Kudos to Glenn Beck for throwing out the battle cry for Americans' to come back to their roots of FAITH in GOD instead of government! Although his claim is to the Mormon, not Christian faith, he's actually doing more to call the nation to seriously reconsider its path and priorities then many professed Christians. Personally, I find it pretty sad indeed that the vast majority of God's own people have abdicated this all important responsibility.
Ahhhhh, but our God is One of many means and methods and He will always find someone willing to stand up for what is right, even if that someone doesn't necessarily possess and follow all the truth contained in His Word. Glenn is absolutely right, it's not at all about "politics", the ONLY hope for this or any other nation is the Lord Jesus Christ alone!
It's actually kind of ironic, while the Christian Church has become way too "politicized" - chasing and putting their hope in "parties" and "candidates", those outside the walls of biblical Christianity are finally realizing it's NOT about politics at all, but rather, all about GOD! Go figure...
Christians, please pray for Glenn Beck, that he will come to genuinely know and love the Lord. I have a sneaking feeling that he's not too far from the Kingdom! :)
Beck rally calls U.S. to turn back to faith
'It has nothing to do with politics; it has everything to do with God'
By Drew Zahn
8/28/2010
WorldNetDaily
Glenn Beck at Restoring Honor rally
WASHINGTON, D.C. – People of every race and color in red, white and blue T-shirts gathered in the nation's capital today for Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally only to receive a heavy dose, not of the radio host, but of Jesus Christ.
Anita Crane reported from the ground for WND: "The crowds are enthusiastic and orderly as far the eye can see, waving flags, wearing on their shirts the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and 'God Bless America.'"
Video of the rally shows crowds filling the grounds surrounding Washington's Reflecting Pool, Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. An unsubstantiated radio report suggested as many as half a million were in attendance.
When Beck took the platform, he joked about the size of the gathering.
"I have just gotten word from the media," he quipped, "that there are over a thousand people here today."
The speakers, including Beck, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, representatives for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation – for which the rally was raising funds – and others, spoke glowingly of the promise of America, the accomplishments of its past, the soldiers who served their country and the foundation of the nation upon faith.
Beck focused on faith from the beginning of the rally, declaring, "America today begins to turn back to God."
Crowd members gathered from across the nation echoed the speaker's pride in America, as well as their concern that the nation has been drifting from its Founders' intent.
Rally attendee Debbie Emo came with two friends from Kansas City and told WND, "I believe our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and we've let those slip."
Jim Allen brought his dog, Spot, from Tulsa, Okla., because he had heard Beck urge people to bring their "families."
"I'm here because I want the Constitution restored," he said.
Get "Taking America Back," Joseph Farah's manifesto for sovereignty, self-reliance and moral renewal
Juan Muicea, wearing a Declaration of Independence T-shirt, told WND, "I'm standing here for my family to bring honor back to the country, the basic principle that we have rights."
Muicea explained that he's not asking for "anything outrageous," just that the government would observe and honor its citizens' Constitutional rights.
Crowd attending Restoring Honor rally
Several attendees expressed worry over the expanding power of the federal government, arguing that its bailouts, corporate takeovers and health-care mandate are all evidence of a government operating beyond its constitutional bounds. And without the Constitution effectively enforced to limit its power, the attendees fear, the government has no check against tyranny.
"We're here because I'm scared to death that our freedoms are being taken from us," said Ann Kane, who came to the rally from Raleigh, N.C., with her husband and four of their six children.
Frank Stuber, grandfather of two, told WND, "I'm here from Chicago for my grandchildren, because everything is out of control."
Glenn Beck's proposed solution to their fears, however, may have caught some by surprise.
The radio host explained that when he planned the rally, he expected it would be "political."
But several months ago, surrounded by the crowds at another gathering, he grabbed one of his co-workers and said, "We're wrong."
Instead of a political rally, playing on patriotism to push for votes in the fall, Beck gave today's Restoring Honor gathering a heavily spiritual theme. He challenged the crowds to make the message of resorting honor personal, by living out the key virtues of 1 Corinthians 13: faith, hope and charity.
In turn, a variety of presenters introduced three individuals lauded for exemplifying these virtues: Rev. C.L. Jackson for faith, major-league baseball star Albert Pujols for hope, and Salt Lake City philanthropist Jon Huntsman Sr. for charity.
Beck challenged the crowd to take up a 40-day endeavor to demonstrate faith, hope and charity, and thus, to live out the final words of the Declaration of Indepenence: "With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
"We must as a people strengthen our spirit," Beck declared. "Look to the top of the Washington memorial, [where it is carved] 'Praise be to God.'"
Dr. Alveda King was also on the platform, echoing the famous words of her uncle's "I have a dream" speech.
"I have a dream," Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece declared, "that America will pray and that God will forgive us our sins and revive our land."
After announcing media estimates that the crowd ranged in size from 300,000 to 500,000, Beck reiterated the rally cry that summed up today's primary message: "It has nothing to do with politics; it has everything to do with God."
With reporting by Anita Crane.
August 30, 2010
August 24, 2010
Are You a Christian or a Christ-Follower?
Preparing for the Emerging One Church of the New World
by Tamara Hartzell
February 2008
Are you a Christian or a Christ-follower? Believe it or not, there is a world of difference in the New Spirituality that is replacing the Christian faith in today’s Christianity. On the surface, Christ-follower may seem to be a more accurate term than Christian since Christians are followers of Christ. But you can’t always judge a book by its cover. When the New Spirituality’s transformation to Christ-follower has been accomplished, the difference between the two will be as significant as the difference between dark and light, or the broad way and the narrow way.
This subtle separating of terms is being implemented in preparation for the Emerging One Church of the new world, for which Christian is too narrow and exclusive. Christian clearly says that followers of Christ are in the Christian faith (true Christianity), but Christ-follower inclusively allows for followers of Christ to be in any religion.
Accordingly, Christians are people of the faith, clearly set forth in the Word of God, but Christ followers will be people of faith—that is, any faith or religion. Christians believe that the right doctrine and theology—in other words, the right faith—are essential for salvation, but Christ-followers will believe that doctrine and theology are irrelevant because what you do is more important than what you believe. Christians believe there is only one truth, clearly set forth in God’s Word of truth, but Christ-followers will believe there is truth in every religion.
Inevitably, with unity at all costs becoming the foundation of the world and churches, Christian is already becoming a brand of shame. In the emerging new world, Christian says that you are intolerant, divisive, religiously bigoted, judgmental, and legalistic. In other words, Christian says to the world that you believe when God says there is only one way to God and none other that God actually means it. The world never has tolerated this faith very well.
Christ-follower, on the other hand, will become a badge of honor. In the emerging new world, Christ-follower will say that you are undogmatic, unifiable, open-minded, accommodating, and flexible. In other words, Christ-follower will say to the world that you believe God is inclusive of those whose way to God is different than the way given to us in His Word. It will say that you are tolerant of the other religions in the world and that you believe they can be just as right as Christianity. The world will tolerate this faith, or spirituality, just fine. Why wouldn’t it?
The New Spirituality of the Emerging One Church
If the New Spirituality’s emerging transformation to Christ-follower describes you and your beliefs, then no doubt many, if not all, of the following New Spirituality beliefs will ring true with you, especially if you can identify with the Emerging Church movement.
“‘THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN --TRUTH.’… [Truth] must be underlying every world religion… Therefore, that a portion of truth, great or small, is found in every religious and philosophical system …”
“[E]very man should be free to worship God in his own way.… His own God-illumined mind will search for truth and he will interpret it for himself. The day of theology is over and that of a living truth is with us.”
It is “the pride of mind which sees its way and its interpretations to be correct and true, and others’ false and wrong.”
“The teaching of Christ is not obsolete and out of date. It needs only to be rescued from the interpretations of the theologies of the past …”
“Christ's major task was the establishing of God's kingdom upon earth. He showed us the way in which humanity could enter that kingdom … the way is found in service to our fellow men …"
“It is through supreme service and sacrifice that we become followers of Christ and earn the right to enter into His kingdom, because we do not enter alone.”
“The need is for vision, wisdom and that wide tolerance which will see divinity on every hand and recognize the Christ in every human being.”
“The true Church is the kingdom of God on earth … composed of all, regardless of race or creed, who live by the light within, who have discovered the fact of the mystical Christ in their hearts.”
“The message of God is clear. No matter what the religion, no matter what the culture, no matter what the spiritual or indigenous tradition, the bottom line is identical: We are all one.”
“…Christian people are to recognize their place within a worldwide divine revelation and see Christ as representing all the faiths and taking His rightful place as World Teacher. He is the World Teacher and not a Christian teacher.… They may not call Him Christ, but they have their own name for Him and follow Him as truly and faithfully as their Western brethren.”
“The Christ has no religious barriers in His consciousness. It matters not to Him of what faith a man may call himself.”
“[‘The Christ’] has been for two thousand years the supreme Head of the Church Invisible … composed of disciples of all faiths.… He cares not what the faith is if the objective is love of God and of humanity.”
These New Spirituality (New Age and New Gospel) beliefs are bringing humanity and its religions together in interfaith unity. They are foundational to the Emerging One Church (the universal religion of the new world) which is indeed “widely desired and worked for” in both the world and today’s Christianity:
“[R]eligions though diverse in their theologies and forms of worship … and though differing in their methods of application of truth, are united in three basic aspects …
“When men recognize this and succeed in isolating that inner significant structure of truth which is the same in all climes and in all races, then there will emerge the universal religion, the One Church, and that unified though not uniform approach to God … Theologies will disappear into the knowledge of God; doctrines and dogmas will no longer be regarded as necessary, for faith will be based on experience, and authority will give place to personal appreciation of Reality.…
“The history of religions, the foundations of doctrine, the origin of ideas and the growth of the God idea are being subjected to research and study. This leads to much disputation; to the rejection of old established ideas as to God, the soul, man and his destiny.”
“Today, slowly, the concept of a world religion and the need for its emergence are widely desired and worked for. The fusion of faiths is now a field for discussion. Workers in the field of religion will formulate the universal platform of the new world religion. It is a work of loving synthesis and will emphasize the unity and the fellowship of the spirit. This group is, in a pronounced sense, a channel for the activities of the Christ, the world Teacher. The platform of the new world religion will be built by many groups, working under the inspiration of the Christ.
“Churchmen need to remember that the human spirit is greater than all the churches and greater than their teaching. In the long run, that human spirit will defeat them and proceed triumphantly into the Kingdom of God, leaving them far behind unless they enter as a humble part of the mass of men.…
“The churches in the West need also to realize that basically there is only one Church, but it is not necessarily only the orthodox Christian institution.” (Bold added)
“This the church has hindered down the centuries, and has not helped because of its fanatical zeal to make ‘Christians’ of all peoples and not followers of the Christ. It has emphasized theological doctrine, and not love and loving understanding as Christ exemplified it.”
"This Emerging One Church (universal, new world religion) is captivating today’s Christianity that has been easily fooled into believing that the Word of God is insufficient and irrelevant for our global-minded world. This goes hand in hand with the view that the “traditional” Christian faith is a “failure” in today’s world. As a result, no time is being wasted in replacing the scriptural faith of Christianity with the “loving understanding” and New Spirituality faith of the Emerging One Church. In its growing relativistic zeal to make Christ-followers and not Christians, today’s Christianity is joining the interfaith work of building the platform of the new world religion.
by Tamara Hartzell
February 2008
Are you a Christian or a Christ-follower? Believe it or not, there is a world of difference in the New Spirituality that is replacing the Christian faith in today’s Christianity. On the surface, Christ-follower may seem to be a more accurate term than Christian since Christians are followers of Christ. But you can’t always judge a book by its cover. When the New Spirituality’s transformation to Christ-follower has been accomplished, the difference between the two will be as significant as the difference between dark and light, or the broad way and the narrow way.
