The Trumpet
The Trumpet is a monthly paper offered to the good folks of Faith Bible Baptist, Toledo Ohio, and is the work of the pastor. He assembles the articles and edits them as a ministry to his church. We offer it to those who read our Web Site but in a different format than is presented to the Church. The purpose, is simple, to generate spiritual thought, and to encourage spiritual discussion within the body. Where credit can be given, it is, but there is no claim of originality. Further, the Trumpet is an avenue of current and future events scheduled for The Faith Bible Baptist of Toledo.
May the Lord bless you as you read this months issue of The Trumpet.
Pastor Tim Goodman
September 2012
**********************
The Burden of the Man of God
He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17)
Jesus said three times to Peter, “Lovest thou me?” It was as if He could not get Peter to pay close attention to Him. Peter was occupied with His fellowship and the fish, but his attention span was limited. Jesus was about to give him priority instructions and he was looking for another piece of fish. Jesus was about to reveal the burdensome steps of his future and he was caught up in the trivial pleasure of the present. Three times Jesus had to speak in a way to get him to listen.
Jesus revealed to Peter the way he would die, “thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, … signifying by what death he should glorify God.” I think it would frighten the daylights out of me for the Lord to reveal how I was going to die. That’s serious stuff. Yet, it was so far down the road that Peter still did not become solemn. He merely tried to find out how John would die. I don’t think Jesus was trying to scare him, but I do think he wanted him to listen. He was trying to tell him things that were important to Him, Peter and those believers he would lead in the near future.
“Feed my sheep” meant more than just the trivial responsibility of providing grass for some dumb animal. It implied that Peter would have to carry their load, step out in advance, know more than they knew and suffer more than they suffer. Jesus revealed to him the burden of the man of God. He tried to get Peter to place “tending the sheep” as the top priority of his life. He was to be the under shepherd for the chief Shepherd.
Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;” (1 Peter 5:2)
**********************
Parson to Person
August has been a hot month indeed. I’m thankful for the new air conditioners, they seemed to really do the job. Except the Sunday Linda and I were away for vacation and the church officer didn’t remember where to turn them on. (We have rectified that problem.)
This month has also brought us some problems as well. We haven’t gotten the progress we looked for in our storm damage. Hopefully we will see some action towards the repairs. Perhaps, even before you have the opportunity to read this news letter.
We have also encounter some misunderstanding in the area of church policy. Specifically in two areas of church policy, 1) who can go into the nursery and 2) the promotion of children in the Sunday School classes. First let me clarify, “all church policy goes through the office of the Pastor.” That does not mean that ours is a dictatorship, but rather, that there needs to be a continuity of thought in the establishment of church policy. Any attempt to personally shift church policy for whatever reason is misguided and will promote misunderstandings.
In order to clear things up in regards to the nursery, I have put together the FBBC Childcare Policy Handbook. If you want a copy please let me know. In the interest of full disclosure I sought help from a number of other church policy manuals. It is my hope that this document will help promote a loving and carrying environment for our nursery workers and families using the nursery. One of the primary purpose’s of our nursery is to encourage active participation by parents in worship, Bible study, and fellowship. It is my hope that the FBBC Childcare Policy Handbook will help us accomplish that purpose.
In regards to SS class promotion we have limited space and voluntary staff. As a result we have first our nursery. The age limit for the nursery is when the mother feels safe to release her child to our care, to the age of 3, at which time the child is promoted to the pre-school class. The pre-school is from the age 3 until they enter kindergarten currently taught by Miss Patty Severin. The kindergarten class is coupled with the 1st and 2nd grade class taught by Miss Christie Lewis. The next class is the 3rd grade thru the 5th grade taught by Miss Sheila Burk. The 6th grade through high school is taught by our associate pastor, Bro. Tom Goodman. I teach the adults. Promotion for the children was supposed to be done the first Sunday of June.
The misunderstanding arose out of the question as to how we promote. We promote when the child is going into the next class group here at Faith. For example if a second grader in Miss Christie’ class is promoted to the third grade that child will be promoted to Miss Sheila’s class, and will stay there for the next three years. If we had more room and more teachers we could break our classes up into smaller groups and perhaps make it more challenging for the children. If you would like to help our Sunday School department, contact either me or our Sunday School Superintendent Bro Tom.
I think it amazing that several weeks before these misunderstandings came to fruition I was led of the Lord to begin a personal study into Ephesians 4:1-4. Out of that study came four messages about “Maintaining the Unity of the Church.” I believe these verses teach us how to walk together as a redeemed family, the way God intended. I will be preaching for a few Sunday evenings on the subject of “Maintaining the Unity of the Church.” Lets pray that the Lord’s Will, will be done in our midst.
I know I have been longer in my article than usual so I will close with a reminder that Linda and I love you and pray for you often. Thank you for your faithfulness to our church.
