Tuesday, August 12, 2014
OOPS! Sorry!
I have mistakenly posted the blog for August 13 today. I will post the August 12 blog tomorrow.
If Your Faith Is Being Assailed, Remember...
August 13
The ‘prince and power of the air,” Ephesians 2:2, the one who is “the god of this world,” II Corinthians 4:4, has come against you with a whirlwind of confusion and doubt that has as its intent the destruction of a strong Christian who is not only raising his children in “the nurture and wisdom and admonition of the Lord,” Ephesians 6:4, but is also a “living epistle, written on tables of the heart and read of all men,” II Corinthians 3:2.
If the wicked one succeeds in bringing the seeds of discontent that he has sown within you to fruition, he will not only have successfully destroyed the commitment you made before the Lord to love Christ with every fiber of your being, but you will also allow him to succeed in robbing those who are watching you live your Christianity of the witness you are to those who do not believe..
And if you think the young believers around you won’t be impacted by your abdication of your role as spiritual father to those you have nurtured in the faith,I beg you to consider the statistical evidence regarding natural fathers:
• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census
• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes
• 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
• 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26, 1978.)
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all Gods Children.)
• 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
• 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992)
Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, a mature believer such as yourself is a role model to younger Christians. If you can chose to abrogate your commitment to the Lord because you aren’t content with the way His will is unfolding in your life, you are giving permission to countless young believers to do the same thing if glitches come along in their lives.
But the bottom line isn’t how your actions impact other people; the bottom line is what is motivating your actions. To say one is not happy is to state a truth that anyone who has progressed beyond the idyllic honeymoon stage of his faith can say. All manner of trials bring challenges to a walk of faith.
Financial problems bring challenges. Watching parents grow old and die brings challenges. Disappointments on the job bring challenges. And the list can go on ad nauseum—and the list impacts an individual’s ability to cope with the trials and to maintain a spirit of surrender to the Lord.
But the beauty of being a Christian is that God doesn’t expect us to be happy all the time! No, He doesn’t or Jesus wouldn’t have said, “If the world hated and persecuted Me, so will it hate and persecute you,” John 15:18. The Lord doesn’t expect His people to be happy because He knows happiness is based on circumstances that change.
One minute a man might be euphoric because all is well in his world and the next minute he may be devastated (like Job and his wife who in her misery said, “Why not curse God and die!” Job 2:9). What HE DOES EXPECT THE CHRISTIAN TO DO IS TO APPROPRIATE THE PROMISE OF NEHEMIAH 8:10, “THE JOY OF THE LORD IS YOUR STRENGTH!”
He knows the believer needs strength to overcome the challenges of life and the attacks of the enemy and He knows that kind of strength—to be committed to Him, to spouse, to family (even to a drudgerous job) requires something outside oneself! It requires being anchored to Jesus, it requires being fully committed to your ‘First Love.’
And the reality is that unless a man is holding fast to Jesus, he will not hold fast to any other commitment. If a man can seriously entertain the notion of abrogating his commitment to love his wife, or to help his aging parents or to maintain a drudgerous job, it is only because he has first abrogated his commitment to love Jesus and to put Him and His will first in his life.
If JESUS IS YOUR PRIORITY, YOU WILL ACCEPT THE ENTIRETY OF HIS STATED WILL AS YOUR OWN WILL. If Jesus has slipped from the throne of your heart, your heart will not be faithful to any of its commitments.
The solution to your ‘happiness’ which is fleeting is to root it in “the joy of the Lord.” The secret to loving your spouse is falling in love with Christ again, for the Word tells us that “GOD IS LOVE AND THEY WHO DWELL IN LOVE DWELL IN GOD,” I John 4:8. If a man loves Jesus with every fiber of his being as he should, he will love not only his wife but his family and be loyal to them and to his job. He will love himself because he knows he is bought with an incalculable price (see II Corinthians 9:15.) He will love with a love that is anchored to commitment to Jesus.
When we let Jesus be ‘the center of it all,’ it will all be as it should be. Apart from Him, we cannot succeed. With Him, we cannot fail.
The ‘prince and power of the air,” Ephesians 2:2, the one who is “the god of this world,” II Corinthians 4:4, has come against you with a whirlwind of confusion and doubt that has as its intent the destruction of a strong Christian who is not only raising his children in “the nurture and wisdom and admonition of the Lord,” Ephesians 6:4, but is also a “living epistle, written on tables of the heart and read of all men,” II Corinthians 3:2.