This subtle separating of terms is being implemented in preparation for the Emerging One Church of the new world, for which Christian is too narrow and exclusive. Christian clearly says that followers of Christ are in the Christian faith (true Christianity), but Christ-follower inclusively allows for followers of Christ to be in any religion.
Accordingly, Christians are people of the faith, clearly set forth in the Word of God, but Christ followers will be people of faith—that is, any faith or religion. Christians believe that the right doctrine and theology—in other words, the right faith—are essential for salvation, but Christ-followers will believe that doctrine and theology are irrelevant because what you do is more important than what you believe. Christians believe there is only one truth, clearly set forth in God’s Word of truth, but Christ-followers will believe there is truth in every religion.
Inevitably, with unity at all costs becoming the foundation of the world and churches, Christian is already becoming a brand of shame. In the emerging new world, Christian says that you are intolerant, divisive, religiously bigoted, judgmental, and legalistic. In other words, Christian says to the world that you believe when God says there is only one way to God and none other that God actually means it. The world never has tolerated this faith very well.
Christ-follower, on the other hand, will become a badge of honor. In the emerging new world, Christ-follower will say that you are undogmatic, unifiable, open-minded, accommodating, and flexible. In other words, Christ-follower will say to the world that you believe God is inclusive of those whose way to God is different than the way given to us in His Word. It will say that you are tolerant of the other religions in the world and that you believe they can be just as right as Christianity. The world will tolerate this faith, or spirituality, just fine. Why wouldn’t it?
The New Spirituality of the Emerging One Church
If the New Spirituality’s emerging transformation to Christ-follower describes you and your beliefs, then no doubt many, if not all, of the following New Spirituality beliefs will ring true with you, especially if you can identify with the Emerging Church movement.
“‘THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN --TRUTH.’… [Truth] must be underlying every world religion… Therefore, that a portion of truth, great or small, is found in every religious and philosophical system …”
“[E]very man should be free to worship God in his own way.… His own God-illumined mind will search for truth and he will interpret it for himself. The day of theology is over and that of a living truth is with us.”
It is “the pride of mind which sees its way and its interpretations to be correct and true, and others’ false and wrong.”
“The teaching of Christ is not obsolete and out of date. It needs only to be rescued from the interpretations of the theologies of the past …”
“Christ's major task was the establishing of God's kingdom upon earth. He showed us the way in which humanity could enter that kingdom … the way is found in service to our fellow men …"
“It is through supreme service and sacrifice that we become followers of Christ and earn the right to enter into His kingdom, because we do not enter alone.”
“The need is for vision, wisdom and that wide tolerance which will see divinity on every hand and recognize the Christ in every human being.”
“The true Church is the kingdom of God on earth … composed of all, regardless of race or creed, who live by the light within, who have discovered the fact of the mystical Christ in their hearts.”
“The message of God is clear. No matter what the religion, no matter what the culture, no matter what the spiritual or indigenous tradition, the bottom line is identical: We are all one.”
“…Christian people are to recognize their place within a worldwide divine revelation and see Christ as representing all the faiths and taking His rightful place as World Teacher. He is the World Teacher and not a Christian teacher.… They may not call Him Christ, but they have their own name for Him and follow Him as truly and faithfully as their Western brethren.”
“The Christ has no religious barriers in His consciousness. It matters not to Him of what faith a man may call himself.”
“[‘The Christ’] has been for two thousand years the supreme Head of the Church Invisible … composed of disciples of all faiths.… He cares not what the faith is if the objective is love of God and of humanity.”
These New Spirituality (New Age and New Gospel) beliefs are bringing humanity and its religions together in interfaith unity. They are foundational to the Emerging One Church (the universal religion of the new world) which is indeed “widely desired and worked for” in both the world and today’s Christianity:
“[R]eligions though diverse in their theologies and forms of worship … and though differing in their methods of application of truth, are united in three basic aspects …
“When men recognize this and succeed in isolating that inner significant structure of truth which is the same in all climes and in all races, then there will emerge the universal religion, the One Church, and that unified though not uniform approach to God … Theologies will disappear into the knowledge of God; doctrines and dogmas will no longer be regarded as necessary, for faith will be based on experience, and authority will give place to personal appreciation of Reality.…
“The history of religions, the foundations of doctrine, the origin of ideas and the growth of the God idea are being subjected to research and study. This leads to much disputation; to the rejection of old established ideas as to God, the soul, man and his destiny.”
“Today, slowly, the concept of a world religion and the need for its emergence are widely desired and worked for. The fusion of faiths is now a field for discussion. Workers in the field of religion will formulate the universal platform of the new world religion. It is a work of loving synthesis and will emphasize the unity and the fellowship of the spirit. This group is, in a pronounced sense, a channel for the activities of the Christ, the world Teacher. The platform of the new world religion will be built by many groups, working under the inspiration of the Christ.
“Churchmen need to remember that the human spirit is greater than all the churches and greater than their teaching. In the long run, that human spirit will defeat them and proceed triumphantly into the Kingdom of God, leaving them far behind unless they enter as a humble part of the mass of men.…
“The churches in the West need also to realize that basically there is only one Church, but it is not necessarily only the orthodox Christian institution.” (Bold added)
“This the church has hindered down the centuries, and has not helped because of its fanatical zeal to make ‘Christians’ of all peoples and not followers of the Christ. It has emphasized theological doctrine, and not love and loving understanding as Christ exemplified it.”
"This Emerging One Church (universal, new world religion) is captivating today’s Christianity that has been easily fooled into believing that the Word of God is insufficient and irrelevant for our global-minded world. This goes hand in hand with the view that the “traditional” Christian faith is a “failure” in today’s world. As a result, no time is being wasted in replacing the scriptural faith of Christianity with the “loving understanding” and New Spirituality faith of the Emerging One Church. In its growing relativistic zeal to make Christ-followers and not Christians, today’s Christianity is joining the interfaith work of building the platform of the new world religion.
August 5, 2010
SAY GOODBYE to the UNTOUCHABLE PREACHERS
Major KUDOS to J. Lee Grady for this very true and much needed word to the church. Good for him! Christians, please don't send your hard earned money to these wannabe "celebrity" TV preachers!
SAY GOODBYE to the UNTOUCHABLE PREACHERS
-by J. Lee Grady.
God is shaking His church and removing corruption. But we share the blame for giving charlatans a platform.
Al Capone once controlled all of Chicago. The notorious 1920s gangster bribed the city's mayor, bought the police and presided as king over an empire of casinos, speakeasies and smuggling operations. He dodged bullets for years and lived above the law— and earned the nickname "untouchable" because no one could bring him to justice.
Before Capone finally went to prison in 1932, he justified his crimes by saying: "All I do is satisfy a public demand." He didn't take responsibility for the pain he caused because he knew mayors, policemen, community leaders and bootleggers supported him the whole way.
"There is no way we can know how many unbelievers rejected the gospel because they saw the church supporting quacks who swaggered, bragged, lied, flattered, bribed, stole and tearfully begged their way into our lives—while we applauded them and sent them money."
I hate to compare any minister of God to a gangster. But the sad truth is that today there are a handful (well, maybe more) of unscrupulous preachers who share some of Capone's most disgusting traits. They are notoriously greedy. They are masters of deception and manipulation. They have bought their way into the charismatic religious subculture and used their uncanny hypnotic ability to control major Christian TV networks.
And, like Capone, their days are numbered. Justice will soon catch up with them.
These false prophets probably all started out with a genuine call from God, but success destroyed them. They were lured away from true faith by fame and money, and when their ministries mushroomed they resorted to compromise to keep their machines rolling. Now, in the midst of the Great Recession, God is closing in on them.
But before we rejoice that these imposters are being removed from their pulpits and yanked off the airwaves, let's hit the pause button and reflect. How did these false preachers ever achieve such fame? It couldn't have happened without help from us.
We were the gullible ones. When they said, "The Lord promises you untold wealth if you will simply give a thousand dollars right now," we went to the phones and put the donations on our credit cards. God forgive us.
We were the undiscerning ones. When they said, "I need your sacrificial gift today so I can repair my private jet," we didn't ask why a servant of God wasn't humble enough to fly coach class to a Third World nation. God forgive us.
We were the foolish ones. When it was revealed that they were living in immorality, mistreating their wives or populating cities with illegitimate children, we listened to their spin doctors instead of demanding that ministry leaders act like Christians. God forgive us.
We were the naïve ones. When they begged for $2 million more in donations because of a budget shortfall, we didn't feel comfortable asking why they needed that $10,000-a-night hotel suite. In fact, if we did question it, another Christian was quick to say, "Don't criticize! The Bible says, ‘Touch not the Lord's anointed!'" God forgive us.
We have treated these charlatans like Al Capone—as if they were untouchable—and as a result their corruption has spread throughout charismatic churches like a plague. Our movement is eaten up with materialism, pride, deception and sexual sin because we were afraid to call these Bozos what they really are —insecure, selfish, egotistical and emotionally dysfunctional.
If we had applied biblical discernment a long time ago we could have avoided this mess. There is no way we can know how many unbelievers rejected the gospel because they saw the church supporting quacks who swaggered, bragged, lied, flattered, bribed, stole and tearfully begged their way into our lives—while we applauded them and sent them money.
When well-meaning Christians quote 1 Chronicles 16:22 ("Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm," NASB) to cover up corruption or charlatanism, they do horrible injustice to Scripture. This passage does not require us to stay quiet when a leader is abusing power or deceiving people.
On the contrary, we are called to confront sin in a spirit of love and honesty—and we certainly aren't showing love to the church if we allow the charismatic Al Capones of our generation to corrupt it.
SAY GOODBYE to the UNTOUCHABLE PREACHERS
-by J. Lee Grady.
God is shaking His church and removing corruption. But we share the blame for giving charlatans a platform.
Al Capone once controlled all of Chicago. The notorious 1920s gangster bribed the city's mayor, bought the police and presided as king over an empire of casinos, speakeasies and smuggling operations. He dodged bullets for years and lived above the law— and earned the nickname "untouchable" because no one could bring him to justice.
Before Capone finally went to prison in 1932, he justified his crimes by saying: "All I do is satisfy a public demand." He didn't take responsibility for the pain he caused because he knew mayors, policemen, community leaders and bootleggers supported him the whole way.
"There is no way we can know how many unbelievers rejected the gospel because they saw the church supporting quacks who swaggered, bragged, lied, flattered, bribed, stole and tearfully begged their way into our lives—while we applauded them and sent them money."
I hate to compare any minister of God to a gangster. But the sad truth is that today there are a handful (well, maybe more) of unscrupulous preachers who share some of Capone's most disgusting traits. They are notoriously greedy. They are masters of deception and manipulation. They have bought their way into the charismatic religious subculture and used their uncanny hypnotic ability to control major Christian TV networks.
And, like Capone, their days are numbered. Justice will soon catch up with them.
These false prophets probably all started out with a genuine call from God, but success destroyed them. They were lured away from true faith by fame and money, and when their ministries mushroomed they resorted to compromise to keep their machines rolling. Now, in the midst of the Great Recession, God is closing in on them.
But before we rejoice that these imposters are being removed from their pulpits and yanked off the airwaves, let's hit the pause button and reflect. How did these false preachers ever achieve such fame? It couldn't have happened without help from us.
We were the gullible ones. When they said, "The Lord promises you untold wealth if you will simply give a thousand dollars right now," we went to the phones and put the donations on our credit cards. God forgive us.
We were the undiscerning ones. When they said, "I need your sacrificial gift today so I can repair my private jet," we didn't ask why a servant of God wasn't humble enough to fly coach class to a Third World nation. God forgive us.
