Just this past weekend, while I was driving in Bowling Green, I saw two men carrying crosses on the side of the road, followed by a crowd of about 30 or 40 people. As I passed these two men, I looked at the crosses they were carrying, and I couldn’t help but notice that both crosses were accessorized with wheels! Now, I understand why they placed wheels on these crosses. The wheels make the crosses they are carrying easier to carry. The wheels make the crosses more convenient to bear. However, that’s the impetus for this article. You see, there’s nothing convenient about a cross! In fact, it was designed to be an inconvenient, excruciating and humiliating means to kill someone. Convenient crosses? They don’t exist—or at least shouldn’t. If I can jump from what I saw this past weekend to a spiritual application, I would say that from the looks of things, I believe that many people have attempted to put “wheels on their cross.” Remember that Jesus said that in order to be one of his disciples, one must be willing to deny himself, take up a cross daily, and follow him (Luke 9:23). From what I’ve witnessed in some, rather than denying self, and bearing one’s cross daily, some have attempted to accessorize their cross. Unwilling to reject Christ completely, they have attempted to fashion a cross of convenience—crosses with wheels. Our society has made an icon out of the cross. We wear crosses around our necks, …

For years, men have debated this verse and exactly why “Jesus wept.” Perhaps you have a theory of your own. Some say it was because His friend Lazarus had died. Others will tell you that it was because His friend, a righteous man, had gone on to glory and Christ wept because He was now going to bring him back from that glorious reward. Still others would say that He wept simply because He was caught up in the emotion of the moment and wept as everyone else was. All of these, I believe, miss the clearest and simplest point of the concise and pithy statement, “Jesus wept.” Jesus wept because “Jesus cared.” He cared about His friend. He cared about his soul. He cared about Mary and Martha. He cared about the lesson He was teaching them. This is abundantly illustrated for us time and again in His ministry. When He healed the leper—He cared. When He spoke to the woman at the well, a societal pariah, offering guidance and rebuke cloaked in the words that were soft as a dear friend’s—He cared. When He withstood the stiff-necked Pharisees and called them hypocrites—He cared. As His followers, we must display the same type of care and empathy. We must be sympathetic and have the ability to put ourselves in another’s shoes, rather than simply try to impose our will, experience and personally create expectations and traditions on them. If we can do that, if we embraced every person where …

The Bible has much to say about the house of God. Isaiah stated that it would be established on the top of the mountains. Paul wrote to Timothy to tell him that the house of God is the church of the living God. He also told the Ephesians that there is one body, and that body is the church. However, in our world today there are hundreds of religious organizations. Who established them? Jesus shed some light on this when He taught about the two builders. One builder heard the Lord’s words and obeyed them, and in doing so built upon the sure foundation of the solid rock. The other builder heard, but did not obey. This one, according to Jesus was a builder, but one who was building on the foundation of sand and was destroyed. This reminds us of two passages of Scripture. Psalm 127:1 reads, “Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it…” Then in Matthew 15:13 we read, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.” Who built your religious organization? If you answer that it was the Lord Jesus Christ, can you prove it by the Scriptures?

I have read where Houdini, the great escape artist, bragged that he could escape from any jail built by man. The story goes that a certain town built a jail and invited Houdini to try to escape it. He accepted. He entered the cell, the door was closed and he pulled a curtain across and began to use all his ability to show that he could indeed escape. Thirty minutes later, he had failed. It was then that the jailer stepped to the door, and without using a key, simple pulled the door open. It had been unlocked all the time. There is a moral to this story. We imprison ourselves in sin by choice. Despite our efforts, we cannot free ourselves by ourselves. We find ourselves caught in the web of sin, a prisoner of our own devices. By going to the cross, Jesus paid the price to set us free from sin. There are requirements given by God for us to be free – obey the Gospel! Once free, we must continue to walk in His Word. Are you imprisoned?

