Ah, the joy of something new! There’s nothing quite like it. Some new product that works better. Some new way to get there faster. Some new fidelity to make it sound better. Some new wrench that works smoother. Some new machine that’s stronger. Some new story that tickles your fancy. Some new drug that makes your health problems easier to bear. There’s just something special about new stuff.

It is finished. The 26th edition of the Southside Lectures has come and gone. And it will go down in history the same as the previous 25 lectureships—a tremendous success.

I always have mixed emotions the morning after. On one hand, my body and mind are exhausted, ready for any kind of break from the activities of the week. Yet my heart is hollow, wanting to sing just one more song or hear one more sermon. As I looked over the empty auditorium Friday, I both rejoiced and wept as I replayed these memories in my mind.

The Southside Lectures get underway tomorrow for the twenty-sixth time. It’s been a wonderful trip. Beginning in 1980, and every year thenceforth, the brethren at the Southside church have heard some of the finest preachers of this generation—men like Harry Pickup, Jr., Homer Hailey, Harold Turner, Connie Adams, Ed Harrell, Robert Jackson, Robert Turner, Paul Earnhart, Bob Owen, Brent Lewis, Sewell Hall, Melvin Curry, Phil Roberts, James W. Adams, and a host of others. It has been one of the richest experiences of this age.

David is growing up. He proudly walks around the house now, even though he leans to the left a little. He eats his Cheerios a handful at a time. He recites the 12 tribes of Israel before breakfast each morning. OK, maybe not that last one. But he is growing up.

Some of my earliest memories have to do with attending gospel meetings. My father, Tom Moody, was a preacher. Before I was school age I would tag along on his meeting trips. I enjoyed all the new people and hearing him preach with all his might. There is just something special about being at a gospel meeting with your dad.

He sat on death row. All appeals were exhausted and his execution was imminent. When making some of his last requests, there was no trace of bitterness or resentment over an unjust imprisonment in his words. Rather, he peacefully wrote, “when you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments” (2 Tim. 4:13 LBX). Though his body awaited danger, his mind was somewhere els

The Bible does not teach the doctrine of “once saved, always saved.” When the Apostle Peter closed his discourse on the so-called Christian Graces, he says, “If these things be in you and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for it you do these things you will never stumble” (

Who in their right mind could have ever seen me being a Christian two and a half years ago? I honestly believe the camel could have entered through the eye of a needle before this would ever happen. But along with that statement, Jesus said, “the things that are impossible with people are possible with God” (Luke 18:27 LBX). I was involved with the most corrupt crowds and lived by feeding off of other’s add

I grew up listening to W.R. Jones preach the gospel. My friends and I used to sit on the front row and try to feverishly copy all of his overhead charts. Even though I was very young, six or seven at the time, I can still remember some of his sermons on heaven and hell, the judgment, and the church. One night, while everyone else around me was taking notes, I drew a picture of Brother Jones baptizing the Incredible Hulk. I showed it to him after services. He just smiled and said, “well, the gospel is for all.”

In a recent article in the Houston Chronicle, George F. Will says, “The challenge confronting the church can be expressed in one word: modernity.” He is exactly right—even though his concept of what is the church is not biblical, his perception of what constitutes the church’s challenge is entirely correct. What we face as the people of God today is what he terms modernity.