You Speak, I Listen!

I was reproved tonight by some of my loyal readers for not updating my blog often enough. Never let it be said that David Scott doesn't listen to his readers.

Tonight Pastor preached an awesome message to both the English and Spanish speaking members (with Bro. Aguilar interpreting) about church unity regardless of race, language, or skin color. He talked about how many churches Spanish ministries are outgrowing the English because the Latinos are so open to the Gospel. Essentially, God is bringing the mission field to us. What an eye opening message. This really reinforced in my mind the need for me to learn Spanish if I am going to be able to reach those in our community. As Americans, it goes against our grain that people would come to our country and not learn our language, but as Christians this shouldn't stop us from doing whatever it takes to see their souls won for Christ. Pray about learning a second language so you can be a more effective soul-winner for Jesus.

Halloween

"Halloween is purely and absolutely evil, and there is nothing we ever have or will do that would make it acceptable to the Lord Jesus."

Read more on A Note From Theresa's post called, "Halloween-Evil Holiday"

Take a stand tonight, Christians. Don't be a traitor by reveling in the devil's day of victory.

Is There a Fish Waiting For You?

Pastor is out of town, so our Spanish service preacher, Brother Aguilar preached tonight. What a message. He talked about Jonah and how God always has a fish waiting for us if we refuse to follow His will. He gave a personal illustration from his own life and spoke about how he still experiences some of the effects of not making the right decision years ago. I really had to examine my life to make sure I'm in line with God's will.

Have you ever gotten alone with God and asked Him what He would like to do with your life? We've all told God what we wanted, but few of us ever work up the courage to ask God what He wants because we're afraid He might answer. Start with asking God to soften your heart so that you will want to ask Him what He wants for your life. Be honest. Tell Him you are afraid of surrendering and ask Him to help you with your fear. If you can get to the point where you are not only willing, but begging God to show you how He can use you and then you follow His direction, you will find true contentment.

My New Blog - www.EarnSpareChange.com

Check it out! I'm going to make extra money with my new blog about how to make extra money. Take a look and let me know if you think it will work. It's called Spare Change. I actually bought a domain name for it and everything (which I found out only costs $7.00 for an entire year). Now I won't have to water down this totally awesome blog with a bunch of PayPerPost ads, and I'm one step closer to a digital video camera...

Memory Verse for 10-28-07

A friendly reminder...

For my Sunday School class and anyone else who would like to participate, our memory verse for tomorrow is Matthew 24:35 "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

Since we are studying the King James Bible, it is imperative that you have this verse memorized word for word. If you don't see the importance of this, than this series is for you.

For the rest of you, stay tuned. I plan to accumulate quite a few resources on the King James Bible and dig deeply into this subject.

I signed up for PPP!

I made mention of this briefly in one of my comments, but I want to let you all know that in browsing the net for new ways to make money, I’ve discovered a really cool website. It’s called payperpost and they actually match up advertisers and bloggers! Here’s how it works. You sign up for an account and they review your blog to make sure it’s legit (no scammers). Once you’re approved, there are opportunities available to you based on your Google page rank, volume of traffic, domain name, etc. Each opportunity has a set amount of money assigned to it. You pick one that sounds interesting, write a post, and collect some cash. Easy Money! I was curious to see if this really works so I tested it out with the Garage Shelving post. I was only required to write 50 words, but I got carried away. That was a $5.00 post and my account now says I have $5.00 on the way. This post is worth $20.00! If you have a really good Google page rank, there are posts you can do that are worth up to $235.00! I’ve been checking out some of the other people who use this service on their blogs to see what kind of pages they have, and some of the top earners have blogs that are no different from any of ours. They just alternate their posts between a personal post and an ad. I was thinking that instead of bogging down this blog with ads, I may start another blog that is just for making spare change and regularly take advantage of these opportunities. Anyway, I thought you all might want to know about it and check it out. It’s legitimate and definitely worth a try.