If the wicked one succeeds in bringing the seeds of discontent that he has sown within you to fruition, he will not only have successfully destroyed the commitment you made before the Lord to love Christ with every fiber of your being, but you will also allow him to succeed in robbing those who are watching you live your Christianity of the witness you are to those who do not believe..
And if you think the young believers around you won’t be impacted by your abdication of your role as spiritual father to those you have nurtured in the faith,I beg you to consider the statistical evidence regarding natural fathers:
• 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census
• 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes
• 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
• 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26, 1978.)
• 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all Gods Children.)
• 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
• 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992)
Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, a mature believer such as yourself is a role model to younger Christians. If you can chose to abrogate your commitment to the Lord because you aren’t content with the way His will is unfolding in your life, you are giving permission to countless young believers to do the same thing if glitches come along in their lives.
But the bottom line isn’t how your actions impact other people; the bottom line is what is motivating your actions. To say one is not happy is to state a truth that anyone who has progressed beyond the idyllic honeymoon stage of his faith can say. All manner of trials bring challenges to a walk of faith.
Financial problems bring challenges. Watching parents grow old and die brings challenges. Disappointments on the job bring challenges. And the list can go on ad nauseum—and the list impacts an individual’s ability to cope with the trials and to maintain a spirit of surrender to the Lord.
But the beauty of being a Christian is that God doesn’t expect us to be happy all the time! No, He doesn’t or Jesus wouldn’t have said, “If the world hated and persecuted Me, so will it hate and persecute you,” John 15:18. The Lord doesn’t expect His people to be happy because He knows happiness is based on circumstances that change.
One minute a man might be euphoric because all is well in his world and the next minute he may be devastated (like Job and his wife who in her misery said, “Why not curse God and die!” Job 2:9). What HE DOES EXPECT THE CHRISTIAN TO DO IS TO APPROPRIATE THE PROMISE OF NEHEMIAH 8:10, “THE JOY OF THE LORD IS YOUR STRENGTH!”
He knows the believer needs strength to overcome the challenges of life and the attacks of the enemy and He knows that kind of strength—to be committed to Him, to spouse, to family (even to a drudgerous job) requires something outside oneself! It requires being anchored to Jesus, it requires being fully committed to your ‘First Love.’
And the reality is that unless a man is holding fast to Jesus, he will not hold fast to any other commitment. If a man can seriously entertain the notion of abrogating his commitment to love his wife, or to help his aging parents or to maintain a drudgerous job, it is only because he has first abrogated his commitment to love Jesus and to put Him and His will first in his life.
If JESUS IS YOUR PRIORITY, YOU WILL ACCEPT THE ENTIRETY OF HIS STATED WILL AS YOUR OWN WILL. If Jesus has slipped from the throne of your heart, your heart will not be faithful to any of its commitments.
The solution to your ‘happiness’ which is fleeting is to root it in “the joy of the Lord.” The secret to loving your spouse is falling in love with Christ again, for the Word tells us that “GOD IS LOVE AND THEY WHO DWELL IN LOVE DWELL IN GOD,” I John 4:8. If a man loves Jesus with every fiber of his being as he should, he will love not only his wife but his family and be loyal to them and to his job. He will love himself because he knows he is bought with an incalculable price (see II Corinthians 9:15.) He will love with a love that is anchored to commitment to Jesus.
When we let Jesus be ‘the center of it all,’ it will all be as it should be. Apart from Him, we cannot succeed. With Him, we cannot fail.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Unless We Are Willing
August 11
“Therefore put to death…fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry,” Colossians 3:5.
“For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them,” Ephesians 5:5-7.
The essential nature of this idolatry is selfishness, the worship of the self. A person's desire becomes the object of his affections and devotion. This sin is readily discernible in the ‘driven’ individual who pursues his goal without regard to cost. The driven individual will sacrifice anything—his marriage, his relationship with his children, his standing in the community, his faith—in order to obtain the object of his desire.
That object might be an elicit love that causes him to fly in the face of the Tenth Commandment (see Deuteronomy 5:21). As the Word states clearly, “ You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
Yet, covetousness, the desire for more, the lust for what is not ours, drives many people to sin. Just as an illicit attraction can drive us to commit adultery, the desire to possess wealth, to own more things can drive us to rob ourselves of quality relationships with our families and friends in order to pursue the fruit of wealth. Some of us are driven to steal from others in variance to the Eighth Commandment, “Thou shall not steal, “ (see Exodus 20:15).
If we are professing believers in Christ, the ultimate theft is of our relationship with the Holy One, for He is not deceived by our pseudo surrender to Him while we are actually negating everything He stands for by the pursuit of “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life,” I John 2:16.
