Friday, August 30, 2019



HELP US LAUNCH: ‘COME
HOME TO JESUS CRUSADE’
By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
      “The only thing that can save our world out of difficulties and all evil is to return to the old-time Christianity with the old values which must totally saturate a people, if our culture is to be safe-guarded.” 
 -  Norway’s King Haakon speaking to his subjects over BBC Radio from London, England after fleeing from Hitler’s advancing Army.
    Canadians are in the danger of losing long-held Christian morality and values from our homes, churches, schools and society at large!
    Commerce, education, governments, judiciary, and society in general have all been tainted by the moral and spiritual backsliding of a large part of our populace!
     What is needed in our nation is a return to the old-fashioned principles and standards of righteous Christian morality and the reverence and godly “fear of the Lord” with love and compassion toward our fellowman!
CANADA IN SERIOUS TROUBLE!
     We have drifted from our godly roots as a Judaeo-Christian people, who have in the past been abundantly blessed with the favour of God. As a nation, however, we have slipped and fallen!
     Canada is presently on the verge of becoming a country without any moral compass and moral authority and has to a great extent already abandoned the teachings of the Word of God, the Holy Bible!
     An historical study of Israel clearly reveals that the Almighty God, Creator, Redeemer, Saviour and Lord of the Universe, punished His Chosen People by bringing hordes of pagans against them when they forsook Him.
     Repeatedly, He allowed their enemies to rule over them, until they were willing to repent of their sins and return unto the Lord!
    The Holy Bible says: “Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit. For My people have committed two evils; They have forsaken Me, the  Fountain of Living Waters, and hewed themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2: 11, 13)
    “Thus saith the Lord: Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.” (Jer. 6: 16)
  Europeans have mostly forsaken the Lord and are wallowing in immorality, sexual perversion, pornography, prostitution, alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, corruption, abortion and pedophilia. God’s judgment has already begun there. France is beginning to feel the brunt of Islamic terrorism and a violent backlash against the godlessness that is perverting the entire society there!
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE
RETURN TO GOD AND THE HOLY BIBLE!
      I urge all Canadians in high places and low to repent and to call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy, blessing and protection. We must return to God nationally and begin winning to Christ the precious non-believers in our midst before Canada also is torn apart by fanatical religious terrorists, who are intent upon conquest and mastery!  
    Fredrick Douglas - former slave who became a great orator and U.S. Minister - wrote: "Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
     “This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
    As Hitler’s great armies were sweeping across Europe in 1939, King George V1 of Great Britain quoted the following poem in his Christmas Message on BBC Radio:
     “I said to the Man at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a lamp that I might see the way.’ He said to me, ‘Put your hand in the hand of God. That will be to you better than a lamp and more than a known way’.”                                                                                                              
PLEASE JOIN OUR
‘ROUND-THE-CLOCK PRAYER WATCH’
Join with us in Sincere, Desperate, Concerted and United Prayer for Canada, at this Present Time in our History. A Grassroots Revival of Righteousness and Evangelical Christianity is the Only Thing that will Reverse the Terrible trend of APOSTACY and APATHY in the Church, UNGODLINESS in the General Population and a Blatant Rejection of BIBLE VALUES, MORALITY and PRINCIPLES among our YOUTH!    --  Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.

