Tony Cirigliano Ministries
November 2005, Issue #5
A supporting ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Pastor Tony Cirigliano Editor Mary Ann Cirigliano Associate in Ministry
887 Seven Oaks Road, Boone, NC 28607 ▪ 877-828-7432 Ph. ▪828-263-0115 Fax ▪
www.cleartruths.com Website
God is Good – All the Time!
We have just completed the first 120 days of this ministry. When we started, the
devil was at work. My wife Mary Ann lost her private duty nursing job when the
lady she had loved and cared for passed away. Around the same time the hospital
where she worked did not put her on the schedule any longer. This all happened
the same time I left conference employment to begin this ministry!
But here’s the good news. We were left totally
dependent on Yahweh the Lord, and He never fails! The Lord impressed people to
give, and those who gave He blessed. We have had to do without things we didn’t
need, but we have not yet had to be late on paying a single bill, and we have
been able to publish some books and operate the ministry. So far we have been
able to send the truth packet DVD and CD to 163 pastors and churches in 25
cities in 7 states! Pastors have called and we have been asked to come to
churches so that we are booked well into 2006 to do Soul Winning Made Simple
Seminars or Revival Weekends. God is truly good – all the time!
David wrote, “I
have been young, and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.” Psalm 37:25. And you never
will!
The Lord is Coming – Maranatha!
There are so many signs that Jesus will soon return that even the deaf, dumb,
and blind kid who played a mean pinball in the old rock song knows it! We are in
the time when the angels are letting go the winds of strife that have been long
held back. As the hand of Yahweh is removed from the land, Satan is free to do
his baleful work!
As I write this newsletter Florida is awaiting yet another hurricane Wilma –
which is the 22nd named storm this year! This is a record and another storm
called Alpha (they use the Greek Alphabet when they run out of storm names!) is
forming awaiting to follow Wilma in the track of destruction. The Gulf Coast is
still in devastated condition from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The world is ill prepared for the Asian Bird
Flu that is expected to become pandemic and take millions of lives world-wide.
Terrorism is growing with the news reporting that terrorists are now strongly
based in forty countries! Aids, the Ebola Virus, the Sar virus and dozens of
other pestilences are taking their toll world-wide. The weather seems to have
gone mad with record floods world-wide. Fires have scorched thousands of acres
in America. One after another like a woman’s labor pains are coming.
Here’s a quote from the inspired pen that it
is well worth to read and remember. It is from page 624 in the book The Great
Controversy:
"As the crowning act in the great drama
of deception, Satan himself will personate Christ. The church has long professed
to look to the Savior's advent as the consummation of her hopes. Now the great
deceiver will make it appear that Christ has come. In different parts of the
earth, Satan will manifest himself among men as a majestic being of dazzling
brightness, resembling the description of the Son of God given by John in the
Revelation. Revelation 1:13-15. The glory that surrounds him is unsurpassed by
anything that mortal eyes have yet beheld. The shout of triumph rings out upon
the air: "Christ has come! Christ has come!" The people prostrate themselves in
adoration before him, while he lifts up his hands and pronounces a blessing upon
them, as Christ blessed His disciples when He was upon the earth. His voice is
soft and subdued, yet full of melody. In gentle, compassionate tones he presents
some of the same gracious, heavenly truths which the Saviour uttered; he heals
the diseases of the people, and then, in his assumed character of Christ, he
claims to have changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and commands all to hallow the day
which he has blessed. He declares that those who persist in keeping holy the
seventh day are blaspheming his name by refusing to listen to his angels sent to
them with light and truth. This is the strong, almost overmastering delusion."
The false Christ will say that the reason all these disasters are coming upon
the earth is because his Sunday sabbath is not being kept and his church is
divided and not all under the auspices of the fallen church – Babylon the Great!
But the good news is that Yahshua Jesus will
soon return. His glorious appearing will end all sin and suffering! Sickness and
sorrow and tears will be forever wiped away! He will take us to heaven with Him
for 1000 years, and we will be united with those we love! Everlasting joy will
be upon the heads of the redeemed and sorrow and crying will flee away forever.
