Where do the heathen go? Well in America, they go to Walmart, Target, 7-Eleven and Kroger every day. But in Eternity, anyone whose sins are not freely forgiven, and their names are not written in the book of life, they wind up in the lake of fire. *Revelation 20:11-15* This is a scriptural truth which rubs sin-loving, self-righteous human nature the wrong way.
These are some of the questions that the lost "always" ask the soul-winner. Is God a righteous God, is God a just God, is God fair to let a person die and go to hell, who has never even once heard the name of Jesus Christ? Can a righteous and loving God let a man die and go to hell who never once heard the Gospel of Christ? These are good questions. Is there some other way to heaven besides Jesus Christ? Now understand, God is righteous and just, and there is no other way to heaven apart from Jesus Christ and His blood. (See John 14:6; Acts 4:12; I John 1:7.) If a sinner can come to God some other way, that would make Jesus Christ a liar. And a liar can be nobody’s Savior. If Jesus Christ is not the only way, then He is none of the ways, because He lied in John 14:6.
What about those that have never heard the gospel? Where do the heathen go when they die? Is God righteous, is God just, is God good, is God really loving that could let such a thing happen as this?
Carefully hearken now. (See Romans 1:16-20)
** All men have some light. **
They are all guilty, and without excuse, they are not guilty because of ignorance. Two witnesses will testify against them all in the Day of Judgment.
Witness #1 - Creation. Creation is the outward, objective witness to all men. (See Romans 1:19-20) The Creation testifies to the fact of God. (See Psalm 19:1). Aiano that is tuned, a watch with the correct time, and a building with the right temperature all needed a creator and sustainer. The Creator made and sustains the whole universe. The order and the systems of the universe speak of Creation.
Witness #2 – Conscience. Conscience is the inward, subjective witness. (See Romans 2:14-15). Even the heathen do by nature those things contained in the law, the law is written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness. The heathen in America and Africa know right and wrong because of their God-given conscience. They all have a built in knowledge of God, the soul of man is restless until it rests in Christ Jesus. The heart of man is like a round peg trying to fit in a square hole. A man is an atheist because of moral problems, not intellectual probems. Everyone that doesn’t believe in God is very foolish. See Romans 1:22. Everyone has a God consciousness. See Psalm 14:1.
An atheist is someone that has a thought of God that makes him feel guilty and uncomfortable. So the atheist says, "if I can rid of this idea of God, I can get rid of this uncomfortable feeling [guilt and fear] I have in my mind and heart. An atheist is like a man that buys a new boomerang, and kills himself trying to throw the old one away. The idea of God is in the atheist’s heart and the more the atheist tries to get rid of it, the more he knows God exists and he grows more immoral, vain, and dark. Jesus Christ is the true Light that lighteth every man (John 1:9). Creation and conscience testify that all men have some light, not all light, but some.
** Light refused increases darkness. ** (See Romans 1:22)
You just can’t take truth and just put it on ice. If you do not obey the light you have, you will digress in more darkness than before. You cannot just put truth in your pocket, and say, “that’s very interesting, I’ll spend it some day if I need it.”
The whole world lies in wickedness in their unregenerate natural state and under the influence of sin and Satan. *I John 5:19* Every unsaved man is not born of God; they are addicted to particular sins and practice and love wickedness naturally. Their mind has a bias to sin and their mind is set on sin. They give themselves up to sin and are immersed in sin, and are under the power of sin. They are in the kingdom of darkness are under the power and sway of Satan, led according to his will, controlled by him, and are at his beck and call.
The opposite of truth is not error, it is sin. A man refuses truth because of the SIN in his heart, not the doubts in his head. (See Romans 1:18) They HOLD the truth in righteousness. They resist, smother, and HOLD back the truth, because they want their sin more than the TRUTH. Truth and sin cannot abide together. They say, “hold on now, don’t start preaching to me, you believe your way, and I'll mine, stop judging me!” The sinner is in a quandary between his sin and unrighteousness, and the TRUTH OF GOD. He holds the truth (pushes it away in his mind) and goes away into the darkness of sin even farther, and his foolish heart is darkened even more than before.
In II Thessalonians 2:9-12, the Bible says, God shall send unbelievers strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in their unrighteousness. Unbelief leads to delusion, then a lie, and finally damnation, it just keeps getting worse, when you reject light from God. The deluded sinner is deceived, lost and on the way to the hell he doesn’t even believe in.
All men have some light, and light refused increases darkness, and you can just put truth on ice. (See Mark 4:25) Don’t deny Jesus today, don’t put HIM off any longer. If you want your sin more than JESUS, the baggage that comes with your sin, is delusion, a lie, and damnation.
