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Introduction To God’s Magnificent Sevens One thing that has intrigued me the last few years in my Bible studying especially is all the sevens that I and others have found in the Bible. Of course, we all know the mainstream ones people talk about, such as Jesus’ seven I Ams in the Gospel of John; Jesus’ seven sayings from the cross; the seven churches, seals, trumpets and vials in the book of Revelation. Even though the word seven and sevens occur 54 times in Revelation, there are countless more, such as a word or phrase occurring seven times in that book (or a multiple of seven, which has the same symbolic meaning), seven people or groups in view, a passage having seven things happening in it, a sevenfold list given, seven names or types of statements, a sevenfold approach to the whole book. We can also find all of these and so many more in the Bible as a whole. Sevens (or a multiple of that number) means completion or perfection in the Bible. Often it is used to show a complete range ...

Introduction To A Shadow Of Things To Come As much as I love working on studies and posting new things, I hardly ever seem to have the time to do indepth writing anymore - yet I am always working on new sermon outlines for my devotionals at the Gospel Mission. I normally toss the outlines once I develop them into longer studies, but often dread losing work that I put time and prayer into. I am sure I have oodles of untyped outlines in boxes and drawers that would be a blessing to others - IF I ever typed them out. As a preacher, I am blessed many times by reading sermon outlines by others, so why not have an outlet to post these "shadow outlines" here -  a shadow of things to come  (Lord willing). I use that blog title in two senses: 1. In reference to Colossians 2:17  Which are a shadow of things to come; but  the body is of Christ . All of Scripture is about the Lord Jesus Christ, and even the types and pictures found in the Old Testament, when properly studied out...

A Shadow Of Things To Come Shorter Devotionals Posted On Buy The Truth If you read only one article on this website, please let this be it: God's Simple Plan of Salvation It concerns the most important decision you will ever make in your life! Don't let this opportunity to be saved pass you by. Here is my Table Of Contents for my devotional blog to make it easier to find studies you are interested in or have previously read. I have transferred each devotional over to Buy The Truth. All links are updated. Chronological Table Of Contents Most important posts for this blog: Introduction To A Shadow Of Things To Come First 156 Messages Preached At The Gospel Mission  (Links updated) Devotionals Preached At The Gospel Mission In 2010 Devotionals Preached At The Gospel Mission In 2011 All My Blogs 2010: I Am The Bread Of Life The Shepherd's Rod And Staff Compound Names Of The Lord I Am The Light Of The World Come - Invitations From God/14 Gospel Invitations Who I Am True Worship ...

Devotionals From My Blog, A Shadow Of Things To Come I realize my other blogs are not getting anywhere near the traffic of this one. I had created another one for shorter devotionals or sermon outlines, so then those who wanted more indepth studies can go here (on Buy The Truth), and those who want neat little nuggets can visit A Shadow Of Things To Come. Lately, I have been thinking of merging the content and having them all on one site - perhaps indicating in the Table of Contents which ones are shorter or which ones are outlines. That way, visitors can access which ones they prefer - or check them all out at their leisure, without having to miss out on some because they are on another blog. It would create lesser work for me - as well as make it easier on all to find specific content. Starting today, I will be moving all the blog entries from A Shadow Of Things To Come over to Buy The Truth. I hope these devotionals, studies, and outlines are all a blessing to you. I still have my o...

Poems Presented In Church In 2021 to 2022, for about 10 months in the two main Sunday services, I presented poems in church as a ministry. Usually I shared an introduction to the poem (perhaps the story behind it if it was one of mine or if I knew of the events surrounding it), then I presented the verses behind it and a Biblical exhortation to draw closer to the Lord.  While we were recording the sermons preached each service, we did not think to actually record the poem presentations until about the last four months. The poems were a blessing to share and God's hand was definitely upon that ministry, as the poems and challenges I read often went with the theme of the sermons preached, the songs chosen, and many times both - yet the hymns chosen each day and the Pastor's themes or passages were not announced to me in advance. It was a ministry wholly dependent upon the Lord's guiding, and His hand was very evident for all those months. For various reasons, the Lord guided ...

