The
TRUE HOPE TIMES
September 28, 2012
Greetings from True Hope!
Greetings!
We have just over a month now before the national and presidential elections which means that time is just about expired to get registered to vote!

If you are not registered to vote, please do so and then on November 6 - - VOTE! Pray for God's guidance and don't let the politics and propaganda polls convince you that it is all over with a foregone conclusion as to who will be the winners! 

While we may not have the best choices, don't fall for the old saying that it is a choice between the "lesser of two evils"!  Instead, look at the candidate that is the most likely to defend our right to live righteously and proclaim the Gospel!

A word of caution here, the current president has stated that everyone has the right to worship - - but the constitution states that we have the right to EXERCISE our religion, not just to worship!

We must pay close attention to what the politicians are actually saying and from their own words we can discern who is most likely to serve correctly!

Just a few thoughts to ponder - and reasons to pray for our Lord's guidance in the affairs of our nation!

I
MANY BLESSINGS!
Dr. Timothy
From Dr. Timothy D.TH
SOURCES
of FEAR
Part Two
 
Supernatural or Spiritual Fear

To begin with, we must clear up a long lived misunderstanding about the realm of realities that are beyond the "natural" realm and these are:
  • Supernatural
  • Spiritual
Ephesians 6:12 tells us:  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Notice that God's Word does not tell us that there is wickedness in spiritual places (where God is) but that there is spiritual wickedness (satan was created a spirit being) in HIGH places!  Those high places are not in God's Heaven but they do occur in places higher than our realm of normal reality, which is what should be called the "supernatural realm"!  

Let's look at this, while the Bible does not use the term "supernatural", here is a diagram that may help you to understand what I am about to teach . . .

God is a spirit!

God does not do things by natural or "super"-natural means! 
God does things BY HIS SPIRIT!


For God to do something "super"naturally, He would still be doing things below HIS realm of reality!

Satan however is a corrupted spirit being, so he cannot be spiritual, thus he can only take what God has done and try by his own means to either corrupt God's works or to counterfeit works to try to show that he is somehow equal to God!

Remember, satan was originally the angel Lucifer and as an angel he did and does have these things in common with all other angels - - The devil (an angelic being) is a LITTLE higher than man, see Psalms 8. 

The devil can manifest himself into different forms, whether as that of an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) or can possess the body of another creature - see Genesis 3:1 when he inhabited the body of a serpent!

Thus, satan can by supernatural means (corrupted spiritual abilities), that is misusing his inherent abilities, do many things to manufacture, produce or cause FEAR to come upon humans, even the saints of God!

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ..." Psalms 111:10.

This is SPIRITUAL fear which is simply (not complicated) this:  To see ourselves in contrast and comparison to what and how God is!  Or, as David said, "... we are dust", Psalms103:14.

When an unsaved person sees, for the first time, himself in comparison to God; his uncleanness compared to God's holiness; his smallness in contrast to God's Omni-everything; then realizes what we deserve because of our unholiness and iniquity - - THAT is the fear that motivates us toward wisdom, and causes us to take that first step of wisdom which is to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in repentance!

BUT SUPERNATURAL fear is satan trying to do the same thing in order to capture your service and, if possible, your worship!  Because we are a little lower in status than the angelic creatures, satan does things to cause us to see ourselves in comparison to HIM rather than God and since he is bigger, stronger, smarter and more capable than we are, many people - even Christians - have a fear of satan which causes them to do things that God says we are not to do!

Spiritual fear is God's way to motivate us to do what is right.  That is, to repent of sin and sin's influence because we see it in light of God's righteousness and the power of His love for we who are His children!

Supernatural fear is satan's way to misdirect our thoughts to do what is destructive:  NOT TRUST GOD!  Unchecked, supernatural fear will overwhelm all "spiritual reason" and at the time we need to jump into the hands of our Heavenly Father - - we either become spiritually paralyzed or jump back instead - - just like the brothers of David and the armies of Israel when being confronted by Goliath!!

Contemplate this for a week and we will conclude this study next issue!

Many blessings!          
Dr. Timothy

PROPHET'S CORNER

As we are assembling this issue, even today, there is now in the United States a movement to outlaw speaking against the faith of Islam as a false religion or in any way that the Muslims decide is "blasphemy" against their beloved prophet!
Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are not only witnessing but soon to experience the warnings of Jesus as never before in A.D. history - -

"And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.
"But when they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.
"It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household!
"Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.
"Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops.
"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."  Jesus, Matthew 10:22-28
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'Jesus Not Allowed': Anti-Faith Sentiment Sweeps US

http://www.cbn.com

Could you imagine going to jail for your faith? A recent report warns that it could happen.

