Force The Wicked To Believe & The Righteous To Respond

NOTE: We had six guesses for Dwight D. Eisenhower and one for Gerald Ford. The book I got the quote from attributed it to Ford; however, the Ford respondent did some research and found that it was Ike who actually said it during WWII. A copy goes to our first Ike respondent and to the Ford respondent for her diligence to pursue the truth.

One of my dear mentors Bro Staley sent this response to yesterday’s devotional:

    This is one more great one my friend. If we could just force the wicked to believe & the righteous to respond.

Wouldn’t that be nice? It would make our jobs so much easier. At first my dear brother’s response made me wish it were so, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that will never happen; at least not without a holy revival amongst the church.

The wicked will come to Christ and I believe it would be in the millions only if the 90% of Christians who never share their faith begin to do so. The righteous will respond when our pulpits begin to preach the Holy Word of God. To those of you preaching in the pulpits across America it is time to throw away your NTFV (New Touchy-Feely Version) Bibles and preach the aletheia truth!

You all know how much I admire Charles Finney and here is another quote of his:

    “If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is denigrate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in Christianity, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall, the pulpit is responsible for it.”

May I boldly add to Rev. Finney’s comment? If the pulpit is doing this, then those sitting in the pews are responsible for it.

Beloved we must demand righteousness first from our lives and then from those in our pulpits and in the public halls of government! Oh but Bro Dave the system is so corrupt and the clergy so cowardly that it is impossible to change things in America. Then Jesus is a liar!

    “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” (John 14:12-14)

This doesn’t make Jesus our credit card; it makes Him our standard. It means when we are asking to do the will of our King which glorifies our Heavenly Father; then Jesus says He will do it! Must I draw a picture? I cannot tell you how many times the Holy Spirit has pierced my heart with this truth because of my unbelief.

    “And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, ‘O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.’ And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:14-21)

“Because of your unbelief…” Imagine Jesus saying that to you; He has me and yet I still fail to believe. And when was the last time I fervently prayed and fasted for anything? O faithless and perverse generation! That is us.

Beloved, do you want to save America? Do you really?

Is there any other way then for it to happen than for Christ to do it through us? What I mean by us is you and me. Stop looking around!

No one is going to do it for you or me.

God has called us to be ambassadors for Christ. Oh well Bro Dave I still live in America and ambassadors usually represent America. Here, let’s see if this helps:

    “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-21)

Why did Jesus die on the cross? Oh I know Bro Dave, so our sins could be forgiven and we could go to heaven and live a very abundant life, our best life now, here on earth!!

Um, please throw away your NTFV.

The Apostle Paul says that God made Jesus, the perfect sinless man, sinful so that in Jesus we might become the righteousness of God.

All those other bennies are the result of salvation, not the purpose. We are to be holy because God is holy. We are to be ambassadors for Christ where we live, work, and play to reconcile the world to God in Jesus.

Oh that you would make that true in my life Jesus…oh that I would do so…oh that you would do so!

Prepare your hearts beloved; begin today…Sunday will be too late. The piercing of your heart has come to you this moment; seize it!

I pray that this weekend be a restful one for your body but a restless one for your spirit. And may the Holy Spirit wrestle with my spirit until I give Him preeminence.

Please remember to go to church on Sunday.

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2010 David Jeffers

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