Isaiah 55:11

My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11)

Book of Prophecy

The New Book of Prophecy Looking at the World Today Are the illnesses, plagues, and pestilence of our day signs we are living in the Last Days? What does the last year mean set against the larger scale of history? Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah Could we be living in the last days? There may never be a time in history when end times prophecy is more aligned with the culture and circumstances of the world than it is today.

Work to Make America Possible

Work to Make America Possible OXFORD, Pennsylvania -- Despite the wealth of information at our fingertips in the information age, there is a glaring emptiness that plagues us in our storytelling. We remove nuance and replace it with sensationalism. We shun original stories because they stray too far from the pack. In the process, we miss the beauty, pain and magic, the simplicity and grace of simple, real-life stories about the ordinary lives of people who work the soil to make America possible. The result is that we lose touch with who we are as a nation. Bill Hostetter was sitting in the banquet hall of the massive Spooky Nook sports facility in Manheim, Pennsylvania. He was surrounded by hundreds of other farmers, as well as agriculture scientists who do research and development work for the nation's food supply. They all traveled from across Pennsylvania to attend the annual PennAg banquet, which honors outstanding leaders in the agricultural community. Seated to Hostetter's left was Russell Redding, Pennsylvania's secretary of agriculture. The lights dimmed as the program began with a video recalling the Hostetter family's impact in this country; despite most of the audience having experienced the same things, his story of sacrifice, hard work, loss and success brought much of the packed room to tears. That included Hostetter, who had never seen the video before. Hostetter, along with a team of research scientists from the Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System, was here to accept Distinguished Service Awards for their contribution to America's food supply. PADLS scientists keep track of zoonotic diseases, working hand in hand with farmers to ensure their farms can continue providing a reliable food supply. Without both the grit of the farmer and the training of these hardworking scientists, we would not have that food on our tables every day. Yet their respective contributions are unevenly understood. Without the hard work of the scientists at the PADLS lab, who work around the clock tracking the avian flu, its ravages could have been significantly worse than the 4 million birds lost locally last year. Hostetter's impact on our lives is less visible, less understood especially by reporters, who are often drawn more to science than to farming. Science is something they were taught in school; farming was not. Science brings new gadgets to their lives and makes things easier. Farming, without which they could not live at all, is too far removed from where they live and what they do. Hostetter explained that his father, Wilmer, and his mother, Joyce, started their family's grain business in 1977, when Wilmer built a grain elevator to support the grain business he had started 10 years prior. Before that, his parents had a well-respected dairy farm, known not just across the country but also internationally for breeding quality dairy cows. Bill said that he, along with his brothers Barry, Bernie and John, were all involved with the business right from the start as kids. "I learned it literally from the ground up, working long days at the pit, unloading corn trucks and sweeping out the grain bins," he said. To this day, he said, he does not ask anyone working around the grain elevator to do anything he hasn't done. Hostetter Grain started here in Oxford with a 95,000-bushel storage bin in the spring for the wheat harvest, followed by a 95,000-bushel bin for the corn harvest. Today, it owns three elevators outright and holds lease agreements with six other elevators with a total capacity of more than 8 million bushels. "I remember my father and I standing out in the parking lot taking a look at that first bin and saying, 'That's a big bin,'" he said. "We were really concerned about filling it. Now, with all the elevators we have and the relationships we have, we fill that 95,000-bushel bin by 9:30 Monday morning." Hostetter said that his is a world of trust and relationships. "If you think about what we do, we write grain contracts that could value well over a million dollars, all done with a simple conversation over the phone, followed up by a one-page contract, either by mail or email," he said. "And it works." Hostetter, 64, said that no matter who he is working with in the industry -- the producer or the end user -- it is a great industry to be part of. "We work with salt-of-the-earth people," he said, "honest people, trustworthy people." For those who would look at this assessment as naive, Hostetter is not that. There is something to be said about anyone who has spent an entire career dealing with transactions this way, and has not only grown the business, but has been arguably very successful. In fact, he now looks forward to his nephews -- Jared, Eric and Jason -- taking over from him. "I guess the greatest accomplishment was not only growing the business but now having it ready for the next generation to lead it forward -- the third one in my family to take my parents' risk into the future," he said. Hostetter explained that his wife Melissa was injured in a car accident in 1999. This left her with a spinal cord injury and wheelchair-bound at a young age. "I admire overcomers, and her zest for life is powerful," he said. Hostetter lost his father Wilmer in February. "He and my mother are the biggest influences on life," he said. "It was such a great loss. Still ask myself every day, 'Well, what would my father do in this situation?'" Then, he smiled. "Why would anyone want to know my family's story?" he asked. "There are thousands, millions of families like mine across this country." A partial answer may lie within a speech given 45 years ago by Paul Harvey at that year's FFA Convention, when he described the hard work, sacrifice and sense of community farmers and ranchers have passed down for generations in this nation. The people who form the backbone of our country, often working from sunup to sundown, caring for the land and their livestock, placing food on all of our tables, have stories of their own. We need to tell more of those stories.

