Deliver us!

        I know that it’s not the Passover season; for it’s the beginning of winter and the end of fall. It’s almost time for Thanksgiving, and Christmas—who’s thinking about Passover and the days of unleavened bread this early? Well, I am for a reason. You see, the children of Israel were in Egypt since Joseph and Jacob’s family went down there to stay for a while. 70 people from Israel’s family went down, and they stayed in Goshen because the Pharaoh was a good king and loved Joseph, and wanted his family to stay in the best of the land, so they did. The story of Joseph is an interesting bible study: how he was sold into slavery and went into prison and became the second in command of Egypt. It’s a cool story to tell any youth about always having hope and belief in God, and most importantly, how to forgive. Joseph was treated like crap by so many people, and he still had the strength to forgive—how amazing a character. The Egyptians and their king took notice of this man, and Israel grew and multiplied.

        Well, Joseph and his brothers died, and eventually a king of the land was raised up by God to not know the good character and the lessons of Joseph. This pharaoh saw that the children of Israel—who were about 3 million strong at the time—were mightier than the Egyptians, so to make sure that they never escaped or fought against the Egyptians in battle, the king ordered the Israelites to be slaves and set taskmasters over them. The bible doesn’t go into very much detail about how hard the treatment of the Israelites were at the time—except when Moses and Aaron tried to convince the pharaoh to let them go and he wouldn’t. The king made the work more difficult for Israel by not giving them straw for bricks, and they couldn’t downgrade from their daily quota. Israel was scattered throughout the land to find materials for bricks. That’s the only incident recorded of how bad their slavery was. If you want to know the harshness of slavery, America has a good history of it before the civil war. I would recommend reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

        One of the things that happened during Israel’s slavery was the fact that no matter how hard they were being treated, they always had families to come home too, and they got comfort and love from their wives. Israel was getting more and more children even with the bondage; this was a problem for the Egyptians. So, Pharaoh commanded the midwives to kill the male children and leave the girls alive, but they didn’t obey and made an excuse about why they didn’t do it. God gave them a reward for obeying Him. But, this didn’t stop pharaoh, he told all the Egyptians to kill the Israelite male children by throwing them in the river to die. This was a cruel time for Israel: hard bondage, children being murdered, and an evil king fighting against them to oppress them—all this before Israel even knew about the Passover. They needed a deliverer, and they got one. Moses was born at this time, and was hidden by his mother for three months. When she couldn’t hide him anymore, she made something to make sure he floated n the river. She did what the king wanted to do.

        If you know the story of Moses, he was found by the daughter of Pharaoh and was adopted by her. He became great in the king’s court, yet knew about his Israelite heritage. He rescued a Hebrew man from an Egyptian by killing the Egyptian, but it was known by the king and he ran away to Median in Arabia today. God chose Moses to save Israel from their bondage, and bring them to the promise land. The movie “The Prince of Egypt” showed an animated version of this classic story. God acknowledged Israel, and saw their worth even though they never could see it themselves. God did the same acknowledgement to the Black men and women in bondage before the civil war. God brought about the war between the states because of that cruel bondage that was destroying America. God raised up a deliverer in Abraham Lincoln to save the Union and get rid of Slavery—which he did through the 13^th amendment to the constitution. That war killed about 600,000 to 800,000 men—which was the most of any American war.

        Why am I telling you all this? Well, a cry for deliverance is being heard by God once again. It’s not the bondage of slavery in America, but the blood of the unborn. The cry of the unborn since Roe vs. Wade has come to Heaven, and like the Egyptians in the past, we’ll have to pay a price for this—if we don’t stop it. God gave blood to the Egyptians to drink because of the blood of the Hebrew male children in the river that died, and it was just—how much more to us in America for our decision to murder the unborn since 1973. The biggest issue with Brent Kavanaugh’s nomination was the fact that he was the swing vote in the Supreme Court to overturn Roe Vs Wade, and that angered the democrats and the left who wanted to continue murdering babies in the name of women’s right to prochoice. This abomination can’t go on forever, and God hears the cries of the unborn like He heard the cries of Hebrew boys in the Nile. Will a Moses of today’s generation rise up to face the Pharaoh’s of our modern day? We need one now.

