Rory Feek is a world – class storyteller, songwriter, filmmaker, and New York Times best-selling author. As a musical artist , Rory is one-half of the Gammy – award – winning duo, Joey + Rory. He and his wife toured the world and sold nearly a million records before her untimely passing in March 2016. Follow Rory’s monthly column “Roots + Wings” in each issue of Plain Values, formerly Winesburg Ohio’s best kept secret. Enjoy this 30 min interview about the evolving of the Feek homestead. Click either link at the bottom, then close the advertisement and the interview should begin.
Seriously, as I continue considering Karl’s admonition this morning about “what’s holding me back,” simplistically, Rory has prompted me to think of transitioning from referring to our ten acres, two homes, two barns, a field and woods with its meandering stream from the foreboding cold war era designation of “the compound,” to a more inviting “welcoming to the table” identity of “the homestead.”
In Rory’s October Plain Values column, he details his journey the past year to turning off his router and “snipping” the internet cable. The column begins with a quote from Henry David Thoreau “I went to woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Incidentally, Plain Value subscriptions are life enhancing Christmas gifts. 330-601-6106 www.plainvalues.com
Seriously now, what’s holding you back from moving forward? Your lack of facing Reality? Remember your Resource’s formula?(people + prayer + presence = power). Get Results! Get Transformed!
First folks, I made a serious error in my last blog. The quote was actually from Keith Miller, a prolific author beginning his trail of admonitions back when I was a teen with his early on book “Taste of New Wine,” AND not Warren Wiersbe as I stated. Wiersbe was merely quoting the quote crediting Keith Miller. A simple fact my sister had told me correctly but that I failed to fully comprehend! Once again! My excuse is the integral internal liabililities accompanying later stage maturation!
Second, I will pass along an admonition of “later stage observations of future events” for Christ Followers by such as Dr David Jeremiah in his recently released book titled “The World Of The End: How Jesus’ Prophecy Shapes Our Priorities.” I’m halfway thru it on Audible and have ordered hard copy yesterday and highly recommend it for any CF seriously coordinating/reconciling today’s events with Matthew 24, known today as the Olivet Discourse. Today we are learning fear can indeed erode faith, IF we let it. We are learning from experience that staying mentally healthy in a crumbling world is our daily assignment and we can’t do it without a buoyant spiritual foundation for our lives. We need God, we need Christ and His teachings, we need the Holy Spirit and his indwelling, and we need the scriptures and its prophecies about the future.
There is a special scene in the Bible where the teachings of Christ, the inspiration of the HS, and the prophetic words of God, all come together in a gripping chapter that is too often overlooked. We call it the Olivet Discourse from the final week of Jesus’ natural life where he sat with four of his disciples on a ridge on the Mount of Olives where our Lord rolled out the blueprint of the ages, the master plan for the last days, beginning with the shocking prediction of the second massive temple complex tumbling down (which occurred within decades according to the reputable historian Flavius Josephus written accounts from AD 70. See “the destruction of the second temple” in templemount .org/desruct2.html . Actually the Roman soldiers with long iron bars toppled the stones off while reclaiming the melted silver and gold in the temples storehouses that ran down into the temple’s foundations fulfilling Jesus’ prediction. Later then, Jesus gazed forward to the precarious days prior his return in our days ever delivered and it is recorded beginning in Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
And as in the infomercials, today there is another admonition!. As encouraged in prior blogs, go to dailylightdevotional.org and select Oct 8 for priceless “approaching end-times” admonitions for CF’s to read and memorize before the Shizzies hit fizzies in our domains. In fact, I suggest you hit your print button so you have hard copy for distribution later if and when we loose internet. Reminds me a tad perhaps of available oil in the ten wise / foolish virgins parable.
