FROM A GODLY LIFE TO A PROSPEROUS LIFE

(Message delivered by Pastor at the True Life Church 10.30 am Service, Jan 9, 05)
Text: Prov. 3:5-10

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones. Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.”

The Tsunami of Dec 26, 04 struck at Aceh Province Indonesia and spread all over the Indian Ocean, even to Africa, bringing death to at least 160,000 people.

1. A church member and his family went to spend a holiday in Phuket at Christmas time. As True Life B-P Church was holding a special Christmas Eve Service they left Phuket for Singapore in time and were saved from the disaster.

2. On the other hand I have known of a young man who did not attend church, but went with his girl friend on Sunday to Desaru for a swim. He plunged into the water but was carried out to sea and drowned. When his family opened his locked drawer and found photos of his baptism they asked me to bury him. His girl friend came to the funeral and has remained single to this day.

This leads me to my subject on Living a godly and prosperous life from Prov. 3:5-10.

I. We should worship the Lord without a break every Lord’s Day. Some of us think it is not important like that young man who went swimming in Desaru. Should your friend from Malaysia visit you on the Lord’s Day, instead of bringing him to church you take him to Sentosa for a swim. You have gone astray because you do not in all thy ways acknowledge him. You are wise in your own eyes nor fear God and depart from evil.

Then how can we acknowledge him that he may direct our paths. I believed we should regularly read a portion, say a chapter of Scripture a day and pray for guidance from the Word of God. It shall be “health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.” But the majority of our members fail flat because we cannot give time to reading God’s Word nor pray, and when temptation comes we have no defence at all. If we have a loving and godly wife and will pray for each other that must be a special blessing from God. I have known how a godly wife’s prayers have kept her husband from the other woman.

II. Honour the Lord with thy substance. But it is the small change when offerings are collected. Malachi 3:8 asks, “Will a man rob God? In tithes and offerings!” Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house. The church that is not liberally supported by her members by tithing cannot accomplish God’s business. Missions cannot advance without our tithes. And we should be helping members of the church who are in financial difficulties with more than our tithes. I have seen how God has blessed members who not only tithe but give well and beyond to help members’ needs. Jesus says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” Acts 20:35. Truly it is like opening the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. “So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.”

If you had not lived a godly and prosperous life last year, keep close to God now and serve Him with your substance as you should and you will find out the difference. Amen.

 

I cheated death by half an hour!

by Mr Eio Eng Hua

It was Sunday morning on 26 Dec 2004 in Sri Lanka. I was driving to Colombo on my way to attend a church service from my resort located at Kalutara (37 km away). The sky was blue and the road was clear. It was a relaxing drive. I had to pass an area known as “Moratuwa” where on both sides of the road you can see hundreds of wooden houses with zinc roofs usually occupied by the lower income people here. That stretch of road is about 5 km. It was about 9.00 a.m. when I drove past that place. There was nothing abnormal or unusual at that point of time.

When I returned from Colombo about one and a half hour later, to my horror, I saw tree trunks, branches, debris and household items spread over the 5 km stretch of road. What was more shocking was that 80% of the houses on both sides of the road was flattened! People were running wild and screaming. I didn’t know what was happening. It was later on that I learnt that at 9.30 a.m. the killer waves, “Tsunamis” had wiped out the homes of the poor residents in that area. It was as if some weapon of mass destruction had exploded there. Many people were either killed or missing and others badly injured. If not for God’s grace, the killer waves could also have “swallowed” me also. It was a matter of half an hour difference!

Indeed, “By Grace we are saved”.

THE GOSPEL OF LIFE: Chapter IX

John 9:18-34
Faith under Trial

Let Dr. David Smith retell more vividly the whole story: “There was nothing for it but to enter upon a judicial investigation….

First arose the question whether it were a genuine case and not an imposture, and to ascertain this they cited his parents and, removing him meanwhile from the court, addressed to them a threefold interrogation: 1) Was he their son? 2) Had he really been born blind? And if so, 3) how had he now his sight? The first two questions they unhesitatingly answered in the affirmative, but the third was dangerous in view of the menace of excommunication, and they evaded it. “Ask him,” said they (according to the true order): “he is of age,” literally “he hath age,” meaning that he was old enough to speak for himself, not, as the phrase suggests with us, that he had turned twentyone but that, according to Jewish usage (cf.Lk. ii. 42), he was over twelve. Thus balked, they recalled the lad and laid a trap for him. “Give glory to God” said they, meaning not, as our version suggests, “Ascribe the praise of the miracle to God,” but “Glorify God by confessing the truth” (cf. Josh vii. 19). “Give glory where it is due my son, even though it is manifest by thy shame …. Once more I charge thee to consult thy soul’s weal by glorifying Heaven and speaking the truth.”

Their pretence was that they had elicited the facts from his parents and it was useless for him to persist in the imposture. “Give glory to God. We know that this fellow is a sinner.” “Be that as it may,” he stoutly replied, “one thing I know – that whereas I was blind, now I see.” Thus checkmated, they reverted to their original question, how the thing had been done, hoping that he might be betrayed into some inconsistency. But he met them with a cutting sarcasm. “I have told you already; why would ye hear it again? Would ye also become His disciples?”

They made the fatal blunder of losing their tempers. “Thou art a disciple of the fellow,” they stormed: “but we are disciples of Moses. This fellow – we know not whence he is.” The lad was blessed with a gift of humour, and keeping cool he fastened on their confession and lectured them with superb insolence: “Why, herein is the marvellous thing! He opened the eyes of one born blind – an unprecedented miracle, impossible without God, yet ye wise men, the teachers of Israel, ‘know not whence He is’!” This ended the case.

“Dost thou teach us?” they cried; and “they cast him out” – not merely out of doors but out of their fellowship, excommunicating him.”

The day is coming when those who witness for Christ will be similarly tested. Will we stand the test?