First Baptist Church of New Carlisle, Ohio has a rich and unique history in our community. Since 1955 we've been establishing ourselves as a lighthouse for Jesus Christ in our hometown of New Carlisle, Ohio.

We have Bible Study at 9:15 am and Worship Service at 10:30 am every Sunday. Childcare/nursery provided for all services. Wednesdays we have Prayer Meeting at 7:00 pm and Revive Student Ministries for youth at 7:00 pm

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Touring Faith in the Book of Acts - by Pastor Curt Sharbaugh

The Book of Acts in the New Testament explains how the Holy Spirit spread the gospel and expanded the Church through the ministry of the Apostles and first believers. I would like to take a tour of the book of Acts and observe the expressions of faith we see. Since it records the beginning of something new in God’s plan for his people, some of the miraculous events were necessary at the time to help the early church understand what the Holy Spirit was doing. Many of these miraculous events have not continued in our day because they are no longer necessary, but we can still learn from the evangelism and conversions described in this book. So I would like to pay attention to the environments in which the Holy Spirit brought about amazing revival and church growth. Perhaps we can learn a thing or two.

Acts 2 describes the beginning of the Holy Spirit’s work in and through the Church. With this new beginning, the Holy Spirit starts with a bang, granting the first followers of Christ the miraculous ability to speak in the various languages of Jews who lived all over the Roman empire. The Jews who had been living in Rome heard the Christians speaking in Latin, and Egyptian Jews heard them speaking their language. Then Peter got up and explained that a new era in Israel’s history had begun; the promised Messiah had come, even though the nation had rejected and crucified him. As Peter spoke to the crowd that day, three thousand people believed and were added to the Church.

The Church immediately began meeting regularly, sometimes in the Temple area as a large group and at other times in individual homes in smaller groups. As they gathered, they were committed to activities that benefited and strengthened believers, and they went out to tell others the good news of Jesus. In Acts 3, Peter and John were apparently on their way to a gathering at the Temple. Before they arrived, they proclaim the good news, and the Church grew to five thousand that day (Acts 4:4).

After Stephen was stoned, the Church was scattered, and the gospel spread to new regions. Philip went to Samaria and told the people there about Jesus. Many believed, and the Holy Spirit confirmed that he was saving Samaritans too. Then the Holy Spirit took Philip to a road where he met an Ethiopian eunuch. In this deserted location, the Ethiopian believed the gospel and was saved.

In Acts 10, the Gentile mission is officially started with Cornelius and his family hearing and believing the gospel in their house. Later on, Paul and his co-workers began to share the gospel throughout the Roman world. Paul’s practice was to find Jewish synagogues, where unbelieving Jews could hear the good news. When the majority rejected his message, he proclaimed the message to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46). In Philippi, the gospel spread in a prison (Acts 16:25ff.), and in Athens, it spread in a shopping center (17:17).

We see in Acts how Paul and others used the situations in which God placed them to spread the gospel. If they were in court on trial, they shared the message about Christ. If there was a crowd ready to listen, they spoke up. However, what is equally clear throughout Acts is that not a single story of conversion took place in the context of a Sunday church gathering. Now that doesn’t mean this never happened, nor does it mean we shouldn’t invite the unsaved to church. Still, it does show us that the Holy Spirit primarily used efforts outside the Sunday gathering to grow the church. We would do well to follow this example and speak up in the circumstances in which God has placed us. Like the early church, we must proclaim the gospel where unbelievers normally are. The Holy Spirit will continue his work as we share the gospel, and more and more people will turn from their sin and trust in Christ.

Kitchen Korner - Cordon Bleu Potato Soup - by Dolly Lawler

A good friend, Judy Carney, who goes to Florida every winter and runs a soup kitchen down there, gave me this recipe.  The term "Cordon Bleu" caught my attention right away.  When I see that term, I always think of chicken or pork stuffed with ham and Swiss cheese.  That's what the term has come to mean to cooks in this day and age, but the term actually means "Blue Ribbon."  How can I say this?  Whether we're talking ingredients or quality, this is definitely a "Blue Ribbon" soup recipe.

CORDON BLEU POTATO SOUP
(Makes 8-10 servings.)

Ingredients:

4 cups diced potatoes
2 cans (14 ½ oz.) chicken broth
2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
2 cups diced cooked ham
2 cups 2% milk with ¼ cup flour whisked into it
2 cups chunked, cooked chicken

Simmer potatoes in broth until tender.  Add rest of ingredients and heat (stirring often) until soup is hot and cheese is melted.

Ladle into bowls and eat up!

