Sitting In the Dark

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

(John 3:16)

I like simple. Everyone does, from our Keurig coffee makers where you just pop in a K-cup and out comes a great cup of coffee to our iPhones where the world's information is a finger tap away, we love things to be simple. The simple things are easy to understand, easy to use, they are not complex. 

God made our way to salvation, our path to eternal life, just that...simple. When you look at verses like John 3:16 or Romans 10:9, the simplicity is amazing. The God of the universe that created all things, like the human body with all it's complex cells and organs, brain waves, etc... and the earth itself that has all that is needed to sustain life, from the right distance from the sun to the production of life giving food and water, this same God, made the Good News simple to understand. 

God didn't say, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever will believe in Him and know the Bible from cover to cover, will not perish but have everlasting life". No, He made it simple. 

Many think they can't come to Jesus unless they understand God, the scriptures or maybe the trinity, so they stay away. 

Vance Havner an evangelist   said it best about someone waiting until they know everything about God before coming to Jesus, when he said, 

"I don't understand everything about electricity, but I ain't gonna set around in the dark till I do" 

Wise words. There is no need to sit in the dark until you understand electricity, anymore than sitting in the dark until you understand God. Stop sitting in the dark and come to the light. The light of Jesus Christ. 

Vern

He Changed My Mind

"And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid." (Mark 5:15)

I was looking through the Bible checking out the people that came in contact with Jesus and had a life change. I came across a man that was demon possessed in Mark 5:1-20. This dude was insane, out of his mind, loopy, he was wound too tight, his elevator didn't go to the top & his stairs were out of order, he was Loony Toons, crazy as a outhouse rat, he was several fries short… oh you get the point, he was crazy. The people in the city were scared of him. They tried to tie him up with ropes & chains, but he broke them all.

This guy lived up in and around the tombs, screaming in the night, running around naked, cutting himself with stones. This man was freaky with a capital "F". Just imagine, now in our time, some guy living in a graveyard, butt naked, long hair, nasty, scared and bloody from cutting himself, oh man, Halloween around this town would have been wild. With Halloween in mind, the towns people avoided this dude the way we avoided the Raisin Lady's house while trick or treating. 

Those people had given up on him. He was no good, too far gone & worthless, he was not worth killin'. At least that's what everyone thought, everyone that is except…yep, you guessed it, Jesus. Jesus knew who this guy was, and even though he seemed out of his mind he was still a creation of God. 

Jesus proceeded to cast the demons out of this man & when word got back to the towns people they came to see. They found the man sitting, clothed and in his right mind. Did you catch that? His right mind. Yea, no longer crazy, no longer cutting himself with stones, no more screaming, just a normal man. 

When God got a hold of me, I was not in my right mind. A right mind doesn't do things like drugs, alcohol & premarital sex, things that would harm the body & in most cases destroy it. When God saved me he also put me in my right mind. Are you in your right mind? You can be. 

Romans 10:9.

"Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you will be saved". Yes, you too can be saved. Place your faith in Jesus today. 

Vern

Free State of Jones

“But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

( 1 John 2:11)

Just finished a great movie “Free State of Jones”. Here is the description of the movie from, “Google”,

“In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.”

In the movie an awesome quote was given from the main character Newt Knight, 

When he asks his African American friend,  Moses, “What are you?”, to which Moses replies, “A free man, captain”

Newt asks, “Why’s that?” Moses replies a second time, “Because you cannot own a child of God”

Then Newt says,

“You can own a horse, you can own a mule, cow, or ox, but you cannot own a child of God."

No doubt, you cannot own a Child of God. But in those days there were men who did. An awful time, a horrific time in American history, a sickening thing. Praise God for those that stood to put an end to it. Black men and women, white men and women, who laid down their lives for the lives of those who as some in the world at that time called them, “not human”. And they won their freedom. 

In our nation today there is still racism. There is still inequality and still people calling others not human. Still as sickening and horrific as in the past. But it has a new face. It actually celebrated it’s 100th birth day a few days ago. 

Many people do not know the name Margaret Sanger,  her part or her motives  for abortion.  Margaret Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood. An organization hiding behind the cloak of “women's reproductive rights” but who's main business is that of abortion and we now know, the selling of baby body parts. An organization that has placed 79% of it’s  “clinics” in minority neighborhoods. 

Minority women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States, but they underwent approximately 36% of the abortions.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion

On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States. There seems to be an attack on the black population in our nation, in the form of abortion. When you look at the mindset of Margaret Sanger the founder of PP, it makes it easy to connect the dots. 

 In one quote from Sanger, when She is using the black ministers to help push her abortion agenda she states, 

"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population”

Margaret Sanger, was as racist  as they come. She spoke at a gathering of the female branch of the KKK, (You can find the video at the bottom from her autobiography)

Her quote was, 

“Always to me any aroused group was a good group, and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey.”

She was well accepted by the crowd, so much so that she received many other appealing engagements from the group and spoke at them. 

Planned Parenthood was started by a racist, bigot who looked at black people as less than human. Yet the Democratic Party wants to continue funding PP with millions every year. And the odd thing is, that the majority of the Black population, vote Democratic. 

Will we continue to stand by and watch millions more innocent lives be taken by abortion? Children of all nationalities are at risk. Millions of human beings are described as “not human” or “Unwanted”. Praise God that there were men and women during slavery that stood to make it illegal. Will we be seen in history books as those who quietly stood by while millions were slaughtered, or will we be seen as brave and bold men and women, who God used to put bring an end to the American holocaust? 

This is a fight that we of all colors need to come together on and say no more.