JOSH SMITH

Former SBC president and evangelist Bailey Smith introduced the first speaker of the conference, his son Josh. Bailey praised God for all three of his sons, each of whom are serving the Lord in Baptist institutions and churches, and gave most of the credit to his godly wife. He described his son Josh as a child as an energetic grasshopper on roller-skates, but he watched God "take his life early and really mold him into something wonderful."

"I realized the first time I heard Josh preach that I wasn't hearing my son, I was hearing a man of God," Bailey Smith said. Turning to his son, he said, "Josh, I love you and I'm proud of you, not because you're a good preacher but because you're a man who loves the Lord and preaches His book."

Josh Smith, pastor of MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church in Irving, Texas, preached from Jonah 3 on the proper response to God's Word. Noting that most people want to experience the extraordinary instead of the ordinary, Smith reminded pastors, "Big doors swing on small hinges."

The Book of Jonah, Smith said, presents an irony between the responses of God's prophet and the pagan people. Jonah demonstrated two improper responses: He ran from God's Word, and then he resented God's Word. The Ninevites, however, responded in humble faith and repentance.

"Every Word of God demands a response," Smith said. "The way we begin this relationship with Him is the way we continue this relationship with Him. Our response to the Word of God determines the direction of our lives.

"God will accomplish His plan, and He will accomplish it through someone," Smith continued. "The only question is will it be you? And I pray that somehow by God's grace and for His glory that as you respond properly to the Word of God that it will be."

DON WILTON

Don Wilton, pastor of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, S.C., described three pictures from 2 Timothy 2 of what it means to be strong in the grace of God. Pastors, he said, must fight like soldiers, run like athletes and work like farmers in their ministries.

" calling us to become fathers to our sons and to our daughters, to lead by example and to be the kind of dads in the ministry that God has called us to be," Wilton said.

The United States is facing a battle that may be unprecedented in its history, Wilton said, and the church needs men who will fight passionately for the Gospel.

"It's not going to take somebody in the White House who will change these United States of America," Wilton said. "It's going to take the Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit changing the hearts and lives of our people."

Wilton warned of the dangers if the Southern Baptist Convention embraces a form of idolatry by following too closely after individuals rather than after Jesus Himself.

"It is only the Lord our God that we serve," he said.

Wilton's son Rob, pastor of Vintage Church in New Orleans, introduced his father by describing him as being personal, loving, challenging and encouraging. As he thought about the text from which his father would preach, Rob Wilton said he "couldn't help but pause and thank God that the Paul in my life has been my dad."

RONNIE AND NICK FLOYD

Father-son pastors Ronnie and Nick Floyd teamed up to preach a sermon. The two alternated turns in the pulpit, challenging pastors to develop an expanding vision for their cities. Continued...