One does not surrender his conscience, his soul, when he accepts a job. Each of us is still a man, and individually accountable for his sins.”
–Elmer Kelton (The Day the Cowboys Quit)

“If righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and ignore the obstacles I put in their way, they will die. And if you do not warn them, they will die in their sins. None of their righteous acts will be remembered, and I will hold you responsible for their deaths.”
–Ezekiel 3:20 (NLT)
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Do not be deceived my friends; the world is in turmoil and unrest. Evil is seen on every hand. It seems almost weekly there is some diabolical act somewhere in the world that takes place. Don’t get caught up with the media and the frenzy and believe the lie. Look at the words of Paul.

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
–2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 (NKJV)

I recently read an article by Stuart McAllister where he wrote, “Christianity is not an escape system for us to avoid reality, live above it, or be able to redefine it. Christianity is a way that leads us to grasp what reality is and, by God’s grace and help, to navigate through it to our eternal home.”
As Christians we should have an answer to the world’s problems and issues. Ahh, but the rub is that the world does not want to hear the answer that is Christ. There is the coming of the “lawless one”, but in the meantime God continues to present the truth. Part of our responsiblity is not only to proclaim truth, but to live truth as well. Your life might be the only truth a person sees and if they reject now, what will happen when the lawless one does appear?
Now is the day of salvation, therefore, do not forsake the truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth…” Yet will our life shine forth that truth? In the midst of the chaos and confusion we must stand for truth and live the truth. Someone said that, “Life is hard, God is good–don’t get the two confused.” McAllister wrote, “The longer we walk with God and face the pressures of life and change, the more we appreciate grace but also come to recognize how dependent we are in an ongoing way to complete the journey.”
It seems that there is more and more change, yet as believers we believe the words of Jesus that He is the same today, yesterday, and forever. We are not to grow weary in the midst of change but persevere holding and guarding the truth.

Western men were thinking of how things could be done; they were used to making do.”
–Louis L’Amour (The Cherokee Trail)

“Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.”
–1 Timothy 6:6 (NLT)
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“Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”
–Knowles Shaw

The farmer of yore understood the concept of this song. He went out to plant, but it would be weeks before he would be able to harvest. However, because he sowed the seeds, he fully expected a harvest. There are two things that we should remember as we go through this life. First, everyone we come in contact with is somewhere in the process. He might not be fertile ground, yet. Or as he comes in contact with you a seed is planted, then another might water. Someone led by the Holy Spirit might be the person involved in the harvest.
Second, you are involved somewhere in the process. You might be the one tilling the soil, or the one planting. Someone has to water and then there will be the person involved in the reaping. I always figured, most of the time I did the cultivating and pulling of weeds.

“Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,
Fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze;
By and by the harvest, and the labor ended,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”

I think it will be thrilling when we get to heaven and all the “sheaves” are accounted for and we see someone that we came in contact with along the way. We are always involved in the process; that it is why it is so important to guard and protect your witness. If we injure our testimony when we sow we might not sow on fertile ground, but on the stones.
The seasons of life come and go, but never do we cease our labor. It might change simply because our physical body changes. It might change because our physical location changes. But the labor should never cease.

“Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,
Tho’ the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;
When our weeping’s over, He will bid us welcome,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”

Psalm 30:5 states, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (NKJV) Sometimes the work of the taking care of our responsibility with the sheaves causes grief, pain, and sorrow. Sometimes the ground is not fertile. However, we must continue to do our part. It is important to remember that the person who actually does the reaping is the Holy Spirit. We, man, never saves anyone, but we are called to do our part.
Well, might as well sing out that chorus now, Oh yes…

“Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves;
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”

Now get out there and do your part!

Violence is an evil thing, but when the guns are all in the hands of the men without respect for human rights, then men are really in trouble.”
–Louis L’Amour (The Daybreakers)

