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Daily Manna

APPETITE : THE MOST POPULAR KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 4)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE : THE MOST POPULAR KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 4)

We can never defeat whatever “enemy” there are “out there” or within us unless we know it is an enemy, then know how to defeat it according to “the truth as it is in Jesus.” Everything else will fail, miserably and terminally.

I only became acutely aware of this “enemy” that has been “hiding in plain sight” all these time because of “unnumbered schemes” which include failure to “call it out” by calling sin by its right name, without any sugar-coating of hesitation.

God’s last-day messenger stated it not bluntly but in the love of the light of truth: “INTEMPERANCE OF ANY KIND IS THE WORST SIN OF SELFISHNESS.” Now read on:

“The race is groaning under a weight of accumulated woe [see Rom. 8:19-22], because of the sins of former generations. And yet with SCARCELY a thought or care, men and women of the present generation indulge intemperance by SURFEITING [partying|feasting] AND DRUNKENNESS, and thereby leave as a LEGACY for next generation, disease and enfeebled intellect, and polluted morals.

“Intemperance of ANY KIND is the worst form of selfishness. Those who TRULY fear God and keep His commandments look upon these things IN THE LIGHT OF REASON AND RELIGION.

“How can any man or woman of the present generation KEEP THE LAW OF GOD, which requires man to ‘love his neighbor AS HIMSELF,’ and indulge intemperate appetite, which benumbs [his] the brain, weakens [his] intellect, and fills [his] the body of disease?

Intemperance inflames the passions and gives loose rein to LUST. And REASON and CONSCIENCE are BLINDED by lower passions [opposite of enlightened by loftier convictions and ambitions].” – Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 37.

So we got a more profound meaning of what it means “to love our neighbors as OURSELVES,” a summary of the last six of Decalogue defining our duty to man, after God. Again, “spiritual things are spiritually discerned” and treasured.

Those who sadly choose to cherish a “carnal mind” instead of the “mind of Christ” only because it appears to allow for “enjoyable intemperance” and other “works of the flesh”’will become intolerant towards the unpopular truth and “at enmity” with those who faithfully present and courageously defend the present, testing truth in word and deed. So wisely “Choose ye this day.”

(To be continued). Bless all. NMF

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Daily Manna

APPETITE: THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 3)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE: THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 3)

Temperance (or Biblical self-control and self-mastery in all that we eat, drink, think, imagine, say, and do to our whole body, which the Creator and Redeemer claims is His purchased possession and His “temple,” is the last but not of the list of nine “fruit(s) of the Spirit” listed in Gal. 5: 22-24.

This is a master check list to determine whether we are actually “walking after the Spirit” and doing “the righteous things of the Spirit” and not “after the flesh, doing the things of the flesh” (Rom. 8: 1-10; Gal. 5: 16-21).

Those who persist in indulging, excusing and justifying the latter with whatever twisted and perverted brainchild doctrines and popular reasonings have only themselves to blame when the day of reckoning, “time of visitation” and their turn “to stand before the judgment seat of Christ” “for all that has been done to their body” and on others they influenced and corrupted, starting with their biological and spiritual family members (Rom. 10: 12, 14) and all who they have “influenced.”4T 30.

“A continual transgression of NATURE’S LAWS [the other work of rebuilding and repairing the wall and breach] is a CONTINUAL TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW OF GOD. The present weight of anguish and suffering which we see everywhere [beginning in our very own “backyards”] the present deformity, decrepitude, disease, and imbecility now FLOODING the world [don’t blame-game the WHO and the nation’s public health authorities for “charity begins at home,” the basic unit of human society], make it, IN COMPARISON TO WHAT IT MIGHT BE AND WHAT GOD DESIGNED IT SHOULD BE [in the plan of redemption of the genuine, not counterfeit Gospel,] a LAZAR HOUSE; and the present generation [that’s why the need for ‘present truth’] are feeble in MENTAL, MORAL, AND PHYSiCAL POWER.

All this misery has accumulated from generation to generation [perpetrated via the institutions of culture, tradition, and false religion] because fallen man will BREAK THE LAW OF GOD. Sins of the GREATEST MAGNITUDE are committed through the INDULGENCE OF PERVERTED APPETITE.” – E. G. White, Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 30.

