Deeper 2008

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending the Deeper Conference that was put on by Living Waters and Way of the Master. I can't even begin to express what a blessing this conference was; imagine two days of sitting under the teaching of Paul Washer, Ken Ham, Marshal Foster, Ray Comfort, Johnny Hunt, Emeal Zwayne, Kirk Cameron, and Todd Friel, and then on top of that, to be led in worship by Scott Krippayne. It was an awesome weekend!

Here are some of the highlights:

The conference began on Friday afternoon with a message by Ray Comfort entitled Gethsemane, the Missing Link to the Cross. In this message Ray showed us how Peter missed his Gethesmane experience because he slept when he should have been praying and as a result he denied his Lord. Ray reminded us that when it comes to sharing the Gospel our fear is in direct proportion to our pride. He also stressed the importance of having compassion for the lost, but warned us that compassion will cost us something: our time; our money; our reputations. So let me ask you, how well are you sharing your faith? If you're not is it because of fear - or is it because of pride?

Next up was Emeal (E.Z.) Zwayne, who spoke on the importance of cultivating the mind in a message he entitled Mind Matters. He used as his text Mark 12:28-34 with his key verse being verse 30, which says:

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Mark 12:30

From this verse he zeroed in on what it means to love God with your mind ,and he talked about the importance of theology and apologetics in the life of the Christian. He talked about how important it is that we study theology and the Bible because we cannot love what we don't know, and the more we know about our God the more we can (and will) love Him.

The next speaker was Johnny Hunt, whose church hosted the conference. Dr. Hunt spoke on the Sufficiency of the Bible. He reminded us that God has exalted His word above His name and talked about the importance of knowing and obeying the Bible. The more we feed on God's word the hungrier for His word we will become; God's word has the ability to both satisfy us and make us crave more at the very same time.

Following Dr. Hunt was one of the highlights of the conference for me, a message by one of my favorite preachers - Paul Washer. Paul Washer spoke for about an hour and fifteen minutes on the Essential Truths of the Cross. His text for this message was Romans 3:23-27, which says:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.

Romans 3:23-27

In his message he reminded us that the cross is the Gospel and that the cross is the motivation for the Christian life, and he exhorted us to know the Gospel because we cannot preach what we do not know.

After this was the first breakout session of the conference where I got to hear Todd Friel explain how we can prove that the Bible is Supernatural by Following the Scarlet Thread. In this message Todd explained how the types and shadows of the Old Testament all point to Christ, who is the fulfillment of these "fuzzy pictures" we see in the Levitical system.

This was followed by a worship session that included music by Scott Krippayne and Scripture reading by Paul Washer.

Friday night ended with a message by Kirk Cameron entitled Apologetics and the Gospel. In this message Kirk talked about how Christians need to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us, but at the same time we need to be careful that we do not allow our arguments for the validity of our faith to take the place of the Gospel; we need to answer the questions of people who genuinely want an answer, but not at the expense of the Gospel. In witnessing we need to always keep an eye on the cross, and as we answer the questions that are sure to come we should use them as a springboard to get conversation back to the Gospel and the cross.

On Saturday morning we reconvened at 9:00 am for another wonderful day which began with more praise and worship led by Scott Krippayne. I had never heard Scott before this weekend and I was very impressed. He is a very tallented singer and song writer and he was the perfect choice to lead the worship at the conference.

Todd Friel had the first general session on Saturday morning, and in this message he picked right up where he left off the night before with a message on Biblical Covenants. This was my favorite message of the conference and Todd ended the message with Communion, a Covenant meal. This was without a doubt the most meaningful and moving communion service that I have ever been a part of and if you ever get the chance to hear Todd speak on this subject I highly recommend that you go - you will be glad you did.

Todd's session was followed by a General session by Marshal Foster, who I must admit I had not heard of before this conference. in his message, which was on history, he stressed the fact that there is only one history, and that history is about Jesus. He had a very interesting message and I am looking forward to hearing more of his teaching in the future.

After lunch the final general session was a message by Ken Ham. This was probably my second favorite message of the conference (there were no bad messages). In this message Dr. Ham showed the importance of a literal interpretation of Genesis chapters 1-11. If we allegorize these chapters, as many modern Christians are prone to do, we end up losing the essential doctrines of the New Testament since they all have their root in these first 11 chapters of the Bible. He also pointed put the the real issue is Biblical authority; if we disregard what God said in Genesis 1-11 how can we then say that the rest of His word is accurate.

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay for the closing session due to time constraints and a 7 hour drive to get home, and if the final session was anything like the ones I did get to attend, it was my loss. This was a great weekend , it was a great conference, and my only regret is that my wife wasn't able to attend with me, but they are already planning Deeper 2009 and God willing we will both be able to attend next year.

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