Newsletters

Not long ago, Newsweek magazine featured a cover story entitles, "A World Without Fathers." The focus was primarily on African-American families and the alarming increase of children being raised without father. Consider, for example:

• A black child born today has only a one-in-five chance of growing up with a father until he's sixteen. This statistic reflects not just poor families, but also a staggering 22 percent increase among those families making $75,000 or more. Right now some 62 percent of all black families are without a father.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God....

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1-2, 17).

[This message was delivered in the seventeenth century by Thomas Manton. We have paraphrased it in modern English, and its message is just as potent today as then. Composed Christians are those who have learned to rejoice in any and all circumstances.]

Phillips Brooks, a great preacher of the 19th century, said, "Sinners have no right to condemn Christianity - because it hasn't been tried yet...."

I agree! I don't think any human on earth has yet discovered the power and glory that is available in Christ, here and now!

There is a media blitz aimed at the destruction of the Christian home. Satan is out to wreck every marriage, to break up every Christian couple and destroy the God-ordained concept of "faithful...till death do us part."

“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” (Galatians 3:1, KJV). If you’re a devoted servant of Jesus, there’s something you need to be absolutely sure of. It’s that Satan tries to bewitch everyone who sets his heart to go deeper with the Lord. The enemy of our souls is constantly setting demonic traps for all who are desperate to know more of Christ.

A Message for Today

The prophet Isaiah pronounced a woe on Israel: “‘Woe to the rebellious children,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 30:1, NKJV). The Hebrew word Isaiah uses for “rebellious” means backsliding, stubbornness, a turning away. What, exactly, were God’s people turning away from? And what caused their backsliding?

I am convinced there is a hunger throughout the world for the uncompromised grace of Christ. Scripture attests to this hunger. Luke writes that when Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, crowds of thousands “had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those troubled by evil spirits were healed” (Luke 6:18, NLT). These masses came because they had heard a rumor about a man of grace who would heal them.

The question mark in my title is intentional. As Christians we know that Jesus won the victory for us at Calvary. He defeated death, Satan and the power of sin. The question remaining for believers is, “Now what? I know Jesus won my victory on the cross. But what about my present conflict? Where is his victory for the battle raging in my life right now?”

Jesus said, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you" (John 14:18).

When Christ said this, he was addressing his disciples just before he went to the cross. He had gathered his chosen ones for a last moment of communion before being crucified.

What a sad, sorrowful lot these men were. Their sole source of comfort on the earth was being taken from them. Jesus was their guide, their teacher, their joy and peace and hope. And now he was physically leaving them.