Tuesday, August 27, 2019


WHY WE NEED
REVIVAL TODAY
By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
    The Bible says: Wilt Thou not revive us again: that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?” (Ps. 85: 6); “For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2: 13)
   “If My people which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins and heal My land.” (2 Chron.7: 14)
    “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Is. 1: 18)
      “Behold I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with Me.” (Rev. 3: 20)
    FRANCIS SHAEFFER, a celebrated theologian wrote in 1971: “We are on the verge of the largest revolution the world has ever seen – the control and shaping of men through the abuse of genetic knowledge and psychological reconditioning.”   
  Francis Shaeffer based his projection on what was happening in the beginning of the seventies, as well as the prophecies given in the Holy Scriptures 2000 years ago! Undoubtedly, Shaeffer was referring to the brain washing technique used in the Soviet Union and Communist China.
  The most dangerous ‘psychological reconditioning’ however, has been slyly and cleverly forced upon millions of children in our schools and unsuspecting parents by the media, during the last two or three decades through ‘political correctness!
                       POLITICIAN’S HAVE SET
                       DESTRUCTIVE! COURSE
   In the early seventies, Pierre Trudeau charted a course that would destroy our civilized, respectable and time-honoured laws on capital punishment, divorce, homosexuality and bestiality, abortion and marijuana use! 
  Regrettably, he succeeded in making things “abhorrent” to most Canadians seem less reprehensible” to a gullible public! His political cronies have since escalated his concepts and now the brain washing is almost complete!
      In this little booklet I try to convey the heart - beat of God regarding the Church, for which Jesus Christ “gave His life as a ransom” and rose from the dead in power and great glory!
     As true believers in the Eternal God and His Son Jesus Christ whom He sent to redeem lost mankind, we embrace the Holy Bible as “the only rule for faith, morals and ethics”. We reject all other teachings and philosophies that do not agree with His Word!
    The Protestant Reformers rejected the corrupt church of the Middle Ages, by taking a definite position on ‘What is truth and what is only human invention’, regarding Eternal Salvation and the rule for faith and morals!
GOD’S WORD: THE ONLY
RULE FOR FAITH & MORALS!
     The term used to articulate this belief was ‘Sola Scripura’, meaning ‘The Scriptures Alone’! The Bible alone is the final authority in matters of faith and morals. We rely on none other! We reject all teaching that adds to the Word of God or takes away from the Word of God.
     Sola Scriptura means that the Holy Bible is the ONLY revelation from God to mankind for salvation that we possess today. It is the only basis for truth!
     The Old Testament states: “Thy Word is truth” (Ps. 119:142), and in the New Testament Jesus Christ confirms that statement to the letter. In His high priestly prayer to His Heavenly Father, Jesus declared: “Thy Word is truth.” (John 17: 17)
    Our Lord confirmed the authority of the O.T. Scriptures: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot (Greek, iota) or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matt.5 17,18; 24: 35)
   “Jesus answered and said unto them: “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” (Matt.22: 29). Our Master warned those who put tradition before the Word of God: “Making the Word of God of none effect through your traditions which ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do.” (Mark 7: 13)
     Since only the Holy Scriptures are inspired, we reject TRADITION as being necessary for salvation! Forty six times in the Bible we find the words: “It is written.”
      Renouncing the devil in the ‘wilderness temptation’, our Lord said: It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.” (Matt.4: 4). And He stated: “The Scripture cannot be broken.” (John 10: 35)
   The Bible says: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Tim.3: 16-17)
   “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scriptures is of private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1: 20-21)
HERE IS A STRONG WARNING!
      The Holy Scriptures declare: “Every Word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee and thou be found a liar.” (Prov.30: 5-6);
    “And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards (spiritualist mediums) that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God, for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” (Is.8: 19-20)
    “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life, and out of the Holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (Rev.22: 18-19)

   The HOLY BIBLE says: “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: For this is the witness of God, which He hath testified of His Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not hath made Him (God) a Liar, because he believeth not the record God gave of His Son.
   “And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life: and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1 John 5: 9-12)
     
     Recently, a survey was taken among Norway’s Lutheran State Church pastors in the region of Oslo and district, regarding ‘belief in Hell’! Out of nineteen pastors who were asked if they believed in a literal Hell as the Bible and the Lutheran Church teaches, all answered that they did not!
     The great philosopher and theologian, C.S. LEWIS, wrote regarding Hell: “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully that all will be saved.”
     Being true to the Holy Scriptures, however, was more important to C.S. Lewis than to allow his natural mind to be convinced otherwise!  
    The Roman Catholic Church, which used to say that it never changes, changed again recently regarding the doctrine of Hell.
    During his weekly address to the general audience of 8,500 people at the Vatican on July 28, 1999, Pope John Paul II rejected the reality of a physical, literal hell as a place of eternal fire and torment. Rather, the pope said hell is separation, even in this life, from the joyful communion with God.
    According to an official Vatican transcript of the pope's speech, Pope John Paul II noted that the Scriptural references to hell and the images portrayed by Scripture are only symbolic and figurative of "the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God."
     He added, "The thought of hell and even less the improper use of biblical images must not create anxiety or despair." Rather, he stated, it is a reminder of the freedom found in Christ.
      The Religion News Service reported that a Vatican-approved editorial published in the Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica agrees with the pope's latest pronouncement.
      The editorial explicitly pronounced, "Hell exists, not as a place but as a state, a way of being of the person who suffers the pain of the deprivation of God" (Los Angeles Times, 7-31-99). The pope said that eternal damnation is "not God's work but is actually our own doing."
    Only a week earlier the pope stated that heaven is neither "an abstraction nor a place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship of union with the Holy Trinity. "
                  JESUS STATED: HELL IS REAL!
      St. Paul taught that the reality of hell is a vital Bible doctrine (Heb. 6:1, 2). Jude taught that believers are to contend for the faith (doctrine) once delivered unto the saints and that hell is a real, literal place of fire and torment. (Jude 3, 7).
  The Bible teaches that those who know not Christ will suffer the vengeance of God, which entails everlasting damnation (2 Thes.1: 8, 9). St. John stated that hell was a real place (Rev. 14: 1 0; 20:10-15; 21:8).
     And, Jesus Christ Himself taught that hell literally exists, that it lasts forever and that those who reject His perfect salvation would spend eternity therein (Matt. 13:41, 42; 18:8, 9; 25:41-46; Luke 16:19-31).
      Rejection of the Biblical doctrine of hell by the pope and others does not nullify the fact that a literal hell truly exists. "Let God be true, but every man a liar" (Rom. 3:3, 4).
    At his heresy trial at Worms, Germany on April 18, 1521, Martin Luther – the brilliant scholar and theologian - was asked to recant his Gospel writings. At the risk of being burned at the stake like John Hus, Bishop Latimer, Bishop Ridley and other reformers before him, Luther replied:
     “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I cannot do help me. Amen.”          

