General Articles

Count Your Blessings :: By Rob Pue

Published on: by RR7

In these times of trouble and tribulation with all that’s happening in the world today, it’s easy to succumb to a spirit of hopelessness, despair, and grief — for the deceived, lost and perishing people around us, and yes, even for ourselves. It’s especially grievous when those deceived, lost and perishing are people we know and love. Perhaps even our own spouses, children and grandchildren.

We look around and see how Satan and his demons seem to be in charge of everything now, and how truth is now regarded as “hate speech,” having fallen in the streets long ago. We see how successful the enemy has become at twisting hearts and minds and fundamentally changing our society and culture and the entire world all around us; and it’s easy to become discouraged. There are so many lies, so much hatred, so many who have departed from the faith and have chosen instead to follow doctrines of demons. Yes, it can become very disheartening.

But here’s what I KNOW: “God’s Word is truth” (John 17:17). And the Bible He has given us, from Genesis to Revelation, is FILLED with all we need to know about the history — and the future — of this world. It is FILLED with all we need to know to live our lives as God’s own children, to raise OUR children to know and love Him, and to learn to disciple others and share the Good News of the Kingdom and Jesus’ redeeming work on the cross with them as well. It’s also FILLED with warnings about what NOT to do, how NOT to live in this world… as well as instruction on how to fight the spiritual battles that threaten to ensnare us every day. In short, God’s Word is FILLED with everything we need to equip us to live here on this earth and to prepare us for eternity. We need no other instruction than that which He has already graciously given.

Having said that, I’d like us to consider today just how much JOY, PRAISE, and BEAUTY we also find in God’s holy Book. And though it’s easy to take our eyes off of our Creator and dwell on the negative, there are virtually countless Scriptures that talk about God’s goodness, His peace, the Comfort of the Holy Spirit, and especially giving thanks.

Just as WE appreciate it when our earthly children are THANKFUL to us for all we provide and do for them, our Heavenly Father wants US to be thankful to Him as well. And we have SO MUCH to be thankful FOR! You know, you cannot be discouraged or depressed AND THANKFUL for all the many blessings you’ve received from the Lord at the same time… it’s just not possible.  So I encourage you to be THANKFUL today… and every day to the One who Created us and this amazing “habitat” called “Earth” that He designed as our temporary home.

I’m reminded of the old hymn by John Oatman, written in 1897, titled “Count Your Blessings.” It goes like this:

“When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost; Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

“Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear? Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly, and you will keep singing as the days go by.

“So, amid the conflict whether great or small, do not be discouraged, God is over all; Count your many blessings, angels will attend, Help and comfort give you, to your journey’s end.”

Oftentimes, when I find myself loaded down with burdens and cares, I’m not able to sleep at night, or to calm my troubled mind. So I spend time in prayer, and then I begin to count MY many blessings. A word of caution here: if you DO this — (begin to count your blessings) — instead of helping you fall into peaceful sleep, oftentimes I find myself UNABLE to name all the many blessings God has so graciously given me, and I find I’m actually so filled with thankfulness and wonder and awe at what God has done for ME, I’m too excited to sleep after not very long!

I think of God’s beautiful Creation — the entire universe, designed and set in motion and sustained by His mighty hand. Through a powerful telescope on a dark, starry night, I’ve seen with my own eyes the rings of Saturn, and other planets, close up; not to mention our own moon — created by God and placed in just the right spot to not just light our way at night but also to help sustain life on our planet.

And this beautiful, wondrous earth. I have been blessed to be able to see and enjoy more of it in my lifetime than I ever thought I would… I’ve been to the highest mountain peaks in North America (and played in the snow at those summits with my kids on my birthday in August) …as well as the lowest point called “Death Valley.” I’ve swam in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, I’ve been to tropical rain forests and desolate, wind-swept deserts. I’ve seen the raging rivers and the awesome power of Niagara Falls. Living in Wisconsin, I’ve spent much time taking in the splendor of the Great Lakes. I was even blessed to pilot a steamship part-way across Lake Michigan one time.

I’m constantly amazed at God’s creation. Just the sheer BEAUTY of it is beyond description. And I often wonder what Eden must have been like, before the fall. When everything was perfect. As incredibly beautiful as our earth is today, none of us can even begin to imagine what it once was — and will one day be again — when the New Heaven and New Earth appear.

