Ever So Quietly

     The Persecuted Church: Did you know  there are thousands of Christian Churches in countries, all over this world today, that are denied the freedom of worship. The people in authority will arrest  believers for gathering together to worship Christ? Yes that is true. There is no freedom of religion in a lot of countries today, like we enjoy that wonderful freedom here. A freedom not many citizens take advantage of or even think about. Imagine living in a country where you, as a Christian, will answer the door at your dimly lit house and ever so quietly invite other Christians in. You then make sure no one was followed, as they come into your house. Everybody then, ever so quietly, goes down to the basement where all the windows are closed and painted over, so no intruder or uninvited guest can look inside. You and the people that are gathered together then sing gospel songs from the depths of your heart, ever so quietly.  the preacher delivers his sermon, ever so quietly. Then everybody prays,  ever so quietly. Then everybody worships the Lord,  ever so quietly. The preacher reads from an old Bible as everyone gathers around, ever so quietly. The congregation only dare to have one Bible at a time in the worship service. Then the service being ended your Christian friends go up the stairs from the basement and go out the door cautiously and ever so quietly.  This is how some of our brothers and sisters worship the Lord in other countries. What a saddening thought.  In those countries there is no piano music, no organ music, no Church bells ringing to proclaim church is about to start. In fact there are no churches except in secret meetings places such as the basement above. The buildings that once served as churches in these countries are setting empty or being used for something else.
We as Christians, who live in America, are so blessed because we still have the freedom of worship that we can call on the name of the Lord, but yet it is time for us to set watchmen over the land. More and more of our religious freedoms are taking from us as time goes by, most of the time it is Satan using the very people, who call their self Christians, that we elect to public office to make changes for us. This country was founded many years ago on Christian Principles, but every so slowly, ever so quietly the leaders in our land are taking away our Christian liberties. Liberties that just a few years ago where common placed through out the land. During the past fifty years we have seen The Ten Commandments taken from our court rooms, Bibles, Bible reading, and prayer, removed from the class room in our schools, and manger scenes are no longer allowed in Christmas displays, no more Christmas songs that tell about the birth of our Savour are allowed to be sung in school or public buildings . Preaching that homosexuality is a sin from behind the pulpit now is, or soon will be, called a hate crime. We now have thousands of unborn babies being legally murdered in this country every year and they call it "planned parenthood" or "birth control". In God's eyes it is murder.
In all their wisdom, some people,  have now elected a president who has stated that we are no longer a Christian Nation. That should send up alarm bells to all true born again Christians, no matter what their race, age, or gender are. The president elect stated that we are a nation of Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhist. The last part of the statement he made is correct. It is true there are  more and more, diverse religions in our country and they are growing bigger and stronger everyday, yielding more and more influence in our government, but the first part of the statement our president elect made is wrong. We are {still} a Christian nation. This country was founded on Christianity, in other words Christ Jesus, The Solid Rock! On That Solid Rock our country has stood, believed in, and fought for, for over two hundred years . All the other is sinking sand! This nation was founded on the Christian Principles that are found in God's Holy Word. Turning from that Solid Rock will bring total destruction to this country.
Some of you who read this article might not agree with me on what I'm about to say. Some  might think that I'm carrying this to far. If we do not watch and pray most earnestly for this nation and our Christian beliefs then we too in the very near future will be having our church services ever so quietly

RECENT VIRGINIA CHURCH SERVICE

           Subject:  Genesis 47:13-27

I would love to give the Pastor of this predominantly black church in Virginia three cheers. This guy is obviously a leader. Perhaps we  should each decide who our real leader is... It is amazing to see that  very little has changed in 4,000 years.

 Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the  pews crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with me in your Bibles, if you will, to the 47th chapter of Genesis. We'll  begin our reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27.

 Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? ..
 (Reading) ... Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray. So we see
 that economic hard times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the
 government of Pharaoh to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh
 nationalized the grain harvest, and placed the grain in great
 storehouses that he had built. So the people brought their money to
 Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all to him willingly in
 return for grain. And this went on until their money ran out, and they
 were hungry again.

 So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock -
 their cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter
 for grain, and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of
 that year. But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the
 people came before Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except
 their land and their own lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of
 my lord but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your
 eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with
 our land will be servants to Pharaoh." So they surrendered their homes,
 their land, and their real estate to Pharaoh's government, and then
 sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for grain.

 What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters?

 That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in
 hard times only leads to slavery? Yes... That the only reason
 government wants to be our provider is to also become our master?

 Yes. But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel
 settled in the land of Egypt , in the land of Goshen . And they
 gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly."
 God provided for His people, just as He always has! They didn't end up
 giving all their possessions to government, no, it says they gained
 possessions! 