               CHURCHILL MAKES A STATEMENT!

     Sir Winston Churchill made a great point when he said: “If there was more Hell preached from the pulpit, there would less Hell in the pews.” Shortly after World War 11, Churchill was invited to speak at the University of Norway in Oslo.
     Here are some of his remarks: “To make excuses for myself I could name the teachers of my youth who denied Christianity. But I will rather lay the blame on myself. Then, perhaps, I will find One Who will carry that load for me. Nothing can come up against the Christian ethic as the leading light for a people’s future. Christianity is the safest spiritual foundation for a people.”
   BLAISE PASCAL, French mathematician, scientist and philosopher (1623-1662), stated: Man is an incomprehensible Monster, at once Sovereign Greatness and Sovereign Misery… If they turn their back on God, one of two things can happen. They will think they are gods and become insane or turn to carnality and become animals.”
  ABRAHAM LINCOLN said: “I now see as never before the preciousness of God’s love in Jesus Christ, and how we are brought near to Him as our Father through Him. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, Who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust in the best way, all our present difficulties.”
 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW stated: “I am ready to admit after contemplating the world and human nature for sixty years, that I see no way out of this world’s miseries but by the way that would be found by Christ’s will.”
  AUGUST STRINDBERG, the noted Swedish author stated shortly before his death: “Clearly said, I ascribe all my misfortune to this one fact, that I have been Godless! An individual that has broken contact with God cannot receive any blessings. All this talk about being ‘being your own man and making your own happiness’ is chaff.
  “If the Lord does not build the house, they labour in vain who build it. That is the whole truth! That misfortune can also strike a person of faith, we know. But the outcome is not the same. These accidents seem only like trials that pass over and leave peace in their wake.
    “A curse rests upon everything that an ungodly person puts his hand to. If money comes his way, it will disappear like it came. Nothing remains, nothing prospers in the life of the ungodly!” 
  MALCOLM MUGGERIGE, well-known British writer and former atheist, observer at World Council of Churches Convention (before 1980) wrote: “One may be excused for noting that institutional Christianity is inexorably extinguishing itself. At Uppsala one could clearly see that they agreed on almost everything as they believed almost nothing. They reminded me of a group of drunks that I observed in a country bar, in my youth. Individually they would have fallen over, but collectively they managed to remain upright.”
   Muggeridge’s counsel to a troubled world is worth listening to. He writes: “Christ is the only answer to an insane world… they will not understand that the trouble with the western civilization is not economics, but more – good and evil! They are thinking they make things work by policies, inventions, but man will never live on this planet without God.”
CHURCH OF ENGLAND:
IN SPIRITUAL TROUBLE!
     The Church of England has been challenged by Paul Eddy to proclaim Christianity as the only way to salvation and offer strategies on how to evangelize Muslims.
     Senior church leaders as well as some Muslim figures have voiced anger at the motion proposed by Paul Eddy – a lay member of the church’s General Synod, according to BBC. Eddy, along with traditionalist Anglicans, argues that the church should stop avoiding hard questions about its beliefs.
    The Church of England must make it clear that it believes in what the Bible says about Jesus being the only way to salvation, he said. Currently training to become a priest, Eddy believes that being upfront about the church’s beliefs will be helpful to Muslim-Christian relations.
  “Most Muslims that I’ve talked to say, ‘I really wish that Christians would stop watering down their faith and expecting us to do the same,’ Eddy said on BBC Radio Four on Sunday: “Until we start really saying what we really believe in our faith, there will be no respect.”
     Also, Muslims expect Christians to believe that Jesus is the only way to God, Eddy noted. “They will expect us – if we’re true Christians – to try to evangelize them, in the same way they will expect us, if they’re true Muslims, to adopt their faith.” he said.
     But the problem is that the church, in an effort to be inclusive and to avoid offending people of other faiths, has “lost its nerve” and is “not doing what the Bible says,” he noted.
     "Both Christianity and Islam are missionary faiths," Eddy pointed out. "For years, we have sent missionaries throughout the whole world, but when we have the privilege of people of all nations on our doorstep, we have a responsibility as the state church to share the gospel of Jesus Christ."
     He urges Anglican bishops to give church members advice on how to evangelize, and how to better support Muslims who have converted to Christianity and are now ostracized by their communities.
    WILLIAM PENN, after whom the great state of Pennsylvania is named made this powerful statement: “If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing that I can do for my fellow human beings, let me do it now, and not detour or neglect it. I shall not pass this way again.”

             DO NOT THINK ANY SIN IS TRIVIAL!

