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| JEREMIAH THOMAS and Pastor RUSTY, HIS DAD |
I first read about Jeremiah when my co-author, Anne Kisley of The TRUTH Under FIRE posted his prayer need on Facebook. As I read about him and his plight, I began to tear up. This healthy, godly young man was afflicted with terminal bone cancer of the most aggressive and deadly sort.
We began praying for him at our Saturday night prayer meetings, and at church. We plead and wept and interceded for him and his family. People on Facebook formed new FB pages dedicated to praying for and ministering to Jeremiah and his family, bringing what encouragement we could by prayer and financial assistance.
He is the son of pastor Rusty Thomas and his wife Kendra and brother to 12 siblings. And he is a valiant warrior for Christ - when confronted with this cancer, his prayer was - and is - "LORD I am not worthy of Your healing, but You will always be worthy of my praise!"
Amazing! And his fervent desire is to see abortion ended in the State of Texas: still, even when most people would focus on their own need and deadly dilemma of cancer, Jeremiah is undeterred, prayerful, and reaching out to governors in Texas and Oklahoma and beseech them, implore them to end the holocaust of abortion.
Impressive? To say the least. You haven't heard the half of it yet! Let's hear him tell his own story! BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE UPDATE AT THE CONCLUSION OF THIS ARTICLE!
For the video version of this letter, read by Jeremiah himself, go here.
There are many ways to be brave in this world.
Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself or for someone else.
Sometimes bravery involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, or everything you’ve ever wanted, for the sake of something greater.
But sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes bravery is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain. It is bearing down through the hard work of every day life. The slow walk towards a better life.
And sometimes it’s letting go.
Hey guys, my name is Jeremiah Thomas. I was raised on the front lines of the ongoing battle for the soul of our nation called abortion. It is a hidden holocaust that has wiped out one third of our generation. I’m from a family of 12 siblings, a stay-at-home mom, and a fiery preacher for a dad. I remember growing up watching my father fearlessly preach and plead with women going into death camps. As a result, I always wanted to grow up to be a preacher.
I learned a lot from my older brothers. I watched them all practice. I watched them all play. I watched them all win State. I wanted to be THAT good.
My brothers played for a private Christian school that allowed homeschoolers to participate. For two years, I woke up early and drove with them to practice so I could be the team’s water boy. The school’s athletic policy changed right before I got my chance to play. Only enrolled students were allowed on the team. So, in the fifth grade, my parents enrolled me because they had promised me the opportunity to play football and my Dad never goes back on his word.
After some years of flag football practice, my turn to play tackle football finally came in the seventh grade. We went 9-1 ending my junior high career on a good note. My parents pulled me out immediately after my last game and brought me back to homeschooling. I skipped 8th grade and went straight into my freshman year. I played with a different Christian school, the Parkview Pacers. I played with them my freshman and sophomore year, winning state my sophomore year. This meant that all the Thomas’ boys had won State. I received awards and got selected both years to play in the “All Star Game.” I don’t say this to brag but to share what my life was before cancer.
Growing up, I always had one foot in Christ and one foot in the world. I attended church, did Bible study, and ministered with my family but when I was at school or hanging with friends you couldn’t tell that I knew Christ.
It wasn’t until the summer of 2017 in Louisville, Kentucky that I experienced revival. I was baptized along with forty-eight other kids (and some adults). I came home to Waco, Texas on fire for Christ.
www.operationsaveamerica.org video - the THOMAS warriors opposing abortion.
I immediately ran to the roar of the battle and began to do ministry outside our local abortion clinic. With my Bible and a handheld microphone, I began sharing the Gospel on high school and college campuses.
Football came and went way too fast. It was a great season. We won State! Football season became basketball season. I continued to minister and play sports.
One night before Christmas, our family watched The Muppet Christmas Carol. I cried through the whole film. I thought I was feeling the Christmas spirit, but I soon realized it was the presence of God.
I was so moved, after the movie, I offered to do all the dishes for my siblings. My dad told me, it was our “Christmas miracle.” There were a lot of dishes and it was late. My tired sisters mumbled a “thank you” as they went off to their bedrooms. My parents and older brother went to bed too, leaving me alone to do dishes.
As I started washing the dishes, I regretted my decision. I decided to worship the Lord. I started to cry again, which then turned to weeping. Soon it was too much for me. I couldn’t do the dishes. I tried to run to my bedroom, so I could collapse on my bed. But I didn’t make it; I collapsed in my dad’s office.
For the next two hours I was pinned to the ground, shaking in the presence of God. At that point, deep intercession and travail filled me, leaving me undone. I knew God was demanding more of me.
I began to hear a Voice. It was almost like it was speaking into me. I recognized the words the Voice was saying, when I knew that I shouldn’t. It spoke in a different language, saying the names of the Lord. It was the Lord! He was speaking to me! I woke up to see my brother, Valiant, and my dad sitting in chairs around me.
“What just happened?” I heard my Dad say.