Before Adam sinned, everything was perfect. But once mankind disobeyed God and brought sin and death upon us, our earth began producing thorns and thistles. There were no thorns before that… just beauty and perfection. I think of what Christ did on that old rugged cross for those who repent and call upon His name… and how His tormentors tortured Him so cruelly before nailing Him to that Tree… they even went “the extra mile” by fashioning a crown of thorns and jamming it into His head. Think of that:  THORNS… the very thing that was brought upon this earth by our own disobedience and unbelief.  Those thorns were part of the curse when God cursed the ground because of OUR sin.

But now think of THIS: Jesus Christ, our Lord, REVERSED that curse and conquered sin and death for us as He wore that crown of thorns on His head! Truly, those who murdered Him knew NOT what they were doing — and Satan perhaps even thought he had “won.” But God worked even that wretchedness together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Yes, He wore the crown of thorns — He bore the curse and He REVERSED the curse for all who will repent and turn to Him.

Yes, I’m very thankful for this beautiful world God made for us. And all the animals and birds and flowers He filled it with for our pleasure. Each one an incredibly amazing, unique creation. Some of you know I am a bird-lover; if you just look at the incredible design of BIRDS alone — the many different ways each one is designed… some colorful and bright, “painted” with such creativity and splendor by the Master Craftsman Himself. Some with unbelievable eyesight… I’ll always remember the time I was out on a lake watching in awe as a Bald Eagle soared high overhead, circling. Suddenly, he swooped down just above the surface of the lake, and before my eyes snatched a fish from the water and flew it home to his Eagle family for dinner! Yes, God let me see that. Amazing.

Some birds don’t even fly — they swim, like penguins. But each one is beautiful, and each is designed with everything it needs to live and survive, and each is FED by the hand of God.  Now think of all the other animals the Lord made; then think of the “lillies of the field!” Some designed to be our food; some just for the pure beauty of seeing them, because God LIKED them!

And I have to wonder, looking around JUST AT CREATION, how anyone could ever even question the fact that there is a God in heaven who made all this. Romans 1 tells us, “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead….” Yes, those who doubt God are, indeed, without excuse.

The human body is also a miracle of Creation. There is nothing else like it, designed for our souls to live in on this earth, but also blessed with the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. Did you ever consider God did not HAVE to give us all these things? But He wanted us to be able to experience ALL these wondrous aspects of His creation — and in the New Heaven and New Earth, I can only imagine the wonders He has in store for our new, restored bodies!

Then, think of the changing seasons. The warmth and beauty of summer. The spectacular colors and crispness in the air at harvest time. The restoration time when the world sleeps during the winter, and then the rebirth that comes in the spring.

If you look around, you’ll see there is such BEAUTY and MAGNIFICENCE in this world that God provided for our earthly home. It’s hard to believe there are so many who continue to hate Him, deny Him, persecute those who love Him, and seek to destroy all that is beautiful, lovely, and good.

Yes, there is great beauty, but also great ugliness. On one side you have the things of God and His incredible creation, His amazing design for mankind. You have the natural family, one man and one woman, designed to be united for life in holy matrimony, a covenant union, producing beautiful babies that we are to nurture, train up and teach all we know about our Heavenly Father, teaching THEM to honor and revere their Lord too. On the other side you have darkness, evil schemes, greed, lies, deceit, treachery, sorcery, demonism, hedonism, and death. Spiritual warfare continues, and daily we are to put on the armor of God that we might stand firm in our faith and resist the wiles and temptations of the enemy.

And again, the work of spiritual warfare — which we are ALL, as Christians, CALLED to engage in, serving as a restraining force against evil in this world — is much easier for us when we count our blessings and remain THANKFUL to God for each one. Psalm 95:2, “Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!” Psalm 106 and 107 both begin with the same words: “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His steadfast love endures forever.” And in case you didn’t catch the gist of those Scriptures, look at all of Psalm 136!

Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!” And we all know Philippians 4:6 and 7, “Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

And continuing on in Philippians, in Verse 8: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

We have so much to be thankful for. Yes, the world around us may be dark and growing darker every day. We may very well be at the closing end of days here on this earth, and we may be precariously perched on the precipice of the Great Tribulation when the wrath of God is unleashed on all those who hate Him. But while we are still here, while we still have breath in our lungs, there is still good work for us to do. And our job is to BE His Church, to BE the salt and light of the world, to serve as His restraining force against the evil of the enemy, to preach the Gospel and make disciples, and to ALWAYS be thankful  to our Creator and Sustainer and to praise Him in all circumstances. There is no greater calling and no greater purpose.

When the enemy of our souls has you discouraged and depressed — again, simply begin to count your blessings and name them, one by one. Thank the Lord for all He’s given you; and then with a grateful heart for the privilege of serving your King, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back to work. Use your talents wisely because there comes a day, perhaps soon, when no man will be able to work; so let us be about His business as good stewards of the faith and press on, rejoicing always and thanking God for His abundant love and grace toward us. Let there never be found among us any hint of grumbling or murmuring or ungratefulness.

Our Lord has made us His own children, and we’ve been blessed beyond all measure. Thank Him, every day, and let’s do EVERYTHING we do as service unto our Lord. I pray you and your loved ones will have a blessed and happy time of Thanksgiving this year — not just for a day, but every day, as you work to minister to and serve all those around you.

—————

Audio CDs and transcripts of this message are available when you call me at Wisconsin Christian News, (715) 486-8066. Or email Rob@WisconsinChristianNews.com and ask for message number 270.

 

The Last Days and the Left’s Lies, Part 3 :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR7

Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.”

Once again thanks for the emails that you send. Some are encouraging and others not so, and that is okay. The mere fact the people are reading these articles is enough for me. Plus, those that are not encouraging force me to be more deliberate in my study and in my defense of what is true. George Orwell said this, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Jesus put it this way in John 3:19-20:

“And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light, because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”

As we approach the Last Days, the prevalence of lies will grow and grow as the world system prepares the masses for the Anti-Christ to appear. Remember that there will be strong deception once the Lord’s churches are taken out of the way, and then God will send strong delusions that the people should believe THE LIE. In 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 we see this dire warning:

“10 and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. 11 For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, 12 in order that judgment will come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.”

Notice in verse 10 that these who refused to love truth have every wicked deception directed against them. They reject the very truth that will save them; and, ultimately, they will be allowed to believe all the lies of the world system and then, in particular, THE LIE (see verse 11), whatever that lie will be about the missing billions of people that have been suddenly taken out of this world by God. This is why it is so important that the Bible tells us in Hebrews 10:25 that we need to assemble together more and more as we see the last days approaching. While we are together, we are to encourage each other; and, more importantly, we are to spend time in the truth of the Bible. Without it and its truths, we too could fall prey to the lies of the system around us.

Let me offer one lie that is coming to a head as an example, and then we will move on to the actual lesson. The world keeps telling us that men and women are the same. So, when men who identify as women want to compete in women’s sports, they completely dominate. Right now, trans-men are dominating women’s athletics, cycling, wrestling, weightlifting, and on we can go. It is clear to the real women that the men are stronger, faster and have more endurance. Let me offer an example, according to Google:

The fastest women’s mile runner is Sifan Hassan who recently set the world record with a time of 4 mins 12 seconds; however, the fastest man is Hicham El Guerrouj with a time of 3 mins 43 seconds (29 seconds faster). Just a week or so ago, a man broke the 2-hour mark on a marathon. Men are bigger, stronger, faster, often have more endurance, different muscle structure, different fat contents in the body, and on and on we can go. This is the truth; God made us that way. But the Lies of the left are going to destroy women’s sports because no one wants to admit the truth.

Sadly, too many Christians have fallen into the lies because we do not spend enough time in the truth. Christians are not called to be social justice warriors; we are called to manage the planet, but only God can save it. We have two jobs: love God wholeheartedly and then love your neighbour. This is all done so that people can see Jesus more and more and come to Him for salvation.

