The Poseidon Adventure and the World Turned Upside Down – Purity 755

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 the afternoon sky over the Albany Labor Temple, the home of the Teamsters Local 294 on 3rd Street Extension, comes to us from yours truly as I grabbed this quick pic as I got into my car at the end of the work week yesterday. While I could always appreciate a view of the heavenlies, since coming to Christ, I am definitely a sky guy and often find myself marveling over what's going on just over our heads while the world is so concerned with the goings-on down on the ground. When I look up, I get a small idea of just how magnificent God's creation is, and it causes me to give him thanks and praise for his handiwork. Yesterday, I commented more than once to the Lord about his wonderful work in the skies throughout the day, and was so distracted by it as my workday came to an end that I forgot about my company's policy not to return to the garage too early. Whoops! And it was only because I wasn't rushing to leave at the end of the day that I thought to take this photo. Sometimes you have to stop and look around at life and enjoy the here and now and all that the Lord has provided you. That was the apparent theme yesterday afternoon, as after a traffic delay caused me to arrive late at my countryside home, I made the decision to skip an evening appointment for a new ministry opportunity to enjoy the meal my wife had prepared for me for dinner, and to take my canine friend Harley for a walk under that same but different magnificent sky, and to spend quality time with the missus for the rest of the evening. Well, it's Saturday. We've made it to the weekend. It is my prayer that all of my friends use the weekend to enjoy the here and now of what the Lord has provided you, and that you take some time to give him thanks and praise by walking and talking with him. One of the things that was said of the apostles, that was that they set the world upside down in Acts 17:6. Undoubtedly, the, the people that they encountered wondered how fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, someone who had been a Pharisee who actively sought to persecute the early church, and others could all be united in proclaiming the same message of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and how it was through faith in him alone that one could be saved from the wrath of God. How could these men who were scattered or were Christ's enemies at His arrest, be changed into those who would boldly proclaim Him as our only hope a short time later? Well, when the Lord reveals to you the truth about Christ and His resurrection, your world gets turned upside down. When you are forgiven of your sins and are given a new and eternal life, it's a whole new ballgame. Having a revelation of the truth of the gospel changes things. Having an encounter with God makes all things new. Ask me how I know. If you've been following the blog for any length of time, you know that I often reflect on music lyrics or themes from movies to try to explain concepts regarding our Christian faith to encourage Christians to have a closer walk with the Lord and to live out their faith authentically. Yesterday morning, during my morning exercise, as I thought about how the gospel has changed the world and in general and how it has turned my world upside down personally, I remember the 1972 disaster epic film, The Poseidon Adventure. As I reflected on the plot, settings, and characters of The Poseidon Adventure and how it details a group of survivors desperate— desperate— and how they desperately attempt to survive, I realized that its themes could be analogous The Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the movie, a luxury cruise ship's captain is influenced by the owner of the cruise line company to make an unwise decision to go full speed into the direct path of a 90-foot tsunami wave, causing the ship to be completely turned upside down, immediately killing most of the crew and passengers. But some of the crew and passengers remain alive in the air that is captured in the upside-down boat. While most of the remaining pastors— passengers are influenced by the ship's pursers to stay put and wait for help, and, and to know, in total denial of the facts of the situation, a small group of survivors is led by an unconventional reverend to go up into the— to go up in this world turned upside down to try to find a way of escape through the bottom of the boat. The star-studded cast that includes Gene Hackman as the Reverend, Erneth Borgnine, Roddy McDowell, Red Buttons, and Shelley Winters does a wonderful job of portraying the human experience of trying to band together to survive. In the twists and turns of the journey to the end, lives are lost and sacrifices are made, culminating in Hackman's Reverend Frank Scott yelling out to God in complaint about the group's misfortunes and lives lost. Asking how many more lives, how many more sacrifices it would take to please him before he surrenders his life to save his adopted flock. The man who cursed God one moment for working against them and the next freely gave his life to save his friends, exclaiming, "Take me!" Before dropping to his death, the Reverend turns to the downcast survivors and makes one last encouragement. "You can make it, keep going," telling the remaining leader, Borgnine's character, to get them through. I'm sharing the link for that scene on the blog today if you want to check it out. The film's setting, the Poseidon turned upside down and slowly falling apart, can be seen as our world slowly fading away and destined to die. The remaining passengers could represent humanity. The captain, who knew better, and the