The autumn days remind me of change and anticipation of the long winter ahead.  Most people think of hunting season, football, or a visit to the mountains to see the beauty of the changing seasons. This change of seasons reminds me of a most significant day to celebrate. The special day is October 31^st. It was on this day 500 years ago that Martin Luther challenged the church with his 95 theses.

Luther never intended to start a new church or to divide the Roman Catholic Church. Luther simp...

This is the time of year when Protestant Christians should be reminded of their Reformation heritage and a few actually begin to search for a new Reformation. Unfortunately the Christmas holiday consumes their attention, so religious reformation is soon forgotten. Other Christians are content to search for spooks, witches, devils, and demons who hide behind the corner ready to frighten you.  Actually they are waiting in the department stores for you to buy them, so you will have a costume for...

Twenty four years ago I wrote a letter and sent copies to my Christian friends and few congregations. I want to share a couple of paragraphs.  I looked at it and thought, “What has changed over the past twenty four years?”  I wrote it January 1993.

What will 1993 bring as we all seek to serve the Lord?  As a nation, will we continue to decline in the spheres of responsibility that made us a great nation?  As a church, will we continue to decline in our understanding and remove ourselve...

The beauty of autumn reminds us of activities that are generally associated with this time of the year.  Hunting season, football games, and for many southerners this is the time of the year to hold church revivals.  An out of town preacher comes to the community and presents the gospel message and somehow or another the out of town preacher speaks a little louder, tells better jokes, and maybe speaks with  more authority.  Everybody goes to the meeting and calls it revival.

The greatest revivalist since the apostolic times (to the mind of this writer) was Jonathan Edwards.  There were several outbreaks of revival during his lengthy stay at Northampton.  How could Edwards, who read his sermons and preached sermons (today they would be considered academic sermons) without much expression, be God's instrument for revival?  In one of his post-revival sermons, Edwards said,  "When any professing society is as a city set on a hill 'tis a great obligation upon them to ...