Abraham?

Galatians 3:6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

... There are so many people today that that are confused about what God wants from us in order to purchase our way into Heaven. Most of the folks I know, in the Church and outside of it believe that if they can balance the scale of justice or maybe tilt it slightly toward the good that God will grant them access. Any man that has read the Genesis account of the life of Abraham knows that he, like the rest of us failed to live up to God's Standard, the Law. Abraham did not leave his family behind, as God had commanded him to do. Twice Abraham coached Sarah to help him lie to a king because he failed to trust God for his safety and Abraham is guilty of the poor judgment of trying to help God fulfill His promise to make a great blessing to all nations of Abraham by having a son with Hagar, Sarah's maid. And yet, Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisee of Pharisees explains to us that Abraham is seen as perfect in the eyes of God.

... Romans 3:23 assures us that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory o God and yet we are taught that God cannot tolerate sin but, even still, He seeks to have relationships with the humans He created. If Abraham, like the rest of us, falls short, how can he possibly go to Heaven? Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Abraham waited in Paradise, not Heaven, for the payment of his sin to be made by the perfect sacrifice, just as we look back to and accept the receipt for that payment. There is not a single act that we can work our way through that will purchase our way into Heaven but Praise God, He has already done it for us.

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved

Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

... The simplicity of the two verses above is the reason most of mankind will only see Heaven from the wrong side of the Great White Throne. Salvation is just too simple for most men to deal with. Mankind has bought into the lie of Satan, “No pain (work), no gain.” The very Creator of the Universes has paid the debt owed for us and we must accept the gift.

Is It My Money?

... There are many forms of the people, called Christian today. There are the social club members, there are those that feel duty bound to be in attendance, there are even the promoters of their business that are there, faithfully, every Sunday Morning because it is good for their bottom line. Then, there are a hand full, in, perhaps, every Church that are there because they have believed the Word of God, the Bible, and asked God for Salvation and in receiving that free gift, have also sought after and received, a personal relationship with God.

... One, very dangerous, action that takes place in God's house, as a result of this mix is the robbery of God's Store House and this has led to the end of many a young Pastors service to God. We've all sat through the sermon that teaches us of the penalty for this crime against God and as a result, there are many that pay their tithe, just to avoid this charge being held against them. Their reasoning is, of course, faulty but that is not what this message is about.

... 1Kings 17:10-15 is my beginning point and don't worry, I've not lost my focus to old age...yet! Before we get to the meat of the subject I'll conclude my introduction by stating the obvious. Once the tithe is paid and once the offerings are collected they are the treasure in God's store house and we no longer own nor do we exercise control over them.

... There is a great lesson to be learned in the study of the Old Testament and I have centered on but one of hundreds of lessons that teach of God's Amazing Grace in reaction to faith demonstrated by obedience. No, I'm not centering on Elijah's faith, he was running from Jezebel any way. I'm looking at the widow and I'll ask you to remember the maternal protection a mother is driven to when her children are in the balance.

... This, destitute widow had lost her husband and she and her son had just enough oil and flour to make one last meal before death. As she walked away from the Prophet of God to fetch his water, he requested that she give the last bit of food to him but he made the request with the promise of God's care throughout the drought. Because of God's promise to her and in complete disregard for human logic, she made the last loaf of bread and gave it to him.

... In my mind's eye I can see her sitting there, watching Elijah eat the very last meal in her house and thinking to herself, “God, be true and do not let this be a lie.” I see her then, cautiously, opening the jar to peer in and great flood of relief and joy as there at the bottom resides the flour for, not one loaf but two, one for her and another for her son. I can see her spinning wildly to look in the next jar at the fresh oil in there.

... Because the widow trusted God, in spite of logic, God's abundance was poured out on her and her son in the time when there was no hope at all. Now, ask anyone outside the Church and they will tell you that the very idea of giving the first ten per cent of your pay to some unseen person and then bowing in worship to him is a poor man's foolishness. I will admit that from a logical perspective, it is sheer insanity for my wife and I to be on a fixed income in an economy that is running away with uncontrolled inflation and yet that is exactly what we are about.