** Light obeyed increases light. **
Creation and conscience only bring a sinner to the FACT of God. If a man is not interested in the FACT of God, he certainly is not going to be interested in the WAY to God (Jesus Christ). God is under no obligation to show any man the WAY to God, if he is not even interested in the FACT of God. This type of man is unthankful, doesn't glorify God, and becomes vain in his imaginations, and has his foolish heart darkened, and then will damn his own soul to hell. He commits eternal suicide, and cuts the jugular vein of his soul wide open with the jagged knife of unbelief. Light rejected becomes lightning, but light obeyed increases light.
The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. (See Romans 1:16-17) Well, what does that mean? That means that God gives you a little light and truth, and if you believe and obey that truth, God will give you more truth. See Mark 4:25. The more you obey the light, the more light you get from God. You keep stepping into the light God gives you until you come to Jesus Christ Himself and trust HIM.
All men don’t have enough light to save them, but all men do have enough light to damn them. If you live up to the light God has given you, you will receive more light. The Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 was sincerely searching and obeying the light he had from God, then God sent Philip the evangelist to him and Philip preached Jesus unto him and he was saved. The eunuch lived up to the light he had from day to day. Cornelius in Acts 10 had a hunger to know God. Cornelius kept obeying the light that God gave him, until Simon Peter came and preached the Gospel to him. The light from God led these two men in Acts to trust in the Light of the world, Jesus Christ.
We must live up to the light we already know, or God will not reveal any further light to us. See Mark 4:25. Light obeyed increases light. Now is you’re honest, you will admit that you haven’t obeyed all the light that God has already shown you, therefore your sin will start leading you to go astray into the darkness. Beware, rejecting light is very dangerous.
If you want to understand the part of the Bible you don’t understand, then begin to obey the part you do understand, and then you’ll understand what you can’t understand. Do you understand? Simply obey what God reveals to you from His creation, your conscience, and His words. The problem is not in the head, it is in the heart of man – it is a sin and will problem, not an intellectual problem. Jesus said in John 7:16-17. If man will do God’s will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether what I say is of God, or whether I speak of myself. If you WILL to do the will of God, only then will know the TRUTH, Jesus Christ.
An atheist says he knows there is no God. But the atheist will also tell you that you can’t know anything for sure, but he is sure there is no God, and contradicts himself. Of all there is to know, how much do you know? Do you know half of everything there is to know? Well, of course not. But you said you know there is no God. Wouldn’t you have to admit the possibility that God exists in the half of the knowledge you don’t have. Well, you’re right, I am an agnostic then. Agnostic in Latin means ‘ignoramus.’ Agnostic is just a fancy word for a doubter. Are you a doubter? Yes I am. Well, what kind of doubter are you? There are two kinds: there are honest doubters and dishonest doubters. Which kind are you? Well, what’s the difference? An honest doubter doesn’t know, but he wants to know, and therefore he investigates. A dishonest doubter doubts because he doesn’t want to know and he can’t find God for the same reason a thief can’t find a policeman; he’s not looking for him.
If you’re an honest doubter, will you sign this statement? God, I don’t know whether you exist or not, I don’t know if the Bible is your word or not, I don’t know whether Jesus Christ is your Son or not, I really don’t know, but I want to now the truth. And because I want to know, I will make an honest investigation, and because it is an honest investigation, I will follow the results of my investigation, wherever it leads me, regardless of the cost.
If you’re an honest doubter, here’s your assignment, there is only one book written on face of the earth that has this purpose: that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name. This book is the Gospel of John. Prayerfully, openly read the Gospel of John and say this to God, “God I don’t know if you exist, and if this is your word or not. If this is truly your word, show me, and I will obey you, if you show me and speak to my heart.”
** God will judge all of us by the light we’ve rejected. **
God will not judge us by the sins we have committed, but by the light we have rejected. (See Romans 2:5) The righteous judgment of God will come upon all men. (Romans 2:11-12) God knows how much light you have, and He knows how much light you could have. Never take light from God lightly.
Here’s another Burning Question: What is God going to do with those that have heard the Gospel and have said "NO" to Jesus Christ? The dust off the shoes of the preacher you rejected, this dust will be brought up before you at the judgment and will condemn you.
You need to live up to the light you currently have. Obey what you do know, and God will teach you the truth that you don’t know. Be honest with God. Don’t let some intellectual problem keep you from Jesus. If you die in your sins, you’ll wake up in hell, and still never have it all figured out. Just come like a child now and trust Christ, sincerely trust Christ with your soul. I want you Lord Jesus, I need you, I deserve to go to hell because of my sins, but please forgive me, please accept me, you’re the only way to heaven, I cannot save myself at all, the best way I know how, Lord Jesus, I believe you died for me and rose again from the dead, I receive you as my Savior, have mercy on me, please save me, I trust in your precious blood forever.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Where is Purgatory?