If we do not espouse Christ, none of this matters to us, for we are creatures of the world and we are subject to its goals and desires. We will spend ourselves to attain the trappings of wealth and power and to indulge every guilty pleasure the world can afford to us.
But if we are the Lord’s; if we have laid our lives at His feet, He expects a change in us—He expects a transformative change away from the enticements of the temporal which are fleeting and toward the promises of Heaven which are eternal. Which direction will we take our faith?
Will we compartmentalize our lives into segments—some worldly and some spiritual—believing that we are giving God His due by allocating a portion of our lives to church attendance and fellowship with others of “like precious faith,” II Peter 1:1 while being at the same time consumed with the world?
Or will we be among those who forsake all in order to fulfill the plan and purpose of God for our lives? Unless we are willing to abandon our ‘self’ to the Lord’s higher purpose, we cannot obtain the totality of His provision for us in time, nor can we achieve life’s greatest goal—the assurance of Heaven.
“Therefore put to death…fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry,” Colossians 3:5.
“For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them,” Ephesians 5:5-7.
The essential nature of this idolatry is selfishness, the worship of the self. A person's desire becomes the object of his affections and devotion. This sin is readily discernible in the ‘driven’ individual who pursues his goal without regard to cost. The driven individual will sacrifice anything—his marriage, his relationship with his children, his standing in the community, his faith—in order to obtain the object of his desire.
That object might be an elicit love that causes him to fly in the face of the Tenth Commandment (see Deuteronomy 5:21). As the Word states clearly, “ You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
Yet, covetousness, the desire for more, the lust for what is not ours, drives many people to sin. Just as an illicit attraction can drive us to commit adultery, the desire to possess wealth, to own more things can drive us to rob ourselves of quality relationships with our families and friends in order to pursue the fruit of wealth. Some of us are driven to steal from others in variance to the Eighth Commandment, “Thou shall not steal, “ (see Exodus 20:15).
If we are professing believers in Christ, the ultimate theft is of our relationship with the Holy One, for He is not deceived by our pseudo surrender to Him while we are actually negating everything He stands for by the pursuit of “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life,” I John 2:16.
If we do not espouse Christ, none of this matters to us, for we are creatures of the world and we are subject to its goals and desires. We will spend ourselves to attain the trappings of wealth and power and to indulge every guilty pleasure the world can afford to us.
But if we are the Lord’s; if we have laid our lives at His feet, He expects a change in us—He expects a transformative change away from the enticements of the temporal which are fleeting and toward the promises of Heaven which are eternal. Which direction will we take our faith?
Will we compartmentalize our lives into segments—some worldly and some spiritual—believing that we are giving God His due by allocating a portion of our lives to church attendance and fellowship with others of “like precious faith,” II Peter 1:1 while being at the same time consumed with the world?
Or will we be among those who forsake all in order to fulfill the plan and purpose of God for our lives? Unless we are willing to abandon our ‘self’ to the Lord’s higher purpose, we cannot obtain the totality of His provision for us in time, nor can we achieve life’s greatest goal—the assurance of Heaven.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
My Redeemer Lives!
MY REDEEMER LIVES - NICOLE C MULLEN VIDEO WITH LYRICS nonHD ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p4G2GbPYQA Cached
my redeemer lives - nicole c mullen video with lyrics. my redeemer lives - nicole c mullen video with lyrics ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p4G2GbPYQA Cached
my redeemer lives - nicole c mullen video with lyrics. my redeemer lives - nicole c mullen video with lyrics ...
Why I Agree with an Atheist on Israel by Dr. Jim Denison
August 10
Sam Harris is one of the best-known atheists in the world. He has written several books and scores of articles denouncing religion in all its forms, recently claiming that "science must destroy religion."
Why, then, do I agree with him regarding Israel and Hamas? Because he's exactly right.
Harris asks this profound question: What would each side do if they had the power to do it? He then answers his question: Israel has the power to kill every Palestinian, but strives to spare non-combatants wherever possible and seeks to live at peace with its neighbors.
By contrast, Hamas declares in its charter that it seeks the annihilation of Israel and its Jewish citizens. If the military capacities of the two were reversed, the outcome would be far different.
Nonetheless, much of the world continues rallying to the side of Hamas and condemning Israel. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made global headlines recently with his claim that Israel's actions in Gaza surpassed "even Hitler's." Celebrities Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz published a widely-distributed letter accusing Israel of "genocide."