I wanted to try something new, so I created two new blogs. One new blog, called The Substance Of Things Hoped For (Faith-based Stories and Illustration) , was created for a place for me to be able to quickly repost all the stories and illustrations that Angela Trenholm (my webpartner) had on her family site (Trenholms Of Kelowna). EarnestlyContending.com  (our domain and the central hub for all our personal sites) got repeatedly hacked a little over two years ago and we lost all the content and had to rebuild from scratch. It is a lot of work trying to repost articles, stories, songs, etc. that were posted from approximately 21 years ago onwards, but I am making a valiant effort. Doing it in a blog format also gives me the opportunity to easily add new content. The second blog is for posting Daily Devotionals once again - devotionals and poems. I had done that for several years back in 2004 onwards, but eventually it became too much work to keep doing that project and work full tim...

I thought it might be beneficial to list all studies/devotionals that I have put in this blog, for those who want to be able to quickly find one again, or for those who may be perusing this blog and are wondering what is in it. I have put an * beside the studies that were a tremendous blessing or encouragement to me when studying them out. Any messages that I preached at the Gospel Mission have @ beside them.  All links below will open in a separate window. If you read only one article on this website, please let this be it: God's Simple Plan of Salvation It concerns the most important decision you will ever make in your life! Don't let this opportunity to be saved pass you by. Note: My original Bible study site is  Eagle's Wings Ministries  (this link takes you to the Table Of Contents for it). In light of the repeated hacks on our main domain (ie. Earnestlycontending.com and the loss of all previous content, I am duplicating the studies here so as to avoid having to r...

I have created a new blog for my devotional outlines. Please stop by and bookmark it if you are interested. I wanted to have an outlet to post less developed studies or outlines from messages I have preached at the Gospel Mission. I have entitled it A Shadow Of Things To Come Lord willing, I will be posting more regularly there, as I am still regularly preaching at the Mission, but don't always find the time to work on writing up my studies. The first few studies I will be posting will be a series I am currently preaching through on the I Ams of Jesus from the Gospel of John. The first sermon outline posted is pretty long ( I Am The Bread Of Life ), but most of them will not be anywhere near that length. These outlines will also contain links or quotes from other articles and poems that I have used in my devotionals. I have about 10-15 minutes to preach at a time, and sometimes I find a solid poem can really hit home the point after covering the related Bible passages. It is also ...

Today: For 2 1/2 years, I posted Daily Devotionals (from July 2004 to October 2006) on several websites and my mailing list. I have these Devotionals also posted on Eagle's Wings Ministries , but somehow never got around to posting the month of October 2006 - perhaps because it was only half a month. Then my new job at the Gospel Mission took up a lot of my time and I was no longer able to send out Devotionals on a daily basis after that point. Some of the Daily Devotionals were links to my own studies, some short(er) Devotionals of mine as well; plus, links to excellent books, articles, and studies gleaned from solid Bible study sites on the Web. Unfortunately, over time many of these links became outdated - some of these boards and study sites went out of Internet existence - and I was not able to keep up with updating the links. Some of the best blogs and study sites I have found that are currently available are now in my Links bar on the side of this blog. I am re-posting som...

I thought it might be beneficial to list all studies/devotionals that I have put in this blog, for those who want to be able to quickly find one again, or for those who may be perusing this blog and are wondering what is in it. I have put an * beside the studies that were a tremendous blessing or encouragement to me when studying them out. Any messages that I preached at the Gospel Mission have @ beside them. All links below will open in a separate window. If you read only one article on this website, please let this be it: God's Simple Plan of Salvation It concerns the most important decision you will ever make in your life! Don't let this opportunity to be saved pass you by. Note:  My original Bible study site is  Eagle's Wings Ministries  (this link takes you to the Table Of Contents for it). In light of the repeated hacks on our main domain (ie.  Earnestlycontending.com  and the loss of all previous content, I am duplicating the studies here so as to avoid h...

First 156 Messages Preached At The Gospel Mission When I submitted to the call to preach* and started preaching in 2004, I kept a list of the titles/themes and main passages preached at the Kelowna Gospel Mission. Friday was the day I was scheduled to come in each week and preach before the supper meal (sometimes I was also given the opportunity on Saturdays, though I was not scheduled on that day - more as a fill in if someone needed me to do it). When my computer crashed in fall 2006, I thought I had lost this list, so I stopped keeping track of the messages preached, except to date the studies if I later typed them up and developed them. Looking through an old file folder tonight, I found that original list among some files that were recovered from my harddrive. *(Ie. as a regular part of my life. During my four years as a bus runner - the man that ran to the doors to pick up and drop off the children - I had preached about two or three times to the children on our Sunday School bus...