With a Capital A

Posted on 8 Jan 2023 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

GOD is love.
We hear it and hear it.

It’s about all we do hear about GOD.

And yet hearing only GOD is love, instead of drawing people to Him, I believe, has emboldened people to sin without remorse and indeed not repentance.
No, remorse and repentance are not synonymous.

The preaching of GOD is love alone has given the world a license to sin, not only a license to sin but to applaud and flaunt their sins and the sins of their peers.
There is no fear of GOD preached and most people in and out of professing Christianity are not afraid to practice sin.

I can tell you, I did not come to GOD for salvation because I heard GOD is love.
I came because I didn’t want to go to hell and I heard He would save me from it – if I turned from my sin TO HIM.
And, of course, that meant He loved me — why else would He save me, other than loving me?

What am I saying?
That we must preach the truth — He is love but He is Angry with a capital A.
Yes, angry.
There was a sermon preached on July 8, 1741, by Johnathan Edwards.
Ever heard of it?

Allow me to offer you (in part) a modern-day opinion of this sermon written by Josh Moody:

“On this day in history, Jonathan Edwards started a sermon that he did not finish. Such was the impact of his preaching that the people listening shrieked and cried out, and the crying and weeping became so loud that Edwards was forced to discontinue the sermon. Instead, the pastors went down among the people and prayed with them in groups. Many came to a saving knowledge of Christ that day.

What can we learn from Edwards’s preaching of “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God?”

We Should Not Be Afraid to Preach Hell

Edwards is unfairly tarnished as only a hell-fire preacher. Read Charity and Its Fruits. Read many of his other sermons that discourse upon the beauty of Christ. Preaching on hell was not unusual in 18th-century New England. What made Edwards’s sermon impactful was not that he preached on hell, but how he preached on hell. By contrast, we rarely (if ever) even mention hell from our pulpits today. Surely in the future, the church will look back on our age and recount it as the strangest fashion that we preached on God’s love without preaching God’s justice or wrath. There is little biblical balance in our preaching today.” Josh Moody. (2018)

https://www.crossway.org/articles/this-day-in-history-jonathan-edwards-preaches-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/

Now, if you want to read the preserved sermon, here are two links:

https://enfieldhistoricalsociety.org/old-town-hall/jonathan-edwards-and-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/

https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/he_is_risen/jonathan_edwards/sinners.cfm

Yes, GOD is love.
Not that He loves but He Himself IS love.

Because He is love, He has no alternative but to be Angry, at all that falls short of LOVE.

Click HERE for some verses about this Wrath of GOD.

What does that mean?
It means we must be perfect like GOD is perfect. Matthew 5:48

Are you saying, You can’t do it?
Neither can I.

BUT JESUS DID!

Yes. Love and anger go hand in hand.

08ab3b9e01210f8ab815e1ac8329c080 GOD is indeed love but do not be deceived, He is also perfectly and justly angry.

How fortunate for us that He is slow to pour out his anger and is patient and is not willing that anyone perish.

But obviously, people do perish EVERY DAY so . . .

We got to preach this!

Love, Kathie

This Would Be

Posted on 25 Sep 2022 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

A question was posed in my hearing last week and this week I am still pondering it.

The question?

If you knew you had just 8 more months to live what would you do with those 8 months?

As far as I know, I may have more than 8 months; and then again I might have LESS than 8 months. None of us are privy to the moment of our escape from this earth.

What would I do?
I think one thing would be most important to me.
It wouldn’t be traveling to places that I really would like to see.
It wouldn’t be writing that book I always wished was in me.
I think I would like to clean some things out of the attic and closets so my Babies would not be left with those tasks but that would not be the pressing matter.

This would be.
To somehow speak to each one of my children, the first and second generations of my children (all of them; by birth and by marriage); generation three. at this writing, has not yet reached what is termed, the age of accountability.
What would I want to say?

Are you ready?
Are you sure?
Are you sure you have exchanged your sins for JESUS’ Righteousness?
Are you sure that you are walking in The Truth? Are you sure you are living as Father commands?
Are you sure you can stand before GOD, give an account to Him and be not ashamed?

If you are not sure, do you want to be?
Will you at least commit to reading Your Bible?
One Book at a time, one chapter a day?

