The Reunion

         Reunions are always interesting affairs to attend.  I have had some class reunions where the remaining members of the class get together to discuss what has been going on in their lives.  There are also those family reunions.  I remember how my Uncle Ernie would be involved in the family reunions for the our family.  The families would get together at a designated spot and renew old acquaintances.  Quite often, we would be able to see how people had aged or what important things had been going on in their lives since we had last seem them.  Uncle Ernie was buried out in the country and I remember the last words of his son, "I'll see you in the cornfield."  The cornfield was located near the burial site and would be a reminder that his dad was there.  There is going to be what one might call a great reunion and that is the one that is described in Paul's first book to the Thessalonians.   First Thessalonians 4:16-17 says, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."  
       This will be far more than a local event.  It will be worldwide as people from all points of the globe will be "raptured" up to meet the Lord in the air.  Many songs have been written and many sermons have been preached about this "homecoming reunion" that will take place in the future.  Paul gives more than a casual word about the event.  He describes it in detail and gives the sequence of events that will take place during the departure.  It is interesting to note that those who are dead in Christ will rise first and then we which are alive at that moment will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air.  Most believers look forward to this time as it will be the release from the pressures of the world.  When the moment is just right, the Lord Jesus Christ will come for the church, the Bride of Christ and then we shall remain with the Lord.  So, if you are filled with the feelings of depression or discouragement or just don't know what this world is coming to, then look to the sky and realize that the time is soon coming when we shall be a part of the best reunion ever.  Praise God that He is getting ready to come for His Bride!

Gold and Silver

      I have had trouble most of my life in regard to having the money that I wanted in order to live the way I wanted to live.  When I got on my own and had joined the U. S. Navy, I soon learned that $80.00 a month didn't go too far.  I would start out the month having a blast during the first week and then suffered the rest of the month.  Now, the government provided all of my meals and a place to sleep so I was well taken care of.  Going to the base store and the Gedunk, a small café for enlisted sailors, soon took a toll on the rest of my monthly salary.    Of course, you could always borrow $5.00 for $8.00 but that got a tad expensive.  After we were married, I soon discovered what a budget was and how to make one   Haggai 1:8 says  "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts."  

     Now, God owns it all.  That's obvious.  There is nothing that isn't His in the first place.  Every now and then it gets reapportioned to those who have specific needs.  God is not going to take care of my frivolous living, but He will meet all of my genuine needs.  He provided me with opportunities to work.  This was especially true when I went to Washington Bible College.  God gave both my wife and myself a part time job.  Veteran's benefits helped with the education bill and other believers did marvelous things for us during those years.  I often see advertisements for loans to help you to the end of the month but the interest is worse than my five for eight dollars.  While we look at this verse from the Book of Haggai, we soon come to realize that God does "own it all."  He owns the cattle on a thousand hills and here he owns the silver and the gold.  If you find yourself in a pinch then you can find help from God Himself.  Just make sure that you are not having a problem with sin that is causing your shortage.  Expensive habits take you away from God as you are trying to replace Him with things or with feelings that are the result of sinful living.  In the end, we need to be loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and with all of our strength.  Once you find yourself doing these things, you will also find your cup running over.  Praise God that He supplies all of our needs and not all of our wants.

The Bible for Dummies

 

     The advent of computers saw the rise in books that were published to help explain what was going on with them.  Forty years ago, the section for computer books in the local book store was indeed very small and in many cases, non existent.  Then, as more and more technical books were being written, it became necessary to have a section for them.  Most of the books were difficult to understand for the average computer user.  The term "user friendly" became known as it described whether a computer or even a program was easy enough to be used by the average person.  One book came out to help explain just how the computer worked.  It was called "DOS for Dummies."  DOS stands for Disk Operating System and was one of the more basic programs for the working of most computers.  The book was laid out in such a way as to explain something for even the person who was computer illiterate.  It wasn't long before the idea caught on for other areas of life.  Soon, there were books for auto repair or cooking or gardening, all written for those who were not experts in the field.  I wondered how long it would be before there was a book, "The Bible for Dummies."  Sure enough, there it is, "The Bible - God's Word for the Biblically-inept."  The book, from the outside, looks just like all of the other "dummies" books with the yellow and black theme.  The Book states, "(the author) ...breaks the Bible down into bite-sized pieces making it easy to understand and incorporate into your life."  Second Timothy 2:15 says, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

