Sun, Sep 27th - 11:13PM
Living Without Religious Freedom A Possibility Preachers, along with the Christian community, aren’t empty headed, ignorant alarmist when they speak of eroding religious freedoms in America. They are aware of proposed laws and ideas which if signed into law, would make living out one’s Christian faith in the public square very difficult. Christians in our nation have enjoyed an unprecedented journey of freedom to live the Christian life-style without fear. Thus, it is difficult, in our minds, to reconcile the American Christian life with that of New Testament Christian living. Nor can American believers conceive in their minds persecutions which our brothers and sisters are now living under where anti-god governments reign. There are various organizations working in the believer’s behalf throughout our nation to secure and preserve the freedom of religious activity which has been protected throughout the nation’s history. Yet, we must face the possibility that some, if not many, of those freedoms won’t always be protected by the government. So, if our society erodes that far away from the founding father’s ideal, how will the new, restricted conditions be handled? We need look no further than the New Testament, and especially the book of Acts, to see how God guided His people through godless regimes and to understand how we should respond. When the pages are opened, when the actions of the people are observed, one finds faithfulness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ as the watchword of the saints. Peter and John, after the resurrection and the Pentecostal experience, went to the temple at the hour of prayer. There at the temple’s entrance was a poor, lame man, lame from birth. He was begging for money from the people as they went in to pray. Instead of giving him money, they gave health. The lame man was healed, got up and began to praise God. This act of healing the lame man, caused jail time for Peter and John. They were threatened and told to cease what they were doing. Their response? ". . . we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard"(Acts 4:20). In other words, we shall not obey your words, but we will obey the Lord. Later, gathered with fellow believers, in a prayer meeting, these men of God didn’t pray for the godless government. They didn’t pray for God to keep them from harm. Here is their prayer: "Now, Lord , look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God with boldness"(v 29-31). The early believers suffered greatly at the hands of the religious leaders who were unwilling to accept the fact of the Savior’s birth, life, death, and resurrection. The oppressive Roman government gave in to the powerful Jewish leaders so that life for Christ-followers was never easy. The dictators of the government imprisoned and killed many believers. If our government lifts religious protection and begins to tell the body of Christ to accept a perverted belief system about home and marriage, along with protecting homosexuality with minority status, will the churches message change? If the government ceases to permit non-profit contributions as a tax write off, will the body of Christ continue to follow the scripture’s teachings about tithing? Since I’ve never been down that trial, never had to consider altering the message of God to fit a government mandate of any nature, I can’t sit here in my air-conditioned, comfortable study and tell you exactly how I would handle such a situation. I would hope that I could stand shoulder to shoulder with Peter and John and say, I can’t help but speak the Word of God in its truest form. Our nation isn’t at that point yet. Thus, while we have the time, while this freedom exist, let’s work faithfully in His kingdom here so we won’t be embarrassed before Him later on. Keep the faith!
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Mon, Sep 14th - 1:50AM
A Fresh Introduction To Jesus
The Bible Book, Hebrews, is an interesting New Testament book. I recently began a journey, with our morning congregation at Galilee, traveling through this sometimes strange and difficult letter. The human author is debated among theologians. Several New Testament persons have been suggested, but in the end, these suggested individuals are human conclusions with no definite data to prove conclusively their authorship. Several years ago, I came across one of the better statements defining the Hebrews author. I’m not sure of its origin, but I stand by its statement. “We don’t know who is the human author of Hebrews, but we know Who held the lamp.”
The pen of this author, like all the others who have given to us the Holy Bible, was moved along by the Holy Spirit of God.
The major problem which most have in understanding this precious book is not so much in the message it conveys, but with our ignorance of the Old Testament Jewish religion. When walking through its pages, a knowledge of the Old Testament prophets, their sacrificial system, the office of the priest, and especially the High Priest, helps to pull back the mysterious curtain so our minds can grasp the wonderful message it delivers.
