DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT MONDAY – A HEART STARTER #50.

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and those who win souls are wise. - Proverbs 11:30.

Last week Jean and I attended our Queensland State Conference, and it was a wonderful time of inspiration and refreshment. J John from England was the Guest speaker, and as always he dynamically spoke on the need for the Church, and specifically Pastor’s, to do the work of an evangelist, and to encourage their congregations to do likewise.

We also heard a tremendous message from Wayne Alcorn, our State President, on the need to train our people for the work of seeking the lost, and he used the movie ‘The Guardian’; with Kevin Costner, as an illustration of searching for and winning the lost.

Steve Kennedy then gave a marvelous message on ‘The Sower,’ using some very powerful personal testimonies.

A fantastic conference and one that we will be attending next year, so it’s only fitting that todays “Heart Starter” is on EVANGELISM…

I care not where I go or how I live or what I endure so that I may save souls. When I sleep, I dream of them; when I awake, they are first in my thoughts. - David Brainerd.

If to be a Christian is worthwhile, then the most ordinary interest in those with whom we come in contact would prompt us to speak to them of Christ.

If the New Testament be true--and we know that it is--who has given us the right to place the responsibility for soul-winning on other shoulders than our own?

If they who reject Christ are in danger, is it not strange that we, who are so sympathetic when the difficulties are physical or temporal, should apparently be so devoid of interest as to allow our friends and neighbors and kindred to come into our lives and pass out again without a word of invitation to accept Christ, to say nothing of sounding a note of warning because of their peril?

If today is the day of salvation, if tomorrow may never come and if life is equally uncertain, how can we eat, drink and be merry when those who live with us, work with us, walk with us and love us are unprepared for eternity because they are unprepared for time?

If Jesus called his disciples to be fishers of men, who gave us the right to be satisfied with making fishing tackle or pointing the way to the fishing banks instead of going ourselves to cast out the net until it be filled?

If Jesus himself went seeking the lost, if Paul the Apostle was in agony because his kinsmen, according to the flesh, knew not Christ, why should we not consider it worthwhile to go out after the lost until they are found?

If I am to stand at the judgment seat of Christ to render an account for the deeds done in the Body, what shall I say to him if my children are missing, if my friends are not saved or if my employer or employee should miss the way because I have been faithless?

If I wish to be approved at the last day, then let me remember that no intellectual superiority, no eloquence in preaching, no absorption in business, no shrinking temperament or no spirit of timidity can take the place of or be an excuse for my not making an honest, sincere, prayerful effort to win others to Christ. - J. Wilbur Chapman.

A good witness isn't like a salesman; emphasis is on a person rather than a product. A good witness is like a signpost. It doesn't matter whether it is old, young, pretty, ugly; it has to point the right direction and be able to be understood. We are witnesses to Christ, we point to him. - John White.

Wow! Now that our hearts are beating regularly, let’s consider what we have just read over a cup of Java, and ask the Lord to help us by the power of the Holy Spirit, to share this wonderful gospel, to demonstrate it in such a way that it is evident to all, that it is a gospel of love and redemption. Hallelujah!

Loving Father, I thank you for the beautiful weekend that I have just had. Help me by the power of the Holy Spirit to start off this week, by taking on board, some of the advice and inspirations that I have just read. In the wonderful and mighty name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged!
GBYAY

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT – WEDNESDAY WARRIOR. #32… Time for Judgment by Vance Havner.

For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”- 1 Peter 4:17-18.

Peter wrote his letters to Christians in a day of testing and suffering to build them up for greater trials yet to come. In these troubled days, when Christians think it strange I concerning the fiery trial which testing so many of the saints, we do well to fortify ourselves with these words from the great apostle.

When I read this text, my mind goes back to the days of Ezekiel. He was another great preacher Having in captivity in a sad and bewildering day. In thee eighth and ninth chapters of his book, we read that God gave him a vision, turning time backward in its flight and carrying Ezekiel to how him the reason why Israel was now captive in Babylon.

In his retrospective revelation, God showed him through a hole in the wall the elders engaging in idolatry, women giving themselves to phallic cults, and men worshipping the sun. It was as though God said to the prophet, 'Ezekiel, when the young generation now growing up in exile wants to know why I allowed my chosen people to go into captivity, these chapters from the past will explain it. It is righteous judgment for their sin."

Then, In the ninth chapter, six men come forth, and a man with a writer's inkhorn by his side is sent out to mark all who are burdened for the sins of the people. Then the men with weapons are sent after him to kill all that are not marked, and they me told, "BEGIN AT MY SANCTUARY." So here judgment begins at the house of God. judgment begins.

Surely we live today in an age that bears all the marks of the days of Ezekiel. Idolatry, phallic cults and sun worship have nothing on America. We can match the filthiest corruptions which Ezekiel saw any day and we don't have to look through a hole in the wall to see them. The man with the writer's inkhorn was to mark all who were burdened over the sins of the people and all others were to be slain. If that procedure were followed in America, no massacre in history could compare with it, for few there be who care that we have forsaken God.

