Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary

Dr. Rob Boyd spoke during chapel about living in a broken world. He starts with describing the fable of Humpty Dumpty, then segues into the story of Daniel and how he lived in contrast to the Babylonians. Dr. Boyd explains that Daniel stood strong on God’s commands. He encourages the students to develop biblical absolutes and to live out their faith in the world.

Scripture Text

Daniel 1:1-20

Main Points or Ideas

• Daniel's world and ours - When Babylon invaded Jerusalem, young Daniel was transported into a full-scale indoctrination program — new name, new language, new literature, new food — designed to make him forget who he was and become fully Babylonian. Boyd draws a direct parallel to the pressure today's culture places on young Christians: slowly removing God from schools, textbooks, politics, and public life, and labeling those who resist as intolerant or radical. The question Daniel faced is the same every student faces: will you blend in, or stay true to your God?
• Develop biblical absolutes - Daniel's response to the king's food was not impulsive — it was the expression of a conviction already settled. He purposed in his heart. Boyd distinguishes between preferences ("ideally I'd like to live this way") and convictions ("I will do this regardless of who I'm with or where I am"). Preferences crumble under peer pressure, temptation, or loneliness; convictions hold. He challenges students to write down, with God and their Bible, the things they will always do and will never do — so those decisions are made in the calm, not in the heat of Friday night.
• Live out your faith in the world - Daniel did not withdraw from Babylon. He wore the king's clothes, attended the king's school, took the king's job, and climbed the Babylonian ladder of success — all while refusing to compromise his convictions. Boyd argues there is no tension between technical excellence and spiritual maturity. A committed Christian should be the best in the room, making the source of that excellence unmistakably visible. The goal is not to limit Christ to a church pew or a chapel service but to carry him into every gym, workplace, and classroom — letting others see what God looks like when he does your job.

Conclusion

Dr. Boyd closes with two challenges: develop biblical absolutes you will not negotiate, and live out your faith openly in the world. We are not Secret Service Christians, strong in chapel but invisible everywhere else. We have the light of Christ, and the call is to let it shine before others so they glorify the Father in heaven.

Pastor Pat Nemmers spoke during chapel about following Jesus. He views following Jesus as the primary action of discipleship. He states strongly that if one were to follow Jesus, they have to die to themselves. Pastor Nemmers says they can do this by denying themselves, carrying their crosses, and following Jesus, just as Scripture says.

Scripture Texts

John 12:24-26; Matthew 10:37-39; Matthew 16:24-26

Main Points or Ideas

• Following Jesus means dying (John 12:24-26) - Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; if it dies, it bears much fruit. Nemmers illustrates this with a story about a boy who kept a handful of acorns in the haymow while his father planted the rest along the driveway — fifty years later the driveway is lined with majestic oaks, and the hidden seeds have never produced anything. Dying to self is not a loss; it is the only path to fruitfulness. He applies this through the example of Saylorville Church, which has sent nearly four hundred of its best people to plant eight other churches — dying to being the biggest in order to bear much fruit.
• Following Jesus means loving him above all else (Matthew 10:37-39) - Jesus calls his followers to love him hyper — beyond, over — father, mother, son, and daughter. Nemmers connects this to a missionary in his church who is leaving a twenty-year fruitful field for a restricted Muslim country where he may never see a convert. The explanation is simple: he and his wife are following Jesus, wherever that leads and whatever it costs.
• Following Jesus means denying yourself (Matthew 16:24-26) - The word "deny" in this passage is in the middle voice — the responsibility rests entirely on you, no one else can do it for you. All the glory belongs to God, but all the responsibility belongs to the follower. Nemmers also warns against holding onto something "just in case" — like the inventor of the Slinky who gave his fortune to missions but brought the patent to South America with him, and only found freedom when he threw it into the ocean. What are you still holding onto?

Conclusion

Nemmers closes with the image of chasing a ninety-nine cent bag across a parking lot in forty-five mile per hour winds, and asks: what are you running after, and if you catch it, will it give you life? This Easter, the empty tomb is God's cry to a world chasing things that cannot satisfy — follow Jesus, lose your life, and find it.

Dr. Jim Tillotson opens by asking students to project where they will be a year from now if they stay on the current path in their thought life, devotional life, dating life, and work ethic. Framing the message around strategy games he loves, he argues that God's Word is the ultimate rule book for life — and that there are five winning strategies in Proverbs 4:20-27.

