Different

#1756

²⁶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:

²⁷ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

²⁸ And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

²⁹ That no flesh should glory in his presence.

³⁰ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

³¹ That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (1 Corinthians Chapter 1)

Today's Puritan Audio Devotional:

Thomas Watson's choice excerpts on Scripture
Play Audio! Download Audio

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We soon grow dull, cold, lifeless, and inactive!

(James Smith, "The Great Comforter" 1858)

"It is the Spirit who quickens; the flesh profits nothing." John 6:63

All real religion begins with the quickening of the Spirit. When we experience this . . .
  we begin to breathe after spiritual things; 
  we open our eyes in a new world; 
  we hunger and thirst after righteousness; 
  and at length taste that the Lord is gracious. 
We then have . . .
  new thoughts, 
  new desires, 
  new hopes, 
  new fears, 
  new joys, and 
  new sorrows. 
The eye fixes on Christ, 
the heart goes out to Christ, and 
the chief desire of the soul is to be like Christ. 

The Spirit not only quickens us at first--but all through life we need and are dependent on the Spirit's quickening. He quickens us to pray, and He quickens us in prayer. It is His quickening which puts . . .
  life into our graces,
  energy into our prayers,
  confidence into our expectations, and
  enables us to resist Satan, steadfast in the faith.

If His quickening power is withheld--we soon grow dull, cold, lifeless, and inactive! We have . . .
  no power in prayer,
  no enjoyment in ordinances,
  no liberty in speaking to the saints,
  nor profit in reading God's Word. 
Every duty becomes a task, 
every privilege becomes a burden, and 
every cross appears insupportable!

While under the quickening operation of the Spirit--we can do all things; but without His quickening--we can do nothing. 

Often, very often, have we to cry out from bitter experience, "My soul cleaves unto the dust; quicken me according unto Your Word!" Psalm 119:25

Quickening Spirit, daily quicken my soul!

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We have published J.R. Miller's helpful short article, "The Cure for Weariness".

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Feel free to forward these gems to others who may be encouraged or profited by them!

Dr. Morris-

      This writer, like most people I have encountered inside the church house, caught in the same satanic trap- snare- plight of not wanting to be "different" from those outside the church house. Our lives have been tainted by the need for acceptance of Satan's crowd... Our dress- language- idols. We had rather be popular- proud- peculiar, than show the born again righteousness of Christ which should be shown in any person who has experienced true repentance, lost that old life of sin and indifference. God inhabits the praise of his people (Psalm 22:3).

      Real Christians, different people, care little about the "acceptance" of an unsaved world. Every minute of every day, I want acceptance of a holy God. We find this in prayer. It is a lifelong learning experience that, when you have notoriety, education accomplishment, success in business, houses and lands, even family and friends, you have what THEY can do. But, when you have a daily minute by minute experience with the holiness of God through prayer, than you have what God can do.

      Look around, look at the news, look at what is happening to our world, WE NEED, WHAT GOD CAN DO.

Baal and Friends

Never think for one minute that there is only one god, we as Christians, know the real and living God of the universe, Creator of the world and everything in it. (Genesis 1, John 1) God well knew that His chief creation, mankind, would worship other Gods. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God... (Exodus 20:3-5) God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; He judgeth among the gods. (Psalm 82:1)

A Baalist or Baalite means a worshiper of Baal. In the Old Testament, Baal is referred to as a false God. There was a Baal of Tyre, a Baal of Carthage. We are familiar with the worship of Baal by Ahab and Jezebel, the worship of God by Jehu and Elijah (1 Kings 16, 2 Kings 10). On one of my several trips to Israel, standing on Mount Carmel, looking across the great valley of Jezreel, I realized the reality of the true and false God. Staring at the world around me, recapitulating history before my life, it is so evident that man has given more attention to false Gods, than the disclosure, the will, the way, the sovereign God of the universe. For many, their god is money; others—pleasure, others—power.