A writer in The Wall Street Journal noted that "what we are witnessing today in the surge of poisonous anti-Semitism around the world, particularly in Europe, would have delighted Hitler and his Nazi followers."
Some of the examples he cites: Jews in the Netherlands have been forced to remove mezuzas from their doorjambs; a Belgian doctor refused to treat an elderly Jewish woman with a fractured rib; a synagogue in Sweden was recently vandalized.
Protesters in France have been chanting "gas the Jews" and "kill the Jews" at public rallies. Jews are fleeing France in greater numbers than ever before. Anti-Semitic graffiti has appeared across Rome; reports of hate speech in Britain are up significantly. Explosives were recently thrown at a synagogue in western Germany.
It is time for religious and political leaders to take a stand. While we should seek peace and security for all people, Palestinians as well as Israelis, we must use our influence to stem the global tide of anti-Semitism wherever and however we can. If any race can be vilified on racial grounds, no race is safe.
Whether you're an atheist like Sam Harris or an evangelical Christian like me, or somewhere in between, I urge you to use your influence to confront the malignancy of anti-Semitism in our day.
Each time I visit the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, I stop to reflect on this statement from Martin Niemöller, the anti-Nazi German pastor who spent eight years in a concentration camp: "First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."
By speaking for the Jews, you speak for all of humanity. And for yourself.
Sam Harris is one of the best-known atheists in the world. He has written several books and scores of articles denouncing religion in all its forms, recently claiming that "science must destroy religion."
Why, then, do I agree with him regarding Israel and Hamas? Because he's exactly right.
Harris asks this profound question: What would each side do if they had the power to do it? He then answers his question: Israel has the power to kill every Palestinian, but strives to spare non-combatants wherever possible and seeks to live at peace with its neighbors.
By contrast, Hamas declares in its charter that it seeks the annihilation of Israel and its Jewish citizens. If the military capacities of the two were reversed, the outcome would be far different.
Nonetheless, much of the world continues rallying to the side of Hamas and condemning Israel. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made global headlines recently with his claim that Israel's actions in Gaza surpassed "even Hitler's." Celebrities Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz published a widely-distributed letter accusing Israel of "genocide."
A writer in The Wall Street Journal noted that "what we are witnessing today in the surge of poisonous anti-Semitism around the world, particularly in Europe, would have delighted Hitler and his Nazi followers."
Some of the examples he cites: Jews in the Netherlands have been forced to remove mezuzas from their doorjambs; a Belgian doctor refused to treat an elderly Jewish woman with a fractured rib; a synagogue in Sweden was recently vandalized.
Protesters in France have been chanting "gas the Jews" and "kill the Jews" at public rallies. Jews are fleeing France in greater numbers than ever before. Anti-Semitic graffiti has appeared across Rome; reports of hate speech in Britain are up significantly. Explosives were recently thrown at a synagogue in western Germany.
It is time for religious and political leaders to take a stand. While we should seek peace and security for all people, Palestinians as well as Israelis, we must use our influence to stem the global tide of anti-Semitism wherever and however we can. If any race can be vilified on racial grounds, no race is safe.
Whether you're an atheist like Sam Harris or an evangelical Christian like me, or somewhere in between, I urge you to use your influence to confront the malignancy of anti-Semitism in our day.
Each time I visit the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, I stop to reflect on this statement from Martin Niemöller, the anti-Nazi German pastor who spent eight years in a concentration camp: "First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."
By speaking for the Jews, you speak for all of humanity. And for yourself.
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Leviathan
August 9
“He beholds every high thing; he is king over the children of pride,” Job 41:34.
“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words? Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of it like a bird or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?
“Will traders barter for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.
“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form. Who can strip off its outer coat? Who can penetrate its double coat of armor? Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth? Its back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the rays of dawn. Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds. Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth.
“Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. Its chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone.
When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing. The sword that reaches it has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron it treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make it flee; sling stones are like chaff to it. A club seems to it but a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance.
“Its undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. It makes the depths churn like a boiling cauldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. It leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had white hair.
Nothing on earth is its equal—a creature without fear. It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.”
Leviathan, the mighty beast, terrible in its allure and in its monstrous intent is much afoot today. The evil one described in Job 41 still “goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,” I Peter 5:8. We who “live and move and have our being,” Acts 17:28, must be ever mindful that there is a terrible foe whose desire is to destroy us, to destroy our relationship with Christ, to destroy our witness among men.
And in being mindful of his ploys, we must ever remember that “He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world,” I John 4:4. No matter how much satan rages, we will not be defeated, for we are “more than conquerors through Christ who loves us,” Romans 8:37.
