| Good Morning, Meetpastordan Readers…one of the songs performed by the worship team yesterday at Grace Church St. Louis was a pick from the old standards, the kind of hymns I used to sing Sunday after Sunday when I was a kid growing up in Crooksville, Ohio. I remember that in my youthful days I was much more interested in trying to pick out the alto or tenor parts, so most of the words slipped right by my consciousness. At that time, harmony interested me much more than words. But today when I look at the words in many of those timeless hymns, the depth of the message overwhelms me. They’re actually mini-sermons in their own right.
The selection yesterday was “Great is Thy Faithfulness”: Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father, There is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not, As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be. (refrain) Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; All I have needed Thy hand hath provided— One of God’s majestic qualities is that He is immutable (unchanging). Hebrews 13:8 tells us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” That should come as no surprise since “Jesus is the Word incarnate.” (John 1:14) If God is unchanging, so is Jesus! How comforting is that, especially in this crazy world when what used to be revered, honored, or even worshiped we now find being mocked, ridiculed and even blasphemed! And conversely, what used to be shameful, vulgar and downright disgusting is now the “new norm” and is receiving rave reviews by some! Confusing, right? So how do we know what to believe? To be faithful encompasses the qualities of honesty and dependability. For instance, when you meet someone new, he/she is a “new acquaintance”. Before people can earn their way into your “friend” category, you have to learn certain things about them, such as “Do they speak the truth? “Are they true to their word?” “Can I confide in them”? “Are they honoring to me and to their own commitments?” “Will they be there for me if and when I need them?” “Are they compassionate and empathetic?” “Do they like to gossip?” To add people to your friend category means that they have demonstrated these qualities to your satisfaction, and as a result, you feel you can put your faith in them. As Neil Anderson states in his book, Victory Over the Darkness, that “our faith is only as strong as our object of faith.” For instance, if our faith is in worldly teaching and worldly philosophies, both are fallible, so our faith might get shaken if we try to depend on that as our source of truth. In today’s culture, animosity and chaos.is at a feverish pitch. There is so much finger-pointing, name-calling, accusations, hatred, anger, deceit, jealousy, lying and cheating, that it’s hard to find a respectable source of truth to call, “terra firma.” Unfortunately, the media is of little or no help here, because they have lost almost all of their credibility. Instead of unbiased reporting, they contribute to the chaos by creating and shaping the news based on their agendas and their editorial style of journalism. So where does that leave us? Where do we find that “terra firma”? The Holy Bible makes a claim that no other book can make; it claims to be the inspired Word of God. History has shown that if you’re going to make a claim such as that, you had better be ready to back it up. A claim with that boldness and that conviction certainly invites skeptics, so it should come as no surprise that this Book has had a plethora of challengers: physicists, mathematicians, scientists, academics, scholars, atheists, agnostics, idiots…all have taken a whack at disproving the Bible. No doubt the Bible is written in prose, poetry, allegory, parable, and metaphor – and there is certainly no shortage or paradoxes, but to my knowledge, no one has ever disproven, or found contradictions, in that book. (And no doubt, we would know if they had! Think of what would happen today if the Bible could be disproven. We would see and hear a news flash from every radio and TV station; there would be headlines in every publication proclaiming, “The Bible is a fraud! We always knew it was a fraud, but now we can prove it.” I believe a more likely scenario might be that people have read it, then decided that’s not how they want to live. That’s OK. God gave us free will, so that is their prerogative. But in many cases, they continue their assault because the Bible’s authority is a pain in the “derriere” to most liberal, progressive thinkers. As I’ve mentioned before, the Liberal Progressive Agenda’s goal is to fundamentally transform America. Therefore, they have attacked many of the fundamental pillars that have defined our society. While ignoring the genius and the inspiration that produced our founding documents, they find them to be outdated and out of step with today’s culture. They’ve taken aim at, and have tried to redefine, the traditional family structure and the traditional definition of gender. Dividing our culture along the lines of racism and ideology, they believe, suits their purpose. Not enforcing laws that are contrary to their agenda, but attempting to impose new laws that support their agenda is commonplace today. But of particular interest to this posting is the exaltation of human wisdom and worldly philosophies over God’s Word. There are many contributors to the craziness we are all observing in our culture right now: the explosion of technology and technological advances, the decimation of long-standing cultural values and standards, soaring divorce rates, off the chart addiction rates, accelerated suicide rates and a dramatic increase in crimes and murder. So what is the common denominator in all of this? Well, I’ll challenge you to consider this. Instead of thanking God for His guidance and for the many blessings He has given us, we, as a culture, have expunged God from our midst. The “voice of the world” shouted we don’t need God. We’re enlightened! We’re evolved! We want to be our own god! Therefore, the craziness we see in the world today is Man’s best effort at playing god. Consequently, we’ve become a culture that is morally and spiritually bankrupt, a culture without a moral compass. To call again on the insightful words of Messianic Rabbi, Jonathan Cahn, author of the Harbinger, “As God was expunged from American life, idols came in to fill the void: idols of sensuality, idols of greed, of money, of success, comfort, materialism, pleasure, sexual immorality, self-worship, self-obsession. The sacred increasingly disappeared, and the profane took its place. The smiles of heaven cannot remain on a nation that disregards the ways of God. If America turns away from God, His blessings will likewise be removed and replaced with judgment.” As I mentioned earlier, the Bible claims to be the inspired Word of God. The term “Word” is very important here. The term for “Word” in the original Greek language of the New Testament means “logos” or Truth. The Bible is God’s revelation of His Truth! There are two particular Scriptures that substantiate that claim. 2 Peter 1:20: ”Above all, you must understand that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophets themselves or because they wanted to prophesy. It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak from God.” And 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It is God’s way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do.” In a world where truth casts shifting shadows, we all need something we can hang on to, something we KNOW we can stake our life on. The Holy Bible IS that something. It’s our lifeboat in these tumultuous times! God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (all one and the same) are immutable, meaning They never change. And God’s Word never changes; it is timeless. You can COUNT on it. It’s His Truth, His way of seeing things, His way of doing things. As it said in the Scripture above, “it is useful to teach us what is true (right) and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. The answer to our culture’s spiritual malaise will not be found in human reasoning or thinking. Spiritual issues can only be remedied by Spiritual truths. Thank God there is a new revival in the making; it is a revival that will put the focus back on Jesus so we can reestablish our moral compass. Now I would like to ask you to take a minute and re-read the lyrics to the hymn at the beginning of this blog. Now ponder what this really means: “there is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not; Thy compassions they fail not; Thou forever will be; new mercies I see; All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.” Now all of this is the Truth, and you can stake your life on it! As the sign proclaimed to Pam and me the afternoon we bought our Villa in Apollo Beach, FL: “JESUS IS FAITHFUL” His promise to us is…if we are faithful to Him, He is faithful to us. Amen to that! Feel free to respond to this message, and please “like” it and share it with other social media friends. May God Bless You, and May God Bless America Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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