But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one.

 We see the same thing happening today - the government today wants to
 "share the wealth" once again, to take it from us and redistribute it
 back to us. It wants to take control of healthcare, just as it has
 taken control of education, and ration it back to us, and when
 government rations it, then government decides who gets it, and how
 much, and what kind. And if we go along with it, and do it willingly,
 then we will wind up no differently than the people of Egypt did four
 thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as slaves to our
 leaders.

 What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no different from what
 Pharaoh's government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of
 people like to call Mr. Obama a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah?
 A savior? Didn't the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves,
 "You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants
 to Pharaoh"? Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is
 a friend of mine; and Mr. OBAMA IS NO MESSIAH! No, brothers and
 sisters, if Mr. Obama is a character from the Bible, then he is
 Pharaoh. Bow with me in prayer, if you will..

 Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You
 alone. We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never
 rightly will be. We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel
 warned the people of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that
 day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for
 yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day..."

 And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. We cry out to you because
 of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a nation. Lord, we
 pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray for deliverance
 from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek You and
 hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of
 Pharaoh's government. In God We Trust...

LIFT JESUS HIGHER

 One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. (Psalm 27:4-5)


The world is always, anymore, full of bad news, We can see this with the tensions, rocket attacks, killings, beheadings and you name it in the Middle East, The world economies are on the brink of collapse, and nature is relentlessly adding to the chaos with one disaster after another. It's a time of trouble all right, and for us believers it may, sometimes, be hard to believe what is happening. 



In America we have a government that backs abortion, homosexuals, and backs taking God out of the pledge allegiance, backs removing religious symbols from government buildings, and many other things that go against the Living God. We have a president who tells us that some of the Bible is not for today and The U.S.A. is not a Christian nation. We have make believe Christians who vote for him and then go to church on Sunday. On the last day if they do not repent for their actions they will have to answer for it. 

Let me remind you Saints of God, We are pilgrims and strangers in this dangerous world, which will wound, injure, and hurt us many times so badly that we say “Even so come Lord Jesus”. Yet we have this promise from God, “in the time of trouble He will hide us” We must endure!  We, as Christians are on a holy journey, bound for that Promised Land. It's because our real life, our true life is in Him and with Him no matter what happens to us here on this earth. We will see the King! So when the world approaches us with their laughter, scorn, or a smoking gun, ready to put us out of our misery because of our cries against the wrong and for the right, we can find a strength that goes beyond all human understanding. Remember God is still on the throne and He watches over us to keep us safe.


No matter what comes upon this world we have this assurance, God will keep those of us in perfect peace that believe in him.

The Lord Hath A Controversy With The Nations

We, as Christians, would be careless in our duty if we did not continue to warn this ungodly world about the coming of the Lord and to be ready for what comes. In fact it is our duty! The Lord has laid this upon every Christian. “We are to cry aloud and spare not” The world is crying for peace and there is no peace.  There are many plans for world peace that are put out by the leaders of this world but none of them ever work or never will work, because Jesus Christ has been left out of the picture.  Their plans are hopeless and always will be. The only peace that this old world will ever have is when our Lord comes back to reign and until then the people that will have peace are born again, blood bought Christians. They will have a peace in their hearts that passes all understanding.

The plain simple fact is this; the spirit of restlessness, lawlessness, rebellion, and anarchy are stronger than ever and it is not just limited to one country. It is spreading throughout the world. This world is in deep trouble. In the past the people of this world have, for the most part, feared the Lord.  At one time just the denunciations and the strong preaching of His messengers cause people to tremble, to be convicted and to call on the name of the Lord.  There have been times, as we can read in the scriptures, when faith in God was weak, but, I’m here to tell you, that unbelief in our Lord is never more impudent, disrespectful, rebellious, insolent and defiant than it is right now.

Men’s ears have become so dull of hearing; their hearts have grown so cold, their unresponsive and harden hearts have become so hard that most do not even believe in God anymore. That is how careless this old world has got.  There are millions upon millions who we must just as well say are atheist because God is not in their thoughts at all. Once again we can see this is all a part of the coming apostasy which is fore shadowed in the Bible.  From the weak legged preachers who have dollar signs in their eyes and are not preaching “What saith the Lord” to parents in their homes who give their children no guidance at all.

The fact is plainly this; People have rebelled against God, they have broken His law. God holds people to be agreeable to the rule of right, but man has never yielded to this. People have forsaken their allegiance to God and it is like they are shaking their fist at Him!  From the beginning of time until now, because of sin, most people in this word and the nations of this world have sat in darkness and are sitting in darkness, not because it is necessary, but because they have willed it so.  There is not a nation on this earth that can claim they stand righteous before God!

