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How much power can people in agreement have? The answer: the power of life and death. During the brutal reign of Joseph Stalin, who murdered 30 million Russians and bought godless communism to Russia, Stalin, let it be known that he planned to murder the Jews of Russia. When the believers in England heard this report, they committed themselves to fasting and prayer for the Jews of Russia. Praying in the spirit, they found the Demonic forces that drove Joseph Stalin. Three weeks later, Joseph Stalin had a brain hemorrhage. 16 gifted brain surgeons worked on him for eight hours, and still Joseph Stalin stepped into eternity, on March 5, 1953, to meet the son of God, a Jewish rabbi from Bethlehem
There are some events you’d just rather not be a part of.
For example, on November 2, 2002, a coalition of atheist organizations (such as American Atheists, the Young Atheist Society, and the Institute for Unicorn Research) will be sponsoring the “Godless Americans March on Washington”. After so many other “marches on Washington”, this one may have the distinction of being the first march centered around what people don’t believe in.
Their web site doesn’t explain what the plan will be in case of inclement weather; after all, “acts of God” might be hard to explain.
Michael Duduit, Editor
PreachingNow Newsletter, August 13, 2002.
A GOOD EXAMPLE OF A BAD EXAMPLE
In 1989 the unthinkable happened. After seventy years of communism and forty years of the Cold War, the Iron Curtain fell and the brutal, sadistic power of the U.S.S.R. began to disintegrate. Russia for seven decades had been repressed, murdered, and brutalized by the godless tyranny of Communism. Finally, the ancient cry of freedom from the human heart was beginning to be heard from Siberia to St. Petersburg.
But the Russians had one major disadvantage. After seventy years of enforced state sanctioned atheism, the moral compass of the nation was seriously damaged. They did not have God and His Word as a moral reference point to make wise choices. When that’s the case, people often choose poorly.
This is what Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author and Nobel Prize winner, told the graduating class of 1978 at Harvard. He was blunt and to the point when he described to the students and the ultra liberal professors America’s filthy lifestyle and the danger we faced as a nation with our fascination with pleasure. He said that our civic leaders had lost their courage. Solzenhenitsyn, over 30 years ago, said the time would come when we would be more concerned with the civil rights of terrorists than with our own national security. When you read his speech it’s as if you are hearing a prophet speak to America. Some of those students booed him as he left the stage.
He said he could not recommend Western civilization to his beloved Russia. He called America to remember Russia’s history, and to commit to memory what happens to a nation when it forgets God. The solution he offered to the West was for it to return to God and once more reclaim its spiritual vitality. He offered a good example of a bad example when a nation or church or family forgets God.
The church at Corinth is a good example of a bad example for our church. The world has influenced this church instead of the church influencing the world.
(From a sermon by Ed Sasnett, A Good Example of a Bad Example, 6/2/2010)
SING TO THE CHILDREN
A tradition that Evelyn Knowles has chosen for posterity is to sing to her babies. The very first time she held each of her newborn grandchildren cheek to cheek and heart to heart, they heard their grandmother softly sing-- Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Why? Because she wanted to be certain that they would never remember a time when they hadn't known Jesus.
Growing up in church, Evelyn learned all the songs in the book. In her family of 10, singing church songs was second nature. Sitting on the front porch, riding in the car, or doing dishes "assembly line" style, would more often than not find them bursting into song. Hymns meant little more than an excuse to sing as a child, but how they instructed in adulthood.
Soon Ok Lee grew up in North Korea and devoted herself to its communist party, only to be “rewarded” with 6 years of brutal, inhumane prison life. When she was released and escaped to South Korea, she was aided by a kind, Christian gentleman. She heard him sing songs that were somehow familiar to her, and was puzzled that she knew these songs well enough to sing along. One of those songs was “Amazing Grace.” These hymns were certainly not sung in godless North Korea!
Ah, but a faint and long forgotten memory was triggered—a memory of her own mother singing these very songs when she was a tiny child. So tiny, in fact, that she hadn’t realized they were hymns. But gospel seed had been planted in her wee heart—her mother’s secret way of teaching little Soon Ok Lee of God’s love. Secret, because under their North Korean government, children were taken away from parents who taught them the Bi...
DOES GOD HAVE FAVOURITES?
One of the things that A BIRTHRIGHT carries with it is the PRIESTHOOD of the family. Fathers consecrate their firstborn sons to God (Exodus 22:29). They look after the family concerning their spiritual life in serving God. The firstborn has the responsibility of building and worshiping God at the altar (Genesis 22:9; 26:25; 35:1; etc.), as well sharing God's word and His promises to his family.