Amos lamented in his day that no one was grieved for the affliction of Joseph. Jeremiah asked, "Is noting to you, all ye that pass by?" In the days of Malachi the people met his condemnation of sin with a cynical "Wherein?" Isaiah lamented that he dwelt among a people of unclean lips. Paul could wish himself accursed for the sake of his brethren. Moses asked to be blotted out of God's book for the sake of Israel. Our Lord was grieved over Jerusalem. We need today the spirit of a Knox crying, "God, give me Scotland or I die!" We need the heart of a Brainerd wrestling in prayer for the Indians. Not only do we not care for the souls of sinners, alas, we care not for our own.

The man with the writer's inkhorn would not be overworked today marking all Americans who are concerned on account of sin. He wouldn't need much ink to brand the burdened among us. God has a striking figure in he Old Testament to describe human hearts that have grown indifferent to God. In Zephaniah we read: "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, the Lord will do on good, neither will he do evil" (1:12).

Jeremiah says of the Moabites: "Moab have been at ease form his youth and he hath SETTLED ON HIS LEES and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; nether hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remained in him and his scent is not changed"(48:l1). The figure "settled on their lees" is that of vinegar, for instance, that has been allowed to set until a scum has formed over it; or of milk that has turned to curds. It describes the same spiritual state as "resting at ease in Zion"; It is the lukewarm state of the Laodiceans. And it is the condition, not only of sinners, but of thousands of Christians today.

Our churches have settled on their lees. They have been let alone so long, they have been undisturbed by real conviction and repentance, until a scum has gathered over the saints It is disastrous to be let alone too long. God has a way of shaking up His saints. He pours them from vessel to vessel to prevent their turning to curds. Sometimes sickness will stir them up. Financial reverses, even a death in the family, may be necessary. If we judged ourselves, we should not be judged, but we settle on our lees and God as to jolt and jar us loose.

That is why we need revivals. A good old revival is always a blessing because it pours the saints into a new vessel. "It is high time to awake out of sleep," and, however much they may resent it, better disturb the Sunday- morning sanctuary sleepers and empty them from vessel to vessel than let them come to judgment settled on their lees. Too many sermons are bedtime stories to lull the saints to sleep instead of morning reveilles to wake them up! The men who carried weapons were to follow the man with the writer's inkhorn and kill everyone whom he had not marked and THEY WERE TO BEGIN AT THE SANCTUARY.

Peter says, "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God." God begins with His own people: judgment, like charity, begins at home. Much of the blame for world conditions lies at the door of the church. Our indifference, our neglect, our failure to cry out against iniquity have encouraged the devil. Unfaithful preachers, modernism, formality, worldliness, unholy living have disgraced the house of God until He must like the Savior of old, first cleanse the temple. God's house has become a den of thieves and it is time for the whip of judgment.

Two kinds of judgment appear in our text: CORRECTIVE JUDGMENT FOR THE SAINTS, CONDEMNATORY JUDGMENT FOR THE SINNERS. "If it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And it the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? "Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner. (Prov. 11:31).

We are entering upon the last days and God is sifting His people. There is beginning right now a separation between the great crowd of Sunday-morning church goers and those who really mean business with God. On one hand, we have the mass of nominal Christians who belong to church because the family does or because it is the nice thing to do, who draw nigh to God with their mouths and honor Him with their lips, while their hearts are far from Him. These will soon be shown up in their true colors: they will trim their sail to catch the breeze and end up in one great apostate aggregation in league with the powers that be, the world, the flesh and the devil On the other hand, is the faithful remnant who hear he Lord and speak often one to another, saints from all the church bodies, drawn together by a common love for Christ. These will be melted together in fires of testing with a comradeship like that at the early Christians in the catacombs of Rome.

This drawing together is a work of the Spirit, but when we try to do it we fail. This union of Bible Christians does not lend itself to our systems and plans, and when some man tries to head it up or put a tag on it, he fails, but the movement goes right on. We would do better to exalt Christ and preach the Word and not try to engineer the work d the Spirit too closely.

Truly, the time has come that judgment has begun at the house of God, and the best advice I can give is in the first part of this same chapter from First Peter. There is an Old Testament exhortation, "Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow." It is a timely word now. If you are a lukewarm Christian, out of fellowship and out of tune with God, I beseech you, set your house in order, for the storm is upon us and even the righteous will scarcely be saved. Return to God, confess your sin, claim the cleansing blood. Get back to the Book and watch unto prayer. Straighten Out your affairs with your fellow men. See that you have a conscience void of offense toward God and man. Commit your soul to God, rest in the Rock of Ages, where neither bombs nor blackouts can disturb. Learn the joy of abiding in the cleft of the Rock and learn how to sing: When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea-billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well with my soul.

