Does your faith need strengthening? Are you confused and wondering if Jesus Christ is really "The Way, the Truth, and the Life?" "Fight for Your Faith" is a blog filled with interesting and thought provoking articles to help you find the answers you are seeking. Jesus said, "Seek and ye shall find." In Jeremiah we read, "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall seek for Me with all your heart." These articles and videos will help you in your search for the Truth.

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Credibility In Shreds: CDC's Shocking Admission On Covid Deaths

RonPaulLibertyReport

The director of the embattled CDC, Rochelle Walensky, made a shock admission over the weekend: a vast majority of "covid deaths" were among those with FOUR existing co-morbidities! After refusing to even consider the co-morbidity factor when ramping up the fear for two years, suddenly the public health "experts" are falling all over themselves to embrace it. What gives? Politics? Also today - Biden's cruel punishment of Florida for its successful covid strategy. And...AOC has covid! (How is that possible?).

 Analysis by Dr. Joseph MercolaFact Checked

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • In recent days, the pandemic narrative has undergone a remarkable number of U-turns
  • January 9, 2022, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky sent out a tweet saying “We must protect people with comorbidities from severe COVID-19,” in other words, focused protection, which is what tens of thousands of doctors have been calling for since the creation of The Great Barrington Declaration in early October 2020
  • January 10, 2022, Walensky admitted that the COVID shots cannot prevent transmission
  • The CDC is now saying you should not retest once you’ve recovered from COVID, as the PCR can provide false positives for up to 12 weeks after the infection has been resolved. They’re also cutting the isolation requirement from 10 to just five days — probably because the failing economy is hurting Biden’s approval rating so they need people to work
  • The narrative is also changing on what makes for a COVID case and how deaths are counted. Walensky recently admitted about 40% of “COVID patients” tested positive but do not have symptoms and are hospitalized for something else. She has also promised to deliver data on how many people have actually died “from” COVID and how many died “with” it

As noted by Dr. Ron Paul in the January 10, 2022, Liberty Report above, U.S. authorities have suddenly started to change their tune with regard to COVID and the COVID shots.

“The opposition to our position are starting to wake up,” Paul says, as some shreds of truth are actually starting to be acknowledged. The good news, Paul says, is that “Maybe some of the things they’ve been saying are not quite accurate, and maybe what we’ve been saying is closer to the truth, and maybe they’re starting to recognize that.”

CDC Director Now Calls for Focused Protection

Indeed, in recent days, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made a remarkable number of U-turns, completely reversing course on several narrative points.

For example, in a January 10, 2022, CNN interview, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky actually admitted that “what [the COVID shots] can’t do anymore is prevent transmission,”1 whereas before, the narrative was that if you get the jab, you have nothing to worry about anymore. In July 2021, President Biden promised that if you get vaccinated, “you’re not going to get COVID.”2 Well, it wasn’t true. Many knew that, but were censored when pointing it out.

A day earlier, January 9, Walensky also sent out a tweet saying “We must protect people with comorbidities from severe COVID-19,” which is what tens of thousands of doctors have been calling for since the creation of The Great Barrington Declaration in early October 2020. It called for focused protection of high-risk individuals, such as the elderly, rather than blanket lockdowns.

It was recently revealed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and his former boss, now retired National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins, colluded behind the scenes to quash the declaration.3 For whatever reason, Fauci and Collins were hell-bent on pushing economy-destroying lockdowns instead. In an October 8, 2020, email to Fauci, Collins wrote:4,5,6,7

“The proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists who met with the Secretary seems to be getting a lot of attention ... There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises ...”

“Don’t worry, I got this,” Fauci replied. Later, Fauci sent Collins links to newly published articles refuting the focused protection solution, including an op-ed in Wired magazine, and an article in The Nation, titled “Focused Protection, Herd Immunity and Other Deadly Delusions.”