     ROBERT MURRAY McCHEYNE – the mighty man of prayer – wrote in a letter: “I am deepened in my conviction, that if we are to be instruments in such a work (revival), we must be purified from all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit.
    “O, cry for personal holiness, constant nearness to God, by the Blood of the Lamb. Bask in His beams, lie back in the arms of love, be filled with His Spirit – or all success in the ministry will only be your own everlasting confusion.
  “Do not think any sin trivial; remember it will have everlasting consequences. O, to have Brainerd’s heart for perfect holiness, to be holy as God is holy, pure as Christ is pure, perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect
  “How much more useful might we be, if we were only more free from pride, self conceit, personal vanity; or some secret sin that our heart knows. O, Hateful sins that destroy our peace, and ruin our souls.”
   McCheyne stated: “Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, where life has been hid with Christ in God. These are of the old time religion, hung there to the nails of the cross!”
 WILLIAM BOOTH said: “There have been more than enough conferences and congresses, and committees and deliberations. It is time to act! We have not a moment to lose. No more doubt! No more delay!
  “Arise ye children of Light, and buckle on the armour bright, and now prepare yourselves to fight against the world and Satan. We are called to fight with Him and for Him with every particle of strength we have to the last gasp. That is enough!”
  A.W. TOZER declared: “Any Revival that comes to a nation, and leaves people as much in love with money as they were before, is a falsehood, and it’s from the devil.” JOHN WESLEY said: “God does nothing apart from prayer and everything through it.”
  ANDREW MURRAY stated: The power of the Eternal world have been placed at prayer’s disposal. It is the very essence of true religion, the channels of all blessings, the secret of power and spiritual life.
   “It is at the same time the highest and holiest work to which man can rise. It is fellowship with the unseen and most ‘Holy One’! It is on prayer that the promises of God wait for their fulfillment, the Kingdom for its coming, and the glory of God for its full revelation!”
  GIROLAMA SAVONAROLA, Roman Catholic bishop who was martyred by the ‘bloody old Vatican wolf’ in 1497, stated: Come here, wretched Church…In your lechery, you are a shameless whore. 
    "Once you blushed for your sins, but not now. The priests used to call their sons nephews: now they are not nephews, but sons plain and simple.” from the ‘Men of the Renaissance’ by Ralph Roeder.
                   LET THE PRIESTS MARRY!
    A recent news release was titled: ‘Catholic Church Faces Fresh Scandal as 'Wives' of Priests Speak Out’, published June 02, 2010  by NewsCore. “Pope Benedict XVI, still struggling to repair the damage wrought by a wave of pedophile scandals, now faces a fresh challenge, from women loved -- and often abandoned - by Catholic priests, AFP reported Wednesday.
    About a dozen women have written an open letter to the pope challenging the Church's position that priestly celibacy is a sacred commitment.
"As far as I'm concerned, celibacy is completely useless," said one of the signatories, Stefania Salomone, 42, who had a five-year relationship with a priest.
    "It was introduced for financial reasons," she argued, alluding to the fact that clergy without family were less expensive to house. Pointing to the Church's earlier history, she added: "People forget that there were 39 married popes."
      MARTIN LUTHER stated: “Three things make a preacher: prayer, the Word of God and suffering. The greatest trial to undergo is to have no trial.”  Regarding prayer, Martin Luther said: “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day, I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer.”
     A preacher said on the 70th anniversary of his ordination: “God cannot stop loving us.”
     LEONARD RAVENHILL stated: “The greatest tragedy is a sick Church in a dying world. If Jesus preached like we preach today, He never would have been killed.”
     ST. PAUL declared: “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Cor.4: 5)
    “I am a debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise, so as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also.
     “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Rom. 1: 14-16)
     “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsfolk according to the flesh.” (Rom. 9: 1-3). Amen.

