This is Daniel Whyte III president of gospel light society with The Scripture & The Sense Podcast #407, where I read the Word of God and give the sense of it based on an authoritative commentary source such as the matthew henry commentary or Bible Knowledge Commentary. This podcast is based upon Nehemiah 8:8 where it says Ezra and the Levites “read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” The aim of this podcast is that through the simple reading of the Word of God and the giving of the sense of it, the church would be revived and the world would be awakened.

Today we are reading Amos 1:3.

3 Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:

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That was Amos 1:3. Now here is the sense of it.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary reads:

Similarly Isaiah said that God would bring a “curse” of drought “to punish the people of the earth” because they had “broken the everlasting covenant” by shedding blood. As the New Testament confirms, though Gentiles may not have received the spoken or written Law, the requirements of human decency are nevertheless known to them, and their own accusing conscience tells them when they violate God’s standard.

The culminating sin of Damascus, the capital of Aram, is that she threshed Gilead of Transjordanian Israel with sledges having iron teeth. Threshing (cutting and separating the grain from the husks) was done on a threshing floor by pulling a heavy sledge over the grain. The sledge was a pair of roughly shaped boards, bent upward at the front, studded with iron prongs or knives. The reference here could be quite literal, describing a method of torturing prisoners; it is also a figure for harsh and thorough conquest. Aram’s armies had raked across Gilead, slicing and crushing it as though it were grain on a threshing floor. This Israelite territory east of Jordan had suffered greatly during constant battles with the Arameans, particularly during the time of Hazael and his son and successor Ben-Hadad III.

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Thank you for listening to the Scripture & The Sense Podcast. Remember to read the Word of God each and every day and pray without ceasing to God for wisdom to understand it and apply it to your life. Most importantly, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Please stay tuned for a complete presentation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ so that you can get your soul saved from Hell to that wonderful place called Heaven when you die. May God bless you and keep you is my prayer.

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Welcome to Episode #58 of Preparing for the Inevitable – A Podcast on How to Handle Trouble, Suffering, Pain, and Death.

I am your host, Daniel Whyte III, president of Gospel Light Society International. This podcast will help you get ready to face the inevitable unpleasant things that will happen in your life — things like trouble, suffering, sickness, and death — the death of people you love and your own death. Trouble, suffering, and death are common threads that run throughout all of humanity. They are inescapable. You will never meet a person who has not, is not, or will not experience these terrible things in life. Yet, we attempt to hide from these inevitabilities, to pretend they don’t exist or that they won’t happen to us. Our world is filled with news of people dying, children suffering, entire government systems and organizations enduring trouble and turmoil, but we tend to see these as things that only happen to “other people” and never to us. Trouble, suffering, and death come equally to all people, of all races, from every socio-economic status, of every religion, in every country of the world. It makes us all equal. This podcast will show you how to accept these realities of life, and not just cope, but face trouble, suffering, and death in your own life and in the world with confidence, courage, class, and most of all, with faith, hope, and charity.

The Bible says in Psalm 31:9-10: “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.”

The featured quote for this episode is from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. She said, “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”

Our topic for today is titled “Grief and Mourning, Part 10: Beyond Grief” from the book, “The Art of Dying: Living Fully into the Life to Come” by Rob Moll.

As surely and certainly as we hope in the resurrection of the dead, that is not the only reason Christians are to mourn differently than those who do not believe in a Savior who will redeem their bodies. As theologian and bishop of Durham N. T. Wright makes clear over and over again, the world to come is not completely separate from this one. Indeed, Jesus lives in a resurrected body even now. And the life of the God who raised Jesus from the dead lives within the Christian. So, while we wait for death’s final defeat, the beginning of that defeat in our own life begins in our salvation. In our journey through life—and through dying and death—we can find joy for we have a sure and certain hope in the redemption of our bodies. Second, we have access in this life to the power of the resurrection that gives us comfort from our grief.