Pastor Tim Goodman
***********************
Hard Work
By Paul Chappell
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8-11)
President Ronald Reagan was the oldest man elected to the highest office in the land. He would sometimes take naps during the day, for which he was criticized. Once when a reporter asked about his practice Reagan replied, “They say hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take chances?” Of course in reality he did work hard, and so should we.
The Fourth Commandment is about more than the day of rest. It is also about our work. God created man for a purpose. Even before the Fall when sin entered the world, Adam was given tasks and responsibilities. Work is harder since the curse, but it existed before then. Beyond that, work has a purpose. God told Adam, “cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Genesis 3:17). We should not fear or resent work because it helps build character so that we can resist temptation.
Paul wrote that we are to view our work not just as employees but “as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:6). When that is our attitude toward our work, we will not find it difficult to be diligent about our tasks. Not every assignment will be pleasant or enjoyable, but each assignment is still important. Give it your whole heart, and you will find that God will reward you even if no one else notices.
***********************
God Is In the Church Nursery
Where is God on Sunday morning? Of course, God is everywhere. We know that God is enthroned in the praises of his people. (Psalm 22:3) When we gather to worship – God is with us.
We know that God is there when we pray. Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20) When we pray – God is with us.
We know that God is there when his Word is read, preached, loved and obeyed. The Lord says, “… for I will hasten my word to perform it. (Jeremiah 1:12) When the Bible speaks – God is with us.
We know that God is everywhere. “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:24) “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” (Proverbs 15:3) No matter where we go – God is with us.
But did you know that God is back in the church nursery? “And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them: and when he had taken him in his arms, he said unto them, Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.” (Mark 9:36-37) When you welcome a child in the name of Jesus you welcome Jesus himself. When we minister to children – God is with us.
If you wonder why so many people are blessed by serving in the church nursery. Now you know – God is there.
Written by Tony Kummer
Gospel Driven Children’s Ministry
***********************
Baptist We Should Know
Mordecai Ham
The Southern Revivalist
By David R. Stokes
There had been a persistent rumor around town about a particular house located across the road from one of the local high schools and how it had become a den of iniquity. A preacher had been making a big deal about it and the fact that sexual immorality was rampant in the area, particularly among young people. One version of the tale had it that some of the high school students were planning some kind of demonstration out at the makeshift tabernacle, where the old preacher was railing against the sins of the city. The whole thing finally convinced one previously reluctant young man to go out to one of the revival meetings to check out things for himself.
The year was 1934. The city was Charlotte, NC. The young man was William “Billy” Franklin Graham. The old preacher was a guy named Mordecai Ham.
Young Billy Graham listened to Mordecai Ham that first night. The preacher thundered against sins, and Graham couldn’t help but feel he was the preacher’s target. He went back the next night – and the next. Eventually, he decided to avoid the evangelist’s penetrating stare by joining the choir, even though he couldn’t hold a tune in a bucket. However, even without seeing Ham’s eyes, he heard that voice, as well as another voice – one stiller and smaller than that of the loud preacher.
Mordecai Fowler Ham Jr. (1877-1961) was one of the most well-known preachers in the American south in this time. More than 300,000 people were converted in his crusade type meetings. In fact, he was among the last of the highly successful tent/tabernacle revivalists – except, of course, for his famous convert that night in 1934. That young man moved from tent to stadium and to ultimate influence for the Kingdom of God.
Born in Allen County, Kentucky, Mordecai F. Ham was the son and grandson of preachers – actually his ancestry included clergymen going back eight generations. His grandfather Mordecai Ham Sr. managed somehow to juggle 14 pastorates at one time.
Young Mordecai was converted as a young man and felt the stirrings of a call to preach; but he resisted, or at least postponed such surrender, determined to make a personal fortune first. Having watched his father and grandfather barely scrape by fueled his personal ambition. He attended a local college, studied law, and soon found early success in business.
That all changed the day he watched his grandfather die in 1899. It was almost as if in that moment a mantle of sorts was passed from grandfather to grandson. Ham later referred to the experience: “Seeing him die did more than anything else to convince me of the reality of Christian experience.”
Very soon thereafter, everything changed for young Mordecai Ham. First, he married Bessie Simmons; then he quit his business, giving his share to his partner. He borrowed a little more than $1,700 from a local bank and began his ministry with an intense time of self-preparation. During an eight-month period in 1900, Ham devoted all his time to the study of the Bible and the reading of 27 books, including manuals on Old and New Testament history, the works of Josephus, various writings about Baptist history and polity, a couple of titles about the second coming of Christ and one called The Mistakes of Ingersoll, a book that dealt with the most famous infidel of the day.
