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This is Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International with the Whyte House Family Devotional Reading of Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening podcast. This is Episode #74.

Charles Spurgeon was a prominent English Particular Baptist preacher. He was very influential among the Christians of various denominations during his age and even today, and is commonly called the “Prince of Preachers”. After some time of alternately searching for God and running from God, he had a powerful encounter which led him to give his life to Christ. Spurgeon was only 16 when he preached his first sermon and he began publishing books shortly afterward. At the time of his death, he had preached nearly 3,600 sermons and published 49 volumes of commentaries, sayings, anecdotes, illustrations and devotions. Spurgeon said, “encouraging thoughts are like honey to the heart”, and wrote this devotional in hopes that its uplifting messages for each day of the year would bring comfort and refreshment to our walk with God. He was inspired by Isaiah 50:4 which reads, “He wakeneth morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned” and Psalm 63:5-6 which says, “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips; when I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches.”

James 5:16 reads: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

As an encouragement cheerfully to offer intercessory prayer, remember that such prayer is the sweetest God ever hears, for the prayer of Christ is of this character. In all the incense which our Great High Priest now puts into the golden censer, there is not a single grain for himself. His intercession must be the most acceptable of all supplications—and the more like our prayer is to Christ’s, the sweeter it will be; thus while petitions for ourselves will be accepted, our pleadings for others, having in them more of the fruits of the Spirit, more love, more faith, more brotherly kindness, will be, through the precious merits of Jesus, the sweetest oblation that we can offer to God, the very fat of our sacrifice. Remember, again, that intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. What wonders it has wrought! The Word of God teems with its marvellous deeds. Believer, thou hast a mighty engine in thy hand, use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith, and thou shalt surely be a benefactor to thy brethren. When thou hast the King’s ear, speak to him for the suffering members of his body. When thou art favoured to draw very near to his throne, and the King saith to thee, “Ask, and I will give thee what thou wilt,” let thy petitions be, not for thyself alone, but for the many who need his aid. If thou hast grace at all, and art not an intercessor, that grace must be small as a grain of mustard seed. Thou hast just enough grace to float thy soul clear from the quicksand, but thou hast no deep floods of grace, or else thou wouldst carry in thy joyous bark a weighty cargo of the wants of others, and thou wouldst bring back from thy Lord, for them, rich blessings which but for thee they might not have obtained:—

“Oh, let my hands forget their skill,
My tongue be silent, cold, and still,
This bounding heart forget to beat,
If I forget the mercy-seat!”

PRAY.

Thank you for listening to the Morning and Evening podcast. If you do not know the Lord as your Savior, here is how you can be saved from Hell and walk with the Lord morning and evening until you go to that wonderful place called Heaven when you die:

First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…”

Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 18:8: “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”

Now that is bad news, but here’s the good news. Jesus Christ said in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Just believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.

Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

If you believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead, and you want to trust Him for your Salvation today, please pray with me this simple prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and today I choose to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and I choose to follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen.

If you believed in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the Cross, was buried, and rose again, allow me to say, congratulations on doing the most important thing in life and that is accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour! For more information to help you grow in your newfound faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

If you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior today, please email me at [email protected] and let us know. There is some free material that we want to send you. If you have a prayer request, please e-mail that to us as well, and we will pray for you until you tell us to stop.

God loves you. We love you. And may God bless you.

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We weren’t made for social distancing, but it might be an opportunity to examine our potentially half-hearted interactions with others.

With roughly 20% of the world population in lockdown, Beth Matheson from Wycliffe USA points out social distancing has revealed how hollow our in-person interactions often are. “We all are pretty good at the social niceties of, ‘Hi, how you doing? I’m fine.’ But I think a lot of us now are realizing that you need more than that.”

The new Wycliffe devotional Lessons from Lesser Knowns is intended to be used in a group of people having dinner together. But Matheson says this kind of interaction can be done over the internet as well. People have more ways to connect now than ever before, and Matheson encourages Christians to make their interactions with other people meaningful.

And to do that, our interactions must be grounded in the Gospel. The devotional features six different Bible passages, but not the kind you might see at women’s conferences or in a craft store. “These are forgotten and overlooked passages that talk about how God loves people who are forgotten and overlooked. He wants his people to have the same heart for marginalized people.”

The devotional comes with international recipes for each lesson, and Matheson encourages Christians to visit Wycliffe.org/dinnerparty to learn more.

SOURCE: Mission Network News, Kevin Zeller

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Christian Concern, a Christian watchdog organization in the United Kingdom, has announced it will mount a legal challenge to the government’s decision to permit “Do-It-Yourself” abortions. 

The group said the government’s decision came without any public consultation, parliamentary scrutiny, or debate, with the government itself having warned that the move would put thousands of vulnerable women at risk at an already highly vulnerable time.

Government officials reversed an earlier decision Monday, announcing that women can now perform abortions at home without medical supervision during the COVID-19 outbreak.  

The BBC reports the official abortion policy has been changed several times by the government during the pandemic. 

Women and teenagers were first told abortion services would still be available, but that decision was later retracted. Now the UK government will allow women to take two abortion pills at home, instead of risking exposure to the Coronavirus by going to a clinic. 

Christian Concern says Monday’s announcement is the most significant change to UK abortion law since the Abortion Act of 1967. The announcement came despite last week’s statement by government officials that there would be no change to abortion law as a part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Abortion has nothing to do with Coronavirus, and abusing public trust to advance a different agenda undermines trust in the government and effectiveness of the response to the epidemic,” said Andrea Williams, CEO of Christian Concern. “There are no proposals, to our knowledge, to use abortion clinics’ capacity or personnel to respond to Coronavirus.”

