Our Burden

The Christian carries a “burden.” We look around us at the unspeakable atrocities and carnage of humanity and cry out in despair to God. When we speak out about the fruits of sin, we find that the world contends with us. The unsaved suffer horribly with the disease of sin and yet refuse the cure.

One fruit of a sinful world is a system of law that eliminates any reference to God, who is the final authority, the one whose laws are perfect and just. When a nation forsakes God’s Moral Law, it produces erroneous judgments. But as desperate as things seem, God can “do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (see Eph. 3:20). He allows us to see iniquity for what it is so that we might be driven to prayer and see Him fulfill His wondrous purposes.

Habakkuk 1:1 The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry,
And You will not hear?
Even cry out to You, “Violence!”
And You will not save.

3 Why do You show me iniquity,
And cause me to see trouble?
For plundering and violence are before me;
There is strife, and contention arises.

4 Therefore the law is powerless,
And justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

5 “Look among the nations and watch—
Be utterly astounded!
For I will work a work in your days
Which you would not believe, though it were told you.

The world, the flesh, and the devil

We are to reckon the sinful nature dead to our threefold enemy (the world, the flesh, and the devil) as it hangs with Christ on the cross of Calvary. However, to effectively do this, we need the assistance of the Ten Commandments to kill our sinful nature (see Rom. 7:10,11). The Law sends us to the cross and keeps us there. “You shall not commit adultery” keeps our heart from lust. “You shall not covet” keeps our eyes off this attractive world, etc. See Rom. 13:8–10 for what the Commandments do for the godly.

2 Samuel 18:14 Then Joab said, “I cannot linger with you.” And he took three spears in his hand and thrust them through Absalom’s heart, while he was still alive in the midst of the terebinth tree. 15 And ten young men who bore Joab’s armor surrounded Absalom, and struck and killed him. 16 So Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing Israel. For Joab held back the people

Thanksgiving

I received this letter from my pastor today and wanted to share:

This one will be a little more personal to me.  As I have mentioned many times I have had some great mentors in my life.  Each one provided a special need for me at the right time (God’s timing I learned later).  This morning I had three reminders from friends asking about a time when I pastored a Landmark Satellite called Landmark of Monte Forte Heights.  It is in the west side of Cincinnati adjacent to I-74. 

 

It was Thanksgiving 1986.  I had just turned 36.  I challenged the church to feed 1000 people that Thanksgiving.  We had done this before with a good measure of success but not many decisions.  This time, however, we decided that we should hold a revival along with it.  I was impressed to ask Bro James Hollingsworth, my mentor to preach.  Stop and think about it.  During the Thanksgiving season the members of this church gave up all their family traditions and committed themselves to spreading the gospel.

 

We had 11 buses that brought in several hundred children and their parents.  We had many who drove in.  Our people worked all night cooking turkey at the kitchen at the Landmark Christian School.  We had all the trimmings.  Many businesses donated funds and one turkey farm donated “giblets” for the gravy. Grocery stores gave us discount prices.  You get the point.

 

We were expecting a great crowd.  We put up a tent for the children grades 1-3.  Our nursery was beaming with babies and preschoolers.  Our choir was prepared led by Jim Steward and Bill Hillard.  I had trained at least a dozen of men and women to work at the altar.  (I just knew that Bro Hollingsworth would bring a powerful message. We prayed and worked and prayed more.  We were ready!

 

When the busses began to arrive we began to get excited.  We fed almost 600 people.  But the best news is that when Bro Hollingsworth preached 66 people came forward to receive Christ. Most of them were adults.  It was awesome.

 

Today I was asked about this from two sources.  Mark, one of two best friends, wrote me last night asking about the details.  See Bro H has had a stroke and he didn’t remember the meeting.  This morning James George, who was on Bro Hollingsworth staff, wrote his memories of the day and said that every Thanksgiving he is reminded of that special time of God’s Spirit doing a work in Cincinnati.

 

So today I am thankful that God has done great works in our lives.  But I’m also thankful that He wants to do it again…anywhere and anytime.  All we have to do is believe and attempt great exploits for the Lord.

