Amusement, Children, and Prayerless Disciples

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22).

Our children are bombarded with “fun and done.”  After one event of fun then we go on to the next.  Water rides, the pool, cookouts, trips, videos, gaming, eating out, and taking off from church ministry are the norm today.  America’s Christian Culture is entertaining our kids and ourselves to spiritual and emotional death.  It is not healthy.  We teach them inadvertently how to whisk their days away instead of numbering their days.

While we teach our children how to live by “do your work and then we play” attitude, adults are living continually on spiritual autopilot.  In our highly educated, technologically-hyped and prosperous society, and within our theologically almost astute Christian culture, we tend to settle for “zipper prayers” to open or close our days and gatherings.  Prayerlessness has become the attire of our independence from God.

Vance Havner said, “Few people would want to live where there are no churches but millions live as though there were no churches.” Church attendance is taken lightly today.  Hearing the Word of God cost aplenty in days gone by.  Where much is given, much shall be required.  Today’s land sees a famine of the hearing of God’s Word, not because we cannot hear it, but because we do not listen to it.  Moreover, as the text declares, there is the duty of doing it when we hear it.

Some things are inevitable, the status quo is here, but we do not have to be a part of this.  We should raise our heads and say, “Thy will be done.” I’m going for God and I’ll do my part and see that it is done. “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord“, Joshua of old said to the people of Israel.

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  • The Feast of Tabernacles

    “And on the third day eleven bullocks, two Rams, fourteen lambs of the first year without blemish” (Numbers 29:20).

    There is coming a day of remarkable position for the nation of Israel. The Feast of Tabernacles prophesy to the day when the Kingdom promises and the beautiful bountiful land of Israel will be fully restored and enlarged.

    All promises and prophecies of Scripture are fulfilled in Christ. God’s blood accomplished what the animal sacrifices could not. All sin is forgiven and God is able to move in and make a way.

    You and I cannot live without the intercession and ministry of our Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus. He represents us before the Father. He is our advocate, mediator, and intercessor. As the day approaches to the coming of the King we need to spend much time in His presence depending upon Him for His work in us and through us.

    The sacrifices given during the Feast of Tabernacles were expensive. The grace of God is given to us because of the great value and expense of God’s sacrifice of His only Son. We should be thankful and offer all we are and have up to Him.

    May we not give to the Lord that which costs us nothing (2 Samuel 24:24; Malachi 1:6-11). What great joy to know the Lord of lords and the God of glory is going to return to set up His Kingdom forever!

  • A Baby’s Sword

    “And it came to pass the third day after that I was delivered, that this woman was delivered also, and we were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, except we two were in the house” (I Kings 3:18).

    Two women who were harlots each gave birth to a child. Each slept that night in the same room and yet one woke up the morning after to discover the child next to her was dead and he was not hers. The other woman switched the baby at death.

    The case was brought before Solomon. What would he do? He said, “Bring me a sword” (I Ki 3.24). What does this mean? The king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other” (I Ki 3:25). The woman whose the living child was hers said, “O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it.”

    Two lessons we can learn. In every circumstance always use and wield the Word of God. It is a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). If we want to be effective cutting through this world and the words of others, let these words be upon your lips and may the Word of God be in your hand, “Bring me the sword.”

    The second lesson to draw from the true event described for us: Don’t allow division. A man or woman of God will not be identified with division in a marriage, a family, or a church body, for division leads either quickly or eventually to one thing: death. Don’t be a part of tolerating division unless it is for righteousness. May we be surrendered to God’s Word as Solomon and committed to unity as this mother was.

  • Momentary Marriage

    “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor or given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25).

    There is no human marriage after death. The shadow of the covenant made before God turns into reality in the moment of death. It is the reality of marriage to Christ–the marriage of His glorified Church. Nothing is lost. The music of marriage is transposed into something much higher.

    Those who have departed this world are closer to each other in love than they were on earth. They “shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). They are perfect which points to the glory of Christ.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer was engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer before he was hanged at dawn on April 9, 1945. He was a young pastor in Germany. He opposed Hitler and Nazism, and because of this he was arrested and assassinated. While in prison he wrote these words from the military section of the prison at Tegel, Berlin. He called it “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell.”

     

    Marriage is more than your love for each other…in your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal–it is status, and office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sights of God and man.

