Isaiah 45:12
Lest we forget, our God is Sovereign over all!!! I incourage you to read the rest of Isaiah chapter 45 and see more of the glory of God. I pray you find comfort in these words.
Praise ye the Lord!!!
James 1:5-8
6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
Praise ye the Lord!!!
Matthew 6:5-8
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
Have you prayed to our Heavenly Father today? We should wake every morning with words of gratitude on our lips and in our hearts that He has given us another day to witness for Him. We should be excited to spend that time in our prayer closet, that sweet time alone, with no interruptions with the One who loves us more than any other.
Praise ye the Lord!!!
Song of Solomon 2:11-13
12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
13 The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
My wife and I went for a little drive late yesterday evening and Oh the beauty of the redbud trees and the green and white buds of multiple other trees all around our area! We look around every year at this time and see the beauty of God's creation. As the flowers and trees and all sorts of budding and flowering plants begin a new life for a short time I can not help but think of how blessed we have been in this life to witness such.
It has always amazed me how ignorant men can be to think all this beauty evolved from nothing. How can seemingly intelligent people be so ignorant of God's creation? It is only by man's total depravity that he refuses the simplicity of God being the Creator of all things. But it is by God's mercy and grace that He chose a people out of the world to believe His truth.
It is not enough that many have the days and the times mixed up of our Lord's death, burial, and resurrection. But for God's people to willingly interject pagan rituals of bunnies and egg hunts into the picture is pure blasphemy!
Can we not just enjoy the beauty of God's creation with all it's grandeur in the spring of the year without following the ways of the world? We have been called out of the world to no longer be a part of the world. So if we truly love Christ as we claim then why do we not follow His commandments?
Praise ye the Lord!!!
16 And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.
17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?
19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.
20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
21 They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.
22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.”
I have always thought this was pretty simple teaching from Jesus. Often we hear sermons about how Jesus said to pay your taxes. But what of the last part of verse 21? “Unto God the things that are God's.” It has always amazed me how God's people are more willing to follow Caesar than to follow God.
We witnessed this two years ago when churches closed and people let Caesar remove their religious freedom.
In our country we seem to forget that our forefathers fought against taxation without representation. Not once, but twice. Now we have exactly that. Each district in each state has representatives who do not truly represent the people who voted them into office.
Our forefathers fought to give us freedom of religion. Yet our representatives believe Caesar comes before God. The belief has filtered down to the people and even crept into the churches. People are scared of the consequences of not paying their taxes but have such little fear of God they will refuse to give to the Lord.
Just like verse 22 says “When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.” Do we not do the same today?
Whom will ye serve? God or Caesar?
Praise ye the Lord!!!
3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
6 Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”
Again this morning we see another of Paul's letters to one of the Lord's churches where he is instructing them on what they are to do with the time the Lord has given them. Lest we forget, the same applies to the Lord's churches today. The “mystery of Christ” Paul writes of here is none other than the Gospel. Remember, the Gospel of Christ is the greatest mystery to the unsaved world. It is only by the wisdom given us by the Holy Spirit of God that we are able to understand and know this mystery.
The Great Commission given to the churches by Jesus was not a suggestion. But rather a command. We are commanded to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world.
In the short amount of time we are here in this life we must be about our Father's business. The business of telling everyone we meet about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Praise ye the Lord!!!
Ephesians 5:13-21
14 Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
I love how the Apostle Paul will oftentimes in his letters tell the churches what is expected of them by the Lord then a few verses later tell exactly how to go about accomplishing that goal. As we see here in verses 13-16. He starts out talking about the light of Christ. In verse 14 Paul speaks of our salvation. We were dead in our sins, asleep to the light of Christ. But, once the Lord saves us we are awakened and we are raised from our dead state to the newness of life. Christ puts His light in us at that point.
Paul then goes on to tell us we must walk with all attentiveness and with godly wisdom. Not with the foolishness of the world we once were a part of but with the wisdom that comes with following Christ.
We often hear people say they don't know what God's will is for their life. If we are members of one of the Lord's churches, as this letter from Paul was written to those, Then the answer is simple. Follow the Great Commandment Christ gave to His churches. The will of God for your life may not be to be popular with other Christians. It may not be that you become a popular conference speaker. But if we will follow what Paul says in verses 17-21 the Lord will use us for His great work in this life. We may not know the results while here in this life. But, the Lord knows and will reward us for our faithfulness.
If we truly want to know the will of God for our life we must follow Christ. Our whole life must be a witness for Christ. If we are seeking God's will we must truly and honestly seek God's will and not our own. Oftentimes people will say they are seeking God's will but in all reality they are seeking what they want and not what God has for them. The result is you have many of God's people today who are unhappy with their life because they seek after something that is not God's will for their life.
Many are so wrapped up in themselves or in the things of the world that when they hear the Lord calling them they don't recognize His voice. Because it's not what they wanted to hear.
Christianity is not a popularity contest. We're not here to out-do our brethren in the Lord's work. Sometimes it's that small quite one who is the greatest witness for the Lord. Or it's that one very small congregation who has the greatest influence on others the world over.
Reaching the lost sheep of our Lord must be our number one goal in this life. Living a godly life by following Christ is the greatest witness to those lost sheep we come in contact with. We must preach the Gospel, but we also must live like we believe the Gospel ourselves.
Praise ye the Lord!!!
Colossians 3:1-11
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.”
Praise ye the Lord!!!
Oftentimes people accuse us of being foolish for going to church so much. In our day and time and with this being the weekend of our Annual Bible Conference, even many of God's people will scoff at us for spending so much time listening to preaching. Yet these same people have no problem spending their weekend at the lake or hiking or attending sporting events, or taking the family on a trip.
What better place to take your family on vacation than a Bible Conference? Yes, people used to do that. Some of us still do.
We seem to want everything but time worshiping and praising God with His people.
The message preached is still the same, the same hymns are sung. But where are the same people? The younger generation and even some of the older generation have forgotten the necessity of godly fellowship in our walk here in this life. The more we are away from God's people and the more we are in the world the more we will leave behind the things of God and that is exactly what we are seeing in God's people today.
Praise ye the Lord!!!
11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?
12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.”
This evening We will start our annual Bible Conference at King's Addition Baptist Church. While thinking and praying for the men who the Lord has provided to preach to us this year, this passage came to mind. I believe if you were to ask each of the men about their life story, all of them would tell you these verses ring very true in their lives when the Lord called them to preach and even oftentimes since.
Something I learned a long time ago and very early in the ministry was it takes the Grace and Mercy of God for a sinful man to stand and proclaim the truth from God's Holy Word. Yes, some men are blessed with eloquent speech early on but for some of us it takes a miracle from God to have the nerve to stand before a group of people and preach the Word.
I ask you to pray for our Conference and for the men who will be preaching and for the special singers and for those who are willing to come out and listen and learn and to worship with us the next two days. Also, pray we are able to broadcast the services live without interruption so that others around the world may be blessed.
As always, our prayer is that this will all be glorifying to our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ and that His Holy Spirit will fill us all with the power to go out afterwards and follow His Great Commission!!!
Praise ye the Lord!!!