National Revival

National Revival by Dr. D. James Kennedy “… then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 Yesterday we discussed our need for national revival. I want to continue with this theme. Revival is a rebirth, a restoration of God’s power, and I believe that it can happen in America. God can yet change this land. He can stay the hand of chastisement acted out in our mean city streets and spreading into the countryside. But to have revival, we must pay a price. God says, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, then will I hear from Heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.” Revival begins with God’s people praying prayers of brokenness, of humility, of acknowledgment of our own sins. How often do we pray for the sins of others and neglect repenting of our own sins that prevent us from being effective witnesses for God? We need to fall on our knees and get our own lives straight with God. God doesn’t do His work in unbelievers until His people renew their devotion to Him. But when that happens, watch out. He has promised that when we humble ourselves and pray and seek His face, He will hear, forgive our sin, and heal our land. The spiritual renewal of God’s children inevitably issues forth a tremendous outbreak of evangelism that has fresh power and works in ways never seen before. God can release His power to bring the entire nation to Him. The Great Awakening in America began when a few people prayed, seeking God’s face, week after week, time after time, until finally God began to pour out His Spirit. Christians met to pray. They began to expect great things of God. And people became Christians. For years this revival went on. At its peak, fifty thousand people a week were born into God’s kingdom. Will you join me in praying for national revival? Will you humble yourself before God and seek His face so that He might bring revival to this land through you? Let’s all do this so we might not hinder God from drawing this nation to Himself.

Morality Without God

Morality Without God by Dr. Jim Denison Two-thirds of Americans say we don’t need faith in God to be moral George Washington claimed that “religion and morality” are each “indispensable supports” of democracy. John Adams was certain that our Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people” and is “wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (my emphasis). According to 65 percent of US adults, these Founding Fathers were wrong. In a recent Pew Research Center report, two-thirds of American respondents claimed that “it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral.” They can make this claim because our secularized culture has convinced them that morality is personal and subjective. Like the archer who fires an arrow and then paints the target around the place it lands, we get to choose what is moral for us and need no help from God in achieving it. However, the mass shooting in Texas, the deadliest Russian attack on Ukraine in months, the first US mass evacuation effort from Sudan, and widespread discouragement about the future are windows into how well our subjective morality is working for us. And what do we do when your definition of morality and mine directly contradict each other? When you think abortion on demand is a moral “reproductive right” and I think it is the immoral killing of an unborn child? When you think marriage has no gender and I think it should be reserved for one man and one woman? This debate is not only foundational to the future of our democracy—it is especially urgent for the souls of evangelicals like me. My Apple Watch is incompetent I walked on my treadmill last Friday morning for my usual three miles, setting the pace at 4.2 mph, which equates to 14.17 minutes per mile. My Apple Watch disagreed, however, claiming that I finished my first mile in 13.58. It tracked my second mile at 13.57. I then increased my speed to a 4.3 mph pace, which equates to 13.57 minutes per mile. My Apple Watch, however, reported that I finished that mile in 15.27. My point is not that my Apple Watch cannot track my walking pace competently, though that is consistently true. My point is that I want to believe that the fastest time is accurate and the slowest time is a technological aberration. It was the same when I played golf and tennis: I believed that my best shots were “normal” and my other shots were anomalies or bad luck. This is an example of the “slothful induction fallacy,” which occurs when “sufficient logical evidence strongly indicates a particular conclusion is true, but someone fails to acknowledge it, instead attributing the outcome to coincidence or something unrelated entirely.” My purpose is not to complain about my Apple Watch or to claim unwarranted athletic prowess. Rather, it is to note that what I did on the treadmill, I am constantly tempted to do with my soul. My sins are aberrations, “deviations from the mean” as it were, while my virtuous acts reveal my true character. If only that were true. How Satan uses our morality against us According to Scripture, “secret” sins do not exist: “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). The psalmist said of God, “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence” (Psalm 90:8). Dwight Moody was right: Character is what you are in the dark. This fact is especially relevant for evangelical Christians in the context of sexual morality. Many of us have incurred the wrath of our fallen culture by standing publicly for biblical marriage and sexuality. However, Paul warns us: “In passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things” (Romans 2:1). For example, when evangelicals condemn homosexual sexual sin but commit heterosexual sexual sin, we sin just like those whose sin we oppose. Our sin may not be as public—a same-sex married couple is obviously living unbiblically, while a heterosexual married couple may or may not be sinning sexually—but it is no less real. Nonetheless, Satan uses our biblical stance against us by tempting us to believe we are justified in our sins since we condemn the sins of others. He also wants us to think that our sins are less damaging if they are less public. But, as always, Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Private pornography, for example, is addictive and destroys mental health and dating and marriage relationships. Sex before marriage weakens the marriage; sex outside of marriage can obviously destroy marriage. Satan also ensures that our “private” sins inevitably become public and then uses them to disparage our Father and our faith. Paul warned his Jewish Christian readers that because of their sins, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). In a recent survey, “the hypocrisy of religious people” was the top reason people of no faith gave for doubting Christian beliefs.

