Pastoral Prayer from Psalm 24.

Prayer for May 12, 2013 Psalm 24:3-5

Our Precious Father Who is in Heaven, yours is all the earth and everybody in it. All
the fullness of the world is yours: the silver, the gold, the cattle on a thousand hills. All
the cities, all the farms, all the factories, all the villages, all the homes and businesses.
The banks are yours, the seas and continents with all the fish, the animals, the birds.
Everything belongs to You, Our Father, and you govern and rule all by your sovereign
and loving hands.

You founded the continents upon the seas and upon the floods, so that they stand
according to your sovereign power, even the everlasting hills and mountains with all
their treasures of minerals and diamonds and rubies and sapphires. Everything is yours,
O Lord, for you have created all things, and they are upheld by your everlasting power
and authority. This we do confess, Heavenly Father. We shall have need of nothing,
for you have riches untold.

Who on this earth shall rise to be with you in your heavenly Kingdom, O Lord? You
have purer eyes than can behold iniquity, and wickedness shall not stand before you.
Only those who hands are clean, whose hearts are pure, who has not been lifted up to
worship idols, nor made false vows and promises, deceiving their neighbors. Who are
these people, O Lord, for we do not know any of Adam’s sons who are not altogether
sinful and defiled?

Except one, O Lord, and that is your Only Begotten Son who was pure and holy in all
His ways, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came down from Heaven to save us from our
sins. He has clean hand, a pure heart, always loved and worshipped His Father, and
always keeps His promises. Blessed be the Name of the Lord Jesus.

We confess, O Lord, that the blessing that He received from His father, the everlasting
kingdom is ours in Him. He has ascended to the hill of the Lord and stands in the Holy
Places and as He is, so are we in the world, for we were raised with Him and our
inheritance is sure and certain to us. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We are blessed in Him and He is
made to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Amen and
Amen.

We are therefore sons of God, and have received the Spirit of adoption, a new
generation born of the Spirit of God. You have said, “seek my face,” and we by your
Spirit have replied, “Thy face, O Lord, will we seek.” Blessed be your holy Name
forever and ever.

This we pray in the precious Name of our Mediator and King, the Lord Jesus, Your
Only Begotten Son. Amen.

To a Young Man who Wanted "Reasons."

See, ________. You ask for "natural evidence," and I give you evidence in your soul.
But you doubt you have a soul, which is logical because if you doubt God you doubt
everything not material. If you ask for fish, I will not give you a stone. If you ask why
you cannot see, I will not point to the sun but to your eyes.

You do not like that response because that means you are responsible for your
unbelief, not me. I know why you don't believe; it is because you are a sinner born of
Adam's race. But you want a chemical formula. You would divert me from the disease.
There is plenty of natural evidence and I could talk all day and all night and you still
wouldn't believe. Faith is one, and if you do not believe the greater you will never
believe the lesser. God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth.

The Bible presupposes God and ventures on no "proof" as God needs no proof. You
are disappointed that you cannot see the sun and want me to tell you about flashlights.
Men are held responsible for their unbelief, not God. "They will not believe if one rose
from the dead." He did, and they didn't, and many still don't and go around blaming
God for not giving them enough "evidence," when they ignore the evidence that is
everywhere around them and in their own hearts and souls.

Everything you need is in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the rest of Scripture. If you
will not believe the Scripture and the words of the Apostles, why should I waste my
time? I am not smarter than they.

I can disciple only those with faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for
he that cometh to God must believe that He is and is a rewarder of them that diligently
seek Him." You know the verse.

Seeking God without faith is like turning the light off and complaining that you cannot
see where you are going. The blindness is a moral deficiency, not an intellectual one.
Your problem is not lack of information for there are many fine Christians who do not
pretend to know all the works of God, but you pretend that it is their fault that you are
a wicked unbeliever.

If a man stands in my front yard with his eyes tightly closed and complains that he
cannot see the sun, I will not point a flashlight at the sun and expect him to see. I will
say, "Open your eyes, you fool." Then he will complain because I do not explain it
better? "Awake, thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give thee
light."

I will point you to the very one that can resolve your problem, resolve your doubts, and
bring rest to your soul. You will read about Him n Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Your problem is not Bud Powell, It is the Gospel. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life, not Bud Powell, and I will not presume to be the author of your faith.

You ask, "Why should I believe in Jesus of Nazareth, that he should tell me the truth?"
Why, indeed? And why should you then believe that Bud Powell has not told you the
truth? And why should I believe that you are telling me the truth when you say you
don't see and it's my fault? I don't believe you. I think you are a liar. "Who is a liar but
he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?" I am telling you the truth.

Jesus Christ is plenty convincing. If you cannot see THAT, then I cannot help you.
And you want to talk about rocks and dead bones? If you don't believe Christ, the
living word, you won't believe a dead rock, because if you do not understand Christ,
you will not and cannot understand the rock.

John 6: "22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole
body shall be full of light.

23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

The problem is the eye; not the sun. You may laugh at me in your intellectual
superiority, which shows that you indeed are blind, for they laughed at Jesus, too. Why
shouldn't you laugh at me?

