Faith Walk Ministry

04/05/2026

04/05/2026

RESURRECTION

The entire reason for the season rests on the true symbol of the supreme sacrifice, the Cross. This symbol, itself, is the final message to us from God. The Cross shows us four directions, and warns us there is one road to eternal life, and countless roads that all lead to eternal suffering and destruction. Matt. 7:13-14 tells us, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

We can study and spend endless hours going over the history of God's Word and the lessons provided in scripture, but everything hangs on one thing. Do you truly believe in the resurrection? It matters not whatever you believe from scripture if you doubt the actual resurrection. Without that, you can forget about stories of eternal life and heaven. If the resurrection isn't true, why would you believe any other scripture?

The Old Testament gives us the history of God's walk with mankind and the organization of His church. If you have doubt about such things as 2 Kings 2:11, you may have doubt about someone rising from a bed after obviously being dead and buried. Look at this passage from 2 Kings, "Then it happened , as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." Sound like science fiction? Christ comes back with horses, so why is this so amazing? God sometimes used fire to dramatize the work of the Holy Spirit. Recall Daniel's three friends placed in the fiery furnace? Read Daniel 3:19-25. Because of its length, I'm not adding it to this message. But I will list verse 25, "I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

Wait!!! This is the Old Testament, and how could he know about the Son of God? If you have read a series of my early messages, you would have the scriptural answer. God's long range plan includes many things that we don't understand. If we paid attention to accurate history such as written in the bible and by truthful historians, we would know many answers, including answers to questions we haven't yet known to ask. God knew that carnal man would have doubts about many things when he couldn't even follow one direction of limitation. Isn't that so true of our old nature? He keeps showing us impossible solutions to problems, and we keep trying to figure out how these things could happen. To answer your question about how the king in the Book of Daniel knew about God, it was the continuing witness of Daniel and his three friends. These four Jews were brilliant scholars
brought to Babylon as teachers for the king's people. You may not be aware that Israel valued education and knowledge very highly. The Jewish world still does. Why do you suppose so many politicians want to downsize education? Education is the key to teaching the Four Gospels, Christ's very words of instruction. This teaching, by the way, is not just for the Christian religion alone, but with the exception of Christ's personal testimony, is for all humankind. The added bonus for a Christian is eternal life. Remember the resurrection!

If you aren't bored, I'll show you where you can see resurrection was known, although it was an understanding of an afterlife rather than a bodily resurrection. You'll find that in 2 Sam. 12:22-23. "But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Sometimes you have to read between the lines in the Old Testament, and don't realize simple things such as verse 23 above. Isaiah prophesied the birth of Christ more than 750 years before Christ was born. If you have trouble believing any of this scripture, the resurrection certainly can be your final stumbling block.

I've had seminary teachers that didn't believe in faith healing, and teachers that didn't believe in the water to wine miracle. Friends, if you claim to be a Christian, you must believe in the whole collection of scripture. You can't pick and choose. If you don't understand the difference between the messages in the Epistles from Christ's Words, you need to find a real teacher of the Word. The epistles are very important, but they are not Christ's direct teaching. They are tailored directions to newly established churches by missionaries where the new followers are having difficulties separating their Gentile culture from Christianity. Lack of good teaching can also lead you astray in the Book of Proverbs. You must understand the manual, or you can't drive the car.

When I hear the phrase "He is risen," I wonder if the person looks upon this as a spiritual rising or a physical rising of Christ's actual earthly body. Friends, it's both. It's like the song, Love and Marriage. You can't have one without the other. It's a joint contract that requires your belief and acceptance of the full contract. Saying a few words such as the sinner's prayer is a carnal signature. It won't work. Your contract has to be sealed and notarized in your heart. When you accept Christ's offer of salvation, you must dedicate your mortal life to serving Him. There's nothing negative about service to Him. You must study His instructions and be careful not to preach directions unless you really know the material. I know Protestant and Catholic ministers or priests who know the denominational doctrine very well, but don't know scripture well at all. With them it's a job, not a calling.

The disciples and followers of Christ during His time on earth heard His teaching and saw a multitude of miracles including everything from controlling nature to raising the dead. He told them repeatedly about His need to suffer and die to provide eternity for us. Yet these people doubted Him until they saw with their eyes He was risen. Is it not believable that people today who proclaim He is risen really don't "get" the significance of the resurrection? Would you have believed it? Without the actual physical evidence (you were there), could you accept the resurrection?

