Category: encouragement

Only One Left? #1

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

“And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away” (1 Kings 19:14 KJV).

Was the Prophet Elijah really “the only one left?”

King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were definitely the Northern Kingdom’s evilest, most idolatrous leaders. Israel, the 10 tribes of the north, underwent extensive spiritual reform as Baal worship was declared the official state religion. See 1 Kings 16:29-34, and 1 Kings 21:25,26. In chapter 17, the Prophet Elijah announces God will bring drought and subsequent famine in response to this widespread Satan worship among His people (cf. Deuteronomy 11:16,17).

After three and a half years, Elijah meets Ahab again. The Bible provides these words in chapter 18: “[17] And it came to pass, when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? [18] And he answered, I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father’s house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim. [19] Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table. [20] So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto mount Carmel. [21] And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. [22] Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the LORD; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men.”

Imagine, there are several hundred false religious leaders (Baal preachers) in Israel, contrasted with lone Elijah who is still loyal to JEHOVAH God! Moreover, Elijah proposes a test to see if Baal is God or the LORD is God. Let us see the results….

Our latest Bible Q&A: “How can God have ‘horns’ coming out of His hand?”

A Reunion (x2)

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18 KJV).

Another member of the Church the Body of Christ has graduated to our Lord’s presence….

Here, nearly 10 years ago, I reported the death of Mr. Hadley Castille, a saint and world-renowned Cajun fiddler living here in southern Louisiana. Now, we can rejoice that his widow, Mrs. Earline, has gone on to Heaven to be reunited with him! I had ministered to Brother Hadley during his last days alive. For the next decade, my family and I, and other saints, attended to his wife. Over the course of this past year, her health had been steadily declining, and she was approaching age 85 when her lengthy Christian journey on Earth ended. Like her departed husband, she had a testimony of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. She is back with him, and she is also with a late sister-friend in Christ whom she had also missed. Not long ago, we visited all three graves.

Today’s Scripture was some of the verses we would share with Mrs. Earline to encourage her. Her physical body was breaking down, growing sicker and frailer, but we reminded her to focus on the inner man, leaving behind denominationalism and maturing in God’s grace. We can be sure that she is now at peace, free from her abounding distresses and overwhelming grief. There is coming a day when we will see her again, for those in Christ are united forever by His precious blood. While we are on Earth, saints, let us be about our ministry to see that we lead others to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, that they too go to be with Him as we will do in His own timing.

-IN MEMORIAM-
Mrs. Mary Earline Shay Castille
October 10, 1937 – February 6, 2022

On the Run!

Friday, January 28, 2022

“But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience, Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:10-12 KJV).

Read this sobering statement from a Christian living in the Middle East: “Because we don’t have a church building to gather in, we have to keep our groups small, not more than five or six people. We constantly change days, times, and locations to avoid getting caught.” These are current affairs, friends, reminiscent of the days when the early churches had to hide from Roman authorities or risk death!

Although anti-Christian voices have greatly multiplied and increased in volume in recent years here in the United States, we still have our constitutional rights that protect spiritual liberty… for now. Compared to what Christians are undergoing in other countries, we Americans have it good. Dear friends, never take the Holy Scriptures for granted. Be appreciative of them—especially thankful for those saints who died through the centuries just to make sure we had a copy. This cannot be emphasized enough!

It is so tragic we who have the greatest “religious freedom” in the world are usually the ones most spoiled to the non-spiritual. We bicker about the stupidest matters on social media, sit in front of our television and computer screens several hours a day for amusement, and talk and text message and play games on our smartphones the rest of the time. Meanwhile, Christians in other nations are literally being hunted down, imprisoned, tortured, and executed for God’s Book that sits on our shelf collecting dust. Oh, it is a terrible commentary regarding our beloved nation, but it shows just how shallow in the Scriptures we have been all these centuries. Now, our corporate attitude can no longer be hidden because the culture behind the façade has bulldozed through its shell.