We were the foolish ones. When it was revealed that they were living in immorality, mistreating their wives or populating cities with illegitimate children, we listened to their spin doctors instead of demanding that ministry leaders act like Christians. God forgive us.
We were the naïve ones. When they begged for $2 million more in donations because of a budget shortfall, we didn't feel comfortable asking why they needed that $10,000-a-night hotel suite. In fact, if we did question it, another Christian was quick to say, "Don't criticize! The Bible says, ‘Touch not the Lord's anointed!'" God forgive us.
We have treated these charlatans like Al Capone—as if they were untouchable—and as a result their corruption has spread throughout charismatic churches like a plague. Our movement is eaten up with materialism, pride, deception and sexual sin because we were afraid to call these Bozos what they really are —insecure, selfish, egotistical and emotionally dysfunctional.
If we had applied biblical discernment a long time ago we could have avoided this mess. There is no way we can know how many unbelievers rejected the gospel because they saw the church supporting quacks who swaggered, bragged, lied, flattered, bribed, stole and tearfully begged their way into our lives—while we applauded them and sent them money.
When well-meaning Christians quote 1 Chronicles 16:22 ("Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm," NASB) to cover up corruption or charlatanism, they do horrible injustice to Scripture. This passage does not require us to stay quiet when a leader is abusing power or deceiving people.
On the contrary, we are called to confront sin in a spirit of love and honesty—and we certainly aren't showing love to the church if we allow the charismatic Al Capones of our generation to corrupt it.
August 1, 2010
WE CAN'T ESCAPE THE HARD TRUTHS
An excellent message by Carter Conlon of Times Square Church (bolded emphasis is mine)...
WE CAN'T ESCAPE THE HARD TRUTHS
by Carter Conlon
In John 6:53, Jesus said to His disciples, “Unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood you have no life in you” (paraphrase). Although they had experienced His power and miracles, many of them were offended and said, “This is a hard saying, who can hear this?” The Scripture says that they turned back and walked with Him no more.
The disciples who resisted the truth ran from it, but ultimately they could not escape it. Every one of them would die and eventually appear before God, only to find that Jesus meant what He said. It did not matter how often they went to the synagogue or how much they prayed. Without the life of Christ in them, they had no real life.
WHAT ABOUT MERCY?
The early church was in its infancy, moving together as one body with one purpose in the earth. The Scripture says that as they were together praying, the place was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost (see Acts 2). They were speaking the Word of God with boldness. People were selling their possessions and bringing the money for the apostles to distribute so that no one would be lacking. Those were exciting times!
Then we come to Acts 5:1−11 and the story of Ananias and Sapphira: “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.”
As a young Christian, I used to be somewhat perplexed by the severity of the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira. After all, hadn’t Peter done worse? They lied about the price of the land, but Peter had lied about knowing Jesus, which seems to be a much more severe offense. Peter had received forgiveness, and doesn’t the Scripture say that those who have received mercy should be merciful?
Yet here is Peter pronouncing their sentence of death, which in the natural doesn’t make sense. We know that God is just and His judgments are right, so there must be something dangerous here for the individual believer and the church as a whole, a great truth which you and I need to understand today.
PRETENDING TO BE WITH THE PROGRAM
I believe the key to understanding Acts 5 is this: Ananias and Sapphira were pretending to be with the program when, in fact, they were not. It is very dangerous to pretend to be fully obeying the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I believe Peter received mercy for his actions because he was young in the Lord, and he acted out of fear. It was a momentary thing; he did not understand and was not yet formed in the power, strength and truth of God. Peter was not moving with the church as a body as Ananias and Sapphira were.
In contrast, Ananias and Sapphira were not afraid—theirs was calculated deception. They deliberately deceived others, and they thought they could deceive God. When we begin to make excuses for what we know is wrong, we eventually get to the place where we think we can deceive God. We mistakenly believe that our deception does not matter to God, since we are part of the New Covenant. We believe that an incredible blanket of grace and mercy covers everything—and that is true—but it doesn’t apply to the willful sinner. God was saying at that time, “Before this church really gets going, I have to set the record straight—there is still a judgment of death on willful deception.”
The irony is that Ananias and Sapphira could have chosen not to sell their land and still been part of the church. Or they could have said, “Here is half,” and it would have been fine. The real issue was that they pretended to be something they were not.
WEAKNESS IN THE CAMP
Pretending to be righteous brings into the church the same weakness that Achan brought into the camp of Israel, a hard truth recounted in Joshua, chapter 7. As Joshua was leading the Israelites in to possess the Promised Land, he gave them specific instructions. “And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it” (Joshua 6:18). In other words, do not embrace the fallen value system of the wicked; do not think it is going to offer you any security. We would be wise to heed these words today. This system offered no security to those outside the kingdom of God.
After a phenomenal victory over Jericho, Joshua led the Israelites forward to a small town called Ai. The scouting party sent by Joshua reported back that the men of Ai were few, so Joshua sent in only a few thousand men to attack the town. The Israelites suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of the small, defenseless city.
The defeat was so severe that Joshua fell on his face and cried to the Lord, “We would have been content to dwell on the other side of Jordan!” These were words that Joshua probably never imagined he would say, for they were the very sort that caused the people to live for forty years in the wilderness. But God said, “Joshua, get up off the ground, there is an accursed thing in the camp and it has brought this weakness that you see” (Joshua 7:10, 13 paraphrase).
In order to find out what the “accursed thing in the camp” was, they drew lots. This system in the Old Testament was divinely inspired by God, and the lot fell to a man named Achan. “Now Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.’
And Achan answered Joshua and said, ‘Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done: When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it’” (Joshua 7:19−21, NKJV).
THE WRONG FOCUS
You have to wonder what was in Achan’s heart. As in Acts, chapter 5, the Scripture in Joshua, chapter 7 talks about a time of power and supernatural provision. Achan had to have known that the God who gave them victory over Jericho would provide for them. Yet we can picture Achan as he clambered with the rest of the army into the ruins of a society that had lived apart from God and trusted in gold and silver. Suddenly his eye falls on a garment from Babylon, the likes of which were highly sought after in the commercial trade of that day. These garments often had golden threads interwoven in them, signifying the perishing society’s view of success and prosperity. The threads formed images of men and cattle, with the cattle representing prosperity. When Achan saw the garment, he coveted it, and said, “I want this for my life. I am not content to be just a little part of a larger body moving into the Promised Land. I want to be successful—I want to be noticed!”
Jesus said, “The light of the body is the eye…if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22−23). The moment we look on something that God forbids, a flood of darkness comes along with it. Once Achan saw that garment, he also saw a wedge of gold only half a step away. Can you imagine trading the power of God for a pound of gold? Once we have a wrong view of success, we also will apply a wrong measure of how to achieve it. We are living in a world where everyone wants to stand out; everyone wants to be the big player. But in order to get there, we think we need a little more than everyone else.
Along with the wedge of gold, Achan saw about five pounds of silver coins. Note that he buried the silver deeper than the gold and the garment. In the silver coins, Achan saw something that he thought would bring him success and happiness, but he did not understand that the silver was a betrayal of God Himself. Interestingly, Judas sold out the Son of God for a handful of silver very close to the same measure as Achan found.
Achan failed to see that he was selling out the glory of God and in so doing, bringing weakness into the camp of Jesus Christ. Likewise, we are in a position of theological and practical weakness in our generation. Today many “Achans” are standing in pulpits, giving a wrong value system to the people of God while building up each man’s individual image. Once this is done, there is an immediate movement to gold—money must be involved.
Achan’s focus was on himself, his own security, and his own plans. He forgot he was only a small part of something much bigger than himself. This wrong focus led Achan and his whole house to ruin—sadly, he did not go alone. His sons, his daughters, his wife, and even his cattle all went into darkness with him. Likewise, when you as a Christian begin to focus on yourself, you are opening the door to destruction in your own home. Look away from your own needs and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; God says that He will add them to you.
A DOOR OF HOPE
The writer of Hebrews says, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).
In the Lord there is always hope. The Lord says, “...I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her” (Hosea 2:14). He is talking about a bride who had given herself to other lovers. She was adorned with things that were not the righteousness of Christ—garments and jewelry that were given to her through these other pursuits. And in the Valley of Achor, which is where Achan and his family were put to death, the Lord said that He would speak comfortably to her.
Similarly, we are all going into the wilderness. Everything that this society has known and trusted in is about to perish; it is all going to crumble. But those who have an honest relationship with Christ will stand! He is going to open “...a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15).
God is saying, “I will not let you go, because you are My church, My beloved Bride. I am going to bring you into a place of trouble where I will strip you of all garments, adornments, gold, and silver—the entire value system of a perishing society. In that place of trouble I will open a door, and bring you through it with a song in your heart and My name on your lips. You will no longer call Me Master, which implies restrictions on behavior and things given. You will call Me Ishi, which means husband. You will love Me with all your heart, and walk with Me in the coming days.”
DON'T WAIT TOO LONG
Beloved, this is not the time to be running from the hard truths; instead, it is time to stand in the truth of God. The hour is late, the rains are coming. I feel almost like Noah just before the rain started. If you are in the wrong place, get out of there! If you are doing wrong things, trust God for the power to stop. Don’t be found where you shouldn’t be; don’t be doing what you shouldn’t be doing. Don’t let your value system be intermingled with the system of this world. Put it all away, for it’s time to get right with God.
Achan was too late. Joshua said, “...My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me” (Joshua 7:19, NKJV).
Perhaps if he had come forward in the beginning, he would have escaped the judgment. But, instead, he had to be singled out from among three million people before he finally came clean.
Imagine standing before the throne of God one day and hearing Him say to you personally, “Tell me, son, what did you do to have your name taken from My lips? I gave you every opportunity for freedom, every chance to walk in truth. Everything was there—the power, the covering, the cleansing, the anointing. Tell me, what did you do?” What fearsome words on that day! As for Achan, I think at that point he knew that mercy was past. He had waited too long.
Beloved, don’t wait too long. We live in one of the most perilous times in history. If ever there was a time to fully embrace the heart and will of God, it is now! If you are in a place where you should not be, do not play games with God. Get right with Him. The covenant is for honest and sincere people. God reveals hard truths and brings us into an awareness that we are in trouble because He dearly loves us. He is saying to us, “Once you and I are in agreement about these things, I will open the door before you, and you will walk through that door with a song. You are going to love Me and know how much I love you. All you need to do is choose to walk through that door of hope, no matter how fearful it may seem. Trust that I will give you the strength, and you will never have to look to your own resources again. It will be My power that sustains you.” Praise God!
Carter Conlon
©2010 Times Square Church
WE CAN'T ESCAPE THE HARD TRUTHS
by Carter Conlon
In John 6:53, Jesus said to His disciples, “Unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood you have no life in you” (paraphrase). Although they had experienced His power and miracles, many of them were offended and said, “This is a hard saying, who can hear this?” The Scripture says that they turned back and walked with Him no more.
The disciples who resisted the truth ran from it, but ultimately they could not escape it. Every one of them would die and eventually appear before God, only to find that Jesus meant what He said. It did not matter how often they went to the synagogue or how much they prayed. Without the life of Christ in them, they had no real life.
WHAT ABOUT MERCY?
The early church was in its infancy, moving together as one body with one purpose in the earth. The Scripture says that as they were together praying, the place was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost (see Acts 2). They were speaking the Word of God with boldness. People were selling their possessions and bringing the money for the apostles to distribute so that no one would be lacking. Those were exciting times!
Then we come to Acts 5:1−11 and the story of Ananias and Sapphira: “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.”
As a young Christian, I used to be somewhat perplexed by the severity of the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira. After all, hadn’t Peter done worse? They lied about the price of the land, but Peter had lied about knowing Jesus, which seems to be a much more severe offense. Peter had received forgiveness, and doesn’t the Scripture say that those who have received mercy should be merciful?