     The Bible itself states what is necessary for the understanding of the Scripture.  For the believer, the one thing that is helpful is for the person to begin studying the Scriptures.  We are to be diligent in our time in God's Word.  Then, we will find that the Holy Spirit will be able to illuminate God's Word to us.  It is interesting to note that the term "dummy" doesn't occur in the Scripture.  There are no dummies in God's eyes.  People may be Biblically inept due to the fact that they have a very small diet of Scripture in their lives.  For some, it may only exist in what the preacher says on Sunday morning or Sunday evening and if they are fortunate, on Wednesday evening.  That is probably far short of 3 hours a week in corporate study.  Obviously, one needs more time than that to study God's Word.  We spend more time in a week, watching the news on TV than that.  So, Paul was right when he admonished young Timothy to "Study the Scriptures."  How are you doing?  Are you spending time in Bible study or do you just listen to what others have to say?  Praise God today that He gave us His Word for us to learn about Him.

It's Going to be All Right!"

 

   Every now and then, trouble may come into your life that seems to be so much more than you can handle.  I have mentioned this before about the time we had severe storms in Indiana and I was probably close to five years of age.  I was screaming at the top of my lungs, half scared out of my wits.  My mother was trying to calm me down and so she picked me up and was saying, "see, everything is going to be all right."  Just as she said that, a lightning bolt hit the telephone pole outside oft he window and split it from top to bottom along with the clap of thunder that shook the house.  At that time, I had not been assured that everything was going to be all right.   Job 42:1-3 says," And Job answered Jehovah and said,  I know that thou canst do everything, and that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine.  Who is he that obscureth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered what I did not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not." 

       Job had been in a storm but it was a storm of life and he couldn't understand what was going on.  The counsel of his friends didn't seem to help that much and Job was going off track in his own mind until chapter 38 when God speaks to him and basically tells him to be quiet and listen to what He had to say to Job.  Job was getting the picture and chapter 42 and comes to the conclusion that there are things that God does that are far too wonderful for him or even us, to understand.  Perhaps it comes down to our lack of seeing and understanding the "big" picture.  We, of course, cannot see all of the reasoning of God as to why things happen the way they do.  There comes that time when we have to rely upon God's plan and that not of our own in order to gain some type of peace in our lives.  Since we have our own personal copy of the Bible, we can understand more than Job did at that time in his life when things seem to be going down the tube.  We know that God has the plan in His mind and that He will not lose His grip on us and that we will survive.  Our confidence in the Scriptures reminds us that God is saying, "See, everything is going to be fine."  Praise God today that he is in control and that He has the plan for all of our lives.  God is working out a 7 billion piece puzzle every second.

"Oops"

August 15, 2017

Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Every now and then, you come across some action in your life whereby you say, "Oops."  When it happens, you know you are in deep trouble.  A good example is when you are driving along, going down hill, letting the car coast and all of a sudden you notice that State Trooper sitting along the edge of the road, his car pointed in your direction with that cylinder hanging on the side of the window.  You glance down at your speedometer and notice that you are well over the speed limit.  You might then say, "Oops."  As you go by, you look in your mirror to see if his cruiser comes onto the highway with his lights on.  You wish you could back to the top of the hill and start over, but you can't.  What's done is done.  There are some things in life whereby you do something and then wish you hadn't done it.  The only thing you can do is to ask for forgiveness and hope that the other accepts your offer.  Romans 4:5-7 says, "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,  Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered." 

