“God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea;
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. Selah.” (Psalm 46:1-3 NASB1995)
If we pay attention at all to what is going on in the world,
or to what they are saying is going on in the world, we should realize that our
world is presently in a lot of havoc (turmoil, chaos, disorder). Angst is
everywhere! Fearmongering is everywhere! Disaster abounds all over the place.
Peace is hard to be found. People are fighting with each other or against those
who are doing them no harm, just because they can and no one is stopping them. And
few seem to care. Pain and suffering are all over the world.
And in the USA where I live, it is the same, pretty much.
Presently no enemy that is obvious is at war with our nation to where we are
physically being harmed, to where we cannot even go outside of our homes
without fear of being shot and killed, like it is in many other nations. We are
not all starving to death like people are in some nations. But we still have
enemies, and many of them are within our own nation, of our own people, who are
doing things to harm and to kill the people of their own nation, if truth be
told.
And we have much political unrest in my nation, which I
believe is deliberate and purposeful, and it is to keep things in turmoil and
in an uproar and to get the people of this nation fighting against each other
over some things that don’t really exist, if truth be told. They want us living
in fear of who is going to do what and where and when. So they continually keep
“upsetting the apple cart,” i.e. causing trouble to spoil people’s plans and to
keep them in a state of turmoil, and to disturb the “status quo” (the norms of
society).
And this is going on within the gatherings of the church, or
what is being called “the church.” Although the church, biblically speaking, is
the collective (universal) body of believers in Jesus Christ, under the
headship of Christ, it largely has been turned into a marketplace, most of them
incorporated (merged, united with the ungodly) under the state, and into a
building built by human hands which is being called “the house of God.” And the
character of God and of his gospel are being altered to appeal to human flesh.
But the church is not a building built by human hands, and
it is not to be a marketplace, and we, as the body of Christ, are warned in the
Scriptures that we are not to partner (unite, merge) with the ungodly (the
world) but that we are to come out from the world and to be separate. And the
purpose of our gatherings is to be for the purpose of mutual encouragement and
edification, where we use our spiritual gifts and ministries to help one
another to grow to maturity in faith and to not return to walking in sin.
But it seems that in our present world that most everything
is being turned upside down. What is supposed to be is not. And what should not
be is. Righteous and holy living are now being frowned upon and called “legalism,”
while deliberate and habitual sinful lifestyles are being regarded as normal,
and they are being pacified instead of called what they are and addressed biblically
in terms of the need for repentance and for changed lives and for walks of
obedience to the Lord. For obedience is being frowned upon, too.
So, for those of us who still believe the Scriptures and the
gospel message which Jesus and his New Testament apostles taught (as taught in
the correct biblical context), we appear to be in the minority, and we are
under attack, and/or we are being largely ignored and/or cast off, discarded,
rejected and ostracized because we still are teaching the truth of the gospel
and not the lies which so many are teaching today as “the gospel” of Christ.
But God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble.
And we are not to be those who fear all the stuff that is
going on in our own nations, and in the world at large. For what we are seeing is
prophecy of Scripture taking place before our eyes. And we are coming into that
rule of the beast (of Revelation 13), slowly and surely. A New World Order is
being formed before our eyes. How soon it takes over everything, only God
knows. But we should be able to see the transitions which are taking place and
to realize what is happening. And we need to be ready for the worst to come.
Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer
Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897
Oh,
to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This
is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly
I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus,
Thy perfect likeness to wear.
Oh,
to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving,
forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping
the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking
the wandering sinner to find.
O
to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy
and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly
enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing
to suffer others to save.
O
to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour
out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make
me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit
me for life and Heaven above.
Oh,
to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd
Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come
in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp
Thine own image deep on my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg
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Though the Earth Should Change
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