If you mock the Bible, why not mock me? I am too old to care for that. I do grieve,
because I have seen so many go that way to the same result. Lu 6:25 "Woe unto you
that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and
weep."

"Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and
purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your
laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the
sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up."
I will and do continue to pray for you. It avails much, but is not "natural."

False Causes and Phony Cures

Lamentations 2:14 "Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment."

When the soul is denied, then all causes are physical, and all cures are physical. God is defined out and what is left is drugs and spells.

This is the very wickedness of socialistic egalitarianism or humanism, which refuses to see that the difference between men lies in the soul.  Equal treatment is demanded for all people because of their physical humanness, not because of the moral and spiritual choices they make.  The fundamental wickedness is this: There is no real God, just an imagination in the minds of some men who can be safely ignored.  There will be no final division of men into the righteous and the wicked; God himself will do neither good nor evil.  Zeph. 1:12 "And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil."

Such people, though they do not love nor follow the words of God, are quick to say "Judge not" to those who believe that God knows the difference between right and wrong and we should to.  They don't care about the Scriptures, they just want everybody to be a clueless as they are.  God doesn't distinguish, and neither should we.  So they throw dust in the eyes.

Even to the very end, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, her walls torn down, dead carcasses rotting in the streets and fields, being devoured by the birds of prey. their iniquities were not taken away nor their sins forgiven.

Why?  Jeremiah said it was because of the prophets who saw vain and foolish things.  They were vain and foolish because they did not go to the source of Jerusalem's troubles: the sins of the people.

Because the prophets deliberately turned away from the true causes, they had to invent false causes, laying upon the people false burdens which God had not commanded them to bear.  Therefore healing could not take place [verse 13].  They did not trace their problems up to their source: God Himself in Heaven bringing chastisement because of their sins and iniquities.

God can win all victories by sheer physical power, for who can stand before Him?  He could have destroyed the army of Babylon just as He had destroyed the army of Sennacherib in the days of Hezekiah, a few generations before, and Jerusalem could have been spared again.  Physical matters are nothing before Him: famine and peril and sword and storms and fires are all in his hands.  He both brings the manna from heaven and causes it to rot and breed worms.

But God is longsuffering and patient. He would win the moral victory over evil and be justified when He speaks.  How could he deliver Jerusalem when their sins were as rotten, if not worse, than the Babylonians?

Jerusalem's problem was not with Babylon.  Their problem was not the size of the army of the Chaldees nor the weakness of their own forces.  Their problem was with God.  The problem was not physical, it was moral and spiritual. 

They hid and justified their wickedness and did not repent.  The city was filled with idolatry, with the murder of innocents offered to idols, with fornication, adultery, and all sorts of sexual sins and depravity.  Long before Solomon's temple was razed by Nebuchadnezzar's officers it had been polluted by idols and Jerusalem, herself, had slain the prophets of the Lord and had shaken their fist in the face of God.

They refused to do what God had said, but God did what He had said:  "The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries." [Lam. 2:17]

The problems facing America are not physical: they are not economics nor terrorism, not hurricanes nor floods nor fires.  They are not because marriage is defined wrongly. They are not because our borders are not guarded, nor because government prints money and gives it away, threatening to bankrupt the country.  All of these things are not the problem: our problem is with God.  These are all symptoms of a much greater problem.

The problem is not that we not a "Christian" nation, for that is a stupid debate. America's problem will not be cured by a few ceremonies in Washington, D.C., or in the state capitals.  Jeremiah nailed the problem:  the men of Jerusalem refused to confess and repent their sins.  This was the elephant in the room, and nobody wanted to talk about it, the prophets who did were persecuted, tormented, and some were slain.  Just as Jeremiah had suffered the persecution and would die in Babylon, carried there from Egypt by the Babylonians and sawed in two.  He knew that he was hated of Jerusalem because he told them the truth.  They wanted to discuss other causes.

36  To subvert a man in his cause, the Lord approveth not.
37  Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?
38  Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
39  Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?
40  Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41  Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
42  We have transgressed and have rebelled: thou hast not pardoned.
43  Thou hast covered with anger, and persecuted us: thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.
44  Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through.
45  Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people.
46  All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.
47  Fear and a snare is come upon us, desolation and destruction.  Lamentations 3

Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom.  Are there a few that will repent their sins and turn in honor and humility to the Lord in sincerity and truth.  I think so.  But we need to exhort and call to one another and support each other.

40  Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
41  Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.  Lamentations 3
24  The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
25  The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
26  It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.  Lamentations 3.

If you scoff, scoff to yourself.  Scoff to the false prophet that encourages you in your sins, in whose face you see yourself.   My heart is too tender this morning to bear it.

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14  Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.
15  And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:
16  But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
17  Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.  2Chron. 36.

The devastation was from God; the Chaldees were the instrument.

Crying with my Mouth

Psalm 66:17-20 Meditation and Prayer

O Lord God, you have created all things and all things are yours. You desire that we
present our bodies to you, that all we do is for the glory of God.

I cry to you with my mouth. I will take words and offer them to you; not my words
which are frail and useless, but words that are taught by thy Spirit and are found in
Scripture.

