By David J. Stewart | June 2017
1st Chronicles 28:9, “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.”
I've been
listening regularly to the King James Bible each morning. I have the
MP3's, which I copied to my computer. I
strongly recommend to all my web visitors listening to the King James Bible
each morning, as it is such a blessing. Proverbs 8:17, “I love them that
love me; and
those that seek me early shall find me.”
We seek God by getting into the Holy Scriptures and fellowshipping with Him.
I go walking each morning, after listening to the King James Bible and pray
as I walk. Notice that I keep mentioning “King James Bible.” If you don't
have a King James, you don't have a Holy Bible!!!
I heard the following awesome Scripture today from 1st Chronicles 28:9, “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.” I see a few golden nuggets of truth in there!
First, God searcheth ALL hearts! What a beautiful truth!!! Rich people have a sinful tendency to disregard the lives of the poor, imprisoned and outcasts of society. My friend, God searches the heart of every malnourished and starving person in Africa! God searches the heart of every person incarcerated behind bars in prison! God searches every pastor's heart! God searches every layman's heart in the pew. God searches the heart of EVERY man, woman and child on the earth!!!
Second, God understandeth the imaginations of the thoughts! Proverbs 24:12, “If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” God monitors everyone's soul 24/7. Also, see Psalm 139:1-6. Psalm 139:1, “O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.” My friend, God knows everything about you, inside and out. One of the necessities of walking with God is to be completely honest; hence, His commandment in James 4:9, “purify your hearts, ye double minded.” Here's the full text from James 4:8-10, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”
Third, if we seek God, we WILL find Him!!! The Holy Bible makes this promise. I have received many letters over the years, from web visitors testifying how they were blinded at one time by religion, but they keep searching for God and eventually found Him. God searches your heart and mine continually. So He knows who is seeking Him. If you seek Him, He will know it! And He will reward you for it! He will draw nigh unto you too! That is His solemn promise in James 4:8. What a wonderful God that wants to be close to His creatures! The choice is ours alone to make. God has already made it very clear that He desires for all men to repent (think differently) and believe the Gospel (2nd Peter 3:9). Revelation 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” We were created to please God. Enoch pleased God, which I'll get into next.
I heard the following awesome Scripture passage today. Hebrews 11:5-6, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” I love that promise! God rewards (or becomes a rewarder) of those who diligently seek Him. Enoch pleased God because He had faith. I think Christians have heard Hebrews 11:6 preached on so much, that they fail to grasp the awesomeness of this truth.
My friend, GOD IS PLEASED BY FAITH!!!
Faith is what compels us to pray, and to keep praying when it seems like God
is ignoring us. Psalms 44:23, “Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise,
cast us not off for ever.” Remember, a faith must be tested!!! To him
that believeth, no explanation is necessary; to him that believeth not, no
explanation is possible! Faith doesn't place God on trial. Faith is the
evidence of things not seen, that is, the life that we live because of the
unseen world that we accept by faith. I created all of my websites BY FAITH,
which are the evidence of spiritual things not seen.
Sin Begins in the Mind
When the Holy Bible speaks of the “heart,” it refers to your subconscious mind. God created humans with a mind to think, a heart to feel and a will to decide. When a foolish thought enters into our mind, we must choose with our will whether to uphold that thought, or cast down that thought with the Word of God. 2nd Corinthians 10:5, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Whatever we choose influences our heart, either strengthening or undermining our character.
Matthew 9:4, “And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?”
Psalms 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”
Psalms 49:3, “My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.”
Psalms 104:34, “My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.”
Psalms 139:23, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Bad thoughts will lead us to bad actions and sin, so we need to get our thoughts under control. I highly recommend listening to the excellent and helpful video sermon by Pastor Steven Anderson titled, “SINS OF THE MIND” (NEEDFUL PREACHING!!!) Evil thoughts will eventually defile a man and destroy us. Proverbs 4:23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
I typed out this life-changing quote from Pastor Anderson's sermon, “SINS OF THE MIND”...
“God's Word is the weapon of our warfare to defend our mind, to battle against the assault on our mind that takes place daily. And when you understand how important this is, you can see that Satan is out to get your mind! You know—through TV, through music, through advertisements, through billboards, through magazines, through wicked people that you come into contact with—he's constantly trying to get into your mind, to corrupt your mind, pervert your mind, get you to think wicked thoughts, get you to think an evil thought—and he wants to get into your mind!!!”
SOURCE: Pastor Steven Anderson; A life-changing quote from the 2013 sermon, “SINS OF THE MIND.”
Young men and women can still have clean minds and live right in 2017!!! God never commands us to do anything that is not within our power to do. Behind every tragedy in human character is a slow process of wicked thinking. Bob Jones Sr. (1883-1968) said that over a half century ago, and he's absolutely right!!!
“You will be successful at what you think about in your spare time!”
SOURCE: Pastor Steven Anderson; A life-changing quote from the 2013 sermon, “SINS OF THE MIND” (40:33 time in the YouTube video).
A young person recently wrote to me, saying that they want to serve God full-time, but are considering attending a secular college and wanted my opinion. ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! I wouldn't recommend secular university even if you don't want to serve God full-time. More young people's faith has been ruined by heathen secular colleges than anything else!!!
“If you don't believe the Bible, if you don't believe in God, you can't really say that anything's right or wrong, with any real authority. ... Our morality comes from the Bible. Atheists just kind of make their own morality. It's just an objective morality that they make up. And then they try to impose it on you! Their morality!”
SOURCE: Pastor Steven L. Anderson; a quote from the YouTube video titled, "Eye For An Eye"; Full video titled, "Commandments From Exodus 6; published October 7, 2014).
