How to Awaken a Dead and Unregenerate Church? - Steve Lawson

El Shaddai - Michael Card - Worship Video with lyrics

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “Bless You, Prison!”

"Solzhenitsyn in the 1950s at the Kazakh prison camp that inspired 'A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.'"

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: 

It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and now good.

In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel.

In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor.

In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments.

It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good.

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. . . .

That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me:

“Bless you, prison!”

I . . . have served enough time there.

I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!”

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, Volume 2, pp. 615-617.

Better To Have Never Been Born by Steve Lawson

I'm Suffering, Why Me? Why Now? by Charles Leiter (Excerpt)

Slaying the Dragon

Slaying the Dragon

“Those who belong to Christ Jesus
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
(Galatians 5:24)

[Photo credit: Smaug.tk]
John Piper:

---

Picture your flesh—that old ego with the mentality of merit and craving for power and reputation and self-reliance—picture it as a dragon living in some cave of your soul. Then you hear the gospel, and in it Jesus Christ comes to you and says,

I will make you mine and take possession of the cave and slay the dragon. Will you yield to my possession? It will mean a whole new way of thinking and feeling and acting.

You say:

But that dragon is me. I will die.

He says,

And you will rise to newness of life, for I will take its plan; I will make my mind and my will and my heart your own.

You say,

What must I do?

He answers,

Trust me and do as I say. As long as you trust me, we cannot lose.

Overcome by the beauty and power of Christ you bow and swear eternal loyalty and trust.
And as you rise, he puts a great sword in your hand and says,

Follow me.

He leads you to the mouth of the cave and says,

Go in, slay the dragon.

But you look at him bewildered,

I cannot. Not without you.

He smiles.

Well said. You learn quickly.
Never forget: my commands for you to do something are never commands to do it alone.

Then you enter the cave together.
A horrible battle follows and you feel Christ’s hand on yours.
At last the dragon lies limp.
You ask,

Is it dead?

His answer is this:

I have come to give you new life. This you received when you yielded to my possession and swore faith and loyalty to me. And now with my sword and my hand you have felled the dragon of the flesh. It is a mortal wound. It will die. That is certain.
But it has not yet bled to death, and it may yet revive with violent convulsions and do much harm.
So you must treat it as dead and seal the cave as a tomb. The Lord of darkness may cause earthquakes in your soul to shake the stones loose, but you build them up again. And have this confidence: with my sword and my hand on yours this dragon’s doom is sure, he is finished, and your new life is secure.

---

Piper continues:

Christ has taken possession of our soul.
Our old self has been dealt a mortal wound and stripped of its power to have dominion.
The Christian life, the fruit of the Spirit, is a constant reckoning of the flesh as dead (piling stones on its tomb) and a constant relying on the present Spirit of Christ to produce love, joy, and peace within.

Whither? Whither?" (Where are you going?) Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)

IN THE beginning of the last century, an old American Christian died, leaving on his death-bed this message to his son,--"Remember that there is a LONG ETERNITY."

But this was not all. He laid upon his family the dying command, that the same message should be handed down to the next generation, and from that to the next again, as long as any of his posterity remained. The command was obeyed. One generation after another received the solemn message, "Remember there is a LONG ETERNITY." And the words, we are told, bore fruit in the conversion of children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

It is of this long eternity that God so often speaks to us in His book, with the words "everlasting," "without end," "for ever and for ever." It is of this long eternity that each death-bed speaks to us,--each shroud, each coffin, each grave. It is of this long eternity that each closing and opening year speaks to us, pointing forward to the endless years which lie beyond the brief days of time,--brief days which are hurrying us without slackening to the life or to the death which must be the issue of all things on earth. Of that eternity we may say that its years shall be as many as the leaves of the forest, or as the sands of the seashore, or as the drops of the ocean, or as the stars of heaven, or as the blades of grass, or as the sparkles of dew, all multiplied together. And who can reckon up these numbers, or conceive the prodigious sum,--millions upon millions of ages.

A traveller, some years ago, tells that in the room of a hotel where he lodged there was hung a large printed sheet, with these solemn words---

"Know these things, O Man,--A GOD, a Moment, an Eternity."

Surely it would be our wisdom to think on words like these,--so brief, yet so full of meaning.

