A Great Warning

Take the resource we have provided from the Pocket Testament League, The Gospel of John, and give it out to family, friends, and others through any means you can.

 

The Lottie Moon Christmas is a great way to give so that our foreign missionaries can share the Good News of Christ overseas. Consider a sacrificial gift to enhance and enable. The costs to keep a family overseas, on average, are about $141.00 a day.

 

What a great way to invest the month of December! The Christ of Christmas is coming again!

 

 

Thanksgiving is a result of being filled with the Spirit of God. We are not thankful for one day but for every day of the year. Even in the bad circumstances, we should be focused on Him-the Author and Finisher of our faith. Only the Spirit of God can make us truly thankful. If you have the life of Christ in you then you have the greatest of possibilities to be thankful.

It is only God in you who will allow you to rejoice, to sing, to be aware of what He is doing. Only as you and I stay in constant contact with our Savior can we know what it means to be true to worship, pray, and praise. If we are not consciously thinking of His presence in us then we will back out of the Throne Room of God and find nothing but the world, the flesh, and Satan enticing us to our own resources.

How sad it is when we are in the reality of the presence of Christ in us! Turn from sin and turn to the Savior. Live and move and have your being in Him.

May we think so we may thank!

December 2019

That Name! Jesus!

There’s no other name as great as the name of Jesus. Names are most important especially when you move into the world of the Bible. It is in this context that God put a face on Himself and called His name Jesus. God’s only begotten Son came into the world of names. Names such as Adam, Abraham, Ahab, Abner, some good names, others bad in character.

The Bible says of the Lord Jesus, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew1:21). I remember our youth carrying that banner down Main Street in Graham one Christmas holiday season along with all kinds of floats, people, and animals. I felt so good about that name and prayed as we carried the banner that others would love the Name that loved them.

Remember to take that name, Jesus, with you this Christmas Season. This child born on Christmas Day is both God and man! As man, He was born and shared in sinless human nature. As God, He was given-the Father’s love-gift to a sinful world. This child would be God in human flesh. That is amazing!
And He died in our place for the glory of the Father!

One day all will bow at the feet of Jesus. Men should bow now and shall bow then. All creation will bow and kneel before this blessed Name. I pray that if you don’t know that Name that you will find His Name in your heart of hearts. Let’s share the Name that all Heaven sings about and rejoices over this Christmas season. May we share that name, bear that name, and wear that name so that all the world would know that His name is Wonderful!

Left Behind (Preached on March 29th, 2020) Matthew 24:36-41
Prophecy seems to be out of place these days in our preaching unless a tragedy takes place. People go immediately to sensationalism to scourging the preaching but we need to go to the Scripture. The soon coming of the Lord seems to as common as American as apple pie, hotdogs, and baseball. We don’t think much about it. But we should! Jesus is coming again.
Our world is anxious today and worried. Everything has been turned upside down. Jobs are shut down, parking lots are empty, nonessential businesses have closed. And the church is emptied of its congregants. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me…” (John 14:1). The Lamb of God is coming for the lambs of God. We are seeing a dress rehearsal for the coming tribulation.
People don’t believe in the rapture. Enoch did. Elijah did. Jesus did. Paul did. One day Jesus is coming back to catch us away. You find that in I Thessalonians 4:13ff. Who are going to be taken up with Him? The ones who have been born again, who have the same nature as God. Those who have a second birth. Those who follow Jesus as Lord on earth.
Some things out of place at this time. The bride is not with the bridegroom. The Jews are not back in the land of Israel. Satan is not in hell. Jesus is not reigning in Jerusalem from David’s throne. God is preparing all things to fulfill these prophecies.
One day children will disappear from their beds. Moms will be missing. Pilots will be taken up. Bus drivers and car drivers will exit their cars. One man working beside another and one is taken. Two in bed, a man and his wife, and one is taken.