These are the antitypical works to be “finished up” in the spiritual rebuilding and repairing the breach on the wall.” This is the “magnification” of the law of God. We are either builders or destroyers. “Choose ye this day.”

(To be continued). Bless all, NMF

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Daily Manna Devotionals

APPETITE : THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 2)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE : THE KILLER TEMPTATION (Part 2)

Temptation is not sin; yielding to it, is. Appetite, desire, and passion are not evil in and of themselves. However, when these are uncontrolled by a carnal mind, unconverted heart, and a compromised conscience, they are the very hotbeds of activity where Satan and his agencies, demons and human beings, bag their greatest success and victims, both willing of duped or coerced.

Appetite, according to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 5th edition, 1942, means: “To strive for; long for.
1. An inherent or habitual desire of body or mind; craving.
2. Desire for or relish of, food or drink. Synonyms: Longing, hunger, passion.” Now this:

“[See first part]. All these weight of woe and accumulated woe and suffering can be TRACED TO the indulgence of appetite and passion. LUXURIOUS LIVING and the use of wine corrupt the BLOOD, inflame the PASSIONS, and produce DISEASES of every kind. But the EVIL does not end here. PARENTS leave maladies as a LEGACY to their children.

“As a rule, every INTEMPERATE man/woman who rears children TRANSMITS his inclinations to and evil tendencies to his offspring. [“Like father like son; like mother like daughter”]; he gives them disease from his own inflamed and corrupted BLOOD. [Remember, ‘life is in the blood,’ Lev. 17:11].

LiCENTIOUSNESS, DISEASE, IMBECILITY are transmitted as an INHERITANCE OF WOE from father to son [from mother to daughter] FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION, and this brings anguish and suffering to the WORLD, and is no less a REPETITION of the fall of man!” – Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 30.

Mankind, and the churches, in general, have not learned, refusing to honestly and thoroughly trace from cause to effect. That is why God, in both in the Old and New Testament times always has a “returning remnant” and a faithful minority who are “rebuilding the walls and repairing the breach” of the moral and physical laws of God’s spiritual kingdom on earth, as their “fitness” preparation for the eternal kingdom of glory.

It is my fervent hope, prayer, desire, and work to help prepare myself and others, who are willing, to be part of this “Lord’s army” and “little flock.”

(To be continued). Bless all, NMF

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Daily Manna Devotionals

APPETITE—THE FIRST TEST OF SINLESS MAN IN EDEN AND THE INCARNATE ‘SON OF MAN’ IN THE WILDERNESS OF TEMPTATION

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

APPETITE—THE FIRST TEST OF SINLESS MAN IN EDEN AND THE INCARNATE ‘SON OF MAN’ IN THE WILDERNESS OF TEMPTATION

Read and compare Gen. 3:1-24 and Matt. 4:1-11, KJV.

“Christ paid a dear price for man’s redemption. In the wilderness of temptation He suffered the keenest pangs of hunger; and while He was emaciated with fasting [40 days/nights without food and water], Satan was at hand with manifold temptations to assail the Son of God, to take advantage of His WEAKNESS and overcome Him, and thus THWART the plan of salvation.

But Christ was STEADFAST. He OVERCAME in behalf of the race, that He might RESCUE them for the DEGRADATION of the Fall. Christ’s experience is for our benefit. HIS EXAMPLE IN OVERCOMING APPETITE POINTS OUT THE WAY [‘This is the way, walk ye in it.’] FOR THOSE WOULD BE HIS FOLLOWERS AND FINALLY SIT WITH HIM ON HIS THRONE.

“Christ suffered hunger in the fullest sense. Mankind generally has all that is needed to sustain life. And yes, like our first parents, they desire that which God would WITHHOLD because it is not best for them.

Christ suffered hunger for NECESSARY FOOD and resisted the temptation of Satan upon the point of APPETITE. INDULGENCE [self-pleasing] of intemperate appetite CREATES in fallen man UNNATURAL desires for the things which will EVENTUALLY prove his ruin.

“Man came from the hand of God PERFECT in every faculty of mind and body, in perfect soundness, therefore in PERFECT HEALTH. It took more than TWO THOUSAND YEARS of indulgence of appetite and lustful passions to create such a state of things in the human organism as would lessen VITAL force.

“Through successive generation the TENDENCY was more swiftly downward [Evolution teaches the exact opposite, contradicting the actual condition of mankind and the earth today, “as it was in the days of Noah”!].

