“Jeremiah said, “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns” (4:3). Some Bible teaching is like sowing seed in a briar patch: the heart has not been prepared. Too much of our religious instruction is like a swimming lesson on dry land: teaching all things commanded is not enough. We must teach men to observe all things commanded. God’s Word is a lamp and a light, but the light is not only to be looked at; it must be walked in. Stare at the mid-day sun and you will go blind. It is impossible to be blinded by an excess of light. If we are hearers only, and not doers of the Word, we deceive ourselves. I never hear that part of James 1:22 quoted: “…deceiving your own selves.” Look at the light and you will be blinded. Walk in the light and you will be blessed.”
~Vance Havner
So Long Time – And Yet
By Vance Havner
Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
John 14:9
Poor, dull, matter-of-fact Philip! Three years with Jesus, His preaching, His teaching, His miracles, Himself – and yet! “Shew us the Father and it sufficeth us.” And for three years he had been looking right at the supreme revelation of the Father! “So long time – and yet!”
But we have no business feeling embarrassed and ashamed of Philip. For two thousand years we have had His presence, His church, the Spirit, the Word – and look at us! And some of us are well over life’s hill and He has been with us all the way – so long time and yet! How poorly we know Him, how slow of heart to believe, how little like Him!
No, I will blush for Philip, I will blush for myself. Is there a duller disciple anywhere? Forgive me, Lord. I need shed no tears for Philip, I should weep for myself.
“So long time…and yet!”
Are You A Token Grace Believer?
by Pastor Ricky Kurth
“We ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:
“Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God” (II Thessalonians 1:4,5).
In 32 years of pastoral ministry, this writer has had the privilege to officiate at many a wedding ceremony. When it comes time for the groom to say “I do,” we initiate this response by asking him, “Do you give your ring, and accept your bride’s ring, as a token that you will keep the pledge and perform the vows that you have made this day?” Since the word token has been defined as “something that serves as an indication or an expression of something else,” we then conclude the ring ceremony by saying, “These gold rings will serve as continual reminders of the lasting and imperishable faith that you have pledged to one another this day.”
In the Bible, we read that God gave the rainbow as a “token” of His promise to never again destroy the world with a universal flood (Genesis 9:11-13). Similarly, circumcision is said to be a “token” of the covenant God made with Abraham (Genesis 17:11), and the blood of the Passover lamb was said to be a “token” of God’s promise to Israel to spare their firstborn (Exodus 12:13).
Here in our text, the apostle Paul says that the patient manner in which the Thessalonians were enduring persecution was “a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God.” That is, their patient endurance of tribulation was a sign that, when God finally does judge the world, “He will judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31), for He will be paying the world back for persecuting His people. As Paul goes on to say in the verse that follows our text,
“Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you” (II Thessalonians 1:6).
You see, when a Christian is persecuted for his faith, an injustice has taken place; an unrighteous thing has occurred. In God’s perfect system of justice, which can leave the debt of no sin unsettled, this injustice must be paid for, and God solemnly vows to right this wrong “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels,
“In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
“Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (II Thessalonians 1:7-9).
Here God vows that He will someday avenge the Thessalonians for the tribulations given to them by their persecutors, beginning with the destruction that He will bring upon the world at His Second Coming. Of course, God knows that He will be charged with unrighteousness, as He always is when He is forced to sit in judgment upon men. This is why the Book of Revelation is sprinkled with affirmations that God’s Tribulation judgments are not unrighteous, that they are rather “just and true” (Revelation 15:3), and “righteous” (16:5-7; 19:2). Similarly, here in our text, Paul is defending the righteousness of the Lord’s Second
Coming judgments.
Next, Paul says that the righteous judgment of God on these persecutors of God’s people will then continue in the Lake of Fire, the “everlasting destruction” of which he goes on to speak of here in II Thessalonians 1:9. Here we see clear evidence that all those in any age who reject God’s provision for their sins will die in their sins (cf. John 8:24), and must themselves be made to pay for their sins.
