Do You Have a Heart For Humans Trafficked?

Do You Have a Heart For Humans Trafficked?                  Kelly Durant       1-14-18

Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,

Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor;

He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives,

And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, And the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn, 3 To console those who mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning,

The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;That they may be called trees of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

2. When I was a kid I use to play cowboys and Indians. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters so I would get my grandmother to tie me up in a chair, like I was captured. I loved the challenge of getting free and I would get the ropes off many times only after a few minutes. So because she got tired of me needing to get tied up so often she started tying me up for good. After about an hour I would have to yell out to her, “Ok, you win, I give! Untie me, please!”

Have you ever been in a bound situation where you could do nothing to stop the dominion and oppression of someone? What a horrible feeling, right? It is nothing like the game I use to play, it is real fear and helplessness. I think many people have felt oppression and abuse from those of their own families. Abuse and control is done in many ways, but it is almost always done by someone who has an advantage over you, either with physical size, money, or by threats.

Maybe you have not had your hands tied, but possibly you have been abused by an employer who insulted you or never payed you correctly. Or maybe a violent abusive mate was in your past? And what about so-called friends who entrap you into some dirty business and you then have a big debt to pay?  Abuse is everywhere but due to embarrassment, people keep their secrets, and this is wrong and unjust. God’s solution is freedom in Jesus!

3. This month is human trafficking awareness month and the Salvation Army does its best to get the word out there that we are here to help free the oppressed! You should check out what our USA websites and YouTube clips inform, we are serious about helping people! Your brothers, sisters, and soldiers in the Lord will find safe houses for those escaping horrible situations! There not only exists the porn, drug, prostitution, slave labor exploitation world here, but in many other countries as well. We need to wake up and ‘Do Something!” as child prostitution and slave labor still persistingly exists, so what are you going to do to combat this evil?

Human trafficking is modern day slavery! It exists in many forms. We should all be shocked that there is more slavery today in the world than what ever has been! Here are some modern day slavery statistics that you probably didn’t know about. There are many websites but here is one I found at http://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/Modern_Day_Slavery_Statistics  Below are some quotes from the site…

‘There is an estimated 20 to 30 million slaves across the world today. It is hard to count the exact numbers of a hidden population.

90% of women and children who end up as Sex Slaves were victims of childhood sexual abuse before they were recruited.

You are in greater risk of being hit by a bolt of lightning than you are of going to jail, if you enslave a person in South Asia.

An estimated number of 800,000 people are illegally trafficked across international borders every year.

There are 161 countries affected by human trafficking.

The total yearly profit gained from human trafficking is a staggering $32 billion a year.

Majority of modern slavery victims are between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.

1.2 million children are enslaved through forced labor and exploited in the sexual industry each year.’      This is a lot to take in! How appalling and shocking, right?

4. Considering we are free from having a horrible monster over us controlling our every move making us do horrible things, (we are blessed by God!) we should feel conviction to help those who are suffering under this increasing plague of evil. The good thing is you are a part of this Army who does come through with Salvation. When someone speaks up, there are connections and ways to help people get into a safe and new situation.

One example, I personally took a Colombian lady one time to a safe-house in Georgia. She was escaping a violent ex-husband who had beat her badly in the past. The information about these victims is private, but I can tell you this, that it is true, anyone escaping prostitution, exploitive pimps, or exploitive bosses can get a new start by just stepping out to ask!

That is the big problem, those intimidated in these situations do not know others can and will help them!  What I love is Jesus took on this abuse in the very first sermon of His ministry!  He said: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, Because the Lord has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives.”

5. So here is my question to you, “Will you be like Jesus to announce to others that they can have liberty from their oppressors?” Would you call the police, or call someone if you saw an abusive situation, if you saw an underage prostitute or victim of a bad work situation? If you don’t care, watch out, you one day may need help away from an evil person and not find a way!

I often get upset when I see minorities, Hispanics or blacks, who see a bad situation daily and do nothing about it to help their own. Well, I get mad at whites too!  It’s just that for the past 40 years I have worked in communities of minorities! We have had friends that have told us that the ladies (immigrants often without papers) will take their 14 year old daughters to the beauty salon so they can make them pretty so they can prostitute them!?  If any young person here has ever been forced, we would like to know about! Forced sex leaves a scar but the good news is Jesus can heal those scars.  But you must be willing to be God’s instrument and voice!