There is a religion in the world today called Roman Catholicism. The leader of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) is called the Pope. The Pope lives in the Vatican in Rome, Italy; the current pope’s name is Pope Benedict XVI. He is the 265th Pope. His real name is Joseph Alois Ratziner from Bavaria, Germany. He is a very religious and political figure. Many deluded people think he is the most godly and holy man on earth. Whenever a Pope dies, presidents, kings, and dictators come from all over the world to the Vatican to pay their final respects to him. Over a billion Roman Catholics love the Pope dearly. Catholics believe that the Pope is God’s representative on earth. But you will never read that in the Bible. The Catholics have written their own little Bible called the “Catechism” that glorifies the Pope, Mary, and catholic priests. Catholics glorify Mary and the Pope more than Jesus Himself.
The Pope is like a little Caesar; the popes just wear a different costume. Two thousand years ago, when caesars ruled the world their seat of power was in Rome. The caesars were worshipped as god, and they thought they were gods. Absolute power always corrupts absolutely. The caesars saw themselves as gods, but really, there were only puppets in the hands of the god of this world, Satan. It was during the reign of Caesar Augustus that Jesus Christ left heaven to be born on earth. God took the form of flesh and became a Jewish man. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh. Christ Jesus left heaven and came into this world to save miserable sinners. He came down here in person because everyone is hiding something.
We’re all selfish, sinful brats in the eyes of God, and God won’t allow any sin into heaven. Jesus came to fix all that. But eternal death is the price of sin. So fixing our sin problem cost Jesus His life. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). Jesus shed God’s blood to wash away our sins, so we could go to Heaven. (John 3:16) Jesus died on the Cross, and He was buried, and on the third day He rose from the dead. Jesus Himself paid the price for our sins in full, we can’t do anything to help save ourselves, we must simply trust what Jesus did for us. The work of Jesus on the Cross ruined Satan’s vain show! Soon after Jesus rose from the dead, many of the devil’s people left him, and were saved by faith in Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
Then the devil commanded his caesars to slaughter Christians. On a hill in Rome there was an arena called the “Circus,” where Christians were butchered to please Caesar Nero. In the center of this arena there was a huge Egyptian obelisk which marked the future location for Satan’s seat on earth. That hill was called “Vaticanus.” Vaticanus means ‘divination’ (telling the future). Years later, when Rome was in ruins and the caesars were gone, the only obelisk left standing was the one on ‘Vaticanus’ hill. So in the very place where Satan enjoyed his bloody sacrifices of Christians, there in that same spot, the devil created his own form of counterfeit Christianity. The Devil’s new religion brought back his caesars – but with new titles: now the caesars were called popes. And on the very same site Satan would build a magnificent Roman temple and call it, THE VATICAN.
Satan pulled off a real trick this time. Today Rome is still the seat of world and religious power. The Mother Church controls the U.N., governments, and the world’s finances. Protestantism no longer blocks the pope’s power; it’s all but gone. Once again all roads lead back to Rome. Catholicism controls its member from the cradle to the grave. Pope Leo XIII said, “We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.”
Here are the seven steps to becoming a Good Roman Catholic:
Step One (Baptism): The Roman Catholic priests sprinkle babies. They warn the families to get their babies baptized because it could die and go into limbo. The sprinkled baby then starts his journey as a faithful catholic hoping for heaven. The baby is now a member of the Roman religious system. The Catholics call this baby sprinkling being ‘born again.’ This is not what the Bible says though, because how can a little baby understand his sinful state and the Gospel when he’s sprinkled at such a young age. The baby then grows up and learns to love and fear his priest. The priests claim to be ‘divine men,’ equal to Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, and to have more power than the ‘virgin Mary.’ The priests are looked on as being ‘inferior to God, but superior to regular men.’ The priests can perform a magical Mass. But the Mass is not found anywhere in the Bible, only in the romish catechism.
Step Two (Holy Communion or The Mass): The young catholic grows up and then he partakes of his first Holy Communion – the mass. But before the young catholic takes the wafer, he must first believe the wafer contains the actual “body, soul, and divinity” of Christ. But what if he doesn’t? Well, if he doesn’t believe in the wafer, the priest warns him that he will be cast into hell forever.
The popester teaches that during Catholic Mass, the priest pronounces ‘the words of consecration’, and the incarnate Word (Jesus Himself) obeys and comes down from heaven and inhabits the wafer and wine in the priest’s hands. The Catholic Church claims that turning the wafer and wine into Jesus takes “as much power as the creation of the world.” The words of the priest create Jesus for you to eat and drink. The transformed wafer becomes something that the Catholics adore and worship; they actually bow down to it before they sit in their pew when it resides in the pyx (the box on the altar). They believe that the Latin words (Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum) spoken by the priest during mass create Jesus for you to eat and drink. When the Latin words, “Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum” (This is truly my body) are spoken by the priest during mass, the Catholic is taught the wafer of bread turns into the true body of Jesus. When the Latin words, ‘Hic Est Enim Calix Sanguinis Mei’ (This is truly my blood) are spoken by the priest, the Catholic is taught that the wine turns into the true blood of Jesus Christ. So Catholics are actually taught that the priest has in his power to transform bread and wine into Jesus Himself.