History can repeat itself—if we let it.

        I was watching a history of the tsars of Russia on Netflix, and I was watching the reign of Nicholas II. He was the last Tsar before the Bolshevik revolution that began the Soviet Union. Nicholas was a family man and a deeply spiritual man believing in the divine right of kings to rule, but he was a medieval person ruling a modern timed country. His grandfather just freed the serfs of Russia during his reign, which ended a long standing tradition. Peasants were becoming land owners or working in modern factories to make a living. Although Nicholas’ grandfather’s reforms didn’t give the serfs true liberty because the nobles of the time took most of the good land, it did give them a will to act in Russian affairs. Radical terrorists called the peoples will killed Nicholas’ grandfather in a attempt to overthrow the government. They thought that this act would change Russia forever, but it only made his son more tyrannical against the terrorists of his day in order to stabilize Russian society. Nicholas’ father thought that the western enlightenment worldviews in Russia were the cause of his father’s death, and wanted to return to a more traditional Russian worldview.

        This was against his ancestor’s view of modernizing Russia: reformers like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great made Russia a world empire. The people didn’t settle down when Nicholas took the throne, and his father’s view of Russia overwhelmed him by making him more religious and filled with piety than his ancestors. More churches rose up during his reign then those before him, but it didn’t stop the people from revolting through communist rule. The tsars just recently freed the serfs, but the serfs were still in a lot of debt due to not having good land to make a living. Russia had no constitution because the tsars ruled, and Nicholas’ wanted it that way. The rise of Marxism in Russia during the late 19^th century and early 20^th century should be something that we American’s should be listening too. History is repeating itself here in America.

        America is under a cloud of debt that we can’t truly repay under president trump who is a devout Christian who’s a family man, and we are living with the most division in America since the civil war. Even now, there’s a great divide between Republicans and Democrats over a man who has the power in the Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs Wade. Democrat Marxists don’t want abortion to be illegal again, and did what they could to destroy this man’s name. The left ruled by Marxists are no different than the Marxists in Russia during Nicholas’ reign. They wanted a cultural revolution like the Marxists in America. We are repeating history today. What caused the fall of Nicholas was his involvement in World War I for he personally led the war in Europe, but because he was away in Europe there was no one to take care of Russia domestically. Because peasants were fighting in the war and not farming or working to feed the people, they were under a famine. We in America have a lot of corporate farms with little people actually working them. There are more foreigners working on our farms than actual Americans. This should be scary to think about.

        We are going through a repeat of history for people like Barak Obama and his socialist friends that run the deep state in government are trying to collapse the economy making this nation into a communist country like the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. This revolution and the great depression in America in the 1930s cause the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. I fear that we are repeating history, and the rise of Europe as a world power will come because of our collapse. Is there a way to stop it? Well, if it’s possible to have a spiritual revival like after 9/11 when every American went into the churches, than it’s possible to return to God and restore America’s constitutional rights under biblical Christianity, but Nicholas was a spiritual man and was very medieval in his thinking. It’s possible to return to God with a righteous president who can speak compassion and love for the people and be with the times.

        It’s possible that God placed Trump in power to delay the inevitable fall of this nation, but is it the will of God for this nation to fall? I fear that it is, but it’s not the will of God that any of His people should perish. America is almost in a time of revolution, and unless God interviews to save us, tyrants will rule. But, America had fought a revolution before, and by the grace of God’s divine providence, we had prevailed. If we have good people rise up and face the darkness in our greatest time of need, and by the grace of God and His divine providence, we will prevail again in the last war before Christ’s return. May we be there when we see Christ save His people.