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves… (Matt 10:16, KJV) See gotquestions.org/wise
This simple and profound Truth inspired by Warren Wiersbe’s famous quote to succinctly focus we Christ-Followers was most appropriately shared with me during these uniquely historic times while I was speaking with my sister Verla this past Saturday. In fact, do understand, that this “if – then” was solely my idea, resulting no doubt from the quote rattling around in my brain the past 48 hours, and perhaps rather appropriately, since we’re visiting our first grandchild here in Northampton Massachusetts, the pre-revolutionary war bastion during the 1730’s and 40’s, for such as long time resident Jonathon Edwards, and later the visiting English evangelist George Whitfield, and more than a century later, even for D L Moody.
Back to Wiersbe first though, Wikipedia states Warren Wendell Wiersbe (do you suppose his parents possessed a sense of humor with the initials WWW, and not merely a World War Warrior either!) Born on May 16, 1929 and passing May 2, 2019, I have associated Wiersbe being birthed in Nebraska but it was actually in E Chicago. Now, Warren Buffet, my father, and I always thought Johnny Carson to have been birthed in NB also, but Carson was actually born in Iowa; though he was a Cornhusker grad. Dad and Carson were born in ’25, Wiersbe in ’29, and Buffet in ’30, and now, Buffet is the last man standing.
Wiersbe was an American Christian clergyman, Bible teacher, conference speaker, and a prolific writer of Christian literature and theological works. He is perhaps best known for his series of 50 books in the “BE” series: Be Real, Be Rich, Be Obedient, Be Mature, Be Joyful, et., and other theological works.
As a middle and high school students, my sister and I would watch from the utility room window to catch a glimpse of the orange bus crest a hill a half mile away enabling us to walk timely to the road to meet the bus without waiting too long in the MN sub-zero temps. During those years mother had the kitchen radio tuned to KFNW Fargo ND 1200 AM (the decade prior FM arrived) that featured then M-F 7:30-8:00 AM Theodore Epp in his “Back to the Bible” radio broadcast who was later succeeded by Wiersbe during 1980-1992.
Prior to that, Wiersbe pastored Calvary Baptist in Covington KE ’61-’71 and the historic Moody Church ’71-’78. It is also interesting for KMC readers, and especially the pre You-Tube crowd, familiar with the Detweiler family having birthed and maintained The Calvary Hour in NE OH for nearly 70 years, to note Wiersbe’s Calvary Baptist Sunday sermons were also broadcast as The Calvary Hour on a local Cincinnati radio station. More information is available in Warren’s autobiography “Be Myself: Memoirs of a Bridge-Builder.”
Back to the rich history here in Northampton area for the earlier giants, you may enjoy the following clip from christianity.com titled “Ten Things You Should know About Jonathan Edwards.” This clip rather de-bunks the negativity towards Edwards I’m hearing in some circles of late. Here is some of what I learned:
1.) Jonathan enrolled in what became Yale when 13 and graduated at the top of his class at 17
2.) After serving the Northampton Congregationalist Church nearly 30 years, they voted to remove him from pastoral service for barring “unconverted” people from partaking in communion. Having both married at 23 and beginning as a pastor scholar under his grandfather at this church, his grandfather died three years later and Jonathan then assumed the pastorate. Whereas his grandfather had welcomed all to participate in communion, believing the sacrament could become a “converting ordinance” helping bring the lost to Christ, Edwards disagreed and maintained that only believers should partake in the Lord’s Supper. Any of this sound familiar? But bear in mind, it took 30 years for the vote to materialize. And we don’t know either, when Jonathan became so convinced, but as he was a prolific writer, I’m sure it is well documented and not a spur of the moment whim or vote.
At 47 then, Edwards and his family (11 children) moved to the frontier in western MA known today as the Berkshires, where he pastored a small congregation of settlers and preached through an interpreter to Housatonic and Mohawk tribes people. Edwards genuinely loved and cared for the natives, frequently writing about the quality of their character and the culture. The two tribes showed reverence for Edwards, and his ministry bore lasting spiritual fruit.
