General Articles

Everybody I Know Has Some Form of Ailment :: By Todd Strandberg

Published on: by RR10

I recently discovered that every single person I know above the age of 40 has some form of major medical condition. The general rule for all of these is that if they were to become more profound, it could have fatal consequences. It’s no wonder why the federal government’s budget for Medicare/Medicaid is $1.5 trillion. This is nearly twice as much as we spend on defense.

I marvel at how oblivious I was to mortality in my teenage years. I had all the energy in the world. If I fell, I never got hurt because I was seemingly made of rubber. Today, if I hit my hand against a table, I’ll have a black and blue mark a couple of days later. I can be sitting at my desk, and suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my foot, leg, or side. There is no underlying medical event. It’s just my nerves going off in some age-related misfire.

There are several people related to the site whom I call at least once a year. During the last month of 2023, I talked to about 10 individuals. I did a health survey of most of them, promising not to mention any names, and most spoke about their ability to write. One person said their hand trembled, another person said he made several mistakes because of early-stage dementia, and another said their vision was getting very bad.

I’ve noticed my near vision has been getting worse. If I look at any small print, I will often use a magnifying glass. To read a book, I need bright light and reading glasses. Oddly enough, my vision for distance viewing has not changed in over 30 years.

People who have obstacles in their ability to write may consider themselves lucky. About two dozen people once submitted articles to RR that are no longer living. When we don’t hear from some folks for several years, we can only assume that they’ve gone home to be with the Lord.

The only TV I watch is the nightly news broadcasts. I’ve noticed that the majority of ads are for drugs. I’m amazed that so many of these drugs are for afflictions I’ve never heard of before. One example is Skyrizi, which is used to treat Crohn’s disease. In just the first six months of 2023, there had been six billion ads run for this drug.

I read about one company that had a cancer drug that it was working on. The firm’s progress generated a huge reaction on Wall Street, with its stock price going up better than 50 percent. I thought that the drug might be a cure for some type of cancer, but that was not the case. The drug, at best, would only make some people live a couple of months longer. My faith is in a Healer that can extend your life into eternity.

I was standing in line at Walgreens to pick up a couple of prescriptions, and I saw this woman with a small grocery cart. A tech person came around with several large bags. She filled the cart with some type of medical supply. I didn’t think it was my business to ask what prescription would be so massive in size. The next time I’m at Walgreens, I plan to ask if they can explain what I witnessed.

Many doctors ask you to bring all your pill bottles to an appointment so they can review your prescriptions. I was at the Omaha Heart Hospital, and one guy had a jumbo Ziploc bag with at least 20 pill bottles. With starch being a prime ingredient in pills, his prescriptions could be a key source for his caloric intake.

On Oct 1, I met with my doctor about some lab results. He said I had early warning signs with my liver that might become problematic 10 years down the road. I’m not opposed to making dietary changes to better my health. From the current vantage point, 10 years might as well be a century down the road. With the way the last decade digressed, I wouldn’t consider it a blessing to see another round play out.

The unfortunate reality with ailments is that they don’t get better with time. Some diseases do improve, but in most cases, reprieves are only for a limited amount of time. If you develop Type 2 diabetes, you will very likely have to watch your blood sugar for the rest of your life.

As I get older, I realize what a wonderful thing it will be to get a new body at the moment of the rapture. When I go to the grocery store, I find myself winded to come home and stock the refrigerator and the pantry. The greatest prize of heaven is Jesus purifying us from all sin. It is an extra reward to realize we will be able to race around glory like an Olympic athlete.

I’m thankful that modern medical science has extended my life with a three-way bypass in 2014. If it wasn’t for the need for me to guide those who are still lost, I would probably be irritated that the doctors worked to keep me pinned to this evil world.

“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (Corinthians 15:53-55 KJV).

What Really Matters :: By Dave Hubley

Published on: by RR10

(There is a special message at the end of this article for those who might happen to read this and do not have Jesus in their life and are looking for peace and a way to better understand the present-day insanity and confusion.)

In the course of human events, there are many things that have happened that are irrevocable because you cannot go back and undo what has already occurred.

Fact: HMS Titanic. People argue or debate whether the ship was going too fast, whether it could have survived if they had simply rammed the iceberg head-on, and most often, if the captain was careless in ignoring iceberg reports because he was trying to set a record for crossing the Atlantic. The ship has now been lying at the bottom of the sea for over 111 years, and some 1500 souls perished because there were not a sufficient number of lifeboats.

Just so no one gets the sense that I am callous about human suffering, I will relate another more personal event.

Fact: On September 1, 1961, my brother Tim, along with 77 other souls, died when TWA flight 529 crashed shortly after takeoff from Midway Airport in Chicago. I still remember looking out the window for the school bus when my parents pulled back into the dooryard shortly after leaving for work. I saw my mother weeping, and I knew what she would say before they even came inside. There were numerous reasons speculated as to the reason for the crash. As it turned out many months later, it was determined to be a 5/16″ bolt that fell off the rear wing elevator, so the aircraft went nose-up and stalled.

All the initial speculation and even the final conclusions reached relative to these events didn’t change the facts on the ground.

While analyzing any accident/tragedy has merit if it is done in order to prevent a recurrence, it can’t undo what has already occurred or change the finality of it.

There is no shortage of these types of events recorded in history, but I don’t want the point of this article to get lost in details that cannot be altered.

They are what they are.

In the Bible, the Word of God, there are about 300 prophecies about the coming Messiah.

Up to this point in history, all the prophecies about the first advent of this Messiah have been fulfilled in the most minute and intricate detail.