Thursday, August 22, 2019

MANS WRETCHEDNESS
AND CHRIST’S REDEMPTION
                                                By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
   Blaise Pascal wrote: “For after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity. All in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinity far from understanding either. There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator made known through Jesus Christ!
    “The two principles of truth, Reason and Senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances and the senses. The heart has its reason which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This then is faith: God felt by the heart, not by reason.”
    Encyclopedia Britannica states: “Blaise Pascal believed man’s wretchedness is explicable only as an effect or fall, and that for Pascal, as for St. Paul, Jesus Christ is the Second Adam, inconceivable without the First. Pascal believed wholeheartedly that the events described in the Book of Genesis were actual historical events.”
   Concerning the ‘Wretchedness of Man’, St. Paul says: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord…There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 7: 24, 25; 8: 1,2)
   The definition of wretched is: “miserable, unhappy, sad, disappointed.” This is the condition of the world without Christ, sad, defeated and guilt-ridden. Only Jesus the Lion of the tribe of Judah has the power to break the chains and liberate lost humanity!
                              THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS!
   “As it is written, There is none righteous, no not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is not one that doeth good, no, not one. All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.” (Rom. 3: 10-12; 23)
    What a sad commentary on the entire human family. What a hopeless situation to be in! No hope! No way out! Only sin, guilt, fear, condemnation and ultimate futility! Not one righteous person in the whole world. All with terrible resumes of wrongdoing and worthlessness. All are sinners bound for an eternal Hell! But no, help is on its way!!
     Then suddenly the light breaks through. Someone has come to our rescue! But who could help us? Who cares if we live or die? And who has the resources, the power and the will to liberate us and why would he even care or desire to liberate us?
    For a very long time, Jewish Religious leaders asked the same question. It is called, 'The Cry of the Synagogue'. The Rabbi would cry out with a loud voice, “Let One Innocent Come and Atone for the Guilty.” 
     Again and again over the centuries, the 'Cry of the Synagogue' was made, but no-one stepped forward. There were not 'One Innocent' among the children of men, for all had sinned!
    Then, one day John the Baptist cried out: “Behold the Lamb of which taketh away the sins of the world.” (John 1: 29). The Innocent One had come, but they rejected Him. 
 Isaiah had prophesied about Him more than 700 years earlier: “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
    “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way: and the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” (Is. 53:4-6)
                           JESUS THE INNOCENT ONE!
    St. Paul declared that Jesus of Nazareth was that Innocent One: “For such an high priest became us, Who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.” (Heb. 7: 26)
    “For when we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man someone will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
    “Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were sinners, we were reconciled to God through His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Rom. 5: 6-10)
    The Bible states: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6: 23). The wages of sin is death, without exception! All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!
    Adam’s sin affected us all, leaving death and destruction in its wake! We are all vulnerable because of the sin of Adam and Eve and because of our own propensity to break God’s laws. We are all guilty as charged~
                                   A MIRACLE IN FERNIE!
     After years of heavy drinking, Wayne Pratt, repented of his sins and was born again early one Sunday morning in 1976, while watching our telecast over CFCN
   Returning home after a weekend of heavy drinking, fighting and carousing, Wayne made himself some coffee and turned on the TV to ease his guilt regarding his behavior in Fernie, B.C. that weekend.
    The Holy Spirit convicted him as I preached from  Romans 7 and 8, on the wretchedness of man and deliverance from sin and guilt through Jesus Christ. He fell to his knees weeping and crying to God for forgiveness and was born again. He needed to find a church. He must not lose what he had received!
   His wife awoke and asked him where he was going. When he said, “I am going to church”, she said, “Now, you are really out of it.” It was too early for churches to open, so Wayne waited in a coffee shop. 
     As he drove around the town looking for a church, the Holy Spirit directed him to the Assembly of God, where he was welcomed and later received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire. Besides being a heavy-duty mechanic, he is a Director of SEA and a worker in God’s Kingdom. See his testimony on Max Solbrekken on youtube or Come Home to Jesus Video!
                          EDEN: WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!
    Let us go back to where it all started, the Garden of Eden: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” (Gen. 1: 27)
    “And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.
    “And the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen.2:7, 15-17)
    Into that beautiful paradise entered the most despicable, insidious deceiver, liar and wicked personality ever created. Think of the callus, unbridled pride of that disreputable fallen archangel, Lucifer, daring to come to that sanctified place. His plan was to deceive mankind’s first parents and he did!
   When I think of the goodness and mercy of our Lord, I am overcome by His patience and grace. I would have immediately snuffed out that pernicious intruder, but the plan of God had to be worked out for the Messiah to come at the proper time since God knows the end from the beginning!
    Satan, the liar/tempter deceived Eve the wife of Adam, who was the sole ruler of the Garden of Eden! Their sin of high treason against Almighty God plunged the entire world into unbelief, darkness, and sin! The Holy Bible tells the story precisely:
    “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast on the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
    “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil.          "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her and they did eat.
   “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and they made themselves aprons. 
    "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
“And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked and I hid myself. And He said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
                         THE DEVIL LIED TO EVE!
    “And the man said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
     And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
   “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It will bruise the head and thou shall bruise his heel.” (Gen.3:1-15). 
    God would cause strife between snakes and humans. And Satan
the great serpent, would be destroyed by the seed of the woman whom he had deceived! Here we find ‘the law of the first mention’!   
    The first mention of the promised Messiah/Deliverer who would be born of a Virgin woman, without the aid of male sperm! He promised a Redeemer who would destroy Satan’s seed. In the battle, the Redeemer’s heel would be bruised. 
  At Calvary, Satan was destroyed (Heb.2:14,15) by Christ’s vicarious death. The Redeemer’s heel was bruised, but was healed when He arose from the dead. Christ is Victorious and Satan’s power is destroyed, and he will be consigned to the lake of fire eternally. (Rev. 20:10)
    “Unto Adam also and his wife did the Lord God make clothes of skins and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: 
    "Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to til the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way from
the tree of life.” (Gen.3:21-24)
   Satan the evil and wicked Liar had gotten his revenge against Almighty God. He had seduced the parents of humanity and would have his own kingdom in opposition to the Creator. He would employ the wicked angels that had joined his rebellion to seduce, harass and bring all into bondage through hate, fear, sickness and disease, war and chaos!
    His plan had almost succeeded until God called one man and his family to save mankind and preserve the bloodline of the Coming Messiah and Liberator of the world, Jesus Christ. He would send a flood that would destroy the world but save billions of future souls.
The man whom God would use had kept his family free from demonic influence. That was the family that carried the bloodline of the Coming Messiah. That man’s name was NOAH!