CDC Follows Political Strategy, Not Science

Now, all of a sudden, Walensky is onboard with the “deadly delusion” of focused protection. Her about-face would be confusing were it not for the fact that COVID countermeasures were never about protecting the public from a virus. From the start, the pandemic had political goals, and it still does.

The pressure is now on to prove the Biden administration has made some sort of progress with the pandemic. Biden made a lot of promises, none of which have come to fruition, so now the political establishment is scrounging to come up with some plan that can make them look as though they’re getting somewhere.

The problem is that cases are now exploding, when a successful vaccine campaign should have brought the situation under control. So, they now need a way to minimize the number of cases, whereas before, they used every trick in the book to overcount them,8 in order to scare people into complying with COVID restrictions and getting the jab.

New Testing Guidance Aims to Lower Case Rates

One simple way to cut down cases is to limit testing, and that’s another U-turn we’re now seeing. The CDC is now saying you should not retest once you’ve recovered from COVID. If you test positive, just quarantine for five days and don’t retest to confirm that you’re negative, as the PCR can provide false positives for up to 12 weeks after the infection has been resolved.

Well, we’ve known this for nearly two years already. From the start, experts warned that the PCR cannot be used to diagnose an active infection, as it can pick up RNA from dead, noninfectious viral debris.

Health authorities are now spinning the tale that these revisions in guidance are because we have two years’ worth of data, and they’re just following the science. But that’s pure baloney, seeing how the data never supported their COVID restrictions in the first place. 

The CDC’s decision to revise quarantine guidelines down from 10 days to just five days also appears politically motivated. Polls show the economy is a primary concern of voting Americans right now, so they need to strike a balance between the desired demolition of the economy and keeping people at work — at least until the 2022 elections are over.

There seems to be a LOT of sudden momentum surging in the direction of ending the pandemic. If I’m right, we’re going to see even more of this, and pretty quickly, since Biden has to wrap it up in time to declare victory on March 1. ~ Jeff Childers

In short, I suspect most if not all of the recent changes in COVID guidance is to build a narrative that the Biden administration has successfully brought the pandemic under control and reestablished a working economy. The change in narrative is based on political strategy, not science.

CDC Highlights Role of Comorbidities in Vaxxed COVID Deaths

rochelle walensky

As noted by Paul in the Liberty Report above, Walensky recently stated that 75% of COVID deaths had four or more comorbidities, “So, really, these are people who were unwell to begin with.” The admission went viral and was cited as proof that COVID is a lethal risk for none but the sickest among us.

The CDC quickly stepped in, clarifying that she meant “75% of COVID deaths among those who have received the COVID jab,” not COVID deaths overall.9 You can see the unedited segment above, where that context is made clear. Still, we know that COVID poses very little risk for healthy unvaccinated people as well, and that comorbidities are a primary risk factor regardless of your COVID jab status.

COVID Death Risk Has Always Been Low — Vaxxed or Not

For example, a 2020 study10 found 88% of hospitalized COVID patients in New York City had two or more comorbidities, 6.3% had one underlying health condition and 6.1% had none.

In late August 2020, the CDC published data showing only 6% of the total death count had COVID-19 listed as the sole cause of death. The remaining 94% had had an average of 2.6 comorbidities or preexisting health conditions that contributed to their deaths.11 So, yes, COVID is a lethal risk only for the sickest among us, just as Walensky said, but that’s true whether you’re “vaccinated” or not.

As for the study12 Walensky discussed in that “Good Morning America” segment, it found that of the 1.2 million COVID jabbed subjects, only 0.0033% died of COVID between December 2020 and October 2021. (And of those, 77.8% had four or more comorbidities.) This study, Walensky claims as evidence that the COVID shot works wonders to reduce the risk of death.

But does it really? Recall studies13 showing the noninstitutionalized infection fatality rate is on average just 0.26% to begin with, and people under the age of 40 have only a 0.01% risk of dying from COVID.14

When we’re talking about a fraction of a percentage point risk, we’re talking about a risk that is close to statistical zero. So, does lowering your risk of death from 0.01% to 0.003% really translate into something worthwhile? And, more importantly, is that reduction worth the risks involved with taking the jab?