owner, who didn't, are both influenced by money and per— are— and perish immediately. The purser, who before the disaster commented that he was the real captain of the ship, represents earthly knowledge and expertise and authority. But those things don't matter in a world turned upside down, and in light of the questions of life and death, is shown to be lacking solutions. The Purser and all who trust in his knowledge, authority, and expertise perish when they refuse to follow the Reverend. The Reverend Frank Scott, an unconventional man of God who can think outside of the box to help people regardless of the circumstances, is shown to be the one who knows the way to life. Only the people who follow him survive. And in sacrificing himself, the Reverend represents a type of Christ. Although he voices a hearty complaint over the cup of suffering he receives, after he encourages people to keep going, he goes silent and goes into eternity with no sign of fear. When you know the gospel, it changes everything. It turns your world upside down, and you see the truth everywhere you look. You see the beauty, you see the pain, but you know the hope in the here and now and for what lies beyond, what— where we can't see. So let me encourage you that whatever disasters you may face in this life, you can make it. Keep going. But just like in the Poseidon adventure, the only way you survive is to follow the man of God, Jesus Christ. He came to earth to live and die for us. He is the truth, the way, and the life. And when you put your faith in Him, your new life as a Christian may seem like the world turned upside down, but in Christ you will find your footing and discover the new ways that the Lord has for you to walk in, and even when you thought there was no way. So keep walking and talking with God, where sometimes it can seem that up is down and down is up, but somehow Through it all, there is always peace. Today's Bible verses come to us from the New Living Translation Bible Promise Book for Men. This morning's meditation verses are 1 Corinthians 13:6-7, and they say: It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures throughout every circumstance. Today's Bible verse— verses continue where we left off yesterday. My resource, uh, The Bible Promise Book for Men, um, presents 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 all at once, but I decided to split them because there is no— there is so much about love stated in these 4 verses that it did— I didn't want to go through them too quickly. And today's verses tell us that love rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Not about injustice. Oof. Before coming to Christ, I rejoiced over getting away with things. That spirit of rebellion that encourages to cut corners, break rules, and take whatever you want regardless of the circumstances can have you revel in your successes. But that selfish spirit is not love. The spirit of doing, doing things my way is the opposite of love. Indifference toward God and your fellow man. While we can glory in the injustices that favor us, true love would favor justice and the truth winning out. Full acceptance— love has to be in the light of the truth. We can't say we love someone if we don't know the truth about them. Love can't be based on lies. And as today's verse tells us, Love never gives up. When we give up on a relationship, love is gone. Love has come to an end. The choice to love is the choice to hope, to have faith, and to endure. And in relationships, in order for love to survive, both parties must eventually choose to give and receive it. With God or man, one party can pour out all the love they can muster towards someone else, but if that other person doesn't receive and give love in return, love's pur— purpose isn't realized. Here, truth comes into play. If we say we love but don't really love, our lies will be found out eventually. If our love is a lie, it will eventually be exposed, and the relationship will end with pain and possibly betrayal. On earth, that means heartache and broken relationships. But with God, who loves all men because he is love, When our love for Him is a lie, our lie will be exposed and result in eternal separation from Him. The answers to the questions of life, love, and death are all the same. The answer is God. The answer comes from the Creator, and we must make peace with Him through faith in Jesus Christ to be able to know what love is. So seek the truth, receive the love of God that is offered through Jesus Christ, and show you know what love is by sharing it with the world. As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org, where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from Clinton E. Arnold's Powers of Darkness. As I stated before, um, it's a study on, uh, spiritual warfare. And today, well, it's sort of ironic. Today's sections that we're sharing are for— it's about the early first century environment of the world. And there's a section on a protective charm, a love potion, and a spell to inflict harm. So, so if you wanted to see what Clinton Arnold has to write about Love Potions and Spells to Inflict Harm. Uh, go to mtforchrist.org to, um, to check out that resource. And as always, I encourage people to go out and, you know, purchase these books for yourself because I found them helpful in my walk. And I, I, you know, I share them to encourage people to, uh, to examine their faith and live it out. And that's why we're on online and we're on the podcast and we're on YouTube. Basically just to encourage people that the Christian faith isn't, you know, isn't what you thought it was, probably. It's supposed to be a journey, it's supposed to be a relationship with your Heavenly Father, which is highly