God's Way or Into the Trash Can We GO!

“Let no one deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction” (2 Thess. 2:3).

Hey Gang,I am writing this morning message from  a beautiful resort in near Clermont, Florida, while also keeping my ears tuned into the storm that is approaching our palatial palace in ‘Big Rapids.  It is hard to get a mental image of 45 miles per hour winds, ice and snow when it is 82 balmy degrees here.  Today is Sunday. We attended our home church viva livestream and heard a neat message on Agapa love.

    

At the conclusion of the message a program came on that was telecast from a huge football stadium in Orlando. It was bulging at the seams with young people who have come from the four corners of this world and are committed to taking Jesus’ great commission very seriously. The group is called “The Send” and they appear to mean what they say.  It was a very exciting thing to see that God is very much alive in the hearts and souls and witnesses of these young people.

Satan has done a masterful job of penetrating the Press of our nation who listen to the smut dealers and not to those who have their heads screwed on in the right direction. I have learned, sadly in the past several years, that one must check out even what the so-called religious writers are peddling to the public - with two or more witnesses. 

 The message of the day, beware!  Jesus put it very clean in Matthew 24:4 and 5, “See to it that no one mislead you.  For many will come in My name, saying, I am the Christ, and will mislead many”.   In verse eleven of the same chapter He warned, “Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many”.  John also warned “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18).

In the morning Scripture, Paul warns, “The end will not come unless the apostasy come first and the man of lawlessness revealed, the son of destruction” (2 Thess. 2:3).    

 An article titled “The Dying “Church” appeared on my computer.  The headline “A Hundred Churches Will Close This Week.  It further stated in the United States of America, founded on Judeo – Christian principles, will see as many as 10,000 church’s close their doors one last time this year.    

 Think about that my friends!  There will be no choirs singing Silent Night as the nativity reenacted, when Jesus Christ came to earth to be our sacrificial lamb, our Savior-  the Savior who came to walk in our shoes and take our sins to the cross. 

One of those churches is just down the road from my home.  Each time I drive past it, it speaks of the sadness in its heart- the voice of God has been silenced within its walls.  No more souls saved for eternity, no more messages of salvation and hope from the pulpit, no more sounds of Jesus Loves Me This I Know, just cold- silent walls.   

My friends, I believe in my heart that Father God sheds a tear for every church that closes its door for the last time.  When you add to those depressing realities the rapid growth in the number of pastors and shepherds who have said, ‘enough’ and placed their pastoral garments away for the last time, it does not take a super-charged intellect to realize, the apostasy is upon us and gaining speed every day.

Can it be reversed?  Only if God’s people, “Who are called by His name humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14).

Blessings,

Gramps

An example and Blessing from God's Perfect Plan for All Creation

“Then the Lord said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures and let the birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.  God created the great sea monsters and every living thing that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind and every winged bird after its own kind; and God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:2021). 

Hey Gang:  Celebrating 25^th and 50^th  and 60^th wedding anniversaries is becoming more and more of an endangered issue in this day of “If it does not satisfy my every whim, throw it out, mode.  The bride of my youth has often said, divorce was never considered, murder maybe, but never divorce.  We all know she is too loving to even consider either. 

On our 25^th anniversary we took a trip to Alaska on the Inland Ferry. Wow, what an awesome trip!. I think we will do a repeat trip on our 75^th anniversary, only fourteen years to plan for it.

The last stop on the Ferry was in Haines where we spent the night in a very beautiful rustic Inn. In the morning we were served the most elaborate breakfast we had ever eaten.  It was the end of the season and every place we stopped we saw evidence of closing down for the winter; the process was well along to completion so cleaning out the breakfast supplies was the goal of that morning. 

Then we boarded a bus for our trip through the Yukon Territory to Anchorage.  In route we experienced one of the most profound events of my life – we stopped at the head waters of a river where the salmon come to lay their eggs and die.  And, where the salmon come to die is where the Eagles come to chow down and take on the needed sustenance that will provide for their winter insulation needs.  Part of God’s program for protecting our national emblem.

There were literally thousands of eagles that filled the trees and river.  It was a frosty morning and the trees were covered with frost which only made the eagles glisten all the more.  Even the eaglets were there in the branches.

In discussion with a pilot friend, who was also on the trip, I learned that if an eagle loses its white flying feathers it must remain grounded until the new feathers come in.  Then they can soar again to new heights.  The waiting period is painful.  They see other eagles all around soaring.  

Can you identify with that analogy?  God sometimes must ground us and replace our old feathers with new so that in Him we may soar to new heights.

So, my young friends, when things seem that your prayers are like bricks, or you lack the zeal that we yearn in our heart to worship the King perhaps you are in the replacement of feather shop. 