... We do not give our tithe because we hope to buy our way into Heaven, that's impossible! We don't even give just because we are obedient, we give our tithe and more because we have a personal relationship with God and because we love Him.

... Now, here's where the hiccup occurs. We have given our tithes and our offerings to God, through the Church and now the finance committee and the Deacons have noticed a need of the preacher's, a.k.a. Prophet, and have gone before the LORD in prayer and have been moved by the Spirit of God to fulfill this multi-thousand dollar need for parts for his pick-up truck. They have decided to use my money to fix his truck! Never mind that I expect him to visit me in that truck when I'm in the hospital, why he might use that truck for just about anything.

... For just a moment let's think. I did give the money to the LORD my God. (Is it really my money?) These men, elected by the Church, have gone before God in prayer and they were so moved by the Holy Spirit of God to take this course of action. (Have I gone before the LORD and asked the One that paid my way out of Hell, “What should I feel about this?)

... You see, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God is a moment by moment event that must never cease. It is impossible for me or anyone else to live the Christian life! We have been made spiritually alive when we were saved and there-in lies the problem. In John 20:17 we see Mary being warned not to defile herself because Jesus was still in His corrupt earthly body, so are we. The Romans sometimes tied a murdered man onto the back of the murderer and he was compelled to carry it until it rotted away or it killed the murderer. We, in similar fashion, are still bound to our ungodly, former selves and for this reason we must constantly thirst for the infilling of the Holy Spirit to empower us to live this life we have been separated to. Without the constant infilling of the Holy Spirit we cannot live God honoring lives.

Why do we sin?

... At Church, on Wednesday evenings, we are studying Christianity 101 and the course text is the Letter to the Romans. For a long time now I have taught that this letter of Paul's is the Christian's Manifesto. As this letter is studied one cannot help but to arrive at Romans 6:1-8 and the inevitable question must be asked, “If this is true, why do we still stumble into sin?”
... The reason is because we are still carrying that sinful dead man around until the time that we are translated into Heaven. Life example, ok? Before I was saved I often appeared on stage with my guitar in a Honky Tonk, I planned to sin before the sun came up the next morning. As a Christian, because I know the affect that whiskey has on me I do not enjoy that drink any longer and as soon as I was aware of being overcome by the Holy Spirit, I literally walked off the stage and took my guitar home, leaving my night's pay right where it was. I, no longer, had a heart for seeking after the things of the night.
... I was instructed by Pastor and Missionary Richard Clark that a very good illustration of this condition was a practice used by the Romans to punish murders in parts of their empire. When the offender was caught, in the act or very soon after, they bound the body of the murdered person to the back of the murderer and the only escape from this was for the corpse to rot off your back without the disease and rot killing you. In like manor, as a Christian, we carry the burden of who and what we were until we are translated into Heaven. Unlike the murdered Roman, our old man will not rot away but if we remain in the Word of God, we can defeat the influence of the old man on ourselves.

A Peculiar People

... Recently, I was called a narrow minded Christian by a Catholic. Now, to begin with this is not an anti-Catholic article from some hard shelled Baptist. Then again, I am a rather thick skinned baptist old fossil, aren't I?

1Pe 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:

... When God calls out the people that are His, He is quite clear that this is not to be a Saturday Night Hay Ride in the country with your best girl. I have used the KJV of this verse because of it's to the point use of the expression “peculiar people.”

... When I was a kid my family life was very dysfunctional and everyone knew my older brother and my mom were were ex-cons. As if that were not enough, my mother wanted me to stand out and bought me cloths to wear that no teen-ager in his right mind would ever put on, flaming red pants? So, you know that I wore those trousers just long enough to get my rear end kicked in the Grave Yard after school, of course that was the very first time she forced me to wear them.

... For this and much more I grew up with my mind buried in Superman, Bat-Man and other hero comic books. My step dad was a WWII and Korean War Vet that only talked at all about it when he would get drunk. I'm not sure if he ever knew it but he took the place of Superman in my life. Unlike the other teens I grew up with, I could not wait to join the Army and go help people.