      These verses are speaking of much more than going over the speed limit.  They are speaking about issues of life that if they go unchecked will have severe consequences.  You don't want to leave God out of this equation.  In the first place, you are asking God to forgive you for all of your sin, past, present and future.  That is salvation.  The burden of sin has caused you to hang your head low and a deep feeling of despair to come over you.  The need for forgiveness is great in your life.  At first, you may try other things to try to get rid of the guilt.  There is nothing that you can do other than to come to the One why has been wronged by your actions and to plead for forgiveness.  God has made forgiveness available to all those that call upon Him.  So, you come with true repentance in your heart and a desire to walk in a different way from that moment on.  The verse that says, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered," sparks a promise that is great to each one who sees it.  Your sins can be forgiven and your sins covered.  The payment that Jesus Christ made on the cross was sufficient to cover the cost of your sins.  The feeling of guilt is gone and you can now lift your head high knowing what God has done for you and it was completely without your help.  Secondly, forgiveness can come each and every day as true repentance is present for sins that are committed throughout our daily lives.  So, praise God today for the fact that true forgiveness is possible.  Praise Him for the cross and the empty tomb.

The Madedonian Vision

August 14, 2017

Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     How many churches are there in your area?  That question plagued me one day while living in a town in Southern Virginia.  I found that in our county, there were over 40 different churches and that perhaps 20 of them would be groups that would be preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  They were what we might call, fundamental in that they believed in the Bible.  They were churches that believed the Word of God.  Now, that meant that there were at least 20 churches in one county for less than 20,000 people at that time.  We had just been challenged by a young Spanish man about working in Spain in a city of 200,000 people that had only one church of about 150 members.  I was reminded about the following passage.   Acts 16:9-10 says, "And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.  And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them." 

      The Apostle Paul was pioneering the gospel  in Asia Minor and then decided to go back and check up on how they were doing.  In Acts 16, we find that the Holy Spirit forbid him from doing it.  It all ended up in Paul and Silas waiting in Troas for God's direction.  It came from the vision of the man of Macedonia.  In other words, he was to leave the comforts of the people he had helped to begin a new work and go on to where he was needed.  Sometimes I wonder about how effective a ministry we have and if it is time to take another direction in our life.  I can't say that I have had a vision of anyone saying, "Come over and help us."  Yet, at the same time, there is always a need to share the Gospel in different areas even here in what is called the "Bible Belt."  I once did a study of local churches in our area and found that there were a total of 249 churches within a five mile radius of downtown Roanoke.  When we moved here, a phone book gave us the information that there were 144 Baptist churches in our area.  That's quite a lot to pick from.  I still think of those towns in Europe that have no Gospel witness.  There are, however, still needs that are right here in our own local area.  There are those needs that exist right outside your door on your street, in your hometown and in your state.  May we all be willing to go where He wants us to go to share the gospel message with those that still need it.  Praise God that He is still directing people.

 

Thin Skinned?

      I had a little scrape on my arm recently and so decided to put on a band-aid.  The next day, I removed the band-aid and the tape at the end pulled off more skin than the original scrape which then resulted in a bigger band-aid, which I just left on until it fell off after a shower.  I have found that in my later years, my skin is getting thinner and I can easily have a "skin tear."  When I was just getting ready to go to Washington Bible College, my pastor reminded me that a pastor needed to have a skin like that of a Rhinoceros.  He was referring to the criticism of people who would be against the message of the Gospel.   The meaning is a little different we sometimes refer to people as either being thin skinned or thick skinned and we are referring to their attitude.  You can't seem to insult a person who is thick skinned.  The criticism or insults seem to roll off of them like water off of a duck's back.   Matthew 5:2-5 says, "Mat 5:2  And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,   Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." 
     The passage just mentioned is the beginning of the Beatitudes.  It shows the character of the attitude of the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The word "blessed" in this passage can also be translated as "happy."  So, why are believers happy in the first place?  the believer is happy because they are secure in the Lord Jesus Christ and there is nothing that Satan, demons, or anything else can do to us to change the outcome.  The truth of John 14:1-5 or Philippians 4:13 or John 3:16 will always remain the same because we are secure in Christ.   The Savior was crucified for the sin of the world which we need to be reminded of the fact that the sin includes your sin and mine.  You may have reaped the insults of people and felt like crawling into a safe and secure place and not coming out for a long time.  If and when you get into that situation, just remember the beatitudes as mentioned here in the opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount.  Find comfort in the words of Christ and you will find that the thickness of your skin is not the issue at all.  Praise God that He is watching over His children.