Spiritual Dominoes :: By Mariah Morrisey

Published on: by RR7 Category:Uncategorized

There are many people in this world who live only for themselves. They have no hunger for God or righteousness. They are lost. Let us not forget that each and every one of us was in that desperate camp at some time in our lives. Much is at stake as the end of days nears. Time is of the utmost essence. Christians know, deep within our souls, that the gospel has the power to change the hearts and minds of human beings, and knowing this, we should be wholly convicted to share it with the lost, no matter the cost to our comfortable and convenient lives.

The charge is clear to those who call upon the name of Jesus. The call and commission is to take the gospel to the nations. Let us be clear: If we are not faithful to His call, souls will be eternally lost.

What of those who have never heard of Jesus? What of those who died before Christ? The answers to these questions are a mystery. We live this life in Christ with mystery—we live by faith. The Scriptures tell us that one day we will know fully, even as we have been fully known.

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

In the meantime, we do not have the luxury of theological speculation. Instead, we should assume that those who have never heard of Jesus will be eternally lost. Why? Because Jesus himself said so: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

Jesus also commanded us:

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (Matthew 28:19-20).

“And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem , and in all Judaea, and in Samaria , and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).

In the year 1854, a 17-year-old boy was working in a shoe shop in Detroit. He didn’t know Christ and had no interest in matters of spirituality or religion. But, he had been forced to go to Sunday school, like a lot of kids these days. One day, his Sunday school teacher went to the shoe shop where this boy was working and said, “Hey, I’m worried about you. I want to talk.” So, they went into the basement of the shoe store, where the Sunday school teacher led the young man to Christ. The Sunday school teacher’s name was Edward Kimball, and the 17-year-old boy’s name was D. L. Moody. We now know that he went on to become one of the greatest evangelists in the world, and he shared the gospel with 100 million people. And this was in the age before modern technology. Pretty incredible! And of course, Moody also founded the Moody Bible Institute and Moody Memorial Church in Chicago. His name is well known in the Christian community, even today, more than a hundred years later.

Now, it’s kind of cool to see that Moody went on to influence a man named F.B. Meyer, a London pastor and an intellectual who never focused on Jesus. Meyer’s congregation told him that they wanted this newly famous evangelist, Moody, to come speak to them. So, Meyer reluctantly agreed to let his congregation bring in Moody.

Meyer, who had a lot of intellectual pride and was ashamed of the name of Jesus, invited Moody to do a revival in his church. When Moody showed up, Meyer immediately took a dislike to him. He didn’t like him because Moody was not well dressed, and because he only had a fifth grade education.

Meyer had doctorates, and he was brilliant. So, he kind of looked down on Moody. But, Moody got up to preach in Meyer’s church and was anointed by the Holy Spirit. The power of God was upon him. And, as he spoke, he focused on Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

As such, hundreds upon hundreds of people came to faith in Jesus Christ that day from the pews of Meyer’s beloved church. Because of this, Meyer was embarrassed and consumed with jealousy. After the revival, Moody quietly left, leaving Meyer with his congregation and with his jealousy and anger.

Two weeks later, Meyer was talking with one of his Sunday school teachers, and the teacher said, “You know, I used to focus on all kinds of stuff and never focused on Jesus, but Moody taught me to focus on Jesus. So, I’ve been focusing on Jesus over these last two weeks and I want to tell you about this boy who accepted Jesus during my class.”

As he told the story, Meyer began to weep. The Holy Spirit broke through; he was convicted and supernaturally changed. For the rest of his life, he preached Jesus to all who would listen.

As the years went by, Meyer influenced J. Wilbur Chapman; J. Wilbur Chapman influenced Billy Sunday; then Billy Sunday influenced Mordecai Ham. And it was Mordecai Ham who led Billy Graham to Christ. Get it? Spiritual dominoes.

You see, it’s incredible, the power of the gospel. To think of Edward Kimball, D.L. Moody, F.B. Meyer, J. Wilbur Chapman, Billy Sunday, Mordecai Ham, and then Billy Graham, all in a row, one going to the next, and then the next, by the power of Christ, only serves to tell us that we need not fear. We should share the gospel with confidence and joy.

When we tell someone about Jesus, we have no way of knowing what the domino effect is going to be. In our lifetime, we may not even be aware of the full harvest of souls brought to the kingdom of God simply because we remain faithful to the call. So, please be faithful.

When Billy Graham did come to Christ through the preaching of Mordecai Ham, it was during a tent meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1936. Graham, born in 1920, was 16 years old, didn’t know Christ, and was “sowing his oats,” as many a young man is known to do. He had a 16-year-old buddy, and they were just hanging out when they thought, “Hey, let’s go into this tent and hear what this whacko has to say.”

So they were just clowning around when they went into that tent. Once inside, they realized that there was no room for them; they couldn’t find any seats. So Billy said to his buddy, “Let’s get out of here.” As they turned to leave, an usher standing there saw them and said, “Hey, guys.” He put his big arms around their shoulders and said, “You know, hey, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Let me take you to a seat.” So, the usher took them to a seat and the rest is history.