Step Three (Confirmation): At confirmation, the RCC teaches that the young catholic is “sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Confirmation is said to “bind a child into the Church.” In the church’s own words, the young Catholic is now in bondage to the Catholic religious system.
Step Four (Confession): The young Catholic must confess regularly to his priest (instead of God) to get rid of his sins. The priest pardons the catholic and “God Himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of the priests.” This is what the Catholic Church teaches, but not the Holy Bible.
Step Five (Matrimony): The young catholic grows up and wants to get married, but he must go through the Mother Church to get married. Both people that are being married must be baptized Roman Catholics and free of their mortal sin. This sacrament unites the couple in an unbreakable union until death. It makes sanctifying grace grow in their souls. It gives them special help to perform their duties as a married couple and overcome the difficulties of married life. Only those who have been baptized by a priest are free to marry. A good catholic should only be married in the presence of a Catholic priest and two witnesses. A catholic who goes through a marriage ceremony before anyone than a catholic priest is not considered to be married in the eyes of Mother Church. If a catholic is married before a Protestant minister, such a person is not married and is guilty of mortal sin and could be excommunicated. Such a person cannot receive any of the sacraments nor have a Catholic funeral. A marriage between a Catholic and a non-catholic is called a mixed marriage. Only a bishop can give permission for a mixed marriage, but it must be for a serious reason. The catholic must sign promises to remain a catholic till death, and see that the children are baptized and brought up as good catholics.
Step Six (Last Rites): Now it comes time for the catholic to die, and before he dies, he must receive the last sacrament, “Anointing of the Sick.” This is also called “the anointing of the sick,” “the viaticum,” and the “extreme unction.” The RCC teaches that this is the last ritual that a catholic should perform before death. This ritual includes partaking of the Eucharist (wafer), the anointing the dying person with oil, sprinkling of all present with holy water, confession of sin to the priest, a passage of scripture is read, oil is placed on the sick persons forehead and hands, the priest lays hands on the sick and prays. This ritual is never taught in the Bible at all. Not one person in the Bible ever received or administered the “Last Rites.” God has NEVER ordained this religious tradition; the pope dreamed it all up.
The good catholic deeply and sincerely desires to be in heaven with the “Blessed Virgin,” but to get there involves many works, prayers, and giving to Mother Church. He must confess his sins every few weeks, never miss the Eucharist, pray the rosary daily (Hail Mary, full of grace), and he must even pray to the saints. But Jesus, He is left in the background and ignored.
Step Seven (Purgatory): Now the catholic’s life is almost over. As a faithful Roman Catholic, what does he have to look forward to? Well, after all the religious hoops are jumped through, the good catholic must still pay for his sins after he dies in Purgatory. The stains of the catholic’s sins must be ‘burned off’ before God will let him into heaven. Even the best catholics, even popes, burn in purgatory. The RCC teaches that no soul is free enough from sin to enter directly into heaven at death. Purgatory is the catholic lie that Satan that loves most.
In Catholicism, you can’t become a saint until you get to heaven. During All Souls Day, celebrated on November 2nd every year, all good catholics are supposed to pray for those souls who are not yet saints in heaven, but are currently in a ‘prison of fire,’ part-way there called ‘purgatory.’ All Souls Days also reminds their family members to pay up for their loved one’s escape from purgatory. Purgatory’s purpose is to "burn away" the "stains of sins" that prevent one from full acceptance into heaven. Rome ignores the Biblical teaching that Christ’s death is FULL payment for our sins. Instead, the popes picked up the pagan notion that we, somehow, must be punished ourselves to atone for our sins. The St. Peter’s Catechism states: "All the souls in purgatory will go to Heaven when they have atoned for their sin."
The poor catholic can never be sure of heaven. First, he must be born to faithful parents. At birth, baptism is required. Then his conscience must be "formed" by the catechism that teaches such unbiblical ideas as prayer to the Virgin Mary goddess, "receiving Jesus," in the wafer at Mass, and confessing his sins to God’s stand-in, a sinful priest. Before death, "last rites" must be performed to make sure "mortal" (big) sins are forgiven. "Venial" (little) sins may still exist and need to be taken care of by "temporal punishment" such as indulgences, alms giving, or other acts of "penance." Any left over sins must be away "burned away" after death in purgatory.
Augustine said, “That purgatory’s fire will be more grievous than anything a man is capable of bearing in this life.” The catholics believe there is only one way out of purgatory after death. Someone must pay a priest to say enough masses to “set them free.” It’s like religious kidnapping and extortion. Purgatory is the Catholic Church’s money tree. Purgatory is the worst double-cross that Satan ever hatched. Catholics do their religious works all their life, only to end up tricked and in hell fire. Purgatory doesn’t exist at all! Don’t believe the lie called purgatory. Catholicism doesn’t care about people’s immortal souls, just their money. Purgatory is not in the Bible at all; it is a religious myth devised by the pope to keep sinners in religious bondage and fear all their life.