Blessings,

Gramps

Do You Know? Part Five - The End!

“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong” (I. Cor. 1:26-27).

Hey Gang: The fourth and final common denominator – God uses normal, everyday people who have gone through the wilderness, to implement and accomplish His plan.  People who have been tested by fire and not wavered in their faith and trust in God.  People who were willing to say, “Here Lord, send me.”

Remember, after the feeding of the 5000 Jesus immediately sent the disciples out into the Sea, where they encountered raging storms.  Why?   They had failed the test in the feeding of the 5000 when Jesus said, “You feed them!”  Was that idle talk?  Does not the Bible say that  Jesus had already developed a plan to feed the troops? 

But there was a far greater lesson to be learned by the disciples that day of training.  Do you think there was any doubt in the disciple’s minds that they were in danger of visiting Davie’s Locker?  Some were fisherman and knew the violence of the Sea of Galilee and, I suspect, they were resolved that their life on earth was over.

But Jesus loved them and came to them at the exact right time- the darkest hour- just when any chance of survival was at the point of impossible.  One might say that the disciples were in finishing school, that frightening night.  And what was the lesson of the experience? Notice Matthews words, “And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, You are certainly God’s Son!” (Matt. 14:33). Lesson learned! What lesson? “Surely you are the Son of the living God!”  

Moses, did he jump up and down when he visited the burning bush and encountered Jehovah God and learned what God had in mind for him?  I sense he was in a mesmerized state at that moment - a burning bush that did not turn to ashes! A voice out of the cloud saying, “I have a chore I want you to do for me for me Moses.”  

Keep in mind, he had just spent forty years tending sheep, which did not require a PhD in animal husbandry.  Yes, he was trained in the courts of the Pharaoh and graduated with honors, but forty years of talking to sheep, I would suggest might, have dulled his intellect.   The point, he was a not the head of his class, when God reached down and said, “I’ll take that one!     

O, yes, one last requirement - you must have faith – the common denominator in Hebrews eleven is faith.  Faith is the anchor to our walk with the Lord.  “Without faith it is impossible to please God and to be used by Him. (Hebrews 11).  It was not the marching, the trumpet blast, or the yelling of the marchers that brought the walls of Jericho down, it was faith! 

Finally, my dear family and friends, God has a desire to use you!  You might feel you have nothing to offer, that I am nothing – but that is precisely the kind of person God is looking for.  He takes broken vessels and crushes them and molds them into the image of His Son Jesus!

So, one last time, say it with me, “I am normal; God likes me; God is for me; God can use me. Now show up for your marching orders!. 

Blessings,

Gramps

DO You Know??? Part Three - God Likes Just Ordinary People

“Now they observed the confidence of Peter and John (just lowly fisherman by world standards) and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.  And seeing the man had been healed and standing with them, they had nothing to say” (Acts 4:13-14).    And notice Paul’s words in I Corinthians “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong” (I Cor. 1:27).

Hey Gang:  There is an old country adage that says, “God must love the poor people of the world because He made so many of them”.  As I thought about what I would say to you his morning the thought entered my dome of intellect that we read throughout the Word that God loves each and every soul that had breath, is breathing right now, and will breath life in the future.  But what I do not find is that liked every soul that breathed life.

In my thirty plus years of working with children and families that had various levels and degrees of problem, I ran in many who were very unpleasant people.   In my tenure in the juvenile hall business I was cursed out frequently, cussed at and even spit at a few times.  On two occasions attacked; once, if it was not for a fellow worker, I could have been killed.  

Did it change the way I treated these very unlikeable people? No, as a matter of fact, it placed a fire in my gizzards to take on the really foul-mouthed, tough kids as a project.  Why, because they, in many ways looked like me when I was in my growing years. And I knew, deep in my heart, that I was looking at a soul who had been beaten into a corner on many occasions and had no one to go into the corner and pull them up by their bootstraps.   

You see, the longer I went into the lion’s den of Juvy Hall each day, I repeated “Greater Lord are you in me than in all of these fifty kids behind this wall who would dearly like to defeat you.  You are all powerful, so powerful You placed the stars in the heavens, and placed on this earth all of the magnificence that we are blessed to see”.

The day I walked into Juvvy I was a flunky on the bottom rung of the ladder, with extreme lack of chances to becoming more than a flunky.  I confess, I was so green and had very little understanding about what made these kids tick.  God certainly knew that. He also knew my heart and the depth of concern I had for these directionless kids and He arranged to change that by placing me in a position where two boys were fighting and I stepped between them to stop the fight.

One of the boys said, “Now whatcha gunna do, counselor?”  Out of my mouth came, “I don’t have a clue, you have not taught me what you need and how I can help you”.  And that is precisely what they did in the next three years. 

