December 21, 2020
Brooks Stadium (Conway, South Carolina)
2:30 p.m.
Team Leader Needed! If you can preach at this Bowl Game then please email Hannah: info@sfoi.org
Additional Bowl Game Information Here: https://sfoi.org/College-Football-Bowl-Games
I am retired military; Air Force. I was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, moved as a teenager to Charlotte, North Carolina and ultimately came to settle down in Wake Forest, NC. God has given me my beautiful wife, Kathy; a woman of God whom I admire and love more than I could say. We are members of Open Door church in Raleigh, NC. I have a son, Nick and a daughter, Rena.
Raised as a Catholic in a small-town community, I conformed to the traditions and beliefs of that works-based religion. I had no personal relationship with God and never had a thought that such a relationship was even possible. I knew of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit but I didn’t know God. God had a plan for this little Catholic boy though and, by the Spirit, I received the first of two callings sent to me. I was in church with my mother and brothers on what was just an average Sunday service when I had a distinct impression which I felt upon me. I was compelled to look at my mom and my brothers standing beside me in the pew and I sensed the words spoken to me, “Take care of them.” I said not a word to my mom and certainly not to my three brothers, but I filed that away in my memory and just wondered about it from time to time. This event has caused me, over the years, to create in me a sense of family that goes beyond my immediate blood kin.
Years later after graduating from school and joining the military, I was married and we had our first child, Nick. I felt a need to go back to church and started attending chapel on base. One day I was packing my duffle in preparation for one of my many deployments and again there came to me that distinct impression; only this time I was told to pack my Bible and take it with me. I was rather shocked in that I didn’t even know I had a bible. But there was a little black Bible on my bookshelf, a King James version. To this day I don’t know where that Bible came from. I took it with me on that deployment and began to read.
I would like to say that as I began reading God’s word, I immediately gave my heart to the Lord but that’s not how it worked for me. I struggled with what I was reading and frustrated that I couldn’t understand hardly anything of it. As a Catholic I never had need to read the Bible and so essentially my mind was a blank slate when I began to read the Word.
God was gracious in His mercy and sent me a brother who explained much of the Bible to me and I began to see “the Way.” I had left the Catholic church and was attending a First Assembly of God church. After several years of study, and no doubt testing God’s patience, I came to the realization that I needed to be born again. I knew I was a sinner but the draw of the lust of the eyes, the flesh, and the pride of life was so strong that I couldn’t fight it by myself. I knew that I needed God’s help if I ever was going to make it and I prayed asking for God to forgive me and make me born again. God answered my prayers and through the years of spiritual growth, sinning, repenting, more growth and so on, I have become a follower of Christ. This has included many changes in my life; some negative, some positive. I have not since heard that distinct impression, but I have been given a love for God that continues to grow and a sincere desire to share Christ with everyone. God has given me a desire to preach the word of God in open air settings and in personal one-on-one conversations. At 62 years of age, I’m entering into a time of life where retirement from my secular work is an intriguing prospect. It is my prayer that I would use the rest of the time God has given me in the service of full-time ministry of evangelism and open-air preaching.
Groaning For Redemption
This groaning is common among God’s people: To a greater or lesser extent we all feel it. It is not the groan of murmuring or complaint: It is a note of desire rather than of distress. Having received a deposit, we desire the rest of our portion; we are sighing that our entire manhood, in its trinity of spirit, soul, and body, may be set free from the last trace of the Fall; we long to discard the rags of corruption, weakness, and dishonor and to be clothed with incorruption, immortality, glory—the spiritual body that the Lord Jesus will bestow upon His people.
We long for the manifestation of our adoption as the children of God. “We . . . groan,” but it is “inwardly.” It is not the hypocrite’s groan, by which he would make men believe that he is a saint because he is wretched. Our sighs are sacred things, too holy and too personal for us to broadcast. We keep our longings for our Lord to ourselves. Then the apostle says we “wait,” by which we learn that we are not to be petulant, like Jonah or Elijah when they said, “Let me die”; nor are we to whimper and sigh for the end of life because we are tired of work or wish to escape from our present sufferings till the will of the Lord is done. We are to groan for glorification, but we are to wait patiently for it, knowing that what the Lord appoints is best.