As C. S. Lewis recovered from the devastation that followed his wife’s death, he began to think differently about how he should have mourned her. His journal, which became the book A Grief Observed, had been chiefly about himself, he said, then his wife, and finally about God. “In that order,” he wrote. And that order was the inverse of what it should have been. Never, he wrote, did he begin to praise either Joy or God. Yet, Lewis says, “Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it….Don’t we in praise somehow enjoy what we praise, however far we are from it?”

It is no easy task to move from the shock, anger and depression of the beginning of grief to the joy and praise that, with God, we can experience. Of course joy and praise can exist alongside ongoing pain and yearning for the departed beloved. As Walter Wangerin Jr. [WAN-GER-IN], a Lutheran pastor, writes, “even the weeping at weddings, is grief. When we die, we grieve.”

Death, Wangerin [WAN-GER-IN] says, is the breaking of any relationship. The first death was the Fall. And throughout our lives we die all kinds of small deaths. And we learn to grieve. We grieve at the ending of the relationship with our childhood sweetheart, when we leave home, as our children grow up, when our parents can no longer care for themselves. If we don’t resist the grief, we will find healing in the pain. “Grief is the grace of God within us, the natural process of recovery for those who have suffered death,” Wangerin [WAN-GER-IN] writes.

This is the essence of the gospel: Jesus brought God to humans, repairing the death of the Fall; and Jesus, rising from the dead, brought humans to God, ending the grief caused by the pain of our separation from God. If this good news means something more than hope in the by-and-by, if it means something right now, it means that God is with us in our grief and able to redeem it too.

Christianity does not shrink from death. It does not force a smile on the grieving. Christianity does not ignore death or say that it means nothing. Death is the last enemy, says Paul. It is evil, the greatest and most complete of evils. And if Christians are to know the greatness of Jesus Christ’s victory over death, they must know that death is evil.

Joy and sorrow, writes Wangerin [WAN-GER-IN], are not opposites. “It is through sorrow that one discovers a calm, abiding, indestructible joy.” Our faith offers us this paradox, that a seed must fall into the ground and die before it produces fruit. “Death leads to life,” says Wangerin [WAN-GER-IN], “And grief is the road between them.” Mourning, aided by the rituals of a church community, allows those who are swallowed by grief to slowly journey along that road.

If the Lord tarries His Coming and we live, we will continue looking at “Grief and Mourning” in our next podcast.

Let’s Pray —

Dear friend, please understand that after you die, you will be ushered into one of two places to spend eternity, Heaven or Hell. Here’s how you can be sure that you will not go to hell and suffer eternal damnation forever and rather have a home in Heaven when you die. The Bible says, ”Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Here’s how you can be saved from sin and hell and have a home in Heaven when you die in more detail.

1. Accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Romans 3:23 reads: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” In fact, I am the chief of sinners, so don’t think that you’re alone.

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

3. Accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The Bible says 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.”

4. Accept the fact that you cannot do anything to save yourself! The Bible states in Ephesians 2: 8, 9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

5. Accept the fact that God loves you more than you love yourself, and that He wants to save you from hell. 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.”

6. With these facts in mind, please repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and pray and ask Him to come into your heart and save you this very moment. The Bible states in the book of Romans 10:9, 13: “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.”

Dear friend, if you are willing to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, please pray with me this simple prayer: Heavenly Father, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. 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.”

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The preacher son of US evangelist Billy Graham is threatening to sue eight British arenas that cancelled his shows after protests from the LGBT community.

Franklin Graham, 67, a vocal supporter of US President, Donald Trump, describes homosexuality as a ‘sin’ and is in favour of ‘gay conversion therapy’.

The ACC Liverpool conference centre was the first to cancel one of his planned events saying last month that his views were ‘incompatible’ with their values and the Sheffield Arena followed soon after.

Since then venues in Glasgow, Newcastle, Cardiff, Birmingham, Milton Keynes and London have all followed suit.

But Graham said today his lawyers were fighting back claiming the venues had breached contracts and had discriminated against him because of his religious beliefs.

He also remains unrepentant on his ‘homophobic’ views and even claimed that the Queen would agree with him.

He told the Guardian: ‘We had contracts signed and, in some cases, deposits paid. I haven’t broken any laws.