I Need Your Help

Okay everybody, here's the deal. I want to make this blog interesting, helpful, and fun. I think more video posts would add to the content nicely, but I don't have a video camera. In order to buy a video camera I need to make some extra cash. I can do this by blogging, however I don't want to use this blog to make the money for two reasons. First, the content doesn't attract the masses, and second I don't want to subject you all to posts that I get paid to write (I actually got paid $5.00 for writing the Garage Shelving post).

The answer seems to be for me to create a second blog that targets the general population with interesting content that they will come back for often. I want to know what you all think would be an interesting subject and would bring lots of traffic. Please post your thoughts. Thanks!

Garage Shelving

Are you tired of tripping over the junk on the floor in your garage? This past weekend we cleaned out our garage because we were planning on having the Young Married Couples Sunday School class over. It ended up getting canceled due to sick kids and rain, but it's nice having the extra space in the garage. We set up our ping pong table and actually have room to use it now. Do you have boxes and tools and toys scattered on the floor of your garage? If you set up some garage shelving, you can actually use all the space in your garage. What stuff do you have in your garage that would be better off on shelving?
garage shelving is a great place to start. Check it out. If you create enough free space, you might even be able to start a neighborhood children's program and preach their faces off after school (that would be awesome!).

Just like cleaning out our garage, we need to clean the junk out of our brains. That's why God tells us in Rom.12:2 "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." How do we renew our minds? By reading and meditating on the Word of God. Proverbs 119:9 says, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." So clean your house, clean your garage, clean your car, but don't stop there. Clean out your mind daily by cleansing it in the Word of God. ~This post is sponsored~

A New Search Feature

I've added a search tool to enable you to search my blog, which is kind of cool. If you want to find all the posts that have the word "idiot" or "liberal" or "bitter", you can now do that with ease (see how helpful I am?). Unfortunately it excludes comments, so you won't pull up the bitter liberal idiot who recently posted a comment about me going to hell, but maybe that's a good thing...

The Street Preacher's Home Page

Check out The Street Preacher's Home Page! Lots of good stuff including a book called the Street Preacher's Manual! Here's an excerpt from this website:

"Street preaching" is an ancient practice going back to the prophets of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, our Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed his glorious message in the "open-air," speaking plainly to the common man. The Book of Acts records the early Church obeying the command of the Saviour to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. Church History reveals that our forefathers brought the glad tidings of the Gospel to those outside their church buildings. We seek to carry on this biblical practice in these last days.

Really motivating! I'll give $5.00 to the first person who gets punched in the nose because they were street preaching!

A Good Idea? We'll See...

I recently ordered 200 tracts from the Fellowship Tract League (they offer free tracts!) and am going to stamp my blog address on the back. I'm going to use them anytime I'm out of town (since when I'm in town I want to use our Church's tracts) and see if I can use my blog to share the gospel. What a great opener! "Hi, I'm David and I'd like you to check out my blog! It's on the back of this very convicting Gospel tract that you can read and get saved and oh by the way are you 100% sure you're going to heaven when you die and-if-you're-not-can-I-take-a-couple-of-minutes-and-show-you-how-the-Bible-says-you-can-know!" I'll have to work on my delivery, but it seems like an easy way to get the Gospel into people's hands at airports and on business trips. I'll keep you all posted on how it goes.

Churches Accepting Gays and Lesbians?

I found St Cuthbert Episcopal Church's website and this is a direct quote:

St.Cuthbert's LGBT Ministry:

St. Cuthbert's has had a long history of being open and accepting of lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/ transgendered people. At present, at least a third of the congregation is LGBT. A number of our parishioners are members of the Lavender Seniors of the East Bay.On October 8, 2006, St. Cuthbert’s celebrated the first National Coming Out Day Service in the Diocese of California. It was a grand day, featuring two choirs: the Oakland East-Bay Gay Men’s Chorus and the San Jose Rainbow Women’s Chorus.