I stopped going to church years ago. The only way you can learn to live with a disability is with a sense of gratitude, and I did not leave the church worship service with a sense of gratitude, rather a sense of being unwanted. The reason you find so few disabled people in church, restaurants, public meetings of any type, as I have been told several times, “disabled people make others uncomfortable.” And in turn to show their disdain for disability, they make you uncomfortable. I find great satisfaction in worship at my home, certain services, continuously, all-day long, the very best in preachers, music.

Recently, a friend called and said he would like to take me to lunch after his church service. His wife was out of town on a business trip and he said he would like very much to eat with me. He knew my lonely lifestyle on the weekends. In the restaurant, as the parishioners (those who had attended church) came in, according to him, most dressed acceptably for a worship service. There was a time we dressed up for Sunday service, but I understand that now, many dress down. I have actually heard of flip-flops and shorts in Sunday worship service. I said to him, “let me know how many of these church people pray over their food before eating.” He reported to me (I am totally blind), that none did. It is not just a matter of thanking God for your food, but it is very important in this time of synthetics, when your food is bereft of any nutrition, that you pray for your food before it enters your body. Many do not know this, but the margarine used in cooking in most restaurants is just a few degrees from plastic...so many synthetics (aspartame, sodium glutanates, etc.) are not digestible. You will never find these chemicals in tissue, there is no nutritive value in eating many colorful foods, rather it takes any energy to rid your body of toxicity.

It has always been a mystery to me why some people attend church at all. Worship means “worth Him”, do they have any idea of their hypocrisy?

In my chiropractor's office, a small boy was fascinated with my white cane as he ran around the office. I asked his name, and learned that it was Isaac. I said, “Isaac, come here and give me your hand. Dr. Morris wants to bless you.” I do not make a big deal of my blessing of a child, I just take their hand, and in my heart, ask God to guide this child in this precarious world. I doubt if these people had any idea of what I spoke.

The Creator of the universe, Who we worship in spirit and in truth is jealous. He expects our full commitment and devotion. Every week of my life, I make a list of all the people with whom I have come in contact during the week and ask for their blessing. I think some of them would prefer not to be on my list, because from every evidence, they do not want God involved with them, and would like me to keep God out of their life.

Many have asked me over the years, “how can you tell a Christian? One to whom God is real.” My answer has never changed, always the same, “one who is in love with God's Word, the Bible.” The Bible is the most bought and banned book in the world...66 books, 27 in the New Testament, written hundreds of years after the 39 of the Old Testament. God's love letter to the world. It is the “manufacturer's handbook”; theology, history, science, even nutrition, it is the answer book for everything.

The first Bible was completed around 95 AD, and until the printing press, and until the Bible was translated into English, a Bible was a very rare thing, loved, prized, protected. Think of those who attend church, who never opens its pages. One lady in the First Baptist Church, Wilmington NC, said that, “Golgotha was the disciple who killed the prophet David.” When I asked another older, wealthy matron of the church why she attended church, she said, “some very nice people come here. It is not because of a Jew born in a stable.”

The 30 inspired writers gave every prophecy and promise we will ever need. The weeping prophet Jeremiah was ashamed of the his people's abomination. (Jeremiah 6:15) The historian Ezra, returning from captivity, finding those who had returned earlier in sin said, “I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens” (Ezra 9:6) Fisherman Peter said, “that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1: 20-21)

The entire Bible has one central theme: Jesus Christ; one message: sin's ruin and Christ's redemption. Today's Baal worshipers, so intent with their idols, never thinking of eternity, knowing the uncertainty of life, most have never spent 20 hours studying their faith, the reality of a true and living God, the faithfulness of those who trust.

Day of Prayer

Today (May 5^th 2011), in Christian “gathering places” across America, is the National Day of Prayer. George Washington, father of our country, started this day of prayer, but it was not until 1952 that it was formally established by Congress. Of course, things were far different in 1952, but even then some atheists and imposters fought the idea. Prayer had been the accepted practice in Congress from its very beginning, our forefathers spent much time in prayer.

