The churches that are growing and thriving are churches that I would call evangelical and orthodox for the most part in their beliefs. They are churches that tend to evangelize ... and encourage their people to share their faith. These are the churches that are actually growing. The ones that are shrinking are the ones that are compromising and watering down what the word of God says.

Whenever God is blessing, we can expect the devil to be opposing.

The Bible says that in the last days, there will be people in our churches who are not true believers, among other things. Because of watered-down messages and compromise, people will feel comfortable in certain churches because they are never confronted with their sin. I believe my job as a pastor is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.

The gospel is only good news if it gets there on time. I think if we don't deliver this message, it's negligence of the highest order. It would be like if you were walking down the street and a house was on fire and you heard screams coming from inside and you just kept walking. How irresponsible is that? At the very least, call 911 but better yet, you might run in and try to save the people.

God's judgement begins to fall on the Earth.

There's a difference between remorse and repentance. Remorse is being sorry for being caught. Repentance is being sorry enough to stop.

The message of the season is not, "Let it snow" or even, "Let us shop." The real message of Christmas is, "Let us worship." That is what the wise men came to do. And that is what we should be doing as well.