 Facing these facts can be hard sometimes, but it is something that we all must do. We must come to grips with what is happening around us and then do something about it. We have leaders that are ungodly, full of untruth, deceiving, and take their orders from the devil his self. They do all this while claiming to be a follower of Christ. Hell is enlarging itself.

The American people have moved away from the fact, and they have forgot, that this nation was founded as a Christian nation and the foundation was laid according to the word of God. Our leaders of the past knew this and spoke out using the Bible as a foundation for what was said and done.  Now we have leaders (or should I say a leader) that says parts of the Bible are not for today, as well as our constitution, which was, I believed, inspired by God Himself.  I can think of several kings in the Bible that tried to say the same thing and disaster followed.   We, as Christians must hold on to our faith and our beliefs. Even so come Lord Jesus!

The Broken Thing

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart-- These, O God, You will not despise. (Psalms 51:17)

We can see throughout Bible history that the people and things that are most broken are used the most by our Lord for His glory. It was when Jesus took the loaves of bread on the two different occasions and broke them, that the food was multiplied and became enough to feed thousands of people with much left over.  When a grain of corn is put in the ground it becomes broken up as it dies and the inner parts of that corn sprouts forth and more ears of corn with 100’s of grains of corn are produced.  When Mary broke that alabaster box, making it useless,  the perfume that was confined in the bottle filled the house where our Lord was at.
It was when Jesus allowed His broken body to be broken to pieces by the thorns, the nails, and a spear, that his inner life was poured out like living waters for the sinner to drink and live.  Those people that are broken in wealth, broken in their ambition, have a broken worldly reputation, broken in their worldly affections, those who are despised by the world, the ones that seem to be plain helpless and forsaken, are the ones that God will use for His Glory. God used people like Moses, Joseph, and David to do His will for His glory. God can take hold of our failures and use us for His Glory.

STIMULUS SERMON: And So True

Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the pews crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with me in your Bibles, if you will, to the 47th chapter of Genesis. We'll begin our reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27. 


Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? ... (reading) .... Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray. So we see that economic hard times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the government of Pharaoh to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh nationalized the grain harvest, and placed the grain in great storehouses that he had built. So the people brought their money to Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all to him willingly in return for grain. And this went on until their money ran out, and they were hungry again.

So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock - their cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter for grain, and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of that year. But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the people came before Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except their land and their own lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh." So they surrendered their homes, their land, and their real estate to Pharaoh's government, and then sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for grain.

What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters?

That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in hard times only leads to slavery? Yes... That the only reason government wants to be our provider is to also become our master?

Yes. But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt , in the land of Goshen . And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly." God provided for His people, just as He always has! They didn't end up giving all their possessions to government, no, it says they gained possessions! But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one.

We see the same thing happening today - the government today wants to "share the wealth" once again, to take it from us and redistribute it back to us. It wants to take control of healthcare, just as it has taken control of education, and ration it back to us, and when government rations it, then government decides who gets it, and how much, and what kind. And if we go along with it, and do it willingly, then we will wind up no differently than the people of Egypt did four thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as slaves to our leaders.

What Mr. Obama's government is doing now is no different from what Pharaoh's government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of people like to call Mr. Obama a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah? A savior? Didn't the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves, "You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"? Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of mine; and Mr. OBAMA IS NO MESSIAH! No, brothers and sisters, if Mr. Obama is a character from the Bible, then he is Pharaoh. Bow with me in prayer, if you will..

Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You alone. We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly will be. We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the people of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day..."

And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. We cry out to you because of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a nation. Lord, we pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray for deliverance from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek You and hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of Pharaoh's government. In God We Trust...

Not Growing Old

They say that I'm growing old;
I've heard them tell it times untold,
In language plain and bold;
But I'm not growing old.

This frail old shell in which I dwell
Is growing old, I know quite well;
But I am not the shell.

What if my hair turns gray?
"Gray hairs are honorable," they say.
What if my eyesight  growing dim?
I still can follow Him
Who sacrified His life for me
Upon the cross of Calvary.

My hearing may not be as keen
As in the past it may have been;
Still I can hear my Savior say.
In whispers soft, "This is the way"

Why should I care if old time's plow
Has left its furrows i my brow?
Another house not made with hand
Awaits me in Glory Land!

What though I falter in my walk?
What though my tongue refuses to Talk?
I still can tread the narrow way;
I still can watch, and praise, and pray.

The outward ma, do what I can
To lengthen out this life's short span,
Shall perish and return to dust,
As everything in nature must.

The inward man, the scriptures say,
Is growing stronger day by day;
Then how can I be growing old.
When safe within my Savior's fold?