“Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers spoke of the false prophets.”

— Luke 6:26

One purpose of the pulpit is actually to drive members right out of the church as part of the continuing purging. The operation of the keys of the kingdom of God is coordinated with the whole matter of church discipline.

As the truth is preached and some unregenerate church members hear the truth, it tromps on people’s toes. And their ungodliness and impenitence and wicked lies are exposed and their heresies are blasted. They leave and the church continues to be purified.

Of course, one of the tragedies of the church today is that too many preachers are afraid to step on anybody’s toes. They will have to answer to Christ for that.

As the truth is proclaimed, God’s own people will be drawn unto Him and the tares will be repulsed. That is the inevitable consequence of preaching the truth. Of course my greater desire is that everyone would repent and come to Christ and that none would be driven away.

Ah, my friends, but that shall never be—for we are a savor of life unto life for some and death unto death for others, and that is part of the calling of every minister and of everyone who names the name of Jesus Christ. What is true of me is true of you as well in your witness for Christ. We need to persevere unto the end, for those who persevere unto the end will be saved.

Pure and holy Lord, we wish that none would turn away from You, but we have promised to work for both the purity and the peace of the church. Help us to never water down Your Word or accept heresy because we want peace and unity…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, THE
CHURCH CAN BE PURIFIED.

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

— Hebrews 11:6

Faith in Jesus is the only ship that sails for Paradise. Faith is the only door to heaven. Faith is the only key that opens the mansions above. Faith is that upon which we rest our heads when we come to the end of this life. Surely it is sad that millions of people in America have never learned the great foundational truth that salvation is by faith alone. Consequently, they have never come to the place where they know assuredly that they are going to Paradise.

Some professing Christians do not realize that they can have the assurance of salvation. But the Bible says it emphatically of those who truly believe in the Son of God: “These things I have written … that you may know that you have eternal life” (I John 5:13) [Emphasis added]. You don’t need to guess, surmise, or speculate. You can know for sure. That is the wonder of faith, and that faith is faith in the crucified and risen Christ. It is faith in the only Redeemer of the world, the only One who has taken our sins and paid for them all, and now offers to receive us freely into His kingdom above.

Suicide bombers of radical Islamic groups blow themselves up and kill others because they think by doing so they will end up in paradise. They are wrong; they will end up in hell. But we as Christians should rejoice in the blessed assurance that we can know we have eternal life.

God of my salvation, thank You for the firm assurance of eternal life. Thank You that I belong to You both here on earth and later in heaven. This is a “foretaste of glory divine”…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE ARE
SAVED FOR ALL ETERNITY.

“Give, and it will be given to you: Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will men give unto you.”

— Luke 6:38

Do you have many friends? Or have you, like so many people, never really learned the secret of how to make friends? We make friends by becoming a friend. In some ways, we receive back that which we give. Look at these Scriptures:

• “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured again for you” (Matthew 7:1-2).
• “Therefore, everything you would like men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
• “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6).

Think, speak, and act positively, and lovingly and you will find that you receive in turn loving and positive thoughts and words and deeds. In the physical world, it is Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But, it is just as true in the psychological and spiritual world. In fact, the speech research unit of Kenyon College proved through many tests that if a person is shouted at, he almost always shouts back.

Ask God to help you to be more loving, more generous, more kind, more Christlike.

God, You are the Giver. When we give it is in imitation of You. Help us to be givers with a thankful heart, not to give in order to get something back but because we wish to share Your bounty.

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
LEARN TO LIVE GENEROUSLY.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we should walk in them.”

— Ephesians 2:10

Most Americans have it backwards when it comes to salvation. They think they are going to be saved by their good works. We know that is not true. We are saved by grace through faith. Yet the problem is that there are many church members who think they have the problem all solved. They don’t do anything because they assume they are just saved. We are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works, as Ephesians 2:10 says.

So, let me ask another question. What have you accomplished for Christ? Many people resolve to do nothing and succeed perfectly.