Clearly, it’s not a risk-free decision. OneAmerica, a national mutual life insurance company, recently warned that all-cause deaths among working age Americans (18 to 64) are up 40% over prepandemic norms,15 and they cannot be attributed to COVID.

So, what’s causing these deaths? What potentially deadly thing did tens of millions of Americans do in 2021 that they’ve never done before? I’ll let you ponder whether Walensky’s claim that the COVID jab is saving lives is an accurate one.

CDC Admits Large Portion of ‘COVID Patients’ Aren’t

In another recent media appearance, Walensky stated that:16

“In some hospitals that we've talked to, up to 40% of the patients who are coming in with COVID-19 are coming in not because they’re sick with COVID, but because they’re coming in with something else and have had ... COVID or the Omicron variant detected.”

This, again, is something that we’ve been highlighting since the start of the pandemic. Most so-called “COVID patients” simply weren’t, and still aren’t. They’re hospitalized for something else entirely, and just happen to get a positive test result upon admission — which very possibly is a false positive. Either way, voila, they’re a COVID patient, even though they’re hospitalized for a broken leg or a heart attack.

As noted by Delta News TV, “Comments like these have cast doubt on the severity of the current COVID surge even as the Supreme Court considers legal challenges to Biden’s sweeping private sector mandates on that very issue.”17

Is the Political Pandemic in Its Final Death Throes?

In a January 10, 2022, blog post,18 Jeff Childers, an attorney, and the president and founder of Childers Law firm, presents a hypothesis for why we might be looking at the end of the pandemic, as the Biden administration has “no reasonable alternative but to wrap this whole thing up in the next 60 days or so.”

“There’s an interesting political dynamic shaping up, a kind of political vice grip that might just be driving federal COVID policy toward authenticity and an end to the pandemic ... a lot of reality has been breaking through lately,” Childers writes.19

He points out how a federal judge recently ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to release all the Pfizer COVID jab data that the agency wanted 75 years to release. The bulk of that data is now due March 1, 2022, the day of Biden’s State of the Union address. Childers suspects the Pfizer documents will contain plenty of counternarrative fodder and politically embarrassing details.

Why We’re Seeing a U-Turn in the Narrative Now

Biden needs some good news by his State of the Union address, as it’ll be his last chance to “help move the needle back toward blue,” and the way he can do that is by declaring the pandemic over. He can then claim to be the great liberator who ended the pandemic measures for good.

“If they handle this right, they can give their voting base and sycophantic media agents all the necessary talking points to boost Dem prospects for the midterm elections,” Childers writes.20

But to pull off that U-turn with any semblance of credibility, they have to start cutting the case rate now, and that’s precisely what we’re seeing. For example, the CDC recently changed its guidelines so you don’t need to retest after you’ve recovered from COVID, so no more false positives from recovered people.

Florida’s official policy is now to only test high-risk individuals and those who are symptomatic. Childers points out that the left-leaning Sun Sentinel even ran an article highlighting the fact that despite surging case rates, Florida has the lowest COVID death rate in the nation, second only to the sparsely populated Alaska. “What incredibly powerful force could make the Sun Sentinel downplay the pandemic like this?” he asks.

Will We Finally Get a More Accurate Death Count?

The CDC also appears poised to change the definition of COVID death to what it should have been all along. Childers notes:

“Fox News ... Bret Baier ... asked [Walensky] ‘how many of the 836,000 deaths in the U.S. linked to COVID are FROM COVID or how many are WITH COVID?’

Director Walensky said ... ‘those data will be forthcoming.’ Until about 10 minutes ago, the CDC said it didn’t HAVE any way to track that kind of information ... But now, apparently, CDC plans to release information about deaths from and with. What do you want to bet they’ll be REDUCING total COVID deaths shortly? By a lot.”

