BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, SEPTEMBER 6-7, 2018

There was a quite-shocking news’ release on my computer recently from Billy Graham Evangelistic Association saying, “Nearly 20 million Americans struggle with depression. Over 42,000 commit suicide each year.” It also highlighted Psalm 34:18 (ESV), “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Have you witnessed the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit without any concern, compassion, or care for, yes, the “needy” right in front of you, or next door?

It was a heart-breaking news’ release, but then I read a Sarah Palin statement on, what at the time under ‘Obamacare’, she quoted that 21,904 people had DIED on waiting lists! And you’re certainly challenged by ‘life desperation’ in many – most unaware of God’s presence, God’s help, God’s ministry, God’s Son, yes, sent by the Father as life’s Savior and Lord, a life’s needy ‘the GREAT PHYSICIAN’, and life’s conqueror over sin, over sickness, over death, over world domination, that is godless and heavily injures body, soul, and spirit, by blindness to Satanic interference!!

“Living by pathetic decisions”? Just consider the ‘atheistic community’ world-wide or even locally around you! “There is no god!”, and so they “choose” to willfully live in the choice of ‘the suicide of the soul’, closing the door of heart and mind on the Truth of Biblical Hope in Christ!

It was Sir Francis Bacon, in his writing, “Essays: Of Atheism” XVI, who wrote, “A little philosophy inclines a man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds to religion”, but, sadly, religions as well as man’s philosophies, often are blinding men rather than opening their eyes, minds, and hearts to Christ Jesus’ KNOCK on their hearts’ door!

O.A. Battista, in his writing, “Power To Influence People”, (copyrighted in 1959 by him), says: “An atheist is a man who looks through a telescope and tries to explain what he can’t see.” So true! Spiritual blindness in atheism is a deadly disease, AND a deadly ‘dis-ease’ living one stranded on a ‘sinking ship’!

In my early days, I lived with my grandparents because my mother divorced my father then took me to live with them while, for a number of years she lived a care-free, Christ-less life, strapped in her ‘flesh nature’! I still praise God at 82 years of age because my grandparents and my mother’s two sisters ‘blessed me spiritually’ from my three years of age until at about twelve years of age when my mother married Frank Callaway who became my step-dad! (In all my years of life my dad never came to see me, never –but I’d travel 30 miles to his parents’ home, and he’d drop by or I’d go to his office.) But my mother’s parents, my grandparents and my two aunts, one just two years older than me and the other about six years older, basically, ‘discipled’ me faithfully! Some, in a situation like mine, often ‘choose’ to “turn away from God” because, how could He allow such irreverence and shunning of His eternal purpose in every life? But, thank God, though without mother and father, I WAS BLESSED! I didn’t turn to ‘atheism’ because I heard, saw, witnessed, believed in, and trusted the “Lived-Out-Trust-in The Loving Lord and Savior” through the family and our local church blessed with a large number of true disciples who, yes, also nurtured me in the faith!!

In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Fears in Solitude”, he wrote: “Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place, (Portentious sight!) the ‘owlet’ Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, “Where is it?”

I love what Alexander Pope once said! “Atheists put on a false courage in the midst of their darkness and misapprehensions, like children who, when they fear to go in the dark, will sing or whistle to keep up their courage.”

Worldly intelligence often so deceives ‘unbelievers’, and at times ‘intelligent mind-believers’, that, all of a sudden, they think, “There is no God!’, opening the false door to one’s ‘self’ as the “best god I know”, and willfully ‘lie’ to themselves, “There is no god!”, choosing, yes, a godless life or a godless pretense! Others catch the “dis-ease” of recognizing their need of God, but unwilling to submit to His commands, they find it easier, though deathly, to determine for themselves, “I don’t need YOUR GOD!”

There is a spiritual disease called ‘atheism’ that is a repressed ‘religion’ that captures some hearts and minds, but has not, cannot, will not ever produce the miracle of new lives, new hearts, new minds, recognizing only ‘human intent of honoring ‘any god’ by, at least, being ‘honest’(?) with themselves’, but opening the ‘door’ to eternal death! It was Mary Ann Vincent who once said: “An atheist’s most embarrassing moment is when he/she feels profoundly thankful for ‘something’, but can’t think of anybody (or anything) to thank for it.” So true!