“Confuse them, Lord, and frustrate their plans, for I see violence and conflict in the city.”
–Psalm 55:9 (NLT)
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I read an article with the following title: “School Shooter Taken Alive, Will We Now Have Answers?” The answer is emphatically “NO!” Man doesn’t want an answer when he wants an excuse. Right now I have seen the fault of the shooting last week in Florida has ranged from guns to President Trump to the NRA to the Congress to mental instability. NO! None of those things or people are at fault.
Let me direct you to what is at fault, and it is really two things. First, we live in an anti-God, amoral, totally tolerant society. When we began to “legally” allow abortions killing millions of babies, when the “legal” system said that God is no longer welcome in school we opened the floodgates for the breakdown of society. When society began to call right, wrong and wrong, right we began to head down the direction where all kinds of immoral and destructive actions will happen.
The second reason is that there is evil in this world. People laugh at the thought of a devil, someone who is determined to destroy mankind, but there is a real devil and he has a real agenda against God, thus the evil.
The fault of what has happened lies within the heart of man and the deception of Satan. Professing to be wise, they became fools,…Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” (Romans 1:22, 24-25, NASB)
The nation needs God, yet when you have the media scorning and mocking Vice-President Pence because he says he talks to God and God talks to him, saying that is a clear sign of mental illness, we are in trouble. The Bible is mocked and scorned and yet that is Word of God speaking to man. Throw it out and what do you have–chaos and destruction. Hmmm, I wonder if there is a connection: abortion/prayer not in schools with many of the attacks coming in schools?
By the way a little background. The AR-15 is not a high caliber weapon, it is a .223 and it is not fully automatic, but semi-automatic, you have to pull the trigger for each shot.
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Let’s take another look from Robert J. Morgan’s book at the life of Adoniram Judson. He asked for the hand of Ann Hasseltine in marriage but also warned her father of the dangers of her becoming the wife of a missionary. They were married and left for Burma in 1812. “By 1820, there were ten Burmese converts, but at a cost. One Judson child was stillborn; another died of tropical fever.
“When war broke out between Burma and England, Adoniram was accused of being a spy and placed in a death prison. His dark, dank cell was filled with vermin, and Adoniram was shackled at the ankles. Every evening he was hanged upside down with only his head and shoulders resting on the ground.
“Ann, pregnant again, visited one government official after another, urging her husband’s release. On February 16, 1825, eight months after Adoniram’s arrest, she showed up at his prison carrying a small bundle, their newborn daughter Maria.
“Torturous months followed. Adoniram was finally released, but both Ann and Maria soon died of fever. Adoniram suffered a mental breakdown that nearly took both his ministry and his life.”
(Ah, but get ahold of this!) “But God wasn’t finished with him. America’s first foreign missionary still had a world to change!”

Regrets are not actions.”
–Loren D. Estleman (The Hider)

“For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.”
–2 Corinthians 7:10 (NLT)
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I don’t often do this, or maybe the mind is just lazy, but I’m going to copy a devotion I read yesterday. It’s from a book titled, A Charles Dickens Devotional, by Jean Fischer.

“The thoughts of worldly men are for ever regulated by a moral law of gravitation, which, like the physical one, holds them down to earth. The bright glory of day, and the silent wonders of a starlit night, appeal to their minds in vain. There are no signs in the sun, or in the moon, or in the stars, for their reading. They are like some wise men, who, learning to know each planet by its Latin name, have quite forgotten such small heavenly constellations as Charity, Forbearance, Universal Love, and Mercy, although they shine by night and day so brightly that the blind may see them; and who, looking upward at the spangled sky, see nothing there but the reflections of their own great wisdom and book-learning.
It is curious to imagine these people…, busy in thought, turning their eyes towards the countless spheres that shine above us, and making them reflect the only images their minds contain. The man who lives but in the breath of princes, has nothing his sight but stars for courtiers’ breasts. The envious man beholds his neighbours’ honours even in the sky; to the money-hoarder, and the mass of worldly folk, the whole great universe above glitters with sterling coin–fresh from the mint–stamped with the sovereign’s head–coming always between them and heaven… So do the shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.
–Barnaby Rudge
Worldliness is defined in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary as: ‘of, relating to, or devoted to this world and its pursuits rather than to religion or spiritual affairs.’ In this passage from Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens offers a rich description of worldliness and how it separates us from God.
Jesus said, ‘No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other’ (Matthew 6:24 NIV). The apostle Paul added: ‘If any of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight.’ (1 Corinthians 3:18-19 NIV)
The opposite of worldliness is heavenly mindedness. We cannot be both at the same time. When we are heavenly minded, we live with Christ as our model, believing that He died for our sins. Second Corinthians 5:17 describes it this way: ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.’ When we set our minds on heavenly things, worldliness is no longer important to us. So choose to look up, keeping your eyes fixed on Christ and shifting your devotion from the world to God. Then watch as the glory of God unfolds in your life.”

“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” Colossians 3:2