“He beholds every high thing; he is king over the children of pride,” Job 41:34.
“Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words? Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life? Can you make a pet of it like a bird or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?
“Will traders barter for it? Will they divide it up among the merchants? Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears? If you lay a hand on it, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering. No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.
“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form. Who can strip off its outer coat? Who can penetrate its double coat of armor? Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth? Its back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. Its snorting throws out flashes of light; its eyes are like the rays of dawn. Flames stream from its mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds. Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth.
“Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. The folds of its flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. Its chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone.
When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing. The sword that reaches it has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. Iron it treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make it flee; sling stones are like chaff to it. A club seems to it but a piece of straw; it laughs at the rattling of the lance.
“Its undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. It makes the depths churn like a boiling cauldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. It leaves a glistening wake behind it; one would think the deep had white hair.
Nothing on earth is its equal—a creature without fear. It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.”
Leviathan, the mighty beast, terrible in its allure and in its monstrous intent is much afoot today. The evil one described in Job 41 still “goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,” I Peter 5:8. We who “live and move and have our being,” Acts 17:28, must be ever mindful that there is a terrible foe whose desire is to destroy us, to destroy our relationship with Christ, to destroy our witness among men.
And in being mindful of his ploys, we must ever remember that “He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world,” I John 4:4. No matter how much satan rages, we will not be defeated, for we are “more than conquerors through Christ who loves us,” Romans 8:37.
Friday, August 8, 2014
Pray for a Third Great Awakening!
August 8
Keep praying for revival! Perhaps a Third Great Awakening will result!
From the writing of Bill Federer:
Thomas Jefferson started a church... which he tells of in his Memorandum Book, Jefferson noted: "I have subscribed to the building of an Episcopalian church, two hundred dollars; a Presbyterian church, sixty dollars, and a Baptist church, twenty-five."
An unverified story printed in the Boston newspaper: Christian Watchman, July 14, 1826, reported that Jefferson dined at Monticello prior to the Revolution with Baptist Pastor Andrew Tribble.
Jefferson had inquired of Pastor Tribble how Baptist church government worked, then commented that he "considered it the only form of pure democracy that exists in the world... It would be the best plan of government for the American colonies."
Jefferson then 'organized' a church, drafting "Subscriptions to Support a Clergyman in Charlottesville," February 1777, as recorded by Julian P. Boyd in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson:
"We the subscribers... desirous of encouraging and supporting the Calvinistic Reformed church, and of deriving to ourselves, through the ministry of its teachers, the benefits of Gospel knowledge and religious improvement...by regular education for explaining the holy scriptures...
Approving highly the political conduct of the Rev. Charles Clay, who, early rejecting the tyrant and tyranny of Britain, proved his religion genuine by its harmonies with the liberties of mankind...and, conforming his public prayers to the spirit and the injured rights of his country, ever addressed the God of battles for victory to our arms...
We expect that the said Charles Clay shall perform divine service and preach a sermon in the town of Charlottesville on every 4th...Sunday or oftener if a regular rotation with the other churches...will admit a more frequent attendance.
And we further mutually agree with each other that we will meet at Charlottesville ...every year...and there make a choice by ballot of three wardens to collect our said subscriptions...for the use of our church."
The Calvinistic Reformed Church met in the Albemarle Courthouse for seven years.
Jefferson supported the evangelical Rev. Charles Clay, who was a distant older cousin of the statesman and orator Henry Clay.
Jefferson noted in his Memorandum Book, August 15, 1779:
"Paid. Revd. Charles Clay in consideration of parochial services."
As Virginia's Governor, Jefferson wrote in 1779:
"The reverend Charles Clay has been many years rector of this parish and has been particularly known to me..In the earliest stage of the present contest with Great Britain while the clergy of the established church in general took the adverse side, or kept aloof from the cause of their country, he took a decided and active part with his countrymen, and has continued to prove...his attachment to the American cause."
The Calvinist Reformed Church ceased meeting when subscribers Philip Mazzei and John Harvie moved away, and when Jefferson, depressed after the death of his wife and several children, sailed off to serve as U.S. ambassador to France in 1783.
The religious revival in Virginia continued as part of the 'Second Great Awakening.'
Methodist evangelist Jesse Lee, who traveled a circle of cities, reported in 1787 the "circuits that had the greatest revival of religion" included Albermarle county.
Virtually all Baptist and Methodist churches were of mixed races.
In 1788, Rev. John Leland, a friend of Jefferson's and pastor of Goldmine Baptist Church of Louisa, Virginia, personally baptized over 400.
