARS FROM THE TRUTH, AND SHALL BE TURNED UNTO FABLES.”

{Where are our old time hymns?}

I realize there was a time when Amazing Grace was “new”. I am not saying all new songs are bad. What distresses me is where I have seen again and again when I was in Convention and Conference churches the deliberate throwing away of the hymns and the hymn book. Some few little Jesus jingles are projected on the wall. These 7 – 11 songs do not have the substance and theology of our hymns.

“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual sons, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord:” Eph. 5:19

 

When my wife and I stood and the bedside of a dying child (our own) we were not singing “Majesty” or some little chorus. The words that brought comfort to our souls were the dear old hymns:
Children of the Heavenly Father . . . He the Pearly Gates Will Open . . . Day By Day and With Each Passing Moment . . . Blessed Assurance. These met the condition of our hearts. Thank God for them, don’t dispose of them!!!!

{Where are our old time convictions?}

It appears some of you all helped to push them over the edge. Paul said: “ALL THINGS ARE LAWFUL FOR ME, BUT ALLT HINGS ARE NOT EXPEDIENT; ALL THINGS ARE LAWFUL FOR ME, BUT ALL THINGS EDIFY NOT.” I Cor. 10:23

We would do well to ask the question “Is it edifying” before we give license to anything.

{The time was our women looked like women and our men like men. We were a simple but hard working people. A people who loved the Lord, His Word, and seeing lost people won to the kingdom.}

Are we so busy with trying to keep up with the world that we’ve forgotten that this world is the closest to hell the believer will ever get and the closest to heaven that those who die lost will get? Have we forgotten our life is the only Bible some folks will ever read? And if you are ever in doubt of how a Christian ought to act and behave (the do’s and don’ts if you please) Just ask the lost. They can tell you better than some of us can.

{We used to preach heaven sweet and hell so hot you could feel the heat. How long has it been since you've been to a good old fashioned revival meeting? How about a brush arbour or tent meeting. My now we have to stay in our air conditioning. We have "programs" and don't go to the church house but we have "campuses"}


Now I like old time stuff. I love antiques. I was raised by my grandparents so realize I in a way am a generation removed from others my own age. My wife was raised by people who were old enough to be her grandparents. So I like old stuff, but I am not advocating we all become Amish or something.

I have been accused of being “anti air conditioning” I never said that. I just happen to know that AC I am sure is one of the reasons we no longer see the brush arbor meetings and tent meetings like we did 20 or 30 years ago. We want to stay where it’s comfortable. I myself AM against AC in my own home. It’s a waste of money that I can use somewhere else. I have umpteen irons in the fire to keep the wolf from the door as it is. I don’t need added expenses. Besides, if I had it, I might be tempted to “stay in” longer and not go back out and work in the heat. I also might be tempted to stay home from church some evening. We don’t have it down to the church house. We decided if we had the kind of money it would take to air condition the church house we’d send it off to missions instead.

{We have screamed LEGALISM! And GRACE! as a license to sin, and not do what God's word tells us we ought to do. }

 

I have seen our standards fall as we’ve “let the fence down”. Why you go to some of these churches and the folks in church look like they’re from down at the mall. There’s no distinction between the world and those who are supposed to be saved. Why do we want to show off our body? Is it not for the sake of pride or to draw attention to ourselves? From whom? The opposite sex? Why? Do we not read in I Timothy 2:9 “IN LIKE MANNER ALSO, THAT WOMEN ADORN THEMSELVES IN MODEST APPAREL, WITH SHAMEFACEDNESS AND SOBRIETY; NOT WITH BROIDED HAIR, OR GOLD, OR PEARLS, OR COSTLY ARRAY; BUT WHICH BECOMETH WOMEN PROFESSING GOLDLINESS WITH GOOD WORKS.” See also, I Peter 3:3 “WHOSE ADORNING LET IT NOT BE THAT OUTWARD ADORNING OF PLAITING THE HAIR, AND OF WEARING OF GOLD, OR OF PUTTING ON APPAREL; BUT LET IT BE THE HIDDEN MAN OF THE HEART, IN THAT WHICH IS NOT CORRUPTIBLE EVEN THE ORNAMENT OF A MEEK AND QUIET SPIRIT, WHICH IS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD OF GREAT PRICE.”

I should think if this is what is required of womenfolk, then surely God would require the same simplicity and modest from men. Note I didn’t say a woman “has to” wear a dress. I’ve seen plenty of immodest dresses. A fundamentalist church in our area requires all their women to wear dresses but some of the dresses I’ve seen those women wear they’d have been more modest in slacks!

{Remember when we didn't go to dances, worldly amusements, gamble, drink alcohol, smoke, etc.. Remember when we didn't go to picture shows, and some of us didn't even have a devil vision, I mean a TV in our homes? (Now I know Baptists are as different as various kinds of insects. There were always some groups of Baptists that perhaps allowed one of the above "past times" as they were called) It was sinful then same as now, but now we all have gotten to where we think it's ok.}


Let me point out why I believe the old timers opposed these things and why I still do:

1. Dancing. Yes, we see dancing in the OT. But when David was jumping and leaping was it right? He showed his nakedness to the world. And the dances we have today. Is that dancing before the Lord? Would you want the Lord to come and find you doing it? Whatever we do we should be able to ask, “Does it glorify God?” Or are we going with the flesh?
Now when I was young there was square dancing and folk dancing and that was kind of like a game and some didn’t oppose that, but my Grandpa told me something that has long stuck with me. He said: “That dancing in and of itself may not be wrong, but it’s what goes on at dances that is.” I’ll not forget it.


