Summary: We must fight the good fight, we must finish the race, and we must remain faithful.

This morning, as I watched the start of a new day, the sun slowly rose over the distant horizon. As the darkness that had previously enveloped the sky quickly and silently retreated to its assigned hiding place, I had to give God his due praise. The night was and is cold and dark. Nevertheless, every day God provides the needed warmth and light to chase the cold darkness away.

As we grudgingly struggle through the hurts of this Christian nightmare of greed and corruption, we are now forced to cast our eyes down into the pit of our coming recession. First, we were jolted by the greed and the corruption in corporate America. Nevertheless, that is corporate America. Greed is expected. We wondered when will these nights of chastisement for America end.

However, we never saw the shock waves of this Christian scandal coming. Although, many knights in shining armor have come to the rescue with their money and their knowledge, we now face the chastisement of a looming recession. In a recession, our money will be worth less than an icemaker in Nome Alaska.

Now here are the real questions that need to be addressed. Do we go back to being that same illiterate church going person? Will we just exist spiritually with our heads stuck in the proverbial sand of Christian ignorance? Will we learn from the mistakes of blindly following just anyone that proclaim they are men of God or our savior from our crisis?

Moreover, will we continue to travel down the same path of spiritual trickery that got us here in the first place? Will we continue to blindly believe what someone has to proclaim concerning our soul salvation? Will we simply take time to pick up the bible? Will we finally research and work out our own soul salvation with fear and trembling?

In the mist of all our continuing joy and pending sadness, these questions must be answered by us. The question that must be answered first and utmost is to which hill or more directly from whom has our help come? A great and wise philosopher once said that not all hands extended are extended to help and save. Some are extended to grasp, destroy, and devour.

I am not here to tell you only you want to hear. I am here to tell you the truth. Whether you listen or not, that is your choice. The truth is in this time of our dire spiritual crisis there is a message each of us needs to hear. The message is simple, ‘We must fight the good fight, we must finish the race, and we must remain faithful.’

The turmoil presented by the continually humiliating saga of Christian greed and corruption has revealed a number of fake and false prophets in the midst of the children of God. These prophets and teachers confused us with their worldly wisdom and delighted us with their satanic intentions simply because we did not read the word of God for ourselves.

Regardless of the intentions of the individuals involved, one fact constantly rings true. That fact is all things work together for the good of those who love God according to God’s purpose. God brought these things to path so each of us will better understand that our soul salvation is important. It is important to God and it is important to Lucifer. Because of this importance, we need to be on our constant guard against the enemy that tries to guide us down the wrong path.

Sometimes, God must guide us to a place of standing still and coast us to lie down in our faith that He alone is capable and able to provide just what we need to do his work. Because of the spiritual importance of our soul salvation, we must become determined to work out our own soul’s salvation with fear and with trembling. We do not get to do life over and God does not accept excuses because life is an open book test. So open the book, and read His instructions. Then work out your own salvation knowing that if you miss heaven the only person to blame will be you.

Therefore, when we judge our spiritual leaders and others to be lying, to be crooks, and to be dishonest, we in turn are simply judging ourselves. When we determine the teachings of our spiritual leaders to be false, we unwisely do not realize the statements that we are making are not only about our spiritual leaders. They are statements about us, spiritually as well. Since everything we believe was taught to us by a so-called false prophet, then that makes everything we believe false. In addition, that makes each of us followers of a false prophet.

Now instead of getting mad and allowing Lucifer to continue to drag us down into sin, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent for not reading the Word of God for ourselves. Repent for chasing after the wisdom of man and not asking for the wisdom from God. We need to re-evaluate our spiritual mistake of not verifying what we are led to believe is what the Word of God tell us to believe. We will answer one day for what we do and whom we believe.

Please let us collectively lift our eyes to the hills from whence comes our help. Our help will come only from God, because God has already made plans to deliver each person from this Christian nightmare. Open the Scriptures and let the Holy Spirit of God lead, guide and teach us everything we will need to know. The wisdom of man is foolishness unto God. God said, “Do not make the image or likeness of anything in heaven on earth or under the earth. Do not worship or bow down to it.” Yet, we raised our idol in form of praying hands in agreement to everything these false prophets told us. We gladly swallow their con game of selling God’s blessings for a dollar bill completely.

So in reality, this loudly demonstrates that we do not understand the words the Scriptures are saying. We do not know what you should believe. God’s Word definitely did not state that we could buy or sell the blessing of God. It does not tell us that if we could give a preacher, church organization or anyone $100 then God would give it back to us ten folds, one hundred folds, or even one thousand folds. However the Scriptures does state that giving to the poor is like lending to the Lord. Nevertheless, before you believe even those words I say check it out in the Scripture for yourself.