This is disgusting! I can't believe any organization could call themselves a church and claim to follow Jesus while openly allowing and promoting perversions such as these! I wonder if they've ever read Romans chapter 1 in a church service (I doubt it, because all the twinkies in the crowd would flip their wrists and sashay out the back door). It's too bad they aren't in San Diego County right about now (did someone say Sodom?). If anyone feels like informing them about what the Bible says about their sin, you can contact them at: (510) 635-4949 or at: StCuddy@aol.com.

San Diego County Fires

My former home is burning, and it's not revival fires that are turning everything to smoldering rubble. Once again the Santa Ana winds that occur every year have caused routine forest fires to become huge disasters. My only thought is this. I wonder if somewhere in New Orleans there is a Pastor watching the news thinking that this must be God's judgement on the wickedness of those Southern Californians. Just a thought...

Lower Your Rifle!

I moved quickly and quietly, peering down the muzzle of my weapon as I climbed the stairs. We were in a town just south of Baghdad, and there were no guarantees about anything; I wasn't taking any chances. We had just come out of an 8 hour fire-fight in downtown An Nasiriyah and we were all a little on edge. Now, in an urban environment where the threat was 360 degrees, we had stopped the convoy to get briefed and prep for our next mission. I was posting some of my squad for security on some of the rooftops in case Republican Guard or insurgents tried to move in on us from any of the adjoining alleys. As I neared the top of the stairwell, my finger brushed the trigger. The weapon safety rules flashed through my head like slides projected on a wall at lightning speed. "Treat every weapon as if it were loaded!" "Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot!" "Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire!" "Keep the weapon on safe until you intend to fire!" They had been drilled into me for the past four years, and though I might forget my name someday, I will never forget or violate the safety rules. They are a part of me. My thumb brushed over the safety, and I flipped the toggle to the semi-auto position. If I saw a threat, I sure intended to fire. Quickly and quietly I scanned the rooftop. There was a large square structure protruding out of it, maybe another room of the building? No matter, I would circle the outside to see if this could be a good vantage point for us...or them. Coming around to the other side of the structure, I crept toward another set of stairs which provided passage from the roof to the street on the outside of the building. As soon as I turned the corner, I heard a savage barking, snapping, snarling dog less than five feet from me. I turned to look just as it lunged. Saliva dripped from it's bared teeth as it growled and snarled, snapping at my extended M-16 service rifle. I poked at it with the barrel, attempting to keep it occupied with the rifle so it wouldn't go after flesh. My index finger embraced the trigger with that all too comfortable feeling, as if the trigger was made for my finger, and only mine. I began to squeeze. Glancing just beyond this ferocious canine I spotted four or five puppies, maybe only a few weeks old. I realized that this was simply a mother protecting her young, and I lowered my rifle as I made a fast egress down the stairs.

Much like my experience in Iraq (one of the many involving savage dogs) it is critical for us Christians to realize that the fierce opposition we get from unsaved people is simply their sin nature reacting against God. They can't help it because it's bred into them. They are

instinctively lashing out at the threat they see to their way of life. In their eyes, we are the enemy. It is with this understanding that the Christians of old went to the stake and were thrown to the lions. It is with this understanding that Jesus was able to say on the cross in Luke 23:34, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." The next time you are insulted or ridiculed by someone who is unsaved, lower your weapon. Don't defend yourself because they don't know better. Pray for them that God will soften their heart and allow His Gospel seed to take root.

Looking for a Fight?

Often we Independent Fundamental Baptists are accused of looking for a fight. To all of you who view us that way, here is my reply.

AACK!!! I'M LOSING READERS!!