Richard Baxter mentions the case of a minister of his day, the whole tone of whose life-preaching was affected by the words which he heard when visiting a dying woman, who "often and vehemently" (he says) "did cry out" on her death-bed, "Oh, call time back again, call time back again!" But the calling of time back again is as hopeless as the shortening of eternity. "This inch of hasty time," as that noble preacher calls it, cannot be lengthened out; and if not improved or redeemed, is lost forever. While God lives, the soul must live; for "in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Our eternal future is no dream nor fable. It will be as real as our past has been,--nay, more so. Unbelief may try to persuade us that it is a shadow or a fancy. But it is not. It is infinitely and unutterably real; and the ages before us, as they come and go, will bring with them realities in comparison with which all past realities will be as nothing. All things pertaining to us are becoming every day more real; and this increase of reality shall go on through the ages to come.

Whither? whither? This is no idle question; and it is one to which every son of man ought to seek an immediate answer. Man was made that he might look into the long future; and this question is one which he ought to know how to put, and how to answer. If he does not there must be something sadly wrong about him. For God has not denied him the means of replying to it aright.

Whither? whither? Child of mortality, dost thou not know? Dost thou not care to know? Is it no concern of thine to discover what thy existence is to be, and where thou art to spend eternity? Thy all is wrapped up in it; and dost thou not care?

Whither? whither? Dost thou hate the question? Does it disturb thy repose, and mar thy pleasures? Does it fret thy conscience, and cast a shadow over life? Yet, whether thou hatest or lovest it, thou must one day be brought face to face with it. Thou shall one day put it, and answer it. Perhaps, when thou art putting it and trying to answer it, the Judge may come, and the last trumpet sound. "While they went to buy, the Bridegroom came."

Whither? whither? Ask the falling leaf. It says, "I know not." Ask the restless wind. It says, "I know not." Ask the foam upon the wave. It says, "I know not." But man is none of these. He is bound to look into his prospects, and to ascertain whither he is going. He is not a leaf, or a cloud, or a breeze, not knowing whence they come and whither they go. He knows that there is a future of some kind before him, and into that future he must ere long enter. What is it to be to him? That is the question!

Whither? whither? Go to yon harbor, where some score of vessels are lying, just preparing to start. Go up to the captain and ask, Whither bound? Will he answer, "I know not"? Go to yon railway station and ask the guard of the train just moving off, Whither bound? Will he say, "I know not"? No; these men have more wisdom than to go whither they know not, or to set out on a journey without concerning themselves about its end. Shall the children of time be able to answer such question as to their route and destination, and shall a child of eternity go on in the dark, heedless of the shadows into which he is passing, and resting his immortality upon a mere perchance?

But can I get an answer to this question here? Can I secure my eternity while here on earth? And can I so know that I have secured it that I shall be able to say, "I am on my way to the kingdom: let this present life be long or short, the eternal life is mine"?

The gospel which God has given us is that by which we are enabled to answer the question, "Whither? whither?" for it shows us the way to the kingdom,--a way not far off, but near; a way not inaccessible, but most accessible; a way not costly, but free; a way not for the good, but for the evil; a way not hidden, but plain and clear. "The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein." He whom the Father has sent to be "the Saviour of the world" says, "I am the way."

The knowledge of that way is everything to us: for he who knows it, knows whither he is going; and he who knows it not, knows not whither he is going. The right and sure answer to the question, "Whither?" depends entirely on our true knowledge of the way. For the world is dark, and can tell us nothing of the way; nor can it in the least enable us to answer the awful question, "Whither am I going, with all these sins of mine, and with a judgment day in prospect, and with the certainty that I must give an account of the deeds done in the body?"

In order, then, to get the answer to the question we must come at once to the "good news,"--the glad tidings which God has sent to us concerning Him who "died for our sins, according to the Scriptures;" "who was buried and rose again." It is the belief of this good news that connects us with Him; and in so doing, enables us to answer the question, "Whither am I going?" For if we are connected with Him, then assuredly we are going where He has gone before us. By the belief of the gospel we are brought into possession of that everlasting life which He has secured for sinners by His death upon the cross, as the propitiation for sin.

