​J.C. RyleIn Our Dying Hour

J.C. Ryle

In Our Dying Hour

“The day may come when after a long fight with disease, we shall feel that medicine can do no more, and that nothing remains but to die. Friends will be standing by, unable to help us. Hearing, eyesight, even the power of praying, will be fast failing us. The world and its shadows will be melting beneath our feet. Eternity, with its realities, will be looming large before our minds.

What shall support us in that trying hour? What shall enable us to feel, ‘I fear no evil’? (Psalm 23:4.) Nothing, nothing can do it but close communion with Christ. Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith,—Christ putting His right arm under our heads,—Christ felt to be sitting by our side,—Christ can alone give us the complete victory in the last struggle.

Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, follow Him more fully. Religion like this will always bring its own reward. Worldly people may laugh at it. Weak brethren may think it extreme. But it will wear well. At even time it will bring us light. In sickness it will bring us peace. In the world to come it will give us a crown of glory that fadeth not away. The time is short. The fashion of this world passeth away. A few more sicknesses, and all will be over. A few more funerals, and our own funeral will take place. A few more storms and tossings, and we shall be safe in harbour. We travel towards a world where there is no more sickness,—where parting, and pain, and crying, and mourning, are done with for evermore.

Heaven is becoming every year more full, and earth more empty. The friends ahead are becoming more numerous than the friends astern. ‘Yet a little time and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.’ (Heb. 10:37.) In His presence shall be fulness of joy. Christ shall wipe away all tears from His people’s eyes. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death. But he shall be destroyed. Death himself shall one day die. (Rev. 20:14.)

In the meantime let us live the life of faith in the Son of God. Let us lean all our weight on Christ, and rejoice in the thought that He lives for evermore. Yes: blessed be God! Christ lives, though we may die. Christ lives, though friends and families are carried to the grave. He lives who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel.

He lives who said, ‘O death, I will be thy plagues: O grave, I will be thy destruction.’ (Hos. 13:14.) He lives who will one day change our vile body, and make it like unto His glorious body. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, let us lean confidently on Him. Surely we ought to say daily with one of old, ‘Blessed be God for Jesus Christ!’” J.C. Ryle

2 hrs · Public

The Difference Between Ten Virgins

The Difference Between Ten Virgins

Posted On Friday, December 5, 2014 By Aimee Byrd On Housewife Theologian
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There are quite a number of books that I have bought over the years with every intention to get to reading one day. They sit waiting for just the right time to crack open. Some people like to stock pile emergency items for their pantry in case of some sort of national disaster. I may not have any freeze-dried food and purified water ready for such a time, but I have some good books to keep me going. 
I decided to finally get to one of them that I give that “I haven’t forgotten about you” smile to when passing by on the shelf: The Parable of the Ten Virgins, by Thomas Shepard (1605-1649). 
I was ready for a new commentary to go through for some personal Bible study, and now it looks like I am going to be spending a great deal of time going through thirteen verses. After all, Shepard preached for four years on it and this book consists of 635 pages of his edited sermon notes. Of course, the original title of his sermon series, in typical Puritan fashion, gives us the full “elevator-pitch,” as we’d call it today: “Wherein the difference between the sincere Christian and the most refined hypocrite, the nature and characters of saving and of common grace, the dangers and diseases incident to most flourishing churches of Christians, and other spiritual truths of greatest importance, are cleverly discovered and practically improved.” With a subtitle like that, you can forget about capitalizing the words! But, I was captivated by how relevant these words are to the church today.
This parable of the ten virgins, found in Matthew 25:1-13, has always been a haunting warning to me. Shepard points out from the beginning that it is not enough for us to be watchful. This parable persuades us that “continuance and perseverance in [watchfulness] from a prudent foresight of the coming of Christ” is needed to make it into the marriage feast (14). These ten virgins had much in common:
1. They are all virgins; virgin professors.
2. They were all awake and watchful for some time, ready to meet the bridegroom; and hence it is said, “They took their lamps.”
3. They all had so much faith as to go out to meet the bridegroom. (15)
And yet, there were clear differences:
1. Generally, “five were wise” and “five were foolish,” verse 2.
2. Specifically, the foolish took lamps, but no oil; the wise did both, verses 3, 4. (15)
You don’t read anything about the lifestyles of the five being given to licentious sin. Rather, I think Shepard’s phrase “refined hypocrite” from his title gives us a lot to think about. Wisdom suddenly takes on a more urgent importance to the saint. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5)! We need wisdom to make it into the feast. And this parable suggests that a great number of professing Christians in the church are foolish. This is how Shepard describes the state of the visible church when Christ returns:
They shall not be openly profane, corrupt, and scandalous, but virgin professors, awakened for some reason out of carnal security; stirring, lively Christians, not preserving their chastity and purity merely in a way of works, but waiting for Christ in a covenant of grace; only some of these, and a good part of these, shall be indeed wise, stored with spiritual wisdom, filled with the power of grace; but others of them, and a great part of them too, shall be found foolish at the coming of the Lord Jesus. (16)
This is a sobering reflection. It reminds me of the serious warning in Hebrews 6:4-6:
For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
There are many in the church who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. They have participated in the means of grace. They even fit in. They walk with us and talk like us. But they turn away from the truth, do not continue to exercise faith by actively engaging in the gospel truths that have been revealed to them in God’s Word, and they do not endure to the end. They turn away because they never were really one of us. Their faith was not real. You can’t pretend in your own strength and make it to the end. 
Every true believer will persevere to the end, but faith is a fighting grace. Waiting isn’t enough. We fight to hold fast to our anchor, our Bridegroom, who is holding fast to us. As we wait for his return, we prepare for it. And fruit will be produced in us. We will become wise.
These warnings are real. They are true. But God’s people will hear them like a child who heeds his father’s admonitions, or like a sheep that knows their shepherd’s voice. And yet this parable is not merely a warning. It also holds out that glorious day approaching which we are waiting for. We are invited to the marriage feast. The visible church, the ten virgins, has been called out to meet the Bridegroom. Who wouldn’t want to be ready for this great day?