No longer will we be subject to the devil’s temptations and the evil broadcasts
of the “prince of the power of the air.”
Heaven is “cheap enough” because Yahweh’s own
Son paid the price for us! Now is the time to put away sin and to let the Lord
truly be our Lord and allow Him to sit on the throne of our heart. Now is the
time to confess sin and ask the Lord for victory in our lives. Now is the time
to use what He has blessed us with to further His cause on the earth and to win
the lost!
God loves you and has great compassion for
you. If you come to Him, you will never be cast out. Jesus said,
“He that cometh to Me, I will in
no wise cast out.” – John 6:37. Ellen White commenting on this
verse wrote,
"The message from God to me for you is
"Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). If you have
nothing else to plead before God but this one promise from your Lord and
Saviour, you have the assurance that you will never, never be turned away. It
may seem to you that you are hanging upon a single promise, but appropriate that
one promise, and it will open to you the whole treasure house of the riches of
the grace of Christ. Cling to that promise and you are safe. "Him that cometh
unto me I will in no wise cast out." Present this assurance to Jesus, and you
are as safe as though inside the city of God." {10MR 175.1}
Bible Prophecy Made Simple - We are almost done with our fifth book called Bible
Prophecy Made Simple. What I did is take the nine sessions that I used in my
shorter evangelistic series that were as successful as my longer meetings and
put it into a book form with the slides included. A person reading the book
would be going through an evangelistic campaign with Yahweh’s truths spelled out
for them. They would also be referred to more comprehensive study books on the
different subjects.
Upcoming Events for this Ministry
Nov. 5-6 Snellsville, Georgia
Nov. 18 Burnsville, NC
Dec. 3 Boone, NC
Dec. 5-8 Daytona Evangelism Convention
Jan. 21-22 Mount Olive, GA
Feb. 4-5 Birmingham, AL
Here’s a great project for the children too.
Visit the site at
http://cleartruths.com/ReceivedTruth.htm Let the children raise funds
to get the truth to non-SDA ministers! Gifts to this ministry for any project
are tax deductible. Until next month – Maranatha!
NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD
By Pastor Tony Cirigliano
This month we celebrate Thanksgiving. It’s a time of the year when we can be thankful for all the blessings Yahweh has given us. Most of us will have a nice Thanksgiving with our family and maybe we can invite someone who might not have a family to have thanksgiving dinner with. Jesus said when you have a feast invite the ones who can’t pay you back – the crippled, the blind, and the poor. And if you are near those who have lost homes and family members because of the disasters invite them too!
Growing up in an Italian Catholic home, my mother who is 85 now and unable to cook used to make the greatest meals for Thanksgiving, and she would invite family and friends over. We'd start eating in the morning and end with cake, pies, nuts and coffee at around 8:00 that night!
My Father who passed away in 1983 used to carve the Turkey, and my five brothers and one sister used to watch him do it and be quick to eat the pieces that were not good enough for the big platter. Now we usually eat Fri-Chik for Thanksgiving. But we still have the fresh bread, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, and the sweet potato, and broccoli casserole, and the pumpkin pie, and beans and corn, and nuts and good stuff!
MaryAnn and I and Paul have so much to be thankful for this year! We have started a new ministry that Yahweh is blessing. The Lord has protected us from harm on several occasions. Just recently MaryAnn was cleaning the ceiling in the shower stall area and was standing on the plastic shelf built into the shower stall when she fell. She fell so hard that she broke the toiled seat and loosened the commode. Falling into a small area and the way she fell I was sure she had broken bones, but when she was X-rayed there was no fractures of broken bones. Even though she has been sore for some days, we know the Lord especially protected her!
Personally I have much to thank God for! I have a great wife and great children, and one grandchild! I am now doing something I have dreamed about doing for a long time and something I know the Lord prepared for me to do. Mary Ann and I have completed 20 years in the gospel ministry. I have been blessed to have seen God use the Bible studies and books He’s blessed me to write and I get calls and letters from all over the world. The website at http://wbaj.net has so far gotten over 80,000 downloads of Bible studies and audio sermons!