And, guaranteed, there ARE, for some atheists, dark, dark, tragic, tough moments when they stop and think, “If God is real, would He be willing to help me when I need Him the most?”

Oh, and then there are the “agnostics”. The Random House Collegiate Dictionary of 1975, published in a Revised Edition, says of an ‘agnostic’, “a person who holds that the ultimate cause (God) and the essential nature of things (though real) are unknown and unknowable.” So, of course, the agnostic refuses to trust, relate to, submit to, or obey the One he/she has no desire to know, though He exists!

And, though, at times, many ‘agnostics’ are ‘intellectually wise’ in their worldly philosophies, their arrogance deceives them in thinking, “Though ‘God’ exists, He has no ‘genius’ about ‘fleshly creation in the human heart and mind’ but certainly His world, created by His Word, is sure beautiful! I can accept that!” ,but will deny “Amazing Grace, Love, Truth, and Mercy”, and especially ‘God in Christ’!”

Then, beyond what we’ve seen so far, there are still, yes, many, many people who are not atheists or agnostics, but individuals who have a ‘mental awareness of the reality of God’ but no desire to be reconciled to Him, be transformed by Him, or even consider that He could and would, having “birthed them into an eternal spiritual relationship”, be used by Him to extend His Kingdom, express His love through them, and demonstrate through them His Power! But…they willfully say, ‘no; there is no God’, He ‘knocks’, but they refuse to open the door of their minds and hearts because they are content with their worldly wisdom, their fleshly ambitions, and their own entertainment, yes, without any need of Calvary’s Savior, Lord, and Master of eternal life and blessing!

Also there are many in our highly educated, self-centered world, bound by that ‘world philosophy’, by ‘Satanic deceit’, and by the “I do it ‘my way’,” godless, brain-dead and heart-diseased, state of only inward allegiance and ‘self-fulfillment’, that they have no time to even consider a relationship with a loving, merciful and caring God! That’s like Napoleon Bonaparte who once said, “You think you are too intelligent to believe in God. –I am not like you.- Not every one who wishes to be is an atheist,” denying His desire to be Lord over your life as you ‘fend’ for yourself, denying Him His eternal desire to be Lord, Savior, Master, or Ruler in and over your life, turning ‘existence’ into Holy Presence!

Are YOU “living under” the pretense of your thoughts, your turning, and your ‘self-inflicted’ torture of “Godless living”? Thomas Carlyle once said, “There is but one thing without honor, smitten with eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be, and that is unbelief. He who believes nothing, who believes only the show of things, is not in relation with nature and fact at all”, like, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’!” So true!

Oh, and then there is the “later-crowd”, the “sometime, but, ‘not-now-crowd’” who ‘believe’ but not to the point of trust or surrender or allegiance to His “Amazing Grace”!!

Oh, and also, there IS the “wilted-flower-‘fan’” that Alfred Lord Tennyson described in his writing, “Flower in the Crannied Wall” theme: “Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower – but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.” Also, so true!

BUT, also, there IS the spiritual tragedy of the fallen man easily distracted by the worldly influences, by the, yes, demonic distractions and devilish influences, AND by that ‘all-out-allegiance to satisfy one’s sin-nature and self-centered allegiances’! THEY ALL ARE EXTREMELY POWERFUL, BLINDING, AND EFFICIENT IN THEIR FRAMES OF REFERENCE!! In 1 Corinthians 13:11 Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” That was Paul, but certainly there are young children who latch on to Holy God, and they won’t let go! Not all, but some!

I read a small article by Eric Metaxes and Stan Guthrie on my computer this morning entitled, “Beware of Apatheism” that I found so appropriate for this message. It said: “With apologies to Richard Dawkins, the New Atheists are old news. But we’ve got a bigger problem. You remember them, don’t you? Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Bennett, and Sam Harris?

These so-called “New Atheists” drew crowds with their bombastic and occasionally clever attacks on God and theism. For a while their books were best sellers, “The God Delusion,” “God Is Not Great,” for example. But as atheist and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson recently wrote, “The world appears to be tiring of the New Atheism movement…

However, that’s not necessarily good news. Writing in The Public Discourse, Paul Rowan Brian and Ben Sixsmith warn of something even more insidious than atheism. APATHEISM – that is, answering the “God question” with a shoulder shrug and a calm, “Whatever.” Again, “Whatever,” Brian and Sixsmith write, “With roots in the practical atheism and deism of the Enlightment, ‘apatheism’ is embodied in French philosopher Denis Diderot’s famous remark that ‘it is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.”

