Welcome to 2021!

Good morning Conqueror’s Class and Welcome to 2021!

I wanted to take this opportunity to say “Thank-You!” to each of you for all your thoughts and prayers, your texts, e-mails, and special‘Get Well’and Christmas cards while I have been dealing with this pneumonia and COVID-19 situation since November.

The Lord has been so good to me and I want to praise Him for allowing me to still be a witness for him, both while I was there at Johns Hopkins Medical Center as well as when they later transferred me to the Baltimore Convention Center for COVID-19 patients in downtown Baltimore.
While I was there, the Lord allowed me to witness and pass out Gospel tracts to many of the doctors and nurses and hospital staff as well as to many of those other patients that I had contact with while there.

I had the privilege to lead one dear homeless man to Christ just before he was discharged to a COVID-19 quarantine hotel and we both rejoiced in knowing that not only had he accepted the Lord as his own personal Saviour, but that God had me right where He wanted me to be and was still able to use me, though sick in body, to tell others about the Great God of salvation who came to this earth to pay the debt for all our sin…oh, praise His Holy Name!

I was released from the COVID-19 center in Baltimore on December 10th but have continued to fight the pneumonia which has not gone away since I first got it and was hospitalized back in 2018 for so long.

While at home, the doctor has had me on steroids to help with this and I go next week for a more detailed CT scan of my lungs before meeting with a pulmonary doctor the following week to determine when they will do the lung biopsy and discuss further treatment to rid me of the pneumonia that simply refuses to go away.

I am still dealing with the chest pain and coughing and extreme fatigue and weakness from all this and at this present time, I just do not have the ‘get up and go’ to get a lot of anything done except sleep in the recliner downstairs. All the steroids I have been on have also caused me to experience heart palpitations and blurred vision quite a bit and my hands have been very shaky, so I would like to ask you to continue to pray for me if you would please.

Lisa has tested negative for COVID-19 each time and was finally released from quarantine to go back to work this past Monday. Danny has also tested negative and is still here with us at home until school starts back up and Andrew, who also tested negative, has gone back to China since his classes at Virginia Tech are all now virtual, so we give praise unto our great God for protecting each of them during this trying time for our family.

I want to also apologize to each of you for my lack of communication to you and for not having any of our Class Prayer Request e-mails or our Sunday School lessons up and online for you since the end of November, but folks, I honestly just have not been able to do it, and I trust you will forgive me for this. But I am looking forward to the day when I can once again do the prayer request lists as well as the Sunday School lessons for you each Sunday while we are going through this great pestilence that has come upon our land!

I would like to try to send out a new 2021 Prayer List for our class this Sunday if you will be willing to continue to send your prayer requests to my church e-mail address at rshutt@opendoorchurch.org.

If I am able this afternoon, I hope to work on a short lesson for Sunday and have it up on our class web page as well, so please pray for me as I work on this today.
I want you to know that I do love each of you and am so proud to be your teacher in the Conqueror’s Sunday School class. I know I have missed sending out Birthday and Anniversary notes and class prayer lists for the last month or so, but I ask that you pray that God will give me the strength and ability to once again be able to do fulfill my duties as your teacher as well as my other responsibilities there at the church soon.

I have determined in my heart to keep my eyes on the Saviour in this new year of uncertainty in 2021 and I want to encourage each of you to do the same!
Stay in the Word of God this year and allow the Word of God to stay in you! Tell everyone you meet about the great gift of salvation that God offers to all men, women, boys, and girls, and do not be ashamed to stand faithfully for the One who both stood for you victorious over death, hell, and the grave and who still stands faithful for you...the Lord Jesus Christ!

I would like for us to claim this theme in 2021, remembering the fact that“There is much to be done in 2021!”. I would like to remind you of the story found in Luke 14:16-22 where the Lord commanded his servant to go out and bid all to come to the marriage supper he was preparing. As you know in this story, the servant went out and he bade all to come, but many made excuse and refused to listen to that faithful servant, so the master of the house told that servant to“…Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind…”, to which the servant replied in verse 22,“…Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.”