⁴How happy I was to meet some of your children and find them living according to the truth, just as the Father commanded. source

Of all the things I want in this life, I want ALL my Babies to make it to Heaven. I do not want one of them to perish. Come to think of it I want no one to perish.

I want ALL to come to salvation.
I want ALL to come to trust the LORD JESUS and be delivered from the kingdom of darkness to The Kingdom of GOD.
I want no one to be lost. Not one.

So whether I have 8 months, 8 years, or much longer my mission is the same:

Are you ready?

⁸Moreover, dear friends, do not ignore this: with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day ⁹The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some people think of slowness; on the contrary, he is patient with you; for it is not his purpose that anyone should be destroyed, but that everyone should turn from his sins. ¹⁰However, the Day of the Lord will come “like a thief.” On that Day the heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will melt and disintegrate, and the earth and everything in it will be burned up. source

Love, Kathie

Presently

Posted on 16 Mar 2022 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

FOR A LARGER VIEWING SCREEN, CLICK THE TITLE OF THIS POST ABOVE

1 Peter 2

Just this to ponder:

¹¹Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and temporary residents not to give in to the desires of your old nature, which keep warring against you;
¹²but to live such good lives among the pagans that even though they now speak against you as evil-doers, they will, as a result of seeing your good actions, give glory to God on the Day of his coming. source

to ponder for the sake of living in our present distress.

I am anticipating beginning as early as Friday that I may be away from our screen here for several days — if I find enough quiet moments strung together to write, I will.
Please know that I will be praying for you and soon I shall return LORD willing.
Yes, the sabbatical is for pleasant, happy reasons —

I Need to Pray with You

Posted on 9 Mar 2022 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

Father GOD, thank You that You shall yet send The LORD of GLORY to this earth again; that He will live and reign here as He deserves, and thank You for every son and daughter that will see that glorious day.
Holy Spirit, I have read that it is Your will and Your mission to convict and convince humans of sin, of righteousness and judgment to come, I pray, I pled for You to do this for the many people loved by not only myself but all who come here to read and pray. I do not pretend to know Your timing; I do not pretend to know the future timing of those things You have told us shall be, I wait for You to do as You have promised and warned that You would. I am aware that people are perishing daily. Even so, I know that is not Your will for You have said it is not Your will that any should perish. So thank You for Your mercy, thank You for Your gifts of conviction and repentance; thank You for seeking out the Lost, thank You for rescuing every willing soul from pits of sin. I pray, Father, to see a harvest of souls. I pray to see people rescued and delivered from the kingdom of darkness into Your glorious Light. Amen and amen based solely on the Merits of JESUS the MESSIAH.

John 16:8
2 Peter 3:9
2 Corinthians 4:4

This is the GOD to whom we pray:

How could we not?
How could we not seek Him?
What could be more than HE?

Nine Words

Posted on 10 Jan 2022 by Kathie Whitestone Thompson

Malachi 4

I am taking 9 words from Malachi 4 as my focus for this piece.
Actually, in my Complete Jewish Bible, there is no chapter 4 but there is a Chapter 3 continuing beyond verse 18, and it is in these beyond verses that these 9 words reside.

Allow me to give you a link to the CJB and a link to NASB, KJV, and NLT.

So what are the words?

“on the day when I take action,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.”

These words encourage me. These words give me patience.
These words crucify my flesh that wants to rise up in fear and anger.
Why?

Because these words tell me GOD is going to take action. If we read the whole of the Text we see upon whom He is going to take action.
That is and I quote from verse 1 (or 19 depending on your translation): “all the proud and evildoers”.

Let us be honest.

Right now today we don’t see His actions against the proud and the evildoers, particularly for several years now.
We see them doing their evil with no punishment, little if any visible restraint — but that will not always be.

So take heart, my brothers and sisters. Take heart.
Fret not because of evildoers. (Psalm 37)

Let us focus not on the evil but on our Father who does all things well, perfectly well, and perfectly on time.

And remember too that just because we do not see His Hand does not mean He is not working.
I mean JESUS told us He was preparing a dwelling place for us — we have not seen it yet but we believe, we KNOW He does not lie and He is surely preparing just as He said. (John 14:3)

So.
In the time we have left on this earth, let us live in love and trust; let us repent and forsake fear and anger; which will open us to sharing the Gospel of JESUS with anyone in our path who is willing to hear.

Our Father wants NO ONE to perish. (2 Peter 3:9)
That must be our desire as well.