On Easter we should try to emotionally experience the terrible
suffering of His sacrifice. Then, we should be able to experience
the great joy of knowing He conquered death. We, too, can conquer death by fulfilling our contract with Him. He is The Way, and there is no other. The time to reinforce your commitment is now. You can be that "new and better" product we hear advertised. There is no better product than our Savior. An angel told me people are out there working for Him. How about you?

Rev. Walbear

04/04/2026

MIRACLES DON'T JUST HAPPEN

All miracles are important, even if we refuse to recognize them. Those that God orchestrates, such as Easter, have a continuing effect on the entire earth. When mankind strays too far from God's intentions, God causes change through men and miracles. Those people who rely on the /new Testament church should understand there would be no New Testament church without God's plan that began with Genesis. We are still flooded today with scientists and religious scholars who think they can replace God as the Creator. That's a story in itself for another time, but this message concerns the type of miracles that many people consider happenings. Easter is the great Christian observance of a virgin birth and resurrection. It makes eternal life available to everyone. What Easter represents to Christians, Passover represents to God's Chosen, His original priests. You learn about this in the Old Testament. The last supper observed by Christ and the disciples was the Passover, and that day is approximately at Easter. This year Passover is the Monday after Palm Sunday.

Passover is a celebration of freedom, and a miracle that touched all people of an entire nation--Egypt. Go to the book of Exodus, and you will see God's preparation for a miracle. Moses's entire life was unusual, from his birth and childhood through his call to service. He had a speech impediment, but that did not hinder his leadership. When God calls, God provides. The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, and were not free to leave. They also had slaves, which we may find confusing. It was a system of sorting the social classes. Our system today bases classes on money rather than freedom of movement or individual service. Egyptians worshiped a variety of idols, and the Israelites wanted to worship the God of Abraham and the covenant. The Pharaoh refused to let them go out into the dessert to worship because he feared they wouldn't return. They were the nation's labor force. You increase profit and reduce your personal labor by paying workers as little as possible. Not much has changed in 2,000 years.

Exodus describes the beginning of miracle works by Moses and his brother, Aaron. The miracle of the rods should alert Christians that Satan can orchestrate miracles. They cannot stand against God's, however. Aaron's rod consumes the rods of the Egyptian priests. Pharaoh was not impressed enough to let Israelites go to worship. Then began the succession of miracles to show the Pharaoh how Egypt would suffer if he continued to ignore or refuse the Israeli request. God sent nine plagues on Egypt in an effort to free Israel to worship. These plagues were stark miracles you could touch, see and smell. They included turning river water to blood, frogs, lice, and flies. You may think we would realize we faced a problem if this happened today, but we ignore these situations as signs from God. There always seems to be some unusual and plausible answer. We have what we believe is an answer because we are set on a personal agenda.

God's mercy is almost limitless. More miracles resulted as God continued to give Pharaoh the opportunity to grant the request of the Jews. More miracles gave Pharaoh the chance to heed God's warning. They were diseased livestock, boils on the people, hail, locusts, and darkness. When Pharaoh failed to change his mind, God declared him to have a hardened heart. This is a spiritual condition we also call a reprobate mind. When God makes this decision, the person is forever lost. There can be no recovery. Pharaoh's hardened heart brought about the tenth plague and the freedom of Israel. God told Israel to have a special feast and mark their doorways with blood. The Death Angel would strike Egypt that night and kill all first born not protected by the doorpost sign. This penalty was even more serious, because the first born also receive the family birth-rite.

The Jews were also instructed to plunder the Egyptians as they fled, taking their material things and their slaves. When the Egyptians woke up in the morning, they found all their first born dead.The entire nation of Israel had left, and it took the Egyptians some time to get over their grief and get organized to try and stop the flight. This gigantic miracle involved two nations and all the people and livestock. The Lord's Death Angel passed over the land and killed Egypt's first born while sparing all the Israelites. Celebration of this miracle was Christ's last supper with the disciples. This miracle didn't didn't just happen. Nothing just happens where God is concerned. It is planned and carried out by God in a second, hour, day, or month, depending on God's plan. It is not coincidental, an accident, or someone's wish. To have a miracle happen, you need a combination of God's power (Holy Spirit) AND faith. Faith is not just talk or words. It is deep seated belief.