1: THE WORLD AT ENMITY WITH GOD
    “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.
    "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.
     “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation and Noah walked with God. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was filled with violence, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 
    “And God said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopherwood; rooms shalt thou make in the
ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch…And behold, I even I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die. 
   “But with thee will I establish My Covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark; thou and thy sons, and thy wife and thy sons’ wives with thee. And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou, and all thy house into the Ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.” (Gen. 6: 1-8, 11-14; 7:1)
                                    LOVE NOT THE WORLD!
    St. John says: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in Him. For all that is in world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
    “And the world passeth away and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” (1 John 2:15-17). St. James stated: “Ye adulteresses and adulteresses, know ye that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4)
    The Holy Bible defines the world as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life! We are warned not to love the world. It was this temptation that destroyed Adam and Eve’s faith in God and drove them out of the Garden of Eden. It was that temptation created an orbit of sin, fear, and destruction! 
    Here is Satan’s simple but deadly equation: The forbidden fruit was pleasant to the eyes It would be good to eat. It would make her wise. SIN has made slaves out of men and women who were created in the image of the eternal God. 
  What a tragedy for mankind. Adam and Eve walked and talked with God as His children. After their tragic FALL, they were driven out of the Garden, from the presence of God!
   SIN is when men and women no longer fear God. Their trust, reverence and love for God has grown cold. Satan has deceived mankind with the same lies that he told Eve in the Garden of Eden. (2 Cor. 4: 3, 4)
    Look at the filth, rot and corruption in society today, that staggers the imagination. I am referring to the increase in broken homes, crime, gambling, lust, greed, sexual perversion and the devastating epidemic of drug abuse and opioid deaths in our nation!
Between January 2016 and September 2018 there were more than 10,300 opioid deaths. Canada’s Public Health reported one such death every 2 hours in 2018.

2. GOVERNMENTS ARE CORRUPT!
    God’s Word states: “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn:” (Prov. 29: 2).
   The fulfillment of this Scripture is seen in the murderous Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, Communist regimes of Stalin, Mao, Castro and anti-Christ Islamic Terrorism in the Middle East!
     And the departure from Biblical principles governing individual families and the nation at large, through perverted laws and a tainted Court system, departing from the Ten Commandments and the British Common Law!
    Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” (Ps. 33:12). The Gospel of Christ has brought the light of God into pagan nations across the world and liberty to multiplied millions since Jesus Christ’s vicarious death on Golgotha’s Hill and His glorious resurrection almost 2,000 years ago!
    Prime Minister William Gladstone, unquestionably one of Great Britain's most able, and greatest legal minds in the 1800s stated:  “Talk about the questions of the day! There is but one question and that is the Gospel. That can and will correct everything. I am glad to say that about all the men at the top in Great Britain are Christians.
   " I have been in public positions fifty-eight years, all but eleven of them in the Cabinet of the British Government, and during those forty-seven years have been associated with sixty of the master minds of the century, and all but five of the sixty were Christians.”
   What a statement coming from the greatest British Prime Minister who ever lived! It is little wonder then that Queen Victoria stated: “I could wish that Jesus Christ would return in my lifetime.” When she was asked, “Why?” she answered: “I would so love to lay my crown at His feet.”
     The Holy Bible says: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against his anointed…” (Ps. 2:1,2); “Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.” (1 Cor. 2: 8)
  The Jewish Sanhedrin condemned Jesus of Nazareth and delivered Him to the Roman authorities in Jerusalem for execution. Governor Pontius Pilate, at the urging of the Jewish rulers, condemned Him to death on the cross! 
    The Word of God states: “And we know that we are of God, and whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is true God, and eternal life.” (1 John 5:19)
    “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God.
    “And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already, it is in the world. Ye are of God little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
    “They are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are not of the world: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God hearth not us. Hereby know we the spirt of error.” (1 John 4: 1-5)