In Yagoona, Australia, a suburb of Sydney, a man lay dead in his apartment for a whole year before his body was discovered. The body of Jorge Chambe, 64, was found on Tuesday in his single bedroom, government-owned flat when police and firefighters broke in, after concerns about his welfare were finally raised on Monday by a worried neighbor. News reports in the area stated that some neighbors at the apartment complex where Chambe lived described him as “a quiet man who was friendly but who kept mostly to himself.” An overflowing mailbox was the only clue that anyone had noticed that indicated something was wrong. Chambe’s rent was paid automatically by direct debit from his bank account that was fed by his federal government welfare payments. Bank records supplied part of the evidence that Chambe had been dead for about a year. New South Wales State Housing Minister Matt Brown asked a sobering question on the Macquarie Radio network on Thursday: “How can it happen that a person can die in such a lonely way and no one know?”* Chambe’s lonely demise and the plague of loneliness in our world today cause us to wonder: “Does anyone care?” The answer from heaven is a resounding, “Yes!” God cares. He knows about every detail in our lives – even the exact number of hairs on our heads. Not even one sparrow that falls to the ground escapes His notice, and you are of far greater value (Matthew 10:29-31). He cares so much for us that He gave His Son, Jesus, to …

A recent Fox News report stated, “Scientists predict when the world will end.” According to astronomer Robert Smith of the University of Sussex, the sun will slowly expand into a red giant, pushing the earth farther out into space. The planet will be snagged by the sun’s outer atmosphere, gradually plunging to its doom inside the fiery stellar furnace. This will happen in approximately 7.6 billion years, but life on earth will end in about 1 billion years, as the slowly expanding sun boils off the oceans and reduces the earth to an uninhabitable cinder. If this prospect frightens you, don’t worry. A recent study done by the University of California at Santa Cruz proposes taming an asteroid to swing by the earth every few thousand years, which would slowly push the earth into a higher solar orbit, enough to outpace the sun’s own outward growth. Smith says that, while it sounds like science fiction, he believes the technology could be developed over the next few centuries to do it. The world will indeed have an end, but not from the random acts of nature at work, but the intelligent purpose of the Creator. We are told our Lord will return, coming in the clouds, and that a shout of command, the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God will announce His presence (1 Thessalonians 4:16). His coming will be witnessed by everyone on earth, as John writes, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye …

The Hebrews writer was very definite when he instructed his readers to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:2). Sin is so capable of causing us to be thrown off course. James said it has the potential for drawing us away (James 1:14). Other terms like “enticed” and “ensnared” are used to describe sin’s affect on us. Also, when we are burdened with “weight,” the work of the Lord suffers. Whether weighted by sin or any other element that has the potential for preventing us from living the Christian life or finishing our task here, it needs to be dumped! The disposition of Paul was always to be looking forward and pressing for something better (Philippians 3:14). He strove to put the past behind him and allow nothing to interfere with his primary objective of being a slave with total commitment to his Lord. David indicated that there are some burdens that we are entitled to carry, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation!” (Psalm 68:19). We must always qualify what we are doing and that which is allowed to impact our lives to see if it is for our betterment or serves as a negative. With the present condition of our national economic situation, people are being forced to eliminate excess and unnecessary expenditures and debt. This may be good in that it forces us …

We have traveled over many paths in our walk on earth,Since this temporal journey first began at birth;We never know what each new day may have in store,Because we have not passed this way before. We have not passed this way before, O God,We have never seen the paths we are about to trod;We can only follow in the way that’s set by You,And seek Your will in everything we do. You are our Light in the darkness of the night,You are our Defender in the fiercest fight;You are our Hope in the greatest of despair,You are our Comfort, for us you truly care. You are our Guide through raging waters sailed,You are the Answer that has never failed;You are a Shelter from the storms that would do us harm;You are the Strength that lifts us with Your mighty arm. We don’t know what our next step will bring,Whether we will grieve, or with joy will sing,But we can know that You will always be,There to guide into the future that we can’t see. We know we have not passed this way before,Alone we can never find the heavenly shore;But through Your Word you point the way,To that bright home of endless day. We have not passed this way before, O God,We have never seen the paths we are about to trod;We can only follow in the way that’s set by You,And seek Your will in everything we do.