​Steve Hammer

Steve Hammer

Every Christian will become at last what his

desires have made him. We are the sum total

of our hungers. The great saints have all had

thirsting hearts. Their cry has been, ‘My soul

thirsteth for God, for the living God: when

shall I come and appear before God?’ Their

longing after God all but consumed them; it

propelled them onward and upward to heights

toward which less ardent Christians look with

languid eye and entertain no hope of

reaching.

-Tozer

O God, quicken us with a greater thirst and

hunger for Thee!

Char Maine

Psa 42:2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the

living God: when shall I come and appear

before God?

Psa 63:1 [[A Psalm of David, when he was in

the wilderness of Judah.]] O God, thou art my

God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth

for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry

and thirsty land, where no water is;

Psa 84:2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth

for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my

flesh crieth out for the living God.

Psa 107:9 For he satisfieth the longing soul,

and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

Mat 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger

and thirst after righteousness: forthey shall

be filled.

Deu 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy

God with all thine heart, and with all thy

soul, and with all thy might.

Deu 10:12 And now, Israel, what doth the

LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the

LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to

love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with

all thy heart and with all thy soul,

Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt

love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and

with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Mar 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy

God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,

and with all thy mind, and with all thy

strength: this is the first commandment.

Mar 12:33 And to love him with all the heart,

and with all the understanding, and with all

the soul, and with all the strength, and to

love hisneighbour as himself, is more than all

whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Luk 10:27 And he answering said, Thou shalt

love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and

with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,

and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as

thyself.

​Steve Hammer

Steve Hammer

“The true penitent repents of sin against

God, and he would do so even if there were

no punishment. When he is forgiven, he

repents of sin more than ever; for he sees

more clearly than ever the wickedness of

offending so gracious a God.”

Charles Spurgeon

JoAnn N Alan

Oswald Chambers 

Are You Going on With Jesus?By Oswald Chambers
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. —Luke 22:28
   
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are Histemptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ’s honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on “outside the camp” (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow— but only the voice saying, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19).
   