Now to the actual lesson for today. Over the past few weeks, we have looked at another verse in conjunction with our theme verse; that is 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

In the first two lessons, we looked at the importance of doctrine, and we mentioned things like the doctrine of Creation: God made us in His image. The doctrine of Salvation: Jesus is the only way to be saved. As we mentioned earlier, there is a doctrine that God made men and women differently, and there is no amount of social engineering that will change the genetics that God put in place. Men cannot be women, and women cannot be men. It is that simple; no matter how many surgeries they have, or hormones they take, they cannot change the DNA. This is a doctrine.

In the last lesson, we spoke about reproof and correction. Reproof is defined as “an expression of blame or disapproval.” Correction is defined as “a change that rectifies an error or an inaccuracy.” Thus, reproof is pointing out sin and wrong; correction is then doing it the right way. We gave an example of this reproof and correction from Ephesians 4:28:

“Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”

Here Paul highlights the improper behavior: stealing, and offers a correction: go and work. The Bible is filled with these; take the time to read the book of Proverbs.

Now we will look at the final part of the verse from 2 Timothy. Before we do, let us recap the theme verse from Proverbs 29:18: People need proper revelation, the proper teaching and exposition of the word of God to help them to be restrained in evil. Simply put, the more a society hears the teachings of the word of God, the less evil the people will be. Now you can understand why there is such a push to remove the Bible from the schools, from the public in general, and to remove the Ten Commandments from view, to remove in God we trust from sight. To make the Bible out to be an obsolete book that is filled with racism and violence, a book to be avoided not embraced.

It is very hard to promote sin and evil if the majority of the people know the Bible. It is hard to promote socialism, for instance, when the Bible makes the idea of personal ownership of things like land and livestock a man’s right. It is very hard to promote paying people not to work when the Bible says a man who does not work should not eat. It is very hard to promote abortions when the Bible addresses babies in the womb as people with a purpose from God (read Jeremiah 1). We also see that true happiness comes from obeying God’s laws; yes, by living under God’s rules.

The Bible, when properly taught, provides us with foundational truths called doctrines; it provides us with an understanding of what is wrong and tells us what is right. Once these two parts are in place, we are then equipped to do “good works.” Equipped to live righteously. One cannot live righteously without proper doctrine and without Godly reproof and correction. Good works is the fruit of the two.

Now let us first deal with the Lie of the Left: They say we are all good. Man, they say, is intrinsically good and may at times make a few mistakes. The saying ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ was coined a while ago, and neither side is true. We are not okay. A society without laws does not get better. Let me offer an example: There is a movie series called The Purge; there are several movies in the franchise, and I have watched one of them. The premise is that for one night there is no law. On this one night, you can do whatever you want without fear of the police. The movie is filled with death, pain and mayhem. This is what really happens when men cast off restraint. We unleash the evil in us. The Bible puts it this way in Romans 3:10-18:

10 As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;

11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God.

12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”

13 “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit.”

“The poison of asps is under their lips.”

14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”

15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;

17 And the way of peace they have not known.”

18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

This is the reality of who we are without Jesus. Read it slowly; let it sink in. Let the Holy Spirit open your eyes to what mankind is like without Jesus. According to these verses, we are incapable of good works. Look at verse 12: “There is none who does good, no, not one.” Neither you nor I can do anything good. You are not okay, and neither am I.

But God has a ray of hope to offer us. When we take the Word of God seriously – when we regard it as precious, when we properly study it, read it, recall it, store it in our minds, when we submit it and regard it as powerful in our lives – we are then equipped in Jesus to do good works. But they can only be done after we have submitted to proper doctrine: God is Holy; we are not. God is good; we are not. God can save us; we need to be saved. Good works can then be done once we have begun the process of allowing God to change us. This is called sanctification or transformation; this is after we have been saved and now have the Holy Spirit living in us.

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Now, we can do good works. Now we can begin to be obedient to God. The Holy Spirit in us, and we are clothed in the righteousness of God and not in our own goodness, which the Bible tells us is no goodness at all. In Jesus, clothed in His righteousness, indwelt by His Holy Spirit and armed with the Holy Word of God, we are now capable of doing good works; and the first work is the surrender of our own bodies to the Lord. Take the time to read these verses in Romans 12: 1-2:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

We will pick up with these verses next week and discover how we can do good works in Jesus, by Jesus, and for His glory.

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