Scripture Texts

Proverbs 4:20-27; Ephesians 4:30-32; Philippians 4:8; 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Main Points or Ideas

• Have a continual and consistent regard for the Word of God (vv. 20-22) - Giving attention to God's words and keeping them in the heart is not optional for those who want to win spiritually. Skipping daily devotions in Bible college because you attend Bible classes is a losing strategy. The Word functions like a GPS — ignore it and you can be confidently driving toward your own doom. Someone said it well: this book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.
• Guard your heart (v. 23) - Out of the heart spring the issues of life. Students must actively protect their thought life from pornography, bitterness, and unresolved anger. Bitterness is an open wound you keep picking at rather than letting heal. Unforgiveness and anger make you like a city with no walls — every enemy passes through and takes what it wants. The antidote is bringing every thought captive and choosing to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving, as God in Christ has forgiven us.
• Watch your mouth (v. 24) - Put away deceitful mouths and perverse lips. Lying is a losing strategy — liars must keep telling more lies and eventually cannot keep track of them. Tillotson addresses students directly about the treachery of living with unconfessed pornography or moral failure while pursuing marriage — it is the Trojan horse. Honest living, speaking truth in love, and refusing to gossip or slander are marks of someone building on a winning foundation.
• Keep your eyes focused (v. 25) - You can hit a bullseye in money, relationships, or career, but if it's in the wrong lane, you register a zero before God — just like Olympic shooter Matt Emmons, who fired a perfect shot at the wrong target and dropped from first to eighth. Stay focused on honoring God and giving him your best. Students who leave campus without graduating often lost their focus to money, unsafe relationships, or bitterness.
• Be careful and consistent in your decisions (vv. 26-27) - Slow and steady wins the race. Weigh what you are about to do against the Word of God before you do it. Running ahead of God — like Jonah — leads to costly detours. Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established.

Conclusion

Dr. Jim Tillotson closes by reminding students that their opponent Satan has thousands of years of experience, but he is not smarter than God. Following these five strategies — Word, heart, mouth, focus, and decisions — is how believers win. God wants you to have a victory, and with his help you can.

Paul Golden spoke during chapel about Israel and why Christians should support it. He lists ten reasons and explains them briefly. Golden explains that God does love Israel, that Jesus was Jewish, and that Israel has a bright future.

Scripture Texts

Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 17:1-8; Deuteronomy 7:6-8; Jeremiah 31:35-36; Psalm 122:6-9; Zechariah 2:8; 8:23

Main Points or Ideas

• We are indebted to Israel - The Jewish people gave the world both the Savior and the Scriptures. Nearly every book of the Bible was written by Jewish authors who meticulously preserved God's Word for every generation.
• The Jewish people are God's chosen people - Not chosen because of their size or merit, but purely because of God's love and his covenant oath to their fathers (Deuteronomy 7:6-8). God set them apart to point the world to the one true God.
• We have been blessed through them - Disproportionate to their size — just 0.1% of the global population — Jewish people have contributed twenty-three percent of all Nobel Prizes, co-invented major medical advances (the polio vaccine), and driven technology including cell phones and Intel chips.
• Jesus himself was Jewish - Circumcised on the eighth day, celebrating Jewish festivals, teaching in synagogues, and identifying with his Jewish brothers. He was born, died, and rose as a Jew. To truly love Jesus is to love the Jewish people.
• God blesses those who bless Israel - Genesis 12:3 is an everlasting, unilateral covenant commitment: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you." Golden applies this by encouraging prayer for Jerusalem (Psalm 122) and tangible support for Israel's physical and spiritual needs.
• God loves Israel - His love is unconditional and not based on performance. Jeremiah 31:35-36 declares that God will no sooner stop loving Israel than the sun, moon, and sea will cease to exist. Christians are called to love whom God loves.
• Israel is a testament to God's faithfulness - From the miraculous birth of Isaac to deliverance from Egypt, from the survival of Esther's day to the re-establishment of the modern state in 1948, Israel's ongoing existence despite relentless persecution is evidence that God keeps his promises to his people — and therefore to us.
• God gave the land to the Jewish people - Genesis 17:8 and over one hundred and thirty other passages reiterate the everlasting, God-given title to the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The modern battle over who owns the land is ultimately a conflict with God's own covenant.
• Anti-Semitism is evil - Hostility toward Jewish people is a spiritual problem rooted in Satan's ongoing attempt to thwart God's redemptive plan. Whoever touches God's people touches the apple of his eye (Zechariah 2:8). To hate the Jewish people is to raise a fist against God.
• Israel has a bright future - Deuteronomy 30 and Zechariah 8 describe a coming day when God will regather his people, give them hearts that recognize Jesus as Messiah, and lift them to a place of honor among all nations. This future hope motivates present support.

