“These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” — Acts 17:6 The apostle Paul and Silas had been preaching in Philippi (in modern day Turkey) where many people had been converted. There was a great tumult and they were cast into prison. Finally released, they went on to Thessalonica (in Greece), where they went into the synagogue and preached the Gospel with great power. Numbers of the Jews were converted to Christ. A great multitude of devout Greeks also were converted, as well as a number of the notable women, so that some of the Jews, being moved with envy gathered together some lewd fellows of the baser sort. They gathered a company and they came to the house of Jason, where Paul and Silas had been. They were going to drag them out, but they could not lay their hands on them. They took Jason and some of the brethren and brought them before the rulers of the people and they said: “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” I love that description. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have inscribed on your tombstone: “Here lies one who turned the world upside down.” That is what Christianity does. As we see it from the proper perspective, the world is already turned upside down. What we are trying to do is turn it right side up. It was the pagan conception of turning the world upside down. Certainly we live in a world that desperately needs to be turned right side up in our time—and the Gospel of Jesus is the answer. Lord Jesus, thank You for coming into this world to turn it right side up. As Your followers we ask for strength to work on this task with You. Help us to have a positive influence on the world around us… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, THE WORLD CAN BE TURNED RIGHT SIDE UP.
“All the believers were of one heart and one soul, and no one said that what he possessed was his own. But to them all things were in common.” — Acts 4:32 Some people like to say that early in the book of Acts we see an early form of socialism. The early Christians shared what they had, in some cases even by selling their houses and sharing the proceeds so no one had need. But I believe a close look at that passage will reveal that it is in fact antithetical to socialism. A husband and wife team, Ananias and Sapphira, decided to sell their property, but they kept back a part of the price, told the disciples that they had sold it for more, and then “brought a part of it and placed it at the apostles’ feet.” “Then Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to deceive the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, was it not your own? [There you have an apostolic confirmation of the right of private property.] And when it was sold, was it not under your http://authority?...you did not lie to men, but to God’” (Acts 5:2-4). Both husband and wife dropped dead because of their sin of lying. Not only the property and the means of production, but the results of that production were in the couple’s power, not in the power or the hands of the state. Furthermore, you will notice, that this action was voluntary. And where was the money given? To the church—why that’s enough to give Karl Marx apoplexy! Socialism may sound Christian, but in reality it is anything but. Lord Jesus, You who are the Giver of all good gifts. Thank You for what You have given me and help me to be generous in sharing, especially with Your people. Help us to be honest in all our dealings with money and to give freely… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN BE GENEROUS.
“The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” — Proverbs 22:7 We have given up the free enterprise economy the founders of this nation gave to us. We have followed the socialists, albeit a number of paces behind them, down that disastrous road. We are suffering the consequences right now. But we haven’t even begun to see the consequences that will be coming one day. Our politicians are recklessly spending money like there is no tomorrow. The federal government spends regularly more than we take in. But if we just took the figure of $1.4 trillion (which is smaller than the amount of our federal spending) and you stacked it up in dollars, it would reach 88,000 miles—one-third of the distance to the moon. This is incredibly selfish because the government has no money of its own. Author Rus Walton put it very well when he said: “Government is not a producer; it is a taker, a taxer, and a spender. Every dollar spent by the public sector is a dollar the government must take from the private sector, from the workers and earners and investors. The dollar taken by government cannot be spent or invested by that productive private sector.” What is happening is that too many Americans are living off of the public trough—they are living off of the sweat and labor of their fellow Americans. And who will pay for all this? Our children and our children’s children. Because we have turned our back on God, our national greed is destroying the future. Pray for revival. Dear God, help us to get our national house in order and to stop spending money we don’t have. Thank You for what You have given us and help us to be good stewards of that which You have entrusted to us… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WRONGS CAN BE RIGHTED.
