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At the time of this writing, September 18, 2008, U.S. market conditions are in a state of disarray. Economic fear is besetting this nation and consumer confidence is very low. People are groping for answers. In addition to the privilege of being a minister of the cross of Christ, I am also a businessman laboring in the marketing industry. Our business and the businesses of our clients all bear the weight of this situation. The beautiful thing about real confessing Christians’ positions is that God directly concerns Himself with our affairs, providing direction and support that rests in heavenly places, and that are not subject to market insecurities. Philippians 4:19:
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
And how about Romans 8:28:
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
There is a scripture on my desk that my Godly father wrote for me while he was still alive. It’s II Chronicles 15:7 and it reads:
Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.
We need to replace our fears with faith and “Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered:” (Psalms 68:1). Have you found this place of safety? Have you mixed God’s Word with faith? Are you born-again? Do you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Do it today and you’ll discover glorious peace and support that are literally out of this world. Click onto “Further With Jesus” for instructions for entry into the Kingdom of God. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.
GOD SAID, I Samuel 3:1-10:
1 And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.
2 And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see;
3 And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep;
4 That the LORD called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I.
5 And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down.
6 And the LORD called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again.
7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, neither was the word of the LORD yet revealed unto him.
8 And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the LORD had called the child.
9 Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, LORD; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.
GOD SAID, I Kings 19:7-14:
7 And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.
8 And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
9 And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
10 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
14 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
GOD SAID, Deuteronomy 28:9-10:
9 The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways.
10 And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.
MAN SAID: The idea that God speaks to man and interacts in his affairs and the affairs of the world, is ludicrous—absurd! There is no God. He only exists in the small minds of the uneducated and the easily-led.
Now THE RECORD. Is it possible that men are called personally by God into action? Is it possible that holy men and women of God can hear God’s voice and literally converse with Him? The answers, of course, are yes, and yes. Scripture is replete with examples of God and His angels conversing with man. A very short list of such Biblical accounts would include historical figures such as Adam and Eve, Cain, Noah, Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah, David, the prophets, Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory, the New Testament apostles and disciples, and continue through the current years to include men and women today. God uses various lines of communication. Primarily and dominantly, He communicates through the Words found in His Holy Bible, but He also communicates through angels, holy ministers, through direct contact by His Spirit, through various gifts of the Holy Ghost and more. But be advised, as I noted in the beginning of this listing, that all these instructions must conform to the inerrant Word of God. Yes, God does interact directly in the lives of men and He does provide direct, personal instruction.
There has been much banter, as well as numerous challenges by liberal educators over the past 50 years as to whether or not America was founded as a Christian nation. Their code words are “the separation of church and state,” “so-and-so was a deist and not a Christian,” or “the Vikings versus the Christian Christopher Columbus,” and so on. These notions cloud the minds of those who never take the time to research the roots of this glorious land. I must qualify this feature by clearly stating that there were indigenous groups of people inhabiting parts of the Americas prior to Columbus, but the present civilization, organizations, and governments were originally founded in Jesus’ name. In regard to the United States, there is no doubt that its foundation is Jesus Christ. On GodSaidManSaid, there is a series which illuminates the Godly foundation of the entire western hemisphere. You can read them here.
The 384-page book The Light and the Glory is a historic account of the Americas written by Peter Marshall and David Manuel. The authors reveal abundant histories of the past that say yes to the voice, the providence, and direction of God, and to the root of this great land.
America is a nation founded upon Jesus Christ. God’s providential hand can be seen in the stories of the lives of the men who founded it. This article is about just such a man named Christopher Columbus.
The following information and quotes are from The Light and the Glory:
Christopher Columbus was a man sent by God, and he knew it. Although his arrogance and stubborn attitude could get the best of him sometimes, he was a man of iron will and his sailing skills were second to none. We are always reminded when learning of Christopher Columbus, of how he ‘accidentally’ found the Americas in his search for a faster route to Asia. What we usually do not hear is that he simply wished to fulfill God’s will for his life and he knew that making a trip to the west was God’s will. He believed that God had a supernatural mission for him to carry the Light of Christ into undiscovered heathen lands and his name Christopher (Christ-bearer) was proof of this. In his personal journal he would quote lines from Isaiah such as Isaiah 49: “Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name...I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. The following passage was taken from Columbus’s journal:
It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel his hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous inspiration from the Holy Scriptures. . . .
I am a most unworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvelous presence. For the execution of the journey to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps. It is simply the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied. . . .
No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service. The working out of all things has been assigned to each person by our Lord, but it all happens according to His sovereign will, even though He gives advice. He lacks nothing that it is in the power of men to give Him. Oh, what a gracious Lord, who desires that people should perform for Him those things for which He holds Himself responsible! Day and night, moment by moment, everyone should express their most devoted gratitude to Him.