Loving Father, guard my soul from pride, my heart from callousness, and my mind from too much focus on unimportant things, and not enough on your things. Teach me in my heart, by the power of the Holy Spirit, what it means to be about my Father's business, especially in the area of availability to my Lord and Saviour! I ask this in the wonderful and mighty Name of Jesus. Amen.

Be encouraged!
GBYAY

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT MONDAY – A HEART STARTER #48.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. - Mt 24:14.

I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.

Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step and it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry that I heard. Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.

Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simple agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could not call; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come. Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But the intervals were far too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell.

Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some trees, with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. "Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven't finished your daisy chains yet. It would be really selfish," they said, "to leave us to finish the work alone."

There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go and sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge.

Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; buther mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for awhile, but no one was sent to guard her gap and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.

Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called -- but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way and with a cry, the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass. And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn. Then through the hymn came another sound like the pain of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was --the Cry of the Blood.

Then thundered a Voice, the Voice of the Lord. "And He said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brothers' blood cries unto Me from the ground."

The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and shivered about me; I heard the yells of the devil-dancers and the weird wild shriek of the devil-possessed just outside the gate. What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it?

God forgive us! God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin! - Source Unknown.

Wow! Now that our hearts are beating regularly, let’s consider what we have just read over a cup of Java, and ask the Lord to help us by the power of the Holy Spirit, to share the gospel with everyone we come in contact with.

Loving Father, I thank you for the beautiful weekend that I have just had. Help me by the power of the Holy Spirit to start off this week, by taking on board, some of the advice and inspirations that I have just read. In the wonderful and mighty name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged!
GBYAY

DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT – WEDNESDAY WARRIOR! #13…THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST.

A.W. Tozer says that people who are crucified with Christ have three distinct marks:
1. They are facing only one direction,
2. They can never turn back, and
3. They no longer have plans of their own.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' – Mat 7:21-23.

Jesus emphatically states that in the ‘Last Day,’ which is the ‘Day of Judgment,’ there will be many in the Church who will minister in His name, and believe that they are servants, yet in reality, He never knew them!

He actually calls them ‘Doers of Evil.’ Wow! Some would say that was pretty harsh! But Jesus makes it absolutely clear to those people, that they may proclaim the gospel in His name, prophesy in His name, drive out demons in His name, perform many miracles in His name, but, they themselves weren’t saved, they were doing it under their own strength, and for their own gain!

Judas, for example, was capable of operating in all these things; he had the gift of preaching, and a call from Christ to it, and yet a backslider; he had the power of casting out devils, and yet could not prevent the devil from entering into him; he could perform miracles, do wonders in Christ's name, and yet, at last, was the betrayer of Him. These appeals and opinions will be of no use to him, nor of any advantage to any at the great day.

These false teachers lay the entire stress of their Salvation upon what they have done in Christ's name; and not on Christ himself, in whom there is Salvation, and in no other: they never say a word of what Christ has done and suffered, but only of what they have done. All their works were bringing glory to their name and ministry!

The Greek word for lord is indeed used in scripture in the sense of master, and as a mere honorary title as in the English Sir. But, on the other hand, it is the translation of Adonai, supreme Lord, an incommunicable name of God, and the substitute for Jehovah, a name the Jews would not pronounce.

It is in this sense that Christ is 'the Lord, the Lord of Lords, the Lord God'; Lord in that sense in which God alone can be Lord--having a dominion of which divine perfection is the only adequate or possible foundation. This is the reason why no one can call him Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. It is a confession which implies the apprehension of the glory of God as it shines in Him. It is an acknowledgement that He is God manifested in the flesh.

Blessed are all who make this acknowledgement with sincerity; for flesh and blood cannot reveal the truth therein confessed, but only the Father who is in heaven. - Charles Hodge.

There are many times when God overrides Satan’s activities in false teachers, in order to bring Salvation or healing to those who sincerely respond to God’s Word. It is always God’s desire that those who proclaim the gospel be righteous, yet when an evil or immoral person teaches God’s Word, God can still work in the hearts of those who receive His Word with commitment to Jesus. God does not endorse any unrighteous preacher of the gospel, but He will endorse Biblical truth, and those who accept it in faith.

Ye call Me Master and obey me not,
Ye call Me Light and see me not,
Ye call Me way and follow me not
Ye call Me Life and desire me not,
Ye call Me wise and acknowledge me not,
Ye call Me fair and love me not,
Ye call Me rich and ask me not,
Ye call Me eternal and seek me not,
Ye call Me gracious and trust me not,
Ye call Me Noble and serve me not,
Ye call Me mighty and honor me not,
Ye call Me just and fear me not,
If I condemn you, blame me not.
- Resource

Loving Father, I repent of anything that is in me, which is not of you, wash me in the precious blood of Jesus. I receive your forgiveness. I commit my life afresh to you, and ask you to help me remember that it is not by might, not by power, but by the Holy Spirit, that you graciously allow me to minister in the name of Jesus, and for His glor. I ask this in the wonderful name of Jesus, my Lord and Saviour, Amen!

Be encouraged!
GBYAY