Conclusion

Golden closes by reminding students of the bottomless debt every believer owes the Jewish people and urging them to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, support Israel's physical and spiritual needs, and stand with God's chosen people in both good times and bad.

Student Association President Amos Glover opens by answering a fake phone call to illustrate his central question: when God speaks, will you put aside everything else to listen, or ignore him to your own peril?

Using Hebrews 1:1-4, he argues that God's speech climaxes in the incarnate Son — the most spectacular, complete, and personal communication God has ever given.

Scripture Texts

Hebrews 1:1-4; John 1:1-5; John 14:26; 1 John 2:27

Main Points or Ideas

• God has spoken — and he sounds like Jesus Christ - From Moses to Malachi, God spoke in many times and many ways: through prophets, donkeys, angels, symbols, types, and the sacrificial system. But all of it was preparation — a crescendo that fell silent for three hundred years before the incarnation. When God finally spoke in his Son, he spoke once and in one way: the person of Jesus Christ. Christ is not merely the messenger; he is the very message. The love letter of the Old Testament is precious, but when the person who wrote it arrives, everything changes.

• The identity of the Son who is God's speech - Hebrews 1:3 describes Christ as the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his nature. Glover uses this to draw out the Trinitarian reality of the incarnation: because Christ is God, when we experience him we experience God himself — his love, joy, and peace are not things he merely has but things he is. God the Father speaks; God the Son is the speech. This is a mystery too great for human analogy, but the passage invites wonder and worship rather than resolution.

• What it means to listen and speak - If God has spoken, the only question left is whether we will listen. Listening requires focus — every input shapes the mind, and the enemy does not need sinful temptations to win if he can simply keep us preoccupied with meaninglessness. Glover addresses each class year directly: freshmen, use your time to know God; sophomores, learn what God sounds like; juniors, look to Christ's humanity for perseverance; seniors, make sure you know what God has said. And beyond listening, believers are called to speak Christ to others — through teaching, preaching, evangelism, and discipleship — because what they communicate is not merely an imitation of Christ but Christ himself through the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

Amos closes with a threefold call: listen to God, comprehend God, and communicate Christ to others. In doing so, believers have communion with the Triune God and love others not with merely human love but with the divine love of their heavenly Father.

Tim Waldron spoke during chapel about prayer and how God is at work. He looks at how God was at work in the life of Hezekiah when the Assyrians invaded Judah. Waldron encourages the students to trust God, showing that God answers prayer and works accordingly so that all will come to know Him.

Scripture Texts

Isaiah 36-37; Isaiah 10:5-6

Main Points or Ideas

• The crisis: a humanly impossible situation - Sennacherib, king of Assyria, had already taken every fortified city of Judah. No king and no kingdom had stopped the Assyrians. Standing outside Jerusalem's walls, the Assyrian emissary mocked God, threatened the people, and invited them to surrender. Hezekiah had done everything a good king could do — fortified the city, prepared his armies, diverted a water supply. It was not enough. Jerusalem appeared doomed.
• God is at work — even through adversaries - Before the drama unfolds, Isaiah 10:5-6 reveals what Hezekiah could not see: Assyria was merely the rod of God's anger, an instrument in his hand. Whatever trouble or trial comes into a believer's life passes through the hands of God. He uses whoever and whatever he wants to accomplish his purposes.
• The prayer that won the battle - When the crisis was renewed and all human options were exhausted, Hezekiah spread the threatening letter before the Lord and prayed. His prayer was simple, direct, and reverent — mostly a declaration about God: Lord of hosts, God of Israel, dweller between the cherubim, the one true God over all kingdoms, creator of heaven and earth. He acknowledged the enemy's power, admitted his own helplessness, and asked God to act for his own name's sake. God's response came immediately through Isaiah: Because you have prayed. One hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers were dead by morning. Sennacherib returned home and was killed by his own sons. Jerusalem was saved without a single arrow falling inside the city.
• The call to pray - The lesson Waldron draws is as simple as the story is dramatic: God has ordained that the trusting, believing prayers of his people be the cause of great victory in spiritual battles. This does not mean God needs our prayers — it means he has chosen to use them. Whether the battle is for a family member's salvation, against persistent sin, or against bitterness and resentment, prayer must be the first and continual weapon. Prayer is not a last resort — it is the clearest and most powerful evidence that we trust God rather than ourselves.

Conclusion

Waldron closes by drawing the story back to the opening truth: God is always working in our lives to move us away from trust in self toward trust in him. Whatever God is doing in the life of this school and in each student's life right now, his purpose is the same — to pull us toward deeper dependence on him. Let prayer be the evidence of that trust, so that whatever he accomplishes may cause all peoples to know that he alone is God.

