April 3, 2000

Dealing With Enemies

 

 

      I know with absolute certainty that the Almighty God has redeemed and forgiven me.  He has called me out of spiritual darkness and has brought me to His marvelous light.

 

      The Lord has also anointed me to share with others about His goodness and mercy, and to proclaim God’s Word that no one is beyond the reach of His love and forgiveness.  I believe He also wants me to demonstrate, as much as possible, His love for everyone.  Yes, even to my enemies and those who, for whatever reasons, hate me.

 

     You see, the fact is, there are people who despise my very life.  They continually curse me in their hearts, and are forever looking for ways to hurt me and somehow destroy my Christian testimony.

 

     Several years after I became a Christian, God revealed to me that there will be many people who will try, through their ignorance, prejudice and bias, to fight against me in every way possible.  These people have worked very hard and have made many efforts to hinder my attempts at doing good to others and with making my amends to society.

 

     Some of these “enemies” have been media people.  A handful have been former police officers and other “law enforcement” personnel.  None of these people know me today.  None of them really knew me back then.

 

     In addition, some have been total strangers.  There were even a few former prisoners who sought to cash in on having done time with me in the past..

 

     And then there are the myriads of satanists and practitioners of various occultic arts who have written hateful things about me. Obviously they see me as a threat to their evil ways.

 

     But my trust and confidence is in the Lord.  “The Lord is on my side;  I will not fear:  what can man do unto me?” (Psalm 118:6)

 

David Berkowitz.

 

 

April 11, 2000

 

     I am doing well and enduring the storms and trials through the power of the Holy Spirit.  If not for the Lord imparting His divine strength to me, I would not survive all the fiery darts the dirty devil hurls at me night and day.  But praise God, I have the victory in Christ.  He is my Hope, my salvation, and my Rock.

 

     I thank the Lord for His divine comfort and His ever-present help, even in times of trouble  (Psalm 46:1-3) And I wish to simply encourage Christians to have fellowship with other believers when you can.  No church is perfect, but God has placed others around us that we may encourage and build up one another in the faith.

 

     In these times we’re living in, it is so easy to take our eyes off of Jesus.  But we cannot afford to do this, not even for a second.  It is easy to get discouraged.  Yet it is must as easy to be encouraged.

 

 David Berkowitz

 

 April 17, 2000

 

     I had a good time with the Lord this morning reading First Corinthians Chapter 15.  Paul put his life in jeopardy every hour for the sake of the gospel.  Yet he considered himself to be the “least” of all the other apostles, and not even worthy to be called an apostle, because he, in his past times of ignorance and hatred, persecuted the Church.

     Still when he too became a believer in Jesus (Yeshua) he tried to make up for his past misdeeds by laboring “more abundantly” and more intensely than all the other apostles combined.  I hope to do the same, making the most  of each day.

 

David Berkowitz

 

 April 18, 2000

 

I shared this short message of encouragement in the chapel this past week.  I wrote down the highlights of it:

 

     THE EXODUS

 

     The Lord has been showing me something about our afflictions and our deliverance from them.  Remember the Israelites, how they were enslaved by the Egyptians for 400 years?  Well you know, just before their deliverance came their afflictions got worse.

 

     Pharoah (who was a type of Satan) was obviously afraid that one day a deliverer  would come for the Jews.  He also felt intimidated by the large number of Hebrews who were in the land.  And then the time came when Moses (a type of Christ) stepped before the Egyptian leader to demand the release from captivity of God’s people.

 

     But rather than showing mercy and easing up on their afflictions and bondages, Pharaoh got upset and increased the sufferings of the Jews.  This is today’s portrait, in a sense, of the devil.

 

     Because Jesus Christ is soon to come, (and I believe the devil knows this)  in his anger he is actually increasing his attacks upon God’s children.

 

     The devil is angry because soon God’s people are going to be snatched off of this sin-scorched earth and we will be ushered into heaven.

 

     I heaven we will be out of satan’s reach forever, just like the Jews, once they crossed the Red Sea, were out of Pharoah’s reach.

 

     There is a parallel here.  And so I believe that one of the reasons we, as a church and as individual believers, are going through so many trials and struggles in virtually every area of our lives, is because Satan knows that our Deliverer  (Jesus) will soon come to take us away.

 

     The devil is just trying to get in his last licks.  Pharoah did the exact same thing to the Jews.  But just as Pharoah was fully outsmarted and conquered when the day of deliverance came for the Hebrew slaves, so to satan will be full conquered when Christ come for us.

 

     For when Jesus comes for His church, at this moment, all suffering, pain, struggle and hardship will come to an immediate end.

 

     Praise the Lord!   This should encourage us.  Satan knows he has but a short time, and so do we!

 

David Berkowitz

 May 25, 2000

 

 

     The Lord showed me today (Luke 17:22-37) that until the time of the Rapture, it will be for most of the people of this world   “business as usual.”  Jesus will come suddenly for His Church, like maybe right now.

 

     During Noah’s day and in the time of Sodom and Gomorrah, people were living good.  It was a time of false peace and temporal prosperity.  They had great plans and ambitions.  There was no hint of what was to come.   There were probably many “signs,” of course.  And God always had His faithful witnesses proclaiming the coming judgment.  But people were blind to the signs and deaf to the messengers.

 

     Like it is nowadays, people seemed to live for money and pleasure.  And like today, the spiritually blind of this world will one day find themselves right in the time Jesus Christ warned about, the “Tribulation.”

 

David Berkowitz

 

 May 30, 2000

 

     Today I was reading Micah 7:18-20 which is one of my favorite passages in the Bible.  I know for a fact that I serve a God who loves to pardon and delights to show mercy.  While He does not excuse or tolerate sin, He does give us space to repent and turn from our sins and come to Him for forgiveness and mercy.

 

     Man will seldom forgive or pardon, especially if one has committed a crime.  But thankfully God does not think or act in the same manner as prideful mankind.  His ways are not our ways, nor are God’s thoughts like our thoughts.

 

     “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”  (Isaiah 55:8,9).

 

     What a relief to know this truth!

 

David Berkowitz