Matthew 6:23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
In the early 1700s, the western world including the United States, was being swept under the influence of a philosophical and cultural movement known as the Age of Enlightenment, also called the Age of Reason. At this critical time in history, the First Great Awakening was birthed by the Lord in the American colonies of the “New World”. Led by preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, a spiritual renewal took place which became a unifiying cultural foundation for the American Revolutionary War, which began in the late 1770s.
While the church had been stagnant, institutional, bound by tradition and formality, the First Great Awakening dramatically revivified the spiritual landscape with Holy Spirit inspired Biblical preaching, and it swept thousands of nominal churchgoers and atheists alike into vital and personal relationship with God. The preaching of the era ministered the light of the true Gospel of Christ, with deep conviction of human sinfulness, the need for repentance demonstrated by contrition and resolution to forsake sin, and the opportunity to receive God’s forgiveness and salvation by grace alone.
So just at a point in history, when the enemy was offering the false light of rationalism as his remedy for the Dark Ages, our God expressed His sovereignty over history and sent forth a revival, renewing the knowledge of His true Light to the world.
We are now at another critical point in history as it seems the enemy is launching a two-pronged attack, either to persecute and extinguish the true Light of Yeshua (Jesus), or to counterfeit it with his false light… we must recognize, expose, and oppose his evil work.
There is false light, a “light that is darkness”; [Matthew 6:23] and a ministry of “righteousness” that is not authentic; [2 Corinthians 11:14-15]. We must recognize them. This is not our Light or our Righteousness. We are awake to the true Light of the world who gives light to every man. Now, more than ever, don’t hide it under a bushel, sleeper….Awake! Perhaps, here and there, even before the Lord comes, you also, may inspire a great Awakening.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Approaching a new year always seems to carry a sense of adventure and expectation, although that attitude is not normally mixed with the level of trepidation we might be feeling just now. Moses’ successor Joshua, one of two faithful spies, seems to have embodied this sense of courageous expectation much of his life, but even he needed an extra dose of Divine encouragement as the Lord commanded him to cross the Jordan and take possession of the promised Land.
There were thousands of people bundled up in freezing New York weather to witness a few short seconds during which a descending ball of light announces the arrival of a New Year — 2023. These hardy people endured the freezing air to mark the passage of time, but even more, because they were anticipating a “new beginning!” Saying goodbye to a tumultuous 2023, they were looking forward to making a fresh start in 2024!
As we approach the New Year, we’re back to making New Year’s resolutions … but this year is a bit different, since it’s not only a New Year but a New Decade! During the past ten years we’ve seen such radical changes in our society; the definition of marriage, millennia-old norms of gender identity, bath and locker-room privacy, have all been affected by court decisions as a sea change in social mores has swept through the western world. People of Biblical faith are witnessing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s warning, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” [Isaiah 5:20]
Charles Swindoll wrote about these men who bring in animals from Africa for American zoos. They say that one of the hardest animals to catch there is the ringtailed monkey. For the Zulus of that continent, however, it’s simple. They’ve been catching this agile little animal with ease for years.
Over the past few days, one of our servers that hosts roughly 20 different web sites was breached and used to send SPAM. While there was no real damage done, the thousands of bounced messages literally caused the server to shut down. There was no personal information stored on the server, however, the hours spent setting up a new server in the midst of a speaking tour created chaos which we really didn’t have the time to deal with. However, the worst of it is all over, and we’re back! Just as we’re getting ready to launch another website (https://worthy.bible) for the Kingdom … we get attacked from all sides!
When I teach about “understanding the will of God,” I’d like to talk about a story that is told in all the synoptic gospels, except that Luke’s account gives a significant nuance. (Many skeptical Bible “critics” point out differences in the gospels to argue that they can’t be reliable — yet it’s actually the differences that support the validity of these accounts because they reveal that the events recorded were simply experienced and told from slightly different viewpoints, a very common circumstance when people are telling a story.)
From the beginning, we anticipated a time when we would need to produce all our news content. Over the past month, as many of you are aware, we’ve fully shifted to generating articles exclusively through our dedicated in-house writing team. We’ve also expanded as we continue to freely syndicate our news to any online Christian ministry. Operating on faith and independent of advertising revenue, our ministry’s content is driven not by external factors but by a deep commitment to fulfilling the Lord’s will.