To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn... (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4)
Holiday Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
With all the bad news in the world, we finally have some good news. The wait is finally over! We received our baby’s birth certificate the first week of December. How happy we were to open the mailbox and see our year-long ordeal come to an end.
The funny thing is they only did a DNA test on me, and not on Laura. The official document stated that there was a 99% probability that I was Emma’s father. I had to laugh. That’s science for you. They can never be 100% sure about anything!
I thought about it later: “That means I’m smarter than the scientists! Because I knew beforehand without a shadow of a doubt that Emma was my child.” But because I didn’t have a “scientific degree” the judge wouldn’t listen to me. If he had, this whole thing would have been over a long time ago!
We are now working on securing Emma’s passport, as well as renewing Laura’s. We are currently focusing our attention on filling in our calendar for next year, as now things are no longer “open ended” and “up in the air.” As we continue on deputation, please pray the Lord would provide as we also make plans to preach in Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and more. We are receiving many phone calls, and open doors from pastors and layman alike in those countries who want us to do door-to-door visitation, preach revivals, hold teaching sessions, and more. The more we receive, the more we can do. We’d also desire to take evangelism teams with us, as those are always life-changing events, and a great way to get out tracts to the natives. If you want to plan something, let us know! There are open doors again for Honduras now that they’ve elected a new president, and the political climate in that country has changed for the better.
We want to express our gratitude to each of you who have been so faithful to this ministry over the past decade. We really appreciate it. God bless you every one!
DEATH
With the glee of receiving the official paper statement legally proclaiming our daughter’s birth, we also experienced some sorrow with the death of loved ones. The end of October, we attended the funeral of my step-grandmother Mrs. Goldie M. Brooks in Pace, Florida. And then in November, my uncle died, and we drove to Stillwater, Oklahoma for the funeral services of Jim Foley. My father, Robert R. Breaker, Jr., then passed away the beginning of January. Although these were solemn occasions, it was good to visit with family that we hadn’t seen for years.
Thinking about death gave me a greater desire to reach the lost. How sad it is to see someone die. Sadder still, when it’s a loved one. But, probably the greatest sorrow is when a person dies without Jesus Christ. How good it is to die with the Lord, and know where you are going when you die!
DESPAIR
Thinking about our country’s current political situation, it’s hard to see things getting any better as they seem to be spiraling downwards towards the great abyss of more satanic conspiracy against truth and greater governmental control. Our rights have been trampled, and we are left without knowing which ones we have left, if any. Things are changing just as promised, but so quickly, sometimes it makes us wonder if there is any hope left in our “elected officials.” It’s obvious they desire only to fulfill their own selfish agendas, and are no longer interested in “we the people.”
Some wise scholar once said, “History repeats itself time and again.” We see this happening today, for when America was birthed as a nation, they spoke of the exact same topics as they do in our current news feed: “Tea Parties,” “Taxes,” “Tyranny,” and “Terrorism.”
As America dies, and gives way to Satan’s New World Order, we can’t help but be sorrowful. Death of a loved one is sad, but the death of a Christian nation is even sadder.
As we travel on deputation, we see and hear things that gives us a sampling of what true Americans think and believe. Complete and utter despair seems to be the constant emotion in the hearts and minds of people.
I remember stopping in a gas station in Arkansas, and overhearing a lady say, “Ten years from now… [She quickly paused and then added] Oh, who am I kidding, things are so bad now, ten years from now we’ll all be forced to become Muslims!”
Believe it or not, another person actually said, “Things are so bad now, there is no way to fix it. They are taking everything they can from us, and then they even try to tell us it’s illegal to commit suicide. Well, that’s one thing they can’t keep us from doing, and one law they can’t enforce!”
With the downtrodden spirit of the country, many look forward to November of 2010, thinking an election will change things and make it all better. They actually think this mess can be turned around. Well, if you want to think that way, help yourself! But we’re waiting for the day when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is governing on the throne in Jerusalem, and He’s in complete control.
We aren’t waiting for an earthly election, we are looking up for God’s heavenly selection, when He comes with trumpet’s sound at the rapture to take out His own! Won’t you take someone to heaven with you?
DEBT
The economy seems to be the main topic on people’s minds, as they continually complain about inflation and wasteful governmental spending, which plunges our country and its citizens into more national debt. As the old bumper sticker says, “BORN free, and taxed to DEATH!”
I recently read another bumper sticker which stated, “We need another Civil War, and this time we need to free the white slaves!”
