Duane Williams

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Here is my article in today's Kingsport Times-News

Different Is Good

In reading Jeff McCord’s article published February 17th in the Kingsport Times-News titled “Travel the same roads in a different direction” I loved his approach to the subject of familiarity.
It is true that we need constancy in our lives and it is that familiarity that helps keep us in a somewhat normal life cycle. He is correct that familiarity works on us slowly for it is in familiarity (if we are paying attention) that we are changing every day in small incremental ways.

He said that “The very best counsel that I have ever gotten on doing just that comes from a very wise person, who I’ve known for a very long time. And it is simply this: Travel the same roads in a different direction.” This is my take on that statement “Try something different and allow yourself to look at the same things in a different way.”

When I saw the title “Travel the same roads in a different direction” it took me back at least 50 to 55 years ago to the little church that my Dad pastored. There was a lady that would come and sing and part of one of the songs she would sing was “You go to your church and I’ll go to mine, but let’s walk along together. Our Heavenly father is the same, so let’s walk along together.”

This may be a little different direction than Jeff McCord was going but that’s where my mind went, so please be patient with me, and allow me some liberty.

We all have our family and friends in our circle which we are familiar with. We may not realize it but we all are very different from each other, and that is not a bad thing. One Sunday during one of my messages I asked the question, “What if everyone was just like you, what kind of world would this be?”

Everyone would like the same thing, such as cars, houses, colors, neighborhoods, parts of the world, even political persuasion and many other things. Most of our thinking is like Henry Ford who is quoted to have said, “You can have a car in any color you want, as long as it’s black.”

But we are all different and unique, but, we really are all the same; for we all have very similar needs. We need to be able to challenge each other, and honor each other at the same time. Whether we realize it or not, what we feel and believe is important to each and every one of us.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” We are all alone on this ball in the universe so we need to try to get along.

It’s ok to be different, to be unique. We need to celebrate our differences, for we are traveling the same road of life but in different directions.

Duane Williams

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This is my article in today's Kingsport Times-News. Hope it is an encouragement.

He Is Our Only Hope

I read Daniel McCarthy’s article in February 21st in the Times-News titled “Do Americans trust ether party?” In talking to many of my friends and what I have read online, I found that the vast majority of us don’t trust ether party, and may I also say that we are also “just a little leery” of what the “government” says.

I have heard it said that the Republicans and Democrats both are dead in the water, I agree with what McCarthy wrote “The trouble with writing the Republicans’ obituary, however, is that the Democrats hardly seem healthier.”

It could be as I have heard about the election this year that is a “shot in the dark or a role of the dice” or “why even bother.” Some have said this election is like a line in the song “Hotel California” which many say it all about this election “And I was thinkin' to myself "This could be Heaven or this could be Hell." I do think that is a little extreme.

I do like the quote that McCarthy used by Oliver Goldsmith, “lines written 260 years ago, with help from his friend Samuel Johnson are worth remembering in an election year.” “How small, of all that human hearts endure / That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.” We are looking for a cure rather than a cause.

If our hope it is the government then it is in the wrong place because then our hope is put in the hands of people that are flawed, as Lord Acton writes to Bishop Creighton “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (1887)

We as Christians tend to put our hope in the wrong places many times, we need to follow the instruction from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:19 where he said “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” We should be looking where our help comes from “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”(Psalm 124:8) This is the only hope and help that we have.

2 Chronicles 7:14 says it best “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” He Is Our Only Hope!

As McCarthy says “We still need leaders, and wise statesmanship, but we might have to live without political consensus — and Goldsmith assures we can.”

Duane Williams

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Beware The Ides of March

“Beware the Ides of March!” is a quote made famous by William Shakespeare in the second scene of his play Julius Caesar. In this scene, a soothsayer (or fortune teller), calls out for Caesar’s attention and yells: “Beware the Ides of March!” The soothsayer can supposedly see into the future that Julius Caesar would be murdered by those close to him at which time? You guessed it: The Ides of March.

To some degree or another everyone in the Roman period would “Beware the Ides of March” because that was the day on the Roman calendar when personal debts would be collected. Ironically, Caesar would pay his debt to his countryman with his very life because of his actions and behaviors as their ruler.

This is a good reason to think then of the cross, for it was on the cross that the sins of humanity were hoisted onto the shoulders of Jesus, to pay the debt to God that our sins created. We had no exemptions to get out from under our debt and no crafty accounting which allowed us to scoot around our debt.