Perhaps the oldest and most significant of these is recorded in the Book of Genesis, providing confirmation of the Sovereignty of God and His intent right from the beginning:

“And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).

Moses, the Old Testament prophet and leader of the Hebrews, prophesied the coming Messiah in the Book of Deuteronomy:

“The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear” (Deuteronomy 18:15).

Moses did not name the Messiah because God had not revealed His name at that time, but he did promise that He would be a fellow Hebrew raised up from among them.

However, God did reveal all that was or ever has been necessary to identify the Messiah accurately via the Old Testament prophets. These are just a few examples.

  • He would be born as a child: (Isaiah 9:6-7)
  • He would be born in Bethlehem: (Micah 5:2)
  • He would describe Himself as the Bread of Life: (John 6:48)

{Bethlehem literally means “House of Bread”}

  • How He would live, how He would be treated, and how He would die: (Isaiah 52:13-15 and Isaiah 53:1-12)
  • 1000 years before Messiah’s first advent, King David would describe what He would endure to pay for the sins of all who would receive Him as Savior and Lord (Psalm 22).

The record of His birth in Bethlehem and the fulfillment of all the prophecies are contained within the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

  • His mother was instructed to name Him Jesus:

“So the angel told her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High'” (Luke 1:30-32).

The many other minutely detailed prophecies about the details of His conception, virgin birth, and all other prophecies about the Messiah, up to and including His sacrificial death on the cross (Isaiah 53:5) in Jerusalem, have been fulfilled in every detail.

Jesus lamented the fate of Jerusalem because the Jews could not recognize the fulfillment of their own prophetic Scriptures and would not accept him even though He was the long-awaited Messiah.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:37-38).

In 70AD, Jerusalem was laid waste by the Roman army. This prophecy was fulfilled, just as Jesus foretold.

Even the many prophecies made by Jesus Himself about the destruction of the Jewish Temple and conditions in the world prior to His return have or are being fulfilled even now (Matthew 24:1-8, Mark 13:1-8, Luke 21:5-9).

God has seen to it that the fulfillment of these prophecies can be easily researched and proven by anyone who cares to do so, as they are a part of world history. They have been fulfilled completely or are ongoing even today. They cannot be undone.

Now, to the crux of this article.

There is a significant difference between events that have occurred in terms of tragedies, disasters, or other events that have happened in everyday life, either by happenstance, as a result of human neglect, or even by intent. They were not revealed hundreds or even thousands of years before they were to happen. That they would come to pass at all, much less the minute details of the event, would be quite beyond the capabilities of man to predict or to orchestrate.

There is only one source of Power and Sovereignty that is capable of this kind of detailed and accurate control over every detail of history in advance of it occurring.

“Remember this, and show yourselves men; Recall to mind, O you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure'” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Someone might say something similar to, “Oh, I don’t believe in God.”

That doesn’t change a single, solitary thing about Him or His Sovereign will.

Nothing.

Given the fulfillment of these many prophecies up to the present time, What really matters?

It is this. The balance of the prophecies presented to humankind in the New and in the Old Testament will occur when the Lord executes them, and no power of or on earth can stop them. Jesus Himself proclaims:

“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, ‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, “He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens” (Revelation 3:7).

This same Jesus, the One and Only Savior, the only means by which God has determined that He will forgive sins and grant eternal life to those who will receive Him as both Lord and Savior, also proclaimed:

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev 3:20).

You can escape (Yes, I said escape, for that is what it will be) the terrible fate of those who reject the Grace and Mercy of God when He executes the judgments of Isaiah 2:12-22 and Revelation 4:1-20:15).

No matter what your sins, short of rejecting the Grace and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God has promised forgiveness to those who will repent (Matthew 12:31).

I do not know you, but I pray you will open your eyes and your heart to the reality of the impending completion of God’s long-promised judgment of what has become a God-hating world system, and the Salvation offered by and paid for by Jesus Christ on our behalf and Live.

The special message I promised you:

For anyone who may read this article and has not trusted in Jesus Christ and therefore has no hope or peace in your life.

You can have hope. You can have the peace that Jesus has promised to all who have made Him their Lord and Savior. The peace that passes understanding.

It requires that you come before God on His terms.

And, what are His terms according to His Word?

  • Genuine repentance (turning to God instead of continuing to reject or ignore Him).
  • Confession of sins (that you are a sinner and acknowledge that to God).
  • That you understand that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
  • To acknowledge to God that you are unable to pay that debt.
  • Belief that Jesus Christ paid your death sentence for you on the cross.
  • To believe that Jesus is the Way, the only Way, that God has established by which humans may be saved from the consequences of their sin and rebellion.

God has made it absolutely clear that there is no one who comes before Him, under His terms, that will be refused.

  • No one: no race, no color, no country of origin, regardless of any previous belief system: no one.
  • No matter what your past sins have been, God can and WILL forgive you because He says He will.
  • Salvation is available to everyone without any exceptions.

If you put all your trust for salvation in Jesus, and Him only, you can follow that prayer up by simply saying, “Thank you, Father God, for hearing my prayer and saving me,” because we can trust Him to keep His Word. He always has. He always will.

“Truly, Truly, I say to you that he who hears My words and believes the One who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed from death to life” (John 5:24).

There are no answers and there is no hope in the world by governments, organizations, politics or politicians. There are only lies and deception. But you can have the Truth and the peace you seek.

The answers are in the Word of God–The Bible. If you ask God, with all your heart, He will hear you.

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

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To contact me: canoeman96@gmail.com