Servant of Messiah Ministries

Preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

What Thanksgiving once was…

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By the President of the United States of America.     
A Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln 1789

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

Abraham Lincoln.

I wonder if  Lincoln had this in mind…………

Jesus’ unanswered prayers.

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John 17:20-23  “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.  

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

It has been 2000 years and that prayer of the Son – “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one” on the most intense night of his life is still only a dream.  The fantasy is compounded – because Jesus like Paul requests  “unity among his followers”  three times and that thrice unanswered prayer is Jesus only recorded personal private prayer to His Father.

Did Unity cease along with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the First Century,   or did the Gifts cease when the Unity ceased?   Yeshua the “Head of the Church”  has not been able to recreate those conditions ever since.   They gathered in one accord – the ONLY word used to describe the group on Pentecost. Over and over they are described eating meals and meeting together with one accord. God using one description, one clue to the miracle – they did it all in ONE ACCORD  –  Acts  5:12  And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch).

I  watched the “fire of complete unity” yesterday  – when the Reformed contemporary  leaders John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Steve Lawson, R.C. Sproul, Tom Pennington  warned the church about the Charismatic error in the “Strange Fire Conference.”  These men are champions of Calvinism and upholders of the 5 Solo’s of the Reformation.  Then they focused their attention to their other Reformed Brothers – fellow heirs of God – with identical teachings – who also uphold the 5 Solo’s and proceeded to discredit  John Piper and Mark Driscall.

The world got to see headlines like “Driscall crashes Convention” and tweets like “they confiscated my books.”  Satan just demonstrated what the world already knows…. that Christianity is as harmonious as the politics in Washington.  The leaders are no different.

I might suggest the next Conference be called “Korah – No Fire Needed” and rather than speaker’s only criticizing brothers and fellow heirs of God –  we actually put our faith into action – and go out and just torch each other’s sanctuaries.

The  founders of this nation are to have said  “We must all hang together, or assuredly  we shall all hang separately.” They understood what the early church practiced.  We are like the the besieged people of God  in Jerusalem in A.D. 70 who set fire to each others food stores inside that city….while the Roman armies just waited for starvation to do what their weapons could not. So what can the current 34,000 christian groups be so disagreeable about?  Well, 34,000 different things, I guess.

Meanwhile the Head of the Church just lives to intercede…..but with useless, fanciful prayers like….. I have given them the glory that You gave me, that they may be one as we are one…..

Revival is the Answer

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There are similarities between the dark times we live in now and the dawn of the First Great Awakening. The choices we see now are the same inequalities facing the workers of France and England. France dissolved into chaos and violence…while England had a moral and spiritual revival.

A corrupt and even dead church darkened most aspects of English life. The Church of England leadership was corrupt. Archbishops and bishops lived luxuriously and unashamedly negotiated better positions for themselves and their families. Economically England by now dominated the slave trade with greed leading to brutality. The industrial revolution influenced owners into adopting the same attitudes of the slavers towards the children working in the mines and cotton mills. In London between 1730 – 1750 almost 3 out of 4 children born to all classes died before their 5th birthday. England was going through its Gin Age with 1 out 6 homes owning and operating a ‘gin still’ and almost 20% of all single girls in London working as prostitutes. The sports of the day was bull baiting and cock fighting, while bare fisted boxing matches attracted 12,000 to a fight.

The climate was as ripe as France for a breakdown of social order into chaos and revolution.

But there was no revolution……There was a Great Awakening instead.  Two young men named Charles and John Wesley met George Whitefield in Bristol on April 2nd 1739. Together they started to preach to common folk in the outdoors as the churches were closed to the poor. Wesley wrote a pamphlet in which he declared that “It is the plain old Christianity that I teach.”  He ended up preaching 45,000 sermons; traveled a quarter of a million miles on horseback,  up and down and across England on roads that were often dangerous and sometimes impassable. He composed his commentary on the Bible verse by verse, wrote hundreds of letters, and a daily journal from 1735 to the year before his death in 1791; and he also wrote some of the 330 books that were published in his lifetime.

Thirteen years before the Abolition Committee was formed, Wesley wrote “Thoughts upon Slavery”, a graphic, tract denouncing this vicious horrid trade” as a national disgrace which greatly influenced Wilberforce. He kept up his attack on slavery until the end of his life, the last letter he wrote being to Wilberforce. He deplored the stupidity and futility of war, especially Britain’s war with the American colonies.

He publicly and repeatedly questioned why food was so expensive and he gave the answer: immense quantities of corn were consumed in distilling. He supported fair prices, a living wage, honest and healthy employment for all.

He never raised the dead,  but he raised a dead nation.  And when he died he left a preachers gown, a bible, and six silver spoons for his pall bearers and …………the Methodist Church that shaped all of England for hundreds of years after his death.