We knew one who, filled with dread of the unknown future, sought for years to get an answer to the question as to his own eternal prospects. He labored, and prayed, and strove, expecting that God would have pity upon his earnest efforts, and give him what he sought. At the end of many long, weary years, he came to see, that what he had been thus laboring to do, in order to win God's favour, another had already done, and done far better than he could ever do. He saw that what he had been laboring for years to persuade God to give him, might have been had, at the very outset, simply by believing the good news that there was no need for all this long waiting, and working, and praying; and that now, at last, by receiving the Divine testimony to the person and work of the only-begotten of the Father, he could count with certainty upon the favor of God to himself, as one who had believed the record which God had given of His son (1 John 5:10-12). Thus believing "he entered into rest,"--the present rest of soul which is the result of a believed gospel, and the earnest of the future rest which remaineth for the people of God.

To say to any sinner that he must answer that momentous question, "Whither?" and yet not to tell him the Divine provision made for his answering it, would be only to mock him. But to call on him for an answer, while making known to him the grace of Christ and the open way to God, is to gladden his soul, by showing how he may at once find the means of answering it, without working, or waiting, or qualifying himself for securing the favor of God.

To the troubled spirit, we hold forth the free and immediate pardon which the gospel places in our hands,--a pardon which no prayers or exertions of ours can make more free, or more near; a pardon flowing directly from the finished propitiation of the cross; a pardon for the ungodly and the unworthy; a pardon which, while it glorifies Him who pardons, brings immediate liberty and deliverance to the pardoned one. "Through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him ALL THAT BELIEVE ARE JUSTIFIED" (Acts 13:38,39). If justified, then we know our future as well as our present; for "whom He justifies, them He also glorifies" (Rom. 8:30).

"It is all dark," said a dying young man who had trifled with the great question throughout life. "I'm awfully afraid," was the language of another in similar circumstances. "I have provided for everything but death," said an old general, as he was passing away. "No mercy for me," was the death-bed cry of one who in early life had promised well, but had gone utterly back. "I'm dying," said another, "and I don't know where I'm going." Such death-beds are sorrowful indeed. Darkness overshadows them. No ray of hope brightens the gloom.

But he who has accepted the great salvation is lifted above these fears and uncertainties. The light of the cross shines down upon him, and he looks into the vast future without alarm. "I know whom I have believed," he says; "and knowing Him, I know where I am going. I am going to spend an eternity with Him, whom, not having seen, I love. I am going to the city which hath foundations; and though worms may destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." The question "Whither?" has no terrors to him. He knows that all is well. Eternity is to him a word of joy. He has believed; and he is sure that his faith will not be put to shame. The simple word of the Son of God, "He that believeth is not condemned," suffices for him to rest upon, in life and in death.

A QUOTE

"There are indeed a few Christians in the world who are engaged in spreading the light, but unfortunately their efforts are limited to words. They can preach quite acceptably; they can describe the beauties of the Lord; and they can indicate the path that men should follow. But before long their own shadow obscures this good teaching. For there is a considerable difference between what they say and what they do". - Wang Mingdao

Unequaled Greatness - Art Azurdia

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The True Meaning of Jonah - Matt Haney

I Will Put My Fear In Their Hearts

“I will put My fear in their hearts—so they will never turn away from Me. (Jer 32:40)

Jesus, to whom I have been led to commit myself, has engaged to save me, absolutely, and from first to last. He has promised not only that He will not depart from me—but that He will put, keep, and maintain His fear in my heart—so that I shall never finally depart from Him!

And if He does not do this for me—I have no security against my turning apostate! For I am so weak, inconsistent, and sinful; I am so encompassed with deadly snares from the world; and I am so liable to such assaults from the subtlety, vigilance, and power of Satan—that, unless I am ‘kept by the power of God,’ I am sure I cannot endure to the end!

In short, I must sit down in despair—if I did not believe that He who has begun a good work in me, will carry it out to completion.”

— John Newton
Works of John Newton

Cut Off Goliath's Head! - Bob Jennings

Truth! - Albert Martin

It Will Cost You Everything! - Steve Lawson

Flee from the Wrath of God!

"Here is probably the greatest evidence that you're outside of Christ, that you have no power to overcome sin. Can you overcome sin? Or are you still living in the muck and mire of Internet pornography?" ~Don Currin.

Minimal Morality? Just go back to the world! Tim Conway

Ant Megalopolis

Our Great God! - Fernando Ortega w/Lyrics

How Deep the Father's Love - Fernando Ortega

Religion or Devotion? - David Platt: SBC Pastors Conference 2009

David Platt: SBC Pastors Conference 2009 from Todd Thomas on Vimeo.