 

Daniel 11:32  And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.

 

Psalm 126:1  A Song of degrees.When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.

Psalm 126:2  Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.

Psalm 126:3  The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.

Psalm 126:4  Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.

Psalm 126:5  They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Psalm 126:6  He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

 

May our Lord receive the thanks for His wonderful works.

 

Bro Jim

Thanksgiving with Meaning

The Lord is close to those whose hearts are breaking; he rescues those who are humbly sorry for their sins.

–Psalm 34:18 (TLB)

It is the custom of many Christians to bow their heads in public places and give thanks for the food that has been placed before them. I have had scores of waiters and waitresses tell me that when we bowed our heads, it was the first time they had ever seen that happen in their restaurant.

Millions never pause to give a word of thanks to God for the food provided. Few homes have a moment of thanksgiving at the beginning of the meal or at any other time of the day. Even at Thanksgiving time only a minority will pause and give thanks to God. 

Thanksgiving is recognition of a debt that cannot be paid. We express thanks, whether or not we are able otherwise to reimburse the giver. When thanksgiving is filled with true meaning and is not just the formality of a polite "thank you," it is the recognition of dependence.

PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Lord Jesus, I know that apart from You I can do nothing of lasting value. Help me to come to the end of self and allow You to control the reins of my life.

If the wages of sin is death, when I die I'll pay for my sins.

It is true that the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Those who say such things are gambling the whole of their eternity on the meaning of one word: “death.” They assume it means the “termination of existence,” but their assumption is erroneous, as a little reasoning should reveal.

For instance, Hitler was responsible for the cruel deaths of six million Jews, many of whom were children. Was his death the “wages” of his unspeakably terrible sins? If death is the end, then God will give you the exact same wages as Hitler. That would mean that God is unjust, which is unthinkable.

The person who believes that our demise is the end is in for the shock of their death. Their physical death (separation from their body) is just the beginning. There is going to be a resurrection of every human being, both “the just and the unjust” (see Acts 24:15). This is not referring to the good and the bad, because the Scriptures tell us that there are no “good” people (see Psa. 14:1–3; Mark10:18). There are only those who have been made “just” before God, by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Through the gospel, God freely justifies all those who come in childlike faith to the Savior. That means He proclaims us innocent—as though we had never sinned in the first place—and we become part of the “just.” However, those who die in their sins, the “unjust,” will “fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb.10:31). That is a very fearful thing, because He will give them justice—their exact wages due to them—and if that happens, there will be hell to pay. They will be thrown into the lake of fire, “which is the second death” (Rev. 20:14; 21:8).

Revelation 20:14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Hulk Hogan Suicidal Thoughts Led to Awakening; Wrestler Now Has God's Peace in His Life

Former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, aka Terry Bollea, seemingly had it all, but in 2007 things began to change for the man responsible for the phenomenon known as "Hulkamania." He found himself thinking that suicide was the answer to his problems, but then heard a voice that brought him back to himself and set him on a new path that includes God.

Hogan found fame working for the World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment) as the "all-American" hero.

He enjoyed a successful career and after finally leaving the WWE, appeared on the reality show "Hogan Knows Best," which featured his everyday life and family, including daughter Brooke and son Nick.
While the show enjoyed some success, it didn't last long and was canceled in 2007. That was the same year that Nick was in a serious car accident, severely injuring his passenger and best friend and sending Nick to eight months in jail.

"After the show I kinda hit rock bottom," Hogan told Oprah on her show, "Oprah: Where Are They Now?" "Everything got dark, everything happened at once. I was drinking alcohol very heavily. It just all kept piling up, it all kept mounting and mounting. I didn't know how to handle it. I always wondered how could someone possibly take their own life, and so I got to that point where I said, 'You know what, maybe this would be easy. You know, maybe this would be an easy way to fix things.'"

However, on New Year's Eve, Hogan had a life-changing, and life-affirming experience that put things in a new perspective.