CBN News investigated the growing wave of hostility to Christianity in America that's led to hundreds of court cases.

Angela Hildenbrand faced the very real possibility of going to jail for her faith. The trouble began when a federal judge ruled that no one at her Texas high school could pray or even use words like "prayer" or "amen" during the 2011 graduation ceremonies.

As class valedictorian, Hildenbrand felt God deserved the praise, even if it meant jail for her. 

"I was definitely preparing myself to have to make that sort of tough decision and mentally prepare myself for what well could be coming next," she told CBN News.

Hildenbrand's case is just one of more than 640 cases of religious hostility cited in a new report by the Liberty Institute. General Counsel Jeff Mateer, who takes on many of these cases, helped put the survey together.

"The atheists and the secularists are well-organized and they're well-funded," the Liberty Institute attorney told CBN News. 

"The rate of hostility to people of faith is overwhelming," he said. "It's increasing. Every day, we're getting calls." 

One call involved the Veterans Administration demanding to preview Scott Rainey's prayer for a Memorial Day ceremony at Houston National Cemetery. 

They told Rainey, who pastors the Living Word Church of the Nazarene in Houston, he couldn't pray "in Jesus' name." 

"I have never said a prayer in my life where I didn't end it saying 'in the name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen,'" Pastor Rainey said.

Contending for the Faith

Mateer is also working to save this veteran's memorial cross in San Diego, one of several cases that could have serious national consequences if courts order their removal. 

"Are we going to bulldoze all those crosses?" Mateer asked. "We're going to sandblast God from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?" 

But Mateer says the good news is, when believers fight back, they usually win.

"You need to stand up and fight," he said. "And that's exactly what Angela did." 

Just one day before Hildenbrand's graduation, an appeals court ruled she could pray and say whatever she wanted. 

"I thank You for Your great love for us and for our great nation, where we are free," she prayed at her graduation. "And it's in Jesus' name I pray, amen." 

Courts eventually ruled that Pastor Rainey -- and all veterans at burials -- are allowed to freely express their faith.

But there is an across-the-board assault of religious hostility, and Americans' religious liberty hangs in the balance.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

‘It Feels Like the End Times’
From:  "The Trumpet"

September 25, 2012  •  From theTrumpet.com
Increasingly you hear it in café conversations, and read it in the media: ‘It feels like the end times.’

I like Ben Stein.

I’ve never met him, yet I feel I know him from his regular homilies in the American Spectator.

Ben seems like a very practical, down-to-earth fellow. A decent chap, as human beings go.

But a new note of concern has crept into Ben Stein’s writings recently, born not only of his own down-to-earth observations, but also those of the average Joe and Jill from the street.

In three articles this month, Ben has referred to the end times. Not only that. He’s expressed his own feeling that we are living through those very end times today.

In his September 14 piece, Ben described how his day opened:

At breakfast, my wife suddenly said, “And then I beheld a red horse ridden by a man with a great sword ….”

“What is that?” I asked her.

“It’s Revelation,” she said.

“I know, but where does that come from?”

“I just feel as if something big is about to happen,” she said. “Something feels like we’re about to live in a totally changed world. It feels like end times. Why are we apologizing to the Muslims? They’re killing and expelling their Christians and we don’t say a word. End times.”

I nodded. There is that feeling in the air.

Later that morning, Ben had an exchange with a restaurateur who opined, “These are getting to be biblical days,” he said. “The final days.”

In his piece of yesterday’s date, Ben mused, “[T]hese do not feel like normal days. They feel like latter days.”

Qualifying that statement, Ben Stein concluded:

There is just a feeling in the air, a look in the sky at dusk, a look on people’s faces. Fear is everywhere. … When the American media turns its back on our own religions of tolerance and adores a religion of intolerance, times are upside down. The msm [mainstream media] says it’s all fine, trust The Prince of Grant Park, Chicago. But I have always preferred the admonition, “Put not your trust in princes.” Something is wrong.

It sure is, Ben.

But the hope is in what follows.

Something is wrong, very, very wrong, and it’s been shaping up for a grand climax at the close of this great age of wrongness for centuries—even for millennia. But it’s all about to come crashing down— SUDDENLY!