The phenomenon of prayer was a mystery to me as a child. Born and raised in a Christian home, never exposed to anything but Christianity, I believe my mother told me I started going to church when I was only two weeks old. Both of my parents, all of my grandparents, all of my great grandparents were involved in the same church, which was built by these same ancestors. My young mind was mystified by these real men standing and praying out loud above the congregation... my relatives going to the alter in the front of the church and kneeling in prayer, the pastor on his knees in prayer. Later, I found that this was the greatest power and need in their life. In the supernatural, mystical action, they showed for time and eternity, their faith..... faith, action based on belief, sustained by confidence.

Having lived a long active live, I now understand this definition of faith. I know that God only listens to believers, the only prayer He hears from an unbeliever is a prayer of repentance. The academics, the atheists, those just playing church, those who think they have God fooled are just wasting their time. God requires one thing from us, and one thing only, TRUST. He is in charge of everything, HE IS BOSS.

Once, years ago, already blind, but owning several entrepreneurial businesses, with one of my employees driving, I took several of my managers in my Cadillac up the country to the home where I was born and raised. I showed them the community where my parents, grandparents, etc had farmed for hundreds of years. I remember pointing out to them, from memory, the large consolidated school where I went for 12 years, the smaller school which my father attended, the two-room school which my mother and grandmother attend, and the beautiful old country church which my ancestors built in 1874. Then, at the home place, I showed them the beautiful old home which had been in the family for a very long time.

On the way back, pointing out the large, old cemetery and other things. I said, “can you imagine me plowing mules in these fields? Cutting wood in these extensive woodlands owned by my family?” They were all very quiet, they had never been exposed to family legacy, family heritage. They had never heard their mother pray at the table before a meal. They had finally seen the results of prayer in Christian America. They finally knew that my life had not been accidental, that it is not an accident, a quirk of nature, human beings evolving from pond scum, that many of us have committed our lives to prayer. That our parents, grandparents, ancestors had consecrated their yet unborn progeny through prayer many years ago, that men such as me were just fulfilling the goals that God had already designed and chosen me for...and they, if they had been willing to submit to God, rather than to the world, the flesh, the devil. You serve one of two masters: God or the devil. You cannot serve both, choose you this day whom ye will serve (Joshua 24:15).

Alfred Lord Tennyson, in his poem Morte D'Arthur, said, “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” Perhaps because of my blindness, perhaps because I live alone, perhaps because I have no one else on whom I can depend, I have very definite need for prayer in my life. As long as I can remember, I get up very early in the morning and have a time of prayer about everything, about today's activities, my employees, my family and friends. I know that many of them do not want me praying for them because they do not want God involved in their lives (and that is their problem). I have a time of communion, the Lord's Table, I have a small piece of bread, asking God for healing and the healing of all those who need healing, even the earthquake victims in Japan, New Zealand, Chile, Haiti, the recent tornado victims.

God took all our sicknesses and infirmities to the cross, along with our sins and the sins of the world, the full wrath of God. The wrath that should be imposed on us was afflicted on His only Son, whom He loved (Isaiah 53). The apostle Paul tells us and showed us that Christianity comes with a price, the “marks of the Lord Jesus.” (Galatians 6:17) We are told to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Even our blessed Lord, who had put on a tent of human flesh, dwelled among us, lived a perfect life, had need for prayer, and taught us how to pray (Matthew 6:9-13).

The greatest privilege, the greatest power, that we as Christians (those who claim the name of Christ), have in this world, is prayer. It is not necessary to have a long prayer, Peter said, when He walked on the water, “Lord help me.” If any of you smart people, you academics, you lovers of Satan find a better way, please let this weak, old man know! I have unbelieving family members, relatives, friends who have nothing to say to me anymore because I have told them about their lost condition. Some, who are Democrats, who support the Democrat political machine, may still think they are praying, but anyone who supports the heathenism of abortion, the Satanism of same-sex marriage, the paganism of tax enslavement, Christ has already said, “cannot be His disciple.” (Luke 14:26, Luke 14:17, Luke 14:33).