1. A Word of Caution (Matthew 24:36)
   We don’t know when the event will take place but we know it will. Millions will vanish without a trace. It will be a worldwide event. In less than a millisecond, there will be an evacuation, an exit, an entry into the glory to be with the Lord forever. Can you imagine the anguish when loved ones have been taken and many don’t know where they are? We look at the nation of Israel. It was reformed as a nation in 1948. Never has this happened to any other nation or state. Jesus said this is the budding of the fig tree and when this happens the coming of the tribulation is nigh. That means before the tribulation happens the rapture will take place. Only when the true church is taken from this world will we see this happen. The world is awaiting a devastating day. And they do not know it and they are indifferent to it.
2. A Word of Contemplation (Matthew 24:37-41)
   Look at the situation today: politically, economically, ecclesiastically, and morally. Jesus said these things would take place and the world will be shaken from its moorings. Their anchor will be pulled up. Everything people have lived for, sold their souls for, will suddenly, fatally, finally be taken away. Noah preached for 120 years and only 8 got in the ark. He was a preacher of righteousness. With every blow of the hammer, with each cutting down of a tree, with the dabbing of tar on the boards of the ark to waterproof the ark from the water, God was speaking. God is saying things today. Adrian Rogers said, “I would rather scare you into hell than lull you into hell.” Too many are not ready! Mortality is coming, hell is coming, and people are being warned by today’s situations. Too many say they know Christ but the question is does He know them? Many Christians are asleep and they will stand at the judgment seat of God to be shown their bad works before a holy and righteous God.
3. A Word of Concern (Matthew 24: 42-51)
   After the rapture God will focus His concern on the earth. He is going to allow man to continue in their rebellion. They will ruin themselves. Then Satan will come in the person of the Anti-Christ to rule over and stamp his mark of 666 on earth of his subjects. But at the last 3 1/2 years of the Great Tribulation, God will begin to pour out his bowls of judgment upon the earth dwellers. They will cry out for the rocks of the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb of God. Can you imagine that? What should we do as God’s people? Be watchful! Be Warned! Be Awake! What should the lost do? They should repent of their sin, their life of self-serving, self-ambition, and get the life of God in them by turning from their sin and asking God to be merciful unto them.
   One day Jesus is coming. A man went upstairs to the attic. He found an opened box with nuts, bolts, nails, dust, pieces of paper, and some splintered wood. He found a strong magnet and waved it over the box. What leaped to the magnet? The nuts, bolts, and nails. Why? They alone had the same nature as the magnet. Only those who have the same nature of God within will be caught up to Jesus. Those who know Him will be rescued from this world’s chaos that will take place one day. Either party, saved or lost, come to Jesus before it’s too late!

Dear Kinnett,

When I left the church’s building after our service this past morning several matters gripped my soul.  

1. I thought of those traveling home in the heavy rain and I asked the Lord for their safety.
2. I thought of those who were at home who truly are not well, and I prayed for them.
3. I thought of an illustrative point made at the beginning of my message yesterday too.  “A pastor met up with a delinquent church member and said to him that he had missed him for several weeks at the church meeting.  The man replied back to the pastor, ‘Well, you know, the children have been sick, we’ve been out-of-town, and besides that, it’s been raining.”  And the pastor said, “Well, it’s dry over at the church.”  And the delinquent church member said, “Yea, that’s another reason.”

While I traveled home my heart was lifted up to the Lord in prayer that He would send a deluge of rain to take the dryness away from our homes, communities, and churches.  We need more than “Mercy Drops Round Us Are Falling” for we are in great need of a flood sent from God upon the dry and parched ground.

Only the reading of the Word of God and the praying of the Word back to God will move the heart and hand of God.  The church is too busy today.  We hustle and bustle around while accomplishing nothing but clouds without water.

Please take time to pray.  Take time to be holy.  Take time to behold Him!

God, burden us of the aridness that surrounds us and is in us.  Prepare us for Spiritual Rain.

Pastor Don