The Real Mount Sinai

Watch The Real Mount Sinai in Family | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

RC Sproul The Total Sovereignty of God

The Value of Sinners, Prostitutes, and Drunkards - Ryan Fullerton

Your Life's Ambition

Your Life’s Ambition

 

We (Christians) have as our ambition … to be pleasing to Him (2 Cor 5:9)

Life is brief

Moses says life is like a night’s sleep, David like a fading shadow, James like a vanishing vapor, and Peter like the withering grass. You are on a fast one-way street, never to pass this way again. In less than 100 years it will all be over; you will likely be long gone and scarcely remembered. The funeral home, the hearse, and the grave are at the end of the road. Are you spending your journey wisely? Are you on the right road? What is your life’s ambition? What is the real purpose of life?

Pleasures 

You say your goal in life is pleasures, a good time, to get all the gusto you can, to eat all you can, drink all you can, shoot all the drugs you can, have all the sex you can, and laugh all you can. But look down the road a ways. Will your life’s ambition hold in the wheel chair? No, “burn out” is sure. You’ve spent your youth and energies. Your toes have curled, your teeth have rotted, your skin has wrinkled, and your lusts have withered like your body. What are left but a few fading memories whispering, “What was the use?” The tombstone will be your stop sign and the judgment of God will display all you have done in your body like an open closet door. God says, “It is appointed for men to die, and after this comes judgment”. 

Possessions 

You say your goal in life is possessions, to accumulate all you can. But I invite you to show me the house that hasn’t rotted, the car that hasn’t rusted, the clothes that haven’t worn out or haven’t been eaten by moths. Many are the elderly whose estates have been reduced to but a few sticks of furniture in a nursing home. Howard Hughes, who was one of the wealthiest, came to the end of his career holed up in a hotel room, collecting his urine, eating only ice cream, with fingernails like bird’s claws. What can mere things do for you when gaping for your last breath? The grave will even strip you of your precious wife and children.

Popularity 

Is your goal is popularity, fame, reputation, and personal prominence? This boastful ugly show of self-life will see the curtains too. Again, take a tour of the cemetery (every town has one or more). Where are the successful? Truly, as someone said, “Death will always be the one signal failure of man.” And furthermore, in two or three generations your name will be lost forever from the faceless, forgotten multitudes who have gone before. And besides, to what purpose, ultimately, is your supposed “influence for good” on mankind, when mankind itself will soon wink out of existence. God will surely close the world history book and burn the “Who’s Who” at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory.

The One Valid Goal

Listen, there is only one valid goal in life – to live for God and love Him supremely. Isn’t He worthy of the glory? God made us for Himself and a life spent for Him and with Him is fulfillment at its best yielding righteousness, peace and joy unspeakable. Your plans, ambitions and wishes are but hollow idols; throw them in the trashcan. Take your splendid sins and cast them by faith on the mighty Savior, trusting that He died to pay your sin-debt – freely, fully, forgiven forever. Get a Bible. Saturate your mind with it and find it to be a manifesto of the mind of God, an operator’s manual for your soul, a blue print for building character, a rulebook for the race of life, a road map to heaven. Invest everything in God Himself. He alone has eternal life and those in union with Him through Jesus Christ will rise in the last day with a brand new body and live forever. Will you repent and believe, or will you press on and perish?

What does God say?

“All that is in the world, 

the lust of the flesh (pleasures) 

the lust of the eyes (possessions) and 

the boastful pride of life (popularity)

is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts but the one who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:16, 17).

Make the will of God your career. Who are those who enter heaven at last? Those who do the will of God (Matthew 7:21).

Used By Permission

Copyright 2008-2011. Highway M Chapel. All rights reserved.

Ovarian Cancer Information from a Patient

Well, for those of you who know me, I am headed to the 'Cancer Treatment Centers of American' in Tulsa, OK, www.cancercenter.com, today for my last set of OVAX Shots. I will have one more shot but it will not be until sometime in November or December. It will be the 6 month booster.

For any woman that has OVARIAN CANCER or has a family member or friend that has been touched by this, I suggest taking a look at the website address that I am posting below. The study is currently recruiting participants. Please visit the page below for all information that pertains to the study and how to know if you are eligible. I was eligible and so you could be also.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00660101

I would also like to guide anyone who has any type of cancer to the CTCA (Cancer Treatment Centers of America). You can call 800-931-9299 anytime to discuss your treatment options. You can visit them online and chat with them live at http://www.cancercenter.com/. I can not stress how excellent this place is. You do not have to have a lot of money to go to this place and it is not a "last chance" option. If you find out you have cancer then call them or go to the website. You will be amazed at the care they offer and you are in charge as the patient and not the other way around. Trust me, I had my first treatment in Kansas City before calling CTCA and I am thankful to God that He led me in this direction.

