BELIEVE!

“A Message of Comfort to those who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord”—R Nelson

BIBLE REFERENCE:

“For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name, which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11

WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT:

This message is for those that have been born-again into the Holy Spirit and have accepted the gift of grace for their salvation. This is a message to my Christian brothers and sisters in Christ. The reason that I say this is because, unless you have been in the Word of God and understand the truth about the Bible, you will not understand what I am going to say.

I’m going to share two Old Testament stories that I believe are a foreshadowing of what could be coming to our world very quickly. The first story is found in 1 Kings 18:20-40; it is about the Prophets of Baal Defeated. King Ahab was in the presence of 450 of his best prophets. He was in a debate with the prophet Elijah about whose god was real. So, to try to settle the argument, they decided to do the following experiment. The prophets of Baal were to kill a bull and prepare it, lay it on the wood, and put no fire to it and Elijah was to do the same. Then the prophets of Baal were to call upon the name of their god, (Baal) to bring about a fire on their offering. In verse 26 we read; “And they (The prophets of Baal) took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made.”  Then we read in verse 27 where, “Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” I have to share the rest of this verse as it is written to give you the full effect of my point. 1 Kings 18:30-40; “Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down. Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, “Israel shall be your name,” and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahs of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.” And he said, “Do it a second time.” And they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time.” And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water.

And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.” And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there. Against all odds in terms of what we can conceive, God did not let His Prophet Elijah down. We have a very similar situation happening in America today. It appears as if we have one “man” standing for what is good and righteous, and it seems as if everybody is turning against him, even his own administration. It would appear to the average person that the days are looking awful dark to the true born-again Christians. But let me comfort you with this thought, All through the Bible God has always protected His prophets and followers. God is in charge and has a plan and He will not let evil win, not yet anyway. When it appears as if we are at our darkest hour, we will see a miracle of biblical proportion. Those that have turned against Gods man will parish just as the prophets of Baal because they have succumbed to fear and turned against Jesus because of the fear of the antichrist system. How long will this take, I don’t know, but I see a lot of men who proclaimed to be Christians falling away just as the Bible says would happen in the end days.

Story number two, “The Red Sea Crossing.”  We have all heard the story about the Red Sea Crossing. Let me enlighten you with how this will relate to what we are witnessing today in America. We read in Exodus 14-15 the encounter with the Hebrews and the army of Pharaoh. We read in Exodus 14:5-9; “When the king of Egypt (Pharaoh) was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people (The Hebrews), and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him and took six hundred chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh King of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly. The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them encamped at the sea, by Pi-hahiroth, in front of Baal-zephon. The next few verses are filled with fear ridden Jews that were murmuring against Moses for bringing them out the in the wilderness to be slaughtered by Pharaoh’s army. Sound familiar? That is what is happened today with week minded believers. Verse 13; “And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” We read in the rest of the chapter whereGod told Moses to Lift up his staff and stretch out his hand over the sea and divide it, so the people of Israel could go through the sea on dry ground. And God will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and He (God) will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen. We read in the last verse in Exodus 14:30-31; “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses. When things looked as bad as they could be, God delivered the Jews from certain death. They all lost faith and were running in fear, just as many Christians are doing today. I believe that we are going to see a miracle of biblical proportion similar to the “Red Sea Crossing.” Think about it, “Red” sea crossing. I tell you this to give you hope and if you believe and trust in God, you should not be running in fear. But, if you are one of those that are losing faith, you may be one of those that fall in the category of (Few will be that find the way) the great apostasy that was prophesied to take place in the end of days is upon us at an unprecedented level. Fear is changing the hearts of men just as the Bible says would happen just before the return of Jesus Christ.

ACTION POINT:

Now, I am only mentioning this for you to think about. I may be off the mark, but no matter what happens, I trust in Jesus Christ and the written Word of God. One more time I will share with you the following verse, my favorite memory verse, Romans 8:28; “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”  Regardless of what the near future brings, God has a wonderful plan for His church, and we should not fear what the world can do. God has promised in the following verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:9; “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Do you trust God? That is the question that you need to ponder.

From our Chaplin—R Fritz

A Message of Comfort to those who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord

The comfort comes from the Comforter, the Holy Ghost. John 14:26-27 says, and this is Jesus speaking “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” If we have the Holy Ghost, we have what we need. That Comforter will teach and bring “all” things for you to remember. Peace beyond your understanding without fear. I going to add 2 more things you need, belief and trust. If you have the Holy Ghost, you will have both belief and trust because you still will go through issues or help other people go through their issues. I have been dealing with my feelings and helping somebody else with theirs. One thing I asked the Lord was why he gave us feelings, they seemed to get in my way. Two days later, the Lord answered, “to move us.”  We need a reason to do anything. Our feelings, no matter how strong move us to do a lot of things. Every decision, words spoken or what people say to us affects our feelings or mood then how we react. Now I was given an understanding about our feelings from the Holy Ghost. The warning I give to everybody is you cannot trust your feelings. They are easily altered by Satin and the familiar spirits around us. Things we believe to be true by the way we felt last time something happened, may not be true now. Too many people operate in their feelings and trust them with their life. This is operating in the flesh. They are manipulated and people do not understand that God or the Holy Ghost does not come and feel the same way. If that were true Satin can come as the counterfeit spirit and you would not know the difference. I have seen how somebody that was hurt by what somebody else has done to them is also hurt spiritually. It is a spiritual wound when feelings are hurt. Sometimes that wound is deep. A punch in the stomach or in the mouth would have been better because it would have healed faster. Spiritual wounds take longer to heal because we talk about trust issues with that person and if it was a pastor or some professional, it is a trust issue with people in that field. Somebody actually revealed a personal confidence I had told them before I retired to somebody else. I had to work with them, but I did not trust this person. It took me about 6 months after I had to work with them before I could trust them after I forgave them. Most people do not understand about hurt and the spiritual wound. Hebrews 4:15 says “For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in a time of need.”  This brought me to tears after reading this and should bring “comfort” to you. We may find obtain mercy and find grace in our time of need by coming boldly to Jesus Christ.

As a chaplain, I am asked to counsel people. I have found and the Lord has revealed to me that the severity of that spiritual wound is different for all people because of what they have gone through and their feelings. In other words, just because you and I have gone through similar issues because of our feelings and what has happened, it affects us differently. In the last year, I have dealt with issues that have happened years ago and some over 50 years ago. I going to be brutally honest in that for me I will call it peeling you like an onion, layer by layer, getting to the core on the problem. That is exactly how it happened and where I waited on the Lord. I said, Lord you cannot leave me like this. The Lord slowly put me back together spiritually in the next days. I trusted him and he knew he could do this to me. He knows I want the truth, immediately and to the point. The point I am making is that was for me and my relationship with the Lord. He knows how to deal with me and strategically take me apart and put me back together when I was spiritually “broken.” We need to get help and he knows I will only go to him. He will do it at the right time, the Lord’s time. I did not know I had an issue. This was me. He knows me, this might not work for you. You need to give the Lord the chance to fix you when the time comes. “TRUST HIM” is the only way. People can go to a doctor and for some people that is the right choice. I choose Jesus. He knows exactly how I tick and knows exactly how to deal with me or take me apart spiritually or mentally and knows how to put me back together. He is the specialist that knows all especially spiritual issues. You can trust my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (the Holy Ghost), or you can trust your doctor. That is up to you, you will trust one or the other. This is what I call the benefits and comfort of being one of his chosen or elect. I pray these words change you to see how the Holy Ghost will help you see the truth.

God Bless