Dear saints, if you are suffering for Jesus Christ’s sake today, remember, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). God’s grace is sufficient—even when you are “on the run!” 🙂

An Increase Long After Our Decease

Monday, January 24, 2022

“Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:5-7 KJV).

Even death itself cannot stop the Lord’s ministry!

Several years ago, a dear Christian sister shared the Gospel of Grace with an unsaved man. He trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour, and passed from death to life! She relayed the news to me and we rejoiced together, but, for the next four years, we heard from him just a few times. The lady eventually graduated to Heaven because of an accident, but she always wondered whatever happened to him. Over a year after her death, I receive a phone call. It is he! He had just learned about her moving to Heaven, and was so dismayed he wanted to reconnect with me, and tell me what had been happening since we last heard from him. I explained to him how we had thought about him often—and though her absence was a devastating loss to us all, we would see her again in the Lord’s presence and he could thank her there.

Over the last two years, he and I have tried to keep in more contact. Recently, he has informed me he is endeavoring to reach his adult children and young grandchildren with the Gospel of Grace—but they are so entangled in works-religion (his former denomination, Roman Catholicism) that it is most difficult. Moreover, he is still battling other denominationalists in a church he had started attending before he believed the Gospel of Grace. I encouraged him with more Scriptures and ministry advice, especially how the lady dealt with her own family (all of whom were of the same cult as he was and his family still is).

The sister now in Heaven almost three years will be most excited to hear one day how the Lord’s ministry through her continued to bear fruit long after she left us. She planted, we watered, but God gives the increase (cf. today’s Scripture). Indeed, long after our decease, His words will take care of themselves!

Bible Q&A #915: “Is it fair for John to refer to them as ‘the Jews?’”

A Decision to Embrace Right Division

Sunday, January 23, 2022

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV).

We give a hearty “Amen!” to today’s Scripture….

Having trusted Jesus Christ alone as my personal Saviour just a few weeks shy of age seven, I spent the first 12 years of my Christian life in utter spiritual shallowness, immaturity, and confusion. Denominational systems had been so detrimental to my inner man! One day, the Lord mightily used a dear brother in Christ to introduce my parents and me to dispensational Bible study. Later that year, another Christian brother showed us even more advanced sound Bible doctrine. Recently, we marked 15 years since first coming to understand right division. To say the least, it has been quite the journey this last decade and a half!

What we have discovered through the years of talking with others in ministry is countless souls within churches are “too comfortable” where they are. Religious tradition is most difficult to relinquish—but we left our vain theological systems and they can do just the same if they so choose. However, it is far easier to keep “praise and worship” services, “humbling” ceremonies, mindless church attendance, light or “feel-good” sermons, philosophical counseling sessions, and all the rest that strokes the ego of sinful flesh. To embrace the truth is to lose so many relatives and “friends”—and that intimidation factor keeps many people right where they are in their spiritual life (if they even have one!).

Dear friends, the Bible laid out on a timeline is most helpful, and respecting the dispensational boundaries God the Holy Spirit has placed in His Word is how we understand and enjoy the Scriptures. If nothing else, we know the Apostle Paul is God’s spokesman to us (Romans 11:13), and Romans through Philemon are God’s words to and about us. We study all 66 Bible Books, but we study them rightly divided, and we seek God’s approval instead of man’s approval (today’s Scripture). Indeed, we all have more growing to do with regards to learning God’s plan for the ages, but we are well on our way. Let us remember to continue on this path without turning to the right or the left—at least for another 15 years! 🙂

A Life That Will Please

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).

Today’s Scripture tells us who alone can live a life pleasing in God’s sight!