They cite K. Robert Beshears of Southern Baptist Seminary, who says the West suffers from an “unholy trinity of apatheism”: a lack of ‘reason’ to believe, supposedly because of science; a lack of ‘motivation’ to believe, because someone else will worry about it, and a lack of ‘will’ to believe, because religion “is just too much drama.”

And one WONDERS: “How stupid, blind, and spiritually ignorant has ‘fallen mankind’ stooped to?” BUT…THERE IS HOPE!! In Hebrews 12:1-9 God’s Holy Word challenges us all! It says: “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which SO EASILY BESETS US, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him, that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks unto you as children, My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by Him.

For WHOM the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. IF you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father never chastens?

But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then you are bastards (illegitimate), and not sons. Furthermore we have had our fathers of our ‘flesh’ who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” GOOD QUESTION!

I recently went back to re-examine Edwin Louis Cole’s book, “Maximized Manhood”, and I had to wonder, once again, “is that theme the opposite of “death to self in exchange for Christ’s Resurrection Presence after true repentance and faith in His finished work at the Cross and the empty tomb”, encouraging ‘best effort’ in place of “crucified with Christ, buried, then raised in the “newness of His Presence”?

ARE YOU: “Living by pathetic decisions”? Examine Luke 8:4-18!! And when much people were gathered together, and were come to Him out of every city, He spoke by a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.

And some fell down upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. (Moisture of the Holy Spirit?). And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.

And others fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. When He had said these things, He cried out, ‘Hear that has ears to hear, let him hear.’ His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘What might this parable be?’ He said, “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are they that hear; then comes the devil, and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. No man, when he has lighted a candle, covers it with a vessel, or puts it under a bed; but sets it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light.

For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Take heed therefore how YOU hear; for whosoever has, to him shall be given; and whosoever has not, from him shall be taken that which he seems to have.”

What’s the Question of this very moment? Are YOU “Living by Pathetic Decisions OR Are YOU Overcoming by Divine Promises?" A few words I recently wrote that states this: “I once was lost, but now I’m found; I once was blind, but now I see; I once was dirty in the garment of sin, but now I’ve been cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb.

Darkness prevailed, and then came the Light; darkness distressed, and the Light offered “Rest”; darkness ‘tired’, but the Spirit “inspired” LIFE IN THE LORD that never retires!

Darkness’ ease is a deadly disease, but, the Great Physician brings “Heaven’s Release”! Darkness’ author is the Satanic Liar, offering release to a ‘lesser lair’.

Darkness’ song is an off-key chord, eventually bringing a life that is bored; but Jesus comes to offer His Light to free you from ‘the cellar of devilish might’!”

The question now is: Are YOU still living by ‘pathetic decisions’ OR are YOU overcoming by Christ’s and the Word’s Divine Promises? I TELL YOU:

Darkness shakes like a massive hurricane at Jesus’ Presence, darkness moves deeper under the Devil’s own fear of the Light, darkness trembles at even the mention of Jesus’ Name, and darkness looks to its ‘author’ and ‘inventor’ of all its own fears, faults, and feelings! Oh, but then comes King Jesus, the Light that dispels darkness’ soiled agendas and then King Jesus turns on the “Eternal Light” of His ever abiding Presence.

Where is YOUR life planted? In Satan’s darkness or the Savior’s Light? P.P.Bliss wrote a hymn published in the old “Broadman Hymnal” in 1940 entitled: “The Light of the World Is Jesus”, saying: “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, The Light of the world is Jesus; Like sunshine at noonday His glory shone in, The Light of the world is Jesus.

No darkness have we who in Jesus abide, The Light of the world is Jesus; We walk in the Light when we follow our Guide, the Light of the world is Jesus.

You dwellers in darkness with sin-blinded eyes, The Light of the World is Jesus; Go, wash, at His bidding, and light will arise, The Light of the world is Jesus.

No need of the sunlight in Heaven we’re told, The Light of the world is Jesus; The Lamb is the Light in the city of Gold, The Light of the world is Jesus.”

Tell me! Your “residence” NOW and Eternally? In the ‘darkness’ of fallen humanity under the domination of Satan and his demons? OR, is it “residence” NOW and Eternally in “The Light of the Very Present, Presiding, Perfecting Light Of Christ Jesus”?

