SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/8/2021 10:09 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 “The Analogy”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt. 10:16a
Message of the
verse: 16 "Behold,
I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves;”
We have been talking about how the sheep (believers)
are to go in among the wolves (unbelievers) and begin to minister to them, to
tell them the truth about their need for salvation. However we are not to present the gospel
dishonestly and misleadingly for that is to be unfaithful to the Lord and to
those to whom we present it. Now it is because
of false promises, that many unredeemed people remain on the broad road that
leads to destruction while being under the delusion they are on the road to
life. I mentioned that before my former
wife died that I went down to talk to her and she assured me that she would
soon be in heaven. That did not stop me
from presenting the truth about the gospel and how I became a believer. I went to her funeral a few weeks later and
when I heard the “Pastor” who was a woman speak my thoughts were that this
woman gave my former wife the wrong news about the gospel. This angered me to no end. I don’t know where she is now as that was not
up to me, but up to God but I do know that this was an example of someone
giving the wrong news about the good news.
This is still upsetting to me as it happened back at the beginning of
May of this year. Now there are many
believers who are confirmed in the spiritual mediocrity and unfruitfulness,
thinking their health, wealth, and material success is the certain mark of
divine approval. There are still other
believers that are disillusioned and embittered because their lives of
obedience, faithfulness, and sacrifice for Christ have not been materially rewarded.
These are all issues of the health and
wealth gospel that is very prominent in our world today, especially the ones on
TV who try and steal money from the inspected who have tuned in to listen to
them.
MacArthur writes “After the siege of
Rome in 1849, Garibaldi said to his soldiers , ‘Men, all our efforts against
superior forces have been unavailing. I
have nothing to offer you but hunger and thirst, hardship and death. But I call on who love their country to join
with me.’ After the Allies were forced
to evacuate Dunkirk in 1040, Churchill said to his fellow Englishmen, ‘All I
can offer you is blood, sweat, and tears.’
“If those human leaders refused to
send out their fellow countrymen to war under false pretenses, how much less
would the divine Son of God! Jesus does
not send out His followers without warning about the demands and dangers of
discipleship. Nor did His apostles
mislead the early church about what belonging to Christ would cost. As he wrote to encourage and strengthen
Timothy, his son in the faith, Paul also assured him that ‘all who desire to
live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (2 Tim. 3:12). Godly lives are not marked by continual
suffering and hardship inflicted on them by the unbelieving world. Neither the life of Jesus nor the lives of
the apostles were characterized by uninterrupted hardship and persecution. But faithfulness to God guarantees that at
some times and to some degree Satan and his world system will exact a price for
it.”
People in the USA have lived without
persecution ever since the nation was founded.
I became a believer in January of 1974 and after listening to a series
of sermons by Hal Lindsey on the end times I believed that at sometime in the
future that persecution would come to our country as Satan never stops his
battle against the church. Unless the
Lord terries I believe that Christians will be persecuted in our country as
this has began is places where the governors in some states tried to stop
believers from meeting in their churches, but allowed gambling places to remain
open. IT IS COMING!
10/8/2021 10:35
AM
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