Listen to this again: “He (God) has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives.” It is Jesus who heals and frees, but Jesus has no hands but your hands! Jesus depends on you and me to make that phone call, and to do our part and “do something” so that we bring healing and freedom to a person bound in suffering. Never fear the evil ones! God knows and God protects you from evil people when you denounce a criminal, illegal, horrible oppressive act being done on an innocent one!

6. The problem with the world today is too many people accept evil! Too many people are asleep, indifferent, or afraid to confront evil and call it for what it is! Be like Jesus, denounce evil! How was it with all of those want-to-be Hollywood actors and actresses? Those of the #metoo movement? To get to have a part in a movie they were forced sexually and then intimidated, threatened, and bullied so that they would not denounce the violators. Hundreds and hundreds kept silent until just last year! Abuse has always been rampant with those in power, with dictators and political leaders in high places. But it is all coming out to the light! And still there are rebellious horrible people like atheists who reject God’s command such as ”thou shall not commit adultery’, God had in mind to execute people who were exploiters.

These damaged folks had to live with all of that bottled up stress of oppression (which was killing them inside as they used drugs to cope) and the abuse often lasted for years! And these are only a few! There are mega millions still out there! And in the porn and prostitution industry they are controlled by pimps giving them addictive drugs and their entire bodies feel extreme pain when they don’t get their fix. All their money goes to the pimp for drugs! So modern day slavery is the same as torture, and all I can say is that those who manipulate, torture, and destroy children, youth, women, and the poor have to answer to God who will send their soul to a place of perpetual torture, hell! That is unless they repent!  

Here’s what Jesus said: Mark 9: 42 “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea. 43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched.   You must proclaim the, “the day of vengeance of our God;”

7. So be thankful you are not being exploited (speak up if you are being exploited!) and be thankful you are not one who is exploiting! The ones being exploited live lives in hell everyday doing things that is making them old before their time! To not care about this is to deny the faith, what use is a so-called Christian who will not help another abused and in need?

The Salvation Army is animate about serving the poor and helping those in need, and helping someone away from a life of drugs or alcohol, away from a life of prostitution, away from a life of being used and abused is what a Salvationist does! Have you read our history? Who have you helped lately? Who will you help in the future? You might discover a friend of yours is being abused or exploited, so what will you do?

I am very proud that around the world the Salvation Army can help others. We are the ones who must do this mission: “To comfort all who mourn, 3 To console those who mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, If you have never helped a person find Jesus and His liberating comforting love, you are failing to do as He did and commanded.

8. 3 To console those who mourn in Zion, (This means helping spiritual Zion, the believers in God) What do you do to make others feel better? When someone is suffering, are you there for  them? And, “To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning”, in this case what does it mean? The ashes represent a total loss! We have helped people whose houses have burned down and if you were in their shoes it would be awful to need clothing, tooth paste, and everything! Being homeless is like losing it all to ashes!

But having your life in ashes also implies the spiritual, that you lost everything inside, it was burned up or taken by sin in conjunction with some evil person; you lost your innocence, your freedom, your dignity, your desire to live! So what is meant by this part, ‘The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness’? People who have been used and abused and lost it all have a heavy or shockingly dry somber spirit that makes you feel depressed just to see their faces! And what is our role that Jesus gave the example of? To bring them a garment of praise!

This means we are putting clothes back on them and giving them a new life! We are giving them a reason to live and a reason to praise God that there is hope and that there are people out there loving them no matter what, helping them obtain their respect and joy again. You must look past their sin, you must love them as a creation of God damaged by sin, Satan, and evil people!

9. One last thing, I have been very mad, yes, very upset at my fellow Christians, when I or someone have brought into the church a visitor who obviously appeared to be a prostitute, a sinner, or an uneducated exploited farm worker and they were treated with disrespect. Why? Because some ‘perfect one’ was rude to get them to never come back to the church because they were undesirable! I’m sure this makes Jesus furious as He came to save the lost souls! Our mission is to save the “lost and the worst”! Abused suffering people do not need more shunning and abuse from comfortable Christians! One day God will reveal to these so-called Christians, that these exploited ones may have rejected church and Jesus because of their unloving shameful attitude towards them! I do not want to be in their shoes on judgement day.