You are going to be successful at what you think about during your spare time. So ask yourself, “What do I want to be successful at?” And that is what you need to think about in your spare time. Mediate upon the Word of God if you want to be a good Christian. That's why Joshua instructed God's people to MEDIATE THEREIN DAY AND NIGHT in the Holy Scriptures, so that they could have GOOD SUCCESS...
Joshua 1:8, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
One of the biggest problems in churches today
is that people have been deceived by the Devil, and his false shepherds,
taught to meditate in the corruptible seed of the modern Bible revisions.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you meditate in a corrupt Bible, your mind is going
to be poisoned and corrupted with lies!!! Burn your Alexandrian modern Bible
PERversions, and get you a beloved KING JAMES BIBLE!!!
Praying and Seeking God is by Faith, Not by Sight
Every Christian, unless they are lying, experiences unanswered prayers (or at least what seems like unanswered prayers). I sure have. One of my helpful web visitors (he gave me the HTML code to search multiple websites at once), asked me what I thought about Mark 11:24. Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” You've got to be careful with this Scripture. For example: Does this Scripture mean that a woman who is barren, can pray for a child, believing, and then God is obligated to give her conception? It doesn't work that way my friend, as many of you know. 1st John 5:14, “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.” This Verse must be taken into account when we interpret Mark 11:24. Therefore, we know that if we ask anything according to God's will, believing, we will receive it.
God ALWAYS hears the prayers of the righteous. That is, saved (righteous) and living holy (sanctified). A believer who does evil will not be blessed by the Lord. 1st Peter 3:12, “For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” These truths are further elaborated upon in the remaining Scriptures from 1st Peter 3:13-17, “And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.” So if you are born-again by faith in the Gospel, and you are dedicated to pleasing God with your speech, behavior and life, then God's ear is toward you, awaiting your requests (Philippians 4:6-7).
So we learn that, if we ask for anything according to His will, believing, we will receive it from God. Faith is trusting God, giving Him the benefit of the doubt that He always knows best. Faith is praying and then completely waiting upon the Lord, satisfied regardless of the results. I have too many unanswered prayers to list or even remember, but as I grow older, I am now seeing how old prayers were being answered behind the scenes and God did help me out, when I thought He had abandoned me. God's hand is not seen working in weeks, months or even years, but in decades! Hindsight is 20/20, but the future is uncharted waters. One day in Heaven, God will show us the whole big picture, and we'll be able to go back, just like we can now to examine the biographies of hundreds of faithful saints in the Old Testament. It will all make sense then! I am presently praying for things from God. I need His help. I am asking Him to work behind the scenes, as only God can do, and so wonderfully often does. I trust the Lord with my life! Job 13:15, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.”
The word “rewarder” here, misthapodotes,
means “a remunerator,” that is, God makes it worth our effort, blessing us.
The word “diligently” here, ekzeteo, means “to search out, that is,
(figuratively) investigate, crave, demand.” John 5:39, “Search
the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and
they are they which testify of me.” The Bible promises us that if we
seek God, sincerely searching the Scriptures, He will draw close to us (we
will find Him). That is exactly what God promises in
Proverbs 8:17, “I love them that love me; and
those that seek me early shall find me.”
And again in James 4:8-10 we are
promised, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to
you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye
double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be
turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the
sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Don't miss those
requirements in James 4:9-10. We must humble our self in the Lord's
presence, being honest about things, and sincere, having a humble heart of
gratitude and sorrow over sin. James 4:6, “But he giveth more grace.
Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the
humble.”
Salvation is by Faith
The unsaved world doesn't understand the believer's faith. It has everything to do with the condition of our heart. If a person has an evil heart of unbelief, then nothing you say to them, no amount of evidence, is going to convince them of the truth. But if a person has a grateful heart toward God, a repentant heart, then they are going to receive the truth and believe the Gospel (John 3:19-20).
I also heard this interesting Verse today... Hebrews 11:3, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” I noticed something today in Hebrews 11:3 that I never saw before. We hear atheists and skeptics, like Stephen Hawking, placing God on trial and questioning the Word of God; however, as we just read in Hebrews 11:3, it is only THROUGH FAITH that we understand that the universe was creating out of nothing. Dr. Hawking ridiculously claims that the universe came from nothing with God, because he has to concede that all we see came from nothing. So he clings to a half-truth to justify his sin of unbelief. Dr. Hawking admits that the universe came from nothing, but has no reasonable explanation for the thinking man to grasp. The Word of God makes perfect sense to those who love the truth.
A man couldn't ask for a better God than the awesome God of the Holy Bible!!! Micah 7:18, “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.” Here is a very precious quote from Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001) from a sermon he preached in 1987...
“You're not unsaved because you're bad. You're not unsaved because you're mean. You're not unsaved because you're a drunkard. You're not unsaved because you're an adulterer. You're not unsaved because you're a liar. You're unsaved for one reason—YOU HAVE NOT SUBMITTED YOUR SELF UNTO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD! God offers to give you His righteousness, to put on your record in Heaven, to cover your sins—not to stop your sins, you'll still be imperfect after you get saved—but judicially God offers to put His record in Heaven on your record, and blot out your sins as far as God's sight of your sins is concerned. And that is the imputation of God's righteousness!!!”
SOURCE: Dr. Jack Hyles - A quote from the classic MP3 sermon, “The Mystery Of Godliness.”
I have the best and most terrific God in all the universe and beyond, and His name is Jesus Christ!!! My Lord and my God...
John 20:26-28, “And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.”