Of course, the Thessalonians themselves could have retaliated against their persecutors, and forced them to pay for the crimes they committed against them. Surely there were times when they felt like evening the score. However, had they done so, it would then be unrighteous for God to someday recompense tribulation to their persecutors, and God will not be guilty of double jeopardy. As it was, Paul was able to tell the Thessalonians that the “patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure…is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God.” If the world should someday ask why God is troubling them, He can reply, “Well, you used to trouble My people, so now, by the same token, I am troubling you!”
There is a lesson that we can learn from this. If we take vengeance on those who trouble us, that means God can’t. What an incentive to leave vengeance to the One whose judgments are always fair and equitable! When we take vengeance, we often retaliate too little, leaving our sense of justice feeling unsatisfied. Or we retaliate too much, creating an additional imbalance of justice that leaves our adversary feeling a need to strike at us again. “But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things” (Romans 2:2). God will judge all men fairly, for His judgment will be according to truth. No wonder Judgment Day is called “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (2:5).
Are you a token grace believer? Is your patient endurance of those who trouble you a token that, when God judges your persecutors, He will do so in righteousness? None of us would ever knowingly and purposely take something away from God that He says belongs to Him, and yet this is what we do when we take vengeance away from the One who has said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (Romans 12:19). If you are thinking of making someone pay for what they did to you, why not determine right now to leave it all with Him?
Healing, Then And Now
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
“And there came a leper to Him, beseeching Him, and kneeling down to Him, and saying unto Him, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean” (Mark 1:40).
It is interesting to observe exactly what the leper did and did not say to our Lord in the above passage. He did not say: “If You could, You would,” even though more and greater miracles would unquestionably have enhanced our Lord’s fame. He rather said: “If You will, You can” — “If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.”
The people of our Lord’s day did not question the genuineness of His miracles. No one suggested that the infirmities He dealt with might be psychosomatic in nature, that they were probably either real healings of imaginary infirmities or imaginary healings of real infirmities. They could not raise these objections, for the evidences of the supernatural character of His healings were too overwhelming to admit of this. Everywhere He went healing the sick or casting out demons, the people “wondered and were amazed,” and spread “His fame” abroad from city to city. At Capernaum:
“All they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto Him, and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke 4:40).
How different it is with the “healers” of our day and with their claims! Entirely apart from the objections of those who question these “healings” on Scriptural grounds, it is a simple fact that great numbers of people among the general populace question the validity of both the “healers” and their “healing miracles.”
Meantime, as one has said, the death rate remains “one apiece.” There always comes that last time, when the “healing” doesn’t work and the patient dies. This is why all modern “healers” leave behind them a long, sad trail of disillusionment and shaken faith.
50 Facts That Show How Far America Has Fallen In This
Generation
By Michael Snyder
What has happened to America? Please show these numbers to anyone that does not believe that the United States is in decline. It is time for all of us to humble ourselves and face the reality of what has happened to our once great nation. For those of us that love America, it is heartbreaking to watch the foundations of our society rot and decay in thousands of different ways. The following are 50 facts that show how far America has fallen in this generation, but the truth is that this list could have been far, far longer…
#1 According to a survey that was just conducted, only 36 percent of all Americans can name the three branches of government.
#2 Only 25 percent of all Americans know how long U.S. Senators are elected for (6 years), and only 20 percent of all Americans know how many U.S. senators there are.
#3 Even if you include the abomination called “same-sex couples” in the numbers, the marriage rate in the United States is at a 93 year low.
#4 For the first time ever, single Americans make up more than half the U.S. population.
#5 31.1 percent of American young adults in the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket are currently living with their parents.
#6 One out of every ten teen girls in America engages in “self-harm”. Cutting and burning are the most common forms that this “self-harm” takes.
#7 One survey found that 85 percent of all young men in America and almost half of all young women in America watch porn at least once a month.
#8 A different survey discovered that 64 percent of American men of all ages view pornography at least once per month.
#9 The Internet can be used for great good, but it can also be used for great evil. It is being reported that 83 percent of U.S. boys and 57 percent of U.S. girls have been exposed to group sex while on the Internet.
#10 One survey discovered that 25 percent of all employees that have Internet access in the United States visit sex websites while they are at work.
#11 There is an epidemic of porn watching among federal employees. For example, one Treasury Department worker said that he viewed 13,000 pornographic images within the span of six weeks because he did “not have enough work to do“.