When you have government, you have government what government can do. When you have education, money, idols you have what they can do. When you have prayer, if you are Christian, and you are doing what He has told us to do, you have what God can do. If anyone reads the newspapers, listens to news broadcasts, has eyes to see what is going on in this world, ears to hear what is going on in this world, and does not think that we need what God can do and claims to be a Christian, you should obey and pray.

Ash Wednesday

For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis 3:19) Next week, Christians all over the world will observe Ash Wednesday, preceding Lent and Easter. This is a time when a priest, a minister, or even laymen of the church signifies, by marking with ashes or dust, the cross on your forehead...your Christian belief. It follows the ancient Biblical act of throwing ashes or dust over the head at the time of repentance. If you have seen ashes on one's forehead, you can know that the person is Catholic. Most Protestants, especially Baptists, have moved so far from the blessed acts of Christian belief that they do not want ashes on their forehead. Most ceased from using a reference to ashes, even at the burial ceremony...the officiating minister throwing dirt or ashes onto the casket before it is lowered into the ground. I have been in many Baptist churches where you never see a cross. Most evangelical churches are not distinguishable from a civic auditorium, the indifference which time and modernity can accomplish under Satan's guile and guidance.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross. The greatest mystery of my long life: how those that profess the salvation of God through Jesus Christ are so indifferent, in many cases acting as though they are ashamed of their redemption? I can remember as a child, grown men with families in the church, standing outside the church in the churchyard, smoking cigarettes, laughing and telling jokes, evidently thinking about anything but what went on in the house of worship. When the music started in the church, they would go in and sit with the family, pretending. Later, when I was active in the local church, I would see grown men of the church, standing on the sidewalk, often in the agnostic preacher's presence, talking about ball games. Caring nothing for what went on in God's house, during the week, or even while they were practicing their religion for one hour on Sunday. From the richest man in town, living on the hill, to the pauper scrounging for survival in the bowelry of the town. God meets all needs at the foot of the cross.

Another mystery in my long life, the greatest power known to man, the power of prayer, talking directly with the Creator of the universe. Available instantaneously, just for the asking, whether pervert or Pope. Throughout His Word, God was very specific in His plan for humanity. God is all forgiving, all knowing, unconditional. During Lent, Christians often give up something, something they like, thinking always of what Christ gave up for them. We try to do something that is not always convenient, a service to others. The spirit of Lent, the spirit of Easter, it hurts so good.

I believe what I say, I eat my own cooking. I would be much more popular as a writer, more popular with neighbors, in business, particularly with lost family members and relatives (and most of them are eternally lost), if I were not sincerely adamant in my Christian faith. Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and most people I know, even family and church members, cling to that broad way.

I said to my mother's sister, “your mother, my grandmother had the greatest prayer life I have ever known.” My aunt said, “what do you mean?” She had lived around her mother and had never observed. “Didn't you notice she always had her elbow on the arm of the chair, with her hand to her forehead, her lips moving in prayer?” If you are not praying one hour a day, your salvation is in question. You are just playing church, thinking you can fool God. You think the IRS knows much about you. God knows more about you than you know about yourself, the very hairs of your head are numbered (Matthew 10:30, Luke 12:7)

Your personal prayer life, prayer vigils with others, the greatest act of Christian obedience, fasting, will keep you close to the cross, the power of the cross. (Psalm 35:13) The verisimilitude of the cross, power beyond comprehension. Most church members, most people of religiosity want to treat Christian faith as a spectator sport, not for conservatives, not for sophisticates. Men are staying boys for much longer, loving toys. Women have forgotten the dreams of their girlhood: babies, families, pretty things, nice homes. Today's men and women grab for the good times, the fast bucks. In this day of abortion and same-sex marriage, the greatest sound to mortal ears, children laughing and singing. Please pray for the mercies of God on a generation that has been given so much just for the asking but choose to live in despair, decadence and despondency.