FAITHFUL DISCIPLES!”

(BY:J.FARRELL FISHER)……

APRIL 30 -MAY 1,2018

HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED ‘PROVIDENCE’?IT IS A HIGHLY INTERESTING WORD. IN THE “RANDOM HOUSE COLLEGE DICTIONARY”, PUBLISHED IN 1975 BY RANDOM HOUSE INC., DEFINING IT AS,”THE FORESEEING CARE AND GUARDIANSHIP OF GOD OVER HIS CREATURES..A MANIFESTATION OF DIVINE CARE OR DIRECTION: PROVIDENT OR PRUDENT MANAGEMENT OF RESOURCES…”!

AND WHEN I READ THAT DEFINITION, I CONSIDERED, “BIRTHED INTO THIS WORLD BY THE PLAN AND MANAGEMENT OF GOD,IS IT WRONG TO SAY, “GOD HAS NO PLACE IN PLANNING OR MANAGING ME”? UNBELIEVERS, SINNERS, BOSSES OF THEIR OWN LIVES ARE NOT AT ALL INTERESTED IN “GOD’S PROPERTY- MANAGEMENT” OF THEIR LIVES!THEY SEE ‘SELF’ AS “OK” ON THEIR OWN TERMS & DEFINITIONS OF WHAT “I CHOOSE – NOT WHAT YOUR GOD TELLS ME, BUT WHAT I CHOOSE FOR MYSELF!” AND WHEN YOU FULLY CONSIDER THE “PRIDE OF A MAN’S CHOICE OF ‘SELF-WILL, ‘SELF-PLEASURE’, ‘SELF-PURPOSE’, WITH NO INTEREST OR AWARENESS OF THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF BEING ‘RECONCILED TO GOD’ SINCE THEIR ATTITUDE IS, “I’M OK – YOU’RE OK”, WITHOUT ALLEGIANCE TO SOME GOD, IS BETTER KNOWN & UNVEILED AS ‘SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS’, ‘SPIRITUAL PREJUDICE’, ‘SPIRITUAL RESENTMENT OF ANYTHING PERTAINING TO HOLINESS’!!” SO, ‘FALLEN MEN’, FALLEN AWAY FROM GOD, NEED TO BE “RECONCILED” TO HIM! IN 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17-21 PAUL WAS INSPIRED BY GOD HIMSELF TO WRITE, “THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE ‘IN CHRIST’, HE IS A NEW CREATION, OLD THINGS ARE PASSED AWAY;BEHOLD, ALL THINGS ARE BECOME NEW.

AND ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD, WHO HAS RECONCILED US TO HIMSELF BY JESUS CHRIST, AND HAS GIVEN TO US THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION; TO WIT, THAT GOD WAS IN CHRIST, RECONCILING THE WORLD UNTO HIMSELF, NOT IMPUTING THEIR TRESPASSES UNTO THEM; AND HAS COMMITTED UNTO US (ALL BORN-AGAIN DISCIPLES!) THE WORD OF RECONCILIATION.

NOW THEN WE ARE AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST,AS THOUGH GOD DID BESEECH YOU BY US:WE PRAY YOU IN CHRIST’S STEAD, BE YOU RECONCILED TO GOD. FOR HE (GOD) HAS MADE HIM (CHRIST JESUS) TO BE SIN FOR US, WHO KNEW NO SIN:THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.” GLORY! GLORY BE TO GOD ALMIGHTY, OUR LOVING HEAVENLY FATHER, WHO GAVE HIS OWN SON,JESUS, TO BE THE SAVIOR OF FALLEN MANKIND!

WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING, MOST SINNERS, MOST UNBELIEVERS,MOST ‘DEAF-EARRED’ & ‘HEART-DISEASED’ & ‘SELF-AND-SIN DEVOTEES’, MUST EXPERIENCE THE MIRACLE OF GOD’S GRACE & MERCY THROUGH HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTION TO OPEN THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS TO EVEN THE ‘CONSIDERATION’ OF WHETHER OR NOT THEY WANT UNDER DIVINE MANAGEMENT & DIVINE MERCY & DIVINE MISSION! IN PROVERBS 1 ARE SOME HIGHLY INNATE,INTERESTING, INFORMATIVE VERSES. VERSE 5 SAYS, “A WISE MAN WILL HEAR, AND WILL INCREASE LEARNING; AND A MAN OF UNDERSTANDING SHALL ATTAIN UNTO WISE COUNSELS.” OH, THEN VERSE 7 SAYS, “THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE; BUT FOOLS DESPISE WISDOM AND INSTRUCTION.”