They’re also starting to accurately count only those who are actually sick with COVID rather than including people hospitalized for other reasons who just happen to test positive.

“Yesterday, New York Governor Hochul announced that almost HALF of patients are hospitalized for ‘non-COVID reasons,’ scattering the rotting corpse of the Narrative.

You might recall that just last week she ordered hospitals to start breaking down the reported figures and showing how many folks ACTUALLY are sick with COVID versus just testing positive in the hospital. We’ve been yelling about overcounting hospitalizations for two years now and they just noticed?”21

Same Narrative Switch Seen in Europe

The same sudden switch in narrative can be seen in Europe. Childers continues:22

“Yesterday, the Guardian UK ran a story headlined, ‘End mass jabs and live with COVID, says ex-head of vaccine taskforce.’ It says Dr. Clive Dix — former chairman of the UK’s vaccine taskforce — has called for a ‘major rethink’ of the UK’s COVID strategy, in effect reversing the approach of the past two years and returning to a ‘new normality.’

Shocking the cores the oft-maligned authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, Dr. Dix — without getting cancelled — said this:

‘We need to analyze whether we use the current booster campaign to ensure the vulnerable are protected, if this is seen to be necessary ... Mass population-based vaccination in the UK should now end.’ Ending mass vaccinations? Suddenly that idea is okay to discuss in the corporate media? Wow.”

In a January 3, 2022, interview with the Daily Telegraph, professor Andrew Pollard, head of the U.K.’s Committee on Vaccination and Immunization who helped create the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, also made a previously verboten statement: “We can’t vaccinate the planet every four or six months,” he said. “It’s not sustainable or affordable.”23 And, like Dix, Pollard was not canceled, censored or deplatformed.

January 11, 2022, Bloomberg also reported that “European Union regulators warned that frequent COVID-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible. Repeat booster doses every four months could eventually weaken the immune response and tire out people, according to the European Medicines Agency.”24

Marco Cavaleri, the EMA’s head of vaccines strategy, said during a January 11, 2022, press briefing:25

“While use of additional boosters can be part of contingency plans, repeated vaccinations within short intervals would not represent a sustainable long-term strategy. [Boosters] can be done once, or maybe twice, but it’s not something that we can think should be repeated constantly. We need to think about how we can transition from the current pandemic setting to a more endemic setting.”

That same day, the World Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition (TAG-CO-VAC) also issued a statement26 saying that “a vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable.”

They also stated that COVID vaccines that actually prevent infection and transmission need to be developed. The timing of all these statements is nothing if not remarkable. It shows just how coordinated this plandemic narrative is, all around the world.

Justice Sotomayor Called Out

Perhaps the best example that the narrative is undergoing a radical overhaul, Childers says, is Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor being fact checked and called out as a liar by The Washington Post:

“You’ll recall that Sotomayor confidently told the lawyers during oral argument Friday that ‘100,000’ children were in critical care and on ventilators with Omicron. The lawyers didn’t challenge her even though there aren’t that many total ICU beds in the whole country.

But on Saturday — the next day! — the Washington Post ran an article headlined, ‘Sotomayor’s false claim that ‘over 100,000’ children are in ‘serious condition’ with COVID.’ FALSE CLAIM?? What?? Here’s how the fact-checking article ended:

‘It’s important for Supreme Court justices to make rulings based on correct data … But Sotomayor during an oral argument offered a figure — 100,000 children in ‘serious condition … many on ventilators’ — that is absurdly high. She earns Four Pinocchios.’ It might be unprecedented for a major liberal newspaper to call out a liberal Justice. What could be going on? ...

There seems to be a LOT of sudden momentum surging in the direction of ending the pandemic. If I’m right, we’re going to see even more of this, and pretty quickly, since Biden has to wrap it up in time to declare victory on March 1. Which would explain why they pushed the SOTU back a month. They need the time to get the pandemic wrapped up.”27

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Psalm 37

 


hapter 37

1(A Psalm of David.) Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

2For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

3Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

4Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

5Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

6And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.

7Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

8Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

9For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.

10For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.

11But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

12The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.

13The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.

14The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.

15Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.

16A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.

17For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.

18The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.

19They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.

20But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.

21The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth.

22For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that be cursed of him shall be cut off.

23The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.

24Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.

25I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.

26He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.

27Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.

28For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.

29The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.

30The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.

31The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.

32The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him.

33The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.

34Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.

35I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

36Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

37Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

38But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.

39But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD: he is their strength in the time of trouble.

40And the LORD shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him.

Athletes Collapsing And Dying [ 400 IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS ]

Dennis Edwards

Of course, this is just a coincidence, "a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent casual connection." But we all suspect that this is not the case. We suspect there is an underlining cause, a cause we are not even allowed to talk about or mention directly. If we do, we will be accused of committing a thought crime. A crime that could cause us to be deleted or censured and our livelihood threatened. 

We may even need to wear a yellow star on our clothing to identify us as one that did not follow the suggested mandate. We may even have had a family member or friend of the family who has had severe heart palpitations after receiving his or her conformist medical intervention. Like the psalmist wrote, "We are counted as sheep for the slaughter."(Psalm 44:22) But God shall arise and shall condemn the wicked. He "is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in time of trouble."(Psalm 46:1) "Arise, O Lord, lift up thy hand: forget not the humble."(Psalm 10:12)

King James Version (editted) - Psalm 10

1 Why do You stand afar off, O Lord?
why do you hide thyself in times of trouble? (Dennis - It often seems like in times of trouble that God is silent. But His patience does not endure forever. He has promised to judge the wicked and He will. You might also like to review Psalm 37.)
2 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor:
let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
3 For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire,
and blesses the covetous, (Dennis - those who build bigger barns and share not with the poor.) whom the Lord abhors.
4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God:
God is not in all his thoughts. (Dennis - But He needs to be in all our thoughts. "In all our ways (our actions) (first) acknowledge Him, and He shall direct our paths."[Proverbs 3:6])

5 (The wicked) His ways are always grievous;
thy judgments are far above out of his sight:
as for all his enemies, he puffs at them.
6 He has said in his heart, I shall not be moved:
for I shall never be in adversity.
7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud:
under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
8 He sits in the lurking places of the villages:
in the secret places does he murder the innocent:
his eyes are privily set against the poor.
9 He lies in wait secretly as a lion in his den:
he lies in wait to catch the poor:
he does catch the poor, when he draws him into his net. (Dennis - His net of social benefits and medicine, abortion rights, and vaccines, unemployment and drugs.)
10 He crouches, and humbles himself, (Dennis - He makes himself seem as if he is a friend of the poor, when he is not.)
that the poor may fall by his strong ones.
11 He has said in his heart, God has forgotten:
he hides his face; he will never see it.


12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand:
forget not the humble (or poor in spirit). (Dennis - This must be our prayer, that God will arise and condemn the wicked and save the innocent, the poor in spirit.)
13 Wherefore does the wicked contemn God?
he has said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.
14 Thou has seen it;
for thou beholds mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand:
the poor commits himself unto thee;
thou art the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man:
seek out his wickedness till thou find none.
16 The Lord is King for ever and ever:
the heathen are perished out of his land.
17 Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble:
thou wilt prepare their heart,
thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:
18 to judge the fatherless and the oppressed,
that the man of the earth may no more oppress. (Dennis - This is our prayer, Lord. Bring it to pass. Help those who have been injured through the present injection. Draw them closer to you and restore their health. In Jesus' name we pray.)

To listen to Psalm 37 click HERE

Monday, January 17, 2022

Sunday, January 16, 2022

Is there sin in the camp? How to lose God’s blessing!


