Praise the Lord for this brand new day the Lord has made. It was a sunny and
brilliant day yesterday. The spring birds are back in droves to their familiar
habitats. I see the spring flowers are beginning to bud. The Lord visits the
earth again; the valleys blossom again. Blessed be His name. We will meet for
our Wednesday Evening Study and fellowship with a special time with children
this evening starting at 6:00 PM. The choir will met at 7:30 PM. Let us all
get ready and excited to worship Jesus on this coming Palm Sunday around the
corner and around the globe. One year ago on Palm Sunday our team was in
G.Udayaygiri, Phulbani , Orissa India, for the centennial celebration of the
coming the Gospel to the area where I was born and brought up. It was a
momentous and historic celebration for the team that traveled from the USA.
Jesus our Lord declared in the Gospel
of John that He is the Way, the Truth, and the life. Furthermore He declared
that we will know the Truth and the Truth shall make us free. Just hours before
Jesus died for us, the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is
truth?” Jesus was on trial before this pagan judge who had the power to
sentence Him to death. Pilate asked, “Are you a king?” Jesus replied, “Yes, and
I came into the world to testify to the truth.” Pilate responded, probably with
cynical derision, “What is truth?”
For Pontius Pilate, truth was
whatever the Roman emperor said it was. Romans believed Caesar was divine.
Therefore, when Christians boldly declared Jesus as Lord, they were saying
Caesar was not. The word lord refers to one’s ultimate allegiance, and a person
can have only one lord at a time. Therefore, when Christians declared Jesus as
Lord, they were saying Caesar was not lord, and many Christians were killed for
clinging to that truth. There was no room for dueling lords in the Roman
Empire.
Our Bible is a counter-cultural document. Some people do not
like the Bible’s definition of marriage, so they are trying to invent a
different one. Some do not reverence the holy name of God, so they use that
name as a common expletive. Many destroy their own unborn babies if those
unborn babies are deemed to be inconvenient. Absolute truth is defined
as “unchanging truth from God that is applicable to all persons in all
situations.” Jesus said,
“I came into the world to testify to the truth” (John 18:37) and “If you hold to
my teaching…then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John
8:31-32).
Our culture has trouble with Jesus’ words about truth
because the cultural referees worship at the altar of relativism. The Bible is
an absolutely unique book. Millions of people during thousands of years have
proved by experience this truth: “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the
soul” (Psalm 19:7). After 2,000 years, no expert in any field has disproved a
single statement from the Bible, but that shouldn’t surprise us because “all
Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) or inspired by God.
No one
in modern history has dispensed the truth more widely or to more people than Dr.
Billy Graham. Now in his nineties and in frail health, he still devotes every
day to exalting the truth of Christ. In Dr. Graham’s great autobiography
Just as I Am, he describes the turning point in his ministry. The
year was 1949. Billy was 30 years old. He was about to begin an evangelistic
crusade in Los Angeles, but he was troubled. A friend had said to him, “Billy,
you’re 50 years out of date. People no longer accept the Bible as being
inspired the way you do. Your faith is too simple. Your language is out of
date. You’re going to have to learn the new jargon if you’re going to be
successful.”
At that time, Billy was staying at a
retreat center in the San Bernardino Mountains. Unable to sleep one night, he
got up, picked up his Bible, and took a walk in the woods. He found a tree
stump and made it his altar. Placing his Bible on it, he fell on his knees and
prayed: “Oh, God! There are many things in this book I do not understand.
There are some areas in it that do not seem to correlate with modern science.
But Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word—by faith! I’m going to allow
faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this
to be Your inspired Word.”
Billy got up off his knees, his eyes
stinging with tears. He wrote, “In my heart and mind, I knew a spiritual battle
in my soul had been fought and won.”
As they say, the rest is
history!
May we also build our lives upon Jesus
who is the Way, The Truth, and the Life.
In Christ alone,
Brown
https://youtu.be/d_24IdbJ0Tw
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