"I walked outside, some kid ran up and hugged me and was like, 'Oh I grew up watching you. I didn't have a dad, you're like a dad to me.' And there was another person that said, 'Hey Hulk, we love you.' And I went, 'Oh my God' – it was right then. I didn't understand what was going on, but it hit me that there's clean air and that there's dirty air. I realized I couldn't take it anymore. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I got sick and tired of the hating, the negativity, the verbal abuse – just everything that I was hearing," Hogan said.

Hogan decided to finalize the divorce from wife Linda in 2009, clearing the way for him to marry his girlfriend, Jennifer McDaniel in 2010. That, he says, also helped him figure out who he is supposed to be and what is truly important in life.

"I now realize I had to go through all this stuff to be who I am today, to make me who I am today," Hogan explained. "And then I realized all that stuff – the peace, love, the joy, that still, small voice, the energy, that God presence – is part of who I'm meant to be."

Worship Service in the Philippines

I'm sorry. Why did you say you couldn't make it to church?

Baptized for the dead

Mormons are well-known for their interest in genealogy because they believe it is their responsibility to be baptized on behalf of the dead. They believe those who have died without accepting Mormonism can still make it to heaven if their names are taken to the Temple and someone is baptized on their behalf. Because they don’t have a body, the ordinance is done for them by proxy, giving the dead the opportunity to accept Mormonism in the spirit world. Mormons base this practice on 1 Cor. 15:29, but Paul disassociates himself from the pagan practice by using the word “they,” not “we.”

Some Mormons are even married on behalf of the dead, by going through the marriage ceremony in their place. This supposedly enables a dead person to make it out of “Spirit Prison” and into a higher level of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:29 Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?

Con-science

Human understanding is “darkened” (Eph.4:18), but the conscience is the area where God has given light to every man. The word “con-science” means “with knowledge.” The conscience is the headline warning of sin; the Scriptures give the fine print. None of us can say that we don’t know it’s wrong to lie, steal, murder, or commit adultery; that knowledge is written in large print on our heart. However, in the Scriptures we see the true nature of sin: that God requires truth even in the inward parts (see Psalm 51:6). The fine print reveals that lust is adultery of the heart, hatred is murder of the heart, fibs are bearing false witness, etc.

“Conscience is the internal perception of God’s moral Law.” Oswald Chambers

Romans 2:15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them

Why are there so many races ?

Some have wondered, if we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, why are there so many races? The Bible informed us 2,000 years ago that God has made all nations from “one blood.” We are all of the same race—the “human race,” descendants of Adam and Eve, something sci- ence is slowly coming to realize. Reuters news service reported the following article by Maggie Fox:

Science may have caught up with the Bible, which says that Adam and Eve are the ancestors of all humans alive today.

Peter Underhill of Stanford University in California remarked on findings published in the November 2000 issue of the journal Nature Genetics...Geneticists have long agreed there is no genetic basis to race—only to ethnic and geographic groups. “People look at a very conspicuous trait like skin color and they say, ‘Well, this person’s so different’...but that’s only skin deep,” Underhill said. “When you look at the level of the Y chromosome you find that, gee, there is very little difference between them. And skin color differences are strictly a consequence of climate.”

“When the families scattered from Babel, they each took different combinations of genes with them. In such small populations, trivial differences (such as skin color) can arise quickly in only a few generations. Even evolutionists admit this is true. But different shades of skin and slightly different genetic traits are trivial and do not constitute different ‘races.’” Carl Kerby, Answers in Genesis 

Acts 17:26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.

Acknowledge Your Sin

A woman in Florida was in court for running over a bike rider with her car. As she was in prison awaiting her sentence (which was predicted to be one to four years), she was allowed to take a phone call from a friend, and laughed as he made jokes about the victim’s death. When the judge heard the recorded phone call, he threw the book at her, and gave her the maximum sentence of more than ten years. Why did he do that? Because her laughter revealed that she had no contrition (true sorrow). She didn’t see the seriousness of her crime.