THERE IS A ‘SPIRIT OF WISDOM’ THAT CRIES OUT TO EVERY MAN WHO HAS EVER EXISTED! BUT PROVERBS 1:23-24 SAYS: “TURN YOU AT MY REPROOF; BEHOLD, I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU, I WILL MAKE KNOWN MY WORDS UNTO YOU.

BECAUSE I HAVE CALLED, AND YOU REFUSED; I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HAND, AND NO MAN REGARDED;” AND THAT’S NOT ALL THE GOD OF WISDOM HAD TO SAY! EXAMINE VERSES 25-33! “BUT YOU HAVE SET AT NOUGHT ALL MY COUNSEL, AND WOULD NONE OF MY REPROOF: I WILL ALSO LAUGH AT YOUR CALAMITY; I WILL MOCK WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES; WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES AS DESOLATION, AND YOUR DESTRUCTION COMES AS A WHIRLWIND; WHEN DISTRESS AND ANGUISH COME UPON YOU.

THEN SHALL THEY CALL UPON ME, BUT I WILL NOT ANSWER; THEY SHALL SEEK ME EARLY, BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND ME: FOR THAT THEY HATED KNOWLEDGE (THAT’S SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE!), AND DID NOT CHOOSE THE FEAR OF THE LORD;

THEY WOULD HAVE NONE OF MY COUNSEL; THEY DESPISED ALL MY REPROOF. THEREFORE SHALL THEY EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THEIR OWN WAY, AND BE FILLED WITH THEIR OWN DEVICES. FOR THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE SHALL SLAY THEM, (THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE? “GOD CALLED – THEY REFUSED TO COME TO HIM!),AND THE PROSPERITY OF FOOLS SHALL DESTROY THEM.

BUT WHOSO HEARKENS UNTO ME SHALL DWELL SAFELY, AND SHALL BE QUIET FROM FEAR OF EVIL.” DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? THE WISEMAN,SOLOMON, ALSO SAID, IN PROVERBS 3:5-6,&VERSE 8, WE READ: “TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART; AND LEAN NOT UNTO YOUR OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE THE LORD, AND HE SHALL DIRECT YOUR PATHS.” & VERSE 8? “IT SHALL BE HEALTH TO YOUR NAVEL, AND MARROW TO YOUR BONES.”

“GODLESSNESS” PRODUCES A “THIRST”, A “SPIRITUAL ILLNESS FROM THE ‘SIN-DISEASE’, AND A SPIRITUAL ‘HUNGER’THAT ONLY GOD HIMSELF THROUGH CHRIST CAN QUENCH OR SATISFY”! ISAIAH 55:1-3,6-7, & VERSE 11 SAYS:

“TRUST?” IN HIS WRITING ENTITLED “HYMN”,

(ST.5),HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW WROTE: “O HOLY TRUST! O ENDLESS SENSE OF REST! LIKE THE BELOVED JOHN TO LAY HIS HEAD UPON THE SAVIOR’S BREAST, AND THUS TO JOURNEY ON!”

IS YOUR ‘JOURNEY OF LIFE’ A LIFE OF TRUE BIBLICAL TRUST? IS YOUR JOURNEY ‘A WALK OF SPIRITUAL ‘REST’? YOUR ‘JOURNEY’, YOUR ‘EARTHLY WALK’, YOUR ‘SPIRITUAL’ (?) PILGRIMAGE, IS IT ‘FULL’, ‘DRAINING’, OR ‘DROWNED’ IN THE SEA OF SELF-INDULGENCE, SELF-DETERMINATION, SELF-‘FLESH’ OR ‘SIN-NATURE’ SATISFACTION? OH, BUT THEN UPON “CONVERSION, THE NEW BIRTH, RECONCILED TO GOD, AND COMMISSIONED BY HIM”, ARE “YOU” A “MISSION-MINDED MAN AS A FAITHFUL DISCIPLE”, OR ARE ‘YOU’ A ‘SELF-INDULGING, SATAN-BLINDED,WARPED WORLD WANDERER FROM GOD AND HIS WORD AND WILL, FROM JESUS AND HIS LOVING WAY, FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO CALLS, CONVICTS, AND SO DESIRES TO CONVERT THE REPENTANT HEART & MIND, BECAUSE, FOR “YOU”, IT’S YOUR WAY, NOT GOD’S WAY OF “THE CROSS THAT LEADS ONE HOME” TO SHARE LIFE WITH COMPASSIONATE GOD, MERCIFUL JESUS, AND LOVING HOLY SPIRIT?!?

