Rescued! Answered Prayers and the Local Good News that Points to a Good God - Purity 1162

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a rainbow of autumn colors on display in the leaves of a stand of roadside trees beneath an October blue sky comes to us from Tara Becker, who shared this scene on social media yesterday, highlighting her visit to Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondack region of upstate upstate New York with the simple caption, beautiful, peaceful, heart emoji, 80K. Well, it's Tuesday, and today there is a peace that has come to the residents of upstate New York that far surpasses what even a tranquil day in the Adirondacks can bring. The peace of knowing that God still answers prayers and sometimes uses the dedicated efforts of first responders to save that which was lost. Since Sunday morning, our region in upstate New York was made aware of the abduction of a 9-year-old girl, Charlotte Sena, um, via an Amber Alert, causing the upstate community to be unified in their hopes, uh, that this young girl would be found, and leading many to petition the Lord with prayer for her safe return. Last evening, those prayers were answered as law enforcement officials rescued Zayna and apprehended the suspect responsible for her disappearance. I'm including a link to News Channel 13's coverage on the story last night on the blog, which reveals that Charlotte's abduction was possibly motivated by greed, as the news reports that Charlotte's rescue and the apprehension of the suspect, Craig Nelson Ross Jr., developed after a ransom note was left at Charlotte's home in the early morning hours yesterday. While the case was broken by good police investigative techniques, many of my Christian friends and other people of faith were rightfully offering their thanks and praises to God last night when the news of Charlotte's rescue broke, because they had earnestly petitioned the Lord for her safe return. In a world that has become somewhat desensitized to the facts of crimes against children, we have all been blessed by this example of good overcoming evil. And whether we want to put our appreciation on the efforts of our first responders or on a gracious God who still answers prayers, I think we can all agree that this is good news. The story reaches into our hearts because of the love that we have for our families our children, and it reveals some basic truths of our existence here on earth. Taking what doesn't belong to you is wrong, regardless of motivation or rationalizations. Taking what doesn't belong to you for profit or pleasure is evil. The extreme of child abduction makes this simple truth that is repeatedly spoken of in Scripture all the clearer, or all the more clear. Um, there really are no shades of gray in light of God's truth. And to regard— in regard to theft, uh, and the true root of all evil, our desires, the Bible tells us in Exodus 20:15, you shall not steal. And in Exodus 20:17, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything anything that is your neighbor's, anything including their children. Whether or not this suspect hatched this latest crime as a get-rich scheme, the Bible tells us in 1 Timothy 6:10, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. This man, possibly motivated by money, abducted a child and wandered away from the simple human decency, uh, and now will face many sorrows as he will be rightly held responsible for his crime. The successful rescue of the innocent in these cases are, are not typical, and we thank God and the first responders, responders, for saving this child and reminding us that there is still good in the world that exemplifies the truth of Bible verses like Proverbs 10:2, which tells us, "Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death." Forgive me for taking this verse out of context, but in this instance, the possible hope for treasures of wickedness did profit nothing, and the righteous did deliver an innocent from possible death. There are not many miracles happening today And when good triumphs over evil and an innocent is saved, I can't help but thank God who put whatever goodness that is common to man in us and to the one who died to save us all, Jesus Christ. So as we go about another day in the life here on earth, let's rejoice over this girl's salvation from evil and the the goodness behind the rescue. Let's encourage one another to recognize the righteous efforts of, of man to protect us from evil, and the God who motivates us to do good and who calls us all to salvation and to walk in righteousness with him forever. Today's Bible verse comes from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning, meditate Today's meditation verse comes from the section on anger, the hot temper. Today's verse is Colossians 3:8, and the Word of God says, "But now you must put them all away—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk—from your mouth." Today's verses fall under the 11th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on anger, and that 11th point is Good news: through the Spirit you can overcome the sin of a hot temper. Today's verse is the second of two passages of scripture that our resource provides to encourage us with this good news. And rather than presenting them all at once, we are doing them one, one at a time, one day at a time. Today's verse encourages us to walk in righteousness with the way we speak and the way we carry ourselves to the world. Pointing out that what we say and how we conduct ourselves matters. This verse tells us to put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from our mouths. Colossians is a letter to the church, and it tells us that obscene talk and the obscene attitudes associated with anger are not appropriate for the Christian. We may be street smart and corrupted by the world to talk trash and be mean-muggin', before we come to Christ, but after we have been forgiven and welcomed into God's kingdom, we are to put those old habits away for good. We are no longer to be concerned with representing our school of hard knocks, rough-and-tumble lives of our past. Instead, as members of God's kingdom, we are to righteously represent the Prince of Peace and his righteousness. So we turn our frowns upside down, we forgive those who offend us, and live in the love of God. And when we are grounded in the reality of who we are in Christ and we remember all that we have received from God, we can let go of our angry ways and begin to speak life rather than the obscene curses of a world that is bitter and broken. