Isaiah 1:9-10 (KJV) A Very Small Remnant

Isaiah 1:9-10 (KJV)
Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed entirely. Only Lot, his wife and two of his daughters survived.[1]God’s grace had done a different thing in Israel. He had left a remnant. Though their own evil had left them destroyed, they were not utterly consumed.

Still, the symbol was near enough the prophet was compelled to liken Judah to these wicked cities. He did not preach to the literal cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, long since punished and gone. He preached to the rulers of Judah and the people of Israel. Dare these people liken their sins to those of Sodom and Gomorrah?

Surely the discerning Christian can see the same likeness in our own day. The evil, the sin, the ignorance of all things God, is rampant to the point we cannot but expect that God will once again rain judgment.

In my own area of the Pacific Northwest scientists warn of an imminent disaster involving volcanoes, earthquakes and violent seas. Most people ignore these prophets of doom. I can’t help but wonder whether God won’t judge the wickedness so openly practiced in Seattle and Olympia with just such a disaster.

Perhaps God’s grace will leave a remnant of His own to minister to the survivors.

[1]If you can call it that. Lot’s wife died just after leaving the city and his daughters were as good as dead spiritually.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Isaiah 1:9-10 (KJV) A Very Small Remnant

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Hebrews 1:1 (KJV)
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

God.
Sometimes all the truth we need is that.

• God is
• God knows
• God cares

God.
All three Persons and they are one

• God the Father
• God the Son and
• God the Holy Ghost

God.
Salvation is all of Him

• He so loved the world
• He for ordained our Saviour
• He gave His only begotten Son

God.
Draw nigh and He will draw nigh to you

• He hears our prayers
• He comforts our fears
• He carries us in trouble

God.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

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Hebrews 1:1 (KJV) All Three Persons. And They Are One

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Philemon 1:22 (KJV)
But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you.

It has always been my position that, once Paul was taken into custody in Jerusalem, he spent the rest of his life a prisoner of Rome. I am aware that there are plenty of very good Bible students that believe he was released, traveled to Spain and possibly The British Isles and was later captured and executed. I personally love the concept that Paul went to what is now England. It has simply been my position to not read into Pauline history more than the Bible provides.

If there is Bible evidence of his release, I think this verse is it. Paul requested a room be prepared for him because he was confident that the prayers of the believers would effect his freedom. He prepared in advance for what he believed God would do.

Honestly, I do not know if their prayers were answered the way Paul believed they would be. God always answers prayer but it is not always the way we expect. What I do see in this passage is:

• Confidence in prayer. I see 
• Action based upon that confidence. And I see 
• An application every Christian can practice. 

We ought to pray. And we ought to behave with confidence in the answers.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Philemon 1:22 (KJV) Confidence In Prayer

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Titus 3:8 (KJV)
This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

It is interesting that the Word of God makes it clear that the only ones the preacher needs press to good works are those which have believed in God.

• No one else would likely listen to a preacher and
• It would serve no saving purpose for anyone else to do it 

The language of the text teaches that even the believer needs to be repeatedly reminded and provoked to good works.

The preacher is to “affirm constantly.”
It isn’t going to work to teach it just one time. Even if the student “gets it” the flesh will fail him unless he has renewed motivation.

Maintain good works
That word maintain implies: repair, restoration and constant upkeep. This must be a careful maintenance program. It must involve regular inspections, faithful corrections and constant polish and cleaning.

The Christian life simply cannot be one of ease. To do so will, without doubt, lead to slipping from those good works.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Titus 3:8 (KJV) Maintenance Program

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Titus 2:1 (KJV)
But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:

There is an obvious concern in this chapter not just for sound doctrine, but for a lifestyle that is fitting of it. God tells this preacher to not only give the people doctrinal truth but also lessons on how to make that truth more becoming and attractive.

This concern comes up at least three times in this chapter.
Titus 2:5 (KJV)
To bediscreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

This blasphemy, it may be observed is in two forms:

• The blasphemy and ridicule of those who are without. As they observe Christians behaving poorly they have cause to criticize 
• The blasphemy of the Christian himself as he behave in a manner unbecoming and thus blasphemous to his faith

Titus 2:10 (KJV)
Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. 