Black girls tell me that they simply cannot find a black husband because most black boys drop out of school, have no values. A black educated women from a loving, respectable black family sees no future with a school dropout. There was a time when a black man with a vocation would support a family. Many black men have a total intoxication with illegalities: drugs, scams, politics. There is nothing more heathen than socialism and communism, from the White house, to the jailhouse, courthouse, schoolhouse, and even many black and white church houses. Satan (master magician) has slipped in, and his agenda is in play. In my lifetime, I have seen the sovereign power of God degraded.

I remember the first plastics. Who would ever have known that from those first plastic book covers, laundry covers, we would have leeching into every area of our food life, the chemicals of plastic? I cannot get far from the front door, I am totally blind, but I buried a plastic cup in the ground near my front door. A few years later I dug it up, it had not deteriorated at all. It will deteriorate with heat, however, and you drink its chemicals from your hot plastic cups of coffee, our food in plastic containers in the microwave, etc. Your child does not have a chance, plastic bottles, plastic cribs, plastic toys, plastic everything, and then people still say, “Dr. Morris why is there so much cancer, Alzheimer's”...your body is full of toxicity, poisons that will kill you.

What is the value of your life? In 1970, when gas prices went up, speed limits were lowered, lives were saved, in the usual cycle, gas prices went back up, more lives were lost. There is a price on your life in healthcare, warfare, industry. Everything is measurable, make sure you measure accurately, take full measure of what Christ paid for your life, his giving to you a praying heart. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens...All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again (Ecclesiastes 3:1,22)

Dialogue

At a time when the perimeters of every airport should be under surveillance, when checked baggage and packages should be scanned or sniffed by a bomb-seeking dog, at a time when Americans are put through scanners like radiated meats and perverts roam their hands around in your clothing. We understand the importance of dialogue, talking to one another.

I have been through many checkpoints in my life of travel, the most famous, Checkpoint Charley, dividing east and west Berlin. How well I remember the dogs, the mirrors, as they looked under vehicles. Of course, the inspections were on the east German side, no one from west Germany, west Berlin were trying to get into the east German, Russian-controlled side, where communism has made a once beautiful city and country a place of wanton desolation.

The story is told of a West German going to work in east Germany, each day passing through Checkpoint Charley. Each day he had a wheelbarrow with a bail of hay. One day a guard said, “I know you are smuggling something.” He and the other guards began to search the hay, “you might as well tell us what you are smuggling.” The west German said, “wheelbarrows.”

Over and over we have seen lives and industries ruined, such as the airline industry ruined because of our failure to communicate. My grandfather was the last farmer to sign Mr. Roosevelt's soil conservation and crop control, local farm legislation, legislation which controlled all farming operations on the family farm, acreage, livestock, marketing. He said, “it is like putting a noose around a farmers neck.” From then until now, worsening with every socialized control, American farming is disappearing. 70% of all produce is now shipped into America from other countries.

About 50 years ago, because of conflicts affecting the Christian church, the Catholic church and the Jewish community, I became active in the National Conference of Christians and Jews, (now the National Conference for Community and Justice), started in 1927 by Supreme Court justice Charles Evans Hughes. Because every religion is interrelated historically, Judeo/Christian, Judeo/Catholic, Judeo/Islamic, all from the same beginnings. It was founded in response to anti-denominational furor around Al Smith was running for President, the conference tried to reach all areas of discrimination, particularly that affecting the disabled, the poor, and those generally disenfranchised because of class.

America is supposed to be a society of equality and justice, but Roosevelt, influenced by such communists as his vice President Henry Wallace, his Chief of Staff Harry Hopkins, Supreme Court appointments such as Hugo Black (member of the KKK), increased discrimination and lack of justice at one of the worst times in American history, the Great Depression. Today, we have a greater need for dialogue than ever before, never has the clamor about things with which we might personally disagree been greater. We seem unable to compromise, even listen, because of the noise of controversy.

I remember in the city of Hong Kong, the noisiest city of the world, how quiet it was to go into a Buddhist temple. I remember how quiet a plane becomes just before touchdown. In a country of the big band sound, fireworks, the constant insane beat and lyrics from radios tuned to low-life radio stations which abound from cars at every traffic light.