Dignity and Prayer

       I was listening to a sermon and the preacher was talking about the leading of the Holy Spirit. How does it lead and how does it work? Peter was specifically instructed by the Holy Spirit to go with the servants of Cornelius without doubting, and he went in faith being led by the Spirit. Paul went into a city in Asia, but was forbidden to go by the Holy Spirit, so he and his company went to another city and was also forbidden by the Holy Spirit. Paul didn’t know what to do until he received a vision to go to Macedonia. God being all-knowing, and all-powerful could have told Paul where to go or what to do at any moment before being forbidden by the Spirit, but that’s not what happened. If God was all-powerful and all-knowing, why would he need us? Why need apostles to preach the gospel when God could just do it on His own? God wants man to be a part of His life’s story: to have the dignity of causality as C.S. Lewis said.

        God wants us to be a part of His life story that He’s writing for us. Jesus said that God knows everything that we need before we even ask Him, so why ask Him? Why not just have what we need given to us at that instance since God knows everything that we need? That’s not how it works. I’m beginning to understand this myself. God loves us too much to keep us as mindless slaves with no freedom to think and reason for ourselves. God wants us to have the dignity to come before his throne and affect events: that’s why Jesus chose disciples to go and heal the sick everywhere and to cast out demons. God was giving man dignity of causality to change people’s lives. That’s why Jesus said that Peter would catch men after the miracle of catching a lot of fish at Jesus’s word. That’s why He told Peter to walk on water to Him: to give him a dignity.

                I have been in the Sabbath-keeping church all of my life, and I have only recently began to understand this about God. I read the bible daily, and pray daily, but what’s really required of us is to stay in Christ: to love Him and the Father and others. Jesus said that if you love Me keep my commandments. He also said that if you stay in Him, whatever you ask of Him, He will do in order to glorify the Father. What if He doesn’t do what you want Him to do? What if He doesn’t heal the sick? Does that mean you lack faith? Or you haven’t abide in Him? Or is it simply because He chose not too? Whatever the reason be? Will you still believe Him and have faith that what He promised to do, He’ll do? God wants us to have freedom, dignity, and prayer to make a difference in people’s lives. Do you believe this? Or, do you believe that God is a harsh God, and His will is final. If you are destinied to die, is that all there is to life? I don’t believe so. Jesus said that it’s not the will of your Father that any should perish.

        There have been Christians who don’t believe as I believed, and yet had been Godly men and women of faith. The Methodist John Wesley, Polycarp, John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Joan of Arc, C.S Lewis, George Mueler, and Mother Teresa to name a few, and they all had relationships with God—even though they didn’t believe as I believe. One such man of faith and dignity was George Mueler, who was born in Austria, but moved to England. He was born in the early 19^th century, and lived to an old age throughout the 19^th century. He founded orphanages in Bristol, England, and helped orphans raise their status in English society by teaching them scriptures and a trade. He helped these children to be good people in English society, and even helped them to get apprenticeships in trades. He was a man of faith, and asked God to help with funds and problems with the schools and even asked God to take away a fog as he was on a ship to go to an appointment in Canada, and at that time he converted a captain of the ship. He was a man of dignity and faith.

        I have just began to understand what God wants for me to develop, and began to realize what God sees in me. He sees a freedom-born, strong faith man who does the impossible with God living a life with dignity and love, and he can do this for you too—if you just stay in Him and be filled with His Spirit, and let the Spirit move you to action to change the lives of others through prayer and compassion and small things of glory.

Child-like Faith

        In the past few days, the LORD has been answering my prayers before each bible study in order to guide me in what He wanted me to learn. He guided me through His Holy Spirit that dwells in me to read about faith, and I take this by surprise because I don’t normally read the bible based on a topic. I normally read specific peoples and adventures of history, but don’t try to read based on a topic. I wasn’t sure what God wanted me to read about faith, but I was willing to see what He has in mind. The first thing He guided me to go was Hebrews 11: the faith chapter as people in Christianity call it. This was a good start because it defines what faith is. Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the substances of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. I am hoping I got the new king james version of that scripture right because I wrote it by memory through God’s Spirit. This scripture defines faith, but let’s go into the greek that the author of Hebrew says to get the full meaning.