Melissa G.

Short Version of My Conversion

I am not much of a writer, blogging is not going to make me shine; this is my first attempt and so I guess I will begin with my testimony of God's gracious work in my life.

My family was not religious and so I was never taught anything about God. My first encounter with religion was a faint memory of Jehovah Witnesses visiting our home. My second encounter, and the one that would shape my life for the next 30 years, was an invitation from my older sister to a little Assembly of God church in Dumas, TX where we were living, I was 8 years old. I recall going for the first time on a Wednesday night and before the actual service they had children and adult classes which I came to really look forward to. After the class was dismissed I thought it was all over but could not find my sister. Everyone was in the main sanctuary, or at least I thought all the adults were and children were not allowed. Someone caught me peeking in the door several times and finally came and brought me in. I felt sheepish.

It was good there in that little congregation. Every time we gathered people would stand up and share what the Lord had been doing in their life that week. I would listen intently to them wishing I had something to share. At the end of the service the pastor would open up the altar for people to just come down and pray alone before God. I remember going and kneeling down and putting my head on my arm that rested on the altar and tried to talk to God, always peeking to see what others were doing. I wanted what these people had, what I saw they had in the Lord.

The pastor, at the Assemblies of God Church, never made an altar call for sinners and so I never heard of it until I visited my Aunt Margie's Baptist Church. I remember him asking people to raise their hands if they wanted to invite Jesus into their hearts and some did but I didn't. I wanted to but wasn't sure what it all meant. All those who had went to the front were led in a "Sinner's Prayer." When service was over and while my parents tarried, I knocked on the Pastor's office door . I told him I wanted Jesus and he told me to come and have a seat, and so I did. He told me to pray and talk to Jesus and so I did the best I could muster and that was that. I thought I was saved.

My whole life (some 30 years) I claimed to be a Christian but there was no evidence of conversion. I lived so wickedly and there was no power over sin in my life, I felt condemnation all the time. From the age of 12 years old I was smoking and drinking and using marijuana and all sorts of vile things. I always questioned my salvation. Every time I did go to a church or watched a preacher on television I would say the sinners prayer when they did the altar call because I just wanted to be absolutely sure that I was saved. I thought that maybe if I say it this way or maybe I was sincere this time but it was a lie. If I read the Bible it was only when a preacher would  give some spine tingling  sermon on prosperity or healing or power. I just became more confused and more insensitive to truth. 

After meeting my husband Joe, him and I moved to Kansas City. Joe and I really began to search for God in our apartment.  We were both feeling as if we were picking up with God where we had left off.  We found a church in Grandview, but left because church didn't feel the same.  It didn't do the same thing for me that it did before.  It felt fake.  I started praying for God to remove everything that I was taught that wasn't truth because I started to see a lot of the things that I knew, weren't truth.  I read the bible, listened to worship music, prayed and listened to messages on the Internet.  I ran into Paul Washer's "Shocking Youth Message" which began in myself a deep questioning of my salvation.  It was so convicting that I tried to ignore it.  I truly was scared, but continued to listen to Paul Washer.  I listened to his message entitled "Examine Yourself" where he went through the book of 1 John and by the end of that message I was in such turmoil on the inside because I knew I was a wretch and that I had sinned against a Holy God and I was not saved and it scared me, I was desperate. I knew then only God had the power to save me and not some little religious prayer.  I had prayed that prayer too many times at several altars in churches all across the country and none of them had saved me.  I needed God and I made it known to Him with a deep repentance that I never had before. I continued to cry out to Him everyday to do a true work, a complete work, a finished work in me that only He can do.  I can not tell you the hour or the day but I know beyond a doubt that my God began that precious work in me and I see myself through a different set of eyes today.  I am broken and humbled before God.  I don't understand why He bothered with such a mess like myself but I am forever grateful that He loved me and I am looking unto Christ who is the author and finisher of my faith. I have no need to say that sinners prayer again ever because God has done a supernatural work of regeneration in my heart.

I have found the only safe place is in the Center of the Flame of the All-Consuming-Fire of God.