The world's attempt to show solace and sadness at times of personal community grief, the effort not to offend anyone at a graduation, this matter of a “moment of silence”. Only one who is blind misses the joy of sight, only one who is crippled misses the thrill of walking. Only one who is deaf really appreciates sound, from the first breath of the new born child, sound. We like sound, because then we know the world is alive. Our blessed Lord said, “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 11:15) At Pentecost, 50 days after our Lord's Resurrection, there should have been more hearing and less talking (tongues). I believe that God wants to hear our petitions, praises, please.

At a recent university graduation, the serenity was ruined by a moment of silence, instead of vocally pleading with God for guidance. Yesterday, Mr. Obama had a moment of silence, concerning the Saturday massacre. He being a Sunni Muslim, as Colonel Kadafi has said, “Obama is strict Muslim, he probably does not want to offend the Christians, Catholics, and other cults of America by participating in a prayer service.” We know that academics, politicians, pragmatists, look upon prayer as a moral superstition. But you will find very few, only those who are truly self-destructive, who do not believe in God. God in the spirit of man is as natural as breathing. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. (Romans 1:28-32)

If there has ever been a time when voices should be raised heavenward, seeking the mercies of God, it is now. We have been silent too long. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. (Psalm 2:12)

Bags of Cash

God only had to say it once, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Timothy 6:10) History, and every problem of man tells us that nothing has changed...the almighty dollar, the peso, the yuan, the rand, the pound, whatever your currency.

This week we learned that bags of cash are taken to Hamid Kazai, disreputable President of Afghanistan, from Iran, as well as from America. Why not, what is new? Billions of dollars, bags of cash, spent in present elections. As our finest young men and women give their lives, and others forever nursing the wounds of war, the industrial/political producers of war get richer. As this blind, disabled veteran has stumbled through the exploitation at veterans facilities, I have heard many ask the question, “why does God allow this?”

God knows what He is doing. You can be sure that any person at judgment will never have a word of defense, all will know guilt, all will know that God has the goods on them. I could not worship a God which I could understand, His ways, His means; trust Him, that is all He asks. Bags of money is nothing new, in politics, in commerce, in warfare. We had two governors in North Carolina, father and son, the Scotts, you did not go to their office unless you took a paper sack filled with money. One of the North Carolina's most powerful politicians, Dr. Black, went to prison for bags of money passed in men's bathrooms. Every illegal drug seller, has a bag of money.

The one question young parents have asked me, “why are my children so defiant?” Ask any child what he wants in life, the answer always, “money”. The golden years in your child's life, the most important years for your assisting the formation of character: the ages 7-12. If you fail in those years, it is generally too late. Once a child gets on the treadmill of things, envying what others have, thinking that the most important things in life can be bought at a store, character becomes less defined. Convictions are stabilized by repetition, 26 times in the 136th Psalm: “the mercies of the Lord endure forever”.

The greatest shame of the Christian church, the Christian school, many Christian homes. Young people raised “supposedly” Christian doctrines forsake them, many never to return. This is nothing new, cradled Catholics leave the catholic church; Jews, the most family-oriented race forsake their faith. Only by the instilling of ancestral values, God's honor, encouragement to live a life of homage to family or ancestry, can you expect children to honor their name. Emphasize to your children, that if Christian, they carry in their body the name of Christ, His honor, as well as the fact that the honor of their family name is all-important. As I heard my mother say, every time before we left the house for anything, “remember who you are.”

There are some things our children will never forget about your home, I will give you something for the father of the home to read at the table, every day, or at least once a week. The great editor Horace Greeley said, “a bible-reading people can never be enslaved.” A praying family can never been enslaved by sin.

Father, we thank thee for this day,

We thank thee for this family, that before the foundation of the world, you chose these parents to have these children, who have in their genes the ancestry of two great families.

Thank You for your love. Thank You for work, for school, for home, for church, for friends, for every blessing of life.

Help us to always remember the honor of our family name, and the honor of Your Blessed Name.