#12 An astounding 30 percent of all Internet traffic now goes to adult websites.
#13 Right now, 30 million Americans are on antidepressants.
#14 Americans account for about five percent of the global population, but we buy more than 50 percent of the pharmaceutical drugs.
#15 Americans consume a whopping 80 percent of all prescription painkillers.
#16 According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.
#17 Approximately 60 million Americans have a problem with alcohol addiction.
#18 Heroin traffic in New York City is at a 20 year high.
#19 Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese. Mexico is #2.
#20 Back in 1962, only 13 percent of all Americans were obese, but it is being projected that 42 percent of all Americans could be obese by the year 2030.
#21 70 percent of Americans do not “feel engaged or inspired at their jobs”.
#22 40 percent of all workers in the United States actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968 after you account for inflation.
#23 Small business ownership in the United States is at the lowest level that has ever been recorded.
#24 It is hard to believe, but 56 percent of all Americans now have “subprime credit”.
#25 The United States has the most lawyers per capita in the entire world.
#26 The United States has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world by a wide margin.
#27 While Barack Obama has been in the White House, the U.S. national debt has grown by more than 7 trillion dollars.
#28 During the Obama years, sexual assaults in the U.S. military have soared to an all-time high, and most of the assaults have been male on male.
#29 According to one absolutely shocking study, 22 military veterans kill themselves in the United States every single day.
#30 The top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives is Nancy Pelosi. The top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives is John Boehner. More often than not, they seem to be working together. Is this really the best that America can do?
#31 There are more than 3 million reports of child abuse in the United States every single year.
#32 At this point, approximately one out of every three children in the United States lives in a home without a father.
#33 18 percent of all women in the United States say that they have been raped at some point in their lives.
#34 It is estimated that one out of every four girls will be sexually abused before they become adults.
#35 Approximately one-third of the entire population of the United States (110 million people) currently has a sexually transmitted disease according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
#36 Every single year, there are 20 million new STD cases in America.
#37 America has the highest STD infection rate in the entire industrialized world.
#38 Americans in the 15 to 24-year-old age group account for about 50 percent of all new STD cases each year.
#39 It costs our nation approximately 16 billion dollars a year to treat our sexually transmitted diseases.
#40 According to one survey, 24 percent of all U.S. teens that have STDs say that they still have unprotected sex.
#41 In the United States today, more than half of all couples “move in together” before they get married.
#42 For couples that have children that are just “living together”, two-thirds of them split up by the time they have a child turn 10 years of age.
#43 For women under the age of 30 in the United States, more than half of all babies are being born out of wedlock.
#44 According to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately two-thirds of all Americans in the 15 to 24-year-old age bracket have engaged in oral sex.
#45 Suicide has now actually surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of “injury death” in the United States.
#46 In a massacre that is almost unspeakable, more than 56 million American babies have been slaughtered in this country since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
#47 Approximately 47 percent of the women that get an abortion each year in the United States have also had a previous abortion.
#48 The number of American babies killed by abortion each year is roughly equal to the number of U.S. military deaths that have occurred in all of the wars that the United States has ever fought combined.
#49 About one-third of all American women will have had an abortion by the age of 45.
#50 The United States has the highest abortion rate in the western world.
WHEN THE CIRCUS DID NOT HINDER
By Vance Havner
Having favour with all the people…but the people magnified them.
Acts 2:47; 5:13
“It will be a bad week for our revival. We have the fair, the concert, the circus, football this week. The Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise have a supper, the high school has a dance.” On and on it goes, while defeated church members build up their alibis. Any church that has to take a back seat and fearfully anticipate every side show that blows into town is already beaten. We have developed an inferiority complex before the world, the flesh and the devil, and apologetically we take what is left in attendance after our worldly members have gone where they really belong.
The Early Church did not quake every time the ungodly had a spree in Jerusalem. The saints in Rome did not have the blues because attendance would be cut by a gladiatorial contest in the Colosseum. They had a robust, world-shaking power of their own that eventually put the Colosseum out of business. If we recovered that we would leave our little hot-chocolate huddles in church basements and give the world today a demonstration that would make its little affairs look like firecrackers beside atom bombs.
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