Everyone does “good” deeds. Yet, doing “good” is not necessarily good. For instance, people often do “good” just to receive praise/reward, make up for their wrongs, feel good, et cetera. Furthermore, despite our “good” deeds, we have plenty more bad ones! Pride, lying, evil thoughts, being a false witness, and being contentious are some of the things the LORD hates (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Mankind cannot even keep 10 simple rules from God. However, religion continues to urge us to keep seven sacraments, utter various prayers, give assorted offerings and “tithes,” attend numerous feasts and festivals, and perform sundry other tasks to “hopefully” please God and avoid hellfire. Whether we attempt to keep a church’s laws, our laws, or God’s laws, our flesh is far too weak to ever measure up. Just look at what God’s religion did to Israel—how much worse some man-made religion does to us!

As Saul of Tarsus, the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee, a religious leader of Israel. He was a nitpicker concerning Law-keeping, and yet, after his soul salvation, he admitted that all of his religion was “but dung” compared to Jesus Christ’s righteousness (Philippians 3:3-11). Even for the Christian, to live a perfect life is impossible (read of Paul’s miserable existence in Romans chapter 7). Paul had to forsake his vain religion and learn today’s Scripture: the Christian life is NOT the performance of the Christian, but the Lord Jesus Christ living and working in the Christian, as the Christian walks in an intelligent understanding of God’s Word to him or her!

If we trust a Saviour who will save—the Lord Jesus Christ—and trust a Book that will teach—the King James Bible—we can redeem the year for the great God and our Saviour, “who loved [us], and gave himself for [us]!” 🙂

Redeem the Year!

Saturday, January 1, 2022

“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17 KJV).

What great advice for 2022!

Despite 2,000 years of Bible schools and seminaries, 2,000 years of a completed Bible canon, 2,000 years of Bible reading in churches, several decades of “Christian” television and radio, and just over a decade of widespread use of “Christian” websites, how sad that Bible ignorance is still quite extensive (it is as if God never gave His Word to start with!).

Frankly, the Church the Body of Christ needs to wake up! The verse previous to today’s Scripture says, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (verse 14). Paul, loosely quoting Isaiah 60:1, reminded us that the spiritual ignorance that gripped Israel in Isaiah’s day seized Christians in his day—and it still grips Christians 20 centuries later. Feel-good sermons, enjoyable “worship” services, and rites, rituals, and ceremonies will NOT solve this problem—they exacerbate it!

“[God] will have all men to be saved…” (1 Timothy 2:4a). Do you want this New Year to count for God’s glory? First, you need to get saved from sins and hell! You need to become a Christian by trusting in and relying on Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as sufficient payment for your sins (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). That is only part of God’s will for you, for 1 Timothy 2:4b continues, “[God] will have all men… to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Now, God’s will for your Christian life is daily, personal Bible study to renew your mind, so your faith in those verses can cause God to work in your life—it will be His life, thus making you “perfect [spiritually mature], throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16,17).

Today’s Scripture urges us to buy back the time Satan has robbed from God (time created for God’s glory). By faith, we need to make that time glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by applying His Word, particularly Paul’s epistles of Romans through Philemon, to our lives. Have a good year in Christ! 🙂

You can download our free “One-Year Bible Reading Schedule.”

See our archived Bible Q&A: “What Scriptural advice can you give me for the New Year?”

The Person of the Year

Friday, December 31, 2021

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…” (Philippians 2:9,10a KJV).

Let us praise the 2021 Person of the Year—our Lord Jesus Christ!

Society’s most stressful time of year, the Christmas Season, is winding down. The year 2021 is nearly over, and a new year, 2022, will dawn soon. At this time every year, various groups and publications feature their particular choice for “Person of the Year.” Whether a chief of state, a philanthropist, a religious leader, a distinguished author or scientist, a television or radio personality, or some other “professional” who impacted society in a negative or positive way the most during the past year, they are all still people with limitations and frailties. One can accomplish all sorts of praiseworthy, generous, and awe-inspiring feats. However, what carries the most weight is the attitude, the heart, underlying the action, not the action. Was it Jesus Christ, or simply the flesh?