‘We are being denied because of religious beliefs and our faith. It’s a freedom of religion issue and also a free speech issue.

‘We have attorneys trying to get the venues to reverse their decisions. We certainly have a legal position we’re standing on.’

The controversial preacher, who followed in the footsteps of his late father Billy, refused to back down on his views about gay marriage – and even claimed the Queen would agree with him.

He told Premier Christian News: ‘I believe the Bible teaches that marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s the Church of England’s position.

‘I think Her Majesty the Queen, that’s her position and it’s the position of the Church, pretty much worldwide. This is what the Bible teaches and that’s what I believe.’

Graham had been due to tour the UK in May but says he is confident of securing alternative venues, some bigger than those that had cancelled.

He said: ‘We’ve certainly talked to other venues and many of them have indicated it wouldn’t be an issue with them. Some of the venues that we will probably book will be actually larger venues than we had previously.’

Source: Daily Mail

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (BP) — It’s significant that the National Register of Historic Places now honors Greater Friendship Baptist Church as the first church founded by blacks on Alaskan soil, its pastor Michael Bunton told Baptist Press Friday (Feb. 7).

But Bunton has a broader vision for the church distinguished as the first black Southern Baptist congregation when it was founded in 1951.

“When I got here five years ago, I made it plain and clear that we don’t want to be known as the first African American church in Southern Baptists,” Bunton told BP. “We want to be the most successful multicultural church in Alaska, that’s our goal.”

Yet, the church saw fit to petition the federal government to be listed on the national register, an honor bestowed June 21, 2019.

“We wanted Alaska and the Southern Baptists to understand that we as African Americans are vital in the growth of Christianity in this state and in this nation. And we are a pillar in our community,” Bunton told BP. “The two or three major churches that are prominent were birthed from Greater Friendship.”

Greater Friendship birthed New Hope Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation founded in 1960; and one of Greater Friendship’s former ministers, Frank Taylor, in 2000 became the senior pastor of Solid Rock Baptist Church, another black Southern Baptist congregation in Anchorage. Today, eight majority black congregations are members of the Alaska Baptist Resource Network (ABRN), executive director Randy Covington told BP. In addition to Greater Friendship, New Hope and Solid Rock, they are River in the Desert Community Church and Gilead Ministries in Anchorage; and St. John Baptist Church, New Birth Christian Church and Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church, all in Fairbanks.

Greater Friendship has been active in Southern Baptist life.

The Southern Baptist Convention at its 1991 annual meeting in Atlanta recognized the church as the first black Southern Baptist congregation. The Kennedy Boyce Award, established by the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Servants Network to recognize black trailblazers, is named in part for Greater Friendship’s founding pastor Charles Kennedy. Leo Josey Sr., who pastored Greater Friendship from 1962-1969, was the first black elected to a statewide Southern Baptist post in 1966 when he became vice president of what was then the Alaska Baptist Convention.

The Kennedy Boyce award also recognizes Washington Boyce, the founding pastor of Community Baptist Church in Santa Rosa, Calif., formed Sept. 21, 1951 as the second black Southern Baptist congregation.

Greater Friendship was organized before the U.S. officially desegregated schools through the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and before Alaska became a state in 1959. David Reamer, a historian who has documented Greater Friendship’s history and compiled the application that garnered the national historical register designation, said blacks have enjoyed greater opportunity in Alaska than in southern states hampered by Jim Crow, lynching and other ills.

But Bunton said the state still suffers racism, pointing to discrimination that he says stems in part from the small size of the black population that has left it difficult to gain a foothold in political decision making. The indigenous population, which according to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights includes 228 federally recognized tribes, also experiences discrimination, Bunton said.

Source: Baptist Press

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PAMLICO COUNTY, NC (WITN) – A pastor was found guilty of embezzling more than $100,000 from an elderly woman here in Eastern Carolina.

Thomas Steele, 63, a pastor at New Life Baptist Church in Concord, was convicted Friday on embezzlement charges and four counts of exploitation of an elderly adult.

