For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:22-23)
Greetings from a very frustrated Breaker family,
That’s right, we are so perturbed by what we see going on in the world today. The above verses state it well. Not only does the whole creation “groan” and “travail” but so do we within ourselves as we see these last days grow worse and worse and we anxiously await the rapture (i.e. the “redemption of our body.”) Please come back soon, dear Lord Jesus!
I hate to write one of those “whiney” prayer letters, complaining about how awful everything is and how horrible things are. But, I also like to speak from the heart every so often and tell people how I honestly feel about things, so here goes. I hope this prayer letter doesn’t drag you down in the dumps, but rather encourages you as what we see going on in the world today is just confirmation that Jesus must be coming soon!
March and April haven’t been the best of months. Cars have broken down, we’ve gotten sick, and we’ve heard the heart-wrenching news of my cousin passing away. It’s hard in such times to be joyful, but we try to press on with meek and lowly sacrifices of thanksgiving. (I’m, comforted with verses like Col. 3:15, which states, “…And be ye thankful,” and 1 Thess. 5:18; “In everything give thanks,” but sometimes that’s hard to do. Still we try.)
I’m also bummed when I look at the state of the world today. I read an article lately in which a Bible scholar wrote that the world is so degenerate today, it’s close to “biblical proportions” the utter depravity and sin that abounds. Socially, politically, morally, and spiritually, the world is on a downward spiral descending straight to the pits of hell, and it’s hard to watch. (It makes me cringe more and more just reading the daily headlines of the wickedness in the world).
Our nation is transitioning into a Socialist Dystopia, as our Constitution is continually degraded by power-hungry politicians who attempt to strip us of our God-given rights and deceive us into thinking they are just “privileges.”
Our Churches are full of people who desire to steal the praise and worship from our Lord Jesus Christ, changing the focus from bragging on Jesus to bragging upon themselves.
Even individual Christians are getting more deceitful, and I’m finding myself continually wanting to be friends with others, but viewing them with suspicion, wondering if I open up to them and try to get close to them, what will they do to hurt me and my family in the future? (We’ve been hurt so much by other Christians, it’s hard to get close any more to anyone. In fact, it’s hard to trust anyone any more in this present evil world!)
I find my only solace is in preaching the Gospel to the lost and dying world, but even that is an endeavor in itself, as many people today don’t even understand the Bible or the Gospel. Most think that salvation is by good works. And, it’s almost a “deprogramming” session to sit down and speak with such people to try to show them salvation by God’s amazing grace. (By the way, I’m enclosing a tract with this prayer letter entitled: “You Are Not Saved by Works!” I wrote it as I’ve dealt with so many lately who think they have to “work their way to heaven.” This tract does a good job of showing it’s not of works, but by grace through faith!)
So this is what we are struggling with. I want to do more for Jesus, but there are many hindrances. When I do my best, there are little results. And, when I seek His face in prayer, I find little counsel. Truly we are in the last days, and things are getting worse. This makes me want to do even more for the Lord. But I find myself continually thinking how much I wish the Lord would just come back and get us out of this mess. The sooner the better! But until He does, we’ll continue to be faithful, witnessing to the lost, and praying God will use us for His glory. Please pray for us. We need your prayers. Also, please pray for all those we’ve witnessed to these last couple of months, passed out tracts to, and planted Gospel seeds in. We truly want to see people saved!
Thanks again for all your continued prayers and support. I truly hope this will be the year that Jesus returns. But until then, we’ll “groan” within ourselves as we “go forth” with the glorious Gospel message of salvation by His finished work.
Because of Christ Jesus our Lord,
Robert Breaker and Family
1 Sam. 12:24!
POST SCRIPT
And you thought I was going to quit there, and actually write a short prayer letter this time? Well, that’s hard for me to do. (My wife says I’m a very “wordy” person.) So much is going on, I had to mention just a couple more things. So here goes.
In April something surprising happened. I was reading my Bible one morning when all of a sudden I heard the most awful explosion. It was so loud it made us all jump, and so powerful it shook our entire house, even rattling the windows. This happened again a few minutes later. To this day, no one has been able to explain it. Some say it was a “sonic boom” from an airplane, but I’ve heard those before, and that wasn’t it. Others say it was bombs dropping at Eglin Air Force Base across the bay from us, but I’ve heard and felt those before, and none were ever that loud or powerful. (Besides, they claim officially that it wasn’t them!) So we still don’t know what it was. (Nor does the local News Media. They can’t explain it).
It did make me curious enough to pursue further study, and I’ve found that things like this have been happening all over the U.S., and even all over the world. Some sources say that before huge earthquakes, there are often times unexplainable boom noises, and some Youtube videos even show that this has happened all over the middle of America and is possibly caused by the New Madrid Fault line, and is a precursor to a possible impending giant earthquake. I don’t know. I just thought it worthy of mentioning, as it was quite dreadful, and kind of went along with the “theme” of this prayer letter, and the whole “earth groaning” thing.
If you have heard something like this where you live, let us know. We’d love to hear about it. There are so many strange and amazing phenomenon happening in these last days that it’s incredible. Keep looking up! Our redemption draweth nigh!
On a funny note, I couldn’t resist telling about witnessing one Saturday at Garage Sales. I meet a man who sold jewelry on the side of the road, and gave him a tract. I noticed he was wearing a star of David chain, so I asked him if he was Jewish. He said, “Oh, yeah, I’m Jewish on my Mom’s side!” I then asked him which of the twelve tribes of Israel did he come from, and his reply floored me. He said, “I’m from the tribe of Mason. ‘Cause we are Masonic Jews.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I started asking him some more questions. Turns out, he didn’t know what it meant to be Jewish, and he most certainly wasn’t. His Mom took him to a Jewish synagogue once when he was a kid, and that was about the only time he’d ever gone to a formal religious gathering. His Dad was a Mason, but this guy didn’t know anything about Masonry. He just liked the idea of being Jewish, so he tried to make himself one because his Mom took him to one of their services. And, since his Dad was a Mason, he figured he must have been one of those too.