Well, many folk have prayed for rain because of the drought condition in the southeastern section of our country, and the good Lord sent it. The problem was that some areas were flooded. I am reminded of the story of some brethren in west Texas who became greatly concerned about the extreme drought conditions in their part of the world. They decided to obtain the services of a preacher to come and pray for rain. Finally, they found a city preacher to come out and pray for rain. He came and prayed fervently for the Lord to send rain upon the arid land. After a couple of days had passed, the rain began to fall. In fact, it rained until all the land was flooded, and the situation became very serious. The brethren became very concerned again because all their properties were inundated with water. They came together to discuss what they should do. One brother was heard to have said, “That is what we get by having a preacher to pray for rain who knew nothing about agriculture.” You know, life is much like that. There are times of peace, joy, happiness and good health. These are mountain top experiences. However, in a moment of time things can radically change. The prophet Elijah was successful on Mount Carmel, but in a short time he was to be found in a deep valley of discouragement, and he desired to die (1 Kings 18; 19:4). This mighty man of God was …

Are you satisfied? As for me, I have been blessed beyond measure throughout my life. Yet, with all honesty, I cannot say, I am completely satisfied. I have so many flaws in my makeup. I sin and sometimes do and say stupid things. I am not satisfied with myself in too many ways. On a daily basis, I fight against “the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). Do worldly allurements entice us sometimes? The apostle Paul wrote, “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Romans 7:14-20). How often do we do what we “would not”? Peace and Satisfaction Is in Christ Jesus “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver …

One of the noblest statements of the Old Testament, yea, of all literature, is that found in Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” A denial or disbelief of that fact has been at the root of some of the most heinous crimes ever perpetrated upon the human race. Hitler’s experiments in selective breeding of humans, his assumptions of Aryan superiority and his murder of millions of Jews are but some results of the assumptions of the evolutionary theory. If man was not created in the image of God, but is the product of the survival of the fittest, then only the fittest are worthy of survival, and the elimination of the unfit is the wise and proper course. Not only abortion, but also killing the infirm (sometimes referred to euphemistically as euthanasia) is the natural consequence of the theory. If man is not in the image of God, then to speak of ethical or moral choices is just so much linguistic garbage. Can you imagine a lion debating the morality of killing a mother deer or allowing the baby deer to starve to death without her? Can you even imagine a human being stupid enough to debate it? Let us think of the meaning of being created in God’s image and the implications of that fact. Some have thought of it as referring to man’s physical being having some form or shape …

Almost any time a person uses the word “tribulation” with reference to the Bible, those people known as Dispensational Premillennialists go into fits of ecstasy telling all about the great tribulation that is going to come on the earth before the end of time. They tell of the horrible, agonizing, indescribable suffering of the people of the earth before Christ comes again. They even go so far as to predict that the sun will refuse to shine, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven, and there will be great earthquakes. They find, they think, verification for this in Matthew 24:29 in which our Lord said, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”They almost proudly proclaim, “See what Jesus said would happen during the great tribulation.” This theory of the “end of time” needs a bit of a critique, does it not? The first thing to be pointed out is that the Lord never said anything about the sun not shining, the moon not shining, the stars falling from heaven and great earthquakes during the great tribulation. If one will even casually reread the verse, the Lord said that the sun’s being darkened, the moon’s refusing to give its light, the stars falling and the powers of heaven being shaken would take place immediately after the tribulation of those days. Therefore, my friends, …

During the late 1960’s, when this writer was only a young boy, my family was going shopping in Evansville, Indiana. Having arrived in the city, we were traveling one of the local streets. We approached a traffic light, and therefore, began to slow down. Over to one side of our car were some people who apparently made my parents feel uneasy, so they said, “Lock your doors.” Having noticed that we all reached about the same time for our locks, a lady from the car next to us called out in a laughing voice: “We won’t hurt you. We wouldn’t hurt you for nothing.” We weren’t laughing. Every day we are reminded we live in a dangerous world. We can be hurt, even by those who claim good intentions. Today, it is quite interesting to find there are individuals who seemingly feel quite threatened by the Lord’s church. A lady was heard (or quoted) to warn another who was studying with some of our brethren: “I’ve heard about those people all my life. You better stay away from them.” She was uneasy about the association. From a personal perspective, if the matter weren’t so sad, it would be laughable. We won’t hurt you! Friend, give me one example of an individual who came to be in peril, spiritually, because of his association and involvement in the body of Jesus Christ with the distinctive doctrines and practices He has given her. Friend, you know Jesus won’t hurt you. If Jesus won’t …