These wonderful words lift you up when they are on our tongues in prayers, singing,
and exhortations.

You will not hear us if we regard iniquity in our hearts, but you have renewed my heart
so that you will hear me. How precious this is, because from the heart come the issues
of life, and from the heart come the words of the tongue.

I could not praise you with my mouth or had thy words upon my tongue, if you had not
given me a new heart as you promised. I have no praise, no prayers, no petitions, no
fervent longing after You, O God, except that which You have given me. I confess
dear Lord, that I could only love Thee because You have first loved me.

Search me, O Lord, and try me. See if there be any wicked way in me. Lead me in Thy
life everlasting. 

Blessed, indeed, are You, O Lord, and nothing is hidden from you. You have not
turned away the prayers of Your servants; nor have you taken your mercy from me.

You did not hesitate to offer up your body for me, Lord Jesus. Give me Your grace that
I do not withhold any of mine from You: that my heart, my lips, my mouth, my tongue
may carry your praises now and forever.

In the precious Name of the Son of God. Amen and Amen.

17 I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue.
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me:
19 But verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer,

Arrested for Witness.

A Personal Testimony from a Close Friend

I have had the unfortunate opportunity to see some pretty grisly
baby parts in dumpsters in new Orleans when _____ was a baby. I
went with a girlfriend to a Pro-Life conference there. At the time
Operation Rescue was just getting off the ground.

After seeing the truth in front of my own face I made the decision
to get more involved. I was a counselor for Right To Life at that
time as well. We went to abortion mills in LA and San Bernardino.

I have never in my life felt evil on my skin and surrounding me like
a iron blanket. We would pray and try to sing hymns and songs
while sitting there waiting for victims to come to the killing
factories. I would cry for days.

When I finally got arrested in San Bernadino, they were beginning
to charge certain ones with RICO crimes. Having a young family at
the time I prayed to God to tell me what I should do. Pastor
_______ went to court with me many times. He was such a comfort
to me and the group.

God finally showed me that I must take care of my family first and
do counseling and praying/educating, things like that. My heart
breaks for these babies and their mothers.

Well, now that our children are grown, I wonder what God will ask
of me. What ever it is, I pray He will give me strength to give hope
through Christ to these women.

To ANYONE who needs to hear the truth. Thanks for posting that
article about that devil of a man [Gosnell, the Philadelphia
abortionist]. I pray people will take the time and guts to read
it. In Christ, __________

Child of God, Do not be dismayed.

It has seemed worse for Bible believers.  Wycliffe discredited; Huss burned.  Tyranny reigned everywhere.

Conclusion: "Never had official religion been at a lower ebb, or the public image of Christianity more
defaced, than in the second decade of the sixteenth century. It seems as though all opposition to the
unreformed Catholic church from within and without was dying away. The Fifth Lateran Council met
in Rome in 1512 and hear the orator declare: 'Now nobody contradicts, no one opposes.' The Medici
Pope Leo X ascended the papal throne in 1513 with the quip: 'Now that we have attained the papacy,
let us enjoy it.'

"The Lateran Council ended on a note of complacent self-congratulation in March 1517
[, scarce seven months before a solitary German monk, who had found the way for the conscience to
have peace with God would shake the church to its very foundation.] The peace of the Christian
world seemed assured. But the seeds of renewal had been sown, the harvest of Reformation was at
hand. In October of that same year, in an obscure province of the Empire, one roused German
conscience was stung into protest--and the great revolution began." (Lion Handbook) p. 356

God has not abandoned His world.  Be faithful unto death and you will receive a crown of life.

Spirtual Warfare

God could easily have overcome evil by His sovereign power, as He did at Sodom and Gomorrah.
Winning was not the issue; the way to win was everything. God would gain a moral victory over sin,
condemning it, speaking truth, overcoming evil with good, stopping every mouth so that all are guilty
before Him and His glory and purity remain unimpaired. He would be true and every man a liar.

The conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent began at Eden and will not
end until the Final Judgment, but there is no doubt as to the outcome.

Hence, Christ triumphed over death and hell and rose from the dead and ascended to the throne of
David in heaven as Mediator after the order of Melchizedek and rules there until all things are put
under His feet and His enemies made His footstool.

His triumph is and will be twofold: calling to salvation and glory every one of His elect and purging
His universe of all evil, including spiritual wickedness in high places.

The conflict lies in the moral consciousness of men, and Paul addressed the issue always there: 2Co
4:2 "But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the
word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s
conscience in the sight of God."

The elect are called to forsake their wickedness, come to Christ, and to put off the old man and put on
the new. They must "Abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good." Satan's kingdom of
lies, murder, wickedness, unbelief, and darkness is overcome by truth, love, righteousness, faith, and
that light which lights every man that comes into the world.

Every child of God is called to follow the King of Kings in this glorious spiritual warfare and there is
no escape for those who shrink from the conflict. As Christians our faith requires us to believe the
Gospel for our salvation and to bear witness of the righteousness of God in every aspect of our lives,
speaking the truth, and upholding God's law as Christ did.

"The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God." In the New Heavens and
New earth the final decree is this:

Re 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Re 22:15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and
whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.