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, where I always share insights from from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit, and today we're continuing in chapter 27, which is on the Spirit transforming. And today's topic is occupation and application. So if you want to know what A.W. Pink is talking about with those terms, go to mtforchrist.org And you'll see that resource at the end of today's blog post. You'll see what occupation and application has to do with the spirit transforming. So if you're curious, go, go to the blog and you'll see that. Also at the end of the blog, you'll see an encouragement to say join our Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ series of discipleship classes via the M.t. Clark Christ 247 podcast. Those teachings are based on the Word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson. I recorded them via audio and put them on, on the podcast and YouTube to encourage people to know who they are in Christ and to know of the spiritual reality of the forces of darkness that are ever— that are present. I won't say ever-present because they won't be in this world, and and that leads you to resolve your personal spiritual conflicts through the Steps to Freedom in Christ. Yeah, and we point to the truth to encourage people to know what's good and what's evil and to not compromise with sin, even in the small things like our attitudes and the way we speak. When we walk in the light of God's world, you know, things are pretty clear and things are good. Only when we go astray could we ever conceive of doing something so heinous as, you know, doing things for money. And I mean, we probably— hopefully we haven't gone to the extremes that this man's crime did. Not any of us are kidnappers, but you know, in what ways have we compromised ourselves for money and, um, or for pleasure for that matter? I know in my life of sin I've done lots of things. I've stolen, um, and, uh, I've compromised my morals for, you know, seeking after pleasure, um, but I repented. Um, and I repent daily. Not that I'm doing those sinful things anymore, um, but, uh, but yeah, we, we are always looking to walk in the light of God's word and truth and to continually be transformed, uh, into the image of his son Jesus Christ. We want to be more and more like Jesus. And, um, we offer prayers today for the family of Charlotte Sana. And for the man who was apprehended in this crime. We pray for both sides because they both need God. They both need Jesus. They both need, you know, both need to be saved. The young girl was saved from her abductor, but she also needs to be saved from her sin. And, um, it's through Christ alone that happens. And this man obviously needs to be saved from his sin, uh, and that's available to him too through Jesus, who's willing to forgive us all our sins. We'll still be responsible for our crimes on earth and the consequences of our bad actions, but we can be forgiven and welcomed into the kingdom of God even after doing something. So It's overall, you know, we always, you know, we can always rationalize our sin. And apparently this was motivated by money. And we could, you know, unfortunately mankind, even the best and brightest of us have an inclination to do what's wrong when it's acceptable. When it's hidden or when it has extenuating circumstances, we'll do something that we normally would never do, up to and including murder. So none of us are beyond reproach. None of us, you know, we've all fallen short of the glory of God and we all need forgiveness. And it's found in Christ alone. So that's why we do the blog, to point to people to Jesus and the new transforming life that he has for you, where you can feel the peace and rescue that comes from putting your faith in him, that comes from being forgiven and given eternal life in his kingdom. So, uh, so that's today, uh, today, you know, in light of The big things, you know, or small problems, uh, don't seem so big. And, um, we would just be thankful for the safety of our children today and our own personal safety, and especially our eternal safety in Christ. Um, so I gotta work today. I'm going out of town in less than 48 hours, which is exciting, and frightening, um, as I'll have to be responsible for my own safety, uh, in an unknown place. And, uh, anything could happen in the world, so we got to be careful. And, uh, but the thing we always carry with us is our faith, and that keeps us safe no matter what. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for the rescue of Charlize Theron. We thank you for the first responders that were instrumental in cracking the case and rescuing this young girl. We also pray for all the people who prayed, including my friends. You know, a Facebook friend basically said, hey, can we all agree at 1 o'clock yesterday to pray for this girl? And when I saw that, guess what I did? I prayed. I said, you know, as skeptical as we can be when we, when we see these reports and say, oh my, you and just sort of expect the worst, we hope and we pray for good things to happen. And occasionally, the Lord uses mankind to, you know, He guides us to good things. And so we pray, we're people of hope and we pray. And so we thank You, Lord, for this answered prayer. And Lord, we pray for the people who might be listening or reading this message that You come alongside them in their prayer requests. Lord, because we know even in, you know, what seemed like a hopeless situation, you, you made us walk in hope and ask for help, and it was provided one way or the other. And we're going to thank you, Lord, because we know you're in charge over all things. So we thank you, God. Or as we go today, we ask for your, your sovereign protection and care as we go about our day, because we all need your help. And Lord, we just want you to, uh, you know, open our eyes to the things we need to see and, and guide our path, uh, in the way we should go. Because all we want to do is represent you in your kingdom, Lord. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.