I thought about this a lot later. How many people in this world are trying to be something they are not? People like this are everywhere. They just don’t know, and have never been taught, so they claim they are something, when they don’t understand what that something is. (A lot of times they claim to be what their parents were).
There are a lot of Christians like this as well. They are playing religion. They claim to be Christians without knowing what it means to be a Christian, or better stated: how to become a Christian. They are religious, but lost.
That’s why it’s so important to preach the Gospel of 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 and show that it’s JESUS CHRIST who saves! We can’t save ourselves. Being a Jew, or a Protestant, or Mason, etc., does not save anyone. You must by faith accept Jesus Christ and His sacrificial blood atonement on the cross for you, in your place, to be saved. It’s that simple, and that’s the message we are still trying to get out! I pray you’ll do the same.
In closing, Laura reminded me of an interesting passage of scripture as she read through this before I printed it to send it out. She remembered that story in Ezekiel chapter 9 about an angel of the Lord going and marking the foreheads of the men of the city who “sighed” and “cried” for the abominations they saw around them. These “marked men” were the ones that God spared when his judgment fell on that place. They were spared, because they “sighed” or dare I say: “groaned within themselves” when they saw the evil of their day. How about you? Do you groan and sigh at the evil of our world, or have you grown accustomed to it and even learned to enjoy it? Sometimes it’s good to just “sigh.”
TEXT OF MY NEW GOSPEL TRACT
You are not saved by works!
Although countless hordes of religious people think that salvation is based upon what they do (i.e. their own good works), this is most certainly not what the Bible teaches. Rather, the Bible teaches us that salvation is by God’s GRACE.
The Bible is very clear on this subject, for we read in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by GRACE are ye saved through faith, and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. ”
Salvation, therefore is not something you can EARN by what you have done, rather it is a GIFT of God by His own GRACE to all who will believe.
Notice these verses very clearly show that working to obtain salvation is the opposite of receiving God’s gift of salvation by faith. Working for salvation means you are trying to EARN your own salvation. This puts the emphasis on you and what you do. But God’s gift of grace shows the emphasis in it’s proper biblical perspective: it’s GOD saving sinful man, not sinful man saving himself.
The aforementioned verses prove that God imputes righteous and forgives sin not based upon what man does, but based upon what man’s believes. It’s that simple.
Galatians 2:16 makes it even clearer, when it states: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
The Bible is very clear, man is not saved by his OWN WORKS, rather by FAITH in Jesus. The question, then, must be asked: What did Jesus do to save man?
Romans 5:6 has the answer. For there we read: “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly
.” Again in Romans 5:8 we read: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Jesus Christ DIED for us, the ungodly! He did all that is necessary to save sinful mankind. It’s all what HE did, not what WE can do. It’s HIS WORK, not ours that saves.
In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, a passage known as The Gospel, we read more about what Jesus did, and how salvation is through believing in His finished work for us:
1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;
2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
The Gospel, therefore, is the good news that Jesus Christ DIED FOR OUR SINS, and was BURIED. Yet, He didn’t stay in the grave, for He ROSE AGAIN from the dead! Why did he do this? It was all for you!
Romans 4:24-25 further tells us: “But for us also, to whom it [righteousness] shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification
.”
According to these verses, God will impute His righteousness to all those who believe. Further, we are told that Jesus rose again from the dead “for our justification.” What is justification? It is a judicial term. To be “justified” means to be completely exonerated or forgiven of a crime. When a person trusts Jesus Christ who died in his place for his “offences,” as the verse above tells, then he is justified in the eyes of God.
Look at that word “justified.” Break it up into syllables like this: Just-if-ied. Literally, to be saved means it’s “just-if-I’d” never sinned. That is what salvation is! It’s God’s grace to forgive us of all sins, and make us sinless in His eyes! But this does not come by one’s own works. This forgiveness that God offers can only be obtained by FAITH in the finished work of Jesus Christ at Calvary, where Jesus paid for the sins of all mankind.
Thus, it’s only by JESUS’ WORK and His work alone that man can be saved. For anything a man can do can never compare to what Jesus did for man on the cross of Calvary.
Jesus Christ did all that is necessary for you to be saved. He suffered in your place for your sins. He now sits on the right hand of God in heaven waiting for you to come to Him for salvation. But that salvation is not based upon what you yourself have done. Rather it’s all based upon what you do with Jesus Christ’s work for you.
You must receive Him as your Saviour by faith. That is, you must trust in what He’s done for you to save you. You say, but isn’t that a work in and of itself? NO! For the only thing a man can do that isn’t a work is BELIEVE. God demands your Faith in His finished work.
According to the Bible, you can do nothing to earn our way to heaven. God doesn’t ask for your works, rather He asks for your faith in what He did for you at the cross.
Do you believe? Do you trust in Jesus’ work for you to take you to heaven? Or, do you foolishly believe that you, a vile sinner, can work your way to heaven? The choice is yours. Work yourself to the bone, and completely ignore what Jesus did for you; or give up trusting your own self-righteousness, and trust alone in what Jesus did to save you. For it is only through Him that you can be saved.
For more information, please contact the address below:
TRUTH STANDS ALONE MINISTRIES
740 MIKE GIBSON LANE
MILTON, FLORIDA 32583
Website: www.rrb3.com
