A Nation In Peril - November 5, 2008
Powerful description of biblical prophecy in relation to 9/11. A must see for all Americans to understand where we are at in terms of judgement from God.
Venus Laney: Home
With a gift of song and a heart of worship, I have stepped out into His calling. I believe that God has blessed me with these songs to share with you 'for such a time as this'....
I pray that you are not only entertained by the music that you find here, but that you are blessed and are propelled into a deeper level of worship.
Check out the new version of "I Need You" and new online messages on the music page.
May The Lord Bless & Keep You!
The End Does Not Justify The Means - November 5, 2008
"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Mark 8:36
Is anyone else still just reeling in shock from last night's election??? It was so hard for me to accept that there were that many people completely blind and unconcerned for what Senator Obama represents concerning our faith and values. My husband summed it up when I commented on how so much of our nation can be unaware...he said "everyone is worried about the money". Sad, but true.
Someone promises change and a better financial future and he has them jumping up and down celebrating; but at what cost? The answer is the loss of a nation commited to the word of God. I was reading an article this morning that brought this very thing to mind...
Prior to World War I we had a group of intellectuals in England called Fabian Socialists. The red bearded man who gave us plays like Pygmalion and My fair lady, George Bernard Shaw, was one of the super intellectuals. Those men did not talk about redemption, they did not talk about sin, they were just rationalists, they were just humanists. Away back in 1912, two years before the 1914 war, H. G. Wells said, "It is possible for us to have a new race of people by intellectual and biological processes. We don't need the Bible, we don't need the church, we can pull down the hills of wealth, we can fill up the valleys of poverty."
He didn't talk about sin and redemption and wickedness.
He talked about the adequacy of materialism.
He talked about the inevitability of progress.
He talked about the sufficiency of man.
They were going to bring in a new millennium by their own genius.
And then a shadow came over the sky. We had the 1914-18 war. And at the end, H. G. Wells and the gang were not so sure about things.
In 1939 came the 2nd World War. Well, H. G. Wells had written his outline of history, but the last book he wrote, in the middle of World War II, was not this rosy optimism. His last book was Mind at the end of it's Tether. And he said, "There is no hope for humanity." And he said one more sensible thing, "There is a little cavity somewhere in the human breast which can be filled by God and only by God."
Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/
Eventually our nation will wake up to the same realization, but at what cost?? What must we endure first before blinded eyes can be opened???
Scriptures of judgement and repentance keep whirling through my mind. My desperate prayer now is "God, what would you have your children do now??? How are we to respond with our nation in such peril and moral depravation???"
I believe our answer lies in Joel 2:12-17
12Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
13And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
14Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God?
15Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:
16Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.
17Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?
Now is the time for the church to awaken and press in as never before! I will be the first to admit failure in not praying hard and long enough before reaching this point. I naively believed that all would work out for the best - resting on, among other things,
prophetic promises circulating through email concerning Sarah Palin
as our generation's Esther. But the hard lesson for me in this is that God called His people to fast and pray for a reason - we do have a responsibility to do our part (ALL OF IT) before He will respond...
"If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14
May each one of us respond to the clarion call of the heavenlies to
awaken and arise...to be the spotless church and give Him no rest in pleading for the mercy and forgiveness of our fallen nation. The time is coming that we will no longer have this privilege - our
children and their futures are depending on us!!!
Is anyone else still just reeling in shock from last night's election??? It was so hard for me to accept that there were that many people completely blind and unconcerned for what Senator Obama represents concerning our faith and values. My husband summed it up when I commented on how so much of our nation can be unaware...he said "everyone is worried about the money". Sad, but true.
Someone promises change and a better financial future and he has them jumping up and down celebrating; but at what cost? The answer is the loss of a nation commited to the word of God. I was reading an article this morning that brought this very thing to mind...
Prior to World War I we had a group of intellectuals in England called Fabian Socialists. The red bearded man who gave us plays like Pygmalion and My fair lady, George Bernard Shaw, was one of the super intellectuals. Those men did not talk about redemption, they did not talk about sin, they were just rationalists, they were just humanists. Away back in 1912, two years before the 1914 war, H. G. Wells said, "It is possible for us to have a new race of people by intellectual and biological processes. We don't need the Bible, we don't need the church, we can pull down the hills of wealth, we can fill up the valleys of poverty."
He didn't talk about sin and redemption and wickedness.
He talked about the adequacy of materialism.
He talked about the inevitability of progress.
He talked about the sufficiency of man.
They were going to bring in a new millennium by their own genius.
And then a shadow came over the sky. We had the 1914-18 war. And at the end, H. G. Wells and the gang were not so sure about things.
In 1939 came the 2nd World War. Well, H. G. Wells had written his outline of history, but the last book he wrote, in the middle of World War II, was not this rosy optimism. His last book was Mind at the end of it's Tether. And he said, "There is no hope for humanity." And he said one more sensible thing, "There is a little cavity somewhere in the human breast which can be filled by God and only by God."
Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/
Eventually our nation will wake up to the same realization, but at what cost?? What must we endure first before blinded eyes can be opened???
Scriptures of judgement and repentance keep whirling through my mind. My desperate prayer now is "God, what would you have your children do now??? How are we to respond with our nation in such peril and moral depravation???"
I believe our answer lies in Joel 2:12-17
12Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
13And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
14Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God?
15Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:
16Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.
17Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?