AND, IF YOU’RE “SHARING LIFE IN CHRIST”,LET US GO BACK TO READ ALSO 2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-15! PAUL WROTE: “FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINS US; BECAUSE WE THUS JUDGE, THAT IF ONE DIED FOR ALL, THEN WERE ALL DEAD: AND THAT HE DIED FOR ALL, THAT THEY WHICH LIVE SHOULD NOT HENCEFORTH LIVE UNTO THEMSELVES, BUT UNTO HIM WHICH DIED FOR THEM, AND ROSE AGAIN.”

AND, “IF THE LOVE OF CHRIST HAS CONVICTED US, CONSTRAINED US, CONVERTED US, DOES THE LOVE OF CHRIST ALSO COMMISSION US AS NEW DISCIPLES TO BE ONE WITH CHRIST IN “WORLD OUTREACH” TO PREACH THE GOSPEL, PROCLAIM IT’S SAVIOR AND LORD, AND PROVIDE EVEN FINANCIALLY AND PRAYER-SUPPORTED BY EVERY ‘BORN-AGAIN’BELIEVER, EVERY PASTOR, AND EVERY CHURCH?

“IN CHRIST” DISCIPLES LIVE FULLY AWARE OF “AMAZING GRACE” THAT IS NOT TO BE HIDDEN AWAY IN THEIR MINDS OR HEARTS, BECAUSE, “BIRTHED IN HIM TRULY”, THEY ARE “MISSION-MINDED MEN” AS FAITHFUL DISCIPLES!!! ARE YOU?

By James F. Fisher, June 25-27, 2017

It is so good and gracious that God inspired Psalm 103:19 saying, “The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.” And that “reign of the Lord God” is over the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of darkness AND the Kingdom of the Savior and “Light of the world”!

It’s interesting to read Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 7:10 when he wrote: “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but THE SORROW OF THE WORLD PRODUCES DEATH.” How clear is that to you?

“The world of darkness” is a Satan – authored and inspired song- and- life-situation of enslavement to the world, the old sin-nature, and Satanic rule, or at least, an attempt at deceiving and darkening your God-ordained life and eternal purpose! We just read, “godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted,” but there is a “cloud of sorrow” that most men have no understanding about why it hangs over them!

But at the same time, as the world of darkness reigns over and in a fallen man’s existence, so does the “world of eternal Light “ shine to unveil Christ Jesus as one’s only hope!

Jude was described in Scripture, his letter inspired by the Holy Spirit, as “a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, (writing to) those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.” [Does that include you?]. And HE certainly contended against and opposed those who walk in darkness, even in ‘religious’ darkness! Jude contended “earnestly for the True faith”!

In Verse 4 he described ‘certain men’, no doubt deceived by Satan, who “crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh, and then in Verses 5-7, Jude instructs us wisely to be aware of spiritual darkness and spiritual blindness in the world around us today! He wrote:

“But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but LEFT THEIR OWN ABODE, He (God) has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange gods, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

I pray you saw “the world of darkness and the kingdom of Light” colliding! Jude went on in Verse 12 speaking about “those who are spots in your love feasts”, describing some as ‘trees without fruit, twice dead’, ‘raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame’, ‘wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever’.

There IS the reality of “apostates” who are “professors without possession of the Indwelling Christ”, but Jude 14b-15 speaks about “apostates” who are depraved and live in a doomed state though they “primp up” as if they were truly “stars in the production of Christ”! “Behold, (the day comes when) the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints (metaphorically speaking), to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Christ Jesus.”

And you don’t think “ungodly sinners” speak against Christ Jesus inspired by Satan? You’re not aware of a despicable meanness, inspired by Satan, in attempting, by the world, the flesh, and Satan himself to dishonor Christ Jesus and befuddle ‘disciples’ about their ‘empty gains in Christ’? Satan himself LIVES in a state of rugged, ragged, ruthless impatience, because, as hard as he tries, Christ Jesus gains more and more of what ‘he thought’ was his world!