What is it that will bring swift mercy from the Judge of the Universe? What is it that will open the door of the grace of God to guilty sinners? It is what the Bible calls “godly sorrow.” It is only when we see the seriousness of our transgressions against God that we will have godly sorrow, and it is godly sorrow that produces repentance. Each of us has a choice. We can be a fool and mock at sin, or we can see sin as being “exceedingly sinful.” You have God’s Word on it: He will throw the Book at the proud and impenitent, but He will give grace to the humble. So humble yourself today, acknowledge your sins, and as you trust in the Savior, you will taste of the grace of God.

Leviticus 26:40 ‘ But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, 41 and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt—

God Abhors Evil

“All who, without commission from God, dare to execute private revenge, and who, from ambition, covetousness, or resentment, wage war and desolate kingdoms, must one day answer for it. But if God, instead of sending an earthquake, a pestilence, or a famine, be pleased to authorize and command any people to avenge his cause, such a commission surely is just and right. The Israelites could show such a commission, though no persons now can do so. Their wars were begun and carried on expressly by Divine direction, and they were enabled to conquer by miracles. Unless it can be proved that the wicked Canaanites did not deserve their doom, objectors only prove their dislike to God, and their love to his enemies. Man makes light of the evil of sin, but God abhors it. This explains the terrible executions of the nations which had filled the measure of their sins.” Matthew Henry 

Numbers 33:51 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images, and demolish all their high places; 53 you shall dispossess the inhabitants ofthe land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess.54 And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; there everyone’s inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers. 55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell.

Bound by His Character

The world often gravitates to the concept of a god who is “all loving.” Such a loving god would never judge people and damn their souls to hell. However, it is more biblical to say that God is love, but He is also the essence of truth, judgment, and righteousness. Therefore, God is bound by His own character to do what is true, just, and right.

“If we exalt one of God’s qualities over another, we can get a distorted view of God’s character. In fact, overemphasizing any one of God’s attributes to the exclusion of others can lead to heresy. For example, teaching only about God’s mercy and neglecting His role as a judge will prevent people from understanding God’s hatred of sin and the future punishment for wrongdoing.” Bill Bright

Jeremiah 4:2 And you shall swear, ‘The Lord lives,’ In truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; The nations shall bless themselves in Him, And in Him they shall glory.”

Real Business

“If any person is an honest unbeliever and sincerely wants to know God, he will come to a saving faith. Folk with whom I have dealt who say that they cannot believe are not being honest. The fact of the matter is that no man’s eyes are blindfolded unless he himself chooses to be blindfolded. If a person really wants to know God and will give up his sin and turn to Christ, God will make Himself real to him. In our day the problem is that a great many folk do not really mean business with God.” J. Vernon McGee

Jeremiah 9:6 Your dwelling place is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” says the Lord.

“If we tell people to trust in Jesus to go to heaven and avoid hell, won’t that motive create false converts?”

Think of the story Jesus told of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11–32). The father had great pleasure when the son came into a right relationship with him. The son cried, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (vv. 18,19). Obviously, his father would not have rejoiced in the same way if a happy but impenitent son had returned with a prostitute on each arm. Obviously, it was the son’s humble turning from his sinful lifestyle that pleased the father. The son’s happiness was irrelevant; righteousness was the issue. The world has no concern for righteousness. Its chief goal is the prodigal’s happiness, whether he is in or out of the pigsty.

Christianity’s goal is absolute righteousness, which we are told in Scripture will ultimately result in the glory of God and the pleasure of man (see Psa. 16:11). That is why we must always focus on man’s depravity (revealed by the moral Law) and God’s righteousness (revealed in His Law and in the cross; see Rom. 1:16,17). The gap between depravity and holiness will reveal the need for righteousness. Happiness is irrelevant to the gospel proclamation, even though (because of God’s kindness) it is ultimately the end result.

However, we need never feel any sense of guilt because someone responded to the gospel with a desire to live. It was self-preservation that motivated the prodigal to get up out of that pigsty (“I perish with hunger!”; Luke 15:17), and every sane human being likewise has been given an instinct for self-preservation. We have been endowed by our Creator with the good sense to know that life is better than death, and that heaven is better than hell. We came to Christ because of a hunger and a thirst for righteousness, and the ultimate end of righteousness will be “pleasures forevermore,” to the glory of God.

Deuteronomy 10:12 “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?