God is just too good to us, and we not deserving of a single favor – neither really are you – God just loves us and pours out His blessings! I am sure that each of you could tell of the many blessings the Lord has given you.
I thank the Lord that he called me from darkness into His marvelous light! I thank Him that he showed me the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and then led me to His truth, and now I can deliver heavenly messages for Him! I’m thankful for God’s grace and His mercy without which we could never be saved! I’m thankful He came to give me a free gift – the gift of eternal life! I had nothing to pay Him for it – I can’t add a single thing to it! Nothing but the blood of Jesus can save us – nothing but the blood! How precious the truth of salvation being a free gift is! His Mercy to us is NEW EVERY MORNING! We become righteous by faith in the Lord our righteousness!
Speaking of righteousness by faith, I want to read a quote to you from a wonderful little book called Faith & Works by Ellen White. It contains a quote that is so powerful about how we are saved that it will forever banish the idea that we can do add anything to what Jesus did on the cross. It’s found on page 24:
“The Lord Jesus imparts all the powers, all the grace, all the penitence, all the inclination, all the pardon of sins, in presenting His righteousness for man to grasp by living faith--which is also the gift of God. If you would gather together everything that is good and holy and noble and lovely in man and then present the subject to the angels of God as acting a part in the salvation of the human soul or in merit, the proposition would be rejected as treason.”
Yes, we have so much to be thankful for this thanksgiving season! How terrible it is to be unthankful. It is one of the most Hurtful sins to the Lord Jesus. We know this from the story of the ten lepers whom Yahshua Jesus healed. Open your Bibles to Luke 17. Here we find the story of the 10 men who had leprosy.
Leprosy is a dreadful disease especially feared because of the damage it can do to the human body. Details are too gross to go into in detail. Essentially, the one sick decayed while living! They were dead men walking! Bones would be exposed and many other horrors involving the afflicted one’s appearance would take place.
In Jesus’ day, those who had leprosy were considered to be under the curse of God for some horrible sin they or their parents had committed. Seeing a leper approaching in the distance would cause men, women and children to flee in terror! Lepers had to yell, “Unclean! Unclean” or else be put to death by stoning! Often these lepers would gather in small groups of 4, 5 or 8 or ten. They were the homeless people of Jesus’ day.
Luke 17:11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that
he passed through the midst of
Samaria and
Galilee.
12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men
that were lepers, which stood afar off:
Notice that these men were “afar off.” They were away from the commonwealth of Israel – without hope in the world. It is like those infected with the leprosy of sin. They too are apart from the kingdom of God. There were ten of them in different stages of the disease just as there are people who are more sinners then others – or at least may look that way.
One very good thing about this small group of lepers is that they knew they were in great need, and they did something to effect their healing. They could not do a single thing to cure their deadly disease – no amount of washing would help. Just the same is it with the leprosy of sin – not a thing we can do can cure that disease – no works – no diet – nothing – but there is one thing the lepers did, and one thing those afflicted with the leprosy of sin can do!
Luke 17:13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
These lepers had heard about Jesus and they called Him “Master.” They said, “Master, have mercy on us.” It was their great opportunity – Jesus was walking their way! The chance might never happen again! The Bible says, “Now is the appointed time, now is the day of salvation!”
When Jesus heard the cry for mercy, He could not turn away. He said “He that cometh unto me, I will in no way cast out.” When no one else seems to care about us, when no one else can help us, or even come close to us, Jesus cares! He’s not afraid to approach the sinner – to bring words of eternal life!
Look with me at Luke 17:14. And when he saw them, he said unto them, go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
In order to be allowed back into society, the person with leprosy had to be declared clean by the priests. He was then given a token that allowed him or her to return home to their families. Jesus told them to “Go!” He told them to exercise their faith! They had faith because they listened to Jesus – they didn’t waver! They started walking to the priests with no visible sign of healing, but they went because Jesus said, “Go!” Imagine these ten lepers acting by faith and doing what Jesus said. As they were walking, the Lord began to do mighty miracles to these ten lepers. In fact, I think these are the most under-estimated of all of Jesus’ miracles, and yet this might be among the greatest!
