Easter Season Greetings

              Easter season greetings to our dear brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world

 

Dear precious brothers in Christ,

 

May the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord continue to fill your heart as you serve Him!

 

As I think of you and remember the precious words of our Lord and Savior Jesus that we have shared  and the love and caring that has been mutually shared and the reaching out with the love of Christ to many, I pray that the love that is in the heart of Jesus even as we remember this Holy Week and the great price He paid to purchase us, lost and condemned sinners on that first Good Friday, would cause your heart and soul to be filled with thanks giving and praises and joy overflowing and you would be compelled to speak to all you come in contact with of the reason for that hope which lies within in, and the great price that has been paid for us when Jesus willingly and lovingly gave Himself and suffered and died as payment for our sins and even now He offers fully and freely the forgiveness of all our sins in His Precious Name and by the Power of His Blood when we believe and come just as we are admitting and confessing our sins and faults and asking for forgiveness which is offered fully and freely because Jesus has paid it all and made it possible for us to approach His throne of Grace, the mercy seat knowing that whatsoever is forgiven here on earth is also forgiven in Heaven. 

 

Jesus has given to us even as the Father has sent Him so He sends us as His Ambassadors to freely proclaim this Gospel, The Good News, proclaiming the forgiveness of sins to penitent sinners. Speak this message of forgiveness of forgiveness which He has given to us, The Church, His body of believers, and sends us throughout the whole world to freely preach and proclaim. Practice it in your own lives, with your family, and your Christian brothers and sisters and in your churches. Do not let sin, offenses and hurts separate you from the love that is in Jesus even towards one another. Allow the blood of Jesus Christ to freely flow in His body of believers, of which we are members when He has purchased us with such a great price and His blood cleanses us from all sin and brings life to each member. 

 

Freely believe all your sins are forgiven. God remembers them no more. Continue to walk to walk in Grace and Joy, knowing that our names are written in Heaven and one day we will be with Him and see him just as He is when we are clothed with the blood washed robe of His righteousness Even today as we know Jesus lives, and we celebrate His victory over sin, death and the devil, on Easter Sunday, know that He lives forevermore even in our hearts now and He has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us, but will be with us even to the end of time. He promises us a crown if we are faithful to the end. Let us strive to that end and encourage and lift up one another in that most blessed hope. Soon He will be coming to take us home to be with Him. When we see Him face to face then we know it will have been worth it all. May His love always remain with us even to the end of time, and may that love be the very power that draws our hearts together in one christian love as we labor together bringing His message of salvation to a lost and dying world. May He strengthen each of us to that end.

 

Give our greetings and love to your families and to the body of believers in your areas.

 

God's Peace!  In His Love!

 

On behalf of the Apostolic Foreign Mission Board

Pastor Bob Maki

For You, For Me

 

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Today we again observe Good Friday as we have for years, though in different surroundings. But yet how many of us stop to ask ourselves, "Why does our Savior suffer such bitter agony and torment?" Have we stopped to ponder that it is because of His love for us poor condemned sinners and because of God's terrible righteous wrath and love? Our Lord Jesus, His only begotten Son, was alone capable of fulfilling God's righteous law, opening the gates of heaven for us and closing the mouth of hell. Not through any merit of our own but of His boundless love for us He did all this, ...that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Therefore on this day, let us again behold our Savior as He kneels down to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. When the agony of our sins is upon Him the torment is so great that even the sweat from His holy body is as great drops of blood that fall onto the sin-cursed earth. And why does He pray in such agony? Why does He say, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. (Luke 22:42) An angel from heaven appeared unto Him to strengthen Him.

Then let us follow Him as He is taken before the chief priests and scribes and the elders of the people, before Pontius Pilate and Herod. He is mocked, spit upon, blasphemed, ridiculed and cursed, and beaten with manifold stripes, from which wounds holy blood already is flowing. Also a crown of thorns is pressed upon His head causing blood to flow from it. Then He is led away to be nailed on the cross where He cries out, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34) And after a time He dies saying, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit... (Luke 23:46)

Is it not a heart-rending sight to see our own Creator suffer so bitterly for us? And when we realize that we were there also murdering Him with our sins, does it not cause us to cry out, "O God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Do not let me sink into Hell in my unbelief. My Savior has suffered so much agony for me already, don't let me grieve Him any longer, but smite me with Your mighty hand so I will humble myself to ask, What must I do to be saved? Give me the grace of repentance that I could be a joy to my loving Savior,  that I would follow His holy footsteps in faith through all the storms of life and then, when my earthly race is run, be taken into the glory of heaven to sing praises amid that great blood-washed throng forever and ever." Amen.

the late Wiljo Kandoll

The Water of Life

 Pastor Reino Maunu
 Watertown, South Dakota

 "Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord. Come and quench this thirsting of
 my soul." (Richard Blanchard)

 Thus the songwriter bares the intense desire and inward need of his heart
 in prayer and supplication. Like the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well in her
 converse with the lone figure reclining there (John 4), her heart was made
 aware of its parched condition, prompting a similar supplication for the
water that alone would satisfy its thirst.