How sad it is, that after a long life of jumping through the pope’s religious hoops, the poor Catholic still ends up in the fire and thinks there is a way out after death. Even more diabolical is what’s happening to his family and friends on earth after he is gone — they must jump through more of the pope’s hoops to help rescue their family’s soul from purgatory.
Notice below how Hugo Chavez and Pope Benedict are pretty close.
The priests tell them that somehow their good works, paying for masses, buying indulgences or other good "intentions" will shorten their family member’s stay in purgatory. (Matt 23:14) Not only does this "bind the faithful catholic to the church," but it empties their pockets as well. Purgatory is the pope’s open–ended cash machine, because no way has been devised to tell when their loved one will actually escape the flames of purgatory. The RCC teaches that other people play a part in your salvation after you have already died. Purgatory is a doctrine of devils and a hellish heresy.
The Pope is like a little Caesar; the popes just wear a different costume. Two thousand years ago, when caesars ruled the world their seat of power was in Rome. The caesars were worshipped as god, and they thought they were gods. Absolute power always corrupts absolutely. The caesars saw themselves as gods, but really, there were only puppets in the hands of the god of this world, Satan. It was during the reign of Caesar Augustus that Jesus Christ left heaven to be born on earth. God took the form of flesh and became a Jewish man. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh. Christ Jesus left heaven and came into this world to save miserable sinners. He came down here in person because everyone is hiding something.
We’re all selfish, sinful brats in the eyes of God, and God won’t allow any sin into heaven. Jesus came to fix all that. But eternal death is the price of sin. So fixing our sin problem cost Jesus His life. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23). Jesus shed God’s blood to wash away our sins, so we could go to Heaven. (John 3:16) Jesus died on the Cross, and He was buried, and on the third day He rose from the dead. Jesus Himself paid the price for our sins in full, we can’t do anything to help save ourselves, we must simply trust what Jesus did for us. The work of Jesus on the Cross ruined Satan’s vain show! Soon after Jesus rose from the dead, many of the devil’s people left him, and were saved by faith in Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
Then the devil commanded his caesars to slaughter Christians. On a hill in Rome there was an arena called the “Circus,” where Christians were butchered to please Caesar Nero. In the center of this arena there was a huge Egyptian obelisk which marked the future location for Satan’s seat on earth. That hill was called “Vaticanus.” Vaticanus means ‘divination’ (telling the future). Years later, when Rome was in ruins and the caesars were gone, the only obelisk left standing was the one on ‘Vaticanus’ hill. So in the very place where Satan enjoyed his bloody sacrifices of Christians, there in that same spot, the devil created his own form of counterfeit Christianity. The Devil’s new religion brought back his caesars – but with new titles: now the caesars were called popes. And on the very same site Satan would build a magnificent Roman temple and call it, THE VATICAN.
Satan pulled off a real trick this time. Today Rome is still the seat of world and religious power. The Mother Church controls the U.N., governments, and the world’s finances. Protestantism no longer blocks the pope’s power; it’s all but gone. Once again all roads lead back to Rome. Catholicism controls its member from the cradle to the grave. Pope Leo XIII said, “We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty.”
Here are the seven steps to becoming a Good Roman Catholic:
Step One (Baptism): The Roman Catholic priests sprinkle babies. They warn the families to get their babies baptized because it could die and go into limbo. The sprinkled baby then starts his journey as a faithful catholic hoping for heaven. The baby is now a member of the Roman religious system. The Catholics call this baby sprinkling being ‘born again.’ This is not what the Bible says though, because how can a little baby understand his sinful state and the Gospel when he’s sprinkled at such a young age. The baby then grows up and learns to love and fear his priest. The priests claim to be ‘divine men,’ equal to Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, and to have more power than the ‘virgin Mary.’ The priests are looked on as being ‘inferior to God, but superior to regular men.’ The priests can perform a magical Mass. But the Mass is not found anywhere in the Bible, only in the romish catechism.
Step Two (Holy Communion or The Mass): The young catholic grows up and then he partakes of his first Holy Communion – the mass. But before the young catholic takes the wafer, he must first believe the wafer contains the actual “body, soul, and divinity” of Christ. But what if he doesn’t? Well, if he doesn’t believe in the wafer, the priest warns him that he will be cast into hell forever.