Pastor Lance Augsburger looked at the story of Solomon and his turning away from God. He warns the students that even when they are strong, sin can still creep into their lives. Pastor Lance showed how sin turns hearts away from God, choice by choice. He also gives hope that God wants their hearts, completely and wholly.

Scripture Texts

1 Kings 10-11; 1 Kings 3:3; 1 Kings 8:59-61

Main Points or Ideas

• Sin can creep in even when things are strong - Solomon's fall did not begin in a moment of weakness. It began when he was king of the world — the wealthiest, wisest ruler alive, a man who had personally led his people to love the Lord. The context of chapter 10 is a picture of peak strength. Yet it was precisely there that sin began to work its way in. The warning for students is the same: spiritual strength and a rich environment are not immunity.
• Sin turns our hearts away from God — one small choice at a time - God had explicitly commanded Israel's king not to marry foreign women, warning that they would turn his heart. Solomon, likely telling himself he was wise enough to handle it, made one compromise, then another, until he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines — and seven hundred acts of idolatry. Augsburger calls this the "Pringle Principle": once you pop, you can't stop. Sin never rushes in all at once. It works through small justifications — it's not that big a deal, I've got it under control, it's good for Israel — until the heart has drifted far from God. Watch for little justifications; they are the early warning signs.
• God wants our hearts completely - God's rebuke of Solomon in chapter 11 is not primarily about the wives or the commands — it is about the heart. Solomon had received more direct divine attention than almost any other person in history, yet he squandered it. By contrast, believers today have been brought into an even more intimate relationship with God through Christ: forgiven, declared righteous, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and guaranteed an eternal inheritance. This greater privilege carries a greater call to guard the heart.
• Two solutions: follow David's pattern, and restore your affections - David sinned as badly as Solomon, but David repented — he brought his sin into the light, confessed it, and drew near to God again. The first solution is to follow that same path: confess, forsake, tell someone, seek accountability. The second is for those with nothing specific to confess: examine whether your affection for God is growing. Open the Scriptures not to complete an assignment but to see God, and let that sight restore your love for him.

Conclusion

Augsburger closes with the hymn "Come, Thou Fount" — "prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love" — as both a confession and a prayer. The goal is not merely to avoid Solomon's end, but to actively keep the heart bound to God in growing love.

Pastor Daniel Vance spoke about the power of Jesus in tests and temptation. He shows how Jesus humbly waits for the Father to end His temptation instead of rushing it. He encourages the students to wait on God instead of rushing the test.

Pastor Daniel also shows that Jesus does not use his “felt needs" as an excuse to doubt God, explaining that God does not rush His time to give us our felt needs. Jesus submitted to God in obedience to God’s Word, teaching that it is not too hard or complicated to obey Him.

Scripture Texts

Matthew 4:1-11; James 4:7; Deuteronomy 8:2-3

Main Points or Ideas

• Jesus humbly waits for the Father to end the testing - The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness, and God — not Jesus — determined when it would end. When Satan pressed Jesus in the first temptation to use his power to satisfy his hunger, the deception was this: if God has given you the ability, he has given you permission. Jesus refused to act independently of the Father, and waited until God sent angels to minister to him. The application is direct: Christians ought not to live on impulse. Ability is not the same as permission. Every moment is a moment to be lived for the Master, and he is Lord over all of it.
• Jesus did not use his felt needs as an excuse to doubt God - In the second temptation, Satan quoted Psalm 91 and appealed to the question that confronts every son of God in suffering: Is God actually present with me? The deceptive lie is: a good God will supply your needs in a reasonable amount of time. When he does not seem to, felt needs become demands and demands become doubt. Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6 — a text about Israel testing God in the wilderness by asking "Is God among us or not?" — and refuses to make that demand. He trusts God's goodness even without a sign.
• Jesus submits in obedience to God's Word - In the third temptation, Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world — a way around the cross. The deceptive lie is that obedience is simply too hard. Jesus responds every time with "it is written," showing that submission to God's Word is the weapon for each temptation. Israel failed the test repeatedly; Jesus passes each time. The theme of the passage is this: the Son of God has defeated Satan, and anyone united to Christ by faith may walk in that same victory — not because of spiritual experience, background, or training, but because Christ's victory is theirs.

Conclusion

Pastor Daniel closes with James 4:7 as the simple, hopeful summary: submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. Satan has no power over one who is in Christ. Students are sent out to fight sin tenaciously, but from a position of confidence — not in themselves, but in the decisive victory of Jesus over Satan that belongs to every believer by faith.

Dr. Jim Tillotson finished his series on the book of Titus. He observes the list of what to avoid in the life of the believer. He encourages the students to avoid foolish disputes, unnecessary genealogies, contentions, striving about the law, and to reject a factious man.