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given to you.” — Matthew 6:33 I always remember the admonition of Charles Spurgeon who said that Christ never told us to seek the kingdom of God. He is right. Christ never told us to seek the kingdom of God. He told us to seek it first. Instead of being worried about “all these things,” that is, what to eat, what to wear, providing basic necessities, Jesus tells us to make His kingdom and righteousness our top priority. When we get so consumed with all “these things” to the point that we put the kingdom of God way down on the list, then the result is 1) we don’t begin to have all of the things that God is more than willing to give to us, and 2) we miss out on the blessings of seeking the kingdom of God. As we consider how to engage in “spiritual purposing,” so that His kingdom really is our true priority, then consider ways to spend more time with Christ—time reading His Word, time going to Him in prayer. That quiet time is the essence of the Christian life. Without that, you will never grow in God’s kingdom. I would urge you this day to determine that starting now you are not going to let a day go by that you don’t spend some time in His Word and in prayer. That has been a goal of mine for virtually my entire Christian life. I hope you make it yours if it isn’t already. God, our King, we are citizens of Your kingdom and we are so grateful for being included and accepted by You, our rightful King. Give us the grace to put You first and seek to advance Your kingdom every day… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, HIS KINGDOM GOES FORTH.
“It is God who clothes me with strength...” — Psalm 18:32 “You’re a dunce.” That’s what she said. “You’re a dunce, and I am going to fail you,” and the teacher failed Einstein in mathematics. Who was the dunce? “I’m sorry, we don’t want you in our choir. You can’t sing, so don’t come back,” but Jerome Hines became the greatest basso profundo the Metropolitan has ever known. We believe the lies of our past. Our own failures speak eloquently to us: “You can’t do it. Don’t you remember? You tried before and you failed. You even tried twice, three times, and you failed. You can’t do it.” Those are lies. Walt Disney went broke seven times before he succeeded. Thomas Edison made 10,000 experiments that failed before he developed the incandescent light. Babe Ruth drew up the largest record of failure—of strikeouts—in the history of baseball. Nobody remembers the failures of these people. They remember their successes. Zig Ziglar says that a big shot is just a little shot that kept on shooting. “I can do all things through Christ.” Who said that? Was this small Paul, the apostle, so-called—little Paul with his thorn in his flesh, with his weak eyes, whose bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible? Yes, that is who it was. And through Christ he changed the world. May God give us the grace to accomplish that which He wants us to do. God of truth, we praise You that You have revealed Your truth in Jesus Christ, who is truth incarnate. Forgive us for believing lies that cause us to be on the sidelines of life when we should be out on the field. Lord, give us strength for today to believe Your truth in a world that rejects it… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE KNOW THE TRUTH IN A WORLD OF LIES.
“For though by now you should be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God and have come to need milk rather than solid food.” — Hebrews 5:12 Babies are universally loved and we are drawn to them at whatever their age. But if we visit a newborn and then come back in six months and that baby is still the same size as he was at birth, we know something is seriously wrong. Something is interfering with that baby’s development. I’m afraid there are some people in our churches today who are suffering from arrested development. They haven’t grown much. Oh, I think the average church member probably grows to be the equivalent of about a five-year-old. You know, a five-year-old can do a lot of things. He can throw a baseball and run around and ride a tricycle and get into some mischief and talk and do a lot of things. There are a whole lot of things he can’t do. And spiritually I think people sort of grow to about that point. They learn sort of the basics of Christianity. They know the Lord’s Prayer and most of the Apostles’ Creed and probably at least six of the Commandments and a few selected verses that aren’t too long to memorize. Then they decide that now this will get them along and get them by and they forget all about growing at that point. It is a case of arrested development. But that is not what the Bible calls us to do. Lord, give me strength for today to move beyond shallow spirituality. Thank You for the means of growth. Help me to actively use them. Show me anything in my life that may possibly be holding me back from growing in You… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN MATURE SPIRITUALLY.