3: THE CHURCH IS LUKEWARM!
   “And unto the angel of the Laodecians write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God (He whom God used to create); I know thy works, that thou art neither cold or hot: I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, I will spew thee out of My mouth. 
    “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment that thou be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
    “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.” (Rev.3: 14-20)
   Recently, I completed a series of messages on the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse and have again been reminded of the sins and shortcomings of those churches in Asia and how similar they were to our churches today.
  Out of the seven churches, Jesus Christ commanded five to REPENT or else He would deal with them harshly.
    In every case, however, He leaves the door open for them to repent. When He says that He will come to them, it will be to judge. It is also a plea for them to repent and seek His face. It is an opportunity for a revival to break loose in the church, for which He died on the cross!
   In his book, The Fire of God (1948), Dr. Oswald J. Smith, founder of People’s Church in Toronto, stated that he had studied the lives of all the great men of God who had brought Revival and changed nations for Christ. He stated that all of them majored in five things, namely: Sin and Salvation, Heaven and Hell and Judgment! I whole heartedly agree with that statement.
    Another very important truth which I personally have observed is this: Only those preachers who faithfully declare the power of the shed blood of Jesus Christ to save, forgive, cleanse and heal, see God’s miracles in His Name! Those who do not honour the BLOOD of Jesus Christ very seldom have His miracles following their ministry! 
   Whenever the blood of Christ is preached, the Holy Spirit responds! The Holy Spirit answers to the Blood of Jesus! The Holy Spirit honours and glorifies the Word of God, the Name of Jesus and the precious Blood oJesus Christ shed for the Redemption of the world!
  “Now the God of Peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the Blood of  the Everlasting Covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ: to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Heb. 13: 20)
   The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant was made in the Council of Heaven between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, before the worlds were made!
  “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers: but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last days for you, who by Him do believe in God, that raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory that your faith and hope in God.” (1 Peter 1:18-21)
    The fear of God is lacking today. The desire to pray is lacking today. The burden for lost souls is lacking today. The boldness to declare the Word of God, is lacking today. The fire of God and the power of God is lacking today in the Church of the Living God. And that is terribly sad!
     The great Puritan preacher Richard Baxter stated: “I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.” He was a serious Minister of the Gospel.
   He stated: “Of all preaching in the world, (that speaks not stark lies) I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their mind with tickling levity, and affect them as stage-players use to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God.”
    Jesus said: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Dr. R. Moffat Gautrey wrote: “The Gospel is not an old, old story, freshly told. It is a FIRE in the spirit, fed by the flame of Immortal Love. And woe be unto us if through our negligence to stir up the gift of God which is written within us, that FIRE burns low!”.

4: PEOPLE ARE CONFUSED, PERPLEXED!
   Jesus warned: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of Heaven shall be shaken.
    “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21: 25-28)
    The word perplexity means that there is no way out! That sums up the situation in the world today: 
    The rise of Chinese military and economic power, Iran’s hunger
for nuclear weapons, spreading Islamic terrorism, Russia’s aggressive resurgence, hatred for Israel and the Jews, some churches’ departure from, “the faith once delivered unto the saints.” (Jude 3)
     A leading cause of death is heart attacks, many caused by fear which constricts the flow of blood. Without doubt, stress and anxiety, smoking, poor eating habits and lack of exercise also contribute to heart disease.
    The answer is to flee from the wrath to come, into the loving arms of Jesus Christ and receive His forgiveness, peace, healing and deliverance! And to become His active disciple, spreading the Gospel as His Ambassador to our dysfunctional society!
    The BIBLE says: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every man to his own way; and the Lord have laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Is. 53: 6); “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags; we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Is. 64: 6)
    “Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red as crimson, they shall be as white as wool.” (Is. 1:18)
  “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom.3:23); “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6: 23)
     “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved.” (Rom. 10: 9,10, 13)

5: THE HOLY BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD!
    The Bible declares: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Tim. 3: 16)
   “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1: 20, 21)
    “God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the world.” (Heb.1:1,2)
 WILLIAM GLADSTONE, England’s greatest Prime Minister under Queen Victoria, stated: “The Bible is stamped with the specialty of origin. An immeasurable distance separates it from all other competitors.”
 VICTOR HUGO, French playwright and poet, stated: “England has two great books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare and the Bible made England.”
SIR WALTER SCOTT stated, “The Bible: In the whole world it is THE BOOK; all other books are mere leaves, fragments.”
PROF. DYSON HAGUE, M.A. wrote: “Yes, it alone is the universal BOOK – the eternal Book. It is the Voice: all others are merely books for the hour. The Bible is the book of all time. It stands alone; unapproachable in grandeur; as high above all other books as heaven is above the earth, as the Son of God above  the sons of men.”
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN declared: “The Bible has not lost its appeal, because the principles it contains are of timeless relevance and its beauty is forever discovered anew by millions of Americans.”
   On Thursday, Feb. 3, at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., President Ronald Reagan proclaimed 1983, The Year of the Bible. Following is an example of his address to the National Religious Broadcasters that same week.
   I believe that when Americans reach out for values of faith, family, and caring for the needy, they are saying, “We want the Word of God. We want to face the future with the Bible.
    We are blessed to have the words of strength, comfort and truth. Within the covers of that single Book that face us today, are all the answers to all the problems that face us today....if we would only look there. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the Word of our God shall stand forever.”
   .....I have always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some plan placed this great continent here between two oceans to be found by people from every corner of the earth – people who had a special love for freedom...
   …..I hope Americans will read and study the Bible in 1983. It is my firm belief that the enduring values presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation. The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds and order our minds, refresh our souls.
    The Bible declares: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1: 1,2, 14)