Wesley said, “Sloth, luxury and ungodliness are the characteristics of the English nation!”  Is this not a word for our time?

If we as the church set our mind to Revival – to examine our lives and our communities.  Rather than pray for another bailout  our prayer should be for that last Great Awakening.  Could a small outnumbered church – like Wesley awaken the conscience of a dead nation?  It is only when the situation is so beyond repair that God can do what we cannot.  My email for years has been – Ps85v6 – Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?  7 Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation!   Perhaps things are bad enough now for us recognize our need.

Undoing of the Reformation

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Thousands of Anglicans are expected to defect to the Roman Catholic Church in time for Lent 2011. This started with the Campaign of Father Kieth Newton to leave the church in protest to its stance on the ordination of women and gay clergy.

Father Newton has encouraged the return of Anglicans to the Ordinariate – a special branch of Catholicism established by the Pope – to welcome protestant defectors.   These protestant defectors are traditionalists who oppose the ordination of women and gays into the clergy.

The efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury has not been successful in preventing the split and defection of married Anglican bishops and their ordination back into the Roman Catholic Church. In any divorce first, comes the separation and incompatibility. Then comes the division of assets.

The Church facilities such as St Barnabas in Tunbridge Wales – a nineteenth-century red-brick church where the poet Siegfried Sassoon was baptized,  is an example of this split.  The Diocese of Rochester has forbidden the protesting priest, Father Ed Tomlinson, to conduct services there when he and his parishioners leave the Church of England. Their meeting place may be undecided but their Spiritual home will be Rome.

They are not alone:

On 3 March 2010, in Orlando, Florida, the eight members of the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America voted unanimously to become part of the Catholic Church along with 3,000 fellow communicants in 120 parishes in four dioceses across the country.

On 12 March 2010, the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada formally requested the erection of an ordinariate in Canada.

The Anglican Catholic Church in Australia (a province of the Traditional Anglican Communion) and Forward in Faith Australia, mostly members of the Anglican Church of Australia, jointly applied for an ordinariate in Australia.

The Church of Torres Strait, another province of the Traditional Anglican Communion in Australia, covering parts of Northern Queensland and the Torres Strait, has also applied for a separate ordinariate.

The Traditional Anglican Church (the TAC Province for England, Scotland and Wales) has also applied for an ordinariate.

The Ordinariate talks of recruiting members in waves with the first beginning training at Lent and they hope many more will follow. A little acorn it may be at the moment, it could grow into a mighty  Oak.

The Question one day may be “Did this begin the undoing of the Reformation?”

Is this kind of polarization not inevitable as the world races to its destiny?  For four hundred years the Reformation has veered from orthodoxy today’s lawlessness.

If times of crisis inspire the desire for stability, in a religious context Rome has all the right credentials: Rome never changes.  Throughout her councils (eg Trent to Lyons, Vienna, Constance, Constantinople, Nicaea) this motto has stood firm.

Will protesting erstwhile “reformers”  now return?

“Ask not” was Kennedy’s call to Revolution.

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Fifty years ago today John F.  Kennedy spoke for 16 minutes and with 1355 words inspired thousands to enter politics, government or the Peace Corps.

He said that America continued to fight for “the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the Hand of God.”

The speech has become etched in American lore, particularly among the 60 million people who watched it on television. They saw a youthful and apparently vigorous president grasp power from the elderly Dwight Eisenhower, summoning a new generation “to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle.”  It called on all to “pay any price; bear any burden” to guarantee the survival of liberty.

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

“Here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own,”  he concluded.

Did John F. Kennedy’s  noble wishes die with him?  Fifty years later we the People of the United States, in Order to form a perfect Union, we the people…..Yes we the people, have frustrated  Kennedy,  failed ourselves and forgotten our God.

Kennedy wished that “Here on earth, Gods work must truly be our own!” Kennedy had no idea that “Gods work” was dedicated to the sure destruction of this democracy.

God already declared that the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against His anointed, saying, Let us break His bands. He that sits in the heavens will laugh: the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He will speak to them in His displeasure. I will set my King in Jerusalem. I have decreed: Thou art my Son and I shall give you the heathen for your inheritance, even to the far reaches of North America,  for your possession.” (Psalm 2 vs 1 -8)

That King has asked us to die for His cause.  Ours is not the quick death of the bomber,  to the cry of Allahu Akbar. Ours is the slow daily torturous death of sacrificing our will, our desires and very life.  Let us answer His call to martyrdom.