After I recovered, Valiant and my other brother, Josiah, had about an hour-long worship session in our bedroom. The presence of the Lord was in the room. It was so thick, you could cut with a knife. But this time His presence was sweet and convicting, causing my brothers and me to weep and hug each other as we confessed our sins to one other.
Fast forward, basketball season was almost over. After a game, I came home with a small injury. A little bump on my ribs. Thinking it was your average rib injury, I wrapped it up and finished the basketball season. It was hurting a lot more by baseball season, but I had already started playing, so I kept my commitment.
I kept my ribs well wrapped and it didn’t give me too much of a problem. It wasn’t until I got home and tried to fall asleep that I would have major problems. I couldn’t sleep to save my life. My ribs hurt, and my back hurt as well. The back pain was excruciating. Sometimes I would pound the ground with my fist and cry out. My mom or dad would wake up and hold me as I grimaced in pain.
The first doctor said the pain was scoliosis in my back and a contusion on my ribs. But the pain only grew worse. We went back to the doctor’s office and they took a CT scan. The doctor said we would have to wait for the radiologist to read the scan. We went home expecting to come back sometime next week. As soon as we entered our house, the doctor’s office called us saying we needed to get back A.S.A.P.
My parents and I headed back with a bit of anxiety. The doctor received us back into his office and sat us down. The next few moments were a blur as my world was turned upside down and inside out. The only thing I could really understand was that I had a tumor in my front chest and it was malignant. I was dying.
My dream to play college football was DEAD. My dream to minister was DEAD. We were absolutely blindsided. I was the healthiest I had ever been. I was in my prime! I had so many plans and goals for the year. I couldn’t accept the news that I had a malignant tumor, not yet. Not now. Maybe a tumor at seventy years old; I could die at seventy. Not at sixteen.
I was in full time ministry mode at that time. I went out to my local abortion mill, Baylor college, and high schools. I would share the Gospel of the Kingdom with complete strangers to fulfill the Great Commission. I was pursuing the call that was on my life. I thought I could only serve God if I was healthy.
I thought if I was hospitalized, I would lose all opportunity to minister to others. Little did I know that God was going to use my sickness to reach the lost and encourage brethren throughout the world.
After a few months of cancer and a bunch of different treatments, here I am. I’m lying down in bed, typing this letter. I have lost my hair, my ability to walk, fifty pounds of healthy muscle, the sensation in my legs and back, and my football career. But I haven’t lost my faith and hope in God. In fact, my faith in Him has been strengthened. I have grown so much closer to my Savior, knowing full well my life is in His hands. He has been with me every step of the way, guiding me and teaching me.
I’ve learned no matter what you get hit with in life, you sometimes have to lower your shoulder and keep trucking, just like in football. Trust God to keep your feet and sustain you. In less time than it takes to play a full football season, my life has been taken over by cancer. I don’t know how much time I have left on this earth, but with what time I do have, I want it to count for God and my generation. This is my call to my generation, “Leave it all behind and come back home!”
“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (DEUT 30:19).
We have grown up in a culture of death, sexual confusion, immorality and fatherlessness. This culture of death I speak of consists of abortion, homosexuality and suicide. One third of our generation has been wiped out due to abortion. Over 25 million people have died as a result of AIDS. Even without AIDS, the life expectancy of a homosexual man or woman is about 33 years shorter than that of a heterosexual. More young people die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, combined.
We have been handed a bill of goods that has completely destroyed us. In our nation, we have chosen death and received the curse.
I would like to use a parable of the Prodigal Son to describe our generation. We have taken our Heavenly Father’s blessings and have turned from Him. We’ve squandered our godly heritage and we still haven’t turned back to the Father. How bad does it have to get in order for our generation to wake up and realize that we are a long way from home?
My call to you today is to come back to the Father. Leave behind the darkness, deception and despair. We are a fatherless and lawless generation searching for identity. Meanwhile, our heavenly Father is standing with arms wide open, beckoning to us to return to Him through the good news of the Gospel of the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
If you’re going through depression, there’s hope in Christ. If you’re battling disease, there’s healing in Christ. If you’re contemplating suicide or abortion, there’s abundant life in Christ (JOHN 10:10).
Abortion is more than wrong. It’s an abomination. It’s the murder of an innocent baby. It turns mothers into murderers and men into cowards. Abortion goes against everything God intended. He made men to protect women and children. He made women to love and nurture.
So, in conclusion, abortion is more than just a “woman’s issue.” It’s an act of murder that should be penalized by law.
It is our generation’s duty to rise up and abolish abortion.
It’s time to wake up and stand against the evil in our day. There’s a battle to fight and souls to save. Everybody else is joining in the confusion and chaos that is ruining our nation. They are literally killing themselves and others trying to prove that they are right.
True rebellion is going against the flow of what everybody else is doing...
Finally, to the liberal student activists who think they are fighting “the establishment” on college campuses- you are the establishment! Your professors are liberal. Your parents are probably liberal. Your friends are liberal. The music you listen to is liberal. Hollywood is liberal so the movies you watch are liberal.
Who or what are you truly rebelling against?
