Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, look, the house of Israel is saying, ‘The vision that he sees is for many days from now, and he prophesies of times far off.’ Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “None of My words will be postponed any more, but the word which I speak will be done,” says the Lord God.’”- Ezekiel 12:26-28

I’m writing this post during the time when we’re studying Ecclesiastes and here's a perfect example of nothing new being under the sun, for since the beginning of time people have failed to heed God’s warnings. I can instantly think of the days of Noah and Isaiah crying out, “Who has believed our message?” in Isaiah 53:1. Even when God came down in the form of our Lord Jesus Christ, most chose to reject Him.

I thought Charles Spurgeon summed it up pretty well, “Men display great ingenuity in making excuses for rejecting the message of God’s love. They display marvelous skill, not in seeking salvation, but in fashioning reasons for refusing it; they are dexterous in avoiding grace, and in securing their own ruin. They hold up first the sword and then the shield to ward off the gracious arrows of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which are only meant to slay the deadly sins which lurk in their bosoms.”  Ezekiel knew this all too well.

Warnings about the future are still going unheeded today, though there have been many signs and many who are busy warning us that we are living in the end times.

Although, we’ve all heard the forecasts of the planet’s inevitable doom unless mankind goes green. Al Gore and others have become the world’s prophetic prophets concerning global warming, and in response to their message, millions have decided to go “green,” trying to do their part to stave off the  "climate-driven" apocalypse. We now have wind and solar energy companies popping up and electric automobiles. Yet, most still don’t seem to be concerned about their soul!

Do you also wonder why those who have heeded the warning about climate change are not willing to humble themselves to receive salvation and escape the coming “Day of the Lord”?

Perhaps, the biggest lie of our enemy isn’t that there is no God, but that there’s no need to hurry to follow Jesus right now. People  can take all the time they’d like to decide on whether they will follow God and His Word or not. This was precisely the message of the false prophets in today’s passage—the men who claimed to speak on God’s behalf. They claimed, “Ezekiel’s words are true, but not for our generation. The destruction he prophesies is far off.”

Sadly, that same lie is still circulating today! And a similar destruction is waiting for those who refuse to trust in Jesus. There will always be those who reject the gospel as foolishness, but there are also others who intend to follow Jesus, yet at a more convenient time.

It’s up to us to go to those who have decided to put off the day of their salvation with Ezekiel’s message “Repent! For the Day of the Lord is coming…”


I also think the warning to us found in Hebrews 3:7-8, 12-13 is one we need to take seriously,
So, as the Holy Spirit says:


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Begins August 31st! on Women in the Word.

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Week Thirty

Welcome!  We pray that you have all had a precious time worshipping the Lord this morning!  Below you will find some thought provoking questions that will provide you a starting point to your journal writing to complete this week.  We hope that you will find this time soul satisfying!

Our reading this week was Jeremiah 30 - Lamentations 5...

1. What does the sheep and shepherd metaphor in the passage below reveal about the relationship between leaders and those they lead? What does it take to be a good shepherd? Praise God for the gift of good pastors. How have you benefited from their leadership? 

My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray and turned them loose in the mountains. They have lost their way and cannot remember how to get back to the fold. (Jeremiah 50:6)

2. What concerns weigh on you right now? Pour your heart out to the LORD on paper. Let Lamentations 2:19 inspire you to see God and rely on Him to answer your needs.

Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the LORD. Lift up your hands to Him in prayer. Plead for your children as they faint with hunger in the streets.

3. How are God’s love and mercy evident to you today? How did you encounter them yesterday? For what can you trust Him tomorrow? Let His faithfulness move you to worship. 

The unfailing love of the LORD never ends! By His mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each day. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Saturday, July 28, 2018

This coming week's memory verses are Ezekiel 11:19,20...

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (NIV)

Have a blessed and precious day and week everyone!

They have gone along [from one sin to another] from mountain to hill;

They have forgotten their [own] resting place. (50:6)

And go out of the land of the Chaldeans;

Be like the male goats [who serve as leaders] at the head of the flocks.” (50:8)

Do you want to know what the will of God is for your life, or in a particular situation? Which way to go? What is the right thing to say or not to say? What to do?

There are four key steps to take in seeking a word from God in any and all situations. BUT before I let you in on them, let me share how I found out just what they were…

You see, The Lord chose to uproot us and move my husband and I thousands of miles away from all we knew and loved back in 1999, and we were miserable. We tried to keep a stiff upper lip during the week, but on Sunday afternoons we’d sit in our empty house and cry. We missed our kids, our family, our home! We were trying to settle in, trying to make friends, but all that takes time.

Suddenly, only a few months after arriving to our new environment, we were handed a way to go back home!