Scripture Texts

Titus 3:9-15; Romans 14:1-6; Proverbs 6:16-19

Main Points or Ideas

• Avoid what is unprofitable (vv. 9-10) - Paul lists four things to avoid: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law. Tillotson applies each to campus life — heated dorm debates over Calvinism, worship style wars, and church splits over ladies Bible studies. The church, he notes, is not so much defeated as distracted by pursuing non-essentials. Where Scripture is clear, take a stand; where it is silent or unclear — roughly five percent of the Bible — be gracious. A divisive person who will not receive two admonitions is to be rejected: the Bible describes such a person as warped, sinning, and self-condemned. Don't start the campfire.
• Keep your plans in pencil (vv. 12-13) - Paul was uncertain which co-worker to send and was never able to carry out his plan to winter at Nicopolis — he was arrested and taken to Rome instead. Titus left a church plant he had invested his life in, simply because Paul asked. The application: God never intended believers to walk through life rigidly self-directed. Hold plans loosely, be willing to be redirected, and go where God sends.
• Maintain good works and meet urgent needs (v. 14) - The phrase "let our people learn" suggests this does not come naturally; it must be cultivated. Good deeds open hearts to the gospel. Tillotson shares how consistent relationship-building with a neighbor couple led to a Sunday-night conversation where they heard the plan of salvation for the first time in their lives. He also recounts Professor Brian Trainor taking a concrete fall protecting a woman on a tour of Masada — badly injured but meeting an urgent need. The question: who's going to care?
• You need friends and you need grace (v. 15) - Even Paul needed companionship during a long winter. Some students are so focused on academics they are investing in no one. College friendships often become lifelong ones — invest in them. And the entire book of Titus — every command to avoid disputes, submit to authority, pursue godliness, and do good works — is impossible without grace. Paul's closing word is fitting: grace be with you all.

Conclusion

Dr. Jim closes by urging students to avoid division, keep plans in pencil, pursue good deeds, build friendships, and depend on God's grace for everything the Christian life requires. The book of Titus has a simple bottom line: be the kind of person whose presence blesses every church and community you enter, not divides it.

Morris Gleiser spoke during chapel about the Israelite’s familiarity and apathy to God and His Law. He explains that Israel’s history is an example to the church today in warning believers to not follow the same patterns. He warns against growing familiar to what used to bother us spiritually, and he also gives hope, reminding students that sincere worship and cleansing of the heart can cure apathy.

Scripture Text

Isaiah 1:1-20

Main Points or Ideas

• The Disease Described: Spiritual Deafness - God opens Isaiah 1 with an urgent, emphatic command to hear — twice — because his people had stopped listening. They could attend worship, read the Word, and sit through chapel while nothing was registering or transforming. The disease of familiarity turns the Word from something transformational into something merely informational or inspirational at best. A new convert devours every sermon and song with wide-eyed hunger; the familiar believer walks out unchanged. Gleiser warns against becoming so accustomed to truth that it stops landing.
• The Disease Described: Spiritual Desensitization - Isaiah's second symptom is that God was visibly at work — bruises, sores, desolation — yet the people were not responding. They had grown comfortable with things that should have alarmed them. Just as Gleiser's college roommate's glass eye went from terrifying to familiar to ignored, believers can become desensitized to sin, conviction, and the voice of the Spirit. The rut and routine of religious life, as one old author put it, leads to spiritual rot.
• The Prescription: Sincere Worship from the Heart - God's complaint in verses 11-13 was not that Israel stopped bringing offerings — it was that they brought them without their hearts. He calls his people to put the "wow" back into worship: a genuine, awe-filled devotion to God that isn't mimicry or performance but the overflow of a heart that loves him. Gleiser points to the coming worship scene of Revelation 5 — ten thousand times ten thousand declaring the Lamb worthy — and asks, why not begin now?
• The Prescription: Serious Cleansing of the Heart - Verse 16 repeats the call to come clean four different ways for emphasis: wash, make clean, remove evil, cease from evil. The remedy for spiritual sickness is not complex — it is sincere confession and repentance. The hard part is not the act itself but the willingness to admit the need for it. Gleiser closes with the story of a teenager who read all four Gospel accounts of the crucifixion by lantern-light during a power outage and told his youth group afterward, "Lord, forgive me for taking all this for granted."

Conclusion

Gleiser urges students to stay spiritually healthy — listening to God's Word with a hungry ear, keeping worship genuine, and maintaining a clean heart through ongoing confession. Don't let familiarity drain the vibrancy from your walk with God.