     

    Marriage is more than your love for each other. Much more! The meaning of marriage is the display of the convent-keeping love between Christ and those who have been born from above. Romance, sex, and childbearing are temporary gifts of God. They are not part of the next life. And they are not even guaranteed for this life. May marriage be recognized “for the praise of his glory.” May we realize that marriage is more than about us but about Him.  Amen.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Mary Ida Sutton Stephens

     

    Mary Ida Stephens will be spoken of today in our church where she attended faithfully and participated beautifully. As her pastor, there is an emptiness that has affected me since her sickness and Home-Going. It was the last few weeks of her life that really concerned me, that drew my heart to the God of heaven for her and the family she loved. Early on Sunday morning she passed into glory; that still leaves a void in the heart.

     

    I am so grateful for God’s good work in her and God’s good work through her. She brightened our lives and others. Her fingerprints will continue to be seen and missed. Mary Ida touched a lot of lives. She is indelibly etched upon our hearts and minds.

     

    At this time we are reminded of God’s gift He gave to us here at Kinnett. Lots of good things happened when Ron and Mary Ida made their way to Morehead Street in Burlington. They were such a blessing!

     

    We love her family. They have been supportive of Ida and have been very kind to her. We have seen the grace of our great and wonderful God to her children and her family. It is hard to replace a lady like unto her. But who wants to replace her?  She was unique, loving, talented, and gracious.

     

    I pray that when God takes us home that it will be said of each that we have effected change.  May it be said, “We loved God more than anything or anyone.”

     

    Give God all of yourself; don’t hold anything back – for only what’s done for Christ will last. We think if we hold on to this or hold on to that tightly that all be good. No, my friend, what we give up and give over and lose will be that which we will hold in eternity.

     

    We look forward to the day when we will see, again, Mary Ida Stephens. Her body will be laid to rest today awaiting resurrection. She is not here. She is with her Lord and all of the saints of glory! What a reunion it will be when we will see Mary Ida in the light of Christ’s glory.

     

    I love you dearly,

     

    Pastor Don

  • Tempered Steel

    “Then he {God} chose David, his servant, handpicked him from his work in the sheep pens. One day he was caring for the ewes and their lambs, the next God had him shepherding Jacob, his people, Israel, his prize possession” (Psalm 78:70-71).

    Financial reversals, betrayal, depression, family difficulties, and the consequences of poor personal decisions can wreck a person’s life.  David left tracks for us to follow. Just read the book of Psalms and you will see that David encountered being knocked out of the saddle many times. But David found God to be faithful. The dismal swamps were also seen and David was weighed down, but he also felt the fresh, exhilarating winds on the mountaintops of accomplishment.

    God works strangely. He often enriches by impoverishing. King David was a man taken from the pasture tending sheep to the palace leading a nation. How did God get David in the place of shepherding a nation? He used trapdoors and pit stops. He used transition. God used anointing by the hand of Samuel in secret, of course, but God used anguish by the hand of Saul in public to train and teach David the leadership God had for him.

    You don’t ascend to the status of an All-Star overnight without difficulties and obstacles. Many of us have forgotten that many people go through trials and difficulties, fall through trap doors, and face many pit stops in their lives. We forget that God is working for them and in them.

    Look around and see if you are caring and carrying these “misfortunates” in your prayers and actions. See if the Lord is first place in your hearts for them? Ask yourself do you really care? Sometimes we spend so much more time in other pursuits that we forget how good God has been to us. There is a trail. There is a path God has designed for them and for us. And it would be great if we recognized them as the hand of a merciful and good God.

     

     

     

     

  • When Old Faithful Isn’t

    There was a bothersome headline a while back from the USA Today, “Old Faithful Gets Fickle.” What? The famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park was not as faithful as it once was. The 140 foot tower of steam erupted faithfully about every 66 minutes, but something was not right as the report continued.
    The eruption could be predicted for 12:11 p.m. But it didn’t occur until 12:18 p.m. The one predicted for 2:46 p.m. jumped the gun at 2:38 p.m. The problem was that underground shifts by minor earthquakes occurred, plus vandalism by visitors. The “Tommy Tourists” would come by and throw things into the geyser’s hole, from chicken bones to underwear. What?
    Most of us have had something or someone that was kind of our “Old Faithful”, but they became “Old Unpredictable.” It might have been a job that you used to have and depended upon for a long time. Or it could have been a mate that took off and left you holding air and nothing but hopelessness. Maybe it was your parents’ marriage that hurt you deeply that caused a rift for your growing up days.
    Maybe your church or your spiritual leaders have let you down and they were once your “Old Faithful.” It hurts when an “Old Faithful” isn’t anymore. It leaves us disoriented, and afraid, and even unsure of ourselves or unsure of others. Our future can seem so drear and so uncertain. But don’t let it bring you down. While others let you down, you don’t have to go down.
    Remember this for today. Jeremiah says, “I remember my afflictions and wandering, the bitterness and the gall, I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail, they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him” (Lam. 3:19).