District Attorney Scott Thomas says Steele took more than $120,000 from an elderly woman from Grantsboro in the month’s after her husband’s death.

The victim, who is now 85, testified that she did not authorize for Steele to take her money and did not know that he had access to her accounts. Thomas says a family friend noticed the suspicious activity and reported it to law enforcement.

“This case demonstrates the importance of being aware of our older relatives and friends,” said Thomas.

Steele was sentenced to up to 8 years in prison. He was also ordered to pay restitution of more than $123,000 to the victim.

A North Carolina pastor was found guilty of embezzling more than $123,000 from an elderly woman five years ago, according to a district attorney.

Thomas Steele, 63, of Concord was convicted on four counts of exploitation of an elderly adult as well as a charge of embezzlement of more than $100,000, District Attorney Scott Thomas said in a news release on Wednesday.

The 85-year-old victim testified in a Pamlico County court that she didn’t authorize Steele to take her money and did not know until much later that he had used his access to her accounts and a power-of-attorney she had given him to take her life’s savings, according to the news release.

Bank records showed that in 2015, the money was embezzled from the victim in the 13 months following her husband’s death, the news release said. Thomas noted that suspicious activities were noticed by a relative and reported to law enforcement.

Steele, who was convicted last Friday, was sentenced to 73 to 100 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $123,367.

SOURCE: Associated Press

BAYBORO—A Concord pastor has been convicted in Pamlico County of embezzlement of more than $100,000 and four counts of exploitation of an elder adult in Grantsboro.

Thomas Wayne Steele, 63, was pastor of the New Life Baptist Church in Concord, a city just east of Charlotte. According to District Attorney Scott Thomas, Pamlico Sheriff’s investigators found that Steele took more than $120,000 from a widow and family friend who lives in Grantsboro.

Extensive bank records showed that, in 2015, the money was embezzled from the victim in the 13 months following her husband’s death. The victim, now 85, testified that she did not authorize Steele to take her money, and did not know until much later that he had used his access to her accounts, and a power of attorney she had given him, to take her life savings.

“This case demonstrates the importance of being aware of our older relatives and friends,” Thomas said in a news release. “The defendant’s suspicious activities were noticed by a relative of the victim and reported… My office will continue to protect our older citizens from financial exploitation.”

After his conviction in a jury trial, Steele was sentenced to a prison term of 73 to 100 months, and was ordered to pay restitution to the victim of $123,367.09.

Source: New Bern Sun Journal

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (BP) — It’s significant that the National Register of Historic Places now honors Greater Friendship Baptist Church as the first church founded by blacks on Alaskan soil, its pastor Michael Bunton told Baptist Press Friday (Feb. 7).

But Bunton has a broader vision for the church distinguished as the first black Southern Baptist congregation when it was founded in 1951.

“When I got here five years ago, I made it plain and clear that we don’t want to be known as the first African American church in Southern Baptists,” Bunton told BP. “We want to be the most successful multicultural church in Alaska, that’s our goal.”

Yet, the church saw fit to petition the federal government to be listed on the national register, an honor bestowed June 21, 2019.

“We wanted Alaska and the Southern Baptists to understand that we as African Americans are vital in the growth of Christianity in this state and in this nation. And we are a pillar in our community,” Bunton told BP. “The two or three major churches that are prominent were birthed from Greater Friendship.”

Greater Friendship birthed New Hope Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation founded in 1960; and one of Greater Friendship’s former ministers, Frank Taylor, in 2000 became the senior pastor of Solid Rock Baptist Church, another black Southern Baptist congregation in Anchorage. Today, eight majority black congregations are members of the Alaska Baptist Resource Network (ABRN), executive director Randy Covington told BP. In addition to Greater Friendship, New Hope and Solid Rock, they are River in the Desert Community Church and Gilead Ministries in Anchorage; and St. John Baptist Church, New Birth Christian Church and Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church, all in Fairbanks.

Greater Friendship has been active in Southern Baptist life.