 Interestingly, Jesus first speaks the gospel to her in order to draw her
 unto Himself. He speaks of the gift of God and who it is that is speaking
 to her (the blessedness of the gift and source of it). Then Jesus speaks
 the law to her in order that her heart would be made contrite: *Go, call
 thy husband, and come hither.* (John 4:16) This served to show her the
 desperate condition of her heart.

 Jesus helped this unnamed woman with confession and then her faith*. I
 that speak unto thee am he.* (John 4:26) The gospel narrative states that
 she left her water pot and went into the city to speak to the others about
 Christ. The natural things of life gave place to the blessed and eternal
 water of life that now satiated her soul.

 Many an attempt among men has been made in various ways to stifle the
 inward longing of the soul. Nothing is able to quench the thirst of the
 soul. Wealth, fame, this present world, carnal wisdom and its associated
 reasonings, or any other temporal good can at best offer only a temporary
 reprieve. Augustine has stated: "The soul, created for God, will not rest
 until it rests in God."

 The permanent quenching of the thirst of the soul is the unspeakable gift
 of God. Christ Jesus given for our ransom, the gift of eternal life in Him,
 the gracious influences of the Holy Ghost and every saving blessing alone
 satisfy the soul already in this life with its eventual consummation in
 heaven's eternal kingdom. Its inception is faith given to the heart by the
 hearing of the Word. Jesus invites all who thirst to come unto Me and drink
 (John 7:37). This invitation is without any distinction, only that the
 heart is drawn to the source of this living water which is Christ. The
 water itself is spiritual and eternal life given by the Lord for the
 satisfaction of the soul. The seeking Savior calls man to this refreshing
 renewing and purifying fountain through the Gospel. May many hearken to His
 invitation to receive His gift.

 *And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say,
 Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take
 the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17) *

 Lord, grant to as many as thirst the water that causes the soul to thirst
 no more. In Jesus' name. Amen.

 In God's peace and love.

How the Apostles Died/The Death of Jesus

Dear Weekly Readers! 

Sometimes as we travel through this life, we can begin to think that life is unfair. The devil would want to tell us that if you were a Christian, everything in your life would be much better than it is.

Well, the article below shows us what happened to the Apostles for following Jesus Christ. Also, it describes the physical death of Jesus, and of course we can only imagine how intense and burdensome our weight of sin was on Jesus, starting even before He went to the cross, and lasting until He died.  

No, the Christian life is not always easy, but the reward is eternal joy in Heaven.  

May God Bless your week! John R.


HOW THE APOSTLES DIED 

I’ve never seen this all in one place before!!

1  Matthew
Suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.

2  Mark
Died in Alexandria, Egypt , after being dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.

3  Luke
Was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.

4  John
Faced martyrdom when he was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave  of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death.  John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison Island of Patmos. He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation on Patmos. The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.

5  Peter
He was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross.   According to church tradition it was because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die In the same way that Jesus Christ had died.

6  James
The leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle* of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller's club. 

*This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.

7  James the Great
Son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.

8  Bartholomew
Also known as Nathaniel, he was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed for our Lord in present day Turkey. Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia where he was flayed to death with a whip.

9  Andrew
Was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers, they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: 'I have long desired and
expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.' He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he expired.

10  Thomas
Was stabbed with a spear during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the sub-continent in India.

11  Jude
Was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.

12  Matthias
The apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot was stoned and then beheaded.

13  Paul
Was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67.  Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment, which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire.  These letters, which taught many of the foundational Doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.

Perhaps this is a reminder to us that our sufferings here are indeed minor compared to the intense persecution and cold cruelty faced by the Apostles and disciples during their times for the sake of the Faith. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake; but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Matthew.


Faith is not believing that God can, It is knowing that God WILL!”


THE (SCIENTIFIC) DEATH OF JESUS 

At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to death. At the time  crucifixion was the "worst" death. Only the worst  criminals were condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus; unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion, Jesus was to be nailed to the  cross by His hands and feet.

Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long. The nails were driven into His wrist. Not Into His palms as is commonly portrayed.  There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder.  The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breathe.   Both of His feet were nailed together. Thus He was forced to  support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross. Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using His legs just to continue to breathe. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage!

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours. Yes, over 3 hours!  Can you imagine this kind of suffering? A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding. He was simply pouring water
from His wounds. From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side...  But do we realize His wounds were actually made in his body?  A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even larger nail hammered through the arches, then a  Roman guard piercing His side with a spear. But before the nails and the spear, Jesus was whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body, the beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face.  The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp. Most men would not have survived this torture. He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds. The human adult body contains about 3.5 liters  (just less than a gallon) of blood. Jesus poured out all 3.5 liters of His blood.  He had three nails hammered into His members; a crown of thorns on His head and, beyond that, a Roman soldier who stabbed a spear into His side.

All of these without mentioning the humiliation He suffered after carrying His own
cross for almost 2 kilometers, while the crowd spat in His face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher part, where His hands were nailed). Jesus had to endure this experience, in order to open the Gates of Heaven, so that we can have free access to God. So that our sins could be "washed" away. All of them, with no exception!

JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR YOU!

The Preaching of the Cross

Dear Weekly Readers!   

God’s Peace!    

We are coming closer and closer to the time of Holy Week, which is the time of year we focus on what Jesus has done for our salvation on the cross.  Oh, that we could not only focus this time of year, but all year long on what He has done for us!  

            Galatians 6:14

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Please enjoy the sermon below by the late Carl Kulla.

May God bless your week!  John R.

The Preaching of the Cross

Carl Kulla's first sermon was preached at the convention in Esko, Minnesota, in 1941. It was published in Kristillinen Kuukauslehti in December 1941.

Brother Carl read 1 Corinthians 1:18-24 and spoke as follows:

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Blessed redeemed in the Lord: I stand before you, before this Christian assembly, for the first time, and before you as one who has been saved from eternal condemnation through the blood of the precious Lamb of God, He who suffered and was crucified for the sins of you and for the sins of me, Who in His own body bare our sins upon the accursed tree of sins of the cross, that we might be reconciled to God through Him. The portion of Holy Writ upon which we shall meditate this afternoon is 1 Corinthians 1:18-24. "The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." Just what is this preaching of the cross?

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and He climaxed His creation with man. Man was pleasing in the sight of God, but then he fell into the enticing words of the devil, and the curse of sin and death fell upon the face of the earth. But God, in His great mercy and love, did not leave man in such a state but promised unto man a Savior. From that day hence, man was saved in the hope of that Savior. God fulfilled His promise when He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, upon the earth in the likeness of sinful flesh. This same Jesus Christ suffered dire agony and pain, and was crucified for the sin of the world. Christ made that one perfect sacrifice which was to reconcile man with God.

That, dear friends, is the preaching of the cross, which says that man is nothing and can do nothing for his salvation. It is already done. Man must become as nothing in the sight of God, and seek his refuge in Christ, the Savior.

The preaching of the cross is the fullness of the Gospel. It consists of all those things Christ has commanded as constituents of salvation: namely baptism, repentance, and the remission of sins and the consequential rebirth.

But to them that are lost, this preaching of the cross is foolishness, for the unbelievers and the dead-faith Christians say, "Not many are lost, for surely God did not create man to burn him in hell." But remember the warnings of the Scripture, If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Peter 4:18)

…Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:3)

…Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

(John 3:3)

We cannot otherwise enter in, but in God's way, which is scriptural salvation, for only where "Christ crucified" is preached is there salvation. Indeed God has brought to naught the understanding of the prudent and destroyed the wisdom of the wise. Look at the life of Christ — was it not despised in the sight of the world? For Jesus did none of the things which make men great: He never entered a large city, He never went to school, He never wrote a book. He was looked down upon and suffered untold agony by the hand of man. But He reserved one thing unto Himself: the power to overcome sin and death, the devil and hell.

That is how the wisdom of the wise is brought to naught, for to them it is foolish that one so meek and lowly could be exalted so high. But we preach Christ crucified, which lifts us above all sin and corruption and reconciles us to God. Dear friends in Christ, I want you to remember me as a weak, erring brother in Christ. I am not worthy to say one thing for Him, and I feel there are many others who have greater gifts from God to preach than I.

 Nevertheless, I will always testify of my Lord, and woe unto me if I preach not Christ, for He is my personal Savior and my personal Redeemer, Who means more than all life to me.

Let us strive together as obedient servants of Christ, that we might cross the river and come to the shores of the true Fatherland and to the heavenly Jerusalem in the shadow of Mount Zion. May the Lord grant that we might be faithful until the very end. Amen. ~