3. At 54, Edwards reluctantly agreed to leave his writing retreat and effective ministry in the Berkshires for full time academia accepting the Presidency of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Shortly after assuming his post, in Jan 1758, Edwards received a smallpox inoculation. Less than a month later, Jonathan Edwards died from the inoculation’s complications. Please, this occurrence is not necessarily to be associated with the events of today, though I’m sure this was well documented medically as well, being in an academic environment, but then again, assumptions do…
Read it without my editorializing by clicking the link below.
And only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil. Satan does not tempt us merely to do wrong things – he tempts us to make us loose what God has put in us through regeneration, namely being of value to God.
Click the link below for more insights on the intricacies of temptation from the Sept 18 reading from My Utmost for His Highest.
Wow, perhaps after all these years, I finally get it. Thank you Ozzie! Click the underlined below to open Oswald Chambers “My Utmost For His Highest” Sept 17 reading titled “Is There Good In Temptation?”
Meet Marlin Miller, founder of the enterprising culturally unique Plain Values magazine, and his wife Lisa and their family, in this 7 minute clip depicting Love of Family and their own “Tiny School.“
Please share appropriately with your those in your circle of influence. Blessings on your journey today and beyond, relishing both your joys and sorrows, while experiencing the Love of Your Family. God is Love! Don’t miss out!
Thanks Chuck Holden, for sharing this with me earlier this morning. It certainly enhanced my day and hopefully, the days of many others seeking inspiration. Readers, remember to share your similar inspirations with me if you’re desiring a wider audience.
Oswald Chambers My Utmost For His Highest September 14
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until much time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion.
If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and…every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you (see II Corinthians 10:5).
Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25). Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment.
This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity. Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
Taken from John Eldredge’s book “Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul” from Chapter 11 titled “An Adventure to Live” pg. 203.
What Are We Men Waiting For?
“Where would we be today if Abraham had carefully weighed the pros and cons of God’s invitation and decided that he’d rather hang onto his medical benefits, three weeks paid vacation, and retirement plan in Ur? What would have happened if Moses had listened to his mother’s advice to “never play with matches” and lived a careful, cautious life steering clear of burning bushes? You wouldn’t have the gospel if Paul had concluded that the life of a Pharisee, while not everything a man dreams for, was at least predictable and certainly more stable than following a voice he heard on the Damascus Road. After all, people hear voices all the time and who really knows whether it’s God or just one’s imagination? Where would we be if Jesus was not fierce and wild and romantic to the core? Come to think of it, where would we all be at all if God hadn’t taken that enormous risk of us in the first place?
Most men spend the energy of their lives trying to eliminate risk, or squeezing it down to a more manageable size. Their children hear “no” far more than they hear “yes”; their employees feel chained up and their wives are equally bound. If it works, if a man succeeds in securing his life against all risk, he’ll wind up in a cocoon of self-protection and wonder why he’s suffocating. If it doesn’t work, he curses God, redoubles his efforts and his blood pressure. When you look at the structure that false self-made men tend to create, it always revolves around two themes: seizing upon some sort of competence and rejecting anything that cannot be controlled. As David Whyte says, “The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears.”
For murdering his brother, God sentences Cain to the life of a restless wanderer; five verses later Cain is building a city (Gen 4:12, 17). That sort of commitment – the refusal to trust God and then reach for greater control – runs deep in every man. Whyte talks about the difference between the false self’s desire “to have power over experience, to control all events and consequences, and the soul’s wish to have power through experience, no matter what that may be. You literally sacrifice your soul and your true power when you insist on controlling things, like the guy Jesus talked about who thought he had finally pulled it all off, built some really nice barns and died the same night. “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36 NKJV). By the way, I now realize I can lose my soul long before I die.”
Again, what are we men waiting for? As children, we all begin with our perceptions. Later, as we become men gaining wisdom, His Truth becomes our reality diminishing the prevalent deceptions. mle091122
By clicking on the “Into the Deep” underlined below, or perhaps a blue button once and then clicking again on the opened article, I believe you can view half of the article. Or you can go directly to the Plain Values website and search. A script of the entire article follows below in this blog. Contact me if you desire a free copy of Robert’s third book, “Rise Above: How to Heal the Hurts and Overcome the Worst.”