Amen

In 1986, two Russian ships, one carrying 1,800 passengers, the other carrying a cargo of grain, collided in the Baltic sea. There was no storm, the weather was good, the radar was working, the reason for the collision, neither captain would change course. Both were coming towards each other on the same course.

As Christians, as family members, esteem one another. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. (Philippians 2:3) Discouragement is Satan's most effective weapon. It is so important to encourage one another, particularly family members. A young groom said to his bride, “when will you learn to make biscuits like my mother?” The bride said, with great affection and encouragement, “when you learn to make dough like my father.”

Simplicity Cascade

Down under, in Australia, one of the more interesting cities is the city of Perth, on the west coast of Australia. Much smaller when I was there than it is now. There in the summer, it was hot and windy. I remember the wide streets and the generally pleasant atmosphere, attitude and anticipation of visiting and then moving onto the South Pacific. Staying at the wonderful and famous Duxton Hotel, I had walked to a shopping area and was sitting on a bench when a middle-aged man came over and sat next to me and began to talk to me with an accent hard to understand. It turns out that he was an Aborigines and was from the outback; a Christianity convert by a missionary, and he had come to Perth in order to improve his life.

To make a long story short, we discussed our mutual Christian beliefs and he told me that he was having great difficulty finding a church in Perth where he could feel secure in his faith. I told him that even a Christian from America had great difficulty doing that, that Christianity had been polluted by the wisdom of men and that the simplicity found in Christ is estranged by the philosophies of men. He said, “I have a child's faith; I love God's Word. I love to hear and read the scripture but I have yet to find a church in Perth where the scripture is preached in its fullness and simplicity. I keep searching; I have a hunger for the teaching and the preaching of God's Word. I feel I am at a concert hall with the formality and rituals, ushers and programs.”

The questions of this new convert, a baby in Christ, I have encountered all over the world. From a new Methodist church in dark Africa where they were trying to get a roof on the building to the Baptist Association activities in eastern North Carolina, I find people searching; trying to find public housing for their faith. We are told to come together as a church, but have seemingly forgotten the importance of the mixture associating the kindergarten with the graduate school in the verisimilitude of one worship service.

I talked with him about the great cathedrals around the world; the stained glass windows, organs that resounded in religious music, the great rose window of Notre Dame, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I talked to him of the simplicity of the rural church where I was reared; a piano and gustily singing uneducated voices, as well as well-paid, well-trained choirs in great churches - but all supposedly proclaiming the grace and mercy of almighty God. I said to him, as I say to myself so often, “The simple faith of God in Christ is within me. All the other escapade and entourage is just man-made periphery.” One's faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) It is a matter of confidence that we have as individual believers. I said to him, “Thank God every day of your life that someone reached you with the matchless message and redemption of Jesus Christ. The very fact that you want to know more --- believe me you will never get enough. And you will learn that you can find worship with others, great or small, or just with God alone. God is a spirit and we find our greatest worship with Him in the closet.”

I talked with him about my mother's mother, my maternal grandmother, Lanie Underwood Pittman. She was a woman of astounding faith. As her oldest grandchild, she shared with me things she did not share with anyone else because, she knew something about me and saw something within me worth the experience. My mother had told me this but, I needed to hear it from her own lips, that early each morning, she would go to the family cemetery and there enjoyed the simplicity of visiting with my relatives, already in heaven, while the dew was still on the flowers. God gave her the spiritual experience of talking with the spirits from the grave --- my aunts who had died in the great flu epidemic of 1918, her small son who had died in that epidemic, my great grandparents. It was there she reinforced the stalwart, unflinching devotion to her Savior. She was able to continue her personal relationship with her departed loved ones, now in glory, and the Redeemer who would give her the faith not only to die with, but to live by.