The popester teaches that during Catholic Mass, the priest pronounces ‘the words of consecration’, and the incarnate Word (Jesus Himself) obeys and comes down from heaven and inhabits the wafer and wine in the priest’s hands. The Catholic Church claims that turning the wafer and wine into Jesus takes “as much power as the creation of the world.” The words of the priest create Jesus for you to eat and drink. The transformed wafer becomes something that the Catholics adore and worship; they actually bow down to it before they sit in their pew when it resides in the pyx (the box on the altar). They believe that the Latin words (Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum) spoken by the priest during mass create Jesus for you to eat and drink. When the Latin words, “Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum” (This is truly my body) are spoken by the priest during mass, the Catholic is taught the wafer of bread turns into the true body of Jesus. When the Latin words, ‘Hic Est Enim Calix Sanguinis Mei’ (This is truly my blood) are spoken by the priest, the Catholic is taught that the wine turns into the true blood of Jesus Christ. So Catholics are actually taught that the priest has in his power to transform bread and wine into Jesus Himself.
Step Three (Confirmation): At confirmation, the RCC teaches that the young catholic is “sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Confirmation is said to “bind a child into the Church.” In the church’s own words, the young Catholic is now in bondage to the Catholic religious system.
Step Four (Confession): The young Catholic must confess regularly to his priest (instead of God) to get rid of his sins. The priest pardons the catholic and “God Himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of the priests.” This is what the Catholic Church teaches, but not the Holy Bible.
Step Five (Matrimony): The young catholic grows up and wants to get married, but he must go through the Mother Church to get married. Both people that are being married must be baptized Roman Catholics and free of their mortal sin. This sacrament unites the couple in an unbreakable union until death. It makes sanctifying grace grow in their souls. It gives them special help to perform their duties as a married couple and overcome the difficulties of married life. Only those who have been baptized by a priest are free to marry. A good catholic should only be married in the presence of a Catholic priest and two witnesses. A catholic who goes through a marriage ceremony before anyone than a catholic priest is not considered to be married in the eyes of Mother Church. If a catholic is married before a Protestant minister, such a person is not married and is guilty of mortal sin and could be excommunicated. Such a person cannot receive any of the sacraments nor have a Catholic funeral. A marriage between a Catholic and a non-catholic is called a mixed marriage. Only a bishop can give permission for a mixed marriage, but it must be for a serious reason. The catholic must sign promises to remain a catholic till death, and see that the children are baptized and brought up as good catholics.
Step Six (Last Rites): Now it comes time for the catholic to die, and before he dies, he must receive the last sacrament, “Anointing of the Sick.” This is also called “the anointing of the sick,” “the viaticum,” and the “extreme unction.” The RCC teaches that this is the last ritual that a catholic should perform before death. This ritual includes partaking of the Eucharist (wafer), the anointing the dying person with oil, sprinkling of all present with holy water, confession of sin to the priest, a passage of scripture is read, oil is placed on the sick persons forehead and hands, the priest lays hands on the sick and prays. This ritual is never taught in the Bible at all. Not one person in the Bible ever received or administered the “Last Rites.” God has NEVER ordained this religious tradition; the pope dreamed it all up.
The good catholic deeply and sincerely desires to be in heaven with the “Blessed Virgin,” but to get there involves many works, prayers, and giving to Mother Church. He must confess his sins every few weeks, never miss the Eucharist, pray the rosary daily (Hail Mary, full of grace), and he must even pray to the saints. But Jesus, He is left in the background and ignored.
Step Seven (Purgatory): Now the catholic’s life is almost over. As a faithful Roman Catholic, what does he have to look forward to? Well, after all the religious hoops are jumped through, the good catholic must still pay for his sins after he dies in Purgatory. The stains of the catholic’s sins must be ‘burned off’ before God will let him into heaven. Even the best catholics, even popes, burn in purgatory. The RCC teaches that no soul is free enough from sin to enter directly into heaven at death. Purgatory is the catholic lie that Satan that loves most.
In Catholicism, you can’t become a saint until you get to heaven. During All Souls Day, celebrated on November 2nd every year, all good catholics are supposed to pray for those souls who are not yet saints in heaven, but are currently in a ‘prison of fire,’ part-way there called ‘purgatory.’ All Souls Days also reminds their family members to pay up for their loved one’s escape from purgatory. Purgatory’s purpose is to "burn away" the "stains of sins" that prevent one from full acceptance into heaven. Rome ignores the Biblical teaching that Christ’s death is FULL payment for our sins. Instead, the popes picked up the pagan notion that we, somehow, must be punished ourselves to atone for our sins. The St. Peter’s Catechism states: "All the souls in purgatory will go to Heaven when they have atoned for their sin."
The poor catholic can never be sure of heaven. First, he must be born to faithful parents. At birth, baptism is required. Then his conscience must be "formed" by the catechism that teaches such unbiblical ideas as prayer to the Virgin Mary goddess, "receiving Jesus," in the wafer at Mass, and confessing his sins to God’s stand-in, a sinful priest. Before death, "last rites" must be performed to make sure "mortal" (big) sins are forgiven. "Venial" (little) sins may still exist and need to be taken care of by "temporal punishment" such as indulgences, alms giving, or other acts of "penance." Any left over sins must be away "burned away" after death in purgatory.