That soldier Paul of Tarsus said,  I sometimes think God has put us on display, like prisoners of war at the end of a victor’s parade, condemned to die in the arena.  We have become a spectacle to the entire world — to people and angels alike. (I Cor 4 v 9)

So let us answer Kennedy’s call, in making “Gods work our own.” Embrace Gods vision of liberating this planet. Make a friend of self-denial. Be willing to die for His greater cause. You prove to everyone,  that there is no-one more fearless, than those with nothing to lose.

Anglicans ordained as Roman Catholics

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Since the Protestant Reformation, when the Church of England broke away from Rome, it has been a sometimes uneasy coalition between its Catholic and Protestant members.

It’s the huge achievement of the Church that it has kept these two wings together through numerous crises – that over homosexuality being only one of the most recent.

But traditionalists on the Catholic wing have become increasingly disenchanted by “progressive” trends, not so much with respect to liberal moves on homosexuality, but about the ordination of women as priests, and, in the next few years, as bishops.

Many traditionalist “Anglo-Catholics” have threatened to leave the Church and convert to Catholicism, and leaders of their cause say having a home already prepared for them by the Catholics, will greatly increase the exodus.

On Jan 15th, 2011 three former Anglican bishops were ordained as Catholic priests Saturday, becoming the first ex-bishops to take advantage of a new Vatican system designed to make it easier for Anglicans to embrace Roman Catholicism.

The crowded ceremony at Westminster Cathedral in London made priests of former bishops.  “Today is a unique occasion marking a new step in the life and history of the Catholic Church’ said Rev. Vincent Nichols, the Catholic leader in England and Wales.

The groundbreaking ceremony was made possible by a 2009 ruling by the Vatican allowing Anglicans worldwide to join the Roman Catholic Church and still adhere to many Anglican traditions.  The new system was designed to entice traditionalist Anglicans opposed to women priests, openly gay clergy, the blessing of same-sex unions and other controversial policies that have caused a deep schism within the Anglican church.

What made the two-hour service in Westminster Cathedral genuinely historic, however, was that these three men were not simply joining the ranks of Britain’s six million Catholics, or even being granted a special dispensation from Rome’s usual rules to allow them to become married Catholic priests. That happened in small numbers since 1992.

As the Protestant Denominations become more liberal and biblical directives are cast aside for popular idea’s, the Catholic unchanging doctrines offer comfort.

Referring to Saturday’s ceremony, he said: “The truth is the Church of England has decided to take its cue from the society it lives in, instead of its cue from Christ and carries the gospel that he preached to them – as we would see it.

The ceremony was attended by hundreds of priests from England’s Westminster diocese as well as three former Anglican nuns who have officially received into the Catholic Church two weeks ago.

Look for a polarization in the Christian denominations as the Catholic Church welcomes back those “protesting Catholics,” that left during the reformation.

Presidents and Prophets

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President Obama ascended the mountain to Rev. Billy Graham’s  log cabin Sunday afternoon en-route to a memorial service for miners. There was a time a man of God descended from the mountain with a word of the Lord.

So Obama came to a mountain to be prayed for. There will come a time when all the kings of the earth will come to another mountain,  not for prayer, or a photo op,  but to pay homage to the King.

The president had never met Graham in person, Burton told reporters, and is now the 12th White House occupant to have done so in the last 7 decades.  For all those meetings and God speaking to the leaders,  our country still free falls into Hell. And while 7 signifies completeness,  12 is the number of government.

“Rev. Graham has obviously been an important spiritual leader to past presidents,” White House spokesman Burton told reporters, “He’s a real treasure to our country, and the president appreciates the opportunity to visit him at his home.”  There was a time “men of God” were greeted with Ki 18:17  ”when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that trouble Israel?’

All presidents need prayer. But what they all wanted most was the picture. Barack Obama’s visit to Billy Graham’s — was several years in the making.  Both the preacher and the presidents had their reasons — sometimes spiritual, sometimes political, usually both — for getting together. Hopefully, they got what they came for. There was a time kings dreaded and feared the Men of God,  and no man of God ever got together for a Photo Op.

Franklin Graham got uninvited to a National Day Prayer event because he called a false religion Evil, but there was the time when Eisenhower mused about recruiting Graham as a speechwriter, to help in the fight against “Godless communism.”

Now Prophets and the Kings mutually serve each other. From a skinny dip in the white house pool, while Johnson was in office, to pictures of a praying president on evangelical campaign literature, golfing with Kennedy, worship services for Nixon, marriage counseling for a post Lewinsky-Clinton,  Billy Graham was a part of White House life.  Were Gods purpose, His message,  and His agenda really served?

We now have the leadership we deserve in the Church and in our Country  – because the Church of the Living God has forgotten that Presidents serve at the pleasure of the Holy One of Israel,  and we are all accountable to Him.

It is our duty to remind them.