Salt and Light

Salt and Light by Bill Wilson There is no question we are living in a dark and dying world. Watch the news. Read about what’s happening. Look around. It’s easy to get discouraged. But if you have the light of Christ within you, you are part of a nation of priests, a holy nation, set apart to show the blessings of being called out of this darkness into the marvelous light of Christ. It’s not just a cliché. This is real life. Christ told us in Matthew 5:13 that we are “the salt of the earth.” And in Matthew 5:14 that we “are the light of the world.” Salt and light. If you are a Christ follower, you are equipped with two powerful responses to this dark and dying world—salt, which seasons and preserves; and light which illuminates and gives hope. You have it in you. The disciples of Christ also lived in a very dark time. Their lives were threatened nearly every day for what they believed. The Roman Empire was a harsh master. There was life and death persecution. The persecution we face in Western nations is one of encroaching oppression against our beliefs. We are labeled bigots, hatemongers, all types of “phobes,” for simply believing the Bible is true. The minions of darkness take great offense that the Bible does not validate or accept their corrupted ways. They seek to minimize and oppress those who disagree. This type of persecution becomes increasingly aggressive. I am reminded of the story of Gideon. The children of Israel having done evil in the sight of the Lord, He sent the Midianites to chasten them. After their land was destroyed and the people impoverished, the Lord heard their prayers and Gideon was chosen to deliver Israel from the Midianites. An angel of the Lord told Gideon in Judges 6:12, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.” Gideon destroyed the altar of Baal, which angered the Midianites, the Amalekites and their allies, which gathered against Israel. Gideon rallied the tribes of Israel to prepare for battle. But God would let him take only 300 men to destroy the Midianites. Gideon gave them trumpets and lamps. On signal, they would blow the trumpets and light the lamps, making the Midianites think there were far more Israelites than there were. The Midianites and their allies ran, and the tribes of Israel overtook and destroyed them in their fear. Herein is the lesson: Gideon was salt and light. The salt was the destruction of the idol of Baal, surrounding the Midianite camp, standing for righteousness in word and deed. The light was the lamps that shown brightly against the darkness striking fear in the evil Midianites. You see, we are also salt and light, as Christ said. But if the salt loses its savor, it is no good. And one doesn’t hide his light otherwise darkness prevails. As encouraged in Romans 13:12, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” Don’t be entangled with the works of darkness, but be salt by standing and light in Christ, knowing all the while the promise of Christ in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always.” And that we are “more than conquerors” through Christ. Be salt and light, bring accountability and hope. The Lord is with you

Prayer to See GOD

A National Day Of Prayer To See God by Dr. D. James Kennedy “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from Heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 A multitude of presidents through the years have declared a National Day of Prayer. And our country needs prayer. In fact, I think this country needs our prayers now more than ever before, except perhaps during the War for Independence and the Civil War. We desperately need a national revival. Unless we have one, I believe that America, as we know it, won’t exist much longer. And if America falls, virtually the entire missionary enterprise of the Church could come to a screeching halt. But if America turns back to God, He could prevent this country’s demise. If we need to be convinced of the importance of national revival, we need look no further than the Israelites. In ancient Israel prophets arose and proclaimed the destruction of Israel unless that nation turned back to God. But the people mocked the prophets and ignored them, telling them to go tell their doleful tales elsewhere. Yet true to the prophets’ words, the Assyrians came down like wolves in a pack, fiercely and cruelly defeating Israel, and ancient Israel (not to be confused with ancient Judah) never recovered. Had the Israelites turned back to God when He spoke His intentions through the prophets, they wouldn’t have met with such a devastating fate. If our nation, like Israel, needs national revival, then what is it and how can we bring it about? William Sprague defines national revival like this: “Wherever you see religion rising up from a state of comparative depression to a tone of increased vigor and strength, wherever you see professing Christians becoming more faithful to their obligations and behold the strength of the Church increased by fresh accessions of piety from the world, there is a state of things which you need not hesitate to denominate a revival of religion.” How can we bring this about? By doing what our government has set this day aside for us to do—pray. Will you join me and millions of others in praying for the spiritual revival of this great nation?