The prophecies of your Bible declare it.

The abject moral poverty of the Washington administration as demonstrated in its shameful inaction to the rash of murdered diplomats at the hands of those perverse Islamic extremist hate mongers is about to be avenged by the only One qualified to exact perfect, righteous vengeance—“Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19).

Events in the Middle East are building toward an explosive end which will see an international force from one of the historically most cruelly crusading regimes, a resurrected Holy Roman Empire, surrounding Jerusalem: “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near” (Luke 21:20).

That great event prophesied by Jesus Christ is oh! so close now!

And in that lies the hope. For as your Savior declared, “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

Yes, Ben. It sure feels like the end times, for, of a truth, the signs are that we are living right now amid those prophesied “latter days” of the end times!

Yet in those very signs lays the greatest hope of all—the end of those latter days heralds a much, much greater new beginning! (Daniel 2:44).



TIME WITH TRUE HOPE TEACHERS . . . Michael Cochran
Michael is a Live Study Consultant with True Hope Bible Institute as well as a doctoral student.

ANYBODY CAN QUIT!

Ball-Peen Hammer got his nickname because he was practically bald by his senior year of high school and with a 42” vertical leap could throw the hammer down with the best of them. College recruiters had been canvassing every game for the past two years and it had basically come down to which elite program could sale themselves and woo this highly touted star into their program.

However, Hammer was torn between his love and desire to play basketball or go into the ministry. He had such a passion for missions and that desire grew stronger every day. “Here we go again,” he thought. Hammer woke up in the morning with the same reoccurring thought going through his mind. He had a decision to make and unfortunately it was one only he could make.

It was now mid February and the season was almost over. Hammer had signed several letters of intent that relieved some of the pressure and narrowed the field but still hadn’t committed to play at a specific school. Practiced had ran over and he was late for a bible study he headed up on Wednesday nights.

The glare reflecting off the snow-covered road from his headlights blinded him from seeing the deer standing in the road as he rounded the curve. Hammer swerved to miss and went into a tail-spin ending up over a forty-foot embankment in a creek bed. In a blink of an eye, not only was his knee shattered. The dreams he had nurtured, playing ball at the next level seemed to fade away into some lost memory.

Hammer decided to attend the University of his choice without a scholarship. Then rehab as a walk-on through their athletic department with a determination to regain full mobility and hopefully try out for the squad the following season. His dad had always said. “Son, winning is no more than this: To rise each time you fall.” That was always encouraging as a young athlete when things weren’t going so well, but never did it have as much meaning as it did now.

There were many occasions that Hammer could’ve thrown in the towel and given up, but he remembered the sign posted in his old high school locker room that read, “Anybody can quit.” It was short but said it all. Over the next year he hung in there, maintained his faith and stayed in touch with his dream and commitment. Actually enjoying the journey that laid between where he was now and where he was going. The next season came after what seemed to be an eternity and Hammer made the team. He wasn’t getting much playing time, but he continued to work hard to get his game back. After two years, his opportunity came and his persistence paid off. Hammer was having the “Outbreak” year that he’d often imagined as a kid growing up.

Hammer was certain for the next level when his college days were over, but remained faithful in his love for missions. He spent each summer doing missionary work in “Third World Countries.” And, knew that his basketball days were short in comparison to the plans the Lord had for him in the mission field.

Trust Him to carry you. Deuteronomy 1:31 says, “And you saw how the Lord your God cared for you all along the way as you traveled through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child. Now he has brought you to this place.” (NLT)

The End

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The Fire Falls

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

James 2:26

For a long time I have believed that truth, to be understood, must be lived; that Bible doctrine is wholly ineffective until it has been digested and assimilated by the total life....

We must be willing to obey if we would know the true inner meaning of the teachings of Christ and the apostles. I believe this view prevailed in every revival that ever came to the church during her long history. Indeed a revived church may be distinguished from a dead one by the attitude of its members toward the truth. The dead church holds to the shell of truth without surrendering the will to it, while the church that wills to do God's will is immediately blessed with a visitation of spiritual powers.

Theological facts are like the altar of Elijah on Carmel before the fire came, correct, properly laid out, but altogether cold. When the heart makes the ultimate surrender, the fire falls and true facts are transmuted into spiritual truth that transforms, enlightens, sanctifies. The church or the individual that is Bible taught without being Spirit taught (and there are many of them) has simply failed to see that truth lies deeper than the theological statement of it.   