According to Columbus’s calculations from his own experiences and from the most current maps of the day, Columbus believed that by following the 28th parallel, the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan should only be 2,760 miles (750 leagues). What Columbus did not know was that indeed there was something that God had waiting for him just 150 leagues beyond that very distance. So for Columbus, since he believed that the mission was heaven-sent, it was only a matter of time before someone accepted his proposal and sent him on his way. However, the cost of such a venture was far from cheap and would require backing from a king. The following is a discourse between Columbus and his would-be investors:
In 1484, he presented his plan to John II (King of Portugal). The King turned his proposal over to a royal commission of scholars for their study and recommendation. After long deliberation, they found his scheme to be utterly fantastic, and the man himself to be arrogant and over-bearing. Undaunted, Columbus dispatched his bother Bartolomeo to Henry VII of England, to see if he would be interested. After brief consideration, the opinion of the English court was that Bartolomeo was a fool and his ideas madness.
Columbus now became convinced that God had reserved for Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, the honor of sending forth the expedition that would bring the Gospel to undiscovered lands. Were they not renowned throughout Christendom for their devotion to the Saviour? To Columbus, this explained why he had been turned down in Portugal and England, and at first he was not dismayed that he was having no success in gaining an audience with the Sovereigns of Castile. They were at Granada, preoccupied with directing the current holy war against the powerful Moors, who had invaded southern Spain more than seven centuries earlier and held it ever since.
But the weeks became months. Finally, through the intercession of the Count of Medina Celi, his suit was brought to the attention of Their Catholic Majesties in May, 1486. They were sufficiently interested to turn it over to their own royal commission, which took another four and a half years to reach the same conclusions their Portuguese counterparts had: Columbus’s scheme “rested on weak foundations,” such that its success seemed “uncertain and impossible to any educated person.”
Ferdinand and Isabella did not close the door entirely, inviting him to resubmit his proposal when the Moors were finally vanquished. But for Columbus, this was the end of hope. He had no alternative now but to go to the King of France. Yet his heart was not in it. He had been so sure that God had intended it to be Ferdinand and Isabella. . . . Could it be that he was also wrong about other things? For the first time since he had conceived of his venture--God's venture--dark shadows of doubt crept into the corners of his mind, while all his pride and self-esteem drained away. As he walked along the cold, deserted road that led to La Ra’bida, the Franciscan monastery on the Rio Tinto where he had left his young son Diego, he had probably never felt so alone or so empty.
Upon reaching the monastery, Columbus poured out his heart to the prior of that monastery, Juan Perez, who was said to be a man of great spiritual wisdom and was also the Queen’s confessor. After listening to Columbus's plea, Perez became convinced of the cause for the mission. Upon morning, Perez dispatched a messenger to the Queen urging her to support the mission for he believed that God's hand rested upon Columbus. Trusting in the wisdom of her confessor, Isabella issued a response to Columbus that he was to return to Santa Fe, the city of Holy Faith, at once. Not only so, but with the letter was a draft for funds so that Columbus might have new clothes and a mount on which to return with. Columbus was overjoyed; his broken spirit revived; it looked as if God’s favour was returning to him once again.
When Columbus arrived at Santa Fe, at the end of 1491, there was tremendous excitement throughout the city: the Moors were about to surrender! Armor was being burnished, battle standards were being set up, women were stringing pennants and bunting from the tops of tents and houses. Finally, as the afternoon sun fired the walls of the Alhambra, the citadel at the heart of the city, the Moorish banner came down, and the huge gates of Granada slowly swung open. Out came the Moorish King at the head of a column of noblemen, . . .
At the end of the way, under a pavilion waited Ferdinand and Isabella. The Moorish King dismounted, walked up to them, knelt, and kissed their hands. And the mightiest cheer ever heard in Andalusia erupted. The war was over! The last Moorish foothold in Europe had been dislodged, and Christ reigned supreme in Castile! Pandemonium broke out—as war-weary Christian soldiers wept and cried and gave thanks to God.
Full of joy himself, Columbus was nonetheless impatient to see the King and Queen. He may have been the only Christian in Granada that night not completely given over to the exhilaration of the moment. He was not kept waiting long. Exhausted as they were, their Catholic Majesties listened attentively to Columbus. And as it turned out, there had never been a time when they could have been more receptive to his proposals. God had granted them a tremendous victory, and they had not yet thought of how they might show the heavenly Father their gratitude--build a cathedral, make a pilgrimage, erect shelters for the poor. . . . And now a far more modest possibility presented itself. Here, back again, was the Genoese visionary, with his proposal for his own Crusade: to discover new lands for the glory of God and His Church, and to spread the Gospel of the Holy Saviour to the ends of the earth.
