Legend to the Treasure - Wisdom On a Rainy Day

Here in Nashville, we're in the middle of a VERY rainy week. This certainly provides GREAT reminders as to how BLESSED we are for even the roofs over our heads. The steady rain also conjures up memories of Gwen's "Legend to the Treasure" Series Videos, Audios, Writings, and Lessons. The "nautical" theme she used to teach those seminar lessons are SO FULL of WISDOM and TRUTH! Today seems like a great day to print one of those devotional posts...as the rain falls here and we count our BLESSINGS, remembering that GOD is GOD...and we are NOT.

-----------------------------------------------

THE SECRETS OF THE SYMBOL - By Gwen Shamblin

“He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.” - Genesis 8:10-12

The peace dove, the ancient symbol that has been used by all nations and religions, represents the greatest storm on earth, and it is God’s greatest war on mankind. Man had started the war by fighting against God and His laws. There was almost no one on earth who was not fighting against God. This was God’s answer to sin. The worldwide flood that unleashed all sources of water and covered the entire world was God’s response to rebellion. This mammoth historical event was never meant to be relegated to children’s Bible storybooks or to preschool Sunday school lessons. But God, in His mercy, has allowed this ignored event and symbol to be preserved all these centuries—lost and waiting, but not forgotten.

First of all, this story is a dreadful one with a higher death toll than all other disasters put together. Try to imagine being on top of a mountain with thousands of people watching the water rise to drown all men, women and children. This story symbolizes the destruction of the evil and the sparing of the righteous few. This flood represents the baptism of sin—the burying of sin and rebellion to God. This ark represents the salvation of the righteous.

This dove did not come quickly after the 40 days of flood waters that hushed all life on earth. Only after months of the quieting of rebellion on earth did God decide to make peace again with mankind. In fact, it was approximately eleven months after the water receded. God clearly demonstrated peace with man only when sinful men died in the ocean and were gone from the earth. At this point, His anger subsided. The peace dove came with the resolution of God’s anger. When sin is eradicated, the peace dove appears.

Man is looking for peace with man, but the only peace that counts is no sin before God. That is a far cry from the simple-minded, uneducated peace dove symbol that refers to the disarming of nuclear arms or the absence of war or man-versus-man violence. Man grants Nobel Peace Prizes for the wrong peace, but the truth is that Jesus is the Prince of peace, and He never got a Nobel Peace Prize. I will never get an award either from any man on this earth for promoting the only peace that counts—eradication of rebellion to God."

END OF GWEN'S DEVOTIONAL

-----------------------------------------------

Finally, it indeed is a SHAME that the world does not know this peace. May we HEED these words and put them into PRACTICE in our own lives.

Choosing the Narrow Path to Life...It STARTS with STOPPING on the Wide Road to Death

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it" - Matthew 7:13-14 - The NIV Bible.

What incredibly POWERFUL words! And remember this poem from years past...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

"The Road Not Taken" - by Robert Frost

Taking "the narrow path"..."the road not taken"...has been the charge from every man and woman of GOD throughout history. It all starts with a DECISION and a COMMITMENT. See this quote from Gwen's "The Legend To The Treasure" book about PRACTICAL EVERYDAY LIVING for those who claim GOD as their ONLY GOD...

"Walk daily in the light of truth and correction and tell yourself the truth about how much you eat, spend, drink, talk and disobey. Expose the anti-authority to God and then stop, cease, terminate, finish, draw to a close, be over with, bring to an end, bring to a halt, end, halt, stop, conclude, wind up, discontinue, suspend, break off, and leave sin! Be done with it forever. Then, start and continue this new life with this daily living, and you will not be alone. You will enjoy this wonderful fellowship no matter where you live in the world."

Notice the CHARGE in the middle of that paragraph? It's STRONG! Stop, cease, terminate, finish draw to a close, be over with, bring to an end, bring to a halt, end, halt, stop, conclude, wind up, discontinue, suspend, break off, and leave sin! You cannot CONTINUE on the "broad road" to destruction...not even a TINY bit...AND "love and obey GOD" at the same time. With new, open eyes and ears to this TRUTH and UNDERSTANDING, we GET the opportunity and the second chance to STOP moving forward on that wide path, turn around, and move OVER to the NARROW ROAD! What an opportunity! SO - WE STOP doing and thinking things that we KNOW are wrong...THEN we're be able to SEE the narrow road...and choose WISELY. We'll be discussing this concept of STOPPING SINNING...and moving our time, thoughts, actions, and motives over to the godly, narrow path TODAY on WDWB LIVE at 3:30pm CST. We invite you to join us! ALSO, we have a FREE PODCASTS website that you can visit and enjoy past LIVE segments.