To the college kids who complain that they can't trust our government- you’re doing everything in your power to make it bigger. The government is taking away our natural, God given rights. You’re making the problem worse. This is insanity.
If you want to be a rebel on college campuses fight for freedom! Stir the status quo, don’t go along with it. True examples of counter culture are the Christians who fight against abortion. They’re actually fighting to end the grave evil in our day.
Look at history. Over one hundred million people have been murdered under the ideologies of Democratic Socialism and Communism. When we forget our history, history will always repeat itself. That’s why one third of our generation has been wiped out by abortion. That's why our rights are slowly being ripped out of our Constitution. That’s why the establishment is evil.
It’s time for my generation to wake up. It is time leave our sin, unbelief, rebellion, and lust behind. Let’s make a journey of saving faith back to the Father’s House. It is there and there only that we will find light, love, and life through Jesus Christ our Lord!
It is my sincere prayer that you who read this will take my words to heart, change your mind, and be reconciled to the Lord through the merits of Jesus Christ. May God’s Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven in Jesus’ name!
Jeremiah Thomas
June 24, 2018
From James Fire: Amen, Jeremiah - a groundswell of intercessory prayer must arise from the hearts of born again Christians across this land, understanding that this is spiritual warfare; that the demonic principalities and powers crave the blood of the innocents, and having a firm foothold in our "culture of death", have glutted themselves on the blood of butchered babies - and they are not about to be dispossessed of their claim.
But they must be. We can do anything by God's grace once we have prayed, but we can do nothing until we have prayed.
Saints - let's honor this heart cry from our beloved brother Jeremiah, and pray. Let us also continue to pray for Jeremiah and his family and if GOD wills, a profound and inexplicable, and supernatural miracle of healing for this brave lad!
And then do what God commands and seek out the life of the innocents:
PSALM 106:37-39
37 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,
38 And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.
39 Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions.
For more on this, please visit the following site whose national leader is pastor Rusty Thomas:
OPERATION SAVE AMERICA
RAY COMFORT's video on CHANGING MINDS IN AMERICA ABOUT ABORTION - 180
And finally listen to this interview with pastor Rusty Thomas on A MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT:
"The Painful Gift" - Very Powerful Message About Jeremiah Thomas
GLORY TO GOD!!! Whether this means a temporary halt to his journey Home or a lengthier temporary halt (a full life time worth!) Jeremiah's ulcerated cancer is healing, white blood cell count is up, no sign of fever. His overall strength is increasing!
THANK YOU LORD FOR HEARING THE PRAYERS OF YOUR CHILDREN!! LET'S PRESS ON SAINTS, CONTINUING TO PRAY FOR OUR BELOVED LITTLE (BIG IN FAITH) BROTHER, Jeremiah Thomas! Here is a video update from his Dad, pastor Rusty.
AND Let's continue to agree together in prayer with all the Thomas family against the legalized murder that's already taken millions of babies in this nation alone.
JEREMIAH STRONG
~ end of update
FINAL UPDATE:
On SUNDAY, AUGUST 26th at 7:20 p.m. the son of pastor Rusty and Kendra Thomas, Jeremiah left this world under the curse of sin and was ushered in, by angelic escort into the presence of the LORD and is now residing in the glorious kingdom of heaven as a victorious son of the Father, unburdened by a cancer-consumed body, and awaiting the inheritance of his glorified body.I never met him, though I feel as though I have. I never really knew him, though in a way, I did. He came into my life by way of FB and youtube. I admired him from the first moment I read about him. I respect him to the highest degree. I will honor and continue the fight he waged against abortion - the murdering of innocents, in my prayers and in protest and in propelling the information about this legal murder of babies.
Jeremiah, you are a seed that the LORD planted and though your body has died, in its seeding, you will bear much fruit (JOHN 12:24-25). You freely gave your life away and because you dedicated your all to the LORD, I believe He will inspire people across this nation to take up the call, carry the torch and adamantly pray, fast and seek God for the ending of this atrocity in America. I KNOW your family is all the more resolved in their determination to see this done.
And if this satanic tactic is never overturned, I know that the LORD will bless the genuine effort and turn many a pregnant woman's heart to keep their babies and not kill them.
We will carry your story in our hearts and share it with others!
~ end of update: but not the end of Jeremiah's mission!
SUPPLEMENTAL UPDATE - SEPT. 6, 2018
An article from WORD FOUNDATIONS:
The Life and Death of Jeremiah Thomas: Worldview Christianity on Display.
~ end of update.
1 comment:
Thank-you my dear brother in Christ. A song came to mind after reading your letter: Oh, God our help in ages past, our hope in years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.
Under the shadow of thy throne, still may we dwell secure, Sufficient is your arms alone, and our defense is sure. Before the hill in order stood, and earth received her frame, From everlasting Thou art God, to endless years the same. A thousand ages in thy sight, are like an evening gone, short on the watch that ends the night, Before the rising sun. Oh God our help in ages past, our hope fore years to come, Be Thou our guide, while life shall pass, and our eternal home. BLESSINGS!
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