personal and isn't just some sort of tradition or superstitious belief. This is a relationship. With God, and it's interactive. And so do your part and interact with God, and you'll see. Open your eyes, let him show you the truth, and God will lead you into, you know, into, you know, they say a wonderful life, but a wonderful life might include suffering. But that's okay because God is over and above this life, and he'll give us peace regardless of the circumstances when we walk with him., in this world, uh, through faith in Jesus Christ. So that's why we do what we do. We share our teachings on basic discipleship that are based on the Word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson. We taught 3 classes in 2021 that we share, uh, on the, on the podcast and the YouTube channel. Those classes are, uh, Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ. We provide them for your listening and studying enjoyment. And for your, your entertainment and maturity in the faith. Um, a lot of people don't know what it is to be free in Christ, and that's what we try to teach. Um, it's not what you thought it was, probably. So we encourage you to check it out. And one way to, you know, know the truth, to know the love of God, know what it's like to have a relationship with God, um In order to grow in that, we encourage Bible study. You know, to know God, you got to know his word. And we encourage that you should read it every day and to apply what you learn to your life and talk to God about it. Hey, what does this mean? You know, what does this mean for me? Are you serious? You know, so, and guess what? God's very serious. If you read his word, you'll understand that. But he's serious about his love for you, and he wants you to come to him, and he wants you to walk with him. So we encourage that walk, we encourage Bible study, and we share our Bible study that we do once a week with Arthur and Susanna Cinquatti. Arthur draws up a topical study, and we share it for your listening and viewing enjoyment, depending on how you want to check it out. We have messages on the pod— all the messages are on the podcast, and we have some video renditions of her message available on the YouTube channel since the beginning of the year when we transitioned to Zoom. Because the love I had for Arthur and Susanna Cinquatti didn't go away just because I married my beloved wife, Tammy Lynn, and, you know, we can upstate now. Not that I wasn't upstate before. Um, but I'm in the real upstate, as my wife would tell you, uh, now. Um, not sure where the borders are on that, but, um, but anyway, that, that love didn't go away, that love didn't quit. And so we decided to use Zoom to continue our Bible study. And so we, because of Zoom, we, we, you can now see our faces, uh, when we talk about it on YouTube. So if you want to check that out, you can. Uh, we've been— I have been releasing, uh, throwback episodes that we didn't release prior because I was sheepish about sharing our video. Um, but since then got over it. And, uh, every Wednesday, uh, we, we— I've been releasing the older messages. And this past Wednesday released, uh, Going in Deeper. So if you wanted to see what we had to had to say about the topic of, uh, going in deeper, uh, go to MT for Christ 24/7 on the YouTube channel and check that out. Um, all the links of course are on the blog mtforchrist.org. If you don't know how to get there, go to mtforchrist.org, and at the end of each blog post there's a bunch of links for our podcast and YouTube channel, etc. All right, that's a lot of plugging and I'm done. Um, it's Saturday, so let's have a wonderful day. I have plans to spend it with my wife all day long, um, with an evening, uh, in a park listening to a symphony, uh, to, to set things off. So, um, I'm looking forward to the day and praying for good weather and for good things to come of it. And I'll keep walking and talking with God throughout it, um, and I encourage you to do the same. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, thank you for leading us in the world that you turned upside down by sending Jesus Christ into it to save us all. And Lord, you showed us the way, even though it was, you know, precarious, and we thought down was up and up was down. We show you— we were shown the truth that, wow, it really is Jesus. He is the Son of God. He is the Messiah. He is the way to life. He is the way to my forgiveness. And when I, when I make that decision to follow him, ah, things change. I get a new life. I get the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide me. And if I only listen and follow, good things happen. The fruit of the Spirit comes. It's all because of you, Lord, and we thank you for that. We thank you for the beauty of your creation and the beauty that we have in our relationships with others, that where we can give our love for for one another and, and receive it. Um, Lord, you are love and we love you. Um, Lord, so we pray for the people who are listening today. Um, or we'd love them, you know, we love the fact that they have a heart for you. And, um, you know, we all have you in common, Lord. We might be very different, but, um, we all have you and we all lean on you. And Lord, we just pray for you to to bless the people who are listening today, Lord. We bless for you to come alongside their prayer requests. We pray for healing for Arthur, Arthur's wife Susanna, who's recovering from surgery. And we'll see how things are tomorrow when we reconvene for our Bible study. And Lord, we pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to all, all that you want us to see, and lead us into the good things you you want us to do. Um, Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.