© 2022 Don Pinson | [Download]
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If you have a fenced in yard, and all the sudden you notice there are animals trampling your flowers and destroying your vegetable garden, you know there’s something wrong with your fence.  So you look for where the fence is broken, where it has a gap, and you fix it.  To stop the flow of intruders into your property, you must repair the gap in your fence.

God uses this very picture in the Bible to describe what happens when His people start to disobey Him.  God evidently places a “hedge” of protection (Isaiah 5:1-7) around each individual at birth.  As we grow in age and size we learn from parents, teachers and others about life.  If what we learn is the truth as revealed in the Bible, and we choose to consistently obey that truth, the “hedge” stays up.  But if what we learn either is not the truth, or if we choose to disobey the truth, then our “hedge” of protection starts to break down.  The more disobedience there is to God’s Word, the more our fence comes down; and the more satan and his evil spirits, who come to “kill, steal, and destroy,” (John 10:10) break into our lives.  Thus, the destruction in our lives will Continue reading →

© 2021 Don Pinson | [Download]
(Link not working? Right-click and select “Save As”.)

While this has been the worst year in American history, God is yet at work.  The story He is writing through the course of time is filled with triumphs that came out of tragedies.  One of these was when the Jews were carried away to Babylon for seventy years.  Their temple was torn down and the palaces of their kings destroyed.  Nothing was left of their previous civilization.  And yet, in that darkest of all days in their history, God was still writing His-Story.  He promised them that this tragedy would be used to work their repentance, which would bring them back to His order—and, in His order, there is always the flow of His blessing.

At this, the lowest moment in all their long history, God gave them an encouraging word through the prophet Jeremiah.  He boldly declared to the nation that, out of this tragedy, He would,

“…give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart.” (Jeremiah 24:7)

He said, “I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord…”  They had gone into captivity because they had forgotten He was “the Lord”; that is, He was the Owner and Master of everything—including them!  He owned their possessions; and those should have been used for bringing their children and others into agreement with God’s way of thinking.  Instead, they had Continue reading →