So if you are doing your part, if you help only one soul in your life (but why not help 10 or even 100?) then you will have the blessings of God! You will be strong! You will be compared to a tree that brings shade and fruit! 3. “That they may be called trees of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

Every time you or I do something to help another, we are establishing (planting) the ‘kingdom of God’ Jesus taught about! We are glorifying God when we do what Jesus taught us, to proclaim to others His Salvation by acts and deeds of kindness to who are in deplorable conditions! Get educated, learn the signs of people who are abused and for the love of Jesus, help them get free and be able to start a new life! Prayer…

The New Year 2018: Trim the Fat! Invest in Substance!

The New Year 2018: Trim the Fat! Invest in Substance!                          Kelly Durant

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

2. How many of you have signed up to go to the gym in 2018? This time of year people go and pay for memberships so they can get exercise to lose all the fat they gained last year. Here you can get the basic package for $10 a month, if you want to. Some of us might need it, right?

But here is the problem, most people go a few weeks and then they stop! And then they keep paying month after month hoping and thinking they will get down to the gym and never do after January! It is the illusive human quality of wanting to improve yourself, but then you are not willing to do the work, be persistent, or be disciplined to carry through with your goals.

In order to achieve something, I suggest you need someone to push you. In this case you need a friend who signed up at the gym with you who will call you and say, “Hey, I’m on my way to pick you up, remember tonight is workout night”. And you end up going when you did not want to just because you don’t want your friend disappointed with you!

3. We need to translate this concept into spiritual discipline as well! Some people would always choose to sleep in on Sunday morning if it were not for their friends, kids, mate, or someone pushing them to go to church to hear the Word of God. In reality, it is actually more important to maintain your spirit healthy, holy, and happy than it is to maintain your body so perfect.

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. 

1 Timothy 4:8

For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Don’t misunderstand, our bodies are God’s temple and we must keep them as properly fed and toned as we can, but the problem in today’s world is some people only focus on the body and never the spirit. Some people are willing to sweat hours in the gym to have an attractive body, but because they leave no time to learn almost nothing about the things of God, then they become worthless to God and to anyone. The vanity of wanting no fat and desiring only shallow beauty is unbalancing our societies. Wasting money on expensive vain clothing and things is insulting and hurting the poor of the world who need our help. Our ideas of beauty need to be redefined to include godliness, altruistic values, generosity and integrity, and must not be limited to ourselves only. The lust enticing idolized marketed youth are the poster children of the ones who are abused and exploited! Finally in 2017, a few politicians and Hollywood moguls are getting exposed and prosecuted for their crimes of abuse, lust, and vanity.

4. More on the vanity of beauty: We had a friend that on his farm he bred show dogs. These were Irish setter dogs with a pretty bright red fur but he had them on chains all they time. One time I asked him, “Why don’t you unchain them to run free?” He replied, “If they ran free they would get lost in the woods, get eaten by other animals, or starve to death. These dogs are bred to look pretty, that’s all!”. 

I immediately thought about how this compares to many people! Some people spend all their life’s energy on their looks, their image, and their bodies to the point their minds, spirits, and hearts are practically empty of anything of value. They have no real skills, knowledge or wisdom! Some people are a danger to their selves and to others due to a lack of knowledge of the things of God!

This show dog analogy also is comparable to many sport stars, actors, or performers. They are all about their selves, all show, with no depth or purpose for others; they are just vain selfish, precocious ego tripping fools prideful in voicing their nonsense, exposing their ignorance over spiritual or political opinions, or world events. And yet the fools of the world admire and copy these obnoxious, lavish, indifferent, devoid of love manipulating lovers of the destructive things of the world!

5. So the fat I want to talk about trimming today is not just the fat of the “weight” that besets  and accumulates from laziness and excessive consumption, it is the fat of the burdens that weigh us down and prevent us from running as we should in the race to obey Jesus. The trimming must be with the vain things of life, trimming away the vain ones of the world, eliminating the excessive enticements that distract us away from our focus on pleasing Jesus.

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, (And God and His angels are watching you and me!)

