Veteran’s Day – The War is Over, Will You Choose to Live in Peace? - Purity 1500

Welcome to the MT for Christ 24/7 podcast. I'm M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, um, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of my canine pal Harley, barely visible, uh, walking along the bend of Waite Road as the rising sun paints the morning cloud formations pink, comes to us from yours Truly, as I captured the scene yesterday morning. Well, it's Monday and Veterans Day in the United States, and as we take the day off to recognize the service of the brave men and women who put their lives on the line to serve their country, we thank all veterans for their service and hope that they have found peace now that their time of service is over.. And it is my prayer that they have found the peace that goes beyond all understanding by placing their faith in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul actually used the analogy of being a soldier as something to imitate in our lives as Christians. In, uh, 2 Timothy, uh, 2:1-4 and verse 10, uh, he tells us, you therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that they— that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. Paul made it clear that Christians would endure hardships and would have to make sacrifices in the cause of living out and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the eternal glory that we receive through Christ alone made it worth enduring all things. Paul's warning of not being entangled in the affairs of this life teaches that some of the things of this life must be dismissed as we seek to follow Jesus. And just as a soldier who goes to war experiences a wide spectrum of honorable and dishonorable, dishonorable ways of living and surviving, when the war is over, they have to decide how they will choose to live and who they will choose to follow. Some of the honorable ways— yeah, some of the honorable ways of living that the soldier demonstrates, uh, is Courage: Soldiers are trained to put their fears aside and to focus on accomplishing their objectives and defeating their enemies. Self-sacrifice and physical discipline: Soldiers are trained to, to physical, uh, to physical, mental, and emotional hardship, uh, to endure physical, mental, and emotional hardships and to discipline their bodies to be stronger. Obedience: Soldiers are trained to obey orders, submit to authority, and do things according to the book. Cleanliness and order. Soldiers are trained to keep themselves and their equipment clean and in order. Teamwork. Soldiers are trained to work together as a team and to look out for one another for their mutual benefit and to pool their resources for success. Those are all great things. However, soldiers are, you know, some of the less honorable things that soldiers in wartime are known for are wrath and hate. Wrath and hatred. Harnessing unbridled anger and dehumanizing your enemy may be an effective means for helping our troops to defeat their enemies, but could be a real problem if these emotions and attitudes are not left on the battlefield. Drunkenness. One of the means of blowing off steam of war is the abuse of alcohol. While perhaps understandable and permissible in the context of war, the bondage of addic— Addiction can not only afflict the soldier personally, but it can also cause collateral damage to their loved ones. Sexual immorality. Soldiers are known to enlist the services of prostitutes, engage in illicit affairs, or to pleasure themselves with pornographic material while over there. But these perversions of true sexuality can cause bondage of the flesh and destroy their ability to experience the intimacy and love of healthy sexual relations. And then there's gambling, stealing, and high-risk behaviors. The thrills of the battlefield, taking the spoils of war, and games of chance in the barracks may be acceptable in the context of war, but indulges— indulgences in these areas can cause unhealthy habits that can lead to physical, mental, and financial disasters. And then there's the mission. While battlefield objectives and clearly defining anything other than your comrades in arms as enemies may provide their own meaning, directive and purpose, they can also leave one left in a hostile world with no clear objectives when the war is over, causing depression and disillusionment that can draw one to destruction and suicide. The wartime worldview can separate us from others and the good things of life. You know, the honorable and dishonorable ways of the battlefield show us that a choice must be made when the war is over about what one will take from their war experience and how they will live their lives going forward. And while it may seem understandable in our world system how all of these ways can be transitioned to civilian life, the Apostle Paul wasn't directing us to emulate the dishonorable ways of the world or of wartime that soldiers can, can get entangled in. On the contrary, Paul encouraged us to turn from the dishonorable things of this world Philippians 4:8-9 tells us, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these, these