Dennid Edwards

Joshua when he took over from Moses on Moses’s death, made some mistakes. Moses was a man who spent time with God. He had gone to the mountain and had come down with something to say. Moses spent time with God. He spent forty days on the mountain with God. And then another forty days. He was used to spending time with God. He had spent forty years in the wilderness and had learned He needed to spend time with God. Moses knew his work was not more important than his relationship with God. His family and his friends, his hobbies, his personal interests were not more important than his spending time with God. Moses spent time with God, and he had something to say when he came down from listening to the Lord.

That’s the way we should all be. As God’s people, we need to spend time with God. We need to spend time with the Lord in prayer for our families, for our loved ones, for our neighbours, for our politicians, for the state of the world, for Godly leaders. We should be praying and asking God to raise up righteous leaders in all aspects of life. We need to be praying. Failure in life is often the result of not praying. Or of having sin in the camp and therefore, losing God’s blessing.

Finally, when Moses died, Joshua took over the command of the people. They cross the Jordan River into the promised land and Joshua wins the victory at Jericho. But Joshua wasn’t as used to spending time with the Lord as Moses had been. Nevertheless, with the Lord’s help, he wins the battle at Jericho. However, there’s another little town not too far away named Ai. Joshua’s counselors suggest, “It’s a little town, it’s really small. It only has a few thousand people, so it’s nothing in comparison to Jericho. So we don’t need to bother taking the whole army. Just send around 2-3 thousand men. They’ll be able to take it.” Joshua listens to their counsel and does what they suggest. However, God’s word doesn’t tell us that Joshua inquired of the Lord, like we saw that Moses did. Joshua didn’t stop to hear from the Lord until after the fact. What happen when the children of Israel went out to the battle against Ai, those 2-3 thousand men, which should have been enough to conquer the city, got frighten. They fled from the inhabitance of Ai and thirty-six of them were killed. All of city of Ai come out after them and scared them away. And yet, it was only a little town.

All of Israel were astonished, “What happened? Where is the Lord? We were able to conquer the great city of Jericho, but not this little one?” Everyone knew that the presence of God was not with them.  They soon found out why. Joshua finally gets down on his knees and cried out to the Lord in prayer, “Lord, what happened.” And the Lord told him, “There’s sin in the camp.” Somebody had sinned. The Lord had commanded the children of Israel that when they conquered Jericho that no one should take any of the spoil.  The spoil, the silver and gold, etc. was to go to the common pot. The spoil was to go to the common pot, it was for the community. It was to be taken into the treasury of the nation and not any one individually should take anything.

But, a man named Achan stoll a wedge of silver and a Babylonian type dress and hid it in his tent. When Joshua prays and the Lord reveals to him that there’s sin in the camp. “Get everyone together and I’ll show you who it is.” Joshua called for the chief representative of each of the twelve tribes of Israel to come before him. The Lord was going to show him which tribe was the one where the sin was found. The tribe of Judah was chosen. They went through the different families within the tribe and eventually came to the family of Zerah and one of his sons named Achan was chosen. Joshua talks with Achan. And Achan confesses to the crime explaining he had stolen a wedge of silver and the Babylonia dress. Achan tells Joshua where he had hid it in his tent. Joshua sends some men to find it. They bring back the wedge of silver and the Babylonia dress.

The Lord told Joshua that he needed to set an example, so that all men might fear before the Lord. Joshua commands the people to take Achan and his wife and his sons and his daughters and his cattle and all his things and bring them to a valley, which became known as the Valley of Achan. The tribes of Israel stone Achan and his family to death. They were stoned to death in the Valley of Achan.

Apostle Paul tells us, “All these things happen unto them for examples.” Because of what happened, the people had the fear of the Lord. “Thou shalt not steal.” The spoil belonged to the community. We need to listen to what the Lord says and not have any secret sins. If we think we can have secret sin in our life and still have God’s blessing, we’re mistaken. We can’t. It’s a lesson for us to learn.