Into the Deep or Finding God in the Depth of Sorrow
Words directly from from two of Robert Roger’s books and arranged by Merlin Erb.
For the September 2022 issue of Plain Values magazine
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. And the one sitting on the throne said, ‘Look, I am making everything new.’” Revelations 21:4-5
It was Labor Day weekend 2003, and we were returning to our home in Liberty from a family wedding. In our minivan was myself, my wife Melissa, and our four children: eight-year-old Makenah Alexandra, five-year-old Zachary Seth, three-year-old Nicholas Adam, and one-year-old Alenah WenYing, who we had recently adopted from China.
An unfathomable flash-flood inundated our minivan on the Kansas Turnpike. It thrust our vehicle off the highway, plunged us into the deluge, and washed half of our precious family out the window while our youngest three were still strapped in their car seats. Miraculously, I survived.
“Mr. Rogers, we need to ask you to identify the bodies of your three youngest children. They are dead.”
Those piercing words from early Sunday morning, August 31, 2003, changed my life forever. Perhaps you can relate. You know at that moment life will never again be the same.
I identified our three youngest. Later my oldest child Makenah was found on a barbed wire fence nearby the van – a mile and a half from the turnpike. Three days later they found my wife, my beloved Melissa. All I cherished most was gone: every dream, every hope.
Life Before the Flood
I met my wife in Massachussets. In March of 1989 I returned to Digital Equipment Corporation in Boston for my engineering job. The year before I happened upon a gentleman outside Lily’s Café delighting a crowd on a baby grand piano. When he took a break, I offered to fill in for him and from there it was history. I loved to fill the cobblestone sidewalks with music.
When I returned to my job, I also resumed playing piano at Lily’s during my breaks. One warm spring Saturday afternoon, an attractive blond stopped by while I was playing. I was instantly smitten. Before she left, I gave her my business card. Melissa, from Kansas, was working as a nanny in Boston, but I had no way to contact her. I could only hope she would return, which she did. Unbeknownst to me, Melissa returned to the square numerous times that summer to observe me play from a distance. When I returned to college that fall, I got a card from her with a poem she’d written for me titled “The Piano Man” while listening to my café music. Soon the romance was underway, and we got married on New Year’s Eve, 1991.
~~~
Our first earthquake occurred during the birth of our first daughter, Makenah, scheduled to be a home water birth, but after 48 hours of hard labor, a C-section was performed and all ended well. We learned a valuable lesson: Even though everything that happens to us is not always good, God can still bring good out of everything that happens to us (Rom. 8:28). Makenah’s difficult delivery was an experience that drove us deeper in our faith.
Our son Zachary was born after a normal delivery but within hours were told, “we believe your son has Down syndrome.” We were speechless, and Zachary was whisked off to Children’s Mercy Hospital for heart and bowel complications. Zachary also was autistic. Such pressures often cause marriages to break up. But for us, instead of tearing us apart, Zachary galvanized our marriage, bringing Melissa and me closer to each other and God.
Unknown by me, we were being prepared by our years of crying out to Him in our deepest pain – during childbirth, during Zachary’s surgeries, during Down syndrome complications, during Nicholas’ birth, during Alenah’s adoption, during marital struggles, during months of more bills than paychecks, while nearly drowning in a riptide, enduring all sorts of trials – because we turned to God rather than away from God. In those times of deepest pain, we grew to know and receive God’s deepest presence when nothing made sense but ultimately revealing God’s deepest and most intimate loving nature.
The Flood
The six of us were on our way home from a family wedding. Around 8:55 pm, 11 miles out of Emporia, Kansas, having driven in heavy rain since Wichita, we noticed several vehicles parked with their running lights on along the right side of the road in the Flint Hills. We were among about eight vehicles that kept moving in the left lane past the stopped vehicles. Almost instantly, it seemed as though we were surrounded by water, not merely a pool, but a river flowing from left to right.
