What's So Important?

 

One of the beliefs that has crept into our culture is one whereby we tend to deny responsibility for our own actions. While we understand clearly that if one sits behind the wheel of a car and drives it 60 miles per hour into a tree, we die; yet we deny the same law of cause and effect in the area of moral irresponsibility. So, we give credibility to the fiction that a serial killer is such because his father or mother did something to him that made him that way, or worse yet, he was born that way inheriting some genes.

A forty-year-old man suffering from the classic “mid-life crisis” syndrome, sat down with a preacher to discuss his marital problems. He explained how his marriage of twenty years was no longer sexually satisfying or fulfilling. Finally, he reached the “bottom line” – “I just don’t love her anymore,” he said. “What can I do?” After a brief moment of reflection, the preacher said decisively, “As I see it, you have only one option…” The man perked up with anticipation. Was the preacher going to suggest a divorce? Would he finally be free to pursue the thrilling lifestyle of the younger generation that he had come to admire? Would this be his chance to regain his fleeting youth? “…seems to me that the only thing for you to do is REPENT and start loving your wife again.” So often we hear of married couples who complain that they have “fallen out of love.” That’s sad; but it happens. The real issue is what you do about it.

In our own “pursuit of happiness” we have fallen out of love with the Constitution that governs these United States. By eliminating God from both education and social diction, Meism has thwarted the efforts of teaching successor generations lawful respect and responsibility toward one another. If it’s uncomfortable for one’s lifestyle then blame society for suppressing you. Failed actions on one’s behalf are always someone else’s fault. Patriotism and political involvement by the general public has waned so great that elected Representatives have become competitive idiotic propagandizing liars, vying for top positions in the dictatorship they’re building. Folks, we’ve got to repent and start loving our country again! There are tons of problems in this country, and the world, that would be solved if from the top down everyone would get back on their knees and beg God’s forgiveness! Forest fires; drought; hate and murder; greed and misappropriation; you name it – it would all go away with God’s involvement.

[Matthew 13:24-30] In Jesus’ parables, ‘The Hidden Treasure’ and ‘The Pearl of Great Price’ (Matthew 13:45-45) both men understood the value of their finds and what sacrifice was essential to obtain them. Both men considered their prize worthwhile. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like both valuable items. The truth that Jesus taught in these parables illustrates the need to evaluating the things we consider most important. What is worthwhile in your mind? What is the desire of your heart? What is so important that it becomes your life-long pursuit?  What is it that is worth all you have and all you are? That may very well say something about your character. Solomon said wisdom is so precious that it is worth the same effort one would put forth to find silver or hidden treasures (Proverbs 2:1-5). The apostle Paul thought that the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus was so great that he counted everything else as worthless that he might obtain that knowledge (Philippians 3:8-9). The salvation of your soul should be worth more than the whole world (Matthew 16:24-26). We live in uncertain times. The only things that will outlast this world and go on into eternity are spiritual in nature. You are made in the image of God (spirit in nature, Genesis 1:26-27) – heaven or hell?

Who's Coming For You?

 

The engraving of the confession, in poetic form, presented on stone at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts reads:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me —and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Lippstadt, Germany, in 1892. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Adolf Hitler's rise to power. But when, after he came to power, Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. In 1937 he was arrested, confined in Dachau and Sachsenhausen, and was released in 1945 by the Allies. He continued his career in Germany as a clergyman and as a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after WWII. Niemöller made confession in his speech for the Confessing Church in Frankfurt on 6 January 1946, of which this is a partial translation: “... the people who were put in the camps then were Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers. Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians - "should I be my brother's keeper?" Then they got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables. I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? Only then did the church as such take note. Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible? The persecution of the Jews, the way we treated the occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers. … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! (my fault, my fault!) We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out. We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934, there must have been a possibility, 14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30 to 40,000 [sic] people…” (wikipedia.org/First they came…)

[Genesis 6:5-8] Let’s face it – apostasy (2 Timothy 3:1-5) is once again engulfing humanity at an alarming rate and consuming the souls of mankind (Romans 1:18-32) without discrimination, which I believe will trigger the Destruction of the World 2.0 - very soon (2 Peter 3:10-13). No one will physically survive; but the spirit of man can survive if properly prepared (Galatians 5:15-26). Don’t stand before God with your head hung low saying, “My fault, My fault! (Romans 2:1-11). Stand proud before the Lord as a survivor of truth (2 Peter 3:14-18). Repent; confess your faults today (Acts 2:37-41).