While we observe the upsurge of sinfulness in our modern society, we might wonder out loud, “Where is God? Why doesn’t He do something?” Well, the book of Hebrews is begun with an answer to that kind of questioning. Chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, reminds us that God has always been at work in this world. Through the Old Testament, in various ways and at various times, He spoke to the people through the prophets. They called the people to repentance, they warned the people of coming judgement, and they gave precious promises of the coming Redeemer.
After a great period of time, God spoke with a final voice. That voice is Jesus Christ, the begotten Son of God. There is no progressive revelation through voices which speak messages that can’t be verbified in the written Word of God. The writer wrote, “. . . has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds”(1:2). We can only gain a deeper understanding of that which has been written.
Therefore, as I did on Sunday to our congregation, I want to introduce to you Jesus Christ. You might respond, “Well, I know who He is, why introduce Him to me?” But do we really know Him or have we just heard about Him? I contend that if we really knew Him, we’d all be more faithful to Him and to His church.
It seems that for too many individuals think of the church as an organization located at some address in our city or county. It is an organization which is operated by leaders and committees and is solely dependent upon that leadership for its survival. They make rules and raise money and do some good things. One of the main benefits of this local organization, so it seems our thinking goes, is that it helps feed the religious desire possessed by many individuals.
Well, the church does have leaders. It does function through committee work. But the central core of a real New Testament church is Jesus Christ. When you sleep in on Sunday simply because you’ve been out late on Saturday night, when you think you can serve the Lord just as good at the race tract or the ball game or on the beach or at the fishing hole, when you feel like Sunday is your day to do whatever you desire, be it forewarned that you’re demonstrating a lack of understanding of just Who Jesus really is.
The book of Hebrews introduces to us the real Jesus! And its central theses is: Jesus is superior to any one and every thing which exists in the world. He is superior to Moses, the great leader of the Jewish people in the Old Testament. He is superior to the Law. He is superior to the prophets and the priests. That makes Jesus, according to Colossians 1:18, first in all things pertaining to believers and the church.
It is time we revisit our introduction to Jesus and discover a greater love for Him and a deeper loyalty to His church. My brethen and sisters in Christ, it time for the us, body of Christ, the church, to prove our obedience.
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Sun, Sep 6th - 10:44PM
One World System of Peace On Its Way
These are troubling days all around the world. Wars are being fought, there are potential hot-spots where bullets and bombs aren’t now being shot or dropped, natural disasters have and are interrupting millions of lives while putting thousands at risk. World financial markets are in trouble, debt is burying nations with an avalanche of unpaid bills, and political leaders are unsure just where to go next.
In our own nation, we are divided on how to handle health care. Businesses are being hard pressed to stay afloat. There is more import than export of goods. One has to look long and hard in stores to find products made in America while most things we eat from, wear on our bodies, put in our automobiles, or cut our grass are imported. These are added to thousands of other products which comes to us from other nations. Who would have ever thought we would be going to Wal-Mart, or any other business, and purchasing oranges from China!
But here we are, along with other nations, scratching our heads and trying to figure out what to do next. This is indeed a good time to offer Christ Jesus as the solution to our ills. I don’t mean we should look for some magic potion from Heaven that would solve our problems overnight so we could return to our former ways of focusing upon riches, big cars, huge houses, luxury lifestyles, and a prideful attitude toward those of less fortunate means.
There are a lot of individuals and groups which shall take issue with me on the matter of “why doesn’t God step in” and do something about all of this and set us free once again. Do you realize how America, as a nation, is treating the Lord in public life? Prayer is now harmful to our people! The Ten Commandments are dangerous to young people in school! The “Jesus is the only way to Heaven” preaching of the church is too intolerant of other religions! Many wonder “who do Christians think they are that they try to tell other people how to live their lives”! Why should we expect the presence and power of God to step in if our laws are forbidding His presence at all? Only by the grace of God being shown to faithful believers, things aren’t worse.
