Month: February 2022

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

Each scar has a story and there, for good or bad, are part of my life.”

                    –D.C. Adkisson  (Winter of the Wolves)

       “In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good.”
                    –Ecclesiastes 11:6 (NKJV)
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Life is tough, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.  But then what do we expect–a bed of roses?  Things happen, there are those out there ready to do you in this cut-throat world.  Peter Marshal prayed this prayer, “With stout hearts may we see in every calamity an opportunity and not give way to the pessimist that sees in every opportunity a calamity.”
       Whatever is your situation–on the job, at home, family, sickness, continue to cry out to God.  Oh, but He allowed me to get the virus, continue to cry out to God.  Keep your voice going to God.  Keep bringing your trial before the Lord.

          1 — Make haste, O God, to deliver me!  Make haste to help me, O LORD!
          2 — Let them be ashamed and confounded who seek my life; let them be turned back and confused who desire my hurt.
          3 — Let them be turned back because of their shame, who say, “Aha, aha!”
          4 — Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; and let those who love Your salvation say continually, “Let God be magnified!”
          5 — But I am poor and needy; make haste to me, O God!  You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay.  (NKJV)

Sometimes we get to the place like David when he penned Psalm 70.  God seemed slow to answer.  It is not because He is powerless, nor that He does not care.  “Why then this lackadaisical pace in God?  Is it because victories gained after hard-fought battles are more enjoyed?  Or, do you learn the lesson better?  Could it be that you need the external wait in order for your internal life to be remodeled?  Is it possible that God is interweaving plans for other people’s lives with yours–and you have to wait for them in order for the more perfect blending of the intersection of His plan for them and you?” (George O. Wood)
       During the ordeal, the trial, we rarely take time to investigate what God is doing, but we know we want Him to be doing something!  Why?  I do not understand.  I see that nothing really happened with David.  He ends the psalm where he began.  Though “poor and needy” he knows that God is great enough to help him.  This psalm ends then with a call to action for faith.

                    “Make haste, O God, and hear my cries;
                    Then with the souls who seek thy face,
                    And those who thy salvation prize,
                    I’ll magnify thy matchless grace.”
                              –Charles Haddon Spurgeon

 

Coffee Percs

by Ira Paine, Posted on

You must be cold. A little hot coffee would do you good.”

                    –Elmer Kelton  (Barbed Wire)
 
Get in this kitchen Pard, don’t yuh know it’s cold outside?  Brrr, it goes right to my bones anymore.  It don’t take much for the ol’ fence post to get a chill.  Listen, Pard, and I know I’m right, I’m a long way from workin’ out in sub-zero weather.  Nope, I’ll take all the warmth Texas has for me right now, and that ain’t much.  Hope all is well at yur place.  I’ll be gettin’ the coffee.
       I heard somethin’ just the other day.  The broadcaster said for the first time America had an openly non-binary contendin’.  Yuh know, I had to go scratchin’ at my head.  Bein’ the questionin’ guy that I am I went to the trusty phone and here is the definition I was given.  “Non-binary or genderqueer is an umbrella term for gender identities that are neither male nor female–identities that are outside the gender binary.  They may have a third gender, no gender, or a fluctuating gender identity.  Pard, are yuh gettin’ this?  In other words, that person is confused!
       Now, if he does not consider himself a male, why does he perform as one?  The Olympics, as other sports, is becomin’ a hot-bed for Satan’s schemes and political agendas.  Yuh tell me how a person can float back and forth from one gender to another?  Yuh tell me, how that person is gonna stand before God and give answer to what it has done with the life God gave them.  Pard, I just don’t understand.
      Well, I just shake my head over that one some more, but I do have somethin’ to tell yuh.  The ol’ China virus finally got us.  Not too bad except I want to sleep.  Little cough,  no sore throat or and little fever.  I really don’t feel bad.  Don’ yuh be worryin’.  I didn’t mean for yuh to jump up and spill yur coffee; I thought yuh would take the news in a more sophisticated method.  Don’t be a-frettin’.  Here’s a rag, yuh don’t need to wipe it up with yur bandanna.  Better be drinkin’ up and get those insides all warm for in a few minutes yu’ll be out in it.  Brrr.
       Yuh take care this week.  Be sure an’ check yur cinch.  Yuh don’t want to fall off in this cold weather an’ break somethin’.
        Vaya con Dios.

 

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on
There is a big difference between starting and finishing the course.”
                    –D.C. Adkisson (Winter of the Wolves)

       “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
                    –John 16:33 (NKJV)
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How to Live in a Pagan, Apostate, and Foolish World

Key Verse:  “We know we are children of God and that the world around us is under the power and control of the evil one.”  –1 John 5:19 (NLT)

John is emphatically telling us in no uncertain terms that the whole object of his writing is for each one of us to KNOW that we possess eternal life.  He writes, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13, NASB).  Think of that!  We are now standing on the threshold of eternity!  
       Life isn’t over for the believer at death, it is just beginning.  As children of God we can rest assured in this.  We cannot know God apart from Jesus Christ.  The world may tell us that there are many ways to God, or that God does not even exist, but friend, we know, we know, we know.  Remember the old saying, “born once two deaths, born twice one death.”  For the child of God eternity is not about death or sorrow, but about living with Christ through the ages to come.
       Then why do we have this attitude toward the world?  Why do we harbor  materialism, humanism seeking those things that will hinder our walk with Christ?  What in this world really can interest me?  People seek to obtain, more and more–why?  This world holds nothing on us.

