In this devotional monologue, M.t. Clark shares a personal visit to Fort William Henry and Lake George, recounting the 1757 siege and massacre that inspired The Last of the Mohicans and later American revolutionary sentiment. He draws parallels between the historic fight for freedom and his own battle against food addiction, describing his role leading the Celebrate Freedom Recovery/Discipleship group, encouraging members to take personal responsibility, and using contemporary songs like Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” as a soundtrack for recovery. Clark provides a progress update on his weight loss (down to 229 lb from 238.9 lb), cites Isaiah 28:7‑8 to illustrate the dangers of drunkenness, references A.W. Pink’s teaching on the “filial spirit,” and promotes various discipleship resources (Steps to Freedom in Christ, Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, Freedom in Christ) and his online ministry at mtforchrist.org. The talk concludes with a prayer for guidance, freedom, and victory for listeners.
Chapters
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 view of Lake George from the vantage point of one of the cannons at Fort William Henry comes to us from yours truly as I captured this shot while walking through history and appreciating the struggle of those who had gone before us, just how primitive things were in days gone by, and how the victorious rise to the challenge and fight for the freedom freedom they want to experience. Well, it's Friday, September 1st, and just like that, we have entered into the 9th month of 2023. And in 3 weeks, we will all say goodbye to the summer. But while I love autumn, I was in no hurry to say adiós to summer and had the stirring to do something with yesterday's pleasant summer day off from work. And I decided to go somewhere I hadn't I had known about since childhood but had never actually gone to: Fort William Henry and Lake George. My family vacationed at the Lake George RV Park, uh, in the '80s while I was a kid, and while spending time in Lake George, we hit virtually all the attractions. As a fan of the macabre, Franken— Frankenstein's Wax Museum was a personal favorite of mine. Our family, uh, went to the miniature golf course at Gift World, Gooney Golf every year, and we hit the fun parks: Storytown USA, aka the Great Escape Six Flags, Waterslide World, and the Magic Forest at different times. But although we have, may have walked outside of Fort William Henry to take a steamboat cruise on the Minnehaha, our family never went inside the fort. So with yesterday off and the feeling that summer was slip-sliding away, I got the urge to go to Lake George and do something touristy, and because I had never actually been to Fort William Henry, I decided to check it out with my wife and my stepdaughter. I love going to museums and art galleries because of how it points to another part of God's overall story. His history is his story, after all, and I'm often humbled and amazed when I learn about how people lived in the past. Um, um, how they lived, how they lived, and by examining the art and artifacts they left behind that testify of their stories. The story of Fort William Henry centers around the French Indian War and how the imperialistic French and British Empires tried to claim the lands and the lucrative fur trade of North America and how their efforts divided and exploited the indigenous people with often unexpected and tragic results. While the British ultimately won the French Indian War, they didn't win every battle. In August of 1757, the British-controlled Fort William Henry was surrounded and surrendered after a 6-day siege to generous terms of surrender. The French, however, failed to protect their prisoners after the British marched out of the fort under French armed guard and began their retreat down the old military road to Fort Edward, they were attacked by French Indian— the French's Indian allies. The Indians brutally killed and scalped many of the British soldiers and then took hundreds of prisoners to Canada where they were held for ransom. Although early chroniclers claim that as many as 1,500 British were killed, more recent analysis based on period documents places the number closer to 185. Regardless of the number, that event is known as the Massacre at Fort William Henry, and the true story inspired James Fenimore Cooper's highly fictionalized novel The Last of the Mohicans to keep the events of 1757 alive in historical and literary circles. I am greatly humbled when I realize these events happened in my own backyard of upstate New York and that I am just so ignorant of the history of this continent and our country. The massacre of Fort William Henry inspired colonists and the British to fight for victory, which was sealed with the Treaty of Paris in 1763 over the French. Ironically, the joining together of the various colonial forces after the massacre of Fort William Henry was later remembered by the colonists to inspire them to fight for their independence from the British in 1776. Those colonists had learned they could win if they fought for victory, and when they were given taxation without representation, they decided they could use the lessons they had learned in the past to fight for and win their freedom for the future. Similarly, I learned the importance of fighting for my freedom over my addictions by leaning on the power, strength, and guidance of the Lord. With his help, I was set free. But just like those colonists later learned that their days of fighting were meant to prepare them for a future battle, since leading the Celebrate Freedom Recovery/Discipleship growth group, I was inspired to take the lessons I have learned from my past recovery and apply them to my— the fight against my food addiction. This week I tried to encourage our group to trust in the Lord to help them, but I also made it clear that we were personally responsible for our walk and that if we wanted our freedom over our hurts, habits, and hang-ups, we're going to have to do our part. We're going to have to fight for it. And so after we sang Big Daddy Weave's Redeemed to thank God for saving us and making us not who I used to be, I did something a little unorthodox by encouraging the group to fight for their freedom by singing along with Rachel Platten's pop song, Fight Song, which declares, this is my fight song, take back my life song. Prove I'm Alright song. My power is turned on. Starting right now, I'll be strong. I'll play my fight song, and I don't really care if nobody else believes, because I've still got a lot of fight left in me. That song was a part of my soundtrack for overcoming and emerging from addiction and divorce. When I decided to follow Jesus, I lost some