        The Greek says it differently: faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Although I had to rearrange the greek to get that scripture, it’s a direct translation. Faith by definition is based on an assurance or a conviction of something you don’t see like a promise or a better reality. God promised Abraham that He would be a blessing and to be the father of many nations. Abraham saw something that was beyond this physical world, and saw that building whose builder and maker is God. He had faith that God would give him a son through Sarah. He believed God who told him the name of his son, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Abraham was assured and convicted that God will give him an heir and an everlasting home in the building God has for him and us. Hebrews said that the mighty men and women of faith didn’t receive the promise, but were assured of them and embraced them: making them want to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

        Pistis is the greek word for faith, and it accurately described some of the men and women of faith over time. People like Enoch who was taken away from death because of his faith in God. That didn’t mean that he didn’t die; it just meant that he never saw it. He pleased God because of his faith in an evil generation, and the author of Hebrews said that it’s impossible to please God without knowing that he’s there and that he’s a rewarder of those who seek Him. Enoch sawed Him, and was rewarded. Faith in God and His promises and the things that He does should give us an assurance based on the evidence of what God did and what he’s planning to do. David slung, with a stone, goliath by his faith in God. Jonathan went to the philistines with his armorbearer while God helped with the ark of the covenant nearby. Moses and the children of Israel walked through the red sea to safety while the Egyptians drowned. These things happened because of faith in God and His ability to work in their lives.

        Faith in God means faith in the impossible because God can do the impossible. That’s how the walls of Jericho fell while keeping Rahab and her family safe because her house was on the wall. This faith in the impossible made it so a virgin from Judea could bear the Son of God without ever knowing a man intimately. Faith in God is child-like faith; for a little child has a great deal of faith. Do you believe that the universe and the earth were created by the Word of God? Do you believe that all living things were made from the earth by God, or do you believe that we were all randomly generated by chance? Look at the evidence of creation: there’s design everywhere and you can’t escape it. Creation was designed to be beautiful, so a designer created something good to enjoy. There’s an intention for joy and goodness in creation because it was designed that way by God and Christ. Faith based on this conviction and truth in something unseen is what pleases God.

        There’s so much more to the faith chapter that meets the eye, but I didn’t stop there. I read Romans to learn that man is justified by faith apart from deeds of the law, and that faith was in Abraham who believed in the promise that God will give him an heir that’s named by God before he was born. Abraham grew in his faith in God because he believed that God was able to perform what He promised. He didn’t care about the deadness of himself or Sarah’s womb: he believed with every ounce of courage to believe, and that helped bring it to pass in God’s time. The impossible is possible with God as Jesus said after talking with the rich man. Abraham had a child-like faith in God that made him a mighty man of faith. Do you have this kind of faith? Do you believe that miracles can happen with assurance and conviction? Do you believe what’s written in the bible that God is who He said He is? I know it’s tough to believe in an all-powerful God when He doesn’t perform great miracles; the still small voice is what He uses more often than big miracles. Do you listen to that voice? Are you guided in the Spirit to have a child-like faith? Only you can answer that, O reader.