All of what we owed was to be paid by Jesus it was not in installments and not in part, but in full. The Greeks had a way of marking their bills when they were completely satisfied: Tetelestai. Which means no more payment is necessary and the debt was finished.

What is it that we hear Jesus cry from the cross after his suffering right before His death? Tetelestai. “It is finished.” He proclaimed that our debt was paid in full.

Instead of being scared of what God thinks of us or that we have to do “good” and act “right” so that maybe our payments are good enough to cover our faults, take joy in knowing that your sin debt and mine is “paid in full” – it is “tetelestai.”

We don’t have to “Beware the Ides of March” how about instead we see the 15th of March as a positive challenge. Think about one person that doesn’t know that their debt is paid for, someone who does not know what Jesus has done for them and let them know that their debt is gone because Jesus paid it all.

I’m not afraid of that day, I’m looking forward to it – so maybe, just maybe – the Ides of March should be afraid of us! Let God’s peace reign this season.

Duane Williams

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What About What God Said

So many times we discount and discard what God has said to us mainly because we did not see them immediately come to pass. We just don’t know the timing of God and when the time is right the word will come to pass. Habakkuk 2:3 tells us “Indeed, the vision is waiting for the appointed time. It longs for fulfillment and will not prove false. If it seems slow in coming, wait for it, because it will certainly come and will not be delayed.” EHV

Many of the Prophecies about the Messiah took hundreds and even thousands of years to come to pass. The Bible is clear from Habakkuk that “At The End It Will Speak,” NOT AT THE BEGINNING.

We are so used to everything being instant in our day, because it hasn’t happened immediately we automatically assume that it and where it came from is false.

What God has told you may take 5, 10, even 15, or 20 years to come to pass. We need to consider some criteria for judging what God has told us before we Discount and Discard them. Does it line up with Scripture? Does it bear witness with your spirit?

You may have words that did not even make sense to you, you just might need to sit on them because know there was something to them. Time will prove it out and understanding will come.

Remember, back to Habakkuk, “It Is For An Appointed Time!”
You just have to hold on to the words from God, war with the words, remind yourself of words, pray words, and confess words, until their time of fulfillment is at hand. Remember what Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:18 “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare.” Don’t be so quick to Discount and Discard. Sadly many have done this too soon and aborted their destiny.

Noah marched on with one word from God about a coming flood for 120 years, being ridiculed the whole time, so in the grand scheme of things, what is that compared to us having to wait 5, 10, 15, or 20 years?

Perhaps we need to heed the Biblical admonition in Hebrews 10:35, “Cast not away our confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.” Don’t be so quick to discount and discard what God has told you for He is working on us and in the process of waiting He is getting us ready to actually walk in that word!

Duane Williams

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Don't Stagger At God's Promises

In Romans 4:17 Paul said to “calls those things which do not exist as though they did” he was laying the foundation for all that is involved in hope, hope enables us to see the invisible. The apostle also said, “Hope that is seen is no longer hope” (Rom. 8:24).

We do not walk by sight, but by a faith rooted in what God has promised. Things we are unable to see physically are seen through the eyes of faith as clearly as though they did.
Romans 4:20 tells us that “Abraham staggered not at the promise of God”.

How was it possible that a man well beyond the age most men have children and a woman whose age gave no hope of ever giving birth would be parents so late in life? Yet, when God promised this would happen,

Atheists mock our faith and say, “Let us eat, drink for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32). This view of life might bring momentary “pleasure,” but the future is filled with hopelessness. Those with weak faith stagger at God’s promises but Abraham’s faith was strong (Rom. 4:19).

The Bible said that he did not consider the “facts” and did not waver in unbelief (Rom. 4:19-2. Instead of looking outward, he looked upward. The hope that governed Abraham is the same hope we have when we anchor our faith in Christ.

Abraham knew that what God had promised He was able to perform. Throughout the Bible, the faithfulness of God is affirmed eleven times, but it is implied in every dealing mankind has with Him. God says it, and that settles it! When we embrace His faithfulness our view of life and its problems are drastically changed.

God’s promises have never failed, not even one time. When the Jews had conquered Canaan, God’s word said, “Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Josh. 21:45). Not even one word!

This is why we can anchor our hope in the Lord and trust every single promise He has made. Anchor your faith in Him, and then when you come to the end of your life, you can look back and know that: not a single word of all his promises have failed!

Anchor your hope in Him!

Duane Williams