do, and the God of peace will be with you. The war is over. The God of peace can be with us when we put our faith in Jesus and decide to follow the orders of our Lord and Savior. Uh, Christ died for us so we could be accepted, not by adapting, overcoming, or trying hard. Christ came to give us peace we didn't have to fight for. The war against the world, the flesh, and the devil has been won, and we can experience peace when we put our trust in Jesus and take up his kingdom cause as our life's mission. Being a disciple of Jesus will cause us to turn from the world's dishonorable ways and drive us to be a good soldier for God. So as we take today to give honor and our thanks to those who heroically served our country in the armed forces, be sure to offer them the peace, meaning, and purpose that only the Lord Jesus can give. 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 giving, and today's version, uh, verses are, uh, Malachi, uh, 3:7-10 from the, um, uh, the New American Standard Bible. The word of God says, from the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, how shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. And test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the window— windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Today's verses fall under the fifth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on giving. That fifth point is: do not rob God of his tithes and offerings. Today's Bible verses encourage us to make a regular practice of giving tithes and offerings to our local storehouses, or our local churches, to support, the Lord's good works on earth and to let the Lord use our faithfulness to pour out a blessing until it overflows. While these verses can be misused to drive people to not cheerfully give or to think that their giving will be repaid to them in some way, the principle to give to God and his places of worship is clearly established in Scripture. And if we find ourselves hard-hearted when it comes to giving, we should receive the conviction that we are not only robbing the Lord of tithes and offerings, we are also robbing ourselves of a deeper relationship with the one true God who has given us everything. So speak to— seek to meet the Lord's call to be a cheerful giver, and let the joys of obedience and greater intimacy with our Heavenly Father be a blessing to you. As always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com, where we always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing, and it'll be the last time we're sharing from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament by Stephen F. Alford. And in Alford's devotional, he prompted us to read from a chapter of scripture from the New Testament day and night. And today Today's chapter is Revelation 21, the last chapter of the New Testament, and from that chapter, Alford, uh, offers a portion of verse 10, which says, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God. And Stephen Alford writes, what a beautiful picture is presented here of the heavenly Jerusalem. Oh, the glory, majesty, and mystery of it! As to size, the height, breadth, and width alike will be 100 Oh, 1,400 miles. It will be made of pure gold. The foundations will be made of the most precious stones. The gates will be permanently, perpetually open, for there will be no night in which to close them. The glory of God will lighten it, and the Lamb of the light, the Lamb, the light thereof. There will be no temple in it because the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Its subjects will only be those whose names will be found written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Nothing that defiles will ever enter there. And Alfred concludes by praying, 'Oh, worship my soul that I have been made an inheritor of such mysteries.' Amen. Amen. The new heaven and new earth, New Jerusalem, um, coming soon, but not too soon. Because the, the end times time clock would require for, uh, the Antichrist to come, Great Tribulation to happen, the return of Jesus to come, as a thousand-year reign to come. And then somewhere after that, the, um, uh, you know, the enemy is released one last time, and, uh, he's, he's, he's defeated. And he is put into the lake of fire, and then a new heaven and new earth come. So, you know, our, our, our, our view of eternity should be, you know, biblically correct, and it's not as simple as everybody goes to heaven. Um, the heaven would be basically an in-between state, uh, between, um, our deaths here on Earth and, you know, our, our, our new life in God's kingdom on as he returns to the earth with the saints, and then as he establishes a thousand-year reign on the earth, and then as he eventually establishes a new heaven and a new earth. It's a little more complicated than that. And, you know, it's a great disservice we do to our church when, uh, when we, when we don't present the truth of scripture from Revelation as our ultimate cosmological view of what will happen when we live and die. But, you know, I can understand why some preachers might not want to go there, um, just talk about heaven because that's