How to Serve Your Generation

        Several years ago, I wrote a blog about serving your generation based on Paul’s description of David when He served His generation while reigning as King of Israel. At the time of the blog, I couldn’t find any suggestions about how to serve your generation, but now I feel the need to give some practical suggestions based on the scriptures. There are some things that we can do to serve our generation for the purpose and glory of God above. One of those suggestions is from Jesus himself in the parable of the sheep and the goats in Mathew 25:31-46. Jesus talked in the parable about seating on His throne with sheep in His right hand and goats on His left hand. He told the sheep on His right hand that they are blessed and will be led into the kingdom of God with everlasting life because they feed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, took care of the sick, and visited the people in prison. These were the righteous, and they told the LORD that they didn’t know that they were doing it to Him, and He said this: ”Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me.”. These little things for the little people in Christ gave a big impact on them and Christ, and that helped to serve them. These little things give a big reward to eternal life. Not doing these things leads to death as Jesus said about the goats on the King’s left hand.

        Little things can do great things. In 1 Samuel 25, David sent his young men to Nabal, Abigail’s husband, to ask for food and drink for his men because they protected Nabal’s servants as they were shepherding the sheep. Nabal reviled them; they left empty handed. This little insult made a big impact on David because he told his men to gird on their swords as he did the samething: he planned to kill all the males in Nabal’s house. When David’s young men left Nabal, Nabal’s servant’s told his wife, and she made haste to prepare food and wine for David and his men. She left with the supplies on donkeys—not telling her husband. She finally reached David as he was approaching Nabal’s house, and told him that her husband’s insult should be blamed on her. Abigail reassured David that he’ll be king of Israel, and convinced him not to take vengeance with his own hand: this persuaded David to heed her voice, and leave Nabal’s family alone. This little thing that Abigail did saved the lives of her family and servants. When Nabal learned about what happened the next morning, He became as a stone and after ten days, the LORD struck him, so he died. When that happened, Abigail became David’s wife: one of two wives. This example in David’s life was a little thing that made a big impact on people’s lives, and little things can lead to other blessings in the lives of your neighbors, family, and friends.

        Another little thing that you can do is in Micah 6:8 which says: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” This little thing can do great things in people’s lives. How do you do justly in your life? Simple: it’s in Isaiah 1:17, which says: “Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” God told us to defend those who are less fortunate than yourself: to plead for them and to relieve them of their distresses. Jesus did this all the time in His ministry when He healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, and gave sight to the blind as well as other miracles to help those oppressed by the devil. Will you not do the samething?

        Another little thing is to love mercy, and part of that is to be merciful to the poor among us. Solomon said in proverbs 19:17: “He that is gracious unto the poor lends unto the LORD; and his good deed will He repay unto him.” People with riches rule over the poor as was stated in proverbs 22:7, and in proverbs 14:31, it says: “He that oppresseth the poor blasphemeth his Maker; but he that is gracious unto the needy honoureth Him.” People who are merciful, and give to the poor will be blessed by God; even if you just have a minimum wage job, you are still more blessed in America then in other countries in the world. You can still give a little amount for a big impact in other countries. Jesus said in Mathew 5:7: “blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.” If you love your neighbor as yourself then you’ll love them with mercy in your heart by forgiving their trespasses just as God forgave you. Help those who are in need, and relieve the needy and the oppressed.

        The last thing mention in Micah is to walk humbly with your God. Pride only leads to more destruction in your life and the lives of others around you, just as it says in proverbs 11:2, which says: “When pride cometh, then cometh shame; but with the lowly is wisdom.” Jesus said that those that humble themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled. He even said the parable to not want the best places to sit, exalting yourself, because someone with higher rank will come along bringing you lower. People who are humble seem to be better off than those who are prideful in their lives. A humble person is a teachable person, and a teachable person is a fruitful person: growing to be more like Christ everyday. A prideful person doesn’t want to learn to be more like Christ, and be a better person for it. God wants to give us eternal life in the end, but we need to be humble to receive the blessings of His wisdom and fruit of the Spirit in order to be prepared for that life in His family. These little things help us to serve others in our generation—even if they hate you for doing good. Bless those who curse you: as Jesus said. In the end, these practical suggestions on how to serve others in your generation seem rather small, but are really big things to God. Any little thing matters to the LORD, so do the little things in life: they are the big things.