Oswald Chambers, in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.131), said, “The characteristic of the life to begin with is that it is maimed… There never has been a saint yet who did not have to live a maimed life to start with. But it is better to enter into life maimed and lovely in God’s sight than to be lovely in man’s sight and lame in God’s,” but saying also that through the finished work of Christ, “You shall be PERFECT, even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” assaulted by Satan in the flesh, but resurrected into the fullness of Christ in the Spirit!

If “the Son sets you free”, free from what? And, of course, what a blessing to be freed from the law of sin and death! But you’ve never considered, since the Fall, all men, yes, have been enslaved under Satan and the powers of darkness? Though Holy God made us for Himself, He knew he wanted sons and daughters of faith, free to be His or not be His, when, at the same time, Holy God understood fallen men would face the onslaught of Satan and demonic armies! But, Holy God wanted us “free to choose” – and, praise God, after the tenure under demonic powers, some want to be free of their chains in spiritual enslavement, living as liberated sons and daughters of the Most High God!

If, “the Son sets you free,” understand, it’s the mind and heart of God to see you tired of your natural individuality and ready to be “raised into newness of life,” yes, ready to be freed from Satan’s deceitful darkness into the Lord and Savior’s “Kingdom of Light”! In Galatians 2:20-21 Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the live which I now live in the flesh (earthly body) I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God…”!!

The ‘world of darkness’, ruled over by Satan and his kingdom of darkness, is out to enlarge his kingdom numbers, enslaving people proud of that natural individuality but unaware they have no need of God and just living ‘satisfying’ their fleshly enslavement under the deluding influence of Satan’s army of deceiving demon powers!

Satan kindles “fires of deception” in fallen mankind for sure, and, at least, attempts to inflame deception and a falling away of disciples (like Judas) from “grace living” to “grit at its best” for ‘disciples’ (?) of Christ, totally avoiding the “Victorious Path” over sin, temptation, and self-centered living, promoting the carnal rather than Spirit-Truth and Spirit-Life in Christ alone, and ending up, yes, as ‘slaves of darkness’ though the sin-filled, Satan-dominated walk is darkness in his brightest ‘light’ (?)!

A few words of Satan’s deception: “Easily kindling without Christ’s presence, the dark fires of Hell are easily resident; souls of the flesh are easily deceived, and the dark spirits of Hell reside indeed. But souls of flesh and evil spirits, as enemies of Christ, are nailed in the world as insignificant ‘rivets’, holding hearts and minds to interests of darkness, slaves to the one who would give them a room, forever cursed by his torture and gloom! But here came Jesus, the Savior of men, and shed His own blood “to save us from sin”, plus putting nails in the coffin of our enemy, releasing us fully from Satanic dilemmas!” [By James Farrell Fisher.]

Did I say, “Worlds of darkness Colliding with the Kingdom of Light”? But a godless intellectual community, evidenced sadly in many school settings today, openly ridicule, resent, even reprimand anyone who promotes the Word of God, preaching salvation by grace and faith in Christ alone, or exposing Satan’s, yes, works of darkness, will confine Biblical Truth about Satan or the Savior, determined that the Truth be “hidden by invisibility”, not allowing any Biblical Truth: “Not in our schools!”, even though “Satan walks about seeking whom he may devour!” And though those “teachers or professors” have long tenures in their schools, the day will come, when escorted by the devil of darkness, they’ll “wake up in Hell’s classroom”, never to leave!

I had to laugh when I read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s writing in “Aurora Leigh,” (Bk. V11, l. 105), “The devil’s most devilish when respectable.” And do you realize how “respectable men (who are unbelievers and totally deceived by Satan) but ‘wise in their own hearts’ toward God’s “saving Grace”, are like Elihu who at least said to Job, (Job 37:24), “Therefore men fear Him; He shows no partiality to any who are wise of heart.” It’s true! Some, most, of unbelieving men, ‘wise in their own eyes’, priding themselves with their own ‘superior wisdom’, will, at least, reverence God in their wise hearts, yet never turn from their thrones of self-importance, self-centeredness, and, yes, self-rule, not knowing they already have their own seat-assignments in the classroom of Satan’s “school of death under Satan’s eternal tenure of teaching his darkness of unbelief “!