Last Sermon

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He waited among the trees
In prayer alone with fear
No peace among those Olive leaves
His final sermon drawing near

His pulpit was a rough-cut tree
His cloak bloody and bare
His final words choked free
Below a mob only stared

He preached pardon to a thief
Then consoled His mothers grief
Loud thunder clapped a final hymn
And earthquakes growled Amen

And looking to that empty throne
Saw Gods back and He alone
Asking “why” with his last breath
Sermon over …welcomed death

Haiti Earthquake, Christians and “Acts of God

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We will serve you, if you’ll get us free from the French. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal” The so-called deal with the devil to which Robertson refers is the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804).

Nobody taught more about judgment and Hell than Jesus. Most of His condemnation and Woes were directed to the arrogant religious leaders of His day. Pat Robertson today showed the world why!

Jesus did comment on natural disasters  – Luke 13 v 4 Or those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all other men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, NO! Pat, but unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Once again an unbelieving world has another reason to remain convinced the God of Pat Robertson has nothing for them, or suffering Haitians for that matter either.

The issue is not whether God did, or did not,  bring about this “Act of God.” The issue is that this self appointed media hound bringing disgrace, disrespect and dishonour to the Holy One of Israel, by imputing Pat Robertson’s bigotry and warped theological ignorance on the very God, Pat claims to serve.

Last I recall – God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked Ez 18 v 32 “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,” declares the Lord GOD. “Therefore, repent and live.”

The Holy One of Israel once asked a Pat Robertson ‘wanna-be” in Jonah 4v 11 – and I, should not I have pity on Nineveh, the great city, wherein are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

Seems God actually considered the lives of their cattle important?

No man or preacher dare condemn or comment on or judge anyone – until he like Jesus has first prayed for, and then wept over, the very people who have chosen a course that will collide with Gods justice. In Him Mercy meets Justice. Like the tears of Jeremiah and Isaiah – Nobody weeps more than God, as He pleads His case page after page.

Luke 19 v 41 And when Jesus was come near, He beheld the city, and He wept over it, v 42 Saying, If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace! But now they are hid from your eyes…..For disaster is coming.

Perhaps we can all pray that Pat Robertson finds a God that will weep over him, and offer him mercy, before he gets the justice, he so quickly decides Haitians deserved.

No wonder the prayer of all the world is “God save me from your followers”

“Christian Right” or “Moral Majority”

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The media is full of the Conservative political hand wringing and the Evangelical “crocodile tears”  over the wickedness of this nation.  Blogs proclaim it and the Fox media covers it. Does God buy it? Should He buy it?

Our recent interest in abortion, the hand wringing over homosexual “marriage” are motivated by our own self-interest. The Tea parties grow loud in volume and numbers   protesting taxes – gun control- socialized medicine – bailouts.  We see our financial house of cards come apart as unemployment rises and our homes decline in value.

Churches in Detroit pray for an auto bailout while GM spends 40 days in bankruptcy.

Suddenly we reach back to the morals and values of the founding fathers – Liberty, Justice and prayer in schools. and loudly we protest Government intrusion. Church attendance grows and like the weeks following 9-11,  we suddenly look up.

I have news for you – The Messiah was set up – framed and tried and then murdered by the “Moral majority” of His day! The same voices that protested the Roman occupation and Antiochus attempts at “assimilation and the removal” of the traditional Jewish  faith  cry today over the equal status given Muslim and Pagan religions, in this country. Like them, the “Conservative Christian right”  looks back to the glory days of David and Solomon,  in this young nation.

The moral majority of this day will again murder the messengers of that same Messiah,  as did the moral majority of His.  He looked to Kingdom not of this world, and for those reasons He said my followers do not fight.  He did not choose sides and proclaimed truth to Roman Governors, Zealots, Priests and Harlots equally.  He had no interest in the politics of His nation, and delayed His future kingdom, to eager followers.

Just maybe Yeshua read the scriptures promising that all the kingdoms of this world are headed for destruction,  and all our hand wringing is but changing decks on the Titanic. The same Moral Majority wants to use God to further their end. God will not be used, for any end, but His own. Else He would not be God.

We Christians will not be judged on our health plan, our private gun ownership, or our position on immigration,  but did we live right?  How much filth came into our home via TV and media, as we sat down tired after a long day protesting at the Capitol? Our homes are war zones – our kids abandoned,  but we loudly protest “gay marriage.” Does God see our behavior in our marriage as any more “righteous?”

God sees the hypocritical protestations of the Christian right,  is just that. If a sinner like me can see it – I assume Holiness can. His agenda was and is and will always be
Rev 11 v 15 – The world’s kingdoms have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and He will rule forever.”

I suggest the “Moral Christian Right” prepare for that.