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R

​Streams in the Desert – September 19

Streams in the Desert – September 19
2017Sep 19
My Father is the husbandman (John 15:1).
It is comforting to think of trouble, in whatever form it may come to, us, as a heavenly messenger, bringing us something from God. In its earthly aspect it may seem hurtful, even destructive; but in its spiritual out-working it yields blessing. Many of the richest blessings which have come down to us from the past are the fruit of sorrow or pain. We should never forget that redemption, the world’s greatest blessing, is the fruit of the world’s greatest sorrow. In every time of sharp pruning, when the knife is deep and the pain is sore, it is an unspeakable comfort to read, “My Father is the husbandman.”
Doctor Vincent tells of being in a great hothouse where luscious clusters of grapes were hanging on every side. The owner said, “When my new gardener came, he said he would have nothing to do with these vines unless he could cut them clean down to the stalk; and he did, and we had no grapes for two years, but this is the result.”
There is rich suggestiveness in this interpretation of the pruning process, as we apply it to the Christian life. Pruning seems to be destroying the vine, the gardener appears to be cutting it all away; but he looks on into the future and knows that the final outcome will be the enrichment of its life and greater abundance of fruit.
There are blessings we can never have unless we are ready to pay the price of pain. There is no way to reach them save through suffering.

–Dr. Miller
“I walked a mile with Pleasure,

She chattered all the way;

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.
“I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And ne’er a word said she;

But, oh, the things I learned from her

When sorrow walked with me.”

​CORRIE TEN BOOM – Nuggets of Truth .

CORRIE TEN BOOM – Nuggets of Truth .

1.’Do not worry about what you do not understand .Be concerned about what you do understand in the Bible but do not live by it.’ 2.’Hold everything in your hands lightly , otherwise it will hurt when God pries your fingers open.’

3.’There is no panic in Heaven ! God has no problems , only plans.’

4. ‘You can never learn that Christ is all you need , until Christ is all you have.’

5. ‘There is no pit so deep , that His love is not deeper still.’.

6.’Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow ! It empties today of its strength.’ 7.’Its is not my ability , but my response to God’s ability that counts.’

8.’When we are powerless to do a thing , it is a great joy that can can come and step inside the ability of Jesus.’ READ HER STORY IN THE BOOK ‘THE HIDING PLACE ‘.She suffered greatly in the Nazi prison camps during World War Two because she risked her life with her family in hiding Jewish people in their house ! This lady shined 4 Jesus !! Bro.David Cooke .

​CORRIE TEN BOOM – Nuggets of Truth .

CORRIE TEN BOOM – Nuggets of Truth .

1.’Do not worry about what you do not understand .Be concerned about what you do understand in the Bible but do not live by it.’ 2.’Hold everything in your hands lightly , otherwise it will hurt when God pries your fingers open.’

3.’There is no panic in Heaven ! God has no problems , only plans.’

4. ‘You can never learn that Christ is all you need , until Christ is all you have.’

5. ‘There is no pit so deep , that His love is not deeper still.’.

6.’Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow ! It empties today of its strength.’ 7.’Its is not my ability , but my response to God’s ability that counts.’

8.’When we are powerless to do a thing , it is a great joy that can can come and step inside the ability of Jesus.’ READ HER STORY IN THE BOOK ‘THE HIDING PLACE ‘.She suffered greatly in the Nazi prison camps during World War Two because she risked her life with her family in hiding Jewish people in their house ! This lady shined 4 Jesus !! Bro.David Cooke .

Omega Letter.

I HAVE TO SHARE THIS ONE, TOO. Pete Garcia offers many profound points. HERE’S THE ARTICLE, posted in Omega Letter.

“THE WORLD THAT WAS”

In early 1914, though, it seemed almost impossible that Britain and France would go to war with Germany to defend Russia against Austria-Hungary over a dispute with Serbia. Yet by June 28, war moved straight from impossible to inevitable – without ever passing through improbable. Four years later, 10 million people had died. (From World War One: First war was impossible, then inevitable; Anatole Kaletsky)

Although I’ve used this quote in the past, I’ve found myself drawn to it again due to its precise accuracy describing the seemingly incredible and often unpredictable nature of geopolitics. Prior to World War I, who would have believed it? Yet after it was over, the warning signs of impending trouble were so obvious that most couldn’t believe they had missed it. Although unforeseen, the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand became the right crisis at the right time by the old powers to set the world afire. World War I itself then became a forcing function by which the old world still attempted to stubbornly cling to the dying vestiges of the world as it was. But change came nonetheless and no one could stop it.