Augustine said, “That purgatory’s fire will be more grievous than anything a man is capable of bearing in this life.” The catholics believe there is only one way out of purgatory after death. Someone must pay a priest to say enough masses to “set them free.” It’s like religious kidnapping and extortion. Purgatory is the Catholic Church’s money tree. Purgatory is the worst double-cross that Satan ever hatched. Catholics do their religious works all their life, only to end up tricked and in hell fire. Purgatory doesn’t exist at all! Don’t believe the lie called purgatory. Catholicism doesn’t care about people’s immortal souls, just their money. Purgatory is not in the Bible at all; it is a religious myth devised by the pope to keep sinners in religious bondage and fear all their life.
How sad it is, that after a long life of jumping through the pope’s religious hoops, the poor Catholic still ends up in the fire and thinks there is a way out after death. Even more diabolical is what’s happening to his family and friends on earth after he is gone — they must jump through more of the pope’s hoops to help rescue their family’s soul from purgatory.
Notice below how Hugo Chavez and Pope Benedict are pretty close.
The priests tell them that somehow their good works, paying for masses, buying indulgences or other good "intentions" will shorten their family member’s stay in purgatory. (Matt 23:14) Not only does this "bind the faithful catholic to the church," but it empties their pockets as well. Purgatory is the pope’s open–ended cash machine, because no way has been devised to tell when their loved one will actually escape the flames of purgatory. The RCC teaches that other people play a part in your salvation after you have already died. Purgatory is a doctrine of devils and a hellish heresy.
The Wondrous Story
Adam was the first man on earth, and when he ate the forbidden fruit, he disobeyed God, he sinned. Sin has now passed onto all of us. Sin ruins everything, and we’re stuck with it (Romans 3:10,12,23). Most of the world will end up in hell, all because of their sin. In our hearts we hate to obey God, we are capable of so many rotten things. So when we die in our sins and face the holy and righteous Creator God, we will have no excuse and be thrown into the lake of fire. The devil will do anything to deceive you, and lead you to destroy your own soul. Everything you do, say, or think is being recorded in God’s book of remembrance.
All your sins will condemn you one day. Absolutely nothing is hidden from the eyes of God. Every day your sins and your sin-debt keeps piling up in God’s sight. Things will only get worse for you as you grow older without Christ, because Satan hates your soul. The devil doesn’t care if you were born dirt poor or filthy rich – you soul is his target. The devil will send some of his rotten crowd into your life to DESTROY you with sex, porn, entertainment, drugs, or alcohol, or he’ll turn you into a spiritual self-righteous zombie by trapping you into one of his religious systems. He’ll make you think your good works, or his phony ‘holy men’ will help get you into heaven.
Satan will deceive you into trusting anything but Christ Jesus Himself. Satan and his devils are doing everything they can to cover up, ridicule, and hide the Gospel of Christ from your mind (II Cor 4:4). Almost all religions teach this: God will weigh your good deeds against your evil deeds. If your good works outweigh your bad, God will let you into heaven at the end. Religion makes you think you are holy and clean, you pretend to right with God, but religions put all their followers into spiritual bondage and eventually hell itself. Sin is very expensive - it will cost you much money, time, family, career, physical health, mind, your immortal soul. Your sins cost Jesus Christ His life.
Jesus Christ Himself, God manifest in the flesh (I Tim 3:16), the Creator of the universe (Col 1:16), paid for all your sins with His own life blood, so you could be freed from the penalty and power of your sins. Jesus keeps the universe from flying apart every day (Col 1:17). Jesus is in complete control. God looked down from heaven and saw the hopelessness of sinful mankind who couldn’t keep His holy law. He saw all the sinners desperately trying to get to heaven by their dead, religious works...So God in mercy did something to save them from hell.
A sinless blood sacrifice was needed, someone must come and be the Victim for man’s sin. The only thing that could wash away human sin was God’s own blood. Jesus’ blood was holy, pure, and without sin. No one on earth had blood like Him. So here’s what God did for us: At the perfect time in history, Jesus (God the Son) left His royal and majestic throne in heaven to do the unthinkable, He would perform the greatest act of love ever known. He would die for ungodly sinners, He condescended to earth to save you. The time had finally come to fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of God becoming a man.
A young Jewish virgin named Mary was the chosen vessel for this miracle. God, the Holy Ghost, put Jesus into her womb. The Creator of the universe was born as a little baby without sin. God Almighty (Jesus) humbled Himself and allowed Himself to be born in a smelly stable with animals. They called His name Immanuel, God with us. Jesus was God living on earth, He came to die and save our souls from a devil’s hell. He loved everyone He ever met on earth; He lived a spotless, sinless life.