Yet here is Peter pronouncing their sentence of death, which in the natural doesn’t make sense. We know that God is just and His judgments are right, so there must be something dangerous here for the individual believer and the church as a whole, a great truth which you and I need to understand today.
PRETENDING TO BE WITH THE PROGRAM
I believe the key to understanding Acts 5 is this: Ananias and Sapphira were pretending to be with the program when, in fact, they were not. It is very dangerous to pretend to be fully obeying the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit. I believe Peter received mercy for his actions because he was young in the Lord, and he acted out of fear. It was a momentary thing; he did not understand and was not yet formed in the power, strength and truth of God. Peter was not moving with the church as a body as Ananias and Sapphira were.
In contrast, Ananias and Sapphira were not afraid—theirs was calculated deception. They deliberately deceived others, and they thought they could deceive God. When we begin to make excuses for what we know is wrong, we eventually get to the place where we think we can deceive God. We mistakenly believe that our deception does not matter to God, since we are part of the New Covenant. We believe that an incredible blanket of grace and mercy covers everything—and that is true—but it doesn’t apply to the willful sinner. God was saying at that time, “Before this church really gets going, I have to set the record straight—there is still a judgment of death on willful deception.”
The irony is that Ananias and Sapphira could have chosen not to sell their land and still been part of the church. Or they could have said, “Here is half,” and it would have been fine. The real issue was that they pretended to be something they were not.
WEAKNESS IN THE CAMP
Pretending to be righteous brings into the church the same weakness that Achan brought into the camp of Israel, a hard truth recounted in Joshua, chapter 7. As Joshua was leading the Israelites in to possess the Promised Land, he gave them specific instructions. “And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it” (Joshua 6:18). In other words, do not embrace the fallen value system of the wicked; do not think it is going to offer you any security. We would be wise to heed these words today. This system offered no security to those outside the kingdom of God.
After a phenomenal victory over Jericho, Joshua led the Israelites forward to a small town called Ai. The scouting party sent by Joshua reported back that the men of Ai were few, so Joshua sent in only a few thousand men to attack the town. The Israelites suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of the small, defenseless city.
The defeat was so severe that Joshua fell on his face and cried to the Lord, “We would have been content to dwell on the other side of Jordan!” These were words that Joshua probably never imagined he would say, for they were the very sort that caused the people to live for forty years in the wilderness. But God said, “Joshua, get up off the ground, there is an accursed thing in the camp and it has brought this weakness that you see” (Joshua 7:10, 13 paraphrase).
In order to find out what the “accursed thing in the camp” was, they drew lots. This system in the Old Testament was divinely inspired by God, and the lot fell to a man named Achan. “Now Joshua said to Achan, ‘My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.’
And Achan answered Joshua and said, ‘Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done: When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it’” (Joshua 7:19−21, NKJV).
THE WRONG FOCUS
You have to wonder what was in Achan’s heart. As in Acts, chapter 5, the Scripture in Joshua, chapter 7 talks about a time of power and supernatural provision. Achan had to have known that the God who gave them victory over Jericho would provide for them. Yet we can picture Achan as he clambered with the rest of the army into the ruins of a society that had lived apart from God and trusted in gold and silver. Suddenly his eye falls on a garment from Babylon, the likes of which were highly sought after in the commercial trade of that day. These garments often had golden threads interwoven in them, signifying the perishing society’s view of success and prosperity. The threads formed images of men and cattle, with the cattle representing prosperity. When Achan saw the garment, he coveted it, and said, “I want this for my life. I am not content to be just a little part of a larger body moving into the Promised Land. I want to be successful—I want to be noticed!”
Jesus said, “The light of the body is the eye…if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22−23). The moment we look on something that God forbids, a flood of darkness comes along with it. Once Achan saw that garment, he also saw a wedge of gold only half a step away. Can you imagine trading the power of God for a pound of gold? Once we have a wrong view of success, we also will apply a wrong measure of how to achieve it. We are living in a world where everyone wants to stand out; everyone wants to be the big player. But in order to get there, we think we need a little more than everyone else.
Along with the wedge of gold, Achan saw about five pounds of silver coins. Note that he buried the silver deeper than the gold and the garment. In the silver coins, Achan saw something that he thought would bring him success and happiness, but he did not understand that the silver was a betrayal of God Himself. Interestingly, Judas sold out the Son of God for a handful of silver very close to the same measure as Achan found.
Achan failed to see that he was selling out the glory of God and in so doing, bringing weakness into the camp of Jesus Christ. Likewise, we are in a position of theological and practical weakness in our generation. Today many “Achans” are standing in pulpits, giving a wrong value system to the people of God while building up each man’s individual image. Once this is done, there is an immediate movement to gold—money must be involved.
Achan’s focus was on himself, his own security, and his own plans. He forgot he was only a small part of something much bigger than himself. This wrong focus led Achan and his whole house to ruin—sadly, he did not go alone. His sons, his daughters, his wife, and even his cattle all went into darkness with him. Likewise, when you as a Christian begin to focus on yourself, you are opening the door to destruction in your own home. Look away from your own needs and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; God says that He will add them to you.
A DOOR OF HOPE
The writer of Hebrews says, “But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13).
In the Lord there is always hope. The Lord says, “...I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her” (Hosea 2:14). He is talking about a bride who had given herself to other lovers. She was adorned with things that were not the righteousness of Christ—garments and jewelry that were given to her through these other pursuits. And in the Valley of Achor, which is where Achan and his family were put to death, the Lord said that He would speak comfortably to her.
Similarly, we are all going into the wilderness. Everything that this society has known and trusted in is about to perish; it is all going to crumble. But those who have an honest relationship with Christ will stand! He is going to open “...a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15).
God is saying, “I will not let you go, because you are My church, My beloved Bride. I am going to bring you into a place of trouble where I will strip you of all garments, adornments, gold, and silver—the entire value system of a perishing society. In that place of trouble I will open a door, and bring you through it with a song in your heart and My name on your lips. You will no longer call Me Master, which implies restrictions on behavior and things given. You will call Me Ishi, which means husband. You will love Me with all your heart, and walk with Me in the coming days.”
DON'T WAIT TOO LONG
Beloved, this is not the time to be running from the hard truths; instead, it is time to stand in the truth of God. The hour is late, the rains are coming. I feel almost like Noah just before the rain started. If you are in the wrong place, get out of there! If you are doing wrong things, trust God for the power to stop. Don’t be found where you shouldn’t be; don’t be doing what you shouldn’t be doing. Don’t let your value system be intermingled with the system of this world. Put it all away, for it’s time to get right with God.
Achan was too late. Joshua said, “...My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me” (Joshua 7:19, NKJV).
Perhaps if he had come forward in the beginning, he would have escaped the judgment. But, instead, he had to be singled out from among three million people before he finally came clean.
Imagine standing before the throne of God one day and hearing Him say to you personally, “Tell me, son, what did you do to have your name taken from My lips? I gave you every opportunity for freedom, every chance to walk in truth. Everything was there—the power, the covering, the cleansing, the anointing. Tell me, what did you do?” What fearsome words on that day! As for Achan, I think at that point he knew that mercy was past. He had waited too long.
Beloved, don’t wait too long. We live in one of the most perilous times in history. If ever there was a time to fully embrace the heart and will of God, it is now! If you are in a place where you should not be, do not play games with God. Get right with Him. The covenant is for honest and sincere people. God reveals hard truths and brings us into an awareness that we are in trouble because He dearly loves us. He is saying to us, “Once you and I are in agreement about these things, I will open the door before you, and you will walk through that door with a song. You are going to love Me and know how much I love you. All you need to do is choose to walk through that door of hope, no matter how fearful it may seem. Trust that I will give you the strength, and you will never have to look to your own resources again. It will be My power that sustains you.” Praise God!
Carter Conlon
©2010 Times Square Church
July 16, 2010
A LETTER FROM A PROCTER AND GAMBLE EXECUTIVE TO THE PRESIDENT
By Lou Pritchett, Procter & Gamble
Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America 's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management.. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike
any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive
Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no
visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth
growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus
don't understand it at its core.
You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned
yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to
publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail..
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America '
crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style
country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system
with a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly
capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose
that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of
living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics
against certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from
challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider
opposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both
omnipotent and omniscient.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything
you do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the
Limbaugh's, Hannity's, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing,
conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will
probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
Lou Pritchett
Note: This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it. Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits.
Confirmed by Snopes...
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.as
Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America 's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management.. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike
any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive
Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no
visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth
growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus
don't understand it at its core.
You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned
yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to
publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail..
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America '
crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style
country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system
with a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly
capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose
that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of
living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics
against certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from
challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider
opposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both
omnipotent and omniscient.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything
you do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the
Limbaugh's, Hannity's, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing,
conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will
probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
Lou Pritchett
Note: This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it. Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over 500,000 hits.
Confirmed by Snopes...
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.as
Abortion Clinic Owner Responds with Chainsaw as Radio Blares: 'God Bless Pro-Lifers!'
This is AWESOME - God Bless that DJ!!!
Monday July 12, 2010
Abortion Clinic Owner Responds with Chainsaw as Radio Blares: 'God Bless Pro-Lifers!'
By Kathleen Gilbert
ROCKFORD, Illinois, July 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Staff at the Rockford abortion mill, which has been blaring the radio through its speakers to drown out pro-life counselors for several weeks, got an unpleasant surprise Friday morning when a local D.J. found out what his show was being used for.
LifeSiteNews.com has reported numerous times on the bizarre Rockford abortuary, which has taken to taunting pro-life witnesses with signage and other paraphernalia mocking Christianity and Jesus Christ, and even directing personal insults at local pro-lifers. (See coverage here)
The facility’s latest form of harassment, blasting a radio talk show through its outdoor speakers to keep women from hearing the message of pro-life counselors gathered outside, backfired when D.J. Doug McDuff's scheduled talk show guest cancelled, and he opened the phone lines for comment.
Seeing his chance, Rockford pro-life veteran Kevin Rilott whipped out his cell phone and was on air within seconds, loud and clear outside the abortion centre where he was standing. Rilott took the opportunity to explain to McDuff and his listeners how the radio station, WNTA, was being used to silence pro-lifers' attempt to help mothers in need.
McDuff, none too pleased, decided to take matters into his own hands. "God bless pro-lifers! God bless pro-lifers! God bless pro-lifers!" the D.J. shouted.
One of the staff members, who was walking from across the parking lot at that moment, was so aghast, Rilott told LifeSiteNews.com, that "I thought she was going to have a heart attack."
"The abortion mill nurse who heard this began waving her arms around her head like she couldn't believe what was being broadcast over the abortion mill public address system," related Rilott. "The look of almost terror and confusion on her face was priceless as she scrambled into the mill."
The D.J. then gave Rilott airtime to explain how those who keep vigil outside the Rockford mill come "to offer love, help, and hope to mothers in need," and to request prayer for mothers in need and an end to abortion.
The landlord of the abortion mill, still determined to drown out both the radio and the pro-lifers, charged outdoors with a chainsaw running. But even that was not enough to prevent at least one mother from hearing the message and choosing life for her baby.
Rilott said that a woman who had entered the clinic earlier in the morning left after the incident, before the abortionist arrived for the day. "She certainly heard it inside the clinic, and when she left she gave us a big smile and thumbs-up, and she left before the abortionists arrived," he told LSN. "So it was a good day."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jul/10071201.html
Monday July 12, 2010
Abortion Clinic Owner Responds with Chainsaw as Radio Blares: 'God Bless Pro-Lifers!'
By Kathleen Gilbert
ROCKFORD, Illinois, July 9, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Staff at the Rockford abortion mill, which has been blaring the radio through its speakers to drown out pro-life counselors for several weeks, got an unpleasant surprise Friday morning when a local D.J. found out what his show was being used for.