In Charlottesville, attorney William Wirt wrote in 1795 of the preaching of Presbyterian Rev. James Waddell: "Every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases that force of description that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes...The effect was inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation."
James Madison, who was a member of St. Thomas Parish where Rev. James Waddell taught, exclaimed of him: "He has spoiled me for all other preaching."
Madison invited Presbyterian preachers speak his Montpelier estate, such as Samuel Stanhope Smith and Nathaniel Irwin, of whom he wrote:
"Praise is in every man's mouth here for an excellent discourse he this day preached to us."
Methodist Rev. Lorenzo Dow, nicknamed "Crazy Dow," traveled over ten thousand miles preaching to over a million people. His autobiography at one time was the 2nd best-selling book in America, exceeded only by the Bible.
Rev. Lorenzo Dow held a preaching camp meeting near Jefferson's home, writing in his Journal that on April 17, 1804:
"I spoke in...Charlottesville near the President's seat in Albermarle County...to about four thousand people, and one of the President's daughters (Mary Jefferson Eppes) who was present."
In the lawless Kentucky frontier, Rev. James McGready and his small church agreed in 1797: "Therefore, we bind ourselves to observe the third Saturday of each month for one year as a day of fasting and prayer for the conversion of sinners in Logan County and throughout the world.
We also engage to spend one half hour every Saturday evening, beginning at the setting of the sun, and one half hour every Sabbath morning at the rising of the sun in pleading with God to revive His work."
In June of 1800, 500 members of James McGready's three congregations gathered at the Red River for a "camp meeting" lasting several days, similar to Scottish "Holy Fairs" where teams of open-air preachers rotated in a continuous stream of sermons.
On the final day: "'A mighty effusion of the Spirit' came on everyone 'and the floor was soon covered with the slain; their screams for mercy pierced the heavens.'"
In July of 1800, the congregation planned another camp meeting at the Gaspar River. Surpassing their expectations, 8,000 people arrived, some from over 100 miles away:
"The power of God seemed to shake the whole assembly. Towards the close of the sermon, the cries of the distressed arose almost as loud as his voice. After the congregation was dismissed the solemnity increased, till the greater part of the multitude seemed engaged in the most solemn manner. No person seemed to wish to go home-hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody-eternal things were the vast concern. Here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude; and even some things strangely and wonderfully new to me."
On AUGUST 7, 1801, though Kentucky's largest city had less than 2,000 people, 25,000 showed up at revival meetings in Cane Ridge, Kentucky.
Arriving from as far away as Ohio, Tennessee, and the Indiana Territory, they heard the preaching of Barton W. Stone and other Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers.
Rev. Moses Hodge described: "Nothing that imagination can paint, can make a stronger impression upon the mind, than one of those scenes.
Sinners dropping down on every hand, shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy, convulsed; professors praying, agonizing, fainting, falling down in distress, for sinners or in raptures of joy!...As to the work in general there can be no question but it is of God. The subjects of it, for the most part are deeply wounded for their sins, and can give a clear and rational account of their conversion.
Prior to the Revolution, there was a FIRST Great Awakening. It was influenced by Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Rev. William Tennent, Rev. Jonathan Edwards, Rev. George Whitefield, Rev. Theodore Frelinghuysen, Rev. Gilbert Tennent, Rev. Samuel Finley and other preachers.
The FIRST Great Awakening resulted in the founding of the Universities of Pennsylvania (1740), Princeton (1746), Columbia (1754), Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1770).
The SECOND Great Awakening led to the conversion of a third of Yale's student body through the efforts of its President Timothy Dwight.
Spreading to other colleges, hundreds of students entered the ministry and pioneered the foreign missions movement. Young men, along with the first women missionaries, were sent to the American West, and as far away as Burma and Hawaii.
The SECOND Great Awakening contributed to the founding of the American Bible Society, the Society for the Promotion of Temperance, the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ and the Seventh-Day Adventists.
Christians helped reform prisons, cared for the handicapped and mentally ill, and worked to abolish slavery.
George Addison Baxter, a skeptical professor at Washington Academy in Virginia, published an account of his travels throughout Kentucky, which was printed in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, March of 1802: "The power with which this revival has spread, and its influence in moralizing the people, are difficult for you to conceive, and more so for me to describe...I found Kentucky, to appearance, the most moral place I had ever seen. A profane expression was hardly ever heard. A religious awe seemed to pervade the country.
