Hurricane Sandy - A Prayer for you...

Psalm 22:24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.

Hurricane Sandy has brought great destruction and tragedy to the United States - many deaths, flooding, homes destroyed, power outages. People are cold and there are food and water shortages. It breaks my heart and my eyes are filled with tears as I watch the news on TV everyday. It is so very very sad to see the pain and heartache of these people. The thought comes to my mind - "it could be me, my family" - what would I do and how would I cope, or - " where will a tragic event hit next?" That is something none of us knows.
So, to anyone reading this - if you are suffering in the midst of this tragic event or if you have family or friends affected by it, I want you to know that my heart aches for you and your family. You are in my thoughts and prayers. The only hope is to look to the Lord Jesus in difficult times - He knows your situation and He loves you. Turn to Him and trust in Him to get you through. I extend my deepest symathy to everyone who has suffered the loss of loved ones and homes due to Hurricane Sandy. May the Lord be very near to each of you.
Proverbs 3: 5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bring relief and comfort to the people suffering from Hurricane Sandy. I ask that you would heal the broken hearts and help the people across the United States to turn to you for salvation and for help in these days. Oh Father, may they receive Your mercy and grace to help in this time of need. May Your Name be honored and glorified as You answer the prayers of the people. In Jesus name I ask. Amen
Psalm 22: 27-28 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s  And He rules over the nations.

Last Night God Looked and Remembered.....

Sometimes when life is rough, we need assurance from the Lord that He is mindful of us and sees our situation. Last night God again respoke His assurance to us of the promise that he made just after the flood in Noah's Day. We see all sorts of disasters around us. There are floods in Russia and in the UK, as well as in India and parts of Canada.  There is excessive heat in Canada and the USA and crops are deteriorating.  There are wild fires and storms, sickness and death. Yet in the midst of this chaos, God reminds us that he has not forgotten us, He has not forgotten His promises.

Yesterday evening God put the rainbow in the eastern sky by my house and I was reminded that He is the One and only true God. God remembers the covenant that He made some 6000 years ago and HE is willing to put a sign in the sky by my house to remind me that He remembers. He is so faithful. Don't you just love Him?? Just as He is keeping this old old promise, don't you think He will also remember the promise that He will visibly come to earth again? He most certainly does remember all His promises to us!

I took a picture of the promise ; it was in the eastern sky by my house.

Genesis 9: 13-16

¹³ I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.

¹⁴ And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:

¹⁵ And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.

¹⁶ And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

I encourage you to --- Proverbs 3:5  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

God's Rainbow Promise and Satan's Gay Deception

Don't you just love seeing a beautiful rainbow in the sky after a rain. I most certainly do. I can sense God's presence in the loud crashing thunder as well as in the calm rainbow that follows the storm. As we read the Bible, we will find that at the end of the story of Noah and the great flood, God makes a promise that He will never again destroy the entire world with a great flood. As a sign of that promise, God creates the rainbow. Now any time, after a rain we look into the sky and see a rainbow, we know that God is remembering His promise that he made thousands of years ago. God will always remember His promise and shows it to us by placing the beautiful rainbow in the sky. Genesis 9: 12-17 records the promise God made to us and reads as follows :
¹² And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
¹³ I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
¹⁴ And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
¹⁵ And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
¹⁶ And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
¹⁷ And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
                                                      

We can be 100% sure that God will keep this promise to us. He is that kind of God - faithful and true to His Word throughout the ages. We can depend on Him.

picture from blogthehumanist .org

It seems though that Satan will so often come and try to take what God has created as precious and true and make it into a counterfeit deal and now again we see satan using the rainbow in a counterfeit way. God destroyed the world in Noah's day due to the wickedness and violence that had swept across the earth. God could find only Noah and his family who were living righteously. In our day today the gay pride movement is moving across the nations. And what does satan use to promote this wicked movement ?? - what else but the rainbow flag. Satan takes the rainbow and uses it for his evil purposes. Satan knows that he has but a short time left here on earth to continue deceiving people and sees the signs of the end of time nearing. I wonder if satan is trying to provoke God Almighty by using the rainbow colors in this evil display called gay pride.  As Christians we know that God will keep moving ahead with His end time plan schedule.God is right on time - never late!  We know that Jesus will return for those of us who love Him and we will be taken up to heaven to be with our Lord forever.  But  we also know that satan and his demons and followers will be cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:10 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. and Revelation 20 14-15 : And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

 Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

As in the days of Noah...

The Bible teaches that just prior to the return of the Lord Jesus, the world will be in a similar condition as it was in the days of Noah when God destroyed the world with the flood and also as in the days of Lot when God sent fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed everyone in those wicked cities.  So the question is - Is our world heading into those kinds of conditions and is the world about to fall uder the judgement of the Almighty God?

 Luke 17:26-30 says -  And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.  Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.  Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

 1. Why is it that Noah was spared in his day and Lot also was spared when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed? 
2. And secondly what was it that made God decide to destroy the world in the flood and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?
In Genesis 6:8-9 we find the answer to question 1? Why was Noah spared? - verse 8 " But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD " and verse 9 -
 Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
The answer is that Noah lived for the LORD and this pleased God very much.  Noah was doing right and living faithfully to God  in the midst of all the evil around him so God in His grace provided the ark and everything  that was needed for Noah in order to spare him and protect him from the judgement that God was sending on the wicked people. God did not destroy the righteous ones, He only destroyed the people who were living in their wickedness. Only Noah, Noah's wife, their 3 sons and the sons wives were saved alive, that is 8 people in all.
In 2 Peter 2 we read that Lot was a just and righteous man living among the wicked people of Sodom. Verses 7-8 say
⁷ And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
⁸ (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
So we see also  that Lot was living for the Lord and God saved him and his wife and two daughters. They escaped the city before God sent the fire down upon it.

Now question 2 - What kinds of evil was it that brought these judgements to fall?
 Violence - Genesis 6:13 says ....for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
 People were carrying on without a thought for the things of the LORD - Luke 17:27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
Ungodly, filthy conversation, wicked, unlawfull deeds - according to 2 Peter chapter 2
Homosexual practices - Genesis 19: 4-5 describes the sexual addictions of the people of the city -   ⁴ Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom —both young and old—surrounded the house. ⁵ They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Genesis 18:20 -
²⁰ And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;
So we see that God does not take sin lightly. It says their sin is very grievous and I believe that God finds sin grievous today also. When He looks down at our world today, He sees the same things happening as what caused Him to decide to destroy the world in the flood in the days of Noah and also to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Violence, homosexuality, drunkenness, immorality, ungodliness, and filthiness is all around us. This is exactly what the entertainment business makes it's money on and it is what people want to fill their minds with day in and day out. It is time to repent of these evils and cry out to God for mercy. Today is the day to come to Jesus for salvation. It would seem to make sense that the judgments are near but we know our God, the God of the Bible will defend and protect us who are His children. He is mighty to save!

2 Peter 3:9 - ⁹ The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.