Williams also warned that the new measures will see Do-It-Yourself abortions performed on women by themselves in their homes without a doctor or medical professional.  

“At a time of national and global crisis, to be pushing through a back-door policy that will put thousands of women at risk is dangerous and chilling. This policy will not help the women involved and will only lead to further vulnerability and trauma,” she continued.

“Something has gone wrong at the heart of our democratic systems when such a policy is introduced without proper public scrutiny, especially when our NHS (National Health Service) is and will be under such strain in the coming weeks and months. We call on the government to urgently repeal these changes,” Williams concluded. 

Other pro-life groups in the UK have also spoken out about the sudden change in the abortion law. 

“It is unconscionable that the Government is contradicting their stance, yet again, to allow women to be taking both stages of the medical abortion at home,” Liz Parsons, director of advocacy for the UK pro-life charity Life, told the Catholic Sentinel website. 

“It is an absolute disgrace that the abortion lobby should take advantage of the terrible situation we find ourselves in, with COVID-19, to instigate the biggest change to the 1967 Abortion Act we’ve seen in years, without any public consultation,” she continued. 

UK abortion law had previously mandated that abortions only be carried out in a hospital, by a specialist provider or at a licensed clinic, with the approval of two doctors.

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Acts of betrayal have the power to violate our sense of trust, dismantle our faith in God, and uproot life as we know it. Yet victims of even the worst betrayal can experience healing and discover a life of health and wholeness through Christ. 

That’s according to Phil Waldrep, author and founder of Phil Waldrep Ministries.

“When people go through betrayal, one of the things that happens is their self-worth is shattered,” he said. “They feel hopeless, that this person did not value their relationship, friendship, or marriage, that the betrayer was able to do whatever they did without thinking about how it would have hurt them. They feel like their life is in a million pieces.”

“If you let God pick up the pieces and put them back together, His way and with His Word, healing is possible. It may take some time, but the other side is more beautiful than you could’ve imagined.”

The popular pastor and author speaks from experience. During a sit-down interview with The Christian Post, he shared how two decades ago, law enforcement officers surprised him at his office. Though the ministry was not its target, the investigation brought to light an employee’s unsavory activities, leaving Waldrep with no choice but confrontation.

“This was one of my closest friends, a guy I loved like a brother,” he recalled. “He was the one guy I would have said would be with me through thick and thin. But I found out he was doing a lot of very serious, immoral, unethical, although technically not illegal, behavior. I was shell shocked because he was riding on the back of the ministry to do a lot of that.”

After the initial confrontation, the employee was “broken, repentant, and acknowledged he had a problem,” Waldrep said. “So I decided to extend grace.”

Just a few months later, the man’s wife called Waldrep and informed him her husband had resumed his undesirable activities. Once again, the pastor confronted his friend. But this time, his reaction was different.

“He was defiant and unkind,” Waldrep said. “I was gracious, I think, to let him resign before I had to do anything. But when I look back, it left me emotionally and spiritually in shambles.”

“Oftentimes, in a deep betrayal, the person who got betrayed is the one who is left picking up the pieces. The betrayer, many times, walks away unscathed.”

SOURCE: Christian Post, Leah MarieAnn Klett

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Philosophers inquire. They do not (or at least should not) avoid difficult questions, unless there is good reason to do so. As a philosopher, I find that the COVID-19 pandemic raises important questions of moral philosophy. In what follows, I will examine one. Should our response to the pandemic be guided by consequentialist reasoning? I will suggest a negative answer.

Consequentialism is the position that the only factor which morally justifies an act is its results. In other words, the moral rightness or wrongness of an act is fixed solely by its outcome; the consequence of an act makes the act right or wrong.[i] If the outcome of an act is beneficial, then the act is justified: the end justifies the means. The main versions of consequentialism are utilitarianism and moral egoism. Utilitarianism is the view that, in any moral situation, the right act is the one which will lead (or tend to lead) to the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.[ii] On moral egoism, one ought to behave in ways which maximize the best outcomes for oneself and let others do the same. Philosophers who deny consequentialism are called non-consequentialists.

Utilitarianism is a popular view of morality. Prima facie, the idea is attractive and easy to understand: satisfy desire for as many people as possible. After all, we intuitively grasp the idea of desire-satisfaction. And who doesn’t want to maximize his own satisfaction, anyway? But there are significant objections to consequentialism in general, and to utilitarianism in particular. As David Oderberg puts it:

I have given a number of fairly abstract reasons why consequentialism is on the face of it unintuitive and unmotivated. But I also think it is straight out false, and not only false but an evil and dangerous theory – a view I am not alone in holding. There are a number of ways in which I could defend the view, but I want to focus on one in particular, …This is the charge that consequentialism allows, indeed requires, certain kinds of action that are obviously wrong and so not to be done. In particular, consequentialism permits and requires actions that are horrendous evils, as evil as anything can be… In general, according to consequentialism, it is at least permitted, often obligatory, for a person to commit what looks to any sane observer like a blatant and serious violation of someone else’s rights, and hence to commit an act of grave injustice, in order to maximize value, or at least to do what he thinks is likely to maximize value. Now, for the non-consequentialist, no intuition his opponent can bring to bear in support of the consequentialist position on this matter is as strong as the intuition that such apparent injustices are indeed injustices, and so to be forbidden on all occasions, no matter what the consequences.

SOURCE: Christian Post, Elliott Crozat

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