These are indeed troubling days! And our solutions aren’t working, nor will they work in order to bring about the utopia natural mankind has always sought. We are somehow like the descendants of Noah in Genesis 11. The Bible declares in verse 1, “Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.” They decided to build a tower that would reach into the heavens. It was the Tower of Babel they wouldconstruct. They would remain one people, live together in peace, and reach into Heaven and be like God.
But God brought confusion, the meaning of Babel, and separated the tongue to where no one understood everyone. Thus, they dispersed throughout the world. Ever since then, mankind has sought to build a one world system that would include one currency, one government, no individual nations, and everyone be as one. Man has been seeking to return to Babel but shall never fully achieve that goal.
Yet, those who know the Lord will indeed be together in one accord, at peace, in the land of peace. So far as our nation, a large portion of the population either has forgotten or has never learned that “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people”(Prov. 14:34).
Let’s remember that John, the writer of The Revelation, points to a time after millions of believers have died, after the Rapture, after the seven year tribulation, after Armageddon, and after the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, that he describes our eternal home in Heaven. He wrote,“In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations”( 22:2).
We first find that tree of life in the Garden of Eden. We now find that tree of life in the eternal abode of God’s children. There we shall be able to say, “We ant’ gonna study war no more” and eat the perfect food and live in peace.
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Tue, Sep 1st - 7:53AM
The Invader
Invaders, down through the ages, from distant planets, have been promised to the world. But, to this point, no such invasion has occurred. Yet, the promises of alien space travelers keeps coming our way. They are coming from Mars, from beyond the sun, from distant systems. But they are coming! Movies have been made about them, books are written and read about them, and groups are formed who are looking for them. But still, no invasion! Well, don’t waste your time looking toward the skies for their invasion. They aren’t coming.
An invader intrudes upon someone else’s territory. The invader is uninvited. He or she, or they come for no good reason. The invader comes to take away what is not theirs.
Generally this means trouble for that person or for that nation if it’s a national invasion. On some occasions, there is a disease which attacks the body of healthy individuals so as to cause physical hurt and even death.
But the worst invader of all, is the invader called death. It is so final. I heard a black preacher say one day, that “death wasn’t so bad, it’s just that you stay gone so long”.
Yes, the invader called death is so final. The Bible tells us about its powerful sting! It cries out, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting”?(1 Cor. 15:55 NAS). Death thinks it has won. It thinks the individual is defeated whenever one dies. But God’s Word gives us, as believers, something to smile about. It gives to us the shout of victory. Hear Paul’s words, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”(15:56-57NAS).
My phone rang Sunday morning, just a couple of weeks after I had resigned and moved to our present home place. The caller on the other end was from the church from where I had just retired. The invader had struck again. Someone who had been ill for some time? Someone who was old? Neither!
A woman in her mid 40s, a lively soul, one who enjoyed life and made others around her enjoy life as well. She was dead. I counted her as a friend, one who would let me to know when people were in the hospital, or tell me of some tragic event that had just affected our community and had come across her scanner. She was dead. The invader had once again caused tears to flow from the eyes of children, in-laws, a husband, brother, sisters, mother, and a host of friends, far and wide. And from my eyes as well and the eyes of my wife.
But his days are numbered. Death has lost his sting in the life of born again folk. Even through there was hurt and deep sorrow, death hasn’t won a victory at all. The one he thought he defeated, woke up in the presence of Jesus, in the beautiful city of God, a mansion made for believers of Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. The one he thought he defeated is more alive today than when she went to bed on that Saturday night. “Therefore, my beloved brethern, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord”.(15:58). And one day, at the coming our Lord, death itself will be defeated and never invade anyone’s life again. What a day that will be!
PRAYER: Dear Father, I know that the invader, somewhere in the world today, has smiled once again in apparent victory. But we know that it is only momentary. I thank You, Father, for teaching us in Your Word the truth about him and for giving to us the assurance of our victory over him in Your Son’s Name. In that Name I pray, Amen.
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Name: Odus Jackson