Never in my life have I seen more genuine marks of that humility which...looks to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way of acceptance with God...I was indeed highly pleased to find that Christ was all and in all in their religion... and it was truly affecting to hear with what agonizing anxiety awakened sinners inquired for Christ, as the only physician who could give them any help.
Those who call these things 'enthusiasm,' ought to tell us what they understand by the Spirit of Christianity....Upon the whole, sir, I think the revival in Kentucky among the most extraordinary that have ever visited the Church of Christ, and all things considered, peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of that country...
Something of an extraordinary nature seemed necessary to arrest the attention of a giddy people, who were ready to conclude that Christianity was a fable, and futurity a dream. This revival has done it; it has confounded infidelity, awed vice to silence, and brought numbers beyond calculation under serious impressions."
Keep praying for revival! Perhaps a Third Great Awakening will result!
From the writing of Bill Federer:
Thomas Jefferson started a church... which he tells of in his Memorandum Book, Jefferson noted: "I have subscribed to the building of an Episcopalian church, two hundred dollars; a Presbyterian church, sixty dollars, and a Baptist church, twenty-five."
An unverified story printed in the Boston newspaper: Christian Watchman, July 14, 1826, reported that Jefferson dined at Monticello prior to the Revolution with Baptist Pastor Andrew Tribble.
Jefferson had inquired of Pastor Tribble how Baptist church government worked, then commented that he "considered it the only form of pure democracy that exists in the world... It would be the best plan of government for the American colonies."
Jefferson then 'organized' a church, drafting "Subscriptions to Support a Clergyman in Charlottesville," February 1777, as recorded by Julian P. Boyd in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson:
"We the subscribers... desirous of encouraging and supporting the Calvinistic Reformed church, and of deriving to ourselves, through the ministry of its teachers, the benefits of Gospel knowledge and religious improvement...by regular education for explaining the holy scriptures...
Approving highly the political conduct of the Rev. Charles Clay, who, early rejecting the tyrant and tyranny of Britain, proved his religion genuine by its harmonies with the liberties of mankind...and, conforming his public prayers to the spirit and the injured rights of his country, ever addressed the God of battles for victory to our arms...
We expect that the said Charles Clay shall perform divine service and preach a sermon in the town of Charlottesville on every 4th...Sunday or oftener if a regular rotation with the other churches...will admit a more frequent attendance.
And we further mutually agree with each other that we will meet at Charlottesville ...every year...and there make a choice by ballot of three wardens to collect our said subscriptions...for the use of our church."
The Calvinistic Reformed Church met in the Albemarle Courthouse for seven years.
Jefferson supported the evangelical Rev. Charles Clay, who was a distant older cousin of the statesman and orator Henry Clay.
Jefferson noted in his Memorandum Book, August 15, 1779:
"Paid. Revd. Charles Clay in consideration of parochial services."
As Virginia's Governor, Jefferson wrote in 1779:
"The reverend Charles Clay has been many years rector of this parish and has been particularly known to me..In the earliest stage of the present contest with Great Britain while the clergy of the established church in general took the adverse side, or kept aloof from the cause of their country, he took a decided and active part with his countrymen, and has continued to prove...his attachment to the American cause."
The Calvinist Reformed Church ceased meeting when subscribers Philip Mazzei and John Harvie moved away, and when Jefferson, depressed after the death of his wife and several children, sailed off to serve as U.S. ambassador to France in 1783.
The religious revival in Virginia continued as part of the 'Second Great Awakening.'
Methodist evangelist Jesse Lee, who traveled a circle of cities, reported in 1787 the "circuits that had the greatest revival of religion" included Albermarle county.
Virtually all Baptist and Methodist churches were of mixed races.
In 1788, Rev. John Leland, a friend of Jefferson's and pastor of Goldmine Baptist Church of Louisa, Virginia, personally baptized over 400.
In Charlottesville, attorney William Wirt wrote in 1795 of the preaching of Presbyterian Rev. James Waddell: "Every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases that force of description that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes...The effect was inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation."
James Madison, who was a member of St. Thomas Parish where Rev. James Waddell taught, exclaimed of him: "He has spoiled me for all other preaching."
Madison invited Presbyterian preachers speak his Montpelier estate, such as Samuel Stanhope Smith and Nathaniel Irwin, of whom he wrote:
"Praise is in every man's mouth here for an excellent discourse he this day preached to us."
Methodist Rev. Lorenzo Dow, nicknamed "Crazy Dow," traveled over ten thousand miles preaching to over a million people. His autobiography at one time was the 2nd best-selling book in America, exceeded only by the Bible.
