January 2013
Dear Friends and Prayer Partners,
We so much appreciate each of you who read these prayer letters, and especially each one who prays, each one who gives, each one who writes us an encouraging note. As you probably have noticed, we try not only to share prayer requests, but also we try to expose evil threats, and then to share the light of truth and power of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in these momentous times. Recently Dan Buck invited me to share a message for the annual banquet of Lifeline Pregnancy Resource Center here in Nampa. After preparing the message for the banquet, I also shared it on December 30th at Maranatha Romanian Church as a combined New Year’s message and Sanctity of Life message. Below is the outline. I hope it will also be both challenging and encouraging to you.
How to Be More than Conquerors
Introduction: Why I am passionate about the sanctity of life.
1. Because God is passionate about the sanctity of life. Is God pro-choice or pro-life? Both! He tells us what choice to make! Deut. 30:19
2. Because I believe in the sovereignty of God. What I tell students in Ukraine – Worldview – designed by God for a purpose!
3. Because of my family: Sandy and Rachel.
Text: Romans 8:28-39
Purpose Statement:
The purpose of this message is to emphasize how to implement in our spiritual battle the truth that in Christ we are “More than Conquerors”.
I. Understand that we cannot win in human strength or wisdom. Therefore, this is spiritual warfare.
A. Examine yourself whether you are in the faith.
B. We are “More than Conquerors” through Him who loves us. Without Him we can do nothing!
C. Be filled with the Spirit.
1. Eyes on Jesus
2. Heart filled with the Spirit
3. Feet on the straight and narrow
D. Use the right weapons – 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
1. Salt heals and preserves – also burns.
2. Light illuminates and heals – it also exposes dirt!
II. Understand the immensity of Satan’s lies and don’t expect a fair fight.
A. Abortion lies – you know these – but after birth abortion?
B. Evolutionism – Satanic religion – Castle illustration.
III. Understand the intensity of the battle.
A. The intensity of the battle demands intensity of training, trials and discipline.
1. Marines – Navy Seals – rigorous.
2. My experience
B. How is God working in your life? Think of Job, Apostle Paul, Joni Eareckson Tada.
Conclusion:
Molding a Man
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man, and skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart,
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While the man’s tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When the man’s good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And with every action fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out –
God knows what He’s about!
~ Source unknown
Adrian Rogers said, “The grace of God can turn your scars into stars!”
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.” Daniel 12:3 (NKJV)
My prayer for each of you is that you would be wise, turn many to righteousness and shine like the brightness of the firmament forever and ever. Trust God to turn your scars into stars!
The Power Behind Fearless Faith
Missionary martyr, Jim Elliot, wrote in his diary this brilliant insight: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” He gave his life in missionary outreach to the Auca (Waodoni) tribe in1956 in Ecuador to gain a martyr’s crown that endures forever. Where did Jim Elliot and his four missionary martyr companions acquire such fearless faith? They had saturated their minds and hearts with the Word of God and trusted in the Spirit of God – who used their martyrdom to reach nearly the entire Waodoni tribe.
Consider these powerful passages:
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. There is no searching of His understanding. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:28-31 (NKJV).
“Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10 (NKJV).
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV).
Recently on Christian radio I heard a preacher ask, “Do you want to lead – or do you want to be liked?” Then he contrasted the wimpy, non-leadership of Aaron with the strong, bold leadership of Nehemiah. Aaron tried to please the crowd, and they led him into idolatry. Then he lied to Moses about how it happened. Those who won’t stand for something will fall for anything. Nehemiah stood like a rock for God’s principles against all enemies and compromisers. Sermons and leadership training manuals often focus on Nehemiah – but what good is Aaron for leadership training, except as an example what not to do?
Winston Churchill is reported to have said: “You have enemies? Good! It means you have stood up for something in your life!”
Ryan Dobson and LuAnn Crane recently reported on the Family Talk program that a volley of hate mail, blogs, etc. has gone out against James Dobson because of his comments after the shooting in Conneticut. Why? Because those who hate God and His standard for sexual and family behavior hate what James Dobson stands for. They are willing to distort and mock his words to try to make him look foolish to others. Will you stand strong for God’s truth no matter what the consequences? Remember, if you don’t stand for something you are apt to fall for anything!
Most Richly Blessed!
Della wrote the brief report last month about the December 1st open house celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary at Sandy and David’s home, where we enjoyed the rich fellowship of many friends and family members who brought cards and warm wishes. The continuation of this story is that other warm and wonderful cards and messages continued to come to us and to Sandy. Sandy had asked friends to write down their memories for us so she could put them in a scrapbook for us. She gave us that scrapbook on December 13th, and on December 14th, the actual date of our 50th anniversary, we took it with us on our trip to the mountain resort town of McCall, Idaho, where we had steak dinner (the most expensive meal we ever ate! We won’t do that again until our 100th anniversary!) We stayed in a beautiful suite at Super 8. After dinner, we took turns reading the letters to each other out loud and savoring the “precious memories”. Truly we feel “most richly blessed”! To each of you who came to visit or wrote to us, we want to say “THANK YOU SO MUCH”! We treasure your friendship, your love, your memories and your prayers (most of all). We plan to use the scrapbook as a prayer reminder to thank God for each of you and pray for you individually – and for your families. (There is more room in the scrapbook – so if you intended to write, it isn’t too late!)
Northwest Science Museum
Great news! We finally have our 501c3 tax exempt status for Northwest Science Museum, so checks can now be written directly to Northwest Science Museum instead of going through Overseas Outreach. Offerings have come in, but not yet enough to get a building for storage, for an initial showroom, for a shop for constructing new displays, or for hiring Stan Lutz full time as museum director. Plans are in process for opening a virtual museum on the internet to display world wide our stunning evidences of creation and shocking exposé of the fraudulent claims of ardent evolutionists. Please check out our website at www.northwestsciencemuseum.com .