Juxtaposed to the seemingly unpredictable (and unbelievable) nature of global geopolitics, is the inevitable march towards a future, one-world system. We can see early efforts for this in moves like the League of Nations and later, the United Nations (UN). The UN, along with its cornucopia of bureaucratic offshoots, continue to try to gain global influence and power through treaty and peer pressure. What it lacks at present is a military force capable of enforcing either of these.

Furthermore, the combined globalist efforts in the financial, informational, and military sectors are solely concentrating on consolidating more and more power into fewer and fewer hands. These globalist advancements are only made possible by the snowball-effect of the technological advancements in the 20th century. In fact, so much innovation has transpired over the past century alone, has all but eclipsed the progress of the previous six thousand years of human history combined. Unfortunately, our dependence on modern technology has all but ensured that a centralized power controlling everyone and everything is nothing more than a foregone conclusion.

When asked about the last days, Jesus told His disciples that the end of the age would be recognizable because of the many signs those days would present themselves. Although these signs in and of themselves were not unique (as signs are meant to point to something further down the road), what would be unique was the manner of their manifestation. Jesus likened these signs to ‘birth pangs’ a woman goes through leading up to the birth of a child. In pregnancy, the first and second trimesters have few (if any) contractions (pangs). But as a woman enters into the third (final) trimester, the pangs first come sporadically but soon come in rapid-fire regularity finally reaching a crescendo both in frequency and intensity to the point where the child is coming and she must seek immediate care for delivery. So too would the generation that enters into this final “trimester” of human history be witness to the delivery of ‘the child.’

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:20-23

Assessment

Just as Rome’s founding was many centuries before it became a world power, the same is true for the United States. The US was founded in 1776 but did not become a world power until the end of World War II. For a brief period following WWII, the US remained the world’s lone super-power. It was here in this tiny window of time, that she became instrumental in providing the global and political clout the newly formed nation of Israel would need to survive as an island of democracy in a sea of tumultuous Islamic theocracies. But like everything else, the world’s corruptive and persistent influence has/is forcing the United States to concede to its demand to divide Israel. This is primarily due to our dependence on oil from said Islamic theocracies. Inevitably, our betrayal equates to a “ratcheting-up” of seemingly insolvable problems due to the Abrahamic Covenant effect, which God both promises and warns that I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. We view this covenant in a global sense, (since God was speaking to the nation who would come from Abraham) as the prophetic fulfillment we know simply as the convergence. In other words, the more the world turns against Israel, the more problems the world is going to have. “For behold, in those days and at that time,

When I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem,

I will also gather all nations,

And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there

On account of My people, My heritage Israel,

Whom they have scattered among the nations;

They have also divided up My land. Joel 3:1-2

The convergence then is simply the visible escalation and divine approval of natural calamities and man-caused problems since 1977. This was the year that the “land for peace” agenda began between Egypt, Israel, and the United States with the Camp David Accords. Since then, there has been an ever increasing series of tragic and horrific events overwhelming the entire world. For those watching, the rapid uptick has been startling. For the rest of the world, the normalcy bias has set in and the world has been lulled back to its slumber. Presumably, Satan learned his lesson post-Calvary (1 Cor. 2:6-7) and now understands (Rev. 12:12) that his time is running out. The conflict we then see in the world is one in which the world that is currently controlled by Satan (Luke 4:5-6) is trying to stay the way it is, rather than allow God to press forward with His divine timeline. This then results in wars and rumors of wars, which inevitably allows for rapid innovation. Man’s technological, financial, and political progress careens forward then because crisis demands action and solutions. In other words, Satan can’t stop God’s agenda no matter what he tries.

The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. Luke 16:16 So in the macro-sense, the world continues to press forward in all aspects, and the drama involving all its nation-states seems to be ever-fluid and unpredictable. The issues of death, eternity, the kingdom of God, heaven, hell, God, the angels, etc., all seem to be distant things no one wants to talk or even think about, yet it will not go away. Inarguably, there have been moments in time where mankind’s mortality (in the collective sense) has been so shaken, that it unintentionally makes the world wake up, even if only for the briefest of moments. Such has been the case with 9/11 or the 2011 Japanese Tsunami. But even then, a little time passes and said-event passes into mankind’s short-term memory.