Waiting implies being ready. We are to stand at the door expecting the Beloved to open it and take us away to Himself. This groaning is a test. You can learn a lot about a man by what he groans after. Some men groan after wealth—they worship money; some groan continually under the troubles of life—they are merely impatient. But the man who sighs after God, who is uneasy until he is made like Christ—that is the blessed man. May God help us to groan for the coming of the Lord and the resurrection that He will bring to us. From: https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/daily-devotionals/latest/?gclid=CjwKCAjwnK36BRBVEiwAsMT8WCR8UteIwaWlAyP4o9ZIuAWio8l7qmAM1nDcB3pFiYr-jOUNkgMsShoC68IQAvD_BwE
December 19th, 2020
Toyota Stadium (Frisco, Texas)
7 p.m. ET
Join Joe Hinson in preaching the Gospel at the Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl. Additional Event Information Here: https://fb.me/e/3j7hyCDxY
My Name is David Day and the Lord gave me eyes to see some years ago my need for Him. The moment I could see, He has been shaping and fashioning me into more of His image and allowing me to share His message with many in my city and elsewhere. In 2014, the Lord allowed my wife and our children to begin doing this work full-time, with the opportunity to labor in China, London, a few Super Bowl’s, but our love is right here in Montgomery where I spend most of my time outside the local abortuary, but we will preach where ever the door would become open. We have a few universities in town as well as Auburn where we participate each with Bill and the SFOI1000 preaching at each Auburn home game.
My family and I are members of Morningview Baptist Church here in Montgomery where at this moment I serve as an active deacon. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness. Our ministry page is SoThatAllMayKnowHim.org
Advent Time
The Church has always had a different relationship to time than the world. She lives in the now and not yet of the Resurrection and Last Day. She hopes for her Savior to return in glory while suffering the constant assaults of sin, death, and Satan. One generation is born; another generation dies. Clans, tribes, and nations rise and fall. The world has its clocks and calendars to ensure that their time isn’t wasted, but the Church waits.
For two thousand years, the Church has waited for her Lord to return. She is patient even as the world tries to leverage every second against the encroachment of decrepitude and death. That’s why the Church is attacked, insulted, mocked, cursed, and persecuted. To a world enslaved to time (because it has no future), the Church’s disregard for clocks and calendars is ridiculous. The Church’s hope is the coming of her Lord, Jesus Christ, who daily strengthens and encourages us through his word and gifts of salvation.
People put their hope in the old world of the law, sin, and death. They don’t care about the purpose of Advent or the true meaning of Christmas. They have their traditions, myths, and feel-good stories about Christmas that wash-out and wash away the double meaning of Advent and Christmas.
The Church is always in Advent, and every Christian constantly lives in Advent
That’s why the Church will never be able to win over the world. The apocalyptic proclamation of the Lamb of God, who’s born for the rising and falling of many, doesn’t fit into most peoples’ worldview. Most people imagine Christmas can be a time of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” apart from the Christ-child. But that’s because they haven’t heard the preaching of Advent.
That is what our God calls us to today, as he always has called his Church to announce the coming of the Lamb of God, crucified from the foundation of the world. The Church is always in Advent, and every Christian constantly lives in Advent because we hope for the coming of our Lord in judgment.
We are called to testify to the history-shattering truth of God’s birth. We preach, pray, sing, and witness to it. Even as the world refuses to hear what we have to proclaim, we carry on speaking the truth of Advent: “Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the Lord!”
We confess that “Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person” (The Small Catechism, 2nd Article of the Creed)
This is the Advent message of God that transcends the generations, calling all sinners to repent and believe because the day of the Lord is at hand. For the Church, then, it’s always Advent. It’s always a time of hope and affliction, sin and grace, law and gospel, the now and not yet of our apocalyptic faith.
In spite of disappointment and doubt, we are strengthened by the word which announces, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” This is the mystery of God’s birth. The mystery that the Church proclaims, that our God became a man, sacrificed himself to us, and was raised from the dead for our justification. It is the mystery of the One who comes to us hidden under the means of the Spirit in the Lord’s Supper. This is the mystery of Christ’s coming that is the Church’s one, sure hope. That is why the Church in every generation exclaims, “Come, Lord Jesus!” And he says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” From: https://www.1517.org/articles/advent-time
My name is Alex Burt. I am married to a wonderful woman named Kim and we have two children. Kaitlyn is 25 and Luke is 20.
God found it in His mercy to save me in 1997 and I almost immediately felt the calling to take the Gospel of Jesus outside the four walls of the church. I remember hearing an old preacher say: “I hear all these young preachers complaining about not having anywhere to preach! Last time I checked, there was still a sidewalk out there!”
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, that triggered something inside me and before I knew it, I was outside our local Courthouse the first Saturday of every month preaching.
God really messed up my “normal” Christian life when I ran across Ray Comfort and his teaching, “Hell’s Best Kept Secret”. After hearing that sermon and listening to it many times I knew God was calling me to open air evangelism. My job relocated my family to Arizona in 2004 and while living there I was able to attend the Ambassadors’ Academy in California. Immediately following the academy I began going to Mill Avenue, which is right beside Arizona State University, and sharing the Gospel on Saturday nights.