great. And in a broad sense, heaven would include all of that, you know, the in-between state after we die to the return of Christ and the new heaven and new earth. But, uh, you know, so, so I guess it's, you know, it's there. But, uh, the, the, the, the good news is that it's all good for the people who follow the Lord. The people whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life have nothing to fear. As it's death, we will be separated from our bodies but not separated from the Lord. And then, you know, during all those other events in our future history, um, we'll be on the Lord's side. So it's a great, um, you know, a great future that we all have in Christ. We can have peace with God and enjoy him forever. So that's why we ask the question always: have you fully surrendered to God? Have you made Jesus your Lord and Savior? And have you decided to live by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit? That's not all the same question, is it? Um, you know, and we think there's a difference, uh, a big difference that's made. Um, one of the differences is that we seek the truth of God's word and we seek to apply it to our lives. And so will do away with all the dishonorable ways of the ways of the world that we learned growing up, or in wartime, uh, what we had to do to survive, what we had to do to cope. And then we learn God's ways to live and cope. So that's why we recommend reading the Bible and examining your life and trying to put yourself in God's will as he directs you. As you go. One of the things he's directed me to is lead the support group, uh, at, uh, Starpoint Church called Celebrate Freedom. It's Christian recovery and discipleship, and we meet on Wednesdays, 6:30 PM. And we invite anyone in Upstate New York who can get to Clifton Park on a Wednesday night to join us, uh, basically where we teach you how to walk in the Spirit and to overcome those hurts, habits, and hang-ups, where you can really experience your freedom in Christ. Beyond that, we're offering a, a Grace for the Holidays online teaching and support group for men, uh, on Mondays beginning on November 18th. Um, if you're interested, go to mtforchrist.com and register, uh, under our group events teaching page, um, our group coaching teaching page. Yeah, anyway, um, what we're doing is, is for 6 weeks we'll be going over Freedom in Christ original race course, which includes you know, uh, 6 videos of teaching from Steve Voss and Rich Miller from FICM. And we basically meet to discuss, uh, the material and to support one another as we go from here to there during the holiday season, from the week before Thanksgiving to the week of Christmas. We focus on God's grace and, you know, our need to support one another. So we invite any men who are interested in signing up for a Christian support group to join us. Um, beyond that, guys, if you can't make it Monday nights, what about Tuesday in the new year? We're offering a Freedom in Christ course, uh, through Freedom in Christ Ministries. For that one, you go to Freedom in Christ, uh, ficm.org, and look for their courses, and you discover the Freedom in Christ course on Tuesday nights for men, um, at 6:30 PM Eastern, and you register and I'd be your facilitator. So, uh, we encourage you to do that. For anyone else who can't make those classes, can't make that meeting, um, we offer all our teachings basically on our, our playlist page on M.t. Clark 247 on YouTube. Uh, you can find teachings from The Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, Freedom in Christ, and our very own Celebrate Freedom discipleship course. So we invite you to check those out because we believe you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of those, uh, uh, classes. Uh, anyway, that's it for today. And we always ask, are you empty for Christ too? And, uh, what that— what does that mean? Well, it just means that you surrender to following the Lord's will for your life and, uh, that you decide to live day by day and, and keep on walking and talking with God. Um, we've discovered that it's the pathway to peace, and it's heaven on earth right now. Um, you still struggle and you still have to endure things, but b'shab goes beyond understanding, as the Lord is literally with you when you decide to follow him. So we encourage you to do that, and, uh, let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. We thank you so much for all that you do. I pray for you to, uh, bless us today, Lord, as, uh, we go— when we go forth to try to honor you with the way we live. Um, we need your help with that. Um, open our eyes to the things you want us to see and lead us in the way we should go, Lord. And we also pray for anyone who's listening or reading this message, um, or watching this message, Lord, that you bless them too. We pray for you to come alongside them in their prayer requests and their walk of faith. Because, um, we all need your help, Lord, and we're willing to follow your orders. We just need to, uh, we need to know what they are and how to do that. So we're asking for your help today. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.