6: CHRIST IS THE ANSWER
  In His communion with His Heavenly Father Jesus prayed: “Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy Word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” (John 17: 17)
   “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. That they also may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in US; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.
   “And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that thou may be one, even as We are one. I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in ONE; and that the world may KNOW that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast
loved Me.” (John 17: 18- 23)
    Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works sake.
   “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall ye do also; and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto My Father.
    “And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it. If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” (John 14: 6, 11-15)
     Jesus said: “I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, kill and destroy. I am come that they may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:9)
    “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep.
   Therefore, doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again: This command have I received of My Father.” (John 10:11, 14, 17, 18)
   “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this. She said unto Him, Yea, I believe that Thou art the Christ,the Son of the Living God.” (John 11: 25-27)
   “I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” (John 15:1,2). We are branches of Vine, drawing life from Jesus Christ Himself. He says: “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)


7: SATAN IS DEFEATED
   “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also likewise Himself took part of the same; that through Death He might Destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil: And Deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Heb.2: 14, 15)
    “He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8)
   “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.” (Acts 10: 38)
   “And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven.
   “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Rev. 12:7, 8).
    “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” (Rev 20:10)

8: THE LOVE OF GOD
   “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.  Beloved, now are we the sons of God and it doth not yet appear that what we shall be;
   “But we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. Hereby perceive we the love of God because He laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3: 1-5, 16,
   William Cowper tried to commit suicide several times. He was about to drink a glass of hemlock but his hand trembled and he dropped the glass. He tried to shoot himself but was unable to do so. Cowper sought to throw himself into the Thames River but was “strangely restrained.” 
   The next morning, he fell on a sharp knife and broke the blade. He tried to hang himself but was found and taken down unconscious. William Cowper was brought to St. Anselms Asylum.    
    One day, he picked up a Bible lying on a bench. He read: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to God.” (Rom. 3: 25)
   He was born again as the Spirit of God fell upon him and instantly liberated by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. He wrote the hymn, There is a fountain filled with Blood, and many other great hymns for the glory of God.
   John Newton, who had been a Captain on slave ships and an ungodly man, was converted and became Cowpers pastor and helped him greatly. Together they authored a number of hymns. John Newton wrote the hymn, Amazing Grace!.
     Almighty God invites everyone to come to Him, the Fountain of living water and drink of the water of Life freely. He was not pleased with His people because of their backsliding and indifference to His invitation. 
   He said: “For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the Fountain of Living Waters, and have hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2:13)
    He still invites: “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Is.1: 18). Jesus our Lord and Saviour, invites:
   “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with Me.” (Rev. 3: 20). Amen.
                        THE GREAT REVIVAL OF 1857
   On July 1, 1857 Jeremiah Lamphier, a 46-year-old businessman was called by the Dutch Reformed Church to be a missionary to downtown New York City. He had been saved in 1842 in Charles Finney’s meetings.
    He felt led to begin a noon prayer meeting once a week on the 3 rd floor of the old N. Dutch Reformed Church. He printed pamphlets to hand out and put one on the door. In the first service he prayed alone for 30 minutes. Then 4 men came. By March 6,000
were attending the meetings. Within a year there were 92,216 estimated conversions to Christ!
   VANCE HAVNER wrote: “Many years ago in Scotland in a certain community, the fires had all one out! The searched everywhere to see if anyone had fire. Finally, they found a humble house where the hartstone glowed with a cheery flame. Soon they were carrying coals here and there to replenish their own blackened fireplaces.
  “Today, there are weary hearts, discouraged souls, needy churches looking for a soul with fire, someone kept aglow in spite of the world, flesh and the devil.”
   May we all rededicate ourselves totally to Jesus Christ and the spread of His Gospel of salvation and deliverance! 
    C.S. Lewis made this statement about the awesomeness of Christ: “He died not for men but for each man. If each man had been the only man, He would have done no less.”
   Hundreds of years ago, Martin Luther was found lying under the figure of Christ, sobbing uncontrollably and saying, “Mein Gott, für mich, für mich.” He suddenly realized that Jesus Christ had not only died for the world, but for Martin Luther personally, and that revelation shook him to the core!
   One morning, I awoke with these words filling my heart and this prayer on my lips: “O God, give me an insatiable desire to win souls for Your Kingdom. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.” 
    We are believing for a season of healing, miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit that will re-awaken the Church in these end-times to seek God by fasting and prayer, to rend the Heavens and come down in our midst in old-time power! Amen.