New Address: please update your links, blogroll or feeds

We have moved to a new blog location at http://barrydean.wordpress.com. Please update your links, blogroll, and feeds to the new URL above.

I just want to extend my thanks to anyone who reads this blog. I genuinely appreciate your comments. Moving to WordPress I will be able to more easily maintain and enhance the blog pages, plus have a few more bells and whistles. Cya at the new digs.

Blessings,

BarryDean

Family fun night

Last night was a good night. Our daughter Crysta had an idea and asked for the evening to be a night of family fun together. We agreed. We had a nice dinner and dessert (a delicious piece of homemade pecan cheesecake that Robin made) and then we played our favorite game, Apples to Apples. If you haven't played this game you should find one. It is very fun and each game only takes about 20 minutes to play. We learned last night that there are some fun variations to the game. During the game there was some of the usual sibling picking but it never got out of hand. This was a great blessing. Our son Sean is usually the dominant player but Crysta won a couple of games which made her happy.
After the game as we were getting ready to watch a movie together I received an instant message from Don an old friend (yeah I said old) of mine. It was good to hear from him, it had been a while. I met Don at my first job out of college. He and I were both computer operators. He was on the first shift and I was on the second. I thought he was pretty cool because he drove a 1978 Silver Anniversary Corvette (yeah....single), and he was very helpful to me in learning my job. I am very grateful to him. We have kept in contact over the years but it had been awhile since we'd spoken. My wife was gracious and let me converse with him for awhile.
After we finished talking it had gotten pretty late so Robin, Crysta, and I went upstairs to watch "The Maltese Falcon" with Humphrey Bogart and Sean got online to play XBox 360 Live. What a blessing to me when God gave me a family. I have not been very grateful for them and have taken them for granted more times than I know. I love them all and pray there are more evenings like the one last night.
God bless.

Deep thinking, deep questions

I really wanted to see Jason's friend answer the question. I don't know if the question is good conversation for football but it is a question that has come up in conversations I've had in recent years. Prior to coming to the knowledge of a totally sovereign God this deep thinking occurred more times than I can remember. Can free will coexist with divine (what I think Jason really meant is) predestination? First of all what is meant by free will? Usually when people think of free will they think of individuals having their own independent will to control their own lives. If we answer that question biblically what would it be? The bible teaches that God has predestined those who would be saved (Rom. 8:29, Eph. 1:5) but has He also laid out our whole lives, what schools we will go to, who we will marry, how many children we will have etc. Has God predestined all of our perceived decisions? If we look at this biblically I would have to say yes, God has predestined those things. As it says in Ephesians 1:10b, 11;

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.

If anyone knows of any other scripture to support or dispute my conclusion I would love for you to post a comment for discussion.

Martyrs of the Reformation

One of the more frequent guests on the Albert Mohler Radio Show is one of my contemporary hero's, Dr. John MacArthur. MacArthur was in town (Louisville, Ky home of the radio show) to deliver the 2006 Mullins Lectures at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary chapel this week. Mohler mentioned during the show that the messages could be heard online and that a link was created from his own web site. So I went to the site (SBTS: Fall 2006) because I am always looking for good messages to listen to. By the way if anyone reading this has not heard John MacArthur's sermon "The Tale of Two Sons" on Luke 15, it can be heard at this site as well. This is very similar to the one he delivered at the 2006 Shepherd's Conference. I love that sermon. Anyway, I listened to the first lecture this morning on the way to work. The subject MacArthur is teaching on is "Christ - The Head of the Church". He began the lecture with a history lesson about those who had been martyred for proclaiming this truth of the headship of Christ over the church. I was fascinated by some of the stories of these brave, and uncompromising men. Men such as the German preacher John Huss (or Jan Hus). Huss preceded Luther by about 100 years and it is documented that Luther referred to Huss quite often in his writings and teachings. Huss was burned alive at the stake by the Roman Catholic church for writing and preaching in opposition to papal indulgences, and clerical abuses of power. This execution of Huss, whose name sounded like goose in German, coined the phrase "your goose is cooked". I learned that in the days of Luther most of the people could not read, so many of Luther's writings were done with illustrations. In these illustrations when he referred to Huss a goose would be drawn. There's that Luther sense of humor coming out again. LOL!
You can read more about the history of The Reformation at this interesting web site: A Puritans Mind .

I know I am going to enjoy listening to these lectures if they are even half as good as this first one. There is just so much to learn and so little time this side of glory. Oh what a time it will be to have all of eternity to learn about such things, and to meet and speak with these hero's of the truth as we worship together in the presence of our Lord.

Soli Deo Gloria