... When God called me in November of 1965, He scared the daylights out of me. At the age of 22 I was a foul mouthed alcoholic that needed his mouth washed out with the Tide Factory. I would not surrender and repent for better than 22 years more but when I rode my motorcycle my jacket stated very plainly what I knew to be fact, it said in big bold letters, “God is Alive!” With my running from God, out of ignorance, I made it into the unit I wanted to serve in and that was the Killer Spades. It was said of them that they left no one behind. As we would swoop into the middle of a fire fight at three in the morning with both the gunner and myself hanging out the doors, telling the pilot the location of the tree limbs and where to swing the tail I could almost hear the theme song for Superman over the rock and roll music, blaring on the ADF and the scream of the engine and the popping of the blades. There was a kid down there that Med-Evac had refused to pick up because of the fire fight.

... I suppose that being such an odd person, in the first place, made it easy for me to accept the idea that God did not want me to be like everyone else, I never was anyway. If we, the Christian Believers, ever find ourselves compromising the Word of God, for any reason, we, simply put, are not! We are not following God and we need to immediately ascertain the condition of our Salvation. i.e. When Jesus sent the disciples out to witness to folks He told them to kick the dust off their feet, as a testimony, and to move on to them that would here and receive what they had to say. The LORD did not say that they should sit down and find a happy medium that would be acceptable to them.

... Those that will not accept the truth are lost already and it would please Satan to no end for the servants of God to just sit there and argue. When I used to do that, I did nothing more that to waste my time, I could have moved on, with the same result, and possibly found another that was seeking and could be helped. Because this is my position I am often called strange, narrow minded and even, no Earthly good. You see, there is Kingdom work to be done and there is a home that I have never seen that I am homesick for and who knows, maybe the next person I lead to the foot of the Cross will be the last one and Jesus will come bursting through the sky and demand that I come home.

... Please, always read and study the Word of God but never try to make it fit.

How to Know God Personally

How to know God Personally

... As a minister of the Gospel, ordained to this ministry by none other than God, Himself, I see one, ever present problem that is persistent, no matter the web site, the forum or the means of communication. I speak of knowing God on a personal level and as long as a person can hide behind a screen name or an assumed name at Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com, Google.com, or so on they want to know how to do that, to know God so intimately that they, like myself can speak to and be spoken to by God, the Creator. I will not draw a great deal on scripture for this message because it is obviously for the lost man, both inside and outside of the Church.

... First allow me to cross my own statement and draw on Hebrews 10:25 to reinforce this statement. We must become a part of the body, a.k.a. The Church, if we are called of God. The Church is not that building nor is any building required to house the Church. In the Hebrews passage we find that we are to with regularity, assemble ourselves together. As we read through the Bible we find that there are an almost limitless number of reasons for this activity but today I just want to tell you that we do this to Worship God, jointly, and so that we edify one another. For instance, I will never be able to teach you everything I know about God through an email once a month or so or through the postings on the bulletin boards that I work in my service to our Lord.

... Let me tell you right now that God has spoken to me in a still quiet “voice” once upon a time. Today He communicates his messages to me in a variety of manors. The first thing to understand is that you must make yourself available to God. When I met my wife I spent as much time in her company as I could possibly make for her. By doing this she came to know and to trust me and I came to know her likes and dislikes. If you are ever to come to the point that you love God and therefore know Him on a personal level you must make time in your life for Him, ever single day, for the rest of your life.

... When you turn your radio on what sort of music and speech comes out of the speaker? As I prepare this message, mine is on. I almost never change the station and right this moment some unknown man is singing about “someone is praying for me.” Throughout the course of the day there will be preachers delivering messages from God, Christian News programs and interviews with folks that are active, on the field, in some third world country. Just listening to my radio I here messages from God and often one of the singers or the preachers speak and it is an answer that the Holy Spirit applies straight to my heart. You can spend time with God by just turning on your radio, to the correct station.

... One of my most blessed experiences is the first six or seven times I read the Bible through. That took me 20 minutes or less each day for a year. I read three chapters, in sequence, a day for a year. It was during those days that I learned how much God loves me. My favorite book from those studies was and is the Book of Judges. I, a combat hardened veteran that once killed men with just the pull of my finger, am moved to tears every time I read the Book of Judges. From that single, short, volume I learned that God not only will but seeks to forgive us, no matter what the sin looks like to us. But there is one thing that is certain, if you never find the time to seek after God, the way you did your wife, husband, girl or boyfriend, you will never learn that God loves you that much.