The whirl of the wind and the noise of the rain were so loud that it was hard to hear anything else. We saw taillights in front of us getting through. We figured the height of the water was already at its worse. The water was soaking our feet and everything on the floor. We couldn’t move at all, blocked fore and aft by vehicles and to the left by the concrete median barriers, and to the right by debris, even vehicles that were now floating. We were trapped. Inside, the engine stalled when the water reached the seat cushion level. By this time, Makenah, Nicholas , and Alenah were all noticeably scared and crying. Zachary was the only not crying, Makenah got out of her seat belt and came up to stand between us.
“Okay, you guys. Let’s sing a song together.” We chose a song we had sang many times around the piano at home: “Lord, I lift Your Name on High.” I recited portions of Psalms 46, saying, “God is my strength, God is my refuge, an ever-present help in times of trouble.” Despite the fear and stress of the situation, I sensed an amazing reassuring peace that somehow we were all going to be ok through this. Inside the van the water had now risen to the steering wheel. Our children’s heads were still safely above the water level, but the water was so very bitterly cold.
Suddenly, around 9:18 pm, everything broke loose. Eyewitnesses from cars that were trapped described a seven foot wall rushing across the highway that swept the 11 sections of the concrete median off the road down the embarkment into the creek bed. Each section was 20 foot in length and weighed 10,000 pounds. These concrete barriers were all that held our van in place. Once the medians were gone, nothing remained to protect us from the fast cross current.
We took a nosedive across the southbound lanes of traffic and down the embankment. We seemed to hit something as we crashed with a sudden jolt; perhaps a culvert or one of the 11 concrete medians. It felt as though we were in a powerful waterfall. When I kicked out the window, it was like popping a balloon. I was instantly sucked out of the van. I lost all sense of direction as I was pulled downstream underwater. I’m convinced that both Melissa and Makenah, who were both out of their seat belts were sucked out immediately behind me. In the urgency, chaos, and confusion, Melissa and I shared no final kiss or words of good-bye with each other or our children.
I was drowning. I felt like a ragdoll tumbling in a washing machine. This can’t be the end, I thought. Not now. Not like this. Somehow, I wasn’t afraid. I felt a tangible, comforting peace of God. I was ingesting water and remember thinking that although I was truly drowning – and sensed my wife and children were as well – our whole family was going to heaven together, and it really wasn’t so bad. It was like being in a dream, only this was real. It felt as if God had reached down His hand and cupped our entire family into His palm to personally escort us directly to heaven together.
About a half mile from the highway, my head lifted above the water. Suddenly, I grabbed onto something and crawled out of the water on my hands and knees. I was utterly exhausted, in shock, and freezing cold. I could see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles up on the highway, so I crawled toward them as quickly as my body would allow. Nearly an hour after being expelled from the van, I approached a highway patrol trooper and blurted, “My wife and four children are still down there!”
But it was too late—in our family I was the sole survivor.
Life After the Flood
The day following the 2003 Kansas flash flood, I was visited by my engineering boss, his words deeply resonating within me. He helped me recognize nothing I could think or do now would change history. What mattered most from here forward was not my actions from last night but my reactions to last night. If I spent the rest of my life in pity, feeling sorry for myself, I would only imprison myself and serve no good whatsoever. I wanted my family’s lives to count for something. Already I could sense that God had a profound purpose for my life. Already I could see that people’s lives were being touched in a positive way. I began to sense God had spared me for a reason.
Before preparing for my first press conference, I spoke with my father, an extremely thoughtful man known for his wisdom and insights. “Son, this is where the rubber meets the road,” he said. “Give it straight. Explain how shattered you are. But don’t hesitate to say how you still trust God. Either we believe what we say or we don’t. Either God is God, or He’s not.”