Thinking about the economy and slavery, the Lord brought to my mind Proverbs 22:7, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”
Debt enslaves, but Jesus saves! You should never buy anything you can’t afford! And you should do your best to never get in debt. Romans 13:8 commands: “Owe no man any thing…”
The main reason our economy is so bad is because it’s a CREDIT system instead of CASH. This quickly leads to greed and much wantoness, which causes DEBT, and DEBT leads to slavery.
Because people follow the lust of the flesh, they usually fall into debt because they can’t say “No!” Peer pressure makes them think they deserve to have what everyone else does. Like one preacher said, “Most people today spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t even like!”
Thinking on the word “DEBT,” I thought about my sin debt, which Jesus paid for me. I’m lucky to have never been in financial debt, and I hope I never will be. But I have had a sin debt that I couldn’t pay. I was sinking down and I was a slave to the flesh and the devil. They were my masters.
How’d I cast off my sin debt? And how does one escape financial debt? One simple word: “SACRIFICE!”
Thank God, Jesus Christ died in my place for my sins on the cross of Calvary, and shed His blood as a payment for my sins. He sacrificed His own flesh for me, and His gracious and meritous act of love set me free!
When it comes to financial debt, the only way out is by “sacrificing. That means “cut back” on your spending, learn to live with less, and spend less until you are able to pay your debt off completely! Otherwise you’ll be a slave to the devil’s system, and unable to give to the Lord like you should. The church is suffering today, because Christians won’t put down the flesh and sacrifice to give sacrificially to the cause of Christ.
Jesus is coming soon. Keep looking up! Or as Colossians 2:2-4 sums it up nicely:
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Because we’ve been set free,
Robert and Laurabeth Breaker
1 Sam. 12:24!
WITNESSING TO LOST RELIGIOUS PEOPLE
Often we visit Hispanic people and deal with them about their eternal souls. Often they all say the same thing, “I’m Catholic, and I’m okay.”
Sadly, they don’t realize they are trusting in their religion, their priest, their church, their idols, and their own righteousness, instead of trusting in Jesus Christ alone. As we deal with them, the strongest thing we find is the power of tradition makes them unwilling to repent and come to Jesus Christ alone for salvation. They often say, “Well, my mother, and grandmother, and their mother and their grandmother were Catholics, and so am I.”
If their parents were lost, then so are they, and they refuse to think their loved ones could have gone to hell, so they continue in the religion of their forefathers, hoping it will give them eternal life, just as their parents hoped, they’d find forgiveness as well. But hoping for God to grant you eternal life is not salvation. God offers a KNOW SO salvation, not a I SURE HOPE SO salvation!
As we reach lost Hispanics (and even Americans alike) with a know so salvation, it never ceases to baffle and astonish us how unimportant to them eternal life is.
THE HOTEL WORKER
At a hotel one time, I witnessed to an illegal Mexican worker. We talked for over an hour, and it seemed every time I’d show him a Bible verse, or state a sound Bible truth, he’d tell me he already knew that. It took me a while to realize that he had different definitions to the terms I used. Our conversation went like this, “Do you know for sure you are going to heaven?”
He responded, “Yep, I know I’m going there.”
“How do you know,” I asked him.
He answered, “My SPIRIT is going to heaven when I die.”
Sadly, he didn’t realize he had an eternal soul inside his body that would either go to heaven or hell.
I then explained to him about the body, soul, and spirit, and then told him he must be “born again.”
He replied, “Oh, I’m already born again.”
I asked him to explain, and he said, “I got born again through my infant baptism.”
I then had to take him to John three, and then explain born again doesn’t happen to infants, rather to repentant sinners who trust Jesus Christ’s finished work by faith.
I then took him to the Gospel of 1 Cor. 15:1-4 and stressed his need to believe.
He then replied, “Oh, I believe all that.”
I knew he wasn’t saved, so I had to ask him what he meant by “believing.”
He responded, “I have known my whole life about Jesus, and I believe he died, was buried, and rose again. Every Catholic believes that!”
I then took him to Acts chapter eight, and showed him his need to “believe with all his heart,” in the sacrificial blood atonement of Jesus Christ.
This then led to him stating, “Oh, I believe in the blood of Jesus!”
I almost got excited, but then remembered he’d been twisting everything I had said. So I asked, “Wait a minute. Please explain yourself. In which blood do you believe in?”
He responded, “Why I believe in the blood of Jesus in the cup offered up to God at the mass.”
