Dirty-Mouthed Christians

Here is a timely topic from A.W. Tozer. He offers a point of view which needs to be considered in our culture of reckless speech, in many cases within the church, unfortunately.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers… Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. (Ephesians 4:29; 5:4)

"One of the most shocking things in the church is the dirty-mouthed Christian who always walks on the borderline. There is no place for borderline stories that embarrass some people, and there is nothing about sex or the human body that is funny if your mind is clear.

There was once a gathering of officers, and George Washington was present in the room. One of the young officers began to think about a dirty story that he wanted to tell, and got a smirk on his face. He looked around and said, “I’m thinking of a story. I guess their are no ladies present.”

Washington straightened up and said, “No, young man, but there are gentlemen.” The young officer shut his mouth and kept the dirty story inside his dirty head and heart. Anything you could not tell with Jesus present, do not tell. Anything you could not laugh at were Jesus present, do not laugh at.

What an important reminder, Lord! Keep my thoughts pure. Amen."

(A.W. Tozer, Tozer on Christian Leadership, May 30)

Soldiers From Iraq

Here is a neat little story I found online. It shows how many American citizens, like me, are proud of the sacrifice our Armed Forces are making to defend us from terrorism.

God bless these soldiers and the many who served before them in defense of our nation's freedom.

Happy Memorial Day!

~~~

Soldiers from Iraq
at the Baltimore Airport
By Will Ross

"I hope that you will spare me a few minutes of your time to tell you about something that I saw on Monday, October 27.

I had been attending a conference in Annapolis and was coming home on Sunday. As you may recall, Los Angeles International Airport was closed on Sunday, October 26, because of the fires that affected air traffic control. Accordingly, my flight, and many others, were canceled and I wound up spending a night in Baltimore.

My story begins the next day. When I went to check in at the United counter Monday morning I saw a lot of soldiers home from Iraq. Most were very young and all had on their desert camouflage uniforms. This was as change from earlier, when they had to buy civilian clothes in Kuwait to fly home. It was a visible reminder that we are in a war. It probably was pretty close to what train terminals were like in World War II.

Many people were stopping the troops to talk to them, asking them questions in the Starbucks line or just saying "Welcome Home." In addition to all the flights that had been canceled on Sunday, the weather was terrible in Baltimore and the flights were backed up. So, there were a lot of unhappy people in the terminal trying to get home, but nobody that I saw gave the soldiers a bad time.

By the afternoon, one plane to Denver had been delayed several hours. United personnel kept asking for volunteers to give up their seats and take another flight. They weren't getting many takers. Finally, a United spokeswoman got on the PA and said this,

"Folks. As you can see, there are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area. They only have 14 days of leave and we're trying to get them where they need to go without spending any more time in an airport then they have to. We sold them all tickets, knowing we would oversell the flight. If we can, we want to get them all on this flight. We want all the soldiers to know that we respect what you're doing, we are here for you and we love you."

At that, the entire terminal of cranky, tired, travel-weary people, a cross-section of America, broke into sustained and heart-felt applause. The soldiers looked surprised and very modest. Most of them just looked at their boots. Many of us were wiping away tears.

And, yes, people lined up to take the later flight and all the soldiers went to Denver on that flight.

That little moment made me proud to be an American, and also told me why we will win this war.

If you want to send my little story on to your friends and family, feel free. This is not some urban legend. I was there, I was part of it, I saw it happen."


Will Ross
Administrative Judge
United States Department of Defense

AGONY by Leonard Ravenhill

HARD TIMES AHEAD by Paul Proctor

It’s time to prepare for hard times, my friends. And, if you’re a bible believing, Christ-following Christian, I believe the coming years will be particularly troublesome. I say “bible-believing, Christ-following Christian” because our degenerating culture has all but stripped the biblical definition of the word “Christian” from today’s collective conscience so that it has lost much of it’s scriptural meaning, even among many of today’s attending church members.

The enemies of Christ have clearly risen to great power in this country and are, as I write, busy endeavoring to finish off what remains of the church for the purpose of replacing it with a god and religion more suitable for global government. Though they may well in time take possession of the many debt-heavy mega churches and other grand houses of worship around the country in order to turn them into federally-subsidized community centers for faith-based social services, they won’t be successful at completely silencing or eliminating the true body of Christ who will likely be forced to abandon them in order to keep hearing and proclaiming God’s Word uncensored. Unless the Lord Himself intervenes to alter the current course of events, those now in power will most certainly rule over us for a season – and an arduous one at that.

Considering the unbiblical and unconstitutional legislation at hand, it’s looking more and more like faithful Christians could soon be viewed as enemies of the state for no other reason than having believed, proclaimed and obeyed the Word of God. Not only is the church being attacked from without, it is also being undermined from within by charlatans who would transform it into something more spiritually pliable, socially useful and dialectically accommodating.

I believe Christians will again and again be called upon to choose whom we will serve in the coming days in ways that will bring more persecution and suffering than we are accustomed to, requiring a spiritual farsightedness and desire for the eternal things of God over the temporal rewards of this world.

We need to be ready. We need to be willing. And we need to be empowered, not by the mere passion of patriotic zeal, but by the Holy Spirit of God and His Word. It is not we against them – it is an angry and rebellious world against God, and we would do well to remember that when the devil comes knocking at our door demanding more tolerance, diversity and unity.

Vengeance is not ours – that belongs to the Lord, as He clearly states in His Word. Those who live by the sword will surely die by it – again, not my words – His.

When our Constitution and Bill of Rights are completely discarded for the New World Order, there will be no going back to the way things were. There will only be the Word of God to edify, encourage, inspire and sustain us through the hard times ahead. Those who understand and appreciate the power of that Word know very well what I’m talking about. Those who don’t will ignore it at their own peril because to them, it is foolishness.

Best we get into His Word now more earnestly and take it to heart in preparation for a time when bibles are no longer allowed or even legal, than get caught spiritually ignorant and scripturally unarmed when temptation and tribulation come.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.“ – Hebrews 4:12