Recently as I was carrying out my duties as an usher (I "ush" on Sunday mornings), I passed the plate to a gentleman in our church. As he took the plate from me and passed it on down the isle he leaned over and told me, "You need to update that blog!" Thanks to him, HERE I AM! I'm back and fundamental-er than ever-especially now that I'm using Windows VISTA!!! Yes, I'm one of the few elites (or idiots) that decided to be an early adopter of Microsoft's latest technology (did someone say Guinea pig?). What's funny is when I installed it, there were already 42 updates I had to download. Wow.

Anyway, back to spiritual matters. Last week we went street preaching and I had the opportunity to preach to a number of people at the downtown square. Nobody fell to their knees asking "sirs, what must I do to be saved?" but I'm sure that's what they were thinking as they shouted their obscenities. I had the opportunity to meet a former gang member who is now homeless, but says he is going to be a preacher. This guy was great! He said he's a rapper/DJ and recently got kicked out of his AA meeting for preaching the gospel. He told me most of the shelters won't take him because he beat people up there for one reason or another. I'm not sure if I would want to be a deacon in his church. We did have three people that accepted Christ as their Saviour through one-on-one soul-winning that night, and one of them came to church on Sunday. Praise the Lord! I'm going to see if I can find more homeless/pastor/rapper/dj/recovering addict/brawlers next time I'm out and maybe we can start a gang ministry (I'll ask Brother Jones to be in charge of that). Until next time...

Making Money With Your Blog

I've been asked a couple of times about the ads on my blog. Okay, here's the scoop. The way it works is you sign up for AdSense (use my green button so I get a referral) and put some html code on your blog (its easy, they give it to you and you just copy and paste it into a new template section). The adds automatically show up and they are chosen by Google based on your content. You have the ability to block certain ads if they are objectionable (I had to block some "Baptist Singles Dating Sites"). There is no charge to you, but when your readers click an add, you make a few pennies. For a single click, depending on the add, I've gotten anywhere from $0.01 to $0.93. Since June I've accumulated about $41.00. When it gets to $100.00 they will mail me a check. The trick is driving people to your blog.

Driving traffic is the difficult part because there is a lot of competition out there for your reader's attention. I've signed up for some of the top sites (see my list below on the right) and people find me that way. Also, you want to make sure you are registered in Google, Yahoo, Technorati, and other blog databases. It's free, but requires a LOT of signing up and registration (I went through the registration process 50+ times). For some more info on making money with your blog, check out the following links:

Problogger's "How I Make Money From Blogs - My Top Earners"
Amazon.com Associates program (get paid when people buy books and other stuff you recommend)
Pay Per Post (get paid to write a brief advertisement post on your blog)

I don't view my blog as a business, but I don't see anything wrong with making some spare change with it, especially since I plan to give the profits to our church. I hope this answers some questions and gives everyone some food for thought. Go make some cash!

Things God Taught Me Through The Marine Corps

1. If someone doesn't respect your beliefs, they are not your friend.

This was a difficult one for me to learn, because I thought everyone needed to like me. The truth is there will always be idiots and you don't have to hang around with them. Find people who treat you with respect and be their friend. I had a fellow Marine tell me once that he didn't trust a guy that wouldn't drink with him. He was kicked out in the first year of his enlistment...

2. You don't have to compromise your convictions just because someone intimidates you.

My drill instructors told me to use profanity. Sadly, I caved because I was afraid of going against them. In retrospect, I think I would've gotten a hard time from them if I had refused, but they probably wouldn't have forced the issue. I did learn this lesson later on and when roommates threatened me and mocked me for not going along with their debaucheries, I was able to ignore it. A little immediate humiliation or confrontation is easier to put behind you than the consequences of doing something you believe is wrong.

3. If you stick by the stuff, the people that matter will gain a respect for your moral courage, even if they don't agree with your beliefs.

Eventually, I had peers who would approach me privately and tell me they really respected the fact that I was taking a stand on moral purity, alcohol, tobacco, etc. My superiors poked fun at me occasionally, but I was never held back from being promoted because I was "different". If anything, the fact that I didn't get stupid drunk probably helped me move into leadership.