The Southern Baptist Convention at its 1991 annual meeting in Atlanta recognized the church as the first black Southern Baptist congregation. The Kennedy Boyce Award, established by the Black Southern Baptist Denominational Servants Network to recognize black trailblazers, is named in part for Greater Friendship’s founding pastor Charles Kennedy. Leo Josey Sr., who pastored Greater Friendship from 1962-1969, was the first black elected to a statewide Southern Baptist post in 1966 when he became vice president of what was then the Alaska Baptist Convention.

The Kennedy Boyce award also recognizes Washington Boyce, the founding pastor of Community Baptist Church in Santa Rosa, Calif., formed Sept. 21, 1951 as the second black Southern Baptist congregation.

Greater Friendship was organized before the U.S. officially desegregated schools through the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and before Alaska became a state in 1959. David Reamer, a historian who has documented Greater Friendship’s history and compiled the application that garnered the national historical register designation, said blacks have enjoyed greater opportunity in Alaska than in southern states hampered by Jim Crow, lynching and other ills.

But Bunton said the state still suffers racism, pointing to discrimination that he says stems in part from the small size of the black population that has left it difficult to gain a foothold in political decision making. The indigenous population, which according to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights includes 228 federally recognized tribes, also experiences discrimination, Bunton said.

Source: Baptist Press

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BANGKOK (AP) – Police in northeastern Thailand said a soldier shot multiple people on Saturday, killing more than 10, and was holed up at a popular shopping mall. 
  
Royal Thai Police spokesman Krissana Pattanacharoen said more than 10 people had been killed. The total number of wounded was not immediately known.
  
Police contacted by phone in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima said the soldier, stationed outside the city, initially shot dead another soldier and a woman and wounded a third person. 
  
The city and neighborhood police officers, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to release information, said the man took a gun from his base and drove to the Terminal 21 mall, shooting along the way. The city is also known as Korat.
  
Video taken outside the mall and shared on social media showed people taking cover in a parking lot as gunshots were fired.
  
The mall was shut down and the street outside was closed while the authorities tried to arrest the gunman and rescue shoppers inside.
  
Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheep Tantrawanich identified the suspect as Jakrapanth Thomma. He said police and military units had locked down the mall and the surrounding area.

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

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Lionsgate has greenlit a movie about NFL legend Kurt Warner from Kingdom Story Company, producers of the box office hit I Can Only Imagine.

American Underdog: The Kurt Warner Story will be directed by brothers Andrew Erwin and Jon Erwin and produced by partner Kevin Downes. Kingdom Story has a first-look deal to develop, produce and helm faith-based film and TV projects for Lionsgate.

Warner and his wife Brenda will co-produce the drama, which recalls his unlikely journey from stocking shelves at a supermarket in Iowa to becoming a two-time NFL MVP, a Super Bowl MVP and a Hall of Fame quarterback. Kingdom Story acquired Warner’s life rights, and the screenplay is based on interviews with Warner and his memoir, All Things Possible: My Story of Faith, Football and the First Miracle Season.

“Kurt lived the ultimate underdog story, it’s one of perseverance, dedication and tenacity, but also one of the powers behind the scenes — his family and his faith — that led him to victory. His story is bigger than football and inspiring to dreamers everywhere, and we’re excited to be getting started,” the Erwin brothers said Tuesday in a statement.

American Underdog is set for a Dec. 18 wide release by Lionsgate. “I am extremely excited to be working with Lionsgate and the Erwin Bros. to bring this story to life on the big screen, in hopes of encouraging all who see it to never stop believing in themselves and what God can do with them!” Warner said in his own statement.

Lionsgate’s I Still Believe, a biopic about Christian music star Jeremy Camp and helmed by the Erwin brothers, is set to open March 13. The siblings also previously worked with Lionsgate and sister company Roadside Attractions on the 2018 film I Can Only Imagine, which grossed $83 million domestically on a budget of $7 million. I Can Only Imagine portrayed the true story of Bart Millard, lead singer of the Christian band MercyMe.

The Erwin brothers’ other faith-based credits include 2015’s Woodlawn.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter – Etan Vlessing

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