As I read that verse, I was reminded of the faithfulness of so many of you to go out each week and tell others of God’s great invitation and to try to bring anyone and everyone to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. So many in our world has seemed to thumb up their nose toward you and simply refused to listen to the message of the Gospel, but folks, God is“…not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance…”, and as this servant reminded his master,“…Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.”, I want to again remind each of you that there is still room at the cross for anyone who will repent of their sin and place their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ! They simply need to have ‘someone’ who will be faithful to tell them the old, old story of Jesus and His love!

There is indeed much to be done in 2021 and I urge you to make this the theme of your heart this year! Do all that you can to share the Gospel with those around you and with those whom you come in contact with from day to day! Get yourself some Gospel Tracts and keep them near you so you can share the message of Jesus and His love with someone today and in the days to come before it is eternally too late for them to be saved!

Our Lord’s soon return is close upon us and we must be about our Father’s business!

My prayer for each of you today is that you will not be discouraged by what you see around you, but that you will see the fact that“There is much to be done in 2021!”and because He has made us to be more than Conquerors, that each of us will continue to be found faithful to be about our Father’s business!

We love you so much and trust to be back with you again soon! God bless…

Ray Shutt, Conqueror’s Class Teacher

I : We each need to understand that Life is short, both for the saved as well as for the lost!

     A: For the Saved
          - James 4:14, Hebrews 12:2-3

     B: For the Lost
          - Romans 6:23, Revelation 20:15

II : Those who proclaim to be saved and those who know they are lost need to make some wise choices!
     A: The Saved Need To Choose To Be Obedient Unto God
          - Ezekiel 3:17-18
               - 1: “Son of man, I have made thee a watchman…”
                    - Acts 1:8
               -2: “…therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from
                     me…”
                    - All throughout the Word of God, we hear the warning that God has
                      commanded us to give unto those who are lost!
                         - Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15-16, Luke 24:44-47, John 3:3, John 3:7,
                           John 5:24
               - 3: “…When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest
                      him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked
                      way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity;
                      but his blood will I require at thine hand.”
                         - II Peter 3:9, Romans 10:14, Romans 10:17

     B: Those Who Know They Are Lost, They Too Need To Choose to Make Some Wise
         Choices
          - 1: Those who are lost need to first understand that the great God of salvation is
                 indeed willing
                 to save whosoever will come unto Him!
                - John 6:37, John 3:16, John 4:13-14
          - 2: Jesus assures those who are lost that to follow Him is indeed the wise choice!
                - Matthew 7:24-25

Conclusion:
Yes, many in this world and in the community around us have heard and willingly chosen to reject the message of the Gospel and even refuse to hear the truth of the Word of God, but still, there are many who have never heard and who are still searching for the Truth that will forever change their lives, quench their thirsty soul, and satisfy their ever present hunger to be saved!

But someone must tell them!

And that means, that there is without a doubt, so much to be done in 2021!

But it all starts with you and me dear child of God!

It starts with our having a grateful heart for what the Lord has done for us! It continues on by our recognizing the fact that others need to know what Christ can do for them. And it all comes to fruition when we willingly determine to allow God to use us, as individuals, to reach our lost world, one soul at a time!

What great joy there is in the hearts of those who not only give out the Gospel, but in the hearts of those who willingly receive the Gospel and are saved!

But child of God, know too that there is a great sorrow in the hearts of those of born again children of God who choose NOT to obey our Lord’s command and who choose NOT to give out the Gospel to those who are lost, for in the last part of that verse in Ezekiel chapter 3, we read these words spoken by the Lord, “…When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”
Child of God, don’t exchange great reward for great sorrow! Don’t neglect the duty and responsibility that God has laid upon each of us, as truly born again children of God, to take the message of the Gospel to all who are lost, for God reminds, if we neglect to do what He has commanded us to do, “…the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.”!

Child of God, there is still much to be done in 2021…let’s determine, no matter who becomes our next President, and no matter how bad things may seem to be in the world around us, let’s determine in our heart that we will be faithful to do that which God has both saved and commanded us to do, and that being to reach our lost world with the Gospel, one soul at a time!

And if this becomes our heart’s desire and never ceasing theme for this new year, then we shall indeed see the fact that there is much to be done in 2021!