Individual self-importance and pride sadly missed God’s eternal purpose of human vessels who would give Him the place He desired to extend His love and prove His power, yes, over Satan who still says: “Has God really said…?”, but most, like Adam and Eve, didn’t and still don’t, have burning hearts to give God room to be Himself in and through them.

Satan, some unbelievers, some pastors, and some ‘church folk’, rather than taking the sentence of death unto themselves that Christ’s resurrection Life would be manifested in mortal flesh, never take the sentence of death to themselves but ‘accept’ that if they mindfully believe, the heart, the self-will, and the fleshly plans of self-importance will not be set aside but ‘religionized’ – and they can have, they think, “the best of both worlds”!

Satan thrives on unbelievers but also on pretenders! Satan rejoices that men call themselves “Christians” or “disciples of Christ”, but never receive “crucified with Christ”! Satan celebrates ‘emotional impressions’ without biblical Truth! Satan loves “high levels of emotions” that touch or impresses one’s mind but leaves the sinful heart unchanged! Satan gets excited when he knows, though never “born again”, that unbelievers often feed on their ‘imitation’ of Christ! Satan is uplifted when he sees “professing believers” in awe of their own honoring of their mortal flesh or sin natures without any concern at all of “Be holy, for I am holy” says God!

Satan, yes, encourages fleshly “grit” in all religious circles – while Christ Jesus celebrates the souls who rest only in His grace and mercy, and allow Him to establish His Holy Temple in their hearts! Satan will erupt in mindful pleasure when he sees “ believers who THINK ‘pure’ thoughts of ‘right’ or wrong”, but Christ Jesus said, “BLESSED are the pure in heart; for they shall see God”! A man can be ‘innocent’ related to civil law or innocent because he at least knows the difference between ‘right and wrong’ in the general public, but related to “the kingdom of God”, impurity shuts the door to the gates of Heaven because only the “blood bought” have an acceptable “pass” into Christ, the Holy Spirit, or to the Throne of God the Father!

Do you remember Christ Jesus “weeping over Jerusalem”? In Luke 19: 41-44 we read, Now as Jesus drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “IF YOU HAD KNOWN, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because YOU DID NOT KNOW THE TIME OF YOUR VISITATION.”

It was Oswald Chambers who said in his famous book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.67), “Jesus had entered into Jerusalem in triumph, the city was stirred to its foundations; but a strange god was there, the pride of Pharisaism; it was religious and upright, but a “whited sepulcher.”

Dare I tell you? Satan gloats over “whited sepulchers”, Satan is gleeful when ‘darkness’ in one’s walk takes precedent over the Light of Christ, Satan celebrates when even ‘seekers’ are easily turned away, blinded to the Truth that liberates, but they accept Satan’s bondage to the Lord’s liberating grace and mercy! Do you understand? Satan can ‘blind’ your seeing eyes, contaminate your mind and heart, imprison you to his ways, even ‘darken’ your eyes if you’ve seen in the past, and NOW, “Now you don’t see, now seeing only what you want to see, he uses your culpable carelessness and sinful, selfish choices, to live with the awareness you choice, your selfish ambition to satisfy the old sin nature, and, as a result, came to a dangerous stage of life with the heavy heartache of “What Might Have Been!” I want you to follow John 16:25-33! It says: (Jesus speaking),

“These things I have spoken to you in figurative language, but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about that Father. In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God. I came forth from (or out of) the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.”

His disciples said to Him, “See, now You are speaking plainly, and using no figure of speech! Now we are sure that You know all things, and have no need that anyone should question You. By this, we believe that You came forth (or out of) from God.”

Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Darkness and Light HAVE COLLIDED in the hearts and minds of all men – even now, in our ‘modern day’, Satan is busy trying to insure many will love his darkness and refuse “The Light of the world” whose name is Christ Jesus! As Christ Jesus has come into your world, is He gathering you to Himself or, sadly, you are turning away to the dark world of your ‘flesh’, your sinful ambitions, or your ‘pride’ of being in Satan’s “Hall of Fame” of “disregarders” to the True Faith?

Christ Jesus’ one desire is that YOU and all men “may have My joy fulfilled in themselves”, but far too many settle in to the world, the sinful flesh, and Satan’s kingdom of darkness! Don’t let it be you and yours!