Newsletters

A dear Christian woman on our mailing list wrote us a heartrending letter:

"In 1972 we lost a Down syndrome son to pneumonia. He was just seventeen months old. Seven years later, in 1979, we lost our fifteen-year old son. He was electrocuted in our backyard while climbing a tree.

Now our twenty-four-year-old son has diabetes. And I have cancer and am undergoing chemotherapy. I ask you sincerely — is it a sin to ask God, 'Why?' Does he understand our humanness?

A troubled mind is one that suffers from continual discontentment. It is pressed down, disturbed, restless, with no calm or rest. It frets about the future and the past as well as present circumstances. And I'm convinced there are more troubled minds today than in any past generation!

Certain elders of Israel came to the prophet Ezekiel seeking direction and guidance from the Lord. These men were not like many of the Israelites, who openly bowed their knees to idols. No, you wouldn't find these elders in some idol temple, offering sacrifices to the false gods there. They were leaders of the people — and they wanted to appear before everyone as godly men.

God has promised His people a glorious, incomprehensible rest, which includes peace and security for the soul. The Lord offered this wonderful rest to the children of Israel. It meant a life full of joy and victory - a life without fear, guilt or condemnation. But up to the time of Christ, no generation of believers ever walked fully in this blessed promise. As the Bible makes very clear, they never obtained it because of their unbelief!

"...they could not enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19).

The book of Haggai is a marvelous lesson on how to get and keep the blessing and favor of the Lord. In utter simplicity the prophet Haggai outlines how God's children can live and walk under God's continual blessing and favor.

Yet Haggai also shows the causes and reasons why people lose God's blessing — and what they must do to come back into His favor! This is true for nations, families, individuals.

Most of the Old Testament prophets predict God will raise up a last-day church that will be full of glory and the fear of the Lord. And Scripture says this mighty church will arise during the world's worst hour of confusion and wickedness.

I believe hopelessness, confusion and despair best describe what most people feel today. In a May 6 letter to the editor of the New York Post one woman wrote:

To be sermon-proof is to hear God's Word, claim to love it, claim to obey it, but not act on it! It is to become so hardened, the heart is no longer moved and is totally unaffected by what is preached. Some call it "gospel-hardened." Think of all the old Bible stories and Bible characters. Who do you think was the most sermon-proof? Who sat under the clearest, strongest Word and was totally unaffected by it?

I am convinced that the only way to experience the fullness of the joy of Jehovah is to share His grief. God does grieve over sin, and those who truly walk with Him enter into His grief.

In the days of Noah, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart" (Genesis 6:5,6).

There is an old song of the church that has a profound meaning to me. It says, "Jesus has a table spread where the saints of God are fed. He invites His chosen people, Come and dine." That table is in the heavenlies, and by faith we are to be seated there. Paul confirms that we have been "raised up, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6).

The Holy Spirit yearns to bring God's people back to serving the Lord with joy and gladness. How grieved heaven must be to witness the wet blanket of despair and sadness that has fallen upon multitudes of believers. The Word of God commands:

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands…serve the Lord with gladness…" (Psalm 100:1–2).

"The hope of the righteous shall be gladness…" (Proverbs 10:28)

"Let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God; yea, let them exceedingly rejoice…"(Psalm 68:3).