Maybe we should be asking the Lord why we don’t have His blessing on our lives. Maybe each one of us needs to be trying to radicate any secret sins that we have. Samuel tells us that he would be sinning by not praying for the flock that God had made him the overseer. Samuel says, “God forbid that I should sin in ceasing to pray for you.” If I don’t pray for you, I’m sinning. How many of us have that attitude that if we miss our time in prayer, we are sinning. We can go a week long and maybe we have a little time of prayer on Sunday, or on another day of the week, if we even have that. We never think we are sinning by our lack.

Maybe our whole society has gone off keel and we are wondering why we are having these problems. The presence of God maybe is not with us. Maybe, here in Portugal, we are having a less difficult time than some of the other nations, because we have a bit more fear of the Lord here? The fear of the Lord, the obedience to the Lord gives us a bit more of the Lord’s presence. Maybe we are not so blatently antichrist as some of the other countries. We certainly have an antichrist government here in Europe in the way certain laws have been made.

The important thing is that we spend time with God in prayer. We should be spending time praying for our families, praying for our children, praying for our government. And the other lesson we learn from today’s study is that we need to clean up any secret sin in our lives. God’s presence can not go with us, if we have sin in our lives. The children of Israel lost the battle because of the sin of one man. But Paul tells us that all these things happen to them as examples to teach us these lessons for today. But we are never going to learn the lessons, if we don’t spend time alone with God, if we don’t spend time reading God’s word. If we throw the Bible aside and think it’s just a normal book, we’re mistaken. To some people it may be a normal book. But believe me, I read these two stories this morning and they spoke to me. They spoke to me better than any other book I could find. Maybe some other books can speak to my mind, but the Bible really spoke to my heart today. I hope you got the lesson from it, too. 

Lord, we pray for each of our loved ones and friends today. Put your Spirit upon them. If they have any secret sins, help them each to root them out. Help them each to spend the time they need with You. Help each one to go to the mountain and hear Your voice. Help them to get their Bibles out and as they read, speak to each one. As they read, speak to them. Help each one to follow Your commandments. Let Your word speak to them, communicate with them, so that they obey the voice of the word. Help them to follow that still small voice of conscience. In Jesus’s name we pray.

If we do these things, we’ll be better for it. Our country will be better for it. Our families will be better for it. We will becoming men and woman of God. We will be a positive influence on others. Ultimately God wanted the Israelites to be an influence on the world and spread the message. But they failed miserably. It wasn’t until the Jews received Jesus that they finally realized what they were suppose to have been doing. They were suppose to be an example of a people with God in their midst, a people who loved God above everything else. It was something that each and every one of them could do. “To love the Lord their God with their whole heart, and their whole, soul, and with their whole strength, and with their whole mind.”  It is still the mission of every true man and woman of God today. Our mission is to teach others how to have a relationship with Jesus and God. That’s our job. It’s the most important thing we each have to do. God wants us to be a witness. The most important object we need to maintain, is our own relationship with God. We need to keep God first in our lives.

He says, “This is the first and greatest commandment, Thou shall love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole strength, with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.” That’s the first commandment. So we need to keep God in first place. Apostle Peter says, “Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.” Why? “So that you’ll be ready to give an answer to any man that asks you the reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” If we put God first, we are going to spend time with God and if we spend time with God, we will learn how to answer the doubts and skeptism of the unbelievers.

But if we don’t spend time with God, if we don’t love the Lord, our lives are never going to amount to much. In fact we may very well be washed away by all the doubts and criticisms that are being spewed out into the world today. We may very well be overcome with doubts about our faith and our Christian heritage. We may very well end up believing the lies that are being spewed out. Why? Because we didn’t spend time with the God. If we spend time with God, we will be able to stand up for Jesus. If we spend time with God, we will hear His voice. We will become pillars of faith in the face of life’s storms. We will be able to face the waves, or better yet, the tsunami of intellectualism and unbelief that is crashing down against God and all that is godly. May God help us to stand in the gap and become the men and woman of God He wants us to be.

To go back and read the first part of the lesson click HERE


 

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