LifeSiteNews.com has reported numerous times on the bizarre Rockford abortuary, which has taken to taunting pro-life witnesses with signage and other paraphernalia mocking Christianity and Jesus Christ, and even directing personal insults at local pro-lifers. (See coverage here)
The facility’s latest form of harassment, blasting a radio talk show through its outdoor speakers to keep women from hearing the message of pro-life counselors gathered outside, backfired when D.J. Doug McDuff's scheduled talk show guest cancelled, and he opened the phone lines for comment.
Seeing his chance, Rockford pro-life veteran Kevin Rilott whipped out his cell phone and was on air within seconds, loud and clear outside the abortion centre where he was standing. Rilott took the opportunity to explain to McDuff and his listeners how the radio station, WNTA, was being used to silence pro-lifers' attempt to help mothers in need.
McDuff, none too pleased, decided to take matters into his own hands. "God bless pro-lifers! God bless pro-lifers! God bless pro-lifers!" the D.J. shouted.
One of the staff members, who was walking from across the parking lot at that moment, was so aghast, Rilott told LifeSiteNews.com, that "I thought she was going to have a heart attack."
"The abortion mill nurse who heard this began waving her arms around her head like she couldn't believe what was being broadcast over the abortion mill public address system," related Rilott. "The look of almost terror and confusion on her face was priceless as she scrambled into the mill."
The D.J. then gave Rilott airtime to explain how those who keep vigil outside the Rockford mill come "to offer love, help, and hope to mothers in need," and to request prayer for mothers in need and an end to abortion.
The landlord of the abortion mill, still determined to drown out both the radio and the pro-lifers, charged outdoors with a chainsaw running. But even that was not enough to prevent at least one mother from hearing the message and choosing life for her baby.
Rilott said that a woman who had entered the clinic earlier in the morning left after the incident, before the abortionist arrived for the day. "She certainly heard it inside the clinic, and when she left she gave us a big smile and thumbs-up, and she left before the abortionists arrived," he told LSN. "So it was a good day."
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jul/10071201.html
July 11, 2010
Are we really willing to surrender all?
THE HUMBLE WILL BE LIFTED UP
by Carter Conlon
The Bible says that in the last days, everything that can be shaken will be shaken (see Hebrews 12:27). There is going to be a separating even within what has professed to be the church of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul describes it as a great falling away—not only in society, but for those who attend the house of God without fully embracing the life that Christ offers His people. Something will enter their heart and mind that will draw them away, which the apostle James addresses.
“From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:1–10).
Historians essentially agree that James was writing after the martyrdom of Stephen, the disciple killed by an enraged crowd who were offended when he challenged their spirituality. James, as head of the church in Jerusalem, was acutely aware of this intense persecution.
Why would James speak such strong words to a persecuted church, the first generation after the cross? Surely the church was full of people living for God. I believe that while James was addressing problems inherent in the early church, the Holy Spirit also was giving him an understanding of what would be found in humanity throughout all time. So what are these core issues? What depth of weakness is innate in every person, then and now, that could cause a falling away from God?
UNSURRENDERED DESIRES
James points to unsurrendered desires that were keeping many troubled on the inside, and in conflict with others on the outside. He asks, “Where are these conflicts among you coming from? Do they not originate from those desires in your heart that are not surrendered to the will of God—desires for personal gain and pleasure?” (James 4:1, paraphrase) We see a wide range of selfishness displayed in the church even today. Pettiness or the desire to be greater than others leads to fighting that sometimes even splits churches.
EMBRACING THE WORLD
“You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4: 2–3, paraphrase). You might be like that today—never satisfied, everything that supposedly would make you happy always just out of reach. Why? Jesus said that whoever comes to Him would never hunger or thirst. So why do you run from church to church, conference to conference, without finding satisfaction? Why do you fight and not obtain? Why do your prayers seem fruitless?
James exposes the reason: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3). You are asking God to bless a plan that is not His. Instead, this plan is coming from the lust of your own heart. Maybe somebody claiming to speak for God told you some great thing would come into your life, so you are holding tenaciously to that promise. However, you are praying according to a wrong view, so your prayer is never answered.
Today, just as in the past, many are still embracing the core values of a fallen world. James’ reference to the people as adulterers may seem harsh, but basically he is saying, “You are still embracing the value system of this world. You have not transferred your heart into the kingdom of God; your thoughts are still not in line with His. In fact, you are not very different from the people in the world, you just have God attached to all of it.”
RESIST THE DEVIL
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Everybody likes to think of the devil as being out in the world, but nobody wants to believe that he might actually be in the church. However, according to Ezekiel 28:14, Satan had originally been the anointed cherub. He observed God’s glory and when he saw that he was lower than God, he became offended and led a rebellion in heaven. He was then cast to the earth where he later entered the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve dwelt in Eden, quite content with all God had given them, and Satan approached them with the same lie he uses today: “There is a lot more out there than what you have here. God has you in this little box tending this garden, naming animals, meeting with Him occasionally. But life is meant to be a whole lot more than that. Did you know that you could be as God? You can chart your own course; you can plot your own destiny. All you have to do is agree with me.”
When Adam and Eve agreed, the nature of Satan was sown into the entire human race. So when James says, “Resist the devil,” understand that it is not necessarily an outside devil but an inside devil. That very nature that was sown into us makes us pursue something other than the will of God for our lives, seeking happiness other than where God has planted us—falling right into the same trap as Adam and Eve. Resist the temptation to be other than what God has called you to be—resist it strongly!
WHEN OUR FALLEN NATURE SPEAKS
In Mark 8:31–33, Jesus plainly told His disciples, “The Son of man is going to be delivered up to the priests, scribes, and Pharisees. I am going to be rejected and put to death, but I am going to be raised again from the dead on the third day.” The Scripture says that Peter then took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. Although his exact words are not recorded, they were likely along the lines of, “No! This is not for you, Lord. You don’t need to do this. You’re the Son of God—You have all power and authority!”
It is always the natural man, the one to whom the preaching of the cross is foolishness, that concludes, “No, it shouldn’t have to be this way!” The natural man does not understand it and does not accept that suffering might be part of the Christian life. The natural man puts it all away and says, “That’s not what the church is about or what we are destined for. No suffering or trials for us. It’s just a golden highway all the way to heaven!”
Peter was speaking from his fallen nature, and Jesus recognized the origin of this type of reasoning. The Scripture says that He turned and looked at all His disciples, not just Peter, and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for you don’t have any taste for the things that be of God, but the things that be of men” (James 4:33, paraphrase). I believe that Jesus was looking right through His disciples, right back into the Garden of Eden, for He knew whose voice had been sown into fallen man.
HOW DO I HUMBLE MYSELF?
“Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble… Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:5–6, 10). So now the question is, how do I humble myself? Do I adopt a humble posture, with my head hanging down, saying, “I am just a lowly, miserable sinner?” I have known people who have done that, while inwardly they thank God they are not like other people.
Peter was rebuked by Christ, but eventually he came to an important understanding. Remember, Peter was the one who told Jesus, “Though everybody is offended, I won’t be. Though everybody flees, I am with you. I am going to go with you right into Jerusalem, and if you die there, I will die there with you.” He was full of zeal despite the fact that Jesus clearly told him he was just like every other man—a coward at heart. But Peter’s pride would not let him hear it. He viewed himself as courageous and capable of getting to the end on his own—a false view, of course. Similarly, many people today are gripped with a false view of themselves that is far from the way God sees them.
After Peter denied Christ, the Scripture says that he fled, completely broken. As he wept, his self-image finally came crashing to the ground. In his despair he probably thought there was no hope of a future. “I have been abandoned by God. I tried to serve Him but I couldn’t do it. In my heart, I really wanted to do these things and truly believed I was able, only to find out that I am a dismal failure. Surely God is going to reject me.”
Peter was now humbled in his own sight and in the sight of God. He also was humbled in the sight of his brethren because they had heard his boasts and knew that he had run, just as the rest of them had. Soon afterward, they all assembled together with the doors closed because of fear. Suddenly Jesus appeared in their midst and said to Peter and the rest, “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21).
Jesus did not come to Peter with condemnation—He came to him with the true commission. Now Peter was ready to be used of God! Isn’t that amazing? It is in our nothingness that God finally can use us. When we think we are something, we are actually very far from what God intended for us. But Jesus charged them, “As my Father sent Me, not in My own strength, not in My own plans, not in My own wisdom, but in the strength and wisdom of Almighty God—even so now I send you.” Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up!
WHO WILL DELIVER ME?
The apostle Paul also learned what it meant to be humble before God. He was a man with incredible knowledge and likely the most brilliant theologian of the New Testament. Yet he knew that knowledge alone was not enough to bring him to the place that God desired for his life.
In Romans 7, Paul essentially says, “I know what to do, and I actually delight in doing it in my inner man. But there’s a force inside constantly dragging me in another direction so that I am not doing the things I know to do. And the things that I don’t want to do, I find myself doing.” Does this sound familiar? Paul asks, “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24) All of his knowledge could not deliver him. Everything that he knew to do, he was not able to!
It can become a source of despair when we read the Scriptures and conclude, “Well, I know I should love others; I should love my wife as Christ loved the church. I should honor and respect my husband. I should be an example to my children. I should be the best employee on my job.” We know all of these things, and deep inside we desire to do them. Yet, if we are honest, we eventually come to the point where we say, “God, I can’t do it. There is a law at work inside that keeps drawing me to speak and do things that I don’t want to. I am unable to change by myself.”
“Who will deliver me?” In the last verse Paul says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). Thanks be to God when I finally acknowledge that it is not possible for me to live this Christian life in my own strength. Now this is true humility!
TRUE HUMILITY
The heart of this message can be summed up in one sentence: True humility comes when all self-effort dies, when we finally realize that we are not called to live this life on our own. Jesus said to Peter, “When you were young, you dressed yourself, you went where you wanted to go, and you did what you wanted to do. But as you are growing older (now He is addressing humble Peter—the Peter that is being lifted up), you will stretch forth your hands, and you will be led into places that in the natural you cannot go and do not want to go.” Thank God Peter humbled himself before the Lord. Thank God we have the history of this man being raised up out of brokenness and brought into the life of Christ—an example of a man who failed and out of that failure found the strength of God.
Today you may be tired of the struggle, tired of having no peace and no victory, tired of trying to find satisfaction. You get up and give it your best shot as Peter did, but then you fall on your face again. You study and gain more knowledge as Paul did, but find that this inner battle never goes away.
There is only one way out: all self-effort must die. This means that all toiling, every Plan B, all strategies are gone. You must finally come to God and admit, “I can’t do this. I never could do this—forgive me for thinking I could. Forgive me for wanting things for my life that are not of You. Help me to find and follow Your plan for my life.” Rest assured, His plans are not that hard to find. He knows how to get you where He wants you to be—you don’t have to figure it out. Just start loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself and you will just walk into the plan of God.
Beloved, in the coming days there is going to be a great falling away produced by hardship. You must hear this today, and you must have the courage to be humbled in the sight of God. Humble yourself, and you will see prison doors start to open. Your eyes will start to see truth, and the wounds of your heart will begin to be healed. You will soon see that smallness in yourself does not mean insignificance. You won’t feel that you have to be standing before thousands to be appreciated in the sight of God. Rather, you will simply be content doing what God called you to do in the place He called you to be.
When we get to heaven, the reward is not going to be because we did some great thing. The reward will be because we humbled ourselves. We trusted God to live His life through us moment by moment, not walking in our own strength or zeal, but allowing the risen Christ to lift us up. That is how we will get to the end and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Hallelujah!