Indulgence of appetite and passion COMBINED led to EXCESS, VIOLENCE, DEBAUCHERY AND ABOMINATION of every kind, weakened the energies and brought upon the race DISEASE of every type, until the vigor and glory of the FIRST GENERATION from Adam, man began to show signs of DECAY.
Successive generations AFTER the Flood degenerated MORE rapidly.” – E. G. White, Vol. 4, Testimonies for the Church, p. 29.

(To be continued). Review Genesis 6, 7 and Matt. 24: 37-39. Then, let all “examine himself and prove whether we are really in the faith” “of Jesus,” our Example.
Bless all, NMF

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Sermon

Willing Consent of the Governed Part 3

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Daily Manna

THERE ARE ONLY TWO SIDES

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THERE ARE ONLY TWO SIDES

After long years of prayerfully, diligently, persistently and consistently studying God’s word, for no other purpose than to personally know and understand (1) who the invisible GOD is and how He has revealed His character, will, and purposes to fallen mankind since the fall (2) what really and how efficacious is His Gospel and its plan of redemption/salvation to save me FIRST, a wretched soul enslaved by ignorance, selfishness, inherited sinful propensities and weaknesses, a culturally-acquired and environmentally-enhanced “love of the world and the things of the world and the pride of life”—-with the whole range of experiences that come with this rugged yet fulfilling Christian quest and journey—-I have come to certain conclusions, all based on the above, and that is:

God’s Word reveals that in the beginning and at the end of all things, there are only TWO (general) CLASSES, or KINDS, or SIDES or TYPES in the great controversy between Christ and Satan, the light of truth and righteousness vs the darkness of sin, error and ignorance and in the plan of salvation, which I have summarized alphabetically as follows:
Adams, Actions/Activities, Affections, Angels, Animals, Apostles, Armies, Awakenings; Brothers: Captains, Characters, Choices, Christs, Christians, Churches, Citizens, Consciences; Dead, Disciples, Duties; Examples; Faiths, Families, Fathers, Followers, Friends. Generals, Glories, Gods, Gospels, Governments, Grace; Harvests, Hearts, Homes; Images; Jerusalems; Kings, Kingdoms. Knowledges: Laws, Leaders, Living (alive), Loves; Marks, Masters, Messengers, Movements; Numbers; Obedience, Opportunities; Peoples, Prayers, Priests, Prophets; Rains, Refuges, Repentance, Rewards; Sanctuaries, Servants, Sexes, Sheep, Shepherds, Sins, Sinners, Slaves, Sons, Souls, Spirits, Stars, Sufferings; Temples; Understandings, Unions/Unity; Victories, Virgins, Visions; Wars, Ways, Weddings, Wisdoms, Witnesses, Women, Worshippers, Workers; Zeal.

“CHOOSE ye this day WHOM ye will serve, WHETHER the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell, BUT as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24: 15, KJV.

“And Elijah came unto ALL the people, and said, How long will you HALT BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS? If the Lord be GOD, follow Him: but if BAAL (sun god), then follow him. And the people ANSWERED HIM NOT A WORD.” 1 Kings 18:21.

“There are ONLY TWO CLASSES. Each party is distinctly STAMPED [sealed/marked], EITHER with the SEAL of the living God or the MARK of the beast, or his IMAGE. Each son or daughter of Adam CHOOSES Christ OR Satan as his General.

All who places themselves with the DISLOYAL are under Satan’s black banner and charged with rejecting and ‘despitefully USING Jesus Christ. They are charged with DELIBERATELY ‘crucifying the Lord of glory’!” E. G. White, Manuscript 40, 1897.

There are no “fence-sitters” or mere “neutral spectators” in the battle for souls and for eternal life. We are either on the Lord’s side or else we are for Satan. Bless all, NMF

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Daily Manna

THE REWARD OF A FAITHFUL STUDY OF THE WORD

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE REWARD OF A FAITHFUL STUDY OF THE WORD

8T 193, 194: “Christ and His word are in perfect harmony. Received and obeyed, they open a sure path for all who are willing to walk in the light as Christ is in the light. If the people of God would appreciate His word, we should have a HEAVEN IN THE CHURCH BELOW.