Lord, send the fire today. Amen.


Tozer on Christian Leadership: A 366-Day Devotional.

=================

For Thy Sake

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.

Luke 9:24

A Christian poet of a bygone generation wrote a rather long hymn around a single idea: You can, by three little words, turn every common act of your life into an offering acceptable to God. The words are "For Thy sake."...

All this seems too simple to be true, but Scripture and experience agree to declare that it is indeed the way to sanctify the ordinary. "For Thy sake" will rescue the little, empty things from vanity and give them eternal meaning. The lowly paths of routine living will by these words be elevated to the level of a bright highway. The humdrum of our daily lives will take on the quality of a worship service and the thousand irksome duties we must perform will become offerings and sacrifices acceptable to God by Christ Jesus.

To God there are no small offerings if they are made in the name of His Son. Conversely, nothing appears great to Him that is given for any other reason than for Jesus' sake. If we cannot die for Christ we can live for Him, and sometimes this is more heroic and will bring a larger reward.

"For Thy sake." These are the wondrous words which, when they are found in the heart as well as in the mouth, turn water into wine and every base metal into gold.  

Lord, whatever seemlingly small thing I am called on to do today, let me do it joyfully for Your sake. Amen.


Tozer on the Almighty God: A 366-Day Devotional.


 
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WAITING ON GOD

The God of Our Salvation

"My soul waiteth only upon God [marg: is silent unto God]; from Him cometh my salvation." (Psalm 62:1)

If salvation indeed comes from God, and is entirely His work, just as creation was, it follows, as a matter of course, that our first and highest duty is to wait on Him to do the work that pleases Him. Waiting becomes then the only way to the experience of a full salvation, the only way, truly, to know God as the God of our salvation.

All the difficulties that are brought forward as keeping us back from full salvation, have their cause in this one thing: the defective knowledge and practice of waiting upon God. All that the Church and its members need for the manifestation of the mighty power of God in the world, is the return to our true place, the place that belongs to us, both in creation and redemption, the place of absolute and unceasing dependence upon God.

Let us strive to see what the elements are that make up this most blessed and needful waiting upon God: it may help us to discover the reasons why this grace is so little cultivated, and to feel how infinitely desirable it is that the Church, that we ourselves, should at any price learn its blessed secret.

The deep need for this Waiting on God lies equally in the nature of man and the nature of God. God, as Creator, formed man, to be a vessel in which He could show forth His power and goodness. Man was not to have in himself a fountain of life, or strength, or happiness: the ever-living and only living One was each moment to be the Communicator to him of all that he needed.

Man's glory and blessedness was not to be independent, or dependent upon himself, but dependent on a God of such infinite riches and love. Man was to have the joy of receiving every moment out of the fulness of God. This was his blessedness as an unfallen creature.

When he fell from God, he was still more absolutely dependent on Him. There was not the slightest hope of his recovery out of his state of death, but in God, His power and mercy.

It is God alone who began the work of redemption; it is God alone who continues and carries it on each moment in each individual believer.

Even in the regenerate man there is no power of goodness in himself: he has and can have nothing that he does not each moment receive; and Waiting on God is just as indispensable, and must be just as continuous and unbroken, as the breathing that maintains his natural life.

It is, then, because Christians do not know their relation to God of absolute poverty and helplessness, that they have no sense of the need of absolute and unceasing dependence, or the unspeakable blessedness of continual Waiting on God.

But when once a believer begins to see it, and consent to it, that he by the Holy Spirit must each moment receive what God each moment works, Waiting on God becomes his brightest hope and joy. As he apprehends how God, as God, as Infinite Love, delights to impart His own nature to His child as fully as He can, how God is not weary of each moment keeping charge of his life and strength, he wonders that he ever thought otherwise of God than as a God to be waited on all the day. God unceasingly giving and working; His child unceasingly waiting and receiving: this is the blessed life.

"Truly my soul waiteth upon God; from Him cometh my salvation." First we wait on God for salvation. Then we learn that salvation is only to bring us to God, and teach us to wait on Him. Then we find what is better still, that Waiting on God is itself the highest salvation. It is the ascribing to Him the glory of being All; it is the experiencing that He is All to us.

May God teach us the blessedness of waiting on Him.

"My soul, wait thou only upon God!"



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