Billy Graham found Jesus that night, and he went on to take Jesus to the world. That usher could never have known how God was using him that night through his simple yet faithful service.

So, serve Christ, knowing that it might be a mystery–what God is doing through you. It’s incredible. God is great. The power of God attends the grace of the Gospel. So, be faithful to your call and commission.

In closing, one more little short story about Robert Moffat, who was called Bobby in his youth. It was 1807, when Bobby was just 12. He was in Scotland, at church, and that Sunday morning, a strange thing happened.

After the offering, little Bobby Moffat stepped into the offering plate. He stepped right into it! Of course, when one of the church ushers saw this, he yelled, “Boy! What do you think you’re doing?” Bobby replied, “I’m giving my whole self to Jesus!” That’s what this 12-year-old boy said to that usher.

Eight years later, when Bobby (now called Robert) was 20 years old, he was accepted by the London Missionary Society to be a missionary to Africa. The next year, in 1816, Robert Moffat turned 21 and headed down to Cape Town, Africa, where he met his wife, Mary Smith. For more than 50 years, Robert and Mary Moffat partnered to serve Jesus Christ together on this earth.

At the time they met and married in Cape Town, Africa, no one went north of Cape Town because the region 100 miles north of Cape Town was known as “the dark continent.” But Robert and Mary Moffat went. They went into Botswana, where they became missionaries. They took Jesus to those people, the Swana people.

The Swana people had driven the “sand people” into the Kalahari. Driven from their land, they became bushmen. Robert Moffat ministered to both the bushmen and the Swana people, telling them about Jesus. He translated the whole of the Old and New Testaments into the language of those people. Then he took Christian classics, like Pilgrim’s Progress, and translated them so that the people could read these great works, and he led the people to Jesus.

Twenty years later, in 1835, Robert Moffat was back in Glasgow, Scotland, and he was tired–broken in body and weary in soul. He and Mary had worked very hard and wanted some help. They wanted people to go back with them to work in that dark continent, and as he spoke to them from this little Scottish church in Glasgow, he was describing for them the region of Botswana. He told them how he could stand on top of this hill and look out to see the campfires of a thousand villages, villages of people who knew not Christ, and he said, “Come with me. Help me take Jesus to all of these people.”

He was disappointed that night because no one accepted his invitation. But, what he didn’t know was that a young man there was convicted by the Holy Spirit that night. The young man was David Livingston, who went on to marry Robert and Mary’s daughter–an incredible tale of its own!

Afterwards, David Livingston went to Africa, leading thousands of people to Christ. In Glasgow, he had received his medical doctorate and a degree in theology. He went to Africa as an explorer, looking for the headwaters of the Nile River. He went as a civil rights leader, fighting the slave trade. He went as a missionary and an evangelist, taking Jesus to the people, faithful through his years.

In 1873, David Livingston died. His last diary entry stated: “My Jesus, my King, my life, my all. I dedicate my whole life to thee.”

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Stepping into the offering plate? Dedicating the whole of our lives to Christ? We have a message that the world needs. We have a Savior. We have Jesus. Let us be faithful in this hour and share the grace and mercy of Jesus to all of those who will hear. Let us fight against the flow of damnation for souls who have yet to hear.

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:15-16).

Source: From the sermon of Dr. Jim Dixon, “Sin and Salvation.” Cherry Hills Community Church , Highlands Ranch, Colorado . January 27, 2008.

Intellectual Viruses :: By Todd Strandberg

Published on: by RR7 Category:Todd Strandberg

Intellectual Viruses

There are two types of viruses that most people are familiar with: the kind that makes people sick and the kind that makes our computers go haywire. However, a third form of virus is just as infectious: an intellectual virus.

In 1898, Friedrich Loeffler and Paul Frosch found evidence that the cause of foot-and-mouth disease in livestock was an infectious particle smaller than any bacteria. This was the first clue to the existence of biological viruses, genetic entities that lie somewhere in the grey area between living and non-living states.

Viruses depend on the host cells they infect to reproduce. When found outside of host cells, viruses exist as a protein coat or capsid. One could make general comparison to how a seed works. The capsid encloses either DNA or RNA, which is the blueprint of the virus. While in this form outside the cell, the virus is metabolically inert. Once a capsid attaches to living cell and ejects its DNA or RNA code, the virus germinates and begins its destructive work.

The term “computer virus” is credited to Grace Hopper. She found that a moth had landed in between the solenoid contacts in the Mark II Calculator, a massive analog computer at Harvard University designed by Howard Aiken. Hopper removed the squashed moth and annotated her log book with an entry (along with the moth fastened to the page).

Computer viruses didn’t become a real problem unto DOS-based computers began to proliferate. The file structure utilized by these machines made it relatively easy in 1986 for the maker(s) of the “Brain” virus to play havoc with the boot sectors on floppy disks.

