The past few weeks have brought me to an important time of reflection about my life and service to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have looked backward and forward.
This month I turned sixty years of age and my wife and I celebrated thirty years of marriage. God has blessed a few things to happen which have helped me to get my house in order, which is the state I want to be in when God calls me home. For all this I give thanks to God.
In reflecting on my Christian labors as an apologist (I have had about a dozen public oral debates over the past thirty years), preacher (I have labored as pastor, teacher, in churches and in seminary), author (I have several books on the Internet, some of which are completed and some still in progress), historian (doing intense research into the Hardshell Baptist group), blogger (having several blogs directed towards certain subjects and audiences), and above all, as a Christian (I have been born of the Spirit for over 45 years and baptized into the body of Christ for over 43 years), etc., I have both satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
I am satisfied with the particular subjects that I have chosen to research and which to make into books and treatises. I am satisfied with what I have thus far written, though all of these works could be improved. These subjects are:
1) The Hardshell Baptist Cult
2) My Daily Bread
3) The Post Tribulation Rapture
4) The Prophet Job
5) The Canonicity of the Book of Esther
6) The Weak and the Strong
These are my major works. I am satisfied with what I have thus far written and they need revision and completion. All these works involved intense study and research.
Of course I also have many smaller works on various topics. I also have much information gathered on other topics for possible future use in other works.
I am hopeful that the Lord will allow me the years to complete these works. If not, I am glad that God has provided brother Fralick to become custodian for all my writings and blogs and perhaps will allow him or some other person to complete and enlarge upon what I have already put forth in print.
I am now in the process of completing my mammoth work "The Hardshell Baptist Cult." I am also in the process of writing a smaller version of the same. I am satisfied at where I am in this work and can only hope that the Lord will allow me the time to complete these works.
Not only do I want to complete the afore mentioned major works, but I have other topics that I want to do research on and put into book form for the benefit of others. These topics include issues in eschatology, coming events in prophecy, the doctrine of election, Two Seedism, eternal security, the ordo salutis debate, etc.
My dad is now 82 years of age and is still pastor of "Thompson Memorial Primitive Baptist Church" in Franklin, Ohio. I talk to him a lot about matters I deal with in my book relative to the Hardshells. A large book about these conversations over the years would make an interesting read in itself. My nephew, John Davenport, is assistant pastor at this church. This is the church of my original membership.
Whether I live to the same ripe old age only God knows. I am not so in love with this world or with my life that I would not exchange it in an instant to be in heaven with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and with the saints of all the ages. "To depart and be with Christ is far better." I do hope that I can yet be useful to the Lord and complete these works.
Further, I must say in closing that I have written against the Hardshells out of love for Christ and out of love for sinners as well as out of love for my "Primitive Baptist" brethren. It has been my hope to help bring today's Hardshells back to the faith of their forefathers and thus become real "Old Baptists" as brother Fralick and I. Keep my wife and me in your prayers. God bless.
For all of you who have visited my blogs and left encouraging comments, I say "thank you."
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