The point that I am trying to make is we hurry to listen to what man, sinful man says we should be like as the children of God and forget to check with God who called us his children first. Then we are turned over to a reprobate mind. We start hating the ways of God. We start chasing after Mammon, itself. We forgot we can not serve two masters, God and Mammon (money). We will either love one or hate the other. If we choose to love Mammon instead of God, the Word of God states that the love of money (Mammon) is the root of all evil.

I bet all of us who took to this prosperity false teaching wish that we had read and understood Matthew 19: 16-30 for ourselves. All we had to do was open the book called the SCRIPTURES and ask God to reveal what Jesus said. We need to wake up because our salvation is on line. Do we believe in God or the one whom we hired to be the preacher? Paul said in Acts chapter 17 and verse 24-25 that God does not dwell in the houses made by man. Instead, he dwells in the hearts of his people. The Scriptures correctly predicted this day would come. It is here. It is the day when even the elect of God will be fooled, except God shortens the last days.

Nevertheless, we continue to build brick and stone building to block in God. We continually listen to the false Prophets. We are continually deceived by their well-spoken words and degrees. However, the Scripture clearly states that man’s wisdom is foolishness to God. Yet, how many of our churches or us will elect a pastor that does not have a long line of abbreviations behind their names. How many of us now feel stupid for believing the things these false prophets told us.

We have been erroneously led to believe that if we give $100 then God will bless us. However, we fail to realize that every day we are graced to wake up on this side of the grave, we are blessed. Furthermore, we continue to bring our hard-earned money to their coffers. The question now is will we continue to let the false prophets fool us into robbing God of his tithes and offering. On the other hand, will we go find someone, not some organization rather someone in need and help him or her with our tithes? Will we help them so there might be meat in their house? (Made in God image and likeness with the spirit of God dwelling inside) Then and only then will God open the windows of heaven and pour us out a blessing that we will not have room enough to receive. Therefore, if we want to really tithe to God, we should first give to the poor, needy, and the less fortunate.

‘When I was in jail you visited me not’ is the words our savior will repeat to many of us. Our answer will be, ’But God we gave to the Salvation Army and YMCA, and all the organizations we decided to set up to do this.’ ‘Did I say that these organizations did not? I said YOU did not.’ our savior will reply. ’But Lord, we healed and cast out demon in your name through our church building pastors and chosen leaders’, we will helplessly reason. Sadly, God will reply, ‘Get the away from me you workers of iniquity for I know you not.’

God only knows those that seek to know him. Not those that send someone else to find out and then gladly pay him or her to tell to them about him whom they should have sought out themselves. The scripture does not say send our pastors and chosen leaders to seek me and you will find me. It loudly states if you seek me; then you shall find me. Let us resolve in ourselves to do our own seeking. Let us resolve in ourselves to come to our own understanding because if we are fooled it is our own fault.

One more thing I would like to express to us, The Scriptures instruct us to worship God in spirit and in truth. If I tell you to stand and pray or tell you to worship when I say to worship, how is this worshiping God in spirit and in truth. The Scriptures states, ‘Give not grudgingly nor of necessity for God loves a cheerful giver.’ However, if I teach you to give because the church building needs this or that, then that giving is of necessity. If I tell you to give or God will not bless you, then that giving is grudgingly. Do not be fooled and miss your blessings for the giving that God has blessed you to do. Give only because you love God so much you just want to show him how cheerful you are that He blessed you to be on this side of the grave for one more day.

Let us put down the books written by man. Let us dismiss the wisdom the world tries to give us. Let us look only to the hills from which comes our help. Our help, knowledge and wisdom come only from God, not through colleges, Seminaries (religious schools) or church conferences. Our help only comes from God.

However, just as God is faithful to allow the sun to rise over the distant horizon everyday on time, He is capable of bringing us through these nights of chastisements that we must endure. We must endure them because we know the truth, however we chose to follow a lie. We must endure them because every false prophet God warned us about we fell for. Nevertheless, God will bring us through.

Just as surely as God created a sun uncountable years ago to warm and light the earth on every new day, He has provide a way out for us. The darkness of the chastising recession is charging violently and forcefully over the horizon to devour the economy of our planet. Nevertheless, let us remember that God did not give us the spirit of fear but the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. Always bear in mind that God will not put more on us than we can bare and He will always provide a way of escape.