Rev. Lorenzo Dow held a preaching camp meeting near Jefferson's home, writing in his Journal that on April 17, 1804:
"I spoke in...Charlottesville near the President's seat in Albermarle County...to about four thousand people, and one of the President's daughters (Mary Jefferson Eppes) who was present."
In the lawless Kentucky frontier, Rev. James McGready and his small church agreed in 1797: "Therefore, we bind ourselves to observe the third Saturday of each month for one year as a day of fasting and prayer for the conversion of sinners in Logan County and throughout the world.
We also engage to spend one half hour every Saturday evening, beginning at the setting of the sun, and one half hour every Sabbath morning at the rising of the sun in pleading with God to revive His work."
In June of 1800, 500 members of James McGready's three congregations gathered at the Red River for a "camp meeting" lasting several days, similar to Scottish "Holy Fairs" where teams of open-air preachers rotated in a continuous stream of sermons.
On the final day: "'A mighty effusion of the Spirit' came on everyone 'and the floor was soon covered with the slain; their screams for mercy pierced the heavens.'"
In July of 1800, the congregation planned another camp meeting at the Gaspar River. Surpassing their expectations, 8,000 people arrived, some from over 100 miles away:
"The power of God seemed to shake the whole assembly. Towards the close of the sermon, the cries of the distressed arose almost as loud as his voice. After the congregation was dismissed the solemnity increased, till the greater part of the multitude seemed engaged in the most solemn manner. No person seemed to wish to go home-hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody-eternal things were the vast concern. Here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude; and even some things strangely and wonderfully new to me."
On AUGUST 7, 1801, though Kentucky's largest city had less than 2,000 people, 25,000 showed up at revival meetings in Cane Ridge, Kentucky.
Arriving from as far away as Ohio, Tennessee, and the Indiana Territory, they heard the preaching of Barton W. Stone and other Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers.
Rev. Moses Hodge described: "Nothing that imagination can paint, can make a stronger impression upon the mind, than one of those scenes.
Sinners dropping down on every hand, shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy, convulsed; professors praying, agonizing, fainting, falling down in distress, for sinners or in raptures of joy!...As to the work in general there can be no question but it is of God. The subjects of it, for the most part are deeply wounded for their sins, and can give a clear and rational account of their conversion.
Prior to the Revolution, there was a FIRST Great Awakening. It was influenced by Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Rev. William Tennent, Rev. Jonathan Edwards, Rev. George Whitefield, Rev. Theodore Frelinghuysen, Rev. Gilbert Tennent, Rev. Samuel Finley and other preachers.
The FIRST Great Awakening resulted in the founding of the Universities of Pennsylvania (1740), Princeton (1746), Columbia (1754), Brown (1764), Rutgers (1766), and Dartmouth (1770).
The SECOND Great Awakening led to the conversion of a third of Yale's student body through the efforts of its President Timothy Dwight.
Spreading to other colleges, hundreds of students entered the ministry and pioneered the foreign missions movement. Young men, along with the first women missionaries, were sent to the American West, and as far away as Burma and Hawaii.
The SECOND Great Awakening contributed to the founding of the American Bible Society, the Society for the Promotion of Temperance, the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ and the Seventh-Day Adventists.
Christians helped reform prisons, cared for the handicapped and mentally ill, and worked to abolish slavery.
George Addison Baxter, a skeptical professor at Washington Academy in Virginia, published an account of his travels throughout Kentucky, which was printed in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, March of 1802: "The power with which this revival has spread, and its influence in moralizing the people, are difficult for you to conceive, and more so for me to describe...I found Kentucky, to appearance, the most moral place I had ever seen. A profane expression was hardly ever heard. A religious awe seemed to pervade the country.
Never in my life have I seen more genuine marks of that humility which...looks to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only way of acceptance with God...I was indeed highly pleased to find that Christ was all and in all in their religion... and it was truly affecting to hear with what agonizing anxiety awakened sinners inquired for Christ, as the only physician who could give them any help.
Those who call these things 'enthusiasm,' ought to tell us what they understand by the Spirit of Christianity....Upon the whole, sir, I think the revival in Kentucky among the most extraordinary that have ever visited the Church of Christ, and all things considered, peculiarly adapted to the circumstances of that country...
Something of an extraordinary nature seemed necessary to arrest the attention of a giddy people, who were ready to conclude that Christianity was a fable, and futurity a dream. This revival has done it; it has confounded infidelity, awed vice to silence, and brought numbers beyond calculation under serious impressions."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)