2. Gambling, I’m against it. If you ask me for a verse that condemns it, let me ask you where is the one that says it’s OK. If it makes my brother to stumble, it’s wrong. It’s a waste of money that could be used to feed your family or help the poor. Your chances of being struck by lightning are greater than that of winning the lottery, friend. It seems we like everyone else are worried about being politically correct. We've accepted the teachings of liberals and have neglected THE BOOK. People are guilty of gambling with their own soul.

 

3. Worldly amusements, movie houses and TV. When I was a kid, I didn’t know any Baptists in our neck of the woods who would go to a movie house, but some thought TV was OK. I thought it didn’t make sense that movies were out but TV was bad. I came to my own convictions that both are a waste of time and money. You’d be better off spending quality family time with your children. Is it family time to all bow down together to the one eyed monster in your front room? The psalmist said “I will set no evil thing before my eyes”. I think that should about take care of movie and TV watching. Can you say it’s glorifying God. Are we not told that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we should do it to the glory of God? I know some who will say, Oh, I only watch the news, I don’t watch the sex and violence. What do you think the news is? Even the commercials are unchristian many of them. The last time I saw TV, every show took God’s name in vain continually. You think this is Christian conduct to sit and watch that? You wouldn’t go down to the dump and sit and watch the garbage mold and the flies gather for an hour would you? You wouldn’t let someone pipe a septic line into your living room and flood the place. So why would you want to waste your time, and your family’s moral up bringing by the movies and TV? Get off the sofa and do some work! Go win some souls to the kingdom, or help someone in need.

4. I’ll tackle smoking first. I knew some Baptists who thought this one was OK, but others have always opposed it. I oppose it because our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Why in the world would we want to destroy it? We think drugs are bad but smoking isn’t? How do you teach that one to your kids if you have a coffin nail hanging out of your mouth?

5. Drinking alcohol. Why is it you want to? Every ounce of alcohol kills a thousand brain cells. How many can you afford to lose? Alcohol is a drug problem but it’s a sacred cow many will never touch. Again, your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Someone once asked me why I don’t drink. I said it was because I believe the Bible. He replied he did too. Good, I said, then you will agree the drunkard will not enter the kingdom of heaven. He said, yes. I then proceeded to ask him how many of a certain drink he was drinking he needed to be drunk. 4 or maybe 5 he replied. I said, well suppose it took 20 and you only drank one or two. Then you’re 1/20th to 1/10th drunken then aren’t you?

I agree with Brother Jerry Clower. We are our brother’s keeper. If I as a Christian drink, and can “handle it” but someone else drinks because they see me and they can’t handle it. The Bible makes it plain its my fault. Is your drinking glorifying God? Is it giving people the right impression? No one would ever have to worry about becoming a drunk if you never took the first drink. “WHO HATH WOE? WHO HATH SORROW? WHO HATH CONTENTIONS? WHO HATH BABBLING? WHO HATH WOUNDS WITHOUT CAUSE? WHO HATH REDNESS OF EYES? WHEY THAT TARRY LONG AT THE WINE; THEY THAT SEEK MIXED WINE.” Prov. 23:29 & 30.

Last week we went to the city to witness and win souls. We went downtown to the gospel mission. Several men came forward to make a commitment. Everyone of them told me how alcohol had been the cause of their downward spiral. Now then, tell me why any Christian should want to drink the stuff? How do you tell your children to stay off it or “use in moderation” when you have it in the house? Didn’t the apostle Paul say that if meat or drink should make our brother to stumble it is better to avoid it?

 

{Some times I feel like the prophet that "I only I am left" I wonder, am I banging my head against a wall, or are there any old time Baptists left out there? }
I simply asked this question and got accused of condemning people to hell. Where did I say that. But it seems that when some face what they don’t like, they can sure lash out in a *personal* attack. And if you think I’m feeling sorry for myself I’m not. You can’t spoil my joy in the Lord, but I understand how the prophets of old felt discouraged when they saw the worldliness of the people of God. I do to. And I am not proclaiming myself to be a prophet. Again it’s someone else’s words not mine. But I do prophecy that in the mega church movement in this country that all of Warren’s or any other preacher’s converts (including my own) will fail. Only God’s converts will endure till the end.

{Now I'm sure some of you all are ready to bash me, and go for it. I preached just this morning that anytime someone calls me narrow minded or old fashioned, I count it as a compliment. God is narrow minded and old fashioned.}

I still do. Now you all can go at it if you want, but I don’t reckon I’ll take the time to enter into your “discussion”. I’m not into patting one another on the back to say nothing. I lived well without this group but was delighted to find it. I thought perhaps this was a place for fellowship and open discussion on the Word but now perhaps I see how so many have come to not post here.

{I know it was long ago at an old fashioned meeting with some old fashioned people who met in an old fashioned way with old fashioned singing, praying, and preaching, I met Jesus and the old fashioned gospel and did an old fashioned thing and got saved in the old fashioned way. I went down into the water in the old fashioned way and have been striving to live by the old fashioned Book in the old fashioned way ever since.}

This is a paraphrase on an old song we used to sing. I don’t recall all the words but it is what happened to me.

Oh, and to whomever jumped me about being so ignorant that Pluto isn’t a planet. You know, when I went to school, we were told it was. I happen to know that many scientists still feel it is. I have a friend who is a NASA scientist and he still considers it a planet and since I am a family friend of the Tombaughs, I will still continue to call it a planet ( For the “ignorant” Clyde Tombaugh was from KS and he discovered Pluto”

{Did not the Prophet Jeremiah say: Find the old path which is the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls? Yet the people today are like those in that day and have said: We will not walk therein.}


You all can say you won’t walk therein if you want, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Old fashioned Dan