In God’s providence we relocated to Bethlehem, Ga. in 2009, with the University of Georgia only 20 miles away. I am blessed to be able to share the Gospel through tracts, one on one conversations and open air preaching in downtown Athens on Friday nights and before home football games.
Alex Burt 2 Corinthians 5:21
Time
Inscribed on a clock-case in Chester Cathedral, England, is a poem, Time’s Paces, attributed to Henry Twells. It reads:
‘When as a child I laughed and wept, Time CREPT;
When as a youth I waxed more bold, Time STROLLED.
When I became a full-grown man, Time RAN.
When older still I daily grew, Time FLEW.
Soon I shall find, in passing on, Time GONE.
We do everything we can to deny the passing of time. We pay attention to the skillful marketing of products that can supposedly ‘delay’ the ravages of the passing years. The subject of time is rarely a hot topic of conversation.
Come with me to Jesus’ sobering words in Mark 13:24-27: “In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”
There are times when significant events occur that can impact the course of history. We saw this with the fall of the Berlin Wall back in November 1989, and with the destruction of the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001. The fall of the Berlin Wall was greeted with joy. The attack on the twin towers led to fear and anger.
In Mark 13 Jesus doesn’t beat about the bush concerning the realities of our troubled world. He speaks of suffering and, using metaphors, he predicts global, catastrophic events, including pandemics. In this context he forewarns us of a day of his coming.
His expression, the Son of Man, takes up the prophecy of Daniel some five or six hundred years before. For Daniel 7 speaks of the Son of Man coming in dominion and glory and that all peoples, nations and languages will be brought under his rule.
Consider for a moment the splendor and pageantry of royal occasions on earth such as a coronation – and then multiply the scene a million times, and then a million times more. We might then begin to imagine the dazzling glory and the awesome power of the return of God’s king.
The idea of an end of time is totally dismissed these days. The idea is laughable. Catastrophic events impacting the world is a theme that books and films play with. But such events never mean an end of time. Movies such as 2012 and The Road portray humanity coming to the rescue in the aftermath of any global catastrophe. Opinion-makers today tell us that there will always be survivors to carry on and chart the human destiny.
The picture that Jesus portrays of a world catastrophically consumed by fire and his appearing across the skies for all to see, is simply derided. Yet he is clear. He points to an end-time and the beginning of a totally new age – one where there will be no crying or mourning, where death itself will have passed away (Revelation 21:4).
What we forget these days is the Person who speaks so clearly and firmly about these matters. If the prophecies made by people such as Isaiah and Ezekiel centuries before Jesus was born came true, if Jesus’ very specific predictions about his death and resurrection also came true, is it not conceivable that his further prediction about his return, will also be fulfilled?
In Mark 13, verses 28 through 30, he uses the analogy of the fig tree. Just as the sprouting leaves on the fig tree indicate that summer is near, so do catastrophic events indicate the coming of God’s new age.
When will this happen? Star-watchers can’t help us with an answer. And Jesus tells us that not even he knew (Mark13:32). However, he is sure of this. There will be an end time when he will return.
Indeed, he tells us that despite calamitous cosmic events, his words will not pass away. Why is it that we so easily put aside our Bibles? Is it that we are too busy? Is it our lack of faith? Jesus was right in his predictions about the destruction of the temple and fall of Jerusalem. We can be sure he is correct about the future. We would be foolish not to pay careful attention to him.
Perhaps, above all, we forget that it is a fearful thing, to come near the living God. The giving of the law to Moses caused people to tremble with fear as they stood at the foot of Mt Sinai (Exodus 19:16). Isaiah’s vision of the Lord in the temple caused him to cry out, “Woe is me …” (Isaiah 6:5). Significantly in 2 Corinthians 5:11, Paul the Apostle writes: Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others…
So, how should we now live? Watch, pray and work. Watch. Be aware that this world is passing. Be prepared for the coming of the King. Pray. Pray that God, in his compassion, will open blind eyes and soften hard hearts. Work. God calls us to partner with him in rescuing the lost and bringing them home.
Oh! I didn’t tell you that there is a last line to that poem in Chester Cathedral:
‘Soon I shall find while travelling on, Time GONE. “Will Christ have saved my soul by then?” I asked.’
Join Mark Jasa and his team in heralding the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ at the LA Chargers home football games this 2020 season.
Additional Event Details Here: https://fb.me/e/cNzHQwtI8
Join Heath Pucel and his team in heralding the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ at the Green Bay Packers home football games this 2020 season.
Additional Event Details Here: https://fb.me/e/1ZXk9xQGa
SFOI ARCHIVE