How To Destroy A Country

 

“One university after another is bowing before the violent demands of a small minority of radicals who intend to overthrow the existing government...The radicals fully intend to overthrow the national government and replace it according to their own fuzzy, undefined lines which they cannot explain. They have decided to seek as many confrontations with the police and university officials as they possibly can. They are using terror tactics in some parts of the country now.” This was written fifty-one years ago in the July 1970 issue of the Voice of Freedom. Following these observations was a short article entitled “How to Destroy a Country”: * Affirm man’s animal origin, nature, and functions to the exclusion of everything else, and ridicule all reference to his spiritual qualities. * Inculcate general disrespect for any kind of authority by urging people to obey their own impulses in the name of freedom. * Hamper the enforcement of the criminal code with decisions that slow down the judicial process and make it difficult to arrest, convict and sentence a culprit for an offense against society. * Import vast supplies of hallucinogenic drugs and make them available to the youth of the land; then provide the youth with plenty of money with which to buy them. * Loosen all restraint on the entertainment media so that sexual license may be presented to the public in its rawest form. * Corrupt the youth of the land by permitting pornography, obscenity, and general immorality to be indulged in freely without fear of arrest or persecution. * Soft-pedal all discussion of loyalty, responsibility, patriotism, duty, and sacrifice in order that freedom of dissent may be established. * Split the older and younger generations by encouraging them to distrust each other and to condemn each other’s institutions. * Pollute the air, the streams, and lakes, and erode the land until the environment is so poisoned that life can no longer be enjoyed. * Indoctrinate the public into believing that God is dead, Jesus Christ is a myth, Christianity, a byword for an ancient superstition, and the church an institution that humanity has outgrown. Well, here we are living a fifty-one-year-old prediction that wasn’t far off, was it.

[Psalm 9:17] In life as children of God, we are different from the world. No matter how you slice it, our world simply doesn’t measure up to the standard God has decreed as the right way to live. Whether those of the world know God’s will and don’t care, or simply have never heard, they aren’t doing what God has commanded. And as we live our lives, following the will of God in the best way possible, we can get discouraged and begin wondering if we are in fact the ones who are wrong since so many people are different from us. Be rest assured that it is in fact the worldly who are going the wrong way. Jesus said in his recorded sermon, (Matthew chapters 5, 6 & 7) that only a few people will be saved (Matthew 7:13-14). By comparison, the vast majority of people who live on this earth are not living as God would have them to and will not inherit eternal life. And no matter how odd it may seem to the world for us to live differently from them, we are doing, to the best of our ability, what the God of heaven has commanded us to do. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Galatians 6:7-10). Pray for our freedoms.

Except The Lord Builds It...

 

Benjamin Franklin addressed the Constitutional Convention in 1787 during crisis in their deliberations and was recorded as follows: “Mr. President; The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks close attendance & continual reasoning’s with each other, our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes and ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, some we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances. In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it’. I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments be Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of the City be requested to officiate in that service.” https://wallbuilders.com/franklins-appeal-prayer-constitutional-convention/

[Matthew 24:36-39] Our God is a God of infinite virtue. His love is boundless. His mercy is absolute, His grace unhindered. But even our God in time will say, “Enough.” As in the era of Noah; of Sodom; the nation of Israel; time came when God said, “I will go no farther with these people.” This lesson from the Word of God - people, nations, and even the Lord’s church never seem to take serious. In God’s own good time he will bring an end to this foolishness of our self-governing, and the curtain will come down on the final day. Paul put it in these words, “…in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:8). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Except the Lord builds the house our labor is vain (Psalm 127:1).