We all know the story. Esau sells his BIRTHRIGHT to Jacob because he is hungry for some stew. Red hair. Red stew. Red name. In the red regarding his BIRTHRIGHT. Edom (Red) is an appropriate name.
Hebrews 12:16 (NLT) says that Esau was "IMMORAL OR GODLESS" despite being a firstborn son. This is evident in that he "TRADED HIS BIRTHRIGHT as the firstborn son for a single meal". I suppose when this transaction was made it was made in front of witnesses for this to be official. "He showed CONTEMPT for his rights as the firstborn." (Genesis 25:34 NLT) Perhaps Jacob was doing him a favour. Esau was hungry for PHYSICAL things. Jacob was hungry for SPIRITUAL things.
It seems to me that if I am INDIFFERENT to Christ then I have DESPISED MY BIRTHRIGHT? The invitation is to believe in Christ. When I believe in Christ and what He has done for me by dying on the Cross for my sins I enter into the things that God has promised before the world was created. Chosen in Christ, loved and favoured with His grace.
SETTING YOUR FAITH ASIDE
Have you ever thought you could separate from God ... just for a little while ... and then later on turn back to God? Unfortunately we all do this ... in big ways or small ways. Any time we decide to live a life INDEPENDENT of God, we run a big risk.
I remember a friend of ours years ago who was working on her English Doctoral degree. She came to visit us toward the end of the degree because she was on the verge of an affair and a divorce. She'd fallen out of love with her husband. She'd quit going to church. She'd even lost interest in music, which was one of her greatest talents.
In talking to her she explained that her Dissertation required her to write about a godless world-view. She had made an intentional decision to set her faith aside for a year or so and see what it was like to dive into a faithless way of thinking. Her Dissertation was accepted. Her Life was in shambles.
Don't make the mistake of thinking you can set your faith aside just for a while. Any time you disconnect from God, you quickly go from this ... to this. (hold up white and dirty linen pieces) Jeremiah 13:1-11
The Six Shooter was a popular western, broadcast on NBC radio from 1953-54. Jimmy Stewart starred as Britt Ponsett, a Texas plainsman. On one broadcast, Britt called a bully’s bluff even though his gun was several feet away on a dresser. In typical Stewart style, Ponsett told the tough guy he could draw his gun anytime he wanted. The surprised crook said, “But you ain’t got your six-shooter.” Ponsett stepped toward the thug and said, “Things might no work out the way you think they will.” The Six Shooter’s bold confidence made the rascal turn and run.
How bold it would be for us to tell those who think they can go to heaven without Christ, “Things might not work out the way you think they will.” Only in this situation may the rascal not turn and run; instead may he come under conviction, drops to his knees, and obey the gospel.
Clearly there is a present need for more boldness among the Body of Christ. Jesus didn’t die in order for us to become doormats for every godless person we encounter. Many of our brothers and sisters have become so fearful of the world and its demons that they have been fruitless in the battle for souls.
SACRIFICIAL LOVE:
(Poem by Ruth Bell Graham)
Had I been Joseph’s mother
I’d have prayed
protection from his brothers
"God, keep him safe.
He is so young,
so different from
the others."
Mercifully,
she never knew
there would be slavery
and prison too.
Had I been Moses’ mother
I’d have wept
To keep my little son:
praying she might forget
the babe drawn
from the water
of the Nile.
Had I not kept
him for her
nursing him the while, ’ was he not mine?--and she
but Pharaoh’s daughter?
Had I been Daniel’s mother
I should have pled
"Give victory!
--this Babylonian horde
godless...
"Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, are things Christ unsparingly condemned. Destitute of fire, they are nothing more than a godless philosophy, an ethical system, and a superstition."
Chadwick, Samuel
In the book Gaily The Troubadour, published in 1936, Arthur Guiterman wrote the following poem. Reading his observations, you wouldn’t guess it was written 60+ years ago.
First dentistry was painless;
Then bicycles were chainless
And carriages were horseless
And many laws, enforceless.
Next, cookery was fireless,
Telegraphy was wireless,
Cigars were nicotineless
And coffee, caffeinless.
Soon oranges were seedless,
The putting green was weedless,
The college boy hatless,
The proper diet, fatless,
Now motor roads are dustless,
The latest steel is rustless,
Our tennis courts are sodless,
Our new religions, godless.
Arthur Guiterman, Gaily The Troubadour.
