You're Not Getting Older, You're Just.............

Well, I hate to say it but I am getting older.  Getting better?  That is debatable unless you are talking about my golf score; it is definitely not getting better.  Turned three-score and ten on 9-24. As the Bible says in Psalms 90:10 "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."  This is the first age that has played games with my mind and finally convinced me that I am getting old.  My Internal Medicine doctor tried to tell me that 70 is the new 50.  If that is true I need to get a job and work another 15 years and that ain't gonna happen!  Anyway, Joyce kept asking what I wanted for my birthday and since a new red Mercedes convertible wasn't going to happen, I planned a ten-day vacation for us that she ended up being just as enthusiastic about as I was.

The exact sequence of events is a little fuzzy but the following happened during the 4-6 weeks before we left  on September 21.  I saw an ad on TV for three days and two nights at Hilton Head, SC for $99 which included a $100 gift certificate for meals, etc.  I'm no great mathematician but that seemed like I would come out $1 ahead and all I had to do was listen to their time-share speech for an hour and a half and get myself to South Carolina.  Having never been to Florida, I began to have visions of white beaches and listening to the sound of the waves.  Our son, Mike, had been to Jacksonville a couple of years ago and spoke of the beauty of the area including St Augustine, the oldest city in the USA.  The clincher was running across an announcement of  an "Expositors' Conference" with John MacArthur and Steve Lawson which was scheduled for Sept 24-25 in Mobile, AL.  John MacArthur is my favorite living Bible teacher and Steve Lawson is certainly in the top ten of my favorite "preachers".  The conference was directed at pastor-teachers but was open to anyone and the cost was less than $150 for the two of us with a reduced hotel rate at the Marriott in Mobile.  Neither of us had been to Mobile so it seemed like things were fitting together perfectly. 

We then discovered that Paula Deen's restaurant was in Savannah, GA which just happened to be right off the Interstate on the way from Jacksonville, FL to Hilton Head, SC.  Since Paula can take partial credit for my recent weight-gain, we just had to stop and see if the food was as good as it looks on TV.  Take my word for it, it is!  So, all the reservations were made and we arranged for our daughter, Sheri, to house-sit since it would cost a fortune to board three dachshunds for ten days and they don't travel well.  We actually moved our departure up from early Saturday morning to early Friday afternoon to eliminate excessively long travel times for any one day, at least, until we started for home.  We left Friday around 1:00 PM and spent the night at Hampton Inn in Texarkana, TX.  Neither of us had been there and we saw parts of Texas that were new to us.  We had originally planned to spend Saturday night in Jackson, MS and drive on in to Mobile, AL on Sunday but we found out that Steve Lawson would be preaching on Sunday at 9:30, 11:00, and 6:00 so we traveled from Texarkana to Mobile on Saturday and checked into room 1208 at the Marriott around 5:00 PM. 

Steve is the Senior Pastor of Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Mobile and is very good friends with John MacArthur and they are kindred spirits on the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.  Steve preached three expository sermons on Sunday on the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John using as his title "From Failure to Faithfulness".  The first sermon was on verses 1 - 14 in which he discussed Jesus' interaction with the disciples who had returned to their old profession of fishing (for fish, not men).  Steve pointed out that their failure to catch fish is a picture of their failure to catch men without Christ.  In conclusion, after discussing their breakfast together on the beach, he pointed out the sufficiency of Christ and that he is able to meet all of their needs as well as ours.  His final point was that failure to rely on Christ will result in empty nets and catching nothing for the rest of your lives.

Sermon number two covered verses 15-17 which focuses on Jesus interaction with Peter and the three "Do you love me?" questions and Peter's answers.  Main points were Peter's confession that he had not loved Christ as he should and the graciousness of Jesus in restoring Peter.  One wonders if the three questions were a reminder of Peter's three denials of Christ.  The third sermon was on verses 18- 25 with the focus on the future suffering and crucifixion of Peter and a mild rebuke to him that he should not be concerned about John's welfare but his own.  Steve pointed out that the command issued most often by Jesus was "Follow Me" and he is still issuing that command today to those who repent and turn to him.  In conclusion, we were reminded that we shouldn't compare ourselves to others in our service to God.  We should run our own race and that God has a unique plan for each of his servants.  Steve closed with this quote from Jim Eliot:  "Wherever you are, be all there."

After the two morning sermons, Joyce and I drove to Dauphin Island and also toured Bellingrath Gardens.  I can only imagine how beautiful it must be in the spring because even at this time of the year, it was worth the price of admission.  We then took the four-mile ferry trip across Pelican Bay from Dauphin Island to Ft Morgan and then encountered about 1,000 stoplights on the way back to Mobile and barely made the 6:00 service (Joyce wanted to eat first but we didn't have time).



Bellingrath Gardens

 The conference did not begin until after noon on Monday (my birthday) so we did a little more sightseeing in Mobile.  Our main focus was the battleship USS Alabama.  It was commissioned in 1942 and served in both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters in WWII.  It was retired in 1962 and opened as a museum in Mobile Bay in 1965.  It was very interesting and makes you think of how WWII was fought and the lives that were sacrificed for our freedom.  Pictures below don't do it justice, it is an impressive sight to us ex-army guys.

 The conference began Monday afternoon and included three teaching sessions with John MacArthur, two Q & A sessions with John MacArthur, and two teaching sessions with Steve Lawson.  All of the sessions were recorded and are available on www.sermonaudio.com.  Use Christ Fellowship Baptist Church and 2012 Expositors Conference in the filter to show a list of the videos.  If you look closely in the first three which are the Sunday sermons (9-23) by Steve Lawson, you can see the back of Joyce's and my head on the right end of the fourth row from the front.  Will continue on the next post tomorrow or the next day.  Stay tuned.