A new job offer came to John from a huge multi-billion dollar company! They were willing to move us back home to NH, give us a huge signing bonus and raise! It was an awesome job opportunity working for an old boss John had loved working for years before. Everything screamed, “TAKE THE JOB AND GO BACK!!”

Only, there was this one nagging question, “Why would the Lord move us here and have us buy a home, only to move us back four months later?” It just didn’t seem to make sense. So we began to pray… and pray… and have everyone we knew pray. We went back and forth; we’re going … we’re staying … we’re going.

We finally decided to accept the job, put our home on the market and head back home when John was invited to lunch with our pastor at the time, Dr. Adrian Rogers. The conversation started off lighthearted as all were getting to know one another until that is, John let on that he had just accepted another job offer and was heading back to NH in about six weeks. The room suddenly grew very quiet and Dr. Rogers grew very serious and pointed his finger at John and told him in so many words, that he was here for a reason and he needed to go home, get on his knees and confess every unconfessed sin and ask God to reveal His will to John. John came home and told me what Dr. Rogers had said, but I didn’t think much of it until the next morning.

John’s contract with the new company was being delivered that morning by FedEx for John to sign and ship it back overnight. I had only run to the store for a moment, but when I returned there was a note on my door from the FedEx deliverer informing me that he was sorry he missed me and would return on Monday.

Now we had the weekend to nail down what God’s will was for us.

By Sunday night John was pretty convinced that The Lord wanted us to remain here in our new home, but I still hadn’t heard from God in spite of all my seeking and crying out to Him.

That was until early Monday morning while it was still dark, The Lord woke me up with the words, “Come away with Me, My beloved.” And I knew at that moment I would finally learn exactly what God’s will in this situation was. I grabbed my Bible off my nightstand and hurried to the sitting room where I usually met with the Lord in the morning. I got down on my knees and set my Bible, that was still closed, on the couch in front of me, and began to pray! I sat there confessing everything I could possible think of and then promised Him that I was, “not getting off my knees until I know in which way we are to go.” I sat silently listening, waiting ….. nothing. I was growing more and more frustrated by the minute!

I began to pray again and I promised Him, “I’m going to whip this Bible open, and I’m going to start reading wherever it lands and I’m going to keep on reading until I know in which way I am to go.” I whipped open the Bible and it opened to the book of Jeremiah. Chapter 42 was on the left-hand side of the page and since we read left to right, I thought chapter 42 was a good place to start!

Then all the army officers, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest approached ² Jeremiah the prophet and said to him, “Please hear our petition and pray to the Lord your God for this entire remnant. For as you now see, though we were once many, now only a few are left. ³ Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.”

⁴ “I have heard you,” replied Jeremiah the prophet. “I will certainly pray to the Lord your God as you have requested; I will tell you everything the Lord says and will keep nothing back from you.”
⁵ Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us. ⁶ Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.”

My heart began to pound within my chest! "What if I don’t like the answer???"  But I kept reading,

Ten days later the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. ⁸ So he called together Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him and all the people from the least to the greatest. ⁹ He said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your petition, says: ¹⁰ ‘If you stay in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not uproot you, for I have relented concerning the disaster I have inflicted on you. ¹¹ Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear. Do not be afraid of him, declares the Lord, for I am with you and will save you and deliver you from his hands. ¹² I will show you compassion so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your land.’
¹³ “However, if you say, ‘We will not stay in this land,’ and so disobey the Lord your God, ¹⁴ and if you say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the trumpet or be hungry for bread,’ ¹⁵ then hear the word of the Lord, you remnant of Judah. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you are determined to go to Egypt and you do go to settle there, ¹⁶ then the sword you fear will overtake you there,

That was all I needed to hear! I grabbed my Bible and ran back in the bedroom, woke John up and read this to him. He then shared that a friend had brought up this same chapter the day before as they were shooting hoops. We both looked at one another and knew, we were to remain in this land.

The FedEx envelope arrived a few hours later and I signed for it, but we never opened it. It still sits unopened in John’s night stand drawer 19 years later. John called and told the company he wasn’t coming and for some reason they weren’t surprised. We called our real-estate agent and told her to take the house off the market and she admitted she hadn’t put the house on the market, for some reason she had a feeling we’d be staying.

What God did after that is absolutely AMAZING! I wish I had the time to share with you! Suffice it to say, when you are in the center of God’s will it is AWEsome! We were in absolute awe just being able to watch Him work over the next few years!

Unfortunately, the remnant of Judah hadn't listened to the words of Jeremiah then, but we are so thankful we did!

Now let me share the steps I learned to take when you’re desperate to know what God’s will is in a certain situation, for I want you all to experience the joys of being in the center of God's will!