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’…in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” — Genesis 1:26a-27b When you come to discuss Adam and Eve, you immediately run head on into the great wall of evolution. This view has so permeated our society and indeed the society of almost the whole world, that there are few people today who are even willing to give an intelligent hearing on a true Adam and Eve. As well, we might examine something from Aesop’s Fables, they say, as to examine Adam and Eve. Well, it is my conclusion after decades of studying the matter, that never has a bigger lie been foisted on the human race with less evidence than that of evolution. Many people suppose that it is a scientific fact that has been established by overwhelming evidence. Well, is that the case or not? Aldous Huxley—grandson of Thomas Huxley, Darwin’s bulldog—admitted that it wasn’t science that caused them to believe in evolution. Evolution allowed them to pursue their own immorality. In his 1937 book, Ends and Means, Huxley admitted, “We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom…The supporters of these systems claimed that in some way they embodied the meaning (a Christian meaning, they insisted) of the world.” Science? It had more to do with sin than science. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a debased mind,” Paul tells us in Romans 1:28. Keep studying and keep seeking the truth, and the God of Truth will reveal it. Dear God, we wish to be true to Your Word and to read it correctly. Give us the grace to interpret it wisely and not through the lens of popular thinking. Thank You for the scientists who work so diligently at seeking truth. Give them Your wisdom… BY GOD’S STRENGTH AND WISDOM, TRUTH IS REVEALED.
“For what may be known about God is clear to them since God has shown it to them…” — Romans 1:19 For the last century, students have been constantly inculcated with the atheistic, humanistic, materialistic view of evolution, which is the foundation upon which every anti-Christian system rests. Every anti-Christian “ism” that has come down the pike for 150 years has found a pseudoscientific foundation in evolution. To wit: • Communism • Nazism • Fascism • Humanism • Freudianism • Behaviorism Evolutionists have done everything in their power to prevent evidence for creation from being shown. Even if you ask that when the evidence for evolution is taught that the evidence for creation also be taught—that has been defeated in court. There is no other scientific theory in the world where the evidences on both sides cannot be taught. Only evolution is a politically protected “scientific theory.” That is not education, dear friends. That is indoctrination. The late evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard said to his colleagues that there had been more than 100 major debates between evolutionists and creationists, and the evolutionists had lost every one of them. Why do they lose every debate? Because the creationists are such wonderful debaters? Could it be that the evidence is on the side of the creationists? That, Gould could not admit. Everyone knows deep down about the Creator because He has made His handiwork so clear in His creation. God of truth, You have revealed Yourself and Your creation to us. Help us, Lord, to see truth in the midst of lies. Give us discernment and clear thinking so we may know what is true… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, HIS TRUTH WILL STAND.
“Seek the LORD while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near.” — Isaiah 55:6 “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” These familiar words open Charles Dickens’ great novel, A Tale of Two Cities, which was set in Paris in 1789, just at the beginning of the French Revolution. It was a time of great turmoil in that country. As we consider where our nation is spiritually, I think Dickens’ description is apt. America was unquestionably founded as a Christian nation, as the Supreme Court once admitted, “This is a religious people. This is a Christian nation.” Well, that’s the way it started. The people in New England, when they got together in the early days of this country, signed the New England Confederation, in which they said, “We all came into these parts of America for one and the same end and aim.” Do you remember what that was? They said that one single aim was “to advance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I am sure that many people would be just shocked to hear that, and yet that is where we started. Unfortunately, because we have failed to share the Gospel consistently and frequently, there have been a growing number of people who have not known Christ, who know nothing about His kingdom, have never entered in, and wouldn’t even know how. Consequently, the number of unbelievers in this country has grown tremendously, while the percentage of believers has declined. Let us pray for revival! Lord of history, we have seen how You have guided nations as well as individuals. We pray for our nation, which started so well. Bring us back to Yourself and give us the gift of repentance… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, EMPIRES RISE AND FALL.
“Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” — James 1:22 We need to be a part of the solution to the problems of this world. James tells us to not just listen, but put into practice what we hear. It is not enough to come to church and sit there for an hour on Sunday morning. We have to hide the Word of God in our hearts and find out what He would have us to be and then begin to influence our world for Christ. We need to have more Christians in government, in journalism, in the media, in the law, in the courts in order to begin to reverse the tide that has been moving across the country, the tide of atheism and immorality. But it is only going to begin when Christians realize that God has called them to serve Him in every sphere of life—then we can change this nation back for the glory of God. This is a tremendous challenge to each one of us to be what God would have us to be, to spend time in His Word each day and time in prayer seeking what he would have us to do and then to overcome our fears and go out and serve Christ in the world. It is time to get off the bench; to get out of the bleachers; to get out of the pew; to get into the game and to begin to work for Jesus Christ. O Lord, we see the need so clearly, but we feel so helpless to do anything about it. Help us to go in Your strength and work for Your kingdom wherever You have put us and to see Your hand in the situation… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN INFLUENCE THE WORLD FOR HIM.
“He sat down and called the twelve. And He said to them, ‘If anyone desires to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.’” — Mark 9:35 When we consider how our fiscal policies in this country are borrowing from the future at such alarming rates, it should not surprise us if our children’s children rise up to curse us. We are saddling them with an unpayable debt. Somebody said well, “It is because of our own greed that we have become ungovernable.” We cannot balance the budget of this nation now. Why? Because politicians are scared that they will be voted out of office if they do not pander to the greed of the people. Now, this is not a popular thing to say. But, my friends, somebody has to say it. This country is going to be destroyed by the twin evils of public greed and a false philanthropy on the part of politicians who are simply buying their reelection by taking money from one group and giving it to another. The government is instituted for the purpose of administering justice. If you want to know what the government is supposed to do, read the 13th chapter of Romans where God explains what the purpose of government is. And that purpose is justice, not philanthropy. There is a great need for philanthropy and for benevolence but it should come from the private sector where it produces positive results and not from the government sector where it produces chaos and will inevitably bring this nation to destruction. Pray that God would raise up more statesmen who serve the people instead of politicians who serve themselves. Lord of the nations, we pray for godly leaders. We pray for public servants, who run for office to serve the people and promote justice and protection. We repent of our national greed and ask for Your help to turn our nation around… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, THOSE WHO GOVERN US CAN BE PUBLIC SERVANTS.
“He becomes poor who deals with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” — Proverbs 10:4 In 1850, two years after a socialist revolution hit Paris, Frédéric Bastiat wrote an excellent book, entitled The Law. He said, “The law perverted! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law became the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!” Fortunately, the revolution was overthrown. But, of course, those lessons went by the wayside in the 20th century with the rise of many communist states, all of which were violent. Bastiat said the purpose of the law is single and simple. The purpose of the law, the purpose of government is justice. It is to protect the life, the liberty, and the property of the citizens of that nation. God has given to every person the right to protect his life, his liberty, and his property. And the law is simply the collective enforcement of that right. Now, since it is unrighteous and criminal for me to take some innocent person’s life, since it is wrong for me to enslave another person, since it is wrong for me to unlawfully, unrighteously take their property, it is equally wrong for the government, collectively, to do the same. And that is what Bastiat calls “legalized plunder.” Tragically, in our day we are seeing much “legalized plunder” through government welfare schemes. Charity is great—when it is voluntary. “Charity” by government coercion ceases to be charity. It creates poverty, not riches. O Lord, so often when we humans do things our way, we mess up so badly. Help us as Your people to be generous and helpful to others without condoning and voting for unlawful gain. Raise up Christian statesmen to govern us… BY GOD’S STRENGTH AND HIS PRINCIPLES, GOOD GOVERNMENT CAN BE RESTORED.
“Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” — Psalm 2:3, NIV In Psalm 2, the world says of the Lord and of His anointed (i.e., His Christ): “We don’t want to be bound by God’s rules.” So the conflict is set. There is a growing opposition that is taking place within our own government towards Christianity. Many people do not realize that secular humanism is a religion, which is now doing everything in its power to completely destroy Christian influence in any part of the public order of our nation. Many decades ago, no one ever heard of secular humanism. A few decades ago it began to make its voice heard. Then it began to become the dominate voice to be heard in the media, in government bureaucracy, in the schools; and now it has taken over almost every one of these spheres completely. Its agenda now is to completely silence the Christian voice in every phase of public life in this country. After removing all vestiges of it from the public domain, the final solution to the “Christian problem” is then to remove every vestige of Christianity altogether from this nation, both in the public and in the private spheres as well. Part of the reason this has happened is because for too long we Christians have retreated into our “holy huddles” and have not influenced the world. But Jesus taught us we are to be in the world but not of the world. When we pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as is it is heaven,” we are certainly asking for His presence to be felt in greater ways. Why must Christian influence be squeezed out of the arena that for the most part Christians created in the first place? O Lord, we see the destruction and silencing of Your church and we ask that You will once again turn our society back to You. We have seen You do it before and we ask humbly for another outpouring of Your Spirit in a national revival… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN HAVE A NEW SPIRITUAL AWAKENING.
“Go therefore and make disciples… teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.” — Matthew 28:19 Piety is great. We need to be holy and devoted to the Lord. But I have a problem with pietism, which essentially means abandoning the public spheres of life and leaving these to the unbelievers. For too long, pietism has hurt the church and it has hurt our nation for the last century or so. Pietism has led to the spiritual retreat of Christians out of all of the spheres of public life into the ghetto of the church—and this has resulted in leaving the rest of the world to unbelievers. We turned over politics to the unbelievers. After all, that was dirty business, wasn’t it? Certainly Christians don’t want to get involved in that sort of thing. We abdicated higher education—we left that to unbelievers. And science, and media, journalism, and all of these various fields. We have turned them over to unbelievers and they have wrought havoc in them. How great it would be for more Christians to be involved in the various spheres of national life. In every sphere of life, whether it be the spheres of law or of government or of education or science, the arts, television, motion pictures, journalism, whatever it is, we Christians need to get in there and we need to make our influence felt. We need to bear our witness for Jesus Christ and bring the teaching of Christ to bear on all of these spheres of life that He might receive the glory. After all, this is His world. Lord of all, we thank You that the world is Yours and everything in it. We do need to reclaim it for You, and we pray that You will send Your people into every sphere of life. Here I am, Lord. Send me… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN INFLUENCE EVERY SPHERE OF LIFE.
“But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men grew to about five thousand.” — Acts 4:4 Someone asked me, “Pastor, do you think there is any hope for our country? For our world? Things look so bleak that we can’t see any hope at all. Do you have any word of encouragement?” “Well, I said, I certainly do. I am greatly encouraged. In fact, I am more encouraged today than I have been for many years about what the Lord is doing in our world.” What is God doing among us? Well, more than most people think. You know, it took one thousand years for the church to grow to the place where it has added fifty million professing Christians to its rolls. But we did that in the last five years when fifty million people were added to the rolls of the church of Christ worldwide. Meanwhile, the church’s growth around the world is exploding. For my own curiosity, I graphed the growth rate of the church down through all twenty centuries to see what has happened. At first, it looked as if the line was almost parallel with the bottom line of the graph, it grew so slowly. The growth of the church for the first five hundred years could hardly be detected in the midst of the population of the world. But by the 19th and 20th centuries, the rate began to go straight up. So I am very optimistic about what God is doing in the church. God is bringing His will to pass, and we have the privilege to take part in that venture. Lord of the harvest, bring more workers into the field. Thank You for the growth of Your church around the world. Thank You for this harvesting of the earth. Help us to be willing workers… BY GOD’S STRENGTH, THE HARVEST IS BEING BROUGHT IN.