Then he started preaching, demonstrating a propensity for oratory and persuasion so pronounced that one engagement led inevitably (and usually immediately) to another, then yet another. Mordecai Ham was off and running on a career that would span six decades. He was an evangelist from 1901 to 1927, then again from 1929 to 1961, interrupted by a curious two-year stint as the pastor of Oklahoma City’s First Baptist Church.
His surrender to the ministry was not the only thing the death of his grandfather that day in 1899 had stimulated, but also Ham’s actual pulpit style. As he watched his granddad linger between life and death for hours, he listened and observed as the dying man gave various instructions about his funeral to those in attendance. One man asked: “Mordecai, if you had your life to live over again, what would you change?”
The reply: “I would be plainer.”
Through the years, Mordecai, in the spirit of his grandfather’s dying declaration, described himself as “a hog-jowl and turnip green” preacher – simple, plain, and always to the point, often bluntly so.
Such a style made him popular with the masses, but not with everyone else. A Mordecai Ham campaign in any town usually was accompanied by local conflict, with some religious forces, as well as resident sin-interests becoming for a moment strange bedfellows. Ham typically chose the most notorious sinners in town and went after them, occasionally with notable success, but always with attendant controversy. Of course, his early career was in the run-up to that noble experiment Prohibition, so liquor interests were a usual suspect for Ham, as well as gambling, prostitution, and other vices du jour.
He didn’t stop there. Often Ham aimed his attack language at the doors of local churches, where he’d perceive spiritual deadness or the emerging contagion of modernism. This would put him at odds with pastors, who quite often refused to support Mordecai’s meetings. Still, nothing could keep the people away; and usually the clergy eventually, albeit reluctantly, had to lend a hand.
Once in Fort Worth, TX, (c. 1916) where he was conducting a meeting in league with Texas Tornado J. Frank Norris, Ham was viciously attacked as he left the Westbrook Hotel en route to Norris’s office a couple of blocks away. Reports described the evangelist as being “struck from behind on the back of his head, and gashes were cut in the side of his face.” Several local clergymen, including L. R. Scarborough, attributed the attack as “the liquorites, in their desperation, showing their foul methods in defending saloons in Tarrant County.”
Ham was a man touched with grief when his wife, Bessie, died suddenly less than six years into their marriage. A few years later, Ham was smitten with a young lady who attended one of his meetings in Eminence, KENTUCKY. Her name was Annie. They married, though she was just 15 years of age. They were together more than 50 years and blessed with three daughters.
Mordecai Ham was a student of history and world affairs, but made it a rule not to meddle much in national politics – except in 1928. That was the year Republican Herbert Hoover ran against New York’s Democrat Governor Al Smith. Ham made it his business to campaign tirelessly against Smith, who was a Roman Catholic and advocated the repeal of Prohibition, two things anathema to such a fundamentalist-minded preacher.
Mordecai Ham accomplished in North Carolina what J. Frank Norris did in Texas, swinging a usually solid Democrat state to the Republicans. This led one Catholic publication at the time to dub Ham and Norris as two of “the Four Horsemen of the Devil.”
Once, while preaching in the Texas state capital, Austin, Mordecai Ham advertised a sermon titled: “Governor in the Middle of a Fix.” This was at a time when then Texas Governor Jim Ferguson was on the verge of being impeached. The governor sent stenographers and reporters, who took down every word as Ham preached a message about Pontius Pilate – a whole other governor.
Ham’s ministry focused more on local church revivals in his later years, putting the tent and tabernacle crusades behind him. He also developed a highly popular radio broadcast heard throughout the American south. He regularly told listeners, “I’ll meet you on the air, until I meet you in the air.”
When he was 81 years old, Billy Graham flew Mordecai Ham from Kentucky to San Francisco to be on the platform, introducing him to the audience at a meeting, in that city’s Cow Palace. Mordecai Ham died on November 1, 1961.
David Stokes is pastor of Fair Oaks Church, Fairfax, VA. His new book, The Shooting Salvationist was released by Random House in July.
***********************
How to Become a
Member of
Faith Bible Baptist Church
By Profession of Faith and Baptism
If you will receive Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour and follow Him in baptism by immersion, we welcome you into our fellowship.
By Letter
As a Baptist whose church membership is elsewhere, if God directs you here we will be pleased to welcome you into our church family. We will happily take care of appropriate details for transferring your membership.
By Baptism
If you know in your heart that you have been saved and want to become a member of Faith Bible Baptist Church, we invite you to join us by baptism. This gives testimony of your salvation and your obedience to His direction.
By Statement of Faith
In the event church membership records are not available for a transfer of membership, or if you were once a Baptist church member, we will accept you upon your statement of faith.
You may express your desire to fulfill any of the above by presenting yourself during the invitation at the close of each worship service. Of course, any decision assumes your commitment to being faithful in prayer, church attendance, tithing and participation in our Lord’s work at Faith Bible Baptist Church.
***********************