What is the proper relationship between faith and works? We are saved by faith and after that we live our lives in thanksgiving to God by doing His will. If there were no work for us to do, God could just take us home as soon as we got saved. But He has left us here in this world to do good works, which He has prepared and planned for us to do. These works have nothing to do with our justification, but they help along our sanctification, they glorify Him, and they benefit our fellow man.

Lord Jesus, thank You for entrusting me with good works for me to do for You. Help me to do them well and in joyful gratitude to You…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH,
WE CAN DO HIS WORK.

“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Look! I am making all things new.’”

— Revelation 21:5

The great Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, who was the only theologian I know of to ever rise to the position of Prime Minister of his country, had this to say: “But in regeneration a change took place. By this divine act, our person is in principle detached from his former ego in the old man… Our person is no longer identified with the old man, but opposes him. Even though he succeeds in enticing us again to sin, even in the yielding we do not what we will, but what we hate. Only hear what St. Paul says: ‘For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice’ (Romans 7:19 nkjv).”

A new man has been created, and the believer must consciously be more and more separated from the old nature, which must be more and more mortified and slain. We must identify more and more with the new nature. Only in thus being so identified, will our prayers be pleasing to God and will they be answered.

Say “yes” to the new man and “no” to the old man. If you are in Christ, you have received a new nature. However, as long as you are alive, you still have within an old man. Which of the two will you cater to? Which will you feed? Which will you starve? That will determine your spiritual progress.

Lord Jesus, we struggle with the two natures within and look in longing for the day You will forever remove our sinful nature, and we will be glorified, without even a possibility of a sinful thought. Hasten that day, Lord…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
FIGHT THE SINFUL NATURE.

“So he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. For I am tormented in this flame.’”

— Luke 16:24

It bothers me greatly to see so many people, blithely on their way to eternal perdition.

There was a young man named William C. Burns of Scotland. He was a very compassionate and effective minister for Jesus Christ. But when he was only sixteen years old, he was simply Billy Burns. He grew up on a farm, a long way from any town. He probably had never seen fifty people in his lifetime. He had never been to a big town. Never.

But his mother took him, at the age of sixteen, to Glasgow. As they were walking down the crowded streets of Glasgow, his mother suddenly noticed that Billy was gone. She called for him. She turned around and in panic began to retrace her steps down the street looking for him anxiously. Finally, she came to an alley and there back in the alley, seated on the ground with his back against the wall, his knees up before him, his arms around his knees, and his head on his knees, he was sobbing uncontrollably. She ran up to him and said, “Billy, Billy, what is the matter? Are you all right? Are you all right?”

He looked up at her with a tear-stained face and said, “Oh, Mother, Mother. The thud of all those Christless feet is breaking my heart!” He was not only moved with compassion, he grew up to do something about it. I pray you will, too. May God give us a greater love for the lost.

Lord God Almighty, we are so grieved by all the ungodly people who are so very lost and have no idea how serious their situation is. Only You are mighty to save and we ask humbly to be used by You to gather people to Yourself…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, AND BY HIS
POWER SINNERS ARE SAVED.

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.”

— Psalm 14:1

There are “four horsemen” of the godless apocalypse, who have done so much to intellectually create the society in which we live today. It begins with philosophy, then impacts the culture, and then moves to everyday people and to the politicians.

Freud’s views of man totally changed the thinking of the vast majority in our modern age and gave a picture of man totally at odds with the previously held biblical picture. Marx, the second horseman, through his writings brought so much evil upon the world—leading to the deaths of more than 100 million people in his effort to create “the worker’s paradise.”

Of course, there was Darwin, whose views of the origin of the species and biology affected not only biology, but all of the sciences, then all of the social sciences, and then almost all of life itself. The Nazi Holocaust was based on their interpretation of Darwinism, leading them to try to create a “Master Race”—killing millions of the supposed inferiors in the process.

Then finally there was Nietzsche and his book Übermensch (Superman), which also added fuel to the super race notion of Hitler. Nietzsche coined the phrase “God is dead.”

But those four horsemen have largely been thrown to the ground. All of these men built their philosophy on practical atheism, but those who deny God only show themselves to be fools.

