I always like to talk about ways our Lord Jesus Christ is working in our life’s and today I have a couple of examples. I like to talk about sports and you know I had previously mention Sydney McLaughlin and the Baltimore Orioles. Today we turn to a college football team “The Ohio State Buckeyes” Their players had gathered a lot of attention by being seen with shirts praising our Lord Jesus Christ, they decided to have a service on campus that they invited all the students to attend and they shared the word with everyone and even called students forward to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They even had water filled tanks to Baptist the students. Thousands attended!
We’ve all have witnessed the destruction that has happened from Helene in North Carolina and if you had a chance to see the actually damage from independent source it is heart wrenching and part of the area was home to Billy Graham. And he always talked about God’s Army, and you see it in all the local people coming together to take care of themselves. Reading from Psalms 40, God is our shelter & refuge, It reminds us that all of our possession are only temporary and they will be gone when we go to heaven. Isaiah 43:2 - When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. I also saw this post and wanted to share: For the last few days, we all have been uncomfortable about the devastating storm that was headed our way. An anomaly that not only threatened the state of Florida but the entire country as a whole. After seeing the devastation, it caused for our brothers and sisters in North Carolina and Tennessee specifically, we had a fearful idea of what to expect. In fact, it was broadcast to be much worse than Helene. Not only did these last few days awaken us to so much truth about our government & our enemy but, it brought us all together, in POWERFUL PRAYER. As a nation, we united and got down on our knees and prayed to the ONLY One we knew WHO would protect us. Our ALMIGHTY FATHER, GOD. He answered our prayers. He weakened the storm. He protected us and covered us in HIS LOVING ARMS. Here’s where I witnessed an incredible moment: Early in the morning, ALL my neighbors and myself emerged from our homes to step out and see what damage was left from the storm. The storm had passed but, the sky was still cloudy and gray. It was gloomy and cold. About 5 of my neighbors gathered in my driveway and we began to discuss our experiences and our damages. We started to converse about the power of prayer and how we could’ve experienced so much worse. We discussed how truly blessed we were that things weren’t as bad as they could’ve been. I then brought up that fact that all I was seeing here on X were people praying for us from all over the world and how it was because of all our prayers to GOD, we were saved. Immediately after I said that the brightest SUN I have ever seen, shined so brightly through the palm trees. It was so powerful and so bright we all looked right up at it in silence, trying to shade the brightness from our eyes. In unison, the six of us shouted “WOW!” We could feel the heat it was so bright. We immediately knew GOD was with us. He shined His light so bright because He confirmed our prayers were answered. That was confirmation to all of us that HE is always here and always listening. So, thank you all for your prayers. Thank you all for trusting in GOD. He is healing our nation. No weapon formed against us will EVER prosper. In Jesus’ Holy name I just want to assure you I have done my JSA this morning before we start. I got a job to share the word today on a very important message God has for us and you need to open your heart to listen and study the word God has for us. Yes, I have my tools to do this with the Bible being the most important! The Holy Spirit is with us today and have God’s armor on. Today’s message is “Are We a Pillar of Salt?” We need to start by looking at Luke 17 Vs 32 “Remember Lot’s Wife” this is the shortest verse in the bible. “Remember Lot’s Wife?” Why did God make this such an important thing to remember? He didn’t say remember Mary Madalyn or anyone one else why Lot’s Wife? Looking back in scripture no one has found his wife’s given name but she so important that we need to remember her! Read Luke 17 20-35 - Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”[c] 22 Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. 23 People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. 24 For the Son of Man in his day[d] will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29 But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” [36] [e] We need go back to Genesis 18 &19 to learn what happened with Lot’s Wife as Paul Harvey would say the rest of the story. Back story on Lot and Abraham. Lot was Abraham’s nephew and they had joined together their herds and both men were very well off. Both group of herdsmen started to have issues with each other and Abraham knew they needed to split up. Abraham told Lot to choose where would go and Abraham would go the opposite way. Lot chooses the green & lush plains near Sodom and Abraham chose Canaan. Lot was attracted to Sodom and pitched his tents close to Sodom. Lot eventually moved into the city and raised his family. Genesis 18 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby.(The Lord and the two angels had taken human form.) When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. 3 He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord,[a] do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant.” “Very well,” they answered, “do as you say.” After eating the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. 17 The Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen[a] him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” 20 Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether[b] according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” Abraham Intercedes for Sodom So the 2 men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. 23 Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” 26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” 27 Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” 29 Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” 30 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” 31 He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” 32 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” 33 And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place. Turning to Genesis 19 19 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. (business was conduct at the city gates and as we can see by this time Lot had become an important person) When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”(Visitors were considered important and got treat very well as per Eastern culture. Surely Lot know they were angels from God?) “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” 3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 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.” 6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” (It is troubling Lot offering his daughters – did he feel like the men were only interested in men and wouldn’t take him up on the offer or had he been in Sodom long enough that this act was accepted?) 9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. 10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. 12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” 14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry[a] his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. 15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” 16 When he hesitated (Lingering Lot), the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” 18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,[b] please! 19 Your[c] servant has found favor in your[d] eyes, and you[e] have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” 21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.[f]) 23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. 27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. 29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. 2 Peter 2 7-8 if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 8(for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, 10and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. What triggered judgement Ezekiel 16:49-50 King James Version 49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. 50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. Sexual Depravity (Ezek 16) Violence (Jer 23) Arrogance and no concern for the poor and needy (Ezek 16)Haughty(proud) toward God (Ezk 16) James 4:4 You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. John 2:15 & 16& 17 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. Why did Lot’s Wife look back? Why did God tell them not to look back? Did she long for the life she had built in Sodom did she think about her friends or others things she had? She was told not to look back but she did and she turned into a pillar of salt! Is this an issue we face in our lives? As in Luke 17-32-34 ( Read) Keeping your life will cause you to lose it and whoever loses his life will preserve it! Keeping your life was what happened to Lot’s wife. God had rescued you and you witnessed this and you still lingered and longed for you past life. Is this an issue that we all face of becoming a pillar of salt because we can’t move forward? Are we afraid to leave our past live behind you know it was so fun and I think about it a lot! Do we linger on moving forward making that commitment. Are we in love with the world and don’t know how we would be able to live without it. 2 Timothy 4: 2-4 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. Do we get swayed by false prophets that change and interpret God’s word to their favor or the cause that they are pushing. Using the excuse that God’s word doesn’t work now and we’ll just change it’s meaning because we know better? Get out and don’t look back Are we caught in this web and just can’t move forward, are we a pillar of salt or will we not hesitate and flee the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? In your heart you all know the answer the scripture was provided to us as a guide to follow and when we start to ignore it and move in the way that is comfortable and just want to be part of this world, we will become that pillar of salt and we know what that means! Are you moving forward? Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. Jesus is our Safety Leader and he is showing the way to safety! Are you ready to make that commitment? Are you ready to make the commitment, Jesus has his arms open wide! There is no magical prayer you must pray—it is more about the condition of your heart. Some important components can be remembered with ABC: Admit that you are a sinner in need of a Savior, Believe that Jesus died for you and rose again, and Commit to live the rest of your life for Him. Heavenly Father, forgive me of all my sins. Make me brand new. I believe Jesus died for me and rose again so I could live for you. Fill me with your Spirit so I can know you, serve you, and follow you the rest of my life. My life is not my own—today I give it to you. Thank you for new life! In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. 1 John 2:15-17 ESV Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
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