Passover was a huge event, while the first miracle by Jesus was relatively small. He simply turned water into wine. Many Christians don't recognize or realize small miracles they consider to be just happenings. Only large miracles draw attention. Some people don't believe in any miracles, although they claim to believe the bible. Faith healing is a type of miracle many people doubt, and there are or have been many fakers. There is also emotional physical healing, which is not actual faith healing. It creates an emotional state that eventually returns the physical state to the original problem. Faith healing can also be lost if the person is overcome with doubt after being healed. Faith cannot be a "sometime" thing--it must be continuing and constant. This is further borne out in what happened after Israel fled Egypt. Passover was just the beginning of a series of miracles.

Israel's flight consisted of millions of people and livestock as well as all their possessions. This required a wide swatch of land for travel. There was only one location on the west shore of the Red Sea that could provide a staging area for Israel to enter the sea. When they arrived there, God parted the water and they could walk on dry land to the other side. It was not a difficult, muddy crossing. You see, God had planned every step to carry out the freedom. Israel could leave during the Egyptian confusion and sorrow caused by the first born deaths.The Egyptians pursued them, but didn't catch up to them until Israel had crossed the sea's parted waters. The sea returned to its natural state, and the dry passage closed. God wiped out the pursuers. Passover is the celebration of miracles that should alert Christians that Christ and over 2,000 years of God's planning are all connected. Passover and Christ didn't just happen.

Palm Sunday ushers in the future of the world under the kingship of Christ. It warns us to wake up to the future, it introduces us to the Savior as our teacher and master, and the power of God and spirituality. Only an all powerful God could put together this two week history lesson. God is merciful and patient, but He expects our proper response. When we show Him a hardened, reprobate heart, He DOES have the final say.

Rev. Walbear

12/24/2025

Christmas at Arkwright

Thanksgiving and Christmas have always turned my thoughts to the warmth and joy of family and scenes such as "Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandmother's House We Go." Few of us make trips like that now, but the cozy thoughts and excitement still are associated with the poem. I associate that
poem with a Christmas experience I had over 70 years ago when some families took a sleigh to grandma's house. We didn't take a sleigh to the Christmas gathering. The snow was so deep and side roads not plowed out yet, so we traveled by car with chains on the rear tires as far as the main road was cleared.

Then we turned onto a gravel side road where the plow had been able to clear a distance of about 100 yards. From there it was almost two miles to my aunt's house and farm. It was also the end of that road that became a field road from that point on.

There was a small farm where the plow had managed to open the road, and we left our cars there and went inside the warm house where that family welcomed us to get warm. They had a large wood stove, and the entire house was cheerful and Christmasy. Did I mention we had about two feet of snow and the temperature was in the single digits?

This was a typical winter occurrence for the area in western New York labeled the Grape Belt in the summer and the Snow Belt in the winter. While the land along Lake Erie produced wonderful grape, fruit and vegetable crops, the range of hills behind this fertile area served as the collector of moisture from the lake as the wind carried the clouds directly over the hills in the form of snow. The westerly wind then built huge drifts.

My aunt's farm was really located in what a townie would describe as the "sticks." This was rural western New York, and a great place to raise a family as long as you didn't mind the harsh winters. The side road to my aunt's home was at an intersection known as Arkwright. It wasn't even a village, but was known for a huge building fondly named the Chicken Tavern. If you mentioned either name, people knew exactly what you were talking about.

So far, this part of our journey was the easy part. We had arrived at this location without dreaded broken links on the chains. Remember, these were the days before four wheel drive and winter tires. When links on the chains broke, they would hit the undersides of the fenders and create a great deal of noise. You would usually have to stop and try to repair the breakage wherever you happened to be under whatever weather conditions. To plow the heavily drifted roads, highway departments had developed rotary plows that were the ancestors of today's snow blowers. They were huge machines and fascinating for us to watch.

Now we had to trek the nearly two miles up the drifted road to my aunt's house. This was on foot. There were no tracks, just the ribbon of white through the trees and curving slightly uphill. With no snow, this wouldn't have been a difficult trip for a couple of five-- year olds. There were four adults and the two of us. We kids could not have gone 10 yards up that road without someone "breaking trail" because the snow was generally chest deep for us. So, the four adults broke trail, with the men going first, the women following, and us bringing up a very exhausted rear. We had to stop and rest often, because we all got pretty played out.