things. But I know that I gained the victory. I gained my freedom. So I don't really care if nobody else believes. I know Jesus is Lord, and I'm going to lean on him, offer all the fight I have in me, and follow him into my freedom over food addiction and into the rest of the abundant life that he has for me. I'm 2 weeks into the victory tour over food addiction. The official weigh-in is 229 pounds this morning, down from 238.9. So I'm going to keep going and encourage you to keep walking and talking with God while he encourages you to fight for, for the life you always wanted to live but never thought was possible. With God, all things are possible, but you should expect to do your part and fight for it. Today's Bible verses come to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on alcohol and drug abuse, and today's verses are Isaiah 28:7-8 from the NIV. The word of God says, and these also stagger from wine and reel from beer, priest and prophet Prophets stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine. They reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions. All the tables are covered with vomit, and there is not a spot without filth. Today's verses fall under the 8th point of our Counseling Reference Guides resource section on alcohol and drug abuse. And that 8th point is Isaiah gives a vivid picture of a drunk losing his moral judgment. Today's verses are a continuation from yesterday's passage in Isaiah that documented that the Lord judged the Northern Kingdom of Israel for their drunkenness, resulting in their kingdom's destruction by the Assyrians in 721 BC. Here Isaiah documents how the priests and prophets of the Northern Kingdom were shameless drunks, proving that alcohol can even corrupt those with great spiritual knowledge. And who should know better. Whenever somebody makes a compromise for their little indulgences or vices, moral compromise should be expected. One story I recall from my days lost to a false religion of Eastern mysticism told the tale of a vegetarian monk who was traveling and was taken in for the night by a woman who offered him a goat and herself. Because he had sworn off meat and sex, he politely refused her hospitality. But when she offered him wine, he accepted. The monk drank too much, and in a drunken frenzy that fueled his flesh, he killed and ate the goat and had sex with the woman, to awaken the next day filled with horror and shame. So we need to be careful with alcohol. Drunkenness is a sin all by itself, but when you give in and compromise with booze, your sin may take you further than you ever thought you'd go. As your intoxication will cause you to lose your moral judgment. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.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 A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit as we continue sharing from chapter 22, and today's, um, today's Today's section is called A Filial Spirit. So if you want to know what the word filial means, I direct you to go to mtforchrist.org and see what, uh, A.W. Pink has to say about the filial spirit. And, um, as always, we encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship, um, where you might just have to fight for your right to for your freedom. You know, basically God has set you free, but in order to experience it, you might have to crucify the flesh and, you know, fight your old habits and your old patterns of thinking and behaving to emerge into the new life that God has given you. So we encourage a lifestyle of Christian discipleship that includes a daily spiritual practice. You know, if you're a Christian, you should act like it. And one of the things Christians do is read the Bible and pray. And they just also happen to try to follow the way Jesus lived. And so they do what's right with the way they live their lives. And so we encourage that. If you need to know more about who you are in Christ or how to, you know, get victory over the— over your previous habits or your, uh, or even the spiritual forces of darkness, we direct you to our discipleship classes that we taught back in 2021 that are available on the podcast and our YouTube channel. The classes we taught were Victory Over the Darkness, The Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ, and they're all based on the work of Dr. Neil Anderson and the word of God. And they direct you to go through the steps to freedom in Christ, which is a prayerful repentance process, um, that commits yourself to the Lord and his, his kingdom. And, um, basically just so happened has been used to, uh, people from demonic oppression and to, um, to, to take care of people's spiritual and personal conflicts. So we recommend the Steps to Freedom in Christ and our classes to teach you about the process. As always, we also encourage Bible study, and we offer a Bible study on our podcast that we do once a week with Arthur and Susanna Sincotti. Um, and so in a couple days, we we prayerfully will be meeting again for another study that we'll invite you to. Well, that's it today. I have to work, and I have to work tomorrow because I had off yesterday, so today's sort of a Monday for me even though it's Friday, but I don't know, still, still thank God it's Friday. I don't know, something about Fridays, even if you have to work Saturdays, still sort of like the end of the week. So I'll be in enjoying getting through the day and enjoying Friday night. But I might burn some more wood in my backyard because a tree fell and I have to fight the fight of cleaning up my backyard. Yeah, anyway, um, so that's that. Let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for another, uh, another day of victory, another day of freedom. Because every day we walk with you, we're victorious. And it's moment by moment, day by day. Those days collect and they become weeks and months and years. And, uh, Lord, the journey you put me on since you showed me that Jesus is, is the Messiah, um, and that I could be saved by faith, um, has been an amazing one. And I thank you so much for what you've done in, in, in, in and through my life Um, as it's just, uh, it's wonderful to live with you, Lord, and to encourage people to do the same. So Lord, we just pray for you to go before us because we definitely need your help to walk like you walk. We pray for the people who might be listening or reading today's message, that you come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith, because we all need your help. So we pray for you to go before us Open our eyes to the things you want us to see and lead us in the way we should go, because all we want to do is represent your kingdom, Lord. We thank you, we praise you, we love you. We pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