He was right. This was the moment my new calling in life began. I was facing and embracing head-on the worst pain of my life. I knew my only source was God, and the result was His peace amid the horrific reality. So many times on my way to work over the years, I have prayed Psalm 112. Now those words came back to me. “Even in darkness light dawns for the upright… Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news …. His heart is secure, he will have no fear.’(verses 6-8)
The concept of heaven and eternity was never more real. As I kissed my children goodbye, I kissed death. Amazingly, it had no victory over me or them. My grief still tore at me, but death had lost its sting because I knew through Christ it represented our passage into eternal life. I could now feel the glory through the agony, life out of death. That’s the message of the gospel. Beauty out of ashes.
~~~
What matters most, I’ve found, is how you respond to the wreckage and remnants of what remains. Where do you run to after the ruin? Where do you hide? “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” (Psalm 91:1-2).
We each have that choice when life slams into the side of a mountain or under a wall of water. Yes, we can slam the door in God’s face, bolt it, and even lock it. Conversely, we can seek an embrace in His arms and allow Him Who holds our healing to hold our hearts as we grieve. It requires a steadfast, intimate relationship with God through a personal encounter with His Son, Jesus Christ. Even if our faith somehow remains intact, too often our souls remain messed up and wounded. Now my soul needed surgery and rehabilitation. Yes, I believe that God “restores my soul.” (Psalm 23:3 NIV) But, how can He? How will He?
It is a process, for certain. It takes time. Weeping is good. Tears hurt, but they heal and are vital to recovery. Now 19 years later traveling the country and parts of the world, people want to know “how” I made it. How do I still navigate through the unrelenting pain of the past, particularly as I recount raw emotions from my heart hundreds of times to all who invite me? The short answer is, “Only God.”
Throughout my five books and now nearly 1400 presentations, in a straightforward and practical way, I strove to answer in my third book, Rise Above, how God can heal your hurts and overcome the worst. I offer three simple steps to assist you on the road to recovery.
1st Step to Rise Above: Face It. Yes, admit it happened. Accept it. Don’t pretend it never happened. Rather than tell God how big your problem is, tell your problem how big God is.
2nd Step to Rise Above: Embrace It. Yes, dive in head first. Jesus surrendered to the cross to which His Father had appointed Him. He embraced it. So should we. “Even when I walk through the dark valley of death, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.” (Psalm 23:4)
3rd Step to Rise Above: Replace It. Yes, God has a marvelously divine exchange program. Right now, ask God to replace your pain with praise, your despair with joy, your ashes with beauty. He can and He will. Please consider these words and take them to heart for they literally cost me everything to share them with you. I pray they take root and dramatically transform your life,compelling you to join me in building a legacy of no regrets.
***
Bio: Robert Rogers founded Mighty in the Land Ministry after the death of his wife and four children. The ministry’s mission is to teach others to know God and live a life of no regrets. His compelling message impacts lives, transforms congregations, and inspires people to know God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A tithe of everything given is placed in the Mighty in the Land Foundation, which funds eight orphanages around the world.
For scheduling or more information, contact Robert Rogers, Mighty in the Land Ministry, 429 East DuPont Road, # 230 Fort Wayne, IN 46825. Phone #: 260.515.5158 Email: hello@mightyintheland.com Website: www.MightyInTheLand.com
Bio: Merlin briefly interviewed Robert Rogers for this article and then wove direct excerpts from two of Robert’s books; “Into the Deep: One Man’s Story of How Tragedy Took His Family But Could Not Take His Faith” and “Rise Above: How to Heal the Hurts and Overcome the Worst.” into this feature story. Merlin’s work on this assignment was impacted by his own experience of loss in that in less than three years of marriage, his first wife tragically died in a car accident. Today, Merlin and his wife Loretta call Dalton, Ohio, home, and they are active members at Kidron Mennonite Church. They are anticipating the birth of their first grandchild this summer! You can read more of Merlin’s musings at merlinsmustache.com.
As mentioned above, if you desire a free copy of Robert’s spot-on inspiring third book, Rise Above:How to Heal the Hurts and Overcome the Worst, contact me at merlin.erb@gmail.com. Don’t be bashful! Trust His Divine connections for your life as Robert did for his, and I, reluctantly did for mine; actually “ours.”
