| A Message "How sweet are Your words to my taste, Sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path." Psalm 119:103 -105 |
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Pavement I love special speakers, bringers of a new perspective or specific message. We were recently fortunate enough to have Dr. Ron Archer at our church and I tell you, if you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak, go! He’s an amazing, knowledgeable person, and gifted speaker who has served as a leadership consultant to Four Star General B. B.Bell, Supreme Commander U.S. Army Europe and 7th Army, NFL Players and Coaches, Fortune 500 Companies and Pastors throughput the world. As he says, "Not bad for a trick baby." That’s right, his mom was a prostitute and he was fathered by one of her "johns". If that wasn’t enough to overcome, he was beaten and raped at the age of five by another of her clientele. I’d like to write about everything that he talked about but for this message I just want to talk about to tiny bits of information that he made us aware of. The first, is that it was recently declassified that the largest oil deposit discovered to date was recently found. Where you ask? In Israel. More specifically, the valley of Megiddo. No wonder such a great battle will be fought over such a desolate piece of land. Second, China has purchased the oil futures for the next 30 years from Iran. Interesting. Now aside from the odd things that have happened in recent years like the red heifer being born in 1997 and the building of the Karakoram Highway allowing the movement of the "Army of the Kings of the East that number 200,000,000" to march on Israel, there are more signs in the past month that should catch our attention, pointing to the possibility of Jesus return. Now, I’m not saying it’s going to be tomorrow but shouldn’t we be acting like it might be? Time is short, whether its our natural life or Jesus returning. We need to take notice of the times and take time for those last minute important things, the things that matter. What might that be? Here’s a little joke to make my point: There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him. An angel hears his plea and appears to him. "Sorry, but you can't take your wealth with you." The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules. The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him. The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed. Soon afterward the man dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter. St. Peter seeing the suitcase says, "Hold on, you can't bring that in here!" But, the man explains to St. Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St. Peter checks and comes back saying, "You're right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I'm supposed to check its contents before letting it through." St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims, "You brought pavement?!!!" Pavement, that’s not important is it? It’s just like humans to make important what God clearly makes unimportant. We find gold and jewels of the most precious things on earth and God paves the streets and makes gates out of them. We wouldn’t dream of making jewelry from wood or tar and gravel and I’m sure God finds it completely amusing that we use gold and jewels as precious items. I guess on the same vein of thought, there won’t be any Gap stores, Dolce and Gabbana, or Tumi. We will all have the same costly attire, robes of white bought and paid for by the Redeemer. That’s all we’ll need. So what does matter? Salvation, our own and everyone around us. A relationship with Jesus is all we should be striving for and talking about in one form or another. Do we want to spend eternity with God, surrounded by love, worshipping our Wonderful Creator or do we want to spend it in Hell? Away from God, alone and from what the Word says in pain and sadness. Is Hell real? Yes, and if you don’t believe it, do you want to take that kind of chance? There’s no do-overs. The decision is now or never. When it’s over it’s too late. How about our loved ones, co-workers, and neighbors? Are we willing to sacrifice a little discomfort talking to them about Jesus now, stretching ourselves a bit to save them from a lot of discomfort in Eternity? If I saw you walking the opposite way on a road and you didn’t tell me there was a giant bear waiting to eat me around the corner, I would be really honked at you inside that bear. Go out and tell them, tell everyone. He’s real and He loves you. And if you don’t believe there is a God, pray and ask Him to show Himself to you. What can it hurt? Believe me, you’ll be glad you did. |