Intellectual viruses (IVs) don’t require DNA or microchips for transmission. They pass from one mind to another through various forms of spoken or written communications.

What makes these ideas intellectual viruses is the fact that they are in error or serve no meaningful purpose. Just like the other two viruses, their only purpose is self propagation.

Here are three IVs that might be hiding somewhere in your gray matter. I could have selected from a long list of old wives tails. I chose these three because they can be verified with common-sense thinking.

The Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure that can be seen from space. What make this IV believable is the understanding that the Great Wall is the longest barrier that man has ever created. However, length does not matter when you’re trying to see something from space that is only a few feet wide. It is far easier to spot something like a man-made lake or city. Anyone looking at satellite images on Google Earth can see the difficulty of spotting Great Wall of China from any distance.

We only use 10% of our brains. Studies of patients with brain damage suggest that damage to almost any area of the brain has specific and lasting effects on mental, vegetative and behavioral capabilities. Because the brain is divided up into performing certain tasks, it cannot be said that the mind only smells, sees, tastes, or senses touch at 10% of its capability. I guess what makes this IV wishful thinking is that we all have a wealth of mental capabilities yet to be unlocked.

Water drains clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Earth’s rotation. The main factor that propels that belief is action of weather cyclones, which follow this pattern in both hemispheres. Cyclones are guided by the earth’s rotations and the resulting Coriolis effect. The Earth’s rotation is too weak to affect the direction of water flowing down in a drain. The direction of the flow depends of the structure any given fixture. A test in a few washrooms will show that water whirlpools both ways.

Vandalism of Your Mind

One of the main reasons error proliferates so easily is people don’t take much offense when they are provided with erroneous information. I take great offense when I discover someone has provided me with false information. I feel as if my mind has suffered vandalism.

A few years ago, I received an email that contained a link to a news story that seemed to have a strong connection to end-time events. I added the link to the RR News page. A couple of hours later, I received an email from some who pointed that the news story was bogus. It turns out it was produced by someone who got his kicks from creating false news stories and passing them off as credible.

I think anyone spreading lies in this manner should be dealt with as if he or she were a child molester. Many of mankind’s ills began with someone making a conscious decision to corrupt the truth. It should come as no surprise that God includes lying in His list of offenses worthy of hell fire.

“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).

Protecting Your Mind

Your mind is a special gift from God. It can potentially store 100 trillion thoughts. All that capacity for memory storage does us no good if we fill our minds with garbage. It’s important to take measures that prevent bad data from entering our gray matter.

The first step toward protecting our minds against falsehood is to realize there is an enemy who seeks to enslave us. Most of the world is under the control of some type of demonic delusion.

No one on this planet should be trusted by his or her word only. Everything needs to be verified with facts and with the Word of God. One of the reasons I don’t have a statement of faith on the site is because I don’t want to create any reason for people to trust what I have to say. If you like to be spoon fed from so-called experts, you’re eventually going to be served error.

The Bible is very specific about the need to guard our minds against false teachings. Paul sternly told the new church under his authority that they should conform every thought to the teaching of Christ.

“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).

It’s so important to know the truth. If you know the truth, you can instantly detect a lie. The Treasury Department doesn’t train its agents to detect counterfeit bills by showing them fake ones. They give them the genuine bills and instruct them on its security features. Once the agents become familiar with the real thing, they will be able to immediately identify a counterfeit note.

Speaking of Counterfeit

Mankind has a supernatural antagonist –the ultimate counterfeiter–who perpetrates viruses of both the cerebral and spiritual kinds. Sin is his tool to do the soul-killing job. His name is, of course, Satan. Sin is the disease that is species-wide. Both spirit and mind suffer from viruses that spin from this terminal illness.

Because of sin and the deluding influences of the viruses it produces, evil men and seducers grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived (2 Tim. 3:13). The reasoning ability of the mind becomes increasingly unable to discern. The spirit becomes callous, the conscience seared. It joins with the sin-virus of lying wickedness that eventually produces a reprobate mind.

Such minds lusts to heap deception upon deception. The truth can’t be found in such a sin-darkened condition.

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

Intellectual Atrophy the Result

The virus that results from sin dulls the intellect. It causes the person to become gullible, tearing down defenses that would otherwise guard the thinking processes. The people of Hitler’s Nazi Germany constituted one such mass example. They became convinced that the Fuhrer was their messiah and that the Jew was the cause of all that was wrong with the world. Satan is the father of all such intellectual viruses.

There are so many things in this world today that make no sense. People’s dealings with each other make for news that ranges from amusing to bizarre –from merely confusing to horrific.

Intellectual viruses are the manifestation of things within humanity that need correcting. Few would deny that many things do need change for the better.

There is one cure for this deadly malady, and one cure only for what ails Planet Earth’s inhabitants. About those who have taken the cure, God’s Word, the Bible, says the following: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7).