The Lord wants us strong in body, mind, and spirit, and to get to that point we must train by investing our time on the right things, replacing the fat (sinful things) with muscle or fortitude stemming from edifying practices from God’s word. The idea of cutting fat is a basic one, it implies that you and I will no longer be wasteful and excessive with the valueless temporary trends and things of the world, but rather we will be investing in the important things of God. Also, just stop wanting so much, we have so much already!

6. To trim the fat, first try turning off the TV or computer for a half hour or more daily and start praying and reading the Bible instead. You will be surprised how this simple practice will help you grow in faith, strength, and holiness. For most of my years in South America we did not even own a TV, so my wife and I read together an hour or two daily and this gave us faith to not fear or worry over our circumstances and we were often in dangerous situations with no money or secure income. 

Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

You need a Christian friend, and who will it be to maintain you on track? Decide today amongst those here! It is humanly impossible for my wife and I to be calling each one of you daily to monitor you to be sure you are investing in the things of God, the meat and not the fat, I wish we could, but the reality is it is you that must take conviction and decide that it is you and only you that can help yourself to change to form the spiritual habits that please God.

7. In the Salvation Army we have a discipline known as “self-denial”. It is a practice in which you give up, say, having a coke-cola everyday to apply that money towards the mission field. For example, if 33 of you here gave an extra $30 (a $1 coke a day) for a month sometime or another during the year, that would mean $1,000 could be raised! These are things we can start practicing. But this is only one example of trimming the fat and making it become substance.

You could donate what you would normally spend on your fattening dessert too. Did you know restaurants are discouraging people from getting fatter? (My opinion, ha!) Well, they make their money on what you eat, but what I observe is desserts now cost $7 or $8 dollars, and that discourages me from wanting anything fattening! We can skip the dessert, we can just be happy with the basics in life as we have been many times in the past, do you not agree?

What I really would like is for you to start applying an extra 20 to 30 minutes daily to reading God’s word and praying, praying for the Salvation Army’s mission in Winchester, praying for all here so we can do more for God, praying for new lost souls to come, praying for finances, praying for your own protection and spiritual growth. Replace the fat junk with substance.

8. Another comparison to trimming the fat is downsizing the rolls such as what is done in companies, social clubs and even churches every year. For example, in social clubs every year they must look at who is not attending faithfully or being half-hearted, and see who is not paying their dues and let them go. Some leave and some join, that’s just life everywhere.

During a meeting I was in, in a certain social club a few weeks ago, they were mentioning that they were not happy with people who want the benefits of the organization yet these people do nothing to support the group when they have fund-raisers or community activities. I was thinking in the back of my mind that it is the same way it is in the church.

Many people join clubs and churches for various reason and then later after a few years, when they are expected to be more responsible for some area, instead of stepping up they step down. This is just normal activity of any group, some come and some leave every year. But in the end, it often hurts to see others leave when you and I, and many people, have loved and invested in them and instead of them loving back, instead of staying through thick or thin, they decide to move on. Sadly, this is just life in any relationship, some are loyal until death, while others are just for a year or two. God knows they reasons and we leave that for Him to sort out.

9. So this is the challenge today, when you pray, what is God going to show you about yourself. Where does God want you to trim the excessive unnecessary things that your money and time go to that bring no fruit for Him? How have you failed God in not giving to Him that which would honor Him more, be it your time or donation?

People are happiest when they function as lean machines! Excessive baggage, be it emotionally, financially, or materially will tax you and slow and weigh you down to be less productive and happy with yourself. But it works like this too, how can you expect God to be happy with you as person in how you live with your habits if you yourself are not happy with yourself? You and I need to have healthy practices, spiritually and financially, to be solid and strong and pleasing to God.

This New Year of 2018 is a good one for starting over. If you can eliminate or trim some fat in your life and do it for 2 weeks, then you have a chance to carry it on for the rest of the year. Don’t live another year of your life without improving! Or don’t waste your life by bad habits and by making it worse with more fat either. Show dogs and vanity fade quickly! Providing substance for yourself and others within God’s plan will pay off eternally!

Let the Lord speak to your heart…how can you improve this year by rendering more to Him, more to take care of your family, and more to win lost souls for Jesus, and more to support your church Corps?