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Devotionals

GREATER CALAMITY: COVID-19 OR COVETOUSNESS?

June 23, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

GREATER CALAMITY: COVID-19 OR COVETOUSNESS?

“Therefore be followers of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ has also loved us…. But fornication and all uncleanness or COVETOUSNESS, let it not be even NAMED among you, as is fitting for saints, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that NO fornicator, unclean person, nor COVETOUS MAN, WHO IS AN IDOLATER, HAS ANY INHERITANCE IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST AND GOD..” Eph. 5: 1-5, NKJV (See verses 6-27).

“Let it not be even NAMED among you.” “Named,” is from the Greek onomatopoeia, meaning “to name, i.e., assign an appellation; to utter, mention, profess, call.”

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Devotionals

GODLY REPENTANCE DELAYED IS PARDON DENIED

June 22, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

GODLY REPENTANCE DELAYED IS PARDON DENIED

“For godly sorrow produces repentance to salvation, not to be regretted [or repented of]; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” 2 Cor. 9:10, NKJV (See verses 8-11).

Even as ‘justice delayed is justice denied,’ Achan’s deadly sin of covetousness produced a “worldly,” not a godly repentance. This is possibly one of the deadliest combinations of sins. Achan lost both temporal and eternal life!

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Devotionals

COVETOUSNESS BRINGS WEAKNESS AND SPIRITUAL DECLENSION AMONG GOD’S PEOPLE

June 21, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

COVETOUSNESS BRINGS WEAKNESS AND SPIRITUAL DECLENSION AMONG GOD’S PEOPLE.

The name Achan means, “Achar, the troubler if Israel.” 1 Chron. 2:7, KJV. In the New Testament, the antitype of ancient Israel is the church, ekklesia, “the called out ones.” The generic church, like ancient Israel, is also of two classes: apostate Christianity who have done away with God’s law and worship an idol sabbath, as apostate Israel worshipped Baal, the Phoenician sun-god, and the remnant church who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12) and “have the spirit of prophecy which is the testimony of Jesus Christ”(Rev. 19:10).

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Devotionals

COVETOUSNESS : AN EVIL OF GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT.

June 19, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

COVETOUSNESS : AN EVIL OF GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT.
“Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” “Take heed, and beware of covetousness.” “Let it not be ONCE named among you.” Col. 3:5; Matt. 6:24; Luke 12:15; Eph. 5: 3.

“The deadly sin that led to Achan’s ruin had its ROOT in COVETOUSNESS, of all sins ONE OF THE MOST COMMON and the MOST LIGHTLY REGARDED [by man but not by God!]. While other offenses meet with detection and punishment, how RARELY does the violation of the tenth commandment so much as call forth censure. The ENORMITY of this sin, and its terrible results, are the LESSONS of Achan’s history.

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Devotionals

ACHAN’S INDIVIDUAL SIN AFFECTED THE WHOLE NATION (THE CHURCH THEN)

June 18, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
ACHAN’S INDIVIDUAL SIN AFFECTED THE WHOLE NATION (THE CHURCH THEN)
“To establish his guilt beyond question, leaving no ground for the charge that he had been unjustly condemned, Joshua solemnly adjured Achan to acknowledge the TRUTH. The wretched man made full confession of his crime: ‘Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel…When I saw a GOODLY Babylonian garment [high-fashion, expensive], and 200 hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold of 50 shekels’ weight [the currency then], I COVETED them and took them; and behold, they are HID in the earth in the midst of my tent’ [as in hidden in my heart and imaginations].
“Messengers were immediately dispatched to the tent,… and ‘behold it was in the tent…and they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua….and laid them out BEFORE the Lord.”

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Devotionals

ACHAN’S SECRET SIN EXPOSED PUBLICLY BY GOD

June 17, 2020

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK;

ACHAN’S SECRET SIN EXPOSED PUBLICLY BY GOD. “For God will bring every secret thing into judgment, whether they be good or evil.” Eccl. 12:14.

Continuing from yesterday: “God’s command has been disregarded by of those appointed to execute His judgments. And the NATION was held accountable for the guilt of the transgressor. THEY have even taken of the accursed thing
and have also STOLEN, and DISSEMBLED also’ instruction was given to Joshua for the discovery and punishment [judicial procedures] of the criminal. The [casting of] lots was to be employed for the DETECTION of the guilty. The sinner was NOT directly pointed out, the matter being left to DOUBT for a time, that the people might FEEL their RESPONSIBILITY for the sins existing among them, and thus be led to SEARCHING of HEART and HUMILIATION before God.