From the time the serpent beguiled Eve, and our first parents were thrown out of God's garden, men have tried to complicate the simplicity of God's plan for the world and His own. The creation, as described in God's word, is just too simple for the educated mind. Its simplicity is all we need and even though there has been much science fiction, no one has been able to improve God's description. Just to think that it takes two and one half days for light traveling one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second to arrive at your eye from the nearest star, and just to think that God has the very hairs on your head numbered. Just to think that at the top and the bottom of this one planet there are four and a half million square miles of glaciers (I have visited both the north and south pole) with the trillions of snowflakes and ice crystals He designed each individually --- no two have ever been found the same! Just to think that the billions of human beings magnificently created by God (Psalm 139), no two have the same facial features, no two have the same voice, the same fingerprints, the same flecks pattern in the iris of their eye, is something that should astound even Mr. Darwin and his followers. Can you even imagine that the tears of joy and the tears of grief coming out of the same eye have a different chemical composition? Books have been written on this one subject yet there are still those in the academic halls who wish to cloud God's sovereignty about everything (even the clotting of blood which no scientific mind has ever been able to reproduce) with the doubts, the theories, the theorems of one little speck in the almost limitless universe.

Secondly, the simplicity of salvation is not complicated enough for the academic mind. We want rituals, laws, works, equations as a substitution for Divine Redemption. The twelve greatest words ever written “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is too simple for the sophisticate but God clearly tells us that the wisdom of man is just the foolishness of God. “Keep it simple stupid --- KISS” is not something new in progressive education. God made it simple for we stupid people before the very foundation of the world.

Thirdly, the simplicity of speaking to God. “GOD IS BOSS!” He only requires our trust. I am convinced that if you were to ask any human being who has lived on this earth and has now gone on to his destination, regardless of destination, what he wished he had done differently, he or she would say “to have learned to trust God completely.” God speaks to us through His eternal Word. It is the answer book to every problem, written in language that anyone can understand. One denomination, for a very long time, promoted the idea that only one with a Roman collar could explain God's inerrant Word. Even the Roman Catholic Church now promotes the idea of Bible study. In God's judgment, you will be on your own. Your counselor, priest, pastor, even your lawyer, saved or unsaved, will not be able to defend you. God is a perfect score keeper --- He will have all the evidence. Then as now, learn to seek His mercy. It is so simple....help!

Fourthly, the greatest power in all the world, the very power that raised Christ from the dead, the very power that brought Lazarus out of the grave, the power that multiplied loaves and fishes, the power of prayer. When you have denominations, you have what denominations can do. When you have churches, you have what churches can do. When you have education, you have what education can do. When you have prayer, you have what God can do. I am firmly convinced on the authority of God's Word that if there is anything on earth that we need, it is what God can do. The simplicity of just asking. The simplicity of knowing when we ask, He hears us and will respond according to His riches in glory. Christ Himself said, “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:14) Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

In my lifetime, when asked to pray at a large gathering, religious or otherwise, I have been approached by unsaved, uncaring people who have said to me, “I cannot believe that a man of science would talk to a spirit in public?” These same scoffers and doubters will sit and listen to great religious music, will show admiration for great religious art, will recognize the change that takes place in an addict's sinful, physical and emotional condition, will recognize the history of spiritual relevance in the world, but because of their own bias, will not yield to the supreme sovereignty of God.

The grave is not the ending point in this excursion of humanity. From one end of the earth to the other, whether a monkey temple or a carving out of the wood of a tree, men have sought something greater to worship than themselves. At one time, the Lamas controlled Asia from the Danube to the Pacific. The God-less, communist Russians came in and destroyed all the Buddhist places of worship in Mongolia and Siberia. For thirty years, their worship at the base of the steps was deprived. One visit from the Dalai Lama erased their troubles of the past thirty years. The simplicity of Christ, which dominated Europe and America for hundreds of years, has been threatened by moral relevancy, technology, the winds of doubt promoted by academics and liberalism, but mankind with a need for the eternal security of the love of God through Christ will return to the cascades of the simplicity found in faith.


“Wonderful story of love;
Tell it to me again;
Wonderful story of love;
Wake the immortal strain!
Angels with rapture announce it,
Shepherds with wonder receive it;
Sinner, oh, won’t you believe it?
Wonderful story of love.”

Wonderful Story of Love
John M. Driver, 1892