Enjoy, Dolly Lawler

Please submit a favorite recipe to lawlers@windstream.net

How Old is the Earth? - by Ken Lawler

I've mentioned several times in these articles that there are numerous Biblical "disagreements" that have no bearing on critical doctrines like salvation.  This is one of those "beliefs" that, whichever theory you have, will not get you into Heaven or keep you out.  It's also one of those "beliefs" that, whichever theory you have, you are convinced you're right.  A couple years ago we heard a guest speaker on two Sundays give his reasoning for a "young earth," and now I have decided to give mine for an "old earth."  I've not, to my knowledge, been called a heretic because of what I believe on this subject but I have been accused of believing in evolution.  Trust me, I do not!!!  I believe Gen. 1:1 explains perfectly how the universe came into being.  That said, I also believe Gen. 1:3-31 is an account of the 6-day restoration of the original earth, not a 6-day account of its creation.  I have no idea how long it actually took God to create it, but I'm convinced He's capable of doing it in 6 nanoseconds (that's 6 billionths of a second) if He wanted to.  He wouldn't need 6 days.  There are four primary reasons I believe what I do about this -- (1) The actual meaning of the Hebrew word translated create (bara), (2) Gen. 1:2 compared with Isa. 45:18, (3) continental drift and (4) the physical appearance of the universe.

First, the Bible's use of the words create, created, etc.:  Hebrew linguists generally agree that these words are often misused in the Bible and other Hebrew texts.  The correct definition is to make something out of nothing, and according to Strong's Expanded Dictionary of Bible Words, this verb always has only God as its subject.  In the Bible it is often used where a better translation would have been to shape, form, fashion, select or to transform something.  For instance, when David says, "create in me a clean heart, O God" (Ps. 51:10) it's obvious he didn't mean make me a new one out of nothing; he wanted the one he had fixed.  Another example is Adam.  Gen. 1:26 has God saying, "let us make (asah) man," Gen. 1:27 says, "God created (bara) man," and Gen. 2:7 says, "The Lord God formed (yatsar) man" [out of the pre-existing dust of the ground].  Technically, Adam and Eve were formed (the word means to mold into a form or shape) not created.  An instance where you might expect to see the word created but don't is on day three.  Gen. 1:9-13 does not say vegetation was created on day three.  It implys the seeds were already in the ground and when the water receded and the land dried out the seeds sprouted.  Where did the seeds come from?  I contend they were already there from His original creation.  If day 3 was the creation of vegetation God probably would have created an oak tree, not an acorn.

Second, look at the description of the earth in Gen. 1:2 and Isa. 45:18:  Gen. 1:1 says the earth was created in the beginning, and in verse 2 it is reported to be "without form and void," a water-covered, dark, empty ruin.  The expression without form (tohuw) means to lie waste, a desolation, desert, or a worthless thing.  The word void (bohow) means to be empty, a vacuity or an undistinguishable ruin. Why would God have created an empty, worthless, desolate earth?  Well Isaiah says He didn't.  Isaiah briefly describes the creation in Isa. 45:18 where he says "He created it not in vain."  Why the translators changed words between Gen. 1:2 and this verse I don't know, but vain and form are the same Hebrew word.  Isaiah is saying God did not create it without form and void as it is described in Gen. 1:2.  An obvious question is what happened between Gen 1:1 and 1:2?  For one thing, I believe about 4.5 billion years.  That's what the admittedly flawed, but commonly accepted dating methods (they generally use four different methods) estimate the age of the universe to be.  Soil samples from the earth, moon and meteors all date the same.  Also, I can't imagine God sending Lucifer down to a tropical paradise when he was cast out of heaven to the ground/earth (Isa. 14:12), so it was probably made void at or before that event.  We know there was a time when lush vegetation covered vast areas of the earth, even up into the Arctic.  We heat our homes and fuel our cars with the byproducts of that vegetation.  There is no mention of the ice-age in the Bible or any other historical document and the last glacier is estimated to have been about a mile high when it crossed my farm in Champaign County.  Someone surely would have mentioned it in ancient history.  I imagine the original pristine earth teeming with the extinct species whose fossils are still being found today (dinosaurs, etc.), as well as the biped animals evolutionists call cave men.  Don't let anyone convince you that Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon was your ancestor.  I believe they existed over 10,000 years ago, anthropologists and archaeologists have found their remains, their cave paintings and their crude weapons.  They were somewhat clever animals, not humans.  Adam is the only "creature" that the "Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2:7).  Adam was the first human being.  That happened about 6,000 years ago just like the Bible says.