Remember the last time you drove along interstate and read the various signs. Ever think the extent to which your mind interacts with such stimuli? And only because of a quick unconscious glance! Signs can be informational; Exit 74 2 miles. Or invitational; Great Food This Exit! Even warnings; Right Lane Closed.
Whether offered as information, an invitation, or a warning, each sign is designed to move us from where we are to where we want to be; or perhaps, wish to avoid. In a similar way, God in His providence, has a number of critical signs along the highway we call “human history.” We call these signs prophecies, and we Christ Followers(CF’s) are made aware of them through God’s living prophetic vehicle, the Bible.
Perhaps the crisis today for the remnant CF’s, since too often, churches are effectively removing themselves from their vertical relationship with the Trinity, so that in this advanced culminating informational age, we are inundated with both ignorance and apathy. Remember the Question & Answer sequence posed in the Aug 15 post asking “the difference between ignorance and apathy” with the answer given as “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Even though I certainly didn’t state or write such years ago, when I later examined my life, I certainly could have been Satan’s “organized religion’s” poster person for ignoring truth and being the epitome of both ignorance and apathy, appearing devoted and immersed in the “consuming church culture” about me. Perhaps you can relate? Anything remind you of a baby’s pacifier?
Such deception! Indeed, strong words, but true. The remaining time for we yet living humans, is quite finite, depending on our advancing years, before we return to dust. The planet’s timetable for its demise though, is not so certain.
So Why Study the Signs?
“The history of the church is littered with countless books and studies creating innumerable questions, concerns, and especially confusion in our minds. How do obscure passages, distant places, and unfamiliar symbols have any significance for our lives? For heaven’s sake’s, if we can’t understand what the Bible is teaching, how in the world can it hold any relevance to what we are or will be experiencing?
There are actually over 1800 prophecies in God’s Word just detailing the first and second coming of Jesus Christ! Obviously important to God, He desires we understand His plans having given us signs for a purpose. Especially today, we yearn to see ahead, to know, to avert disaster. Dr David Jeremiah counts it a privilege to help CF’s find their place in the great pattern of prophetic events foretold by the prophets, written out in scripture, and confirmed in the headlines of the day.
Read through The Book of Signs, you will find a comprehensive explanation of these prophecies and signs. You will see not only how God’s Word offer insights into the future, but also how Scripture builds our faith in the events of the past and encouragement for the uncertainty of the present. and beyond.
So What are the Signs?
They can be an event, symbol, object, place, or person whose existence or occurrence indicates something important in God’s plan for history. There presentations vary, but all express a particular meaning, helping us to know what to pay attention to, or point to what will be coming. God has taken great care to communicate in a way we can understand. Jesus Himself spoke of the signs verifying his first coming, signs portending His second coming back to earth, and the signs that outline both general and specific elements of the end of the age. We’ll take a close look at those in these pages, as well as other Scriptural passages in which signs are a major theme.
We are not to be fooled by the signs indicating that end times are near. We can expect a period of international and cultural chaos with the possibility of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. Seeing these signs played out in the news, on television, the internet, and especially in our own lives can cause despair, anxiety, and confusion; not only for the world situation, but also for those who are not yet a CF, and could be left behind to face the Tribulation. Jesus instructed we open our eyes to encourage us to gaze upon Him – not because this will cause all the world’s problem’s (and ours) to disappear, but because He is the Prince of Peace and in Him we are commanded “to abide.” Study with me as we discover together what Scripture reveals about the signs of the times.
The end times may be near, but as CF’s, our future is secure. We do live in a chaotic world but we can be confident and at peace because God is the author of history, and because the return of the Prince of Peace may be closer than we think.”
The above is an adaptation of the Dr. Jeremiah’s Prologue for his Book of Signs: 31 Prophecies of the Apocalypse. I am recommending CF’s may desire to seriously tackle it for their Autumn reading. Available everywhere. I’ve listened to it twice and my hard copy just arrived.
Overcome Ignorance and Apathy by Inviting the Love and Awareness of Christ Within Us.