The horrible nodules on their skin begin to heal. New flesh appears – the ugliness is replaced by clean BEAUTIFUL SKIN! They notice it on each other! “Jacob, your face is restored! My feet are healed.” "My toes have been put back!” All ten of them experience the greatest miracle. But it’s no greater than the changing of a hard heart – the converting of the soul – the healing of the disease of sin that Jesus does for the one asking Him for forgiveness and mercy!
The lepers were cured! Their shame and nakedness were no more! They could go home to their loved ones! Miracle of miracles! Sorrow was turned to great joy! All things became new!
Luke 17:15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
One of them, when He realized what Jesus did for him turned back! He thought to himself, "Before I see the priest, before I enjoy my family again, I must thank Jesus!" The Bible says in a “loud voice” he “glorified God.” “I’m healed! HalleluYAH!” He went back to say thank you Jesus! The other nine went on their way to the priests. But this one – in fact, he was a Samaritan went back and remembered to say “thank you.”
Luke 17:16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
Can you imagine the grateful heart of this man? Jesus had healed Him completely! He knew the Master – the Lord loved him! The other nine may have been Jews – of the lineage of Abraham, but they didn’t come back to glorify God. Sometimes the children of the world are wiser than the children of light! It was Thanksgiving Day for this second good Samaritan!
Weeping at the feet of Jesus is the highest place we ever can reach! It is the safest place to be in this entire universe – at the feet of Jesus!
Luke
17:17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the
nine?
18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save
this stranger.
19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made
thee whole.
Jesus said, “Where are the other nine?” They were all healed, but where were the others? Why didn’t they take time to say thank you? Jesus takes note of those who do not have a thankful heart. Jesus said that this one - the one that came back to thank him was now "whole." He had received spiritual healing and forgiveness of sins while the others received only physical healing!
1 Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
On September 8, 1860, the Lady Elgin, a crowded passenger steamboat floundered off the shore of Lake Michigan just above Evanston. The boat had developed a leak in its boiler room and was taking in water. It was sinking. Many watched the sad scene from shore.
Edward W. Spencer, a promising student in Garrett Biblical Institute where he was studying for the ministry was one of those watching from the shore. He saw a woman clinging to some wreckage far out in the cold breakers. Spencer threw off his coat and shoes and swam out through the heavy waves. He succeeded in getting the women back to shore safely. Seventeen times in three hours Spencer braved the strong waves, and rescued seventeen people. Finally, he could go no more and collapsed in a delirium of exhaustion.
He was taken to the same hospital as the ones he rescued. They went home in a few hours, Spencer was there for 21 days and nearly died. He developed a heart problem and crippling arthritis. He never recovered from that day and was never able to complete his studies for the ministry – his dream of becoming a minister was drowned in the cold waters of Lake Michigan. He lived a quiet Christian life, and died in California when he was just 41 years old. There was a newspaper story about his death, and in the story it was reported that not one of the seventeen people he had rescued ever came back to say thank you!
Psalm 13:6 says, “I will sing unto Yahweh the Lord, because He hath dealt bountifully with me!”
The Hymn writer put it so beautifully:
“Now thank we all our God
With heart and hand and voices,
Who wondrous things hath done,
In Whom His world rejoices."
On November 29th, in the year 1623, Governor Bradford of Massachusetts made the first Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. It was three years after the Pilgrim’s settled at Plymouth Rock. These were his words:
“Inasmuch as our great Father has given us this year and abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of our enemies, has spared us from pestilence and disease, and has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience . . .Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye pilgrims, with your wives and your little ones, do gather at ye meeting house . . . On Thursday, November 29th, in the year of our Lord 1623, and the third year since ye pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings." Signed William Bradford, ye Governor of ye colony.”
If you would like to, you can give a special thanks offering tax free to this ministry. It’s a tangible way to give thanks. If you have been healed by Jesus – give thanks! If you need a healing – do as the lepers did, cry out "Master, have mercy on me!" He will never turn a needy one away. He will bless all offerings to His work. “With what measure ye measure, it will be measured unto you.” Happy Thanksgiving!