Third, the continental drift theory:  It was proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912 and was laughed at by other scientists, primarily because there was no theory as to what mechanism caused it.  After Wegener died in 1930, scientists generally adopted his theory with a "moving plate" explanation.  His unique geological similarities of rock formations linking mountains in Appalachia with those in Scotland, and those in South Africa with those in Brazil have been verified.  The plates are still moving (that's what causes earthquakes), but so slowly that North America could not possibly have crossed the Atlantic in a mere 6,000 years, unless the event I suspect happened long ago, the one that caused the earth to become "without form and void," caused a rapid drift.

Finally, my fourth reason for believing in an old earth is its appearance:  I've spent lots of time in the Rocky Mountains, and I've personally seen lots of other earth features in North America, Europe and Africa.  I've spent several hours looking through a high power telescope at the moon, stars and planets, as well as imagery from our inter-galaxy space probes.  I've spent half my life looking at the earth's surface on satellite imagery.  The Rocky and Atlas Mountains and the Alps look really old to me, and even a casual look at the moon through good binoculars and the imagery of Mars show heavenly bodies that have been bombarded with meteors for what looks like a lot longer than 6,000 years.  The massive impacts on the moon would have been seen from Earth and no historian has mentioned them.  Can these four reasons possibly indicate an approximate 4.5-billion years between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2?  I think so, what do you think?

Colors of the Seasons - Orange, Yellow, Brown, Red - by Wanda Hess

This time of the year with leaves on trees changing their colors, colorful mums ready to bloom and pumpkins at their maturity makes me think of the Bible verse Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

“To everything there is a season , and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted: A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing: A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak ; A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” KJV

One of my gardener friends said they like the color of Brown this time of year. And they went on to explain it was the color of the garden when the harvest is complete and the dirt is ready for next spring.

Another point my friend made was “people who plant believe in tomorrow”.  Isn’t that an interesting statement? Are we planting the seeds of Christianity in the hope of tomorrow?

This past Sunday there was a family there that I didn’t know. They had three children.  What joy to see children who are being brought to church with their parents.  Planting the seeds of a future tomorrow?  If we don’t have the young in church what happens to the church when us old people pass on? Will there be enough seeds planted to keep First Baptist Church of New Carlisle in business?  Now don’t sit there and read this and say churches don’t close up…..
Well yes, they do. It has been done even here in New Carlisle……

We need to believe in tomorrow by planting and cultivating today.

So whatever color you enjoy , Orange,Yellow,  Brown or Red may it remind you that it is time for another season of our life to pass through…ENJOY!

    Don’t miss these colors of this season cause the next season's color is WHITE!!!!

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Least in the Kingdom - by Ken Lawler

An article I read in the booklet Days of Praise, published by The Institute for Creation Research, prompted me to write an article about the degrees of reward in the future kingdom.  As I've mentioned in previous articles, my mom's family grew up Methodists and my dad's Baptist.  I don't know much about the 21st Century Methodist Church, but back in the early years of the 20th Century they were very evangelistic, with the only major difference between them and the Baptists being baptism and security of the believer.  Those early 1900's Methodists in Vera, Illinois sprinkled for baptism and taught that you could lose your salvation.

I've heard it said of us in the "once saved, always saved" crowd that we don't pay enough attention to how we live, since we can't lose our salvation.  In a lot of cases I suspect that criticism is valid.  Anyone who has spent much time reading the Bible knows it says plenty about how we are to live (Paul says "walk") and about the consequences of not living/walking properly.  In The Sermon on the Mount/The Beatitudes, Jesus said in Matt. 5:19 that anyone who breaks a commandment and teaches others that it is OK to do so "shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven:  but whosever shall do and teach (the commandments), the same shall be called great in the kingdom."  He's not talking about the difference between saved and unsaved people, but about the degrees of reward in the kingdom.  When Paul spoke about the Christian living a carnal life in I Cor. 3 he likened that person to someone building something out of wood, hay, and stubble versus building out of gold, silver, and precious stones.  In I Cor. 3:13 he says, "all works will be revealed by fire," and in I Cor. 3:15 he says some Christian's works "shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:  but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire."

The Bible plainly teaches there will be degrees of punishment in hell.  Matt. 10:15, Mark 6:11 & Luke 10:12 all say it will be more tolerable (the Greek word means more endurable) for Sodom and Gomorrha in the Day of Judgment than it will be for the cities of Israel that didn't receive Jesus' message of redemption.  Likewise the Bible plainly teaches there will be degrees of reward in heaven.  2 Cor. 5:10 says all believers will appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ; and every one will receive gain or loss, depending on their Christian life, based on whether they did good or bad.