The one single event in history that pleased God the Father most was when His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, went by faith in His Word, to an awful Roman cross to suffer the worst possible and most graphic death a human ever experienced, to pay for our sins. “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). It is through that finished crosswork of Jesus Christ that He is still doing mighty works, 20 centuries later. How our Lord Jesus Christ has saved countless souls from sins and hell this past year, and how He has saved innumerable Christian souls from false doctrine and spiritual ruin.

Jesus Christ, who in death defeated His greatest enemy (Satan), was raised by God the Father and is now the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus Christ (today’s Scripture). Saints, may we ever thank and praise our Saviour Jesus Christ for what He has done for us, what He has done with us, and what He will do with us next year… and all the countless ages thereafter….

NOTE: Saints, believe it or not, we close yet another year of grace ministry. Thank you for your continued prayer and encouragement these last 12 months. We surely needed it. While we have come so very far, we still have so much more ground to cover, so much more sound Bible doctrine to learn and believe, and we look forward to serving you here for at least another year (provided our Lord Jesus Christ wills it). So, with that, I sign off for 2021. See you in 2022! 🙂

Scrooges and Christians

Thursday, December 16, 2021

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV).

To the old identity, we say, “Bah, Humbug!” To the new, we say, “God has blessed us, everyone in Christ.”

Other than Jesus Christ’s conception and birth as found in the Holy Bible, there is one other classic story associated with Christmastime. British author Charles Dickens’ 1843 book, A Christmas Carol, focuses on the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge (the novella has some Christian influence).

From the onset, Scrooge is a wealthy, miserable, mean, stingy, and selfish old man. His employee, Bob Cratchit, is underpaid (yet, strangely, Ebenezer observes, Cratchit is cheerful). Scrooge refuses to donate to charities collecting for the destitute—to him, Christmastime is a time for others to “pick his pocket.” He even refuses to attend his nephew’s Christmas party. What a miser!

Through visitations by four Spirits—his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley; and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future—Scrooge is forced to realize what a thoroughly rotten man he is. Once confronted with his future, the awful events that lie ahead, he asks for another chance to make things right (which, thankfully, he receives and does!). The Scrooge at the end of the book is drastically different from the Scrooge at the beginning. Scrooge is now loving, warm, cheerful, and generous—he is a brand-new man.

Bible-believing Christians recognize parallels between Dickens’ work and the Holy Scriptures. The sinner starts off rotten, a rebel from birth—selfish, miserable, and mean. When he or she comes to realize that pitiful condition he or she is in, and comes by simple faith in Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as sufficient payment for their sins, God gives him or her a new identity (today’s Scripture). That identity is designed to influence subsequent actions. Scrooge did not simply change his outward activity; he had a change in heart first. This Christmas, let us be submissive to God’s Holy Spirit working in our hearts, as He uses sound Bible doctrine to manifest in our behavior our identity in Christ, that we be not Scrooges.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing #5

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:14-17 KJV).

The final verse of the classic Christmas carol highlights today’s Scripture.

“Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!”

Religion has done an excellent job (wrongly) teaching us that God likes to rehabilitate humans—that He wants to make us quit doing certain things (“fleshly”) and make us start doing other things (“churchy”). What a very shallow, and actually a false, perception. God wants to do much more than what we could ever do by ourselves.

For good works to reign in our lives, God has to kill us! As sinners, in Adam, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, no life in ourselves (see today’s Scripture). Nothing we can do in our own strength will ever change our (sinful) nature in Adam. However, God offers us death to Adam and a new identity through Christ at Calvary. When we trust that Jesus Christ died for our sins, in God’s mind, we died to sin, too. Christ did not simply die for us but as us. Romans chapters 5 through 8 describe the victory is in Christ, not in Adam or in ourselves. Success is by the power of the Holy Ghost working with the grace doctrines we study and believe, not in our struggles to do right. And so, “Christ [is] formed in [us]” (Galatians 4:19).

Something about which the angels cannot sing, but we can, should, and do! 🙂