The point, I was a flunky in the system, bottom of the management chart.  Above me where psychologist, psychiatrist, Ph.d’s, Senior this and senior that, but when the kids needed to pour out their hearts, they would saunter up to me and say  Mr. H. “Do ya got a minute?”

Well, I could go on with this point for a day or so, but let me close with this challenge to you.  There are people all around you who are hurting deep inside and try not show that hurt but tend to try and hide it.  You don’t have to be a social worker, or a head doctor to see it in their face.  I call it the empty eye syndrome.  Am I saying you should become a shrink and dig into their world of hurts?  No, but when you are hurting deep inside, a simple friendly, “Hi,” can be like a laser beam that penetrates straight to the heart.

Let me close this epistle with a story of a lad who had been pushed into that corner one to many times. The very day he had planned to go to school one last time, clean out his locker and that night he would end his life.  On his way home from cleaning out his locker, arms full, he tripped, and his books and personal things went all over the ground.  While collecting the items, a class mate stopped and help him and walked home with him.   The classmate was an out going chap who had the gift of recognizing a mate who was frazzled and in need of someone to care.  They became friends and a life was saved.

God loves-- no make that stronger, God likes ordinary people.  For they are the salt in His family.  How about you, has the salt lost its savor in your witness?  Did you walk by some today and smile and give a simple “Hi”?  I challenge you to do it today, even right now, and watch the light go on in their eyes.

You have a blessed day, now hear?

Gramps

Did You Know...Point two: God Liked Them!

“And it shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that He will give the rain for your land in its season, and early and late rain, that you may gather your grain and your new wine and your oil. He will give you grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied” (Deut. 11:13-15).

Hey Gang:  Common denominator number two with the people of God’s Hall of Faith – God liked them!  Say that with me “God likes me!”  Oh, come on say it out loud for all to hear. 

He liked David in spite of his being a murderer, adulterer.  Why?  Because David was a man after God’s own heart”.  Yes, he was a sinner just like you and me but how could God not like him when he cried out, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, Who has displayed Your splendor above the heaven!” (Psa. 8:1).  Or in Psalm 9 where He shouted, “I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders.  I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High” (vs. 1-2).    

God liked Noah who was obedient and spent one hundred and twenty years building an ark in obedience to God’s word, even though he did not have a clue what rain was.  One might place the construction of a gigantic ark in the “hard to believe” column but build it he did.  “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:8). But when the ark finally rested on the mountain top, the next thing we read is Noah got roaring drunk and lay naked in his tent.  But he had a passion for the Lord and God likes that.

God liked Rahab, a hooker because she repented and got saved.  She later married Salmon who begat Boaz who married Ruth who begat Obed who begat Jesse who begat David and from the line of David we know the Son of God came into the world.  I want you to know that, in spite of her background and errors of her ways, God liked Rahab.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Impetuous Peter, the one with foot in mouth disease, whose eagerness showed in his ‘acting before thinking’ habits.  God knew that when the brusque fisherman settled into the dynamic force for Jesus that he would be a powerful fisher of men.  Breakfast was over and Jesus said, “Simon, son of John, do you love (agape) me more than these? (John 21:15-17).

I wonder, if Peter was wee-bit taken back with Jesus question, keep in mind he had just denied His Lord three times and, I suspect, it was still biting at his gut. Our failures tend to do that for a spell.  His response, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love (phileo) You”.  Perhaps that was for denial number one. 

Again, Jesus said, “Do you love Me, Peter?”  Once again Peter replied, “You know that I love You”, but this time with a phileo love. Perhaps for denial number two.  And yet a third time, “Simon, Son of John, do you love (phileo) Me?”  Peter’s answer, I wonder if tears were not streaming down his cheeks, they are mine as I write this, “You know I Phileo You Lord”.  Perhaps for denial number three.  With each question from the Lord came the same response, Peter, son of John, the one whom I will build my church, “Feed My sheep.”

Each timed I read that passage I crawl into Peter’s sandals and take a peek deep into my mind, heart and soul and ask the question, do I phileo the Lord? or am I sold out and agapa the Lord? Having been involved with Voice of Martyrs and realize the numbers across the world who put their lives on the line when they stand for Jesus, I believe I would do that.  there may come a time in our country when this will be required of each of us.  Are you ready? 

As we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus and His victory over death for you and me, it was reassuring to see those in God’s Hall of Fame, that people were just like you and me. It was also neat and reassuring that He likes them and also likes you and me! 

So, my young chicks, keep this firmly entrenched in your heart, soul and mind, God likes you and He likes me in spite of our imperfections.   I am normal, I fail many times, but God still likes me- even to the point where He came, stood in for me and went to a hideous cross to free me from the bondage of my sins and open the door to eternity with Him, Yeshua Hamashiah. Does that fill the cockles of your heart?   

