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The story of a man who was kidnapped at gunpoint...and lived to tell about it.

The post Kidnapped! first appeared on Glimpses of Calvary » Podcast Feed.

As we observe the terrible events related to the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan, we must turn to the Words of Jesus Christ. His commentary on disasters and massacres, reminds us that there is a terrible, eternal disaster — a warning that everyone ought to heed.

Please click the player below to listen to this message, which was preached after the terrible massacre at Virginia Tech.

Is there a Message in these Massacres? 9/11. March 2011 earthquakes in Japan.Tsunamis. Myanmar. Virginia Tech shootings. Samson, Alabama. Binghamton, NY. Air France flight 447. Ft. Hood, Texas. And now, the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

When these kinds of tragedies strike, what are we supposed to understand?

Ephesians 3:20 — In this glorious doxology (an expression of consummate praise to God), the Apostle Paul expressed the simple, yet profound premise that “God is Able!”

As I tried to demonstrate in this message, every true believer must begin with this simple, powerful concept. Click here to listen to this message:

Here is the message outline with some passages for additional study:

Praise and Exalt the God . . . Who is able.

This is the potential aspect – God’s capacity.

–         to do infinitely more

o       than we ask

o       than we think

Who is at work in us.

This is the practical aspect – God’s conducting

of His Work through us.

–         According to God’s Power

–         Presently working in us

Additional Study: Note the appeals for extravagant blessings: Philippians 1:9; 4:19, Colossians 1:9-11, 1 Thessalonians 3:11-12, 2 Thessalonians 1:3, 1 Corinthians 1:4-5

God is Able!

Matthew 10:28, Acts 20:32, Romans 4:20-22, 2 Cor. 9:8, Philippians 3:21, 2 Timothy 1:12, Hebrews 2:18; 7:25

Before you stand a big Hittite and a little Hittite. The little Hittite is the big Hittite’s son, but the big Hittite is not the little Hittite’s father. Who is the big Hittite?

Re-read the puzzle to be sure that you understood it and while you are thinking about it, I would like to help you with your problem-solving skills.

The Problem with Assumptions

So many of life’s puzzles are difficulties that we impose upon ourselves. Seriously. For instance, the puzzle above is a puzzle only because we make certain assumptions. It’s one thing to wrestle with the puzzle like the one above; it is quite another to wrestle with

life’s puzzles and problems.

Changing Your Assumptions

When you understand this, you understand why the Bible puts such an emphasis on the renewal of the mind. “Renewing the mind” helps you to challenge the assumptions that you have made or that have been forced upon you. Part of the problem of evil is that our lusts are “deceitful lusts.” That means that our hearts are perfectly capable of fooling us and frequently do so. As you know, the enigma of evil harbors horrible consequences for you and for all humanity. And the reason that we seem to bumble and fumble our way back into the same problem is that our assumptions lead us to do so.

So how do you learn to “think outside the box?” The whole world system is trying to force you into its mold – including its assumptions. Isn’t it time to break out? Isn’t it time to go back to “square one” and take a new look at some old assumptions?

Three Steps to Permanent Change

To hear the answer to the Hittite Puzzle in a message about these three steps, click on the player below.

Click the player here to listen to an interview with Rev. Jan Milton, who leads Operation Renewed Hope. To learn more about Operation Renewed Hope, click here.

Audio Interview: This Is My Story

The post This Is My Story: Jan Milton first appeared on Glimpses of Calvary » Podcast Feed.

The post This Is My Story: Jan Milton first appeared on Glimpses of Calvary » Podcast Feed.

The neighbor had seen him run the same stop sign many times. One evening as usual the farmer was drunk and as usual he ran the stop sign, but this time there was a car approaching with a mother, a father, and two young children inside. I am that mother, and this is my story of how God led me to Himself.

I thank the Lord for the many blessings in my life. I was born on April 1, 1926 along with my twin brother John. I also have two sisters still living and another brother that has already passed. We had a good life growing up in Ohio, but we also had some hard times during the Depression.

When I was young, my father moved us around a lot, farming different areas. I had five unmarried aunts; the three that had jobs saw that my siblings and I all had clothes to wear. They would also see that we got to Sunday school and church every week. This is when I first read John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Later when I was a teenager, my mother played the piano and organ at the Blanchard church; we would walk there each week. I was young when I married. My husband and I went to a little church over by Forest once in awhile. We had two boys; Johnny was my first born, and Donnie came along a year and a half later.

Then the accident happened. We were taking a ride one Wednesday evening near Riley Creek Church and a farmer was driving down the road and ran a stop sign. He had been drinking and ran into us. My husband, Bob, went through the window and was killed instantly. Two-year-old Johnny was standing between us and hit the dash. His chest was crushed, and he died the next morning. I was holding Donnie who was six months old. He had broken his leg and was placed in traction at Bluffton Hospital. My head was cut, and I spent a few days in the hospital as well. I went to Bob and Johnny’s funeral in the ambulance.