CHRISTIANS would be hungry, eager, to SEARCH the word. They would be ANXIOUS for time to compare scripture with scripture and to MEDITATE upon by word. They would be MORE EAGER for the light of the word THAN the morning paper, magazines, or novels [its digitally-multiplied equivalents today through the internet is staggeringly overwhelming!], their GREATEST desire would be ‘eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God’ [not to eat out, party, and become besotted as a celebration of the post pandemic “return to normal”].

And as a RESULT their LIVES would be confirmed to the PRINCIPLES AND PROMISES of the word, its instructions would be to them AS THE LEAVES OF THE TREE OF LIFE [spiritual meaning of ‘for the healing of the nations of the saved’ in Revelation]. It would be to them as well of water, springing up into eternal life. [Physical and spiritual drought is coming!]. Refreshing showers of grace [dispensed by the Holy Spirit] would refresh and revive the soul, causing them to FORGET all toil and weariness. They would be strengthened and encouraged by the WORDS OF INSPIRATION…….

“The Lord’s philosophy [not political agendas, or the world and the churches’ policies] is the rule of Christian life. [We may call ourselves but do we live Christ’s life who we often claim “abides” and “lives” in us?].

The ENTIRE being is imbued with the life-giving PRINCIPLES [not policies] of heaven. The BUSY NOTHINGS that consume the time of many SHRINK info their proper position before a HEALTHY, SANCTIFYING BIBLE PIETY.

“The Bible and the Bible alone, CAN produce this good result. It is the WISDOM of God and the POWER of God, and it works all power in the RECEPTIVE heart.

Oh, what HEIGHTS we might reach if we would conform our WILLS to the will of God! It is the power of God that we need WHEREVER we are [before, during any crisis, pandemic, or after such calamities]. It is the FRIVOLITY that cumbers the Church [its members and worshippers] that makes it weak and indifferent.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit [the Godhead] are seeking and longing for CHANNELS through which to communicate to the world the DIVINE PRINCIPLE [not policies] OF TRUTH.

“Artificial lights may appear, CLAIMING to be light from heaven, but they cannot shine forth as the STAR OF HOLINESS, the STAR OF HEAVENLY BRIGHTNESS, to guide the feet of the pilgrim and stranger into the city of God!

“False lights will take the place of the true, and MANY souls will be for a time deceived. GOD FORBID THAT IT SHOULD BE WITH US. The true light [of the doctrinal pillars of present, testing present truth] now shineth, and will light up the souls in which the WINDOWS are opened heavenward [not earthward or even “horizontally”].” – E. G. White, Vol. 8 Testimonies for the Church, pp. 193-195.

Ask yourself, am I honestly “hungering and thirsting for righteousness,” whom Christ promised in His Sermon (that introduced the spiritual kingdom of Christ), that “they shall be filled” with His righteousness?”

If not, can we honestly claim to be His obedient disciples or faithful members of the spiritual “commonwealth of Israel,” His true commandment-keeping remnant church?

Ponder on these things. Bless all, NMF

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Daily Manna

THE TESTING, PURIFYING, CHARACTER-PERFECTING PROCESS (Part 4)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

THE TESTING, PURIFYING, CHARACTER-PERFECTING PROCESS (Part 4)

“God’s work of refining and purifying must go [while still alive with a rational mind] UNTIL His servants are so HUMBLED, so DEAD TO SELF, that when called into active service, their ‘eye will be single to His glory’ [Matt. 6:21-23; Luke 11: 34-36].

He will THEN [and only then] their efforts; they WILL NOT MOVE RASHLY, FROM IMPULSE: they WILL NOT RUSH ON and imperil the Lord’s cause, being SLAVES TO TEMPTATIONS AND PASSIONS and followers of their own carnal minds SET ON FIRE BY SATAN.

Oh how fearfully is the cause of God MARRED by man’s perverse will and I subdued temper! How much SUFFERING HE BRINGS UPON HIMSELF by following his own headstrong passions!

“God brings men over the ground AGAIN and AGAIN, increasing the pressure UNTIL PERFECT HUMILITY and a TRANSFORMATION OF CHARACTER bring them
Into harmony with Christ and the spirit of heaven, and they are VICTORS OVER THEMSELVES!” Vol. 4 Testimonies, p. 86.

Indeed! Because ultimate salvation is individual, not corporate, sinful self is our greatest enemy!

(To be continued). Bless all, NMF