Conclusion The election of Donald J. Trump was in a sense, the last gasp of a free American people. Here is a man who by all accounts (at least according to every expert and think tank on the planet) should not have won the election. His election was as unthinkable and as impossible, as the scenario found in the start of World War I. Yet, win he did, and he did so with as Steve Bannon called it, the island of misfit toys team. It wasn’t so much that he ran against the Democratic-socialist agenda, but against an entrenched establishment (the political class) who were nestled snuggly in the Washington D.C. swamplands.

For eight years, both Christians and conservatives had been force-fed the incessant mantra of the big three lies by the Obama administration. It was done with an intensity and zealotry that was shocking to anyone who had an ounce of common sense. For brevity’s sake, the big three whoppers were: Man-made climate change, aggressive historical revision (whitewashing or rewriting historical facts), and that all cultures and religions are equal. It was piped through all the Sunday news shows and by all the academic panels with their “experts.” These were they who all created the perfect echo chamber to make sure this message was beaten into our heads day after day. By the time 2016 rolled around, the last vestiges of American common sense found itself electing a man who was so far removed from the mainstream political fray out of sense of rebellion against having to endure another four years of the democrat propaganda machine.

But elections have consequences and the lies that were pumped via airwaves and Wi-Fi for eight years have unfortunately stuck in Western culture. This has us Christians looking around the world today and finding ourselves increasingly at odds with the mainstream narrative. Even worse, is that the past eight years expedited the already growing rift within Christendom over the issues of gay marriage, transgenderism, abortion on demand, illegal immigration, cultural relativism, etc. On one side, there are more and more churches bending the knee to popular consensus. On the other, is the dwindling remnant of those who still hold to and believe in a Biblical world-view. Pretty soon, those not bending the knee to popular consensus will be as popular and numerous as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego were on the plain of Dura (Daniel 3).

But are Christians today just as guilty as those in the Pre-WWI colonial world of the same type of wishful thinking? Do we believe that we can keep the world as it was by Making America Great Again? Like every other significant empire and nation who came before us, we too, shall watch the sun set on this great and final experiment in human governance. The Bible does not predict any great Christian revival in the last days leading up to the Tribulation (i.e., the 70th Week of Daniel). America is far too diverse today to ever make that an eventuality. I don’t mean ethnically diverse, but politically, religiously, and ideologically. Ten people in a room couldn’t agree on where the moon was in relation to the earth. Furthermore, President Trump is finding out the hard way that the swamp doesn’t want to be drained, and will do everything in its power to prevent it. The same could be said for our brothers and sisters across the pond in Great Britain with BREXIT. I don’t believe it ever will happen because the EU and British swamps can’t let that happen. The world’s brief flirtation again with nationalism and populism is going to be crushed under the boot-heel of the coming singular global system ran by the Antichrist.

My intent is not to be Mr. Doom and Gloom, but to simply make one point. The reason that the born-again Christian is finding themselves increasingly at odds with the world, is that the world is the swamp, and is in the process of giving itself over to a strong delusion. Just as there are increasing measures of birth-pangs, so too are the increasing stages of unrighteousness. These progress in as much as God gives nations them over to their own delusions and subsequent judgment (Romans 1:16-32; Jeremiah 30:7-11).

But God is not going to drain this swamp, He is going to purge it with judgment and fire before He makes the planet great again. But before He does any of that, He is going to remove His people (true born again believers) by way of the Harpazo (i.e., the catching up or the Rapture). Then the world will be forcibly cast headlong into the final week of years. So fellow believer, don’t get too sentimental on the world as it is, or was, or what it’s becoming. Because it is all about to change.

For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:16-17

6 hrs · Public

​Stephen ThomasWords to Ponder

Stephen Thomas

Words to Ponder

Come with me, poor soul, and you and I will stand together while the tempest gathers, for we are not afraid. How sharp that lightning flash! but yet we tremble not. How terrible that peal of thunder! and yet we are not alarmed, and why? Is there anything in us why we should escape? No, but we are standing beneath the cross – that precious cross, which like some noble lightning-conductor in the storm, takes itself all the death from the lightning, and all the fury from the tempest. We are safe. Loud mayest thou roar, O thundering law, and terribly mayest thou flash, O avenging justice! We can look up with calm delight to all the tumult of the elements, for we are safe beneath the cross. – Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-92)

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