Blessings,

Gramps

An Amish Proverb: “It takes 73 muscles to frown and only 14 to smile.  No wonder grouchy people are always tired.”

Are Things Getting worse? OR - Are THey Getting Ready?

Rockets Rain Down on Israel

Jesus said, “When these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).    He also said “Now, will not God bring justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?” (Luke 18:7).

Hey Gang:  I compare watching the news to being thrown out of an airplane at forty thousand feet with no parachute.  It is kind of like going to the dentist with a tooth ache and hearing the dentist say, eleven teeth much go, and I don’t have any nova Caine.  I would suggest that one must have ‘manic depressive tendencies’ to day after day seek new ways to rip, gauge and destroy those people that do not necessarily agree with us.

I sense we are well established in the exponential curve, where our world is ever increasing in speed towards that day when God will say, as He did in the days of Noah, “There is no hope, time to bring my children home. And giving those left behind their hearts desire, to destroy themselves.”  Jesus warned of this very thing when He said, “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short” (Matt. 24:22).  

This morning, as I began my day (May 5,2019), I learned the depressing news that 507 missiles have fallen on Israel in the past twenty- four hours, and more are reported as in-coming.  Especially depressing because they are falling in the very area where we have spent much of our time getting our hands dirty blessing Israel. 

Tragically, the world has accepted Satan’s bill of goods that, if I destroy Israel there will be no place for Jesus to return. This will make Him a liar and we will rejoice, when peopel hear that some calamity has struck Israel. 

Why does Israel not vent their full power against those who are trying to destroy them?  I sense, in reading the prophecies of the world, they are fearful that a full strike would trigger a much bigger war against them. The enemies, which surround them, are also sympathetic with Gaza and would dearly love to vent their power against Israel. 

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We are promised in the Word that there are three major battles (wars) to come and it seems the pieces are rapidly coming together as prophesied in the word.  There is controversy among the world prophecy guru’s as to if, and when, these things will happen.  But, this I know, the Bible is clear!  We are going to see a Psalms 83 battle. I believe it will be very precise in its purpose- to remove those enemies that butt up against Israel.

 I know there is a war coming that we refer to as the Gog- Magog War, for the nations involved in this war are coming together in rapid fashion.  And, of course, we know there is a final War when the Antichrist will lead the nations of the world against Israel and get their come up-pens.  It is also the opinion of this writer that once the lid come off, these wars will run concurrently and quickly.

So, my friends, this is my opinion only and, as I have stated many times, my opinion and two bucks will purchase you a cup of java in most hash houses.  Now the question is when will Father God say to His Son, “Time to return to earth and collect your sheep and take them to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.” My response to this question is “When it fits His eternal plan!”  It really does not matter when He chooses.  What makes a difference is “ARE YOU READY?   

  

 So, my young friends, does that not put the ball in our hands?   God said to Abraham, “Those who bless Israel, I will bless, and those who curse Israel I will curse.”   He also said, “In the same measure you give, I will reciprocate!  Are You Ready?  Are you up to speed?  What if our enemies, which are many, would reign 450 missiles down on your community? ow would you feel about that?

Blessings,

Gramps

Did you Know? The Beginning......

“By faith we understand that the worlds, prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (Heb. 11:3).  “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). 

Hey Gang:  I have come up with a great revelation, although I have really known it for many years, namely, ‘The teacher is the greatest benefactor of what they are teaching!’  Preparation is indeed a blessing that keeps your focus on the Word.  If you really want to grow in the Lord, find someone to mentor.  Seeking new revelations you can share with the one you are mentoring keeps your mind alert!

I was going back through the archives and came across several blogs that were dated in December 2010. That re-rang my bell and I sensed there may be someone out there who is struggling with who they- are in relation to God’s love. 

This next couple weeks I would like to share with you four Godly principles that someone along the line shared with me.  The message is very easy to understand, but also so very deep when you dig in and let the Holy Spirit do the driving.   

Most folks who have spent much time in the Word know that the eleventh Chapter of Hebrews is often referred to as the ‘faith chapter’.  The writer begins the chapter by commending the people and ended in like manner. 

He lays the foundation for what he is going to say about the people presented by saying: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the men of old gained approval.  By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. (vs. 1-3).      

Paul also gave us the prerequisites to faith when he wrote: “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart a person believes, resulting in salvation. (Rom. 10:9-10).  Now drop down a couple verses and note Paul’s words: “So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ”. 

So my young buckaroos, with this foundation firmly implanted in our hearts and heads, we will look at three fantastic Godly principles beginning in the next Gramps Morning Message.

Blessings,

Gramps

Amish Proverb:  “Bibles that are coming apart usually belong to people who are not.”