Carter Conlon
©2010 Times Square Church
by Carter Conlon
The Bible says that in the last days, everything that can be shaken will be shaken (see Hebrews 12:27). There is going to be a separating even within what has professed to be the church of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul describes it as a great falling away—not only in society, but for those who attend the house of God without fully embracing the life that Christ offers His people. Something will enter their heart and mind that will draw them away, which the apostle James addresses.
“From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:1–10).
Historians essentially agree that James was writing after the martyrdom of Stephen, the disciple killed by an enraged crowd who were offended when he challenged their spirituality. James, as head of the church in Jerusalem, was acutely aware of this intense persecution.
Why would James speak such strong words to a persecuted church, the first generation after the cross? Surely the church was full of people living for God. I believe that while James was addressing problems inherent in the early church, the Holy Spirit also was giving him an understanding of what would be found in humanity throughout all time. So what are these core issues? What depth of weakness is innate in every person, then and now, that could cause a falling away from God?
UNSURRENDERED DESIRES
James points to unsurrendered desires that were keeping many troubled on the inside, and in conflict with others on the outside. He asks, “Where are these conflicts among you coming from? Do they not originate from those desires in your heart that are not surrendered to the will of God—desires for personal gain and pleasure?” (James 4:1, paraphrase) We see a wide range of selfishness displayed in the church even today. Pettiness or the desire to be greater than others leads to fighting that sometimes even splits churches.
EMBRACING THE WORLD
“You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4: 2–3, paraphrase). You might be like that today—never satisfied, everything that supposedly would make you happy always just out of reach. Why? Jesus said that whoever comes to Him would never hunger or thirst. So why do you run from church to church, conference to conference, without finding satisfaction? Why do you fight and not obtain? Why do your prayers seem fruitless?
James exposes the reason: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3). You are asking God to bless a plan that is not His. Instead, this plan is coming from the lust of your own heart. Maybe somebody claiming to speak for God told you some great thing would come into your life, so you are holding tenaciously to that promise. However, you are praying according to a wrong view, so your prayer is never answered.
Today, just as in the past, many are still embracing the core values of a fallen world. James’ reference to the people as adulterers may seem harsh, but basically he is saying, “You are still embracing the value system of this world. You have not transferred your heart into the kingdom of God; your thoughts are still not in line with His. In fact, you are not very different from the people in the world, you just have God attached to all of it.”
RESIST THE DEVIL
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Everybody likes to think of the devil as being out in the world, but nobody wants to believe that he might actually be in the church. However, according to Ezekiel 28:14, Satan had originally been the anointed cherub. He observed God’s glory and when he saw that he was lower than God, he became offended and led a rebellion in heaven. He was then cast to the earth where he later entered the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve dwelt in Eden, quite content with all God had given them, and Satan approached them with the same lie he uses today: “There is a lot more out there than what you have here. God has you in this little box tending this garden, naming animals, meeting with Him occasionally. But life is meant to be a whole lot more than that. Did you know that you could be as God? You can chart your own course; you can plot your own destiny. All you have to do is agree with me.”
When Adam and Eve agreed, the nature of Satan was sown into the entire human race. So when James says, “Resist the devil,” understand that it is not necessarily an outside devil but an inside devil. That very nature that was sown into us makes us pursue something other than the will of God for our lives, seeking happiness other than where God has planted us—falling right into the same trap as Adam and Eve. Resist the temptation to be other than what God has called you to be—resist it strongly!
WHEN OUR FALLEN NATURE SPEAKS
In Mark 8:31–33, Jesus plainly told His disciples, “The Son of man is going to be delivered up to the priests, scribes, and Pharisees. I am going to be rejected and put to death, but I am going to be raised again from the dead on the third day.” The Scripture says that Peter then took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. Although his exact words are not recorded, they were likely along the lines of, “No! This is not for you, Lord. You don’t need to do this. You’re the Son of God—You have all power and authority!”
It is always the natural man, the one to whom the preaching of the cross is foolishness, that concludes, “No, it shouldn’t have to be this way!” The natural man does not understand it and does not accept that suffering might be part of the Christian life. The natural man puts it all away and says, “That’s not what the church is about or what we are destined for. No suffering or trials for us. It’s just a golden highway all the way to heaven!”
Peter was speaking from his fallen nature, and Jesus recognized the origin of this type of reasoning. The Scripture says that He turned and looked at all His disciples, not just Peter, and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for you don’t have any taste for the things that be of God, but the things that be of men” (James 4:33, paraphrase). I believe that Jesus was looking right through His disciples, right back into the Garden of Eden, for He knew whose voice had been sown into fallen man.
HOW DO I HUMBLE MYSELF?
“Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble… Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:5–6, 10). So now the question is, how do I humble myself? Do I adopt a humble posture, with my head hanging down, saying, “I am just a lowly, miserable sinner?” I have known people who have done that, while inwardly they thank God they are not like other people.
Peter was rebuked by Christ, but eventually he came to an important understanding. Remember, Peter was the one who told Jesus, “Though everybody is offended, I won’t be. Though everybody flees, I am with you. I am going to go with you right into Jerusalem, and if you die there, I will die there with you.” He was full of zeal despite the fact that Jesus clearly told him he was just like every other man—a coward at heart. But Peter’s pride would not let him hear it. He viewed himself as courageous and capable of getting to the end on his own—a false view, of course. Similarly, many people today are gripped with a false view of themselves that is far from the way God sees them.
After Peter denied Christ, the Scripture says that he fled, completely broken. As he wept, his self-image finally came crashing to the ground. In his despair he probably thought there was no hope of a future. “I have been abandoned by God. I tried to serve Him but I couldn’t do it. In my heart, I really wanted to do these things and truly believed I was able, only to find out that I am a dismal failure. Surely God is going to reject me.”
Peter was now humbled in his own sight and in the sight of God. He also was humbled in the sight of his brethren because they had heard his boasts and knew that he had run, just as the rest of them had. Soon afterward, they all assembled together with the doors closed because of fear. Suddenly Jesus appeared in their midst and said to Peter and the rest, “Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21).
Jesus did not come to Peter with condemnation—He came to him with the true commission. Now Peter was ready to be used of God! Isn’t that amazing? It is in our nothingness that God finally can use us. When we think we are something, we are actually very far from what God intended for us. But Jesus charged them, “As my Father sent Me, not in My own strength, not in My own plans, not in My own wisdom, but in the strength and wisdom of Almighty God—even so now I send you.” Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up!
WHO WILL DELIVER ME?
The apostle Paul also learned what it meant to be humble before God. He was a man with incredible knowledge and likely the most brilliant theologian of the New Testament. Yet he knew that knowledge alone was not enough to bring him to the place that God desired for his life.
In Romans 7, Paul essentially says, “I know what to do, and I actually delight in doing it in my inner man. But there’s a force inside constantly dragging me in another direction so that I am not doing the things I know to do. And the things that I don’t want to do, I find myself doing.” Does this sound familiar? Paul asks, “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24) All of his knowledge could not deliver him. Everything that he knew to do, he was not able to!
It can become a source of despair when we read the Scriptures and conclude, “Well, I know I should love others; I should love my wife as Christ loved the church. I should honor and respect my husband. I should be an example to my children. I should be the best employee on my job.” We know all of these things, and deep inside we desire to do them. Yet, if we are honest, we eventually come to the point where we say, “God, I can’t do it. There is a law at work inside that keeps drawing me to speak and do things that I don’t want to. I am unable to change by myself.”
“Who will deliver me?” In the last verse Paul says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). Thanks be to God when I finally acknowledge that it is not possible for me to live this Christian life in my own strength. Now this is true humility!
TRUE HUMILITY
The heart of this message can be summed up in one sentence: True humility comes when all self-effort dies, when we finally realize that we are not called to live this life on our own. Jesus said to Peter, “When you were young, you dressed yourself, you went where you wanted to go, and you did what you wanted to do. But as you are growing older (now He is addressing humble Peter—the Peter that is being lifted up), you will stretch forth your hands, and you will be led into places that in the natural you cannot go and do not want to go.” Thank God Peter humbled himself before the Lord. Thank God we have the history of this man being raised up out of brokenness and brought into the life of Christ—an example of a man who failed and out of that failure found the strength of God.
Today you may be tired of the struggle, tired of having no peace and no victory, tired of trying to find satisfaction. You get up and give it your best shot as Peter did, but then you fall on your face again. You study and gain more knowledge as Paul did, but find that this inner battle never goes away.
There is only one way out: all self-effort must die. This means that all toiling, every Plan B, all strategies are gone. You must finally come to God and admit, “I can’t do this. I never could do this—forgive me for thinking I could. Forgive me for wanting things for my life that are not of You. Help me to find and follow Your plan for my life.” Rest assured, His plans are not that hard to find. He knows how to get you where He wants you to be—you don’t have to figure it out. Just start loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself and you will just walk into the plan of God.
Beloved, in the coming days there is going to be a great falling away produced by hardship. You must hear this today, and you must have the courage to be humbled in the sight of God. Humble yourself, and you will see prison doors start to open. Your eyes will start to see truth, and the wounds of your heart will begin to be healed. You will soon see that smallness in yourself does not mean insignificance. You won’t feel that you have to be standing before thousands to be appreciated in the sight of God. Rather, you will simply be content doing what God called you to do in the place He called you to be.
When we get to heaven, the reward is not going to be because we did some great thing. The reward will be because we humbled ourselves. We trusted God to live His life through us moment by moment, not walking in our own strength or zeal, but allowing the risen Christ to lift us up. That is how we will get to the end and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Hallelujah!
Carter Conlon
©2010 Times Square Church
July 6, 2010
The Gulf of Mexico and The Statue of Liberty
A.A. Allen had this vision in 1954 about the Statue of Liberty falling down in the Gulf of Mexico. Very sobering. In light of what is now happening in the Gulf, could it be truly "prophetic"?
VISION...
As I stepped inside the elevator at the Empire State Building, I never dreamed of the great experience, which awaited me just 86 stories up…. There on the east side of the terrace, I noticed a giant telescope, of the kind into which you can drop a dime, and see for approximately fifteen miles.…
As I stood with my dime between my fingers, waiting my turn, suddenly the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon me. I noticed the two giant eyes of the telescope as the man who was manipulating it turned it my direction. I was amazed that the spirit of the Lord should so move upon me, there atop the Empire State Building. Why should I feel such a surge of His spirit and power there?...
Then suddenly I heard the voice of the Lord. It was as clear and as distinct as a voice could be. It seemed to come from the very midst of the giant telescope. But when I looked at the telescope, I knew it hadn’t come from there, but directly from heaven. The voice said, "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly. Therefore, from thenceforth, thou shalt have wars." …
As I stepped to the telescope and dropped in my dime, immediately, the ticking started again. This ticking was an automatic clock, which would allow me to use the telescope for a definitely limited time only. … That morning, much of the view was impaired by fog. But suddenly as the spirit of the Lord came upon me the fog seemed to clear, until it seemed that I could see for thousands of miles. But that which I was looking upon was not Manhattan Island. It was the entire North American continent spread out before me as a map is spread upon a table.
It was not the East River and the Hudson River that I saw on either side, but the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. And instead of the Statue of Liberty standing there in the bay on her small island, I saw her standing far out in the Gulf of Mexico. She was between the United States and me. I suddenly realized that the telescope had nothing to do with what I was seeing, but that it was a vision coming directly from God. And to prove this to myself, I took my eyes away from the telescope, so that I was no longer looking through the lens, but the same scene remained spread before me. There, clear and distinct, lay all the North American continent, with all its great cities. …
And as I looked, suddenly from the sky I saw a giant hand reach down. That gigantic hand was reaching out toward the Statue of Liberty. In a moment her gleaming torch was torn from her hand, and in it instead was placed a cup. And I saw protruding from that great cup, a giant sword, shining as if a great light had been turned upon its glistening edge. Never before had I seen such a sharp, glistening, dangerous sword. It seemed to threaten the entire world. As the great cup was placed in the hand of the Statue of Liberty, I heard these words, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, Drink ye and be drunken, spue and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send."
