A great Christian I heard was Edward DoGood. He was a powerful preacher during the dark ages and was martyred in the Spanish inquisition. They took Edward and put him in a sawmill and cut him into fine 1/2 inch slices and fed him to the lions. I know I am not the greatest Christian since sliced Ed.
Anyway, Edward DoGood is just a figment of my imagination. I need to often explain my corny humor, as poor Ed was just made up and often my jokes cause only me to “lol” and others to “garte” (groan and roll their eyes.). Sliced Ed. Get it? The greatest thing since sliced bread? Yes, I know. GARTE. Anyway, as I go on in this Christian life, I continue to be less impressed with ME and more impressed with the God in me.
For example, I was writing another one of my long winded blogs yesterday. Usually I just write and write and write and everything flows out. I usually blog differently than when I write tracts. For blogs, I tend to just fill myself up spiritually during my Bible time and think about crazy events and the current state of Christianity and whatever is on my heart. In my blogs, I usually don’t stop to give actual bible verses except from memory. If I actually do want to write a book, then I will want to add the verses and add statistics and other research so it is more “professional”. Sounds rather cult like the way I describe it! Meaning it will look like I am after going into the Bible to find verses to justify my writing instead of the other way around.
Honestly though the Bible and the word of God are the filters I look at everything in the world. My wife and I were watching fairly innocent “I love Lucy” episodes. I realized I didn’t love Lucy, as it hit me we are laughing at the antics of two people who are right now burning in hell while we laugh at them. They are good examples of the American version of illusion too. Here we have Ricky and Lucy, happily married and Ricky enjoying his cigarettes and dance club life. In real life their marriage was a train wreck, Ethel hated Fred so much in real life that she celebrated his funeral with champagne, and Ricky died of lung cancer.
Yesterday’s post was a bit awkward as it began with a verse when I read proverbs and as I wrote that led me to dig out other verses and it kept slowing me down as I was typing out verses while I was writing! It just didn’t seem to flow like my typical posts but I could not get away from attaching more verses than normal. Finally I posted it and later that night I was re-reading it and soon found myself in the book of Genesis and added all that part about Adam and Eve and when Eve sinned. Well, where it got exciting was tonight. We had my son’s kindergarten graduation ceremony at our church. The Asst. Pastor Jon is the Principal of the school. He closed the service with a 15 minute sermon and charge for the grads and students. His message was about Adam and Eve and when Eve sinned!
Coincidences are merely when God wants to remain hidden. The more I am in that book the more “coincidences” that come up over and over and over. The book is supernatural. I am just the messenger. This book is alive! This Sunday Dr. Douglas Stauffer is doing an all day series on the King James Bible. He is the author of a great book, called One Book, One Authority. You can watch it live at OldTimeBaptist.com Sunday morning at 10, 11 and at 6:30 pm on Sunday the 9th of June. The big thing to take home is there are amazing checks and balances in the King James version. An example is God has numbers for a lot of things. These area bit of Bible codes that really are the dessert in Christianity to ignite our faith in the WORD. And clearly expose the holes of all the modern perversions. In Revelation it says 666 is the number of the antichrist. 6 is the number of a man, for example we get buried 6 feet under and man was made on the 6th day. Romans is 6 letters and has the name man in it and is the 6th book of the New Testament. The 6th word of the 6th verse in the 6th chapter, 666, is man! The scoffer will only see it as a coincidence. I will take a (Doug) Stauffer over a scoffer any day!
See, all these built in proofs disintegrate and break down with the new versions. The 6th word is not man in the perversions. The Bible is alive but the new versions are man made and there is no authority or power in them. Why settle for a counterfeit of the real thing? The real word will change your life!
Read Bro Stauffers book! I did not get paid to say that.
What I was thinking about today was how pitiful we really are as Christians in America today. Especially when you look around and see how much we boast that we are children of the King. I am not even worthy to wipe Paul’s nose but I can somewhat parallel what Paul stated when he said he had reason to boast being a Pharisee of Pharisees. Before I say any of this, I know who I am. I am nothing but the dust of the ground. I was hell bound 11 years ago and I still don’t know why Jesus saved me. Even if I got what I deserved after salvation I would still be hell bound.
With that intro, here is what I need to say to convey my heart. If anyone can brag about being a good Christian in 2013 America, I think I could. My boys and I gave out a lot of tracts shopping at Wal Mart this week. A few weeks ago I planned a three day fast and made it to the third day until about dinner time. I preached on the street last week and did street evangelism. I drove by Tim Hortons twice this week and did not stop and buy a coffee. I gave 2 tracts to our pediatrician today. I sang to the Lord with all my heart many times this week. This is my third blog post in a few days. I went to church services Sunday morning and night and Wednesday night this week and I prayed at the altar each morning after dropping my son off at school.
I say all that to state this. I am not impressed with my Christianity. Maybe I lack faith, but I don’t see any of us in America able to last a minute in a spiritual boxing match with any Christian in the past 2000 years. We have it so easy, we are so full of the affairs of this life, we are so compromised and two faced and so emotion driven that I had this thought. I know I wouldn’t even make the grade in a power ranking of American Christians. However, for argument sakes, let’s say I am in the top 20 Christians in America today. Hello, I am the 16th greatest Christian in America right now. The greatest since Sliced Ed.
Now all time, I doubt I would even be in the top million Christians of all time. It is basically like those flash in the pan college football teams that are 10-0 and have out scored their division rivals by 200 points. Then they play a ranked team and lose 53-3. What happened? Reality. They thought they were pretty good but they never played against anyone talented. That is American Christianity. We think we are something. And we go on a mission trip and think we sacrifice because we have to drink home brewed coffee.
Now get this, I wonder if I would even crack the top million Christians in the world right now, had I been selected in the America’s Top 20. Or pre-selected if I was a Calvinist.
Why do so many Christians have a problem with what I am saying? My friend Sam still to this day will not talk to me because I called him lukewarm. I believe the reality was I called us both lukewarm. I am rich blind and in need of nothing so much of the time. The only thing that I see that makes a difference is GOD! He commands me to fast and half the time I would rather eat pizza but when I finally quit fighting and fast, I see how much food has a hold of me.
God is our belly! We live to eat. Pray for me that I will have better control of my diet. I fast and after see my diet take even more of a nose dive than before. It is almost like the flesh tries to set the stakes a little deeper and resists even further being told when it can eat. Yet fasting is a weapon us Americans don’t like to use. I mention it because we have so many obstacles in our way of being fruitful Christians in America. We are too full on everything it has to really see our need for God. I find only when I fast do I seem to be able to go beyond the curse of my cold Christian culture.
I want to hear well done. And I want to hear God say to America, “I’m not done”. God is at any moment ready to pull the plug, pull his hand off and say ENOUGH and blow the trump and that is it. That is not all He wrote but the rest is in Revelation.
We are in the last church age. A song the girls sang at the ceremony today said Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon, many shall meet their doom, trumpet shall sound. God is warming that trumpet up with every earthquake and tornado. Each day is one day closer to his return. World War III is coming. Yet we are more about what is going on with America’s Got Talent. Or the latest reality show. You want a reality check? Read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in another.
America needs a wake up call to shake us off our foundations and bring us to our knees. 9/11 failed to do it. Do we need a 6/11? That could be when the rapture hits though.
I fear when America really sees the state she is in, it will be too late.
Jesus is coming. Oh America, oh churches of America, what is it going to take for us to AWAKE????????????????????