4. The confidence you gain after not compromising your belief system is invaluable.

I feel as if I have moral courage that I never had before this experience. My stand against alcohol is much stronger now because I've seen the effect it has on otherwise good people, and I am able to say "no" under extremely difficult situations. Until you've experienced such strong opposition, you can only hope that you will respond the way you ideally would like to. Now I know how act under pressure...

5. Experiencing public ridicule makes you a more humble person.

Learning how to let a painful comment "roll off your back" when you've been ridiculed in front of 100 people is very hard, but gets easier with experience.

6. Loneliness isn't all bad.

When everyone else was at the strip club, bar, or dance club, there were many nights I stayed in my barracks alone. I was very tempted to go with them and justify it by calling myself a "designated driver", but in my heart of hearts I knew this would violate my conscience. Usually when I took a stand, I found myself standing alone. It takes getting used to, but it's better than getting dragged into the filth that everyone else is wallowing in.

7. Anytime you go against the flow, you make enemies. This can't be avoided.

Someone once put a pornographic calendar up in our berthing on ship. I took it down. The entire platoon got angry with me and demanded I put it up. Officially, the rules on ship are that pornography is not allowed (this is NOT enforced) so I knew if push came to shove I had the law on my side. I told them if they wanted it, someone could put it in their private rack (which is covered by a curtain) but it wouldn't hang in a public place. I was public enemy number one for a couple of days. Oh well...

8. You have to be proud of a clean life, not ashamed of "lack of experience".

Someone once told me I should sleep around because experience is the best thing to bring into a marriage. THIS IS A LIE!!! My wife and I have an extremely close, happy marriage which is enhanced by the fact that neither one of us have been with anyone else intimately. Don't fall into this trap, because it leads to discontentment. A fellow Marine used to call me "Darth Virgin" in an effort to embarrass me. I learned to be proud that I could still bear the title of a virgin.

9. Conformity gains you respect among peers, but non-conformity (the kind I'm talking about) gains you respect among superiors.

Many (not all) of my superiors recognized that I was different than the rest of the crowd, wasn't afraid of opposition, and that this quality would make me a better leader. Someone who yields to pressure from peers will never be able to make the right decision when it's not the popular one.

10. You become like who you hang around.

I made it a point to spend as much time as I could with those who believed the same as me. I had a friend who was a Christian, but at liberty ports he would run with the wrong crowd, get drunk, and end up cheating on his wife every time. He was always so ashamed of his conduct afterward and would ask if he could spend liberty with me next time so he would have some accountability. Sadly, the temptation always got the best of him and he couldn't leave his old friends. If you have the choice, spend time with those who lift you up, not those who drag you down.

SEMPER FI

Welcome to Young Fundamentalists

10-1-07 Video of the Day - Police Prank Provides Public Pleasure

Lots of New Readers...YAY!

Hello all! In case you haven't noticed, my blogroll has grown exponentially and I'm actually trying to keep up with them all. I've recently started reading and posting comments on all these blogs (which is a challenge), and I've noticed that the hit's I've been getting have gone WAY up. Usually we have anywhere from 50 to 100 hits per day, but yesterday there were over 400! I'm going to start posting on some blogs that I don't necessarily agree with too, so be prepared for some angry people that will try to roast me. Anyway, I want to thank all of you who are faithful readers and ad clickers, and encourage you to tell your friends about me. Let's build this thing!

What’s Wrong With The Sinner’s Prayer?

My response to Bill The Reasoner who does not like the sinner's prayer: "Bill, I've read some of your comments about the "Sinner's Prayer", and I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. I agree that it is not a prayer that saves us, rather it is our willingness to repent and put our faith in Christ. However, the Bible says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." I'm not sure how you can call upon the name of the Lord without actually talking to Him, which would be commonly referred to as a prayer. Being that it is coming from a sinner, where's the problem?"