We had never heard about salvation…

But then God led us to a church that preached the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. After my husband’s death, I got a job as a secretary in Findlay at Buyer’s Group where he had worked. I met Dean there. He was a farmer living in McComb, and he would come in to purchase things for his farm. We were married in 1951. We attended church over at Benton Ridge, but later we were invited to Calvary Baptist Church in Findlay. Calvary is where we heard about salvation, about the Lord Jesus who had died for our sins. Dean and I both asked Jesus to be our Savior in 1963. This was the best decision we ever made. We never missed a Sunday after that. Why does Jesus need to be everyone’s Savior? This poem sums up man’s need.

“The sinful flesh in which we dwell

Makes living righteously

Impossible without the Lord

Who died to set us free.”

Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Since we are all sinners, we deserve eternal death in hell, “for the wages of sin is death.”(1)   But if we accept His “gift of eternal life”(2) we can go to heaven.

There is nothing we can do to deserve heaven on our own. Heaven is a gift, and gifts are not earned. We just need to believe by faith that He died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead. Then we need to admit that we are sinners, repent and ask the Lord to forgive us, and be willing to surrender our lives to Him. It is that simple. Romans 10:9-13 says that “if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. . . . For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

We still had some hard times. We lost our last son; he was stillborn, but we know that he is up in Heaven with Johnny and the Lord. Then Dean went home to be with the Lord in 1984. I’m sure he would have liked to have seen all of his [...]

In November 2007, my world crumbled…

The doctor told me that I had Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. How could this be? I was physically active, reasonably athletic and fairly strong. Since I had seen my sister die from this very same cancer some ten years earlier, I thought that in a matter of months, I would die also.

Having been raised in a Christian home, I was very aware of how the grace of God should be demonstrated in a believer’s life. The Bible shows us over and over the glory of God, but it was because of man’s rebellion against Him that the sentence of death was placed on all mankind. The Bible also tells us that Christ paid this penalty with His own life, and took my sins upon Himself. Though I had received Christ as a young boy, I had been living my life “my way.”

I believe that God brought this cancer into my life to show me that I had not yet fully embraced Christ as the Lord of my life. I started not only reading His word but studying it as well. As I studied, I started highlighting passages that seemed to be speaking directly to me. These passages revealed promise after promise of God’s mercy, wisdom, joy, and peace.

As treatments progressed in early and mid 2008, a stem cell transplant was recommended. My wife and I knew that this would involve a lengthy hospital stay. We went back home and started memorizing the verses that I had highlighted in my reading.  Through those verses, Christ-honoring music, and the prayers of numerous faithful Christians, God in His mercy saw fit to bring me through this ordeal. These were times of anxiety, pain, hallucinations, hospital-borne infections, blood poisoning, and long dark nights.

Through all of this we were able to recall the verses that we had memorized.

We realized that it was because of the Lord’s mercies that we even have the quality of life that we do. Lamentations 3:22, 23 says that “it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness.”

From the beginning we had prayed for the Lord’s direction and asked for wisdom. Psalms 90:12 says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

A “multitude of thoughts” were racing through our minds. Using II Corinthians 10:5 and Psalms 94:19, God helped us to put those thoughts in order. We needed to bring “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” so that His Word could be a “delight our souls.”

Through all of the trials of the hospital stay, all these Scriptures and more kept coming to mind. During one especially dark moment, Jeremiah 33:3 came to mind: “Call unto me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you know not.” We had no idea how the Lord would lead us from that point on.

Not only did we see God’s promises through this trying time, but the more we claimed those promises, the more peace that He gave. Isaiah 26:3 states that God “will keep [a believer] in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him, because he trusts in Him.”

When I started to have hallucinations (because of a medicine), Joy put on some Christian music CD’s. One of the songs that played was “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” The third verse goes “Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide, strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.” The calm and comfort that those words and music brought were immeasurable.

During the “night seasons” referred to in Psalms 16:7, God’s grace was so evident in the way that He sustained me. Another song that became precious was “He Giveth More Grace.” “When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed ere the day is half done, when we reach the end of our hoarded resources, the Father’s full giving has only begun.” The chorus goes on to say that “He giveth and giveth and giveth again.”

Through everything that happened, change w[...]

The Apostle Peter was conscious of the failures in his own life.  This biographical series is designed to explain these failures and to show why “failures aren’t finished.” Click on the players below to listen to each of these broadcasts.

 

Failures aren’t finished, part 2

 

Failures aren’t finished, part 3

The two main illustrations in the Book of Ephesians are The Building and The Body.

In Ephesians chapters 4 and 5, the Body is the foremost illustration and the Body “walks.”

When we get to Ephesians 6, we will see that when the spiritual battle is great, the Body “fights.”

In the message below, we will summarize what the Scripture says about our “walk.” The Christian is called to walk in a way that is very different from the world, because we know and love the Lord Jesus Christ.

More audio messages from the life of the Apostle Peter

 

Failures aren’t finished, part 3