Matthew 19:16-30 June 19, 2022 PM.

The Lord’s three-plus year ministry is

compressed into a fairly small amount of text, and Matthew has to

keep moving efficiently from one event to the next. After teaching

on marriage, divorce, those who are gifted to be single, and

blessing some little children, the Lord is approached by a wealthy

young man with a question about his soul.

There is a lot we can criticize about this fellow, but give him this: he

had some concerns about his own soul. That is more than we can

say for some people. The statement of verse 30 about the first being last and the last first,

introduces the parable of the workers in chapter 20. We will have

to wait until we can study that in depth to get the full effect.

Jonah 1:1-10 June 19, 2022 AM.

The fearful mariners ask Jonah why in the world he did this. Out of

the mouth of pagans! Look at this situation. The unbelievers

recognize that if you believe in God, and claim that He created

everything, and say that He is the Lord of all the earth, then you

should be obeying Him. It is only logical. How could you not? And it

is the same way today. When the unbeliever has a clearer vision of

what religion is supposed to do for your conduct than does the

follower of Christ, there is a problem.

Various June 19, 2022 SS.

In this message Pastor Matt hosts a questions and answers session, addressing the following questions: 1) Why does Pastor Matt not address issues from the Pulpit, focusing on modern issues? 2) Romans 3:30 says that one God will justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Why are two different prepositions used? 3) Where did all the workers go?

Matthew 19:13-15 June 15, 2022 PM.

As he ministers, the Lord instructs His disciples not to treat

children like a nuisance, but to bless them. More

importantly, he takes the opportunity to remind his

audience that it is child-like faith that is the distinguishing

mark of heavenly citizens. Without that, you are a child

of the devil.The Lord left that location and went on to another place to

continue His ministry. But we are left with the question of how to apply this text.

We intuitively understand that we must care deeply for

young people. The church and its individuals must

minister to little ones. The society at large and its laws

must protect them from harms of all sorts. Yet today, we

do not protect, but rather expose our young ones to

dangerous and immoral ideas. We do not teach them

religious instruction and thus by omission make many

think that religion is irrelevant.

Again, and more importantly, we are reminded that

kingdom citizenry is not opened up to self-sufficient

people. It is for those who are like children in their

estimation of themselves.

Matthew 19:1-12 June 12, 2022 PM.

This passage inevitably raises controversy. I trust you can handle differences between believers with grace and mercy. I have taught for years that the standard for Christians is no divorce, but if there is divorce, no remarriage. That is clear regardless of your emotions or experience in the matter. The bottom line for me is that God has established marriage as a very high and holy calling. It is no joke, and it is to be maintained, jealously guarded, protected, nurtured, strengthened, etc.. We ought not focus on the exception clause, as if that is the main point of this passage—because it is not. It is only a sub-point that might apply in certain difficult situations, but does not soften the reality that divorce is SIN or demonstrates a deep-rooted SIN problem in marriage.

Various June 12, 2022 AM.

What would I tell you if I could be as open, transparent, and honest as possible? What if I did not have to worry about hurting your

feelings? What would I share with you?I have probably left out a few (dozen) thoughts. Let me know if you think advice on other topics would be helpful. But I am confident that if you focus on basics such as reading your Bible, making disciples, keeping yourself accountable, engaging the battle against sin in your own life, and being faithful in attending church meetings—you will do well. And that reminds me of Acts 15:29, but I hope that none of the problems mentioned there are

problems for us today. A helpful resource if you want to read on these topics and others is Donald Whitney’s book Spiritual Disciples for the Christian Life. After I wrote these notes, I looked at his table of contents and found that I covered many of the same topics he does, though he does so in far greater detail.

Various June 12, 2022 SS.

In this message Pastor Matt Postiff shares his study on the key differences in variations of the Holy Bible.

Matthew 19:1-12 June 8, 2022 PM.

This passage inevitably raises controversy. I trust you can

handle differences between believers with grace and mercy. I have taught for years that the standard for Christians is no divorce, but if there is divorce, no remarriage. That is clear regardless of your emotions or experience in the matter. The bottom line for me is that God has established marriage as a very high and holy calling. It is no joke, and it is to be maintained, jealously guarded, protected, nurtured, strengthened, etc.. We ought not focus on the exception clause, as if that is the main point of this passage—because it is not. It is only a sub-point that might apply in certain difficult situations, but does not soften the reality that divorce is SIN or

demonstrates a deep-rooted SIN problem in marriage.

Various June 5, 2022 PM.

In tonight's message, Pastor Postiff answered questions about gender, slavery, and college for young people.

Matthew 18:21-35 June 5, 2022 AM.

True Christians have been forgiven a mountain of sin against God and

have been welcomed into God’s family as justified saints. God’s

children act like God their Father does (Matthew 5:48; Philippians

2:15; 1 John 3:1-2, 10, 5:2). God is forgiving. Therefore, we should

be too. We have been forgiven so much more sin than we can

count or list; it is relatively nothing for us to forgive an offender

against us. Look at the examples of Christ (Luke 23:34) and

Stephen (Acts 7:60).

This means that we always live with an attitude and heart ready to

forgive because we understand our own wickedness and the great

pardon we have received. When an offender comes to us and asks

us to forgive, that readiness is exercised by actually forgiving the

person. Thus, the offended comes together with the offender and

a “transaction” of forgiveness is finalized.

The professing Christian who does not understand this and/or does

not practice it, thus demonstrates that they do not truly

understand the forgiveness of God. He or she apparently did not experience that forgiveness, or else would automatically

understand the need to practice real forgiveness.

The practical challenge for us is not to intellectually understand what

we have studied today. The difficulty is to do it when we have been

hurt. When our hurt consumes us, we demonstrate selfishness and

not love for others. This is when our heart gets clogged up with self

and cannot extend forgiveness to another. This is not godly.

In another side of this, we need to know how to apologize and ask

forgiveness. The two men in the story had a desperate need—huge

debt that they could not pay. They had no problem asking for the

debt to be forgiven because they understood the consequences if

they did not. We all have a similar need in our sin-debt toward

God, and our sins toward others. But the problem is pride. We do

not want to admit we are wrong. We think somehow we can avoid

paying our debt to God or that we can make the things toward

others go away with time or other clever techniques. We need to

humble ourselves and ask to be forgiven by admitting our sin to

God and to others whom we have wronged. Far better that, than

carrying around unresolved guilt all the time.