... Must you always wait for God to answer you? No! One of many examples is once, when my wife was in for Day Surgery. I had taken some vacation time to be with her while she would be recovering. As I sat there in the Waiting Room I prayed and I asked God for His assurance that my precious Help Mate would be restored. I opened the Bible I had taken with me to no particular place and began to read. In the first sentence that I read, about mid-page in the first column I had my answer. I had God's assurance that He was on the Throne and in command of the situation. If you will be faithful to seek after God He is faithful.

... You see, there is no great secret to establishing a personal relationship with God. You learn to love Him and He is there, forever.

Stem Cell Research

... Recently I have been confronted with a group of people that I find to be very distressing. Although they do not see themselves as such, they are very immoral. Their beliefs cut a wide path accross society and they are gaining momentum at an incredible rate. Some of the people will object that I am placing them into one group but the truth is that we are all in the same group to some extent. We are, everyone of us, sinners. Some of us are in repentence, daily, and are doing our best to please God and on the other end of the spectrum are the God haters.
... Some will be offended that I have lumped them in with that "Bible thumping" bunch of Christians and others will protest that they are under God's grace and therefore, not at all like the bunch that harvests T-cells from the infants they just murdered. The truth of the matter is that God sees everyone of us in the same light as explained in Isa. 64:6.
... When you read this passage you will do well to remember what I have heard from a number of studied men, The rag spoken of here that resembles our righteousness is the rag used by a woman during her menstrual cycle before anything had been invented for this purpose. Without the imputed righteousness of the Christ, that is how filthy God sees us to be.
... And you wonder what in the world does that have to do with Stem Cell research. There are many in the church today that have arrived at different levels of acceptance of the harvesting of Infantile Stem Cells. Some are even Elders in the Church Government. Some almost justify and others do justify the abortions performed today to harvest those stem cells.
... Each of these people have gone through a process of being turned away from the Word of God and most of them have completed this cycle without even thinking about it. The very popular battle cry from the Abortion Clinics is that there is such promise in this research and Christians, without caution and mental exercise have begun to echo that call to battle.
... What is the truth then? Let's begin with the beggining and that is that God is omnipotent. Because He is God has the ability to bless anything He chooses to Bless and to condemn to failure anything He chooses nit ti bless.
... I have read, recently that therde are fifty or better success stories in the Stem Cell Research field and that one of them is in the trreatment of Diabetes. So what am I harping on the research about? None of the sucesses are the result of research completed on people using crops harvested from slaughtered infants. If we examine the situation closly, we find that this research does not lack for funding.
... The much hated Free Market is a truly wonderful thing to watch. Rich, money smart people are most often called greedy and while I remain away from that camp, in observing them I have noticed something about them that is important. If a thing, anything is discovered, they begin, right away, to acess it's value and it's potential value. If an item, such as Adult stem cell research, has value or contains the prospect o gaining value, they begin to invest their millions in the project because they see some sort of profit in the endeavor. If the case is one that has failed to show potential, such as Infantile Stem Cell Research, some will invest early on but when the endevor looses all promise of success, they withdraw and cut their losses.
... If we are ever to succed in the fielld of science we must discard emotion and operate solely on the basis of fact. The fact is that there has been no sucess from the murdering and the harvesting of babies and all we accomplish by doing so is to condemn ourselve into Hell.

Trials to Prove Our Faith

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you:

1Pe 4:13 but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy.

1Pe 4:14 If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you.

1Pe 4:15 For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as a meddler in other men's matters:

1Pe 4:16 but if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.

1Pe 4:17 For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?

1Pe 4:18 And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?

1Pe 4:19 Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator.

... A common question, asked today, is why does God allow such a thing? First Peter four explains it well if you will sit and meditate upon these scriptures a bit. Just for clarity on exactly where I stand on this issue, God knows everything! God knows exactly what I will do in any given situation but I don't. I enjoy thinking that I do but that is not something that God is just wild about. You see, God need men and women that are fully confident of their faith and are not afraid to, as the pilots I flew with in Vietnam put it, push against the envelope. The envelope, in this case, is the mysterious limits of the machine and the pilot's ability to exceed them and prove them wrong.