Columbus spent the next eight months preparing for the trip and gathering together a crew. Columbus, being the skilled seaman that he was, made sure the ships were equipped for the long journey. One gains a better respect for Columbus's expert preparation, when you read the stories of the settlers’ trips to America, made hundreds of years later and who had a much better understanding of where they were going, and yet were grossly unprepared. At the end of the eight months, on the morning of August 3, 1492, Columbus was ready to set sail. After receiving Holy Communion, Columbus raised anchor and set sail for uncharted lands, “in the name of Jesus.”
The first days of the voyage could not have gone more smoothly. Columbus steered southwest by south, making for the Canaries. His pilots may have wondered why he did not head due west from the Azores. But not doing so was the hidden key to the puzzle, inspiration that would give him the success where others had already tried and failed. Word had already reached him that John II had sent one of his mariners due west from the Azores—only to see the man give up, after days of battling incessant headwinds.
In all of the extensive north and south voyages he had made in the past, Columbus had noted that while westerlies prevailed in the northern Ocean, once one dropped below the Tropic of Cancer, the winds became northeasterly. Hence, it should be possible to have following winds out, and then on they way home go north and ride the westerlies. It was that simple, but no one had ever thought of it before. Columbus regarded it as a revelation, and he knew Whom to thank.
The ease of the voyage proved to be short-lived however, when Columbus’s men began to grow discontent. With the aid of the wind, Columbus was making excellent time, but this is exactly what his men feared, for none of his men had ever been any further than 300 miles off coast, and now they were over 3,000 miles away with no end in sight. Sensing the growing resentfulness in his men, Columbus began to lie about the daily estimates on how far they were going, giving his men far shorter estimates than what they were actually doing. The situation came to a head when the captains of the Pinta and the Nina, Martin Pinzon and his brother Vicente, requested an emergency conference with Columbus. Upon entering the privacy of Columbus’s quarters, the message was clear and urgent; if they continued even one day further without turning back then they were going to have a mutiny on their hands and furthermore, they didn't know whether they could trust their officers anymore if there was one.
And yet, Columbus knew that the Pinzons were not exaggerating the gravity of the situation... In anguish, he turned away from the Pinzons...
But he extracted one more promise from them: three additional days. If they had not sighted land by the twelfth, they would come about and head home. Not at all sure they had three days of goodwill remaining, the Pinzon brothers left. [End of quote]
Again from The Light and the Glory:
On the morning of the eleventh, as they continued to fly along, aboard the Pinta a great shout went up: a reed was sighted and a small piece of wood that had unmistakably been shaped by a man. And over on the Nina, this news was answered with the sighting of a small twig with roses on it. These sure signs of land instantly transformed the mood of the three ships into the happiest they had been in weeks!
The prize for the first person to sight land was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis, and now the men were clamoring to take turns aloft as lookouts. . . . As night fell, instead of taking in sail, they elected to plunge on into the darkness at an almost reckless pace, . . . At 10:00 P.M., Columbus and one of the sailors simultaneously sighted a tiny light, far ahead of them. . . .
Whatever the light was, Columbus took it as a strong encouragement from the Lord to press on as fast as possible.
At 2:00 A.M, with less than four hours remaining before the dawn of the third and final day, aboard the Pinta the electrifying cry at last rang out, “Tierra! Tierra!” . . . and Martin Pinzon confirmed the sighting by firing a cannon as a signal. Land!
Columbus was the first to set foot on dry land, carrying the royal standard, with brothers Pinzon directly behind him, bearing a huge white banner with a green cross and the crowned initials of Ferdinand and Isabella on either side of it. The men kissed the white coral beach, which was almost too bright to look at in the noonday sun. Then their eyes filled with tears, as they knelt and bowed their heads. Columbus christened the island San Salvador--“Holy Saviour”--and prayed: “O Lord, Almighty and everlasting God, by Thy holy Word Thou hast created the heaven, and the earth, and the sea; blessed and glorified be Thy Name, and praised be Thy Majesty, which hath deigned to use us, Thy humble servants, that Thy holy Name may be proclaimed on this second part of the earth.” [End of quote]
Is it possible that men are called personally by God into action? Is it possible that holy men and women of God can hear God’s voice and literally converse with Him? Christopher (Christ-bearer) Columbus thought so. The Americas were discovered in the name of Jesus.
GOD SAID, I Samuel 3:10:
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.
GOD SAID, I Kings 19:11-13:
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:
12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
GOD SAID, Deuteronomy 28:9-10:
9 The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways.
10 And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.
MAN SAID: The idea that God speaks to man and interacts in his affairs and the affairs of the world, is ludicrous—absurd! There is no God. He only exists in the small minds of the uneducated and the easily-led.
Now you have THE RECORD.
References:
Authorized King James Version
Marshall, P., D. Manuel, The Light and the Glory, Revell, 1977