There are two coming judgments after we live this life.  The unbelievers will stand before the Great White Throne.  Rev. 20:11-12 says they will be judged according to their works.  All of those at that judgment will be cast into the lake of fire, where Jesus said it would be more endurable for some than for others.  The believers will stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ.  When we appear there everything we have done since we accepted Christ as our savior is going to be in a pile, represented in I Cor. 3:12 as either gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or stubble.  Fire is going to fall on that pile, and our status or position or responsibility in heaven will be determined by what is left after the fire goes out.  Everyone at the Judgment Seat of Christ is already in heaven, but my Grandpa Lawler used to say, "some of them will really smell smokey."

Grandpa once pastored the Vera Baptist Church in the little village where I was born, and he had a couple humorous stories about the Baptists and the Methodists in town.  There was no air conditioning back then so the windows were open in summer.  He said the Baptists would be singing the hymn, Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown, and the Methodists would be singing the hymn, No Not One.  About the doctrine of salvation he told about the hypothetical guy in both churches that made a profession of faith then fell by the wayside.  He said the Methodists believed the guy fell from grace (lost his salvation) and the Baptists said he probably never got saved in the first place.  Grandpa said, "we both got him lost again!"

How do we get saved? by Pastor Curt Sharbaugh

That’s a very important question, and throughout history those who have called themselves Christians have answered it differently. Let me begin with a contrast. There is a group who would say that we will be saved in the end only by God’s grace, but God has chosen to extend that grace by a number of different means. In other words, if you want to receive God’s grace, which is able to make you right with God, you have to do certain things. You need to be baptized; you need to attend services where you can observe communion; you need to confess your sins and say certain prayers in order to be forgiven; and there’s more. They believe that it’s only through these avenues of grace that you can finally be made right with God.

What does the Bible say about this? The Bible does say that salvation is on the basis of grace but also that it’s only through faith in what Christ has done for us (Ephesians 2:8-9). We cannot save ourselves. There is nothing we can do in order to deserve salvation. Salvation is based on grace, meaning that it’s a kindness that we do not deserve. It’s freely given to us by God. He doesn’t owe it to us; he is free to give it or withhold it. And God has chosen to save us through faith rather than by works.

In Romans 3, Paul explains that we are all under the power and condemnation of sin (vs. 9). He goes on to say that one of the purposes of the Law (which includes God’s instruction on right and wrong) is to demonstrate that we are all guilty before God (vs. 19-20; see also 1:18, 20, 2:1-2). There is no way to be right with God by obeying his instructions because what his instructions reveal is that we are not obeying him and need his forgiveness and grace. But God has revealed a different way to be made right with him, and Paul says that it’s by faith (vs. 22). All have sinned and stand condemned before God, so everyone must be made right with God by faith (vv. 23-24). While dying on the cross, Jesus was put on display as the payment for the punishment sinners deserve. He paid the punishment for all who believe that he paid that punishment for them (vs. 25). In chapter 4, Paul explains that sinners are declared right with God not on the basis of what they do but on the basis of their faith in what Christ has done for them.

So how is one saved? They are saved from God’s punishment for sin and from sin’s power over them by putting their faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection. But we should be clear that true faith is never without genuine repentance. You cannot really believe Jesus died for your sins if you don’t think your sins are a big deal. True faith involves recognizing how sinful you are and how great your need is for forgiveness through Christ.

Coming back to the group I described at the beginning, salvation is not acquired by what we do, even if we say we're acting on the basis of God’s grace. We are saved by putting our trust in Christ to save us. When we set up rituals as a means of salvation, we are putting obstacles in the way of genuine faith because people place their faith in the ritual rather than in Christ. In other words, they are trusting in what they are doing rather than in what Christ has done. Salvation does not require a special ritual or a special place. Salvation is by grace through faith, and faith can be expressed wherever you are.

Kitchen Korner - PRETZEL SALAD - by Dolly Lawler

You'll have to try this to believe it.  This is a recipe I received from Geneva Christmas many moons ago.  When I ate it the first time, it simply struck my taste buds high and clear; then when she told me what the little crunchies in it were, well, I couldn't believe it. Pretzels of all things!  Who would have thought?

PRETZEL SALAD

8 oz. cream cheese
½ cup sugar
20 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained
8 oz. cool whip

Mix cream cheese and sugar together; add pineapple.  Fold in cool whip.  Place in refrigerator to cool.
Mix together the following:

1 cup crushed pretzels
½ cup sugar
1 stick melted margarine or butter

Place in oven at 400° for 7 minutes.  Stir while it cools.  When cooled, mix with the cream cheese, sugar, pineapple, and cool whip mixture.  Place in refrigerator until ready to serve (or ready to take to a church potluck).

Enjoy, Dolly Lawler

Please submit a favorite recipe to lawlers@windstream.net