During these end days there seems to be a lot of heartache and destruction.  I thought I would post about this article to give encouragement and happiness to other's lives.  I found it joyous that people are willing to pray in public and I even found it remarkable that one of our major news sources were willing to publish this.

Please read this article.

Genesis 15:5-6
And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

So why on earth did astronomers start coming up with ridiculous figures like 1056 (Ptolemy) and 777 (Brahe) stars? Obviously there have been more of Abraham's children than that. Clearly these scientists did not believe the Word of God, but now astronomy is proving the veracity of Scripture. To the right is a picture of the galaxy of Andromeda (copyright Robert Gendler), our closest major galaxy. It is estimated Andromeda contains hundreds of billions of stars, and astronomers believe there are hundreds of billions of galaxies just like this one in the universe. What an amazing God we have, that He could create all this on a single day. And the Lord just adds this as almost a "footnote" of His creative work, "He made the stars also", Genesis 1:16. God must love mankind much more than anything else He has made, to relegate the creation of the heavens to a just few words. He has not only told us of His great love for us, but demonstrated it by leaving the splendour of heaven, and taking on the form of a man on a planet called Earth in an outer arm of the Milky Way galaxy. He gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins, so that we would be able to enjoy fellowship with Him, and the splendour of the heavens and earth for ever. One day all those who are saved will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and we will be transported through the heavens to the Lord's House. Perhaps during the Millennial Reign of Christ, and after the creation of the new heavens and new earth, we will be able to enjoy views like these first hand. I am looking forward to it. I hope you are too. Trust in Jesus Christ for salvation today.

Isaiah 66:22
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.

Revelation 21:1
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Last night I was watching a documentary on Noah's ark that I had taped some months ago. The documentary detailed photographic evidence of the ark's existence on Mount Ararat in the Turkish-Armenian border, and included eyewitness accounts of several individuals who claim to have seen what has become known as the "Ararat anomaly". While seeing the photo of the boat and seeing the reconstruction of the ark made by the film producers, it struck me in a big way that all of humanity (as we know it today) was once holed up inside that boat, while the rest of the unbelieving world was perishing. I don't know whether it was watching that, or whether it was the news of the worst floods in Britain in sixty years, but last night I had another nightmare, for the third night in a row. This time I dreamed my niece, now 8 years old, was just a young child again. She was lying in front of me in a small cot, and flood waters were coming up around our ankles. I felt her back which was soaking wet and very cold, and I motioned to someone else in my family that her chances were not good. For some reason I knew that none of us would survive, that the floodwaters would continue to rise and drown us all. It made me think about those that have been caught up in the recent flooding across the world, and made me wonder what it must have been like to experience the flood in Noah's time. It also made me think about the physical reality of God's judgements, that just as the Lord destroyed the earth with a flood and saved those who believed the message and trusted in their ark of salvation, the world once again stands on the brink of a catastrophic global judgement. The ark on Mount Ararat stands as a witness to a fallen world that God's judgements are very real, and that unless they repent and turn to Christ for salvation, there is no hope - period. One of the illustrations the Lord used of His Second Coming was, that it would be "as it was in the days of Noah", Matthew 24:37. The people in Noah's day were given 120 years advanced notice, but the Lord says that in one day the "flood came and took them all away", Matthew 24:39. This world has had 2000 years advanced warning, and its judgement will come with similar speed. Are you ready for heaven? Have your sins been forgiven? Trust in Jesus Christ for salvation today.

Source Turkish Times

My favourite Christian hymn is the King's Business. That's what I call it anyway, as I don't know its proper title. It gives me such hope and encouragement when I feel down and discouraged, for it reminds me that as a Christian, I serve another King and am a representative of another Country. Of course that Country is heaven, as the Bible states in Philippeans 3:20 and Hebrews 11:16. The words of that hymn are as follows.

I am a stranger here, within a foreign land;
My home is far away, upon a golden strand;
Ambassador to be of realms beyond the sea,
I'm here on business for my King.

This is the message that I bring,
A message angels fain would sing:
"Oh, be ye reconciled,"
Thus saith my Lord and King,
"Oh, be ye reconciled to God."

The theme of the song is taken from 2nd Corinthians 5:20, which states that we are ambassadors for Christ. That is, we have been sent by the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to be witnesses in His place, and as Paul states, the message that we bring is "be ye reconciled to God". I hope that the Lord would help me to be a greater witness and more faithful ambassador for Him, for I fall so far short of what that should be. But today I felt like drawing a picture on the computer of what goes through my head when listening to the first verse of that chorus being sung. It's not really that good, as I haven't spent a lot of time on it. But it's a picture of the heavenly country, to which I now belong, a land beyond the sea, where there is no night and where the King of that place wipes away all tears from their eyes.

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