The preacher is to teach behavior that is fitting of the Saviour. To warn his hearers of behavior that would vilify and defame the Saviour and then to point them to behavior that will adorn, decorate and garnish the Saviour

We’ve had too much Christianity intended to adorn the Christian at Christ’s expense and not nearly enough of adorn Christ at His servants’ sacrifice.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Titus 2:1 (KJV) Becoming Behavior

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Titus 1:10-11 (KJV)
For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.

I’m focusing on those words, “Whose mouths must be stopped.” The question is, how?

The Inquisition, I suppose, was a Catholic attempt to silence those whose mouths they believed must be stopped. They attempted to stop the wrong mouths. Instead of silencing the Baptist’s who would not yoke up with them or even men like Luther and Calvin, who were their own priests but interested in truth, they would have done better to silence their popes. They were unsuccessful in their attempts. The blood of the martyrs became the seed of revival. As one believer after the other was killed for his or her faith ten or more embraced the faith for which they had died.

Nevertheless the word of God says of these deceivers, “Whose mouths must be stopped.”

It cannot be done, must not be done physically or by force. How are we to stop them? By giving them no audience. Why is it we are so fascinated by the forbidden? The more a heretic is branded, the more people go to hear what he is a heretic of. Gossip, slander, idle tales; we know the Bible warns us against them yet, like a fly to the light, we are drawn to it.

The deceiver, the false teacher, the heretic must be stopped. And that can only happen when we decide to believe God and refuse to listen.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Titus 1:10-11 (KJV) But How?

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Ecclesiastes 9:18 (KJV)

Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good.

Verse and chapter divisions sure help with the study of the Word of God. 

Until they don’t. 

The chapter division at the end of verse 18 tends to lead us to see Ecclesiastes 10:1 as a new thought. I see it as the completion of this one. 

Ecclesiastes 10:1 

Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour. 

The sinner of Ecclesiastes 9:18 is the dead fly of Ecclesiastes 10:1. 

We often brush away a little folly in a person, chalking it up to immaturity, youthfulness or sometimes, even playfulness. We want to be patient and we want to give them the benefit of the doubt. In time they will likely grow up and be a great asset. 

In the mean time their little folly destroys much good and genuinely stinks. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Ecclesiastes 9:18 This Genuinely Stinks

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Ecclesiastes 7:2-5 (KJV)
It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.

Though most of what is found in Ecclesiastes must be read carefully and in context (the preacher frequently projects the cynicism of his worldly years into this book) my gut tells me what we read here is on the money.

Modern man places a premium on happiness, ease and comfort. Unfortunately modern Christianity, at least the American version, does too. I am convinced that joy, contentment and blessing are biblical goals for any Christian. But I don’t necessarily agree with the current tactics many Christians embrace to get them. Hardship, it turns out, is a valid means to blessedness.

Notice in verse three, “by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.” Could it be that the moral climate of our world has been stunted precisely because we have grown too comfortable, too full, and too rich with joy? Could it be that, as our focus has been increasingly upon preventing anyone from suffering, we have produced degeneracy of heart?

I am not calling for a lack of compassion for the hurting but for a greater sacrifice from the comfortable. Only by visiting in the house of the mourning may we better our hearts and improve our character.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Ecclesiastes 7:2-5 (KJV) Make The Heart Better

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Ecclesiastes 5:8 (KJV)
If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.

It seems obvious doesn’t it? Indeed God is “higher than the highest.”

• • He is higher than all the angels 
• • He is higher than Satan and his devils
• • He is higher than the earth and the power of disasters 
• • He is higher than kings and all who are in authority 
• • He is higher than the wicked who oppress the faith of Christ and
• • He is higher than the violent who attack without provocation 

We know God is higher than the highest but, when trouble comes, it’s good to be reminded. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

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Ecclesiastes 5:8 (KJV) Higher Than The Highest

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Ecclesiastes 3:11 (KJV)
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

Wow! There is so much in the phrase, “He hath set the world in their heart.” The Hebrew word is one that has to do with perpetuity and eternity. Because of this scholars have disagreed.