I was starting to get mad! Everything I knew to give him, he said he believed in, but as I asked him to explain himself, I could see he was trusting in something else besides what Jesus said. His religion had given him the right words, but defined them differently, and made them of no worth.
I finally told him that salvation was by FAITH alone in the finished work (i.e. shed blood) of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, and he had to trust that alone for salvation.
This is where he became angry, and replied, “We Catholics trust Jesus. Of course we do. But we also trust in Mary, the saints, the Pope, the sacraments and much more.”
He then asked me to leave him alone, calling me “brother,” as I gave him a tract and walked away. But if he’s trusting in anything other than Jesus alone, he’s still LOST!
How sad that a man could have all the right Bible terms, but chose to place his faith in an anti-Biblical tradition, instead of trusting in the word of God.
As we continue witnessing, we continually see how much harder it is to win souls. It’s not like the early years of Christianity in which the apostles went to a bunch of pagans and easily explained to them the Gospel. Now, you almost have to have a deprogramming session with people, and take away all their false doctrine before you can give them the truth, for they might know the Bible words, but they define them differently than God does.
Everything depends upon definitions! And the word of God defines itself.
HISPANIC IN THE PARK
In Palatka, Florida, I ran into a Hispanic man who began talking to me in English. His name was Jose Aguilar. As we talked, I would throw in some Bible verses. Eventually, he asked me if I was a Christian, and I responded, “I sure am.”
I then told him I’m a Missionary to Spanish Speaking People. He then began speaking to me in Spanish, and we talked for over thirty minutes in his native tongue. As we spoke, he mistakenly thought I was a native Spanish Speaker, and fellow migrant worker. I was honored to hear him say, “Your English isn’t too bad! How long did it take you to learn it?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him English was my first language, and Spanish was my second. But I did witness to him. As I’d begin, he’d interrupt me and go off on a tangent. I’d start again with the Gospel, and then he’d cut me off again and talk about something else.
The whole time we talked, I could barely get a word in edge-wise. But I did plant some seeds. Have you ever dealt with a lost person who wouldn’t let you speak? That’s a sure-fire way to know they aren’t seeking for salvation. And when you get to that point in a discussion, it’s time to just give them a tract, and look for someone else who is willing to listen.
THE FOUR MINUTE TESTIMONY
In Palatka, Florida a while back, I was invited to speak at a city wide religious function which invited many different churches and denominations together for what they called “A Night of Faith.” Each church received several minutes to speak, a chance to sing a special, or both. I was allotted four minutes. I never knew you could say so much in such a short time! I gave them the Gospel, and told them no one is saved by water baptism, but by the blood of Jesus Christ. I further said it’s not of works, but by faith alone. I went on and on, hitting each religion represented there. The majority of those present were blacks, and I enjoyed a plethora of “Amens” and “I know that’s right!” from the colored people there.
I then said, “Religion can’t save you, only Jesus Saves!” I then stated, “You’ve got to be careful of churches that brag about being ROMAN in nature that are full of PRIESTS. For the ROMANS and the PRIESTS killed Jesus.”
At the end of my four minutes of testimony, a Catholic priest was allowed to speak. I wish you could have been there. You could have heard a pin drop. He had nothing to say, and nothing to offer. There were no “Amens.”
THE EX-CATHOLIC?
While preaching in an English-Speaking Church in December, I did my best to present the Gospel plainly and clearly. I also tried to show what people trust in to get to heaven other than Jesus Christ. People are apt to trust their: Parents, Purity, Church Participation, Profession, Persistence, Prayer, Priest, etc., before they’ll rest solely in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Afterwards an ex-catholic woman came up to speak with me. She said, “Well, I had a guy come up to me once and ask: ‘You are saved, aren’t you? Cause you just look saved!’ ”
She then said, “Isn’t that cool? That guy said I was saved, and it shocked me.”
I then asked, “So are you saved?”
She responded, “Oh, yes of course!”
I then pressed by asking, “When and how did you get saved?”
She then replied angrily, “Oh, don’t ask me that! I don’t remember, and I don’t want to think about it!”
I then thought to myself: “How on earth could a person say they were saved, then not want to talk about it, much less remember it?”
She then shut me up and wouldn’t let me talk. She only wanted to convey to me her religious experience. Does it sound like she’s trusting the fact that someone else told her she was saved and that’s what makes her saved? You decide. I wouldn’t trade places with a person like that for all the gold in the world! I’m glad I know I’m saved! And, I’m more than happy to tell others about my salvation. How about you?