Now is the time for the church to awaken and press in as never before! I will be the first to admit failure in not praying hard and long enough before reaching this point. I naively believed that all would work out for the best - resting on, among other things,
prophetic promises circulating through email concerning Sarah Palin
as our generation's Esther. But the hard lesson for me in this is that God called His people to fast and pray for a reason - we do have a responsibility to do our part (ALL OF IT) before He will respond...
"If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14
May each one of us respond to the clarion call of the heavenlies to
awaken and arise...to be the spotless church and give Him no rest in pleading for the mercy and forgiveness of our fallen nation. The time is coming that we will no longer have this privilege - our
children and their futures are depending on us!!!
Tearing Down The High Places - September 16, 2008
“He removed the high places, and broke the images, and cut down the groves, and broke in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made... He trusted in the Lord God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.” 2 Kings 18:4-5
Are you desiring to go to a new level with God? Has your walk and prayer life seemed to plateau without the full manifestations that you know our mighty God is capable of??? It may be a question of God’s timing in your prayers. It could be that certain desires are not part of God's will for you…or, it may be that there are some “high places” in your life that the Lord is requiring you to remove.
What is a “high place”? In the Old Testament, the high places were described as altars that the children of Israel had set up to worship other idols. In our society, particularly as Christians, we are quick to say that we have no other Gods before Him…but let’s remember that an idol is anything that has been placed in priority over God. It can be anything from relationships, to money, a job, even personal goals in ministry…anything that has gotten out of balance in our lives that has become more important to us than God and His will for our lives.
The verses above describing King Hezekiah remind me that it is not enough to continue doing good if we allow the high places to remain. That is what set him apart in scripture. There were many kings described as doing good in the sight of the Lord. But what set this king apart was his attention to the high places that none before him would dare tackle.
The high places in our lives may not be as easy to identify as the bloodied altars in Hezekiah’s day, but they are still as real and just as important to remove. When something takes an idol position in our lives, it hinders our relationship with God and His ability to flow through us in ministering to others.
“Behold the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” Isaiah 59:1-2
We serve an awesome, mighty, powerful God. No one that knows Him has any doubt about that. I was commenting to a friend the other day that knowing this to be true, and seeing a lack of the miracles of God and what we know He is capable of, makes me wonder where we, as a church body are falling short. This verse in Isaiah reminds me, it can never be that God has been limited in His abilities…the fault and limitations reside in us.
What I find so revealing about the high places in Hezekiah’s day was the fact that we know God could have sent fire from heaven destroying every one of those altars in the blink of an eye. But that was not His desire. Yes, He wanted them removed, but His true desire and what He waited to see was a man of God to rise up and take the authority that he had been given to tear down those high places.
We have been given the authority through Jesus Christ to do them same in our lives! “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Let us each examine our lives and prayerfully ask “Lord, are there any high places in my life that need removed? Have I allowed anything to take priority over you and our relationship? Reveal to me any area that is out of balance and help me to tear it down from an idol position with the authority given to me through Jesus Christ!”
I believe the Lord’s true desire is to see each of us live the full life that He died for us to have…fulfilling our destiny in Christ COMPLETELY! Let us continue on with our full focus on God, reaching each new level avoiding the pitfalls of the high places!
Are you desiring to go to a new level with God? Has your walk and prayer life seemed to plateau without the full manifestations that you know our mighty God is capable of??? It may be a question of God’s timing in your prayers. It could be that certain desires are not part of God's will for you…or, it may be that there are some “high places” in your life that the Lord is requiring you to remove.
What is a “high place”? In the Old Testament, the high places were described as altars that the children of Israel had set up to worship other idols. In our society, particularly as Christians, we are quick to say that we have no other Gods before Him…but let’s remember that an idol is anything that has been placed in priority over God. It can be anything from relationships, to money, a job, even personal goals in ministry…anything that has gotten out of balance in our lives that has become more important to us than God and His will for our lives.
The verses above describing King Hezekiah remind me that it is not enough to continue doing good if we allow the high places to remain. That is what set him apart in scripture. There were many kings described as doing good in the sight of the Lord. But what set this king apart was his attention to the high places that none before him would dare tackle.
The high places in our lives may not be as easy to identify as the bloodied altars in Hezekiah’s day, but they are still as real and just as important to remove. When something takes an idol position in our lives, it hinders our relationship with God and His ability to flow through us in ministering to others.
“Behold the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” Isaiah 59:1-2
We serve an awesome, mighty, powerful God. No one that knows Him has any doubt about that. I was commenting to a friend the other day that knowing this to be true, and seeing a lack of the miracles of God and what we know He is capable of, makes me wonder where we, as a church body are falling short. This verse in Isaiah reminds me, it can never be that God has been limited in His abilities…the fault and limitations reside in us.
What I find so revealing about the high places in Hezekiah’s day was the fact that we know God could have sent fire from heaven destroying every one of those altars in the blink of an eye. But that was not His desire. Yes, He wanted them removed, but His true desire and what He waited to see was a man of God to rise up and take the authority that he had been given to tear down those high places.
We have been given the authority through Jesus Christ to do them same in our lives! “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Let us each examine our lives and prayerfully ask “Lord, are there any high places in my life that need removed? Have I allowed anything to take priority over you and our relationship? Reveal to me any area that is out of balance and help me to tear it down from an idol position with the authority given to me through Jesus Christ!”
I believe the Lord’s true desire is to see each of us live the full life that He died for us to have…fulfilling our destiny in Christ COMPLETELY! Let us continue on with our full focus on God, reaching each new level avoiding the pitfalls of the high places!