Does the passage have to do with the physical world?
No doubt man has a heart to:

• know his world, 
• possess its treasures and 
• conquer its resources 

It is so vast and expansive and our lives are so brief we can but understand mere bits of it.

Does the passage have to do with life after death?
It is easy to see that the heart of every man possesses some awareness of a life after this. Even those who deny eternal life like to believe that there is some remainder of them in their memory. They will at least attempt to perpetuate themselves in their children and children’s children.

The Hebrew word translated “world” carries as its primary meaning the concept of concealment. God has made us to know there is something beyond ourselves, something we cannot completely comprehend. God has given us this awareness, in many respects declared by creation, that these few short years must not be all there is. We know man must be capable of so much more than we ever attain.

God has put in the heart of man – the knowledge that God is.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Ecclesiastes 3:11 (KJV) What God Has Put In Our Heart

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Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 (KJV)
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

There is an arrogance in man that is seldom well tamed. We have this idea that we can discover what has never been known before. The preacher of Ecclesiastes knew something of this arrogance and discovered it to be vanity. The weakness of a man is that, as soon as he finds that which is new, he learns it has been discovered before. This in no way implies man should stop learning, searching and discovering. It may be that what he learns, though by no means new, has been all but forgotten.

I read my Bible through two to three times a year. Very often the passage the Holy Spirit leads me to focus on is one that I have focused on in years gone by. Early on that would bother me. But then I realized that, though I had forgotten I had studied that passage in my daily visit with God before, there is always something I missed in a previous study and there is delight in revisiting what I had searched out before.

Who knows what men before us knew? We have forgotten the skills to build the pyramids of Egypt and the Aztecs. We have no clue what the civilizations before the flood had learned. So what if we one day discover that they had already discovered those things we have only just now discovered.

The joy, the delight, is not in finding something that was never known before. The delight is in discovering what we personally did not know before.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 (KJV) Good Old Things

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1 Timothy 4:7-8 (KJV)
But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

A good minister of Jesus Christ chooses his battles. There are some things worth suffering for. There are others that are not. The difference is that which the Spirit speaks expressly and that which is just fable. In other words we are to teach and command what the Bible teaches. At the same time we are to avoid the subjects of religion. Our faith is not based in superstition. We do not have extra words of knowledge or visions outside the Bible. We do not make much of men nor do we build shrines to past Christians. We don’t speculate on those things we do not know.

We stick to the Bible. We stick to it doggedly. We give not an inch. We compromise no part. We condemn what the Bible teaches is wrong. We lift up what the Bible teaches is right. In these we do not waiver.

• We flinch not though the lost hate our standards. 
• We shrink not though the atheist believes scholarship proves us wrong. 
• We hold forth the Words of life because we know that, only in them, is there life. 

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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1 Timothy 4:7-8 (KJV) In Them, There is Life

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Proverbs 29:9-11 (KJV)
If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest.The bloodthirsty hate the upright: but the just seek his soul.A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards.

There are a number of character problems with the fool. I believe the root of them all is that they reject instruction.
Proverbs 15:5
A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent. 

Our passage today gives us two lessons in dealing with a fool:
Don’t contend with him
Whether he grows angry at you or laughs at you he isn’t going to listen to you. The only one whose spirit is injured by such a thing is the wise man that attempts to help him.

Therefore the best way to deal with them is silently
It can be helpful to rebuke them but never to argue, debate or discuss with them. The fool just keeps spilling out that which is in his head. His confidence, though wrongly placed, prevents him from either receiving new information or stopping his own tongue.

Just don’t allow him that engagement. Refuse the conversation. Either avoid his company or else refuse to respond to his words.

To my readers:
First of all, thank you! It is a great joy to me to know you read the thoughts and lessons God has given me in His word. Secondly, I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave comments.

For this and more than 4300 earlier Daily Visits with God visit https://mckenzie-visit-with-god.blogspot.com. There you will find daily visits going back to 2006.

If you have been blessed by this blog, please subscribe to my feed and share it with others.

For more resources from Pastor Marvin McKenzie visit http://puyallupbaptistchurch.com.

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Proverbs 29:9-11 (KJV) The Fool’s Big Trouble

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