               “According to John, Christians are men and women who have come to view the world in an entirely new manner.  They see that it is governed by sin.  They have come to regard it as a place in which evil forces are at work and whose whole mind is but the working of the spirit of the world.  They know that it is something they have to fight, some-thing to withstand, and they realize that unless they do so they will be defeated.”
                              –D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

       True Christians are those who have overcome the world.  Christ has redeemed us.  We are new creatures and we are rising above the world and the lusts thereof.  We are conquerors, in fact more than conquerors.  As we travel through the world the Christian has come to recognize that, yes, we are in the world, but the world no longer is my home; I am not of it.  Yes, there may be times of sin and failure in my journey, but I do not dally in it, I do not stay down and grovel in it, I do not gloat over it.  I know that He is faithful and just to forgive (1 John 1:9).  Keeping God’s commandments become paramount for those who love Christ will keep His commandments.
       We don’t travel on our journey heavy-hearted, but we think of the glory that awaits us and we recall the words of Paul.

               “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.  For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
                             –2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NASB)

What do we love?  What draws our attention?  Is Christ really all I need (Psalm 23:1).  Oh, Lord, help us to keep our eyes only on You as we travel in this life.

               “My Jesus I love Thee, I know thou art mine,
               To the all the follies of sin I resign,
               My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou,
               If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.”
                               –William Ralf Featherstone

 

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

I believe people should be landmarks just like those Peaks out yonder.”

                       –D.C. Adkisson  (Redemption)

       “Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from you heart all the days of your life.  And teach them to your children and your grandchildren.”
                       –Deuteronomy 4:9 (NKJV)
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I believe that one of my main callings in this later part of my life is one of a Reminder.  That’s my job in my “old age” to keep reminding my kids and grandkids of the Lord, to be steady, alert, and trusting always in Him.  
       The Book of Jude is placed strategically in front of Revelation.  Jude is a book that reminds believers of the past and how God judged the past, and a reminder to continue onward in the doctrine of the apostles until the coming of the Lord.  He reminds his readers that the Lord is coming and there is a great day of judgment.  “But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 17)
       Jude reminds the people to beware of false prophets, he reminds them of the angels who fell from heaven and are kept in chains, he reminds them of Sodom and Gomorrah and their great sin.  The people have to be reminded it seems–it is vital, it is imperative, it is important.  Jude reminds them of the evil that surrounds them and that they must be true until the return of the Lord.  He then also reminds them that the Lord is coming.
       Richard Dresselhaus implored us, “Keeping the story alive. Otherwise…in one generation it can be lost… Unless the stories of God’s mighty words are passed on…faith will soon disappear.”  Unless you and I continue to tell the stories of God’s Word they will not remember.  Unless we speak of the glories of God and His miracles and keeping power they will be forgotten.  A person once said there is nothing worse than nostalgia and he hated hearing about the past.  Then a person reminded him that amnesia was worse than nostalgia.  Not remembering is dangerous.  It is like walking out in a terrible storm holding up a lightning rod high in your hand.
       Paul reminds Timothy and Titus of the truth of doctrine and how important it is.  There are many who claim to want to know God, but they don’t care about the doctrine of God–who He is.  They want the perks of Christianity without the doctrine–the living of the life, hungering and thirsting after righteousness.  Paul says, “”But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions which happened to me…” (2 Timothy 3:10-11, NKJV)  He is reminding Timothy, then he continues, “But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.  But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them.”  (2 Timothy 3:13-14, NKJV)
       Remind your family that God is always faithful.  Remind them that He is coming soon.  Remind them that there is tribulation on the horizon and judgment is coming.  I think of Noah, preaching for 120 years about repenting and that judgment was coming.  Peter tells us he was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), but how many converts did he get?  Only his family.  Preaching, reminding the people of a just God.  Reminding them that today is the day of salvation.  He must have been frustrated seeing that there was no harvest for his preaching.
       Stand firm in the faith; trust always in the Lord; beware of evil and false prophets; discerning the spirits and the times, guard the truth, hold fast to the doctrine of God’s Word.  Be alert, fight the good fight, look up for your redemption draws near.  My friend in these tumultuous days be a Reminder for the signs of the times are everywhere.  I know that the grandparents are to leave the inheritance to the grandchildren (Proverbs 13:22).  Well, I don’t have one of silver or gold, but I do have a heritage of wealth.  I have riches untold, but they will have to get to the other side to receive them.  Seldom is there a day that goes by when I’m not reminding someone in my family to Remember and Get Ready!