You'd think we should have called the whole gathering off due to the terrible conditions. In those days, country people were hardy folks, and they were used to handing tough situations. This had been planned for quite a while, and we weren't about to be disappointed. While my cousin and her parents lived in a small town, they weren't what we call townies today. Small town life in that area was almost the same as living in the country.

After what seemed like a week wading through that snow uphill, we at last saw the second story of the farm house and roof. The snow had drifted so deep up this high on the hill that it actually reached the second floor of the house on the west and north sides. This is what it must feel like when you are traveling across the
desert and find an oasis.

This was a big farm house, and few homes had central heat or furnaces in those days. They had a large kitchen and what normally served as a dining room, but was the living room in the winter. The regular living room was closed off for the winter, except for this Christmas gathering. It was opened up, and the large Christmas tree was right where the two rooms were usually joined together by double doors. There was no heat upstairs, so you had to snuggle in under featherticks. They were unbelievably warm, and the forerunner of sleeping bags.

There was a wood stove for cooking and a kerosene stove to heat the other two rooms. These three rooms were very comfortable. Although most people along the main roads and well-traveled side roads had electricity, there was no electricity on this road. The lights were actually kerosene lamps you may have seen in old movies. They worked pretty well. This really was the only improvement most people had that was missing here. They had no telephone, but many country people had yet to get "wired." Bathrooms, especially on farms, were yet to become reality, but most towns and villages had them. "Outhouses" still were common.

This house had an "inhouse" outhouse. That is to say, the toilet was a room inside a woodshed attached to the house. They had intended to put a floor in the woodshed, but only got as far as placing the support beams. On these, they placed a series of planks to the inhouse. If you needed to use the facility, you didn't waste any time because it was really COLD.

We had a great Christmas dinner and then it was time for the opening of gifts under the tree. There were lots of gifts for children and adults alike. This was really a special time, because we were still coming out of the Great Depression. Rural folks had a rough time then, and gifts were rare except for Christmas and birthdays. We always ate well, because much of what we needed came from our land and animals.

In the excitement of opening the gifts and holiday atmosphere, I don't believe any of us gave any thought of the difficult journey to be there. In a small way, it was sort of like the feeling those gathered in Bethlehem a couple of thousand years ago must have had. It had been a hard journey for a mother-to-be to get to Bethlehem, with no reservation at the Ritz or Holiday Inn. But the final chapter was beyond glory with the birth of our Savior.

Friends, always remember God is in control of everything. He did not make life on earth easy for His son. If your road is difficult, you can make the trip as long as you follow His directions. Christ gave us the Spirit of Christmas, which was love, peace and compassion. He repeated the warnings of the Old Testament
about material desires which lead us to believe we can prepare for a "rainy" day.

I recall so many "teaching" stories which give us a good feeling, but actually are entirely misleading and cause us to make serious judgment decisions. One that is appropriate for the Christmas season is the story of the ant and the grasshopper. The ant is a hard worker and prepares for winter while the grasshopper does not prepare for winter, and dies when cold weather comes. Contrary to this teaching, the grasshopper is not lazy and is not to prepare for winter. God created him for a purpose, and he fulfills that purpose during
his lifespan in the warm weather. God is in control, and both species fulfill their purpose.

When we use the ant and grasshopper as an example to separate people through material possessions or occupations, we are falling into a trap designed to make us feel superior to others. It is not a Christian story and leads us away from compassion. We need to understand John, "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved". This is total compassion because no limits were placed on who you were or what you did or didn't do, EXCEPT you must accept Christ as your Savior. We must share Christ's compassion for our fellow men/women whether they are rich or poor, pretty or not, workers or not, healthy or not, and same race or not. We are all sinners. If you really want to understand the Christmas story, carefully read the Four Gospels, taking notes not about Christ's birth, but about what He taught. He is the message of Christmas.

As a final word, I want to thank all of you who prayed for my recovery and health. I had a very uplifting learning experience that I could not have received any other way. I have been blessed by this experience and gained much knowledge and understanding that could come no other way. I also was privileged to observe and recall the fruit of some of my previous work. Just never forget that God is always in control of everything. No matter how bad anything appears to be, it is according to His will. If you accept Christ, you will have a purpose, and that purpose will be Christ-like, not a self-centered goal. I wish you a merry Christ-
centered Christmas.

Rev. Walbear

12/24/2025