... Just as every good pilot in Vietnam was tested by gunfire and missal avoidance, the Christian is also tested by the fiery trials of Satan, when God permits them. (See and read the book of Job.) During the course of my three tours in Vietnam, my helicopter had every right to just collapse and burn numerous times as I served with the Killer Spades. The reason I live today is because my LORD had a mission for me to complete and in Vietnam I was not a Christian but as I now look back at the times such as the time we were not in Cambodia and the 1^st Div. Of the North Vietnamese Army did not put 300 bullets through my aircraft because Uncle Sam said we were never there, I very clearly see the hand of God on my life, even when I thought I was His enemy.

... If we will just look to God when our trials come upon us, and if you are a Christian, they will come, we will not fail the test. Just as I hated tests when I was in school, the Christian today, in America, seems to despise the tests, a.k.a. trials of God. God did not allow Job to be tested just for grins, God was making Job a strong, fire tested, God loving man. After the fiery trial was over for Job God made him richer and better off than he had ever been and He will do that for each of us if we will just rely on Him and nothing else, no matter what.

... Many today hate Randy “Duke” Cunningham and I cannot judge his condition today since he has destroyed his reputation but there was a time over North Vietnam when the Duke refined his faith to a sharp edge in just a few seconds, really. That day he had already flown his mission, dropped his load from the F-4and he was clear to go home and put it on the carrier. But as he was flying back to the ocean (known as feet wet) he saw a pilot trapped inside a carousal of eight MIG-17 fighter jets. The F-4 Phantom carried no guns and the MIGs were very well armed for aerial combat. He knew that if no one helped that pilot that he and his copilot would, likely, die that day.

... He turned into the outer edge of those fighters circling the F-4 and flew right between two of them, pulling a couple of the bandits out of the formation, giving the F-4 a chance to break free. Duke slammed the throttle forward and as the bandits turned back he came about, locked on one and brought it down with a missal. That was his third kill and he went for one more. After downing his fourth and the second for that day he turned home.

... As he was going for no less than “feet wet” he spotted another bandit flying straight at him and he chose to engage him and graduate to Ace that day. As they engaged, Duke realized that he was probably fighting North Vietnam's number one Ace. Not having the speed of the F-4 he forced Duke to engage him at speeds where he held the advantage. Realizing the folly he shoved the throttle forward and forced the enemy to disengage and turn for his home base. When he did Duke came about, caught an angle where he could not be seen without a good deal of effort, locked on and brought his third for the day and his total to five for the status of Ace.

... As he and his copilot were once more headed home they saw a SAM launch. He managed to elude the SAM but when it was close to him it exploded and he was on fire. He had lost the hydraulics and all the control surfaces in his wings and the rudder and elevators were engulfed in fire. He had lost all communication and could not hear all the other pilots screaming for them to bail out. Suddenly the F-4 yawed and was upside down. Duke prayed for God to help him and when the aircraft was right side up he thought to himself, “That was my superior ability to fly this baby, not God.” Suddenly, the aircraft flipped upside down again and Duke was terrified and praying, he asked God to forgive him and to get him out of this.

... Just as suddenly as the F-4 had just flipped, it was right-side up again. They were just short of the water and to bail out was to be sent to the Hanoi Hilton to have their arms broken as they were tortured so that they might never fly again, they did not want that. Suddenly the aircraft was shuddering and the tail of the ship broke off and they were in a flat spin with no control at all. Once more they did not hear the men screaming into their mikes for them to get out of that death trap. The ship, flying much like a burning Frisbee was just high enough for ejection and they were well enough into the ocean and they bailed out, just ahead of the crash. God had been faithful, even when Duke Cunningham doubted.

... I cannot tell you Randy “Duke” Cunningham's spiritual condition at this moment but that day sharpened his faith to a razor edge. Regardless of his recent history, there is a great lesson about the alue of trials to be learned from his experience in Vietnam. My prayer is that, from this story and from the story of Job, you will take the strength you will need when, not if, the trails hit you.