O Lord Jesus, even though these “four horsemen” have been largely discredited, we see pagan religions and Islam coming in like a flood. Only You can give our society another chance to return to You…

ONLY BY GOD’S STRENGTH, CAN THIS
POST-CHRISTIAN SOCIETY BE TURNED BACK.

“You shall teach them [God’s words] diligently to your children…”

— Deuteronomy 6:7

Several years ago the State of Nebraska jailed seven fathers for a supposedly heinous crime. These seven fathers spent Thanksgiving in jail. They spent Christmas in jail. They spent New Year’s in jail. What had they done?

They placed their children in a Christian school to receive a Christian education. The bone of contention was that this was a church school that refused to be licensed by the state or to have its teachers accredited by the state. And in an example of the exercise of raw power, the state clamped down, padlocking the church and the school, throwing the pastor in jail and imprisoning seven fathers and then with warrants for their arrest, causing the mothers to flee out of the state with their children.

Now, it cannot be said that the state is interested in the educational achievement of the children because two independent testing organizations came into the school and ascertained that the children were two to two and a half years ahead of the children in the public schools in the state of Nebraska. No. It is simply a determination to repress Christian schools, to establish precedents, which can be used all across the country so that there can be no competition to the completely atheistic, secularistic, humanistic education that is being forwarded in our public school system today.

There is a battle today over who owns the children—the parents or the state? The Bible says the parents, specifically the fathers, are responsible for their children’s education. It is to God we must ultimately give an account.

God our Father, we thank You for letting us be parents and we desperately need Your wisdom and guidance. We see the state taking upon itself more and more authority, and we pray for Your help in educating and rearing godly children…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
REAR GODLY CHILDREN.

“These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.”

— Acts 17:6

The apostle Paul and Silas had been preaching in Philippi (in modern day Turkey) where many people had been converted. There was a great tumult and they were cast into prison. Finally released, they went on to Thessalonica (in Greece), where they went into the synagogue and preached the Gospel with great power.

Numbers of the Jews were converted to Christ. A great multitude of devout Greeks also were converted, as well as a number of the notable women, so that some of the Jews, being moved with envy gathered together some lewd fellows of the baser sort. They gathered a company and they came to the house of Jason, where Paul and Silas had been. They were going to drag them out, but they could not lay their hands on them.

They took Jason and some of the brethren and brought them before the rulers of the people and they said: “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” I love that description. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have inscribed on your tombstone: “Here lies one who turned the world upside down.” That is what Christianity does.

As we see it from the proper perspective, the world is already turned upside down. What we are trying to do is turn it right side up. It was the pagan conception of turning the world upside down. Certainly we live in a world that desperately needs to be turned right side up in our time—and the Gospel of Jesus is the answer.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming into this world to turn it right side up. As Your followers we ask for strength to work on this task with You. Help us to have a positive influence on the world around us…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, THE WORLD
CAN BE TURNED RIGHT SIDE UP.

“All the believers were of one heart and one soul, and no one said that what he possessed was his own. But to them all things were in common.”

— Acts 4:32

Some people like to say that early in the book of Acts we see an early form of socialism. The early Christians shared what they had, in some cases even by selling their houses and sharing the proceeds so no one had need. But I believe a close look at that passage will reveal that it is in fact antithetical to socialism.

A husband and wife team, Ananias and Sapphira, decided to sell their property, but they kept back a part of the price, told the disciples that they had sold it for more, and then “brought a part of it and placed it at the apostles’ feet.” “Then Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to deceive the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, was it not your own? [There you have an apostolic confirmation of the right of private property.] And when it was sold, was it not under your authority?…You did not lie to men, but to God’” (Acts 5:2-4). Both husband and wife dropped dead because of their sin of lying.

Not only the property and the means of production, but the results of that production were in the couple’s power, not in the power or the hands of the state. Furthermore, you will notice, that this action was voluntary. And where was the money given? To the church—why that’s enough to give Karl Marx apoplexy! Socialism may sound Christian, but in reality it is anything but.

Lord Jesus, You who are the Giver of all good gifts. Thank You for what You have given me and help me to be generous in sharing, especially with Your people. Help us to be honest in all our dealings with money and to give freely…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH,
WE CAN BE GENEROUS.