As I heard these words, I recognized them as a quotation from Jeremiah 20:7. I was amazed to hear the Statue of Liberty speak out in reply, "I WILL NOT DRINK!" Then as the voice of the thunder, I heard again the voice of the Lord, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, YE SHALL CERTAINLY DRINK." (Jeremiah 25:28.) Then suddenly the giant hand forced the cup to the lips of the Statue of Liberty, and she became powerless to defend herself. The mighty hand of God forced her to drink every drop from the cup. As she drank the bitter dregs, these were the words that I heard, "Should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord of Hosts." (Jeremiah 25:29).
When the cup was withdrawn from the lips of Statue of Liberty, I noticed the sword was missing from the cup, which could mean but one thing. THE CONTENTS OF THE CUP HAD BEEN COMPLETELY CONSUMED! I knew that the sword merely typified war, death, and destruction, which is no doubt on the way. Then as one drunken on too much wine, I saw the Statue of Liberty become unsteady on her feet and begin to stagger, and to lose her balance. I saw her splashing in the Gulf, trying to regain her balance. I saw her stagger again and again, and fall to her knees. As I saw her desperate attempts to regain her balance, and rise to her feet again, my heart was moved as never before with compassion for her struggles.
But as she staggered there in the gulf, once again I heard these words, "Ye shall drink and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more because of the sword that I shall send among you." As I watched, I wondered if the Statue of Liberty would ever be able to regain her feet - if she would ever stand again. And as I watched, it seemed that with all her power she struggled to rise, and finally staggered to her feet again, and stood there swaying drunkenly. I felt sure that at any moment she would fall again - possibly never to rise. I seemed overwhelmed with a desire to reach out my hand to keep her head above water, for I knew that if she ever fell again she would drown there in the Gulf.
Then as I watched, another amazing thing was taking place. Far to the northwest, just over Alaska, a huge, black cloud was arising. As it rose, it was as black as night. It seemed to be in the shape of a man's head. As it continued to arise, I observed two light spots in the black cloud. It rose further, and a gaping hole appeared. I could see that the black cloud was taking the shape of a skull, for now the huge, white, gaping mouth was plainly visible. Finally the head was complete. Then the shoulders began to appear, and on either side, long, black arms. It seemed that what I saw was the entire North American continent, spread out like a map upon table with this terrible skeleton-formed cloud arising from behind the table. It rose steadily until the form was visible down to the waist.
At the waist, the skeleton seemed to bend toward the United States, stretching forth a hand toward the east and one toward the west - one toward New York and one toward Seattle. As the awful form stretched forward, I could see that its entire attention seemed to focused upon the United States, overlooking Canada - at least for the time being. As I saw the horrible black cloud in the form of a skeleton bending toward America, bending from the waist over, reaching down toward Chicago and out toward both coasts, I knew its one interest was to destroy the multitudes.
As I watched in horror, the great black cloud stopped just above the Great Lake region, and turned its face toward New York City. Then out of the horrible, great, gaping mouth began to appear wisps of white vapor, which looked like smoke, as a cigarette smoker would low puffs of smoke from his mouth. These whitish vapors were being blown toward New York City. The smoke began to spread, until it had covered all the eastern part of the United States.
Then the skeleton turned to the west, and out of the horrible mouth and nostrils came another great puff of white smoke. This time it was blown in the direction of the west coast. In a few moments time, the entire west coast and Los Angeles area was covered with its vapors..
Then toward the center came a third great puff. As I watched, St. Louis and Kansas City were enveloped in its white vapors. Then on it came toward New Orleans. Then on they swept until they reached the Statue of Liberty where she stood staggering drunkenly in the blue waters of the Gulf. As the white vapors began to spread around the head of the Statue, she took in but one gasping breath, and then began to cough as though to rid her lungs of the horrible vapors she had inhaled.
One could readily discern by the painful coughing that those white vapors had seared her lungs. What were these white vapors? Could they signify bacteriological warfare that could destroy multitudes of people in a few moments time? Or could they be the new G-gas, the horrible nerve gas recently made known to the American public? …
Indeed, Val Peterson, Federal Civil Defense Administrator, estimates that … "Nerve gas used by an enemy with maximum efficiency could be deadlier than an atomic bomb." Right now you and your family, all of us, are unprotected against the threat of this terror weapon. … The Army calls it GB; it's an odorless, colorless, tasteless nerve gas designed to destroy people with paralyzing suddenness. We have it; so do the Russians.… G-gas, as nerve gas is sometimes called, is cheap to produce, a small amount can do the job, and it leaves a nation's industrial plants, utilities and buildings intact for an occupying power.…
As I looked with wonder upon the vision God had give me I wondered could it be this horrible G Gas, which was causing the Statue of Liberty to react so violently, as it floated about her head, looking like an innocent cloud?
Then I heard the voice of God, as He spoke: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof."
"And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. “The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. "Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left." (Isaiah 24:6)
As I watched, the coughing grew worse. It sounded like a person about to cough out his lungs. The Statue of Liberty was moaning and groaning. She was in mortal agony. The pain must have been terrific, as again and again, she tried to clear her lungs of those horrible white vapors. I watched her there in the Gulf, as she staggered, clutching her lungs and her breast with her hands. Then she fell to her knees. In a moment, she gave one final cough, made a last desperate effort to rise from her knees, and then fell face forward into the waters of the gulf, and lay still - still as death. Tears ran down my face as I realized that she was dead! Only the lapping of the waves, splashing over her body, which was partly under the water, and partly out of the water, broke the stillness.…
Suddenly the screaming of sirens shattered the silence. Sirens that seemed to scream "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Never before had I heard such shrill, screaming sirens. They seemed to be everywhere - to the north, the south, the east and the west. There seemed to be multitudes of sirens. And as I looked, I saw people everywhere running. But it seemed none of them ran more than a few paces, and then they fell. And even as I had seen the Statue of Liberty struggling to regain her poise and balance, and finally falling for the last time, to die on her face, I now saw millions of people falling in the streets, on the sidewalks, struggling. I heard their screams for mercy and help. I heard their horrible coughing, as though their lungs had been seared with fire.
I heard the moanings and groanings of the doomed and the dying. As I watched, a few finally readied shelters. But only a few ever got to the shelters, and above the moaning and the groaning of the dying multitudes, I heard these words: "A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversary with the nations, He will plead with all flesh; He will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Behold evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain Of The Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not he lamented, neither gathered nor burled; they shall be dung upon the ground." (Jeremiah 25:31-33.)
Then suddenly I saw from the Atlantic and from the Pacific, and out of the Gulf, rocket-like objects that seemed to come up like fish leaping out of the water. High into the air they leaped, each headed in a different direction, but every one toward the United States. On the ground, the sirens screamed louder. And up from the ground I saw similar rockets beginning to ascend.
To me, these appeared to be interceptor rockets although they arose from different points all over the United States. However none of them seemed to be successful in intercepting the rockets that had risen from the ocean on every side. These rockets finally reached their maximum height, slowly turned over, and fell back toward the earth in defeat.
Then suddenly, the rockets, which had leaped out of the oceans like fish all, exploded at once. The explosion was earsplitting. The next thing, which I saw, was a huge ball of fire. The only thing I have ever seen which resembled the thing I saw in my vision was the picture of the explosion of the H-bomb, somewhere in the South Pacific some months ago. In my vision, it was so real I seemed to feel a searing heat from it.
As the vision spread before my eyes, and I viewed the widespread desolation brought about by the terrible explosions, I could not help thinking, "While the defenders of our nation have quibbled over what means of defense to use, and neglected the only true means of defense, faith and dependence upon the true and living God, the thing, which she greatly feared, has come unto her! How true it has proven that ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman watcheth but in vain.’"
Then as the noise of battle subsided, to my ears came this quotation from Joel, the second chapter: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh for it is nigh at hand. "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong: there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
"A fire devoureth before them: and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in baffle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.
"They shall run like mighty men: they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk everyone on in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. "The shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. "The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining." Joel 2:1-10.
Then the voice was still. The earth, too, was silent, the silence, with the silence of death. And then to my ears came another sound - a sound of distant singing. It was the sweetest music I had ever heard. There was joyful shouting, and sounds of happy laughter. Immediately, I knew it was the rejoicing of the saints of God. I looked, and there high in the heaven, above the smoke and poisonous gases, above the noise of battle, I saw a huge mountain. It seemed to be of solid rock, and I knew at once that this was the Mountain of the Lord. The sounds of music and rejoicing were coming from a cleft, high up in the side of the rock mountain. It was the saints of God who were doing the rejoicing. It was God’s own people who were singing and dancing and shouting with joy, safe from all harm which had come upon the earth, for they were hidden away in the cleft of the rock.
There in the cleft, they were shut in, protected by a great, giant hand which reached out of the heavens, and which was none other than the hand of God, shutting them in, until the storm be over-passed. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." Galatians 6:7.
No doubt many who are reading this are wondering, "Will America actually be invaded? Will she have to pay for her wickedness and sin, and for turning her back upon God? Will the wrath and fury of God’s judgment fall upon Uncle Sam? Will America be invaded by Russia? Will Russia use the horrible G gas that can kill millions in a few seconds time? Will she resort to biological warfare that could kill literally millions over night? Will Russia resort to the use of hydrogen weapons? Could God allow such a horrible thing to happen to America? In reply to all these questions, permit me to quote a few scriptures, and make a few thought provoking statements.
America has been sowing with a free hand, preparing for a tremendous harvest - but what has she sown? God declares that as sure as America has sown, SHE SHALL REAP!
"The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all nations that forget God." Palms 9:17.
"The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him but his power and his wrath is against all that forsake him." Ezra 8:22.
"If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land, but if ye rebel and refuse, ye shall be devoured with the sword." Isaiah 1:19, 20. …
It is my firm conviction, based upon the authority of God's word, that any nation which forgets God to the extent that America has forgotten Him - any nation that rebels and refuses to walk in obedience to God's word as America has refused and rebelled shall be destroyed, and that without remedy." "He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." Proverbs 29:1.
In the light of these scriptures, I am convinced that America is on God's list!... Never did a generation of people live in such critical times. Decay has already progressed far. Judgment is on the way. And there is only one hiding place from the wrath of God. That hiding place is in the cleft of the Rock, Christ Jesus, protected by His mighty hand.
My friend, have you found the cleft in the rock? Has the mighty protecting hand of God shut you in? Do you have on the wedding garments? Are you ready for the wonderful coming of Jesus Christ? If the storm should strike tonight, would you be hidden in that cleft in the rock, which is Christ?
VISION...
As I stepped inside the elevator at the Empire State Building, I never dreamed of the great experience, which awaited me just 86 stories up…. There on the east side of the terrace, I noticed a giant telescope, of the kind into which you can drop a dime, and see for approximately fifteen miles.…
As I stood with my dime between my fingers, waiting my turn, suddenly the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon me. I noticed the two giant eyes of the telescope as the man who was manipulating it turned it my direction. I was amazed that the spirit of the Lord should so move upon me, there atop the Empire State Building. Why should I feel such a surge of His spirit and power there?...
Then suddenly I heard the voice of the Lord. It was as clear and as distinct as a voice could be. It seemed to come from the very midst of the giant telescope. But when I looked at the telescope, I knew it hadn’t come from there, but directly from heaven. The voice said, "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly. Therefore, from thenceforth, thou shalt have wars." …
As I stepped to the telescope and dropped in my dime, immediately, the ticking started again. This ticking was an automatic clock, which would allow me to use the telescope for a definitely limited time only. … That morning, much of the view was impaired by fog. But suddenly as the spirit of the Lord came upon me the fog seemed to clear, until it seemed that I could see for thousands of miles. But that which I was looking upon was not Manhattan Island. It was the entire North American continent spread out before me as a map is spread upon a table.
