Pastor John,
Shortly after reading the email about a scientist saying faith in God will be completely gone in a generation, I read the following in the “Suffering and the Saints” book.
Michelle
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Suffering and the Saints
Judah’s patient and merciful God was infuriated by Judah’s ingratitude and ignorance. Even the greatest revival in Judah’s entire history, twenty years after Manasseh’s death, would fall short of quenching the hot displeasure that now burned in the Almighty’s bosom. So very far from righteousness had Manasseh led Judah that the copy of Moses’ law which was kept in Jerusalem’s temple was laid aside and eventually lost. God’s precepts were at first ignored, and then forgotten. It is possible that thee was a fifty-year period, or longer, when God’s law was never read or practiced at the temple which Solomon built. There may have lived and died an entire generation of Judean Israelites to whom, in large measure, the stories of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses were unknown. Manasseh’s reign and the few years that followed were without question the darkest time in Judah’s history. At Manasseh’s death, this little kingdom was entirely given to the worship of heathen gods.
I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep so I decided to read some more in the Suffering and the Saints book. It was really sweet, I remember reading this a few years ago and it really encouraged me. This is the flip side of this article. This is after Shaphan found “the book” and they read it all night. How King Josiah was filled with joy and terror.
And the King sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. And the King went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the Levites, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their ears of all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD…. And the King stood in his place, and he made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart and with all his soul, to preform the words of the covenant which are written in this book. And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem….to stand to it.
excerpts from 2Kings 23 and 2Chrionicles 34
King Josiah would not live long enough to see the powerful, lingering effect which his display of devotion to Jehovah would have on the lives of certain of Judah’s children who were made to stand before the LORD that day. But standing in wide-eyed wonder amid the multitude, or possibly being held in the arms of their parents, were children whose names would, after Josiah’s death, become synonymous with righteousness and faith. It is well within the borders of reason to assume that a little boy named Daniel was there, with Buzi the priest, holding his infant son, Ezekiel, who twenty-eight years later in a distant land would be anointed to be a prophet to the children of God in captivity. A young pauper names Mordecai may have fidgeted about the fringes of the crowd for a better view of the king, but his beautiful cousin, who would become Queen Ester, was still years from being born. And three Hebrew children, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, probably heard the words of the law read aloud that day, not knowing that in fifteen short years, they would stand as captives before Babylonian lords and be given new names, their more famous Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego.
This is not about just “us”. Our testimonies, our lives are for a purpose. When we humble ourselves to God and obey His voice, His commandments, it will not only help “us” now, but will also help generations after. They need our testimonies; they need the light that Jesus has given us. Now more than ever our light should shine bright and our testimonies should be told with boldness to each other, to our children and to their children.
I never met your father but his life and his testimonies touch me, encourage me and increase my faith every time I hear or read them!
For the past several days/nights I keep hearing myself pray, “Jesus please humble me; please help me to hear what the spirit is saying, and please give me the strength and wisdom to obey it!”
We are truly blessed because God has given us you, Pastor John, an anointed man of God, who like King Josiah is teaching us the truth and the standards of God. I hope we please Him.
Michelle
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John,
Yes. I was just thinking about how the opposite of pride is thankfulness. My! Pride says look what I know, look what I did. Thankfulness cannot take credit for anything! Not a single thing! You feel thankful for your teachers, thankful for your pain, thankful for those whom God uses to push you, thankful for those God uses to pull you, thankful in affliction, thankful for every blessing because Jesus has done it all! My! We have so much to be thankful for. I can’t think of a single thing NOT to be thankful for!
Donna
