Scripture

“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”

~John 14:27, NLT

Quote

“You {God} made us for Yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in You.”

~Augustine

Sigmund Freud was a marxist who had no place in his thoughts or logic for God. Like all Marxist, he was an atheist. Freud said peace was a mental attitude, and that may be true to an extent but peace is much, much more than a mental attitude and it cannot be attained through psychiatric exercises. Psychiatry may help or give assistance but peace in the real sense is a gift and it has only one source. I am trying to buy some rain chimes for the porch of my office building but you can find them at only one place, AMAZON, and you have to use a credit card. I want to pay cash. The fact is, I don’t have rain chimes because I have refused {thus far} to deal with AMAZON. Amazon will ship the chimes if I meet their conditions. God does not go down the street, like Santa on a float, passing out peace indiscriminately. If that were the case, everyone would be pushing and shoving to get peace because everyone wants it. Augustine believed that even tyrants want peace. Everyone wants peace but not everyone wants to commit their life to Christ in total surrender. We want to be saved from hell but not from our sins and our self. We have one hand clinging to this world and we refuse to let go. We get the peace Christ offers when we let go.

As long as we hang on to our dreams, plans, worldly goods or success; we are not going to have the peace that passes all understanding. There is no doubt that this world has charm. John said, All that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. What we don’t want to admit is that this world has no future because it is in rebellion against Christ. This world is under the curse of death. Paul said to the Corinthians, Those who use the things of the world should not become attached to them. For this world as we know it will soon pass away. God has no intention of saving the world but He does desire to save us. Peter said, The day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment. We aren’t just talking about the natural world, we are also talking about the “World System” which is the organized conspiracy against Christ, God’s Anointed.

I’m not saying that letting go of the world is easy; usually it takes extreme suffering for us to let go. Job let go; all the Apostles let go, Corrie Tin Boom and Elisebeth Elliot let go. In my opinion, time is our ally. As we age, we begin to see the world for what it is and we begin letting go. Trust me, a seventy-five year old with good sense knows his/her future is not here. There will not be any peace for those who cling to this world because this world can not give you peace. The only source of peace is Jesus!

Extra

Great day yesterday PTL. Doug and Cindy hit it out of the park. We had a good praise and worship time and I felt the Spirit as I preached or as hopefully He preached. We preached the Isaiah 41:10 message last night and again I felt the Spirit moving. No one else moved but I do believe the LORD enabled me and I praise Him for it. God has been good to me. He is a PROMISE KEEPER, that is what our SS lesson was about: God kept every incredible promise He made to Abraham and Sarah. Every promise He made to them had one thing in common, they seems humanly impossible. Defying all human wisdom and logic, God kept every single promise. As Carol would say, “Yah God.”

GOOD NEWS on the Guatemala Trip in May, four of our ten missionaries have their way paid. This means we lack only six more. We got 1,000 dollars yesterday. Josh and Briley have sponsors and we have raised enough for two more.

I have been meaning to share some alarming statistics with you that Dr. Spencer Bell shared with me a couple of weeks back. I also talked to J. Harold Thompson, the dean of Methodist preachers in Morgan County, yesterday and he told me that Methodist Churches were having a hard time finding preachers. Well the very same thing is happening to Baptist. Spencer tells me that one out of every five Baptist churches in Alabama are without a pastor. Fifty years ago, preacher were like widow women, there were seven for every church. Not so today and our Seminaries are low on students. What on earth is going on? I do not know! Spencer says we preachers are not calling out the called but God called me, not my preacher. Now my pastor was a tremendous help but he was not the one calling. I don’t want to admit it and I hate for John Mac to be right but he says that America in under judgment. He may be right. When have you last seen conviction of sin, repentance and the altar soaked with the tears of the saints? These are things that men cannot do and I am not seeing them.