It was not the East River and the Hudson River that I saw on either side, but the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. And instead of the Statue of Liberty standing there in the bay on her small island, I saw her standing far out in the Gulf of Mexico. She was between the United States and me. I suddenly realized that the telescope had nothing to do with what I was seeing, but that it was a vision coming directly from God. And to prove this to myself, I took my eyes away from the telescope, so that I was no longer looking through the lens, but the same scene remained spread before me. There, clear and distinct, lay all the North American continent, with all its great cities. …
And as I looked, suddenly from the sky I saw a giant hand reach down. That gigantic hand was reaching out toward the Statue of Liberty. In a moment her gleaming torch was torn from her hand, and in it instead was placed a cup. And I saw protruding from that great cup, a giant sword, shining as if a great light had been turned upon its glistening edge. Never before had I seen such a sharp, glistening, dangerous sword. It seemed to threaten the entire world. As the great cup was placed in the hand of the Statue of Liberty, I heard these words, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, Drink ye and be drunken, spue and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send."
As I heard these words, I recognized them as a quotation from Jeremiah 20:7. I was amazed to hear the Statue of Liberty speak out in reply, "I WILL NOT DRINK!" Then as the voice of the thunder, I heard again the voice of the Lord, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, YE SHALL CERTAINLY DRINK." (Jeremiah 25:28.) Then suddenly the giant hand forced the cup to the lips of the Statue of Liberty, and she became powerless to defend herself. The mighty hand of God forced her to drink every drop from the cup. As she drank the bitter dregs, these were the words that I heard, "Should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, says the Lord of Hosts." (Jeremiah 25:29).
When the cup was withdrawn from the lips of Statue of Liberty, I noticed the sword was missing from the cup, which could mean but one thing. THE CONTENTS OF THE CUP HAD BEEN COMPLETELY CONSUMED! I knew that the sword merely typified war, death, and destruction, which is no doubt on the way. Then as one drunken on too much wine, I saw the Statue of Liberty become unsteady on her feet and begin to stagger, and to lose her balance. I saw her splashing in the Gulf, trying to regain her balance. I saw her stagger again and again, and fall to her knees. As I saw her desperate attempts to regain her balance, and rise to her feet again, my heart was moved as never before with compassion for her struggles.
But as she staggered there in the gulf, once again I heard these words, "Ye shall drink and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more because of the sword that I shall send among you." As I watched, I wondered if the Statue of Liberty would ever be able to regain her feet - if she would ever stand again. And as I watched, it seemed that with all her power she struggled to rise, and finally staggered to her feet again, and stood there swaying drunkenly. I felt sure that at any moment she would fall again - possibly never to rise. I seemed overwhelmed with a desire to reach out my hand to keep her head above water, for I knew that if she ever fell again she would drown there in the Gulf.
Then as I watched, another amazing thing was taking place. Far to the northwest, just over Alaska, a huge, black cloud was arising. As it rose, it was as black as night. It seemed to be in the shape of a man's head. As it continued to arise, I observed two light spots in the black cloud. It rose further, and a gaping hole appeared. I could see that the black cloud was taking the shape of a skull, for now the huge, white, gaping mouth was plainly visible. Finally the head was complete. Then the shoulders began to appear, and on either side, long, black arms. It seemed that what I saw was the entire North American continent, spread out like a map upon table with this terrible skeleton-formed cloud arising from behind the table. It rose steadily until the form was visible down to the waist.
At the waist, the skeleton seemed to bend toward the United States, stretching forth a hand toward the east and one toward the west - one toward New York and one toward Seattle. As the awful form stretched forward, I could see that its entire attention seemed to focused upon the United States, overlooking Canada - at least for the time being. As I saw the horrible black cloud in the form of a skeleton bending toward America, bending from the waist over, reaching down toward Chicago and out toward both coasts, I knew its one interest was to destroy the multitudes.
As I watched in horror, the great black cloud stopped just above the Great Lake region, and turned its face toward New York City. Then out of the horrible, great, gaping mouth began to appear wisps of white vapor, which looked like smoke, as a cigarette smoker would low puffs of smoke from his mouth. These whitish vapors were being blown toward New York City. The smoke began to spread, until it had covered all the eastern part of the United States.
Then the skeleton turned to the west, and out of the horrible mouth and nostrils came another great puff of white smoke. This time it was blown in the direction of the west coast. In a few moments time, the entire west coast and Los Angeles area was covered with its vapors..
Then toward the center came a third great puff. As I watched, St. Louis and Kansas City were enveloped in its white vapors. Then on it came toward New Orleans. Then on they swept until they reached the Statue of Liberty where she stood staggering drunkenly in the blue waters of the Gulf. As the white vapors began to spread around the head of the Statue, she took in but one gasping breath, and then began to cough as though to rid her lungs of the horrible vapors she had inhaled.
One could readily discern by the painful coughing that those white vapors had seared her lungs. What were these white vapors? Could they signify bacteriological warfare that could destroy multitudes of people in a few moments time? Or could they be the new G-gas, the horrible nerve gas recently made known to the American public? …
Indeed, Val Peterson, Federal Civil Defense Administrator, estimates that … "Nerve gas used by an enemy with maximum efficiency could be deadlier than an atomic bomb." Right now you and your family, all of us, are unprotected against the threat of this terror weapon. … The Army calls it GB; it's an odorless, colorless, tasteless nerve gas designed to destroy people with paralyzing suddenness. We have it; so do the Russians.… G-gas, as nerve gas is sometimes called, is cheap to produce, a small amount can do the job, and it leaves a nation's industrial plants, utilities and buildings intact for an occupying power.…
As I looked with wonder upon the vision God had give me I wondered could it be this horrible G Gas, which was causing the Statue of Liberty to react so violently, as it floated about her head, looking like an innocent cloud?
Then I heard the voice of God, as He spoke: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof."
"And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him. “The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. "Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left." (Isaiah 24:6)
As I watched, the coughing grew worse. It sounded like a person about to cough out his lungs. The Statue of Liberty was moaning and groaning. She was in mortal agony. The pain must have been terrific, as again and again, she tried to clear her lungs of those horrible white vapors. I watched her there in the Gulf, as she staggered, clutching her lungs and her breast with her hands. Then she fell to her knees. In a moment, she gave one final cough, made a last desperate effort to rise from her knees, and then fell face forward into the waters of the gulf, and lay still - still as death. Tears ran down my face as I realized that she was dead! Only the lapping of the waves, splashing over her body, which was partly under the water, and partly out of the water, broke the stillness.…
Suddenly the screaming of sirens shattered the silence. Sirens that seemed to scream "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Never before had I heard such shrill, screaming sirens. They seemed to be everywhere - to the north, the south, the east and the west. There seemed to be multitudes of sirens. And as I looked, I saw people everywhere running. But it seemed none of them ran more than a few paces, and then they fell. And even as I had seen the Statue of Liberty struggling to regain her poise and balance, and finally falling for the last time, to die on her face, I now saw millions of people falling in the streets, on the sidewalks, struggling. I heard their screams for mercy and help. I heard their horrible coughing, as though their lungs had been seared with fire.
I heard the moanings and groanings of the doomed and the dying. As I watched, a few finally readied shelters. But only a few ever got to the shelters, and above the moaning and the groaning of the dying multitudes, I heard these words: "A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversary with the nations, He will plead with all flesh; He will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Behold evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain Of The Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not he lamented, neither gathered nor burled; they shall be dung upon the ground." (Jeremiah 25:31-33.)
Then suddenly I saw from the Atlantic and from the Pacific, and out of the Gulf, rocket-like objects that seemed to come up like fish leaping out of the water. High into the air they leaped, each headed in a different direction, but every one toward the United States. On the ground, the sirens screamed louder. And up from the ground I saw similar rockets beginning to ascend.
To me, these appeared to be interceptor rockets although they arose from different points all over the United States. However none of them seemed to be successful in intercepting the rockets that had risen from the ocean on every side. These rockets finally reached their maximum height, slowly turned over, and fell back toward the earth in defeat.
Then suddenly, the rockets, which had leaped out of the oceans like fish all, exploded at once. The explosion was earsplitting. The next thing, which I saw, was a huge ball of fire. The only thing I have ever seen which resembled the thing I saw in my vision was the picture of the explosion of the H-bomb, somewhere in the South Pacific some months ago. In my vision, it was so real I seemed to feel a searing heat from it.
As the vision spread before my eyes, and I viewed the widespread desolation brought about by the terrible explosions, I could not help thinking, "While the defenders of our nation have quibbled over what means of defense to use, and neglected the only true means of defense, faith and dependence upon the true and living God, the thing, which she greatly feared, has come unto her! How true it has proven that ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman watcheth but in vain.’"
Then as the noise of battle subsided, to my ears came this quotation from Joel, the second chapter: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh for it is nigh at hand. "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong: there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
"A fire devoureth before them: and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in baffle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.
"They shall run like mighty men: they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk everyone on in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. "The shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. "The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining." Joel 2:1-10.
Then the voice was still. The earth, too, was silent, the silence, with the silence of death. And then to my ears came another sound - a sound of distant singing. It was the sweetest music I had ever heard. There was joyful shouting, and sounds of happy laughter. Immediately, I knew it was the rejoicing of the saints of God. I looked, and there high in the heaven, above the smoke and poisonous gases, above the noise of battle, I saw a huge mountain. It seemed to be of solid rock, and I knew at once that this was the Mountain of the Lord. The sounds of music and rejoicing were coming from a cleft, high up in the side of the rock mountain. It was the saints of God who were doing the rejoicing. It was God’s own people who were singing and dancing and shouting with joy, safe from all harm which had come upon the earth, for they were hidden away in the cleft of the rock.
There in the cleft, they were shut in, protected by a great, giant hand which reached out of the heavens, and which was none other than the hand of God, shutting them in, until the storm be over-passed. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." Galatians 6:7.
No doubt many who are reading this are wondering, "Will America actually be invaded? Will she have to pay for her wickedness and sin, and for turning her back upon God? Will the wrath and fury of God’s judgment fall upon Uncle Sam? Will America be invaded by Russia? Will Russia use the horrible G gas that can kill millions in a few seconds time? Will she resort to biological warfare that could kill literally millions over night? Will Russia resort to the use of hydrogen weapons? Could God allow such a horrible thing to happen to America? In reply to all these questions, permit me to quote a few scriptures, and make a few thought provoking statements.
America has been sowing with a free hand, preparing for a tremendous harvest - but what has she sown? God declares that as sure as America has sown, SHE SHALL REAP!
"The wicked shall be turned into Hell, and all nations that forget God." Palms 9:17.
"The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him but his power and his wrath is against all that forsake him." Ezra 8:22.
"If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land, but if ye rebel and refuse, ye shall be devoured with the sword." Isaiah 1:19, 20. …
It is my firm conviction, based upon the authority of God's word, that any nation which forgets God to the extent that America has forgotten Him - any nation that rebels and refuses to walk in obedience to God's word as America has refused and rebelled shall be destroyed, and that without remedy." "He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." Proverbs 29:1.
In the light of these scriptures, I am convinced that America is on God's list!... Never did a generation of people live in such critical times. Decay has already progressed far. Judgment is on the way. And there is only one hiding place from the wrath of God. That hiding place is in the cleft of the Rock, Christ Jesus, protected by His mighty hand.
My friend, have you found the cleft in the rock? Has the mighty protecting hand of God shut you in? Do you have on the wedding garments? Are you ready for the wonderful coming of Jesus Christ? If the storm should strike tonight, would you be hidden in that cleft in the rock, which is Christ?
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