Please pray! If God moves you to give to this mind-impacting, heart-convicting, and culture-changing project, checks can be sent to: Northwest Science Museum, P. O. Box 3933, Nampa, ID 83653-3933.
Prayer Requests
1. Georges Carillet is founder of Teaching Ministries International and director of Commonwealth International University in Ukraine. He and the board of directors have stepped out in faith to buy a building to continue the amazing work there. Morris Little, for the board of TMI, wrote: “$124,000. This is the amount of money needed to complete the purchase of a desperately needed multi-purpose student center in Simferopol to expand the Kingdom growth which is already well under way.”
2. Sergei Golovin, founder and director of Christian Center for Science & Apologetics, has also stepped out in faith to sign for purchasing land to build a Training Center on the Crimean Coast. They have outgrown the small house, so now are launching this huge project.
“The project estimated budget is following:
$ 45,000 -land purchase
$ 15,000 – architect project
$400,000- building construction (at least a half of that sum will be needed at the very beginning – to make a solid basic construction covered with the roof)
$250,000 – building finishing
$250,000 – equipping the facilities with furniture and appliances
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$960,000 – total. Please join our prayers for that extremely big, extremely strategically important and extremely exciting project! We would highly appreciate any support and help you can provide. May the Lord be glorified! Yours by His grace, Sergei”
3. Svetlana is the orphan we sponsored about ten years ago for her studies at Crimean American College (now Commonwealth International University). Now she is married to Roman, and they have baby Elizabeth. I saw them in Kiev last April when I was there for the creation conference, and we shared with you about their health problems. Recently we wrote to ask how they are doing, and she replied as follows:
“We very much appreciate your prayers and your good attitude! We are very glad caring and sharing our love and friendship with you. We keep praying for you. And you please keep praying for our health. We visited our doctor and she said that from hepatitis C Roman can get over for 1 year. It will cost 220$, but from hepatitis B I can get over for 440$ but I can’t have 100 % guarantee. My hope is Jesus Christ! Virus hepatitis C is destroying quickly the liver. Hepatitis B little by little. Elizabeth has again atopic dermatitis. In last time better, but she has itch. She is scratching herself very much, crying. I can not help her. My heart is breaking. Please pray for her! I give not her milk, carrots, fish and beet. I accepted products which can give allergy. Yes, Elizabeth was 1 year old in November. She can walk, run, talk a little. She is funny! God’s blesses in New Year!!! Merry Christmas!!!
Love in Jesus, our Lord, Roman & Svetlana”
We realize that you can’t all give to every need we share – but all of you can pray for God to provide. Remember, this is a prayer letter! However, I do confess that one of my motives in sharing these requests is to encourage you to be even more blessed by blessing others with your generosity. It was Jesus Himself Who said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Also Paul used the outstanding example of poor believers in Macedonia to motivate the wealthier believers in Corinth.
“Now I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia. They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor. But they are also filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity. For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do.” 2 Cor. 8:1-5 (NLT).
I also admit that another purpose of these letters is to challenge and motivate you to greater boldness in sharing the light of Jesus to our dark world. Why do we need more boldness?
Example #1. Ravi Zacharias recently wrote: “As I write this letter, I am at Oxford. I have just returned from breakfast with two friends as we pondered the future plans for reaching the toughest for Christ. Ironically, who was at the next table? Richard Dawkins, with his friends. They were probably pondering how to further attack Christian belief and all belief in God. How representative of two worlds, two efforts, and two totally disparate worldviews.” God wants bold believers to meet the challenges of brazen anti-Christ unbelievers.
Example #2: The apostle Paul wrote from prison asking believers to pray for him to speak the Word of Truth with boldness. If Paul needed prayers for more boldness, don’t we? Brethren, please pray for me!
MEMORIAL GIFT
In Memory of Keith Gwin
Received from Sharon Gwin
From Our Mailbox
Christmas gift for Schalbyetski Family
“Yesterday Anatoliy dropped by to pick up the money you’d sent for him. He was really glad and grateful to you. Thanks for making me a messenger of good news for a good person.
In Christ, Nastya.”
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“What a blessing to share so many years of growing together in love, grace, mercy and knowledge of the Lord! What a great life journey! I’m grateful to the Lord for your wonderful testimony and for His grace and love which made it possible. Your example has been a great encouragement for many in America and Ukraine and for me personally! It’s been a blessing to know you all these years and share some of your joys and sorrows. May the Lord richly bless you and multiply the fruit of your labor! May His love, grace and peace be with you and may you continually be filled with His Spirit!
With love in Christ, Inga”
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“Yesterday and today the board of judges had come together in full! But the Administrative Court of Ukraine rejected our case against Immigration Service of Ukraine and refused us in the status of refugees in this country again.
Now we need the protection and miracle from God. Please, pray!
Stas”
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Conclusion
Recently Norma Jean Bauer gave us a copy of the New York Times Bestseller, “The Harbinger” (The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future). It is gripping! As we contemplate America’s future, let’s concentrate even more on Habakkuk’s hallelujah chorus: “Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; Though the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls – yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, and He will make me walk on my high hills.” Habakkuk 3:17-19 (NKJV).
Let’s be glad for all that God is planning for us!
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” ~ Maria Robinson
“Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s perfect. It means you’ve decided to see beyond the imperfections.” ~ Unknown.
Yours & His,
Rick & Della