How do you eat an elephant? 
One bite at a time. 

How do we turn the US back to God? 
One person at a time, one step at a time. 

Jesus called Satan the "prince of this world" (John 12:31, John 14:30, and John 16:11 -- KJV). 
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We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
(I John 5:19 -- ESV) 

TURN AROUND SLOWLY

I met a grandfather and all of his children And as we were talking, a tear filled his eye.  He smiled at my child; I handed her to him And just for a moment he went back in time.

He remembered the dreams of having a family, Of holding the ones that God sent his way.  The joy they would bring him to make his heart larger.  Then he looked in my eyes and said:

CHORUS: Turn around slowly.  Time is a racer.  The wink of an eye takes you from here to there.  Turn around slowly, and treasure your days here.  These precious moments may come to be rare.

In a flash, he discovered my foolish wishes.   I wished she was walking and talking and more.   But why hurry what will pass me so quickly?   I should be longer to linger.

CHORUS

(By David Kauffman) 

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!

(Isaiah 5:20-21 -- ESV) 
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I refuse to go over the cliff with the rest of society. 

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;  But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.   (Proverbs 29:2 -- NKJV)   

And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!” 

 

(1 Samuel 17:37 – ESV)

 

 

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service of the United States of America. 
Memorial Day was borne out of the Civil War and a desire to honor our dead.  It was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11.  “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed.  The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.
(from usmemorialday.org)

 
 

 Happy Pentecost Day . . .

 
And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
(Joel 2:28 -- ESV)




And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;
(Acts 2:17 -- ESV)

1. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Refrain:
It is well with my soul,
it is well, it is well with my soul.

2. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and hath shed his own blood for my soul.
(Refrain)

3. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
(Refrain)

4. And, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
even so, it is well with my soul.
(Refrain) 

by Horatio G. Spafford

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For thus says the Lord:
“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,
    and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;
and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip,
    and bounced upon her knees.

(Isaiah 66:12 -- ESV) 

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

(Romans 3:23 -- ESV) 

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
(John 7:37-38 -- ESV) 

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A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
²⁷ Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” ³⁰ They went out of the town and were coming to him.
(John 4:7-30 -- ESV) 

  

"Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
(Mark 14:38 -- ESV) 

"But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man."
(Luke 21:38 -- ESV) 

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
(Colossians 4:2 -- NIV)

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. ² He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. ³ And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’  ⁴ “For some time he refused.  But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, ⁵ yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?  Will he keep putting them off? ⁸ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.  However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

(Luke 18:1-8 -- NIV) 

If someone asks, ‘What are these wounds on your body?’ they will answer, ‘The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.’

(Zechariah 13:6 -- NIV) 

www.StevertS.com

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

² a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace. 

 

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 -- ESV) 

 

 

Keep pumping, no matter which way the wind blows. 

Happy Ascension Day!

 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.  ⁵⁴ So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.  ⁵⁵ O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?
⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15:53-57 -- KJV) 

 

 

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own
character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  
   (John 8:44 -- ESV)

It happens every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembles a giant orange and is starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed comes strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand is a bucket of shrimp.

Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself.  The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach.  Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts....and his bucket of shrimp.

Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a
thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.  Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds.  As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, "Thank you.  Thank you."

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave.  He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place.  Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old military hat he's been wearing for years.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away.  And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like "a funny old duck," as my dad used to say.  Or, "a guy that's a sandwich shy of a picnic," as my kids might say.  To onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty.  They can seem altogether unimportant ....maybe even a lot of nonsense.  Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters.  Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in
Florida.

That's too bad.  They'd do well to know him better. His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in World War II.  On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down.

Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific.  They fought the sun.  They fought sharks.  Most of all, they fought hunger.  By the eighth day their rations ran out.  No food.  No water.

They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were.   They needed a miracle.  That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle.  They tried to nap.   Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose.  Time dragged.  All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.  Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on
the top of his cap.  It was a seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move.  With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck.  He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait......and the cycle continued.  With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued-after 24 days at sea.

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull.  And he never stopped saying, "Thank you."

That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

(Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221, 225-226)

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

(John 7:37-38 -- ESV)

“Therefore they are before the throne of God,
    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

(Revelation 7:15-17 -- ESV) 

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.  You need milk, not solid food, ¹³ for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

(Hebrews 5:11-14 -- ESV) 

Far be it from me, for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.

(1 Samuel 2:30b -- ESV) 

“But a history of unwelcomed changes can be a breeding ground for insecurity, because it invites you to become addicted to dread.  You learn to live life with the constant expectation that something bad is about to happen.  And because life is life, eventually something bad will happen, deepening your commitment to forecasting doom.  You develop into your own false prophet, and if you don’t stop yourself, you won’t rest until you’re proved true.  It’s a miserable trap of self-inflicted insecurity.  You can cheat yourself of ever enjoying the terrific season you’re experience, because you’re waiting any moment for it to change—and always for the worst . . . The truth is, God uses change to change us.  He doesn’t use it to destroy us or to distract us but to coax us to the next level of character, experience, compassion, and destiny.” 

(Beth Moore) 

------------------------------------------------

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you.  I have made you and I will carry you;  I will sustain you and I will rescue you. 

(Isaiah 46:4 -- NIV) 

 

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  ¹⁸ Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

(James 1:16-18 -- ESV)

 

 

Another seven-second sermon . . .

 



From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the Lord is to be praised!

(Psalm 113:3 -- ESV) 

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

(1 Peter 4:8 -- ESV)

“When you were born you were crying and everyone else was smiling.  Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone else is crying.”     ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

--------------------------------------------

And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.  
(1 John 5:11 -- NKJV)

But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
(Revelation 2:20 -- ESV)

--------------


A Texan explained it this way: 
Here in west Texas, I have rattlesnakes on my place, living among us. I have killed a rattlesnake on the front porch.  I have killed a rattlesnake on the back porch. I have killed rattlesnakes in the barn, in the shop and on the driveway.  In fact, I kill every rattlesnake I encounter.  I kill rattlesnakes because I know a rattlesnake will bite me and inject poison into me.  I don't stop to wonder WHY a rattlesnake will bite me; I know it WILL bite me because it's a rattlesnake and that's what rattlesnakes do.  I don't try to reason with a rattlesnake or have a "meaningful dialogue" with it.  I just kill it.  I don't "try to get to know the rattlesnake better" so I can find a way to live with the rattlesnakes and convince them not to bite me. 

 

I just kill them! I don't quiz a rattlesnake to see if I can find out where the other snakes are, because (a) it won't tell me and (b) I already know they live on my place. So, I just kill the rattlesnake and move on to the next one.  I don't look for ways I might be able to change the rattlesnake to a non-poisonous rat snake.  I just kill it.  Oh, and on occasion, I accidentally kill a rat snake because I thought it was a rattlesnake at the time.  Also, I know for every rattlesnake I kill, two more are lurking out there in the brush.  In my lifetime I will never be able to rid my place of rattlesnakes.  Do I fear them?  Not really.  Do I respect what they can do to me and my family?  Yes!  And because of that respect, I give them the fair justice they deserve, I kill them. 

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Donald Grey Barnhouse (March 25, 1895 – November 05, 1960), a famous biblical scholar and former pastor of the historic 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, once preached a sermon entitled: “Men Whom God struck dead.”   The subjects of his sermon were Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10:2), Uzzah (2 Samuel 6:7), Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:5, 10).

 

 

 

 

 

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