Jesus’ words and teaching declared war on man’s religion. His gospel message cost Him His life. He claimed to be the Son of God and God Himself. The very people He created, hated Him. Jesus lived a sinless life and then at the end He was betrayed and arrested. The Jewish priests held an illegal trial at night, on the eve of the Passover, using false witnesses. Even the high priest demanded Jesus’ death. The priests brought Jesus to Pilate to be condemned, but Pilate, the Roman governor, repeatedly found Jesus to be innocent. But the howling mob demanded Christ’s death. And eventually, Pilate caved in to their wishes and ordered Jesus to be scourged with a whip, and then to nailed to a Cross to die.
All this fulfilled Biblical prophecy. God, who created all of us, allowed Himself to be wounded for our transgressions (sin). They even spit on the Son of God, and jerked His beard out. The Roman soldiers cut Jesus’ body to ribbons with their scourge, and yet He still survived. Crucifixion was the cruelest form of torture in that day. It delayed death until the worst pain had been inflicted on the victim. Jesus held back His angels and let the murderous crowd crucify Him like a common criminal, and through it all, He still loved them and forgave them. Right before He died, He cried out, “It is finished!” Jesus completed salvation’s work in full that day on Calvary’s Cross.
Finally, Jesus bowed His head and gave up the ghost and died. Jesus shed God’s holy blood that dark day to wash away your secret and public sins. Jesus died especially for you. Jesus endured all this for your rotten sins; He had to be sacrificed for your sins, to get you into heaven. Jesus Christ died for us sinners, His enemies. Jesus shed His divine blood (God’s blood) as a sinless human sacrifice. Jesus died for your sins, your guilt and shame He bore in His body, then He was taken down and buried in a borrowed tomb. But three days later, Jesus arose from the dead victorious, He triumphed over death, Satan and hell, and was later seen by over 500 witnesses.
Sinner friend, the way to heaven is very, very simple – God made it that way. Just trust only in Jesus to save you; rely ONLY on what He did for you, and in an instant, He’ll freely forgive you for all your sins – past, present, and future sins. This isn’t religion; this is how a lost sinner can enter into a real and lasting relationship with God Almighty Himself. You can become a member of God’s family through His redeeming grace and forgiving mercy. You are very selfish and you sin every day against your Creator. You will face Jesus one day at the Judgment. Will Jesus be your Savior, or will He be the most terrifying judge you could ever imagine? If you don’t put your trust in Jesus to forgive your sins, you will hear these awful words from Jesus’ mouth on Judgment Day: “I never knew you, depart from Me!” Don’t let this happen to you!
At death, all lost and Christless sinners will be cast into hell. Only Jesus can save your neck. Only Jesus can get you into heaven. Heaven or hell...what will it be for you...the choice is completely yours. What are you waiting for? Death is on your trail. Don’t procrastinate; seek the Lord while He may be found. The Bible says there is only way to Heaven (John 14:6). Nobody else can save you but Jesus Himself. Trust Christ alone now, never trust yourself, a church, or a religion at all. Confess that you are no good, and that your religion is no good, and that you cannot save yourself. Repent of your unbelief and sinfulness. Salvation is free, you cannot earn it – it is a free gift from God through Christ. Who are you going to believe, the Bible or the Pope? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved (Acts 16:31). Don't just accept Christ Jesus, ask God to accept you and save you through Jesus’ most Precious Blood now.
All your sins will condemn you one day. Absolutely nothing is hidden from the eyes of God. Every day your sins and your sin-debt keeps piling up in God’s sight. Things will only get worse for you as you grow older without Christ, because Satan hates your soul. The devil doesn’t care if you were born dirt poor or filthy rich – you soul is his target. The devil will send some of his rotten crowd into your life to DESTROY you with sex, porn, entertainment, drugs, or alcohol, or he’ll turn you into a spiritual self-righteous zombie by trapping you into one of his religious systems. He’ll make you think your good works, or his phony ‘holy men’ will help get you into heaven.
Satan will deceive you into trusting anything but Christ Jesus Himself. Satan and his devils are doing everything they can to cover up, ridicule, and hide the Gospel of Christ from your mind (II Cor 4:4). Almost all religions teach this: God will weigh your good deeds against your evil deeds. If your good works outweigh your bad, God will let you into heaven at the end. Religion makes you think you are holy and clean, you pretend to right with God, but religions put all their followers into spiritual bondage and eventually hell itself. Sin is very expensive - it will cost you much money, time, family, career, physical health, mind, your immortal soul. Your sins cost Jesus Christ His life.
Jesus Christ Himself, God manifest in the flesh (I Tim 3:16), the Creator of the universe (Col 1:16), paid for all your sins with His own life blood, so you could be freed from the penalty and power of your sins. Jesus keeps the universe from flying apart every day (Col 1:17). Jesus is in complete control. God looked down from heaven and saw the hopelessness of sinful mankind who couldn’t keep His holy law. He saw all the sinners desperately trying to get to heaven by their dead, religious works...So God in mercy did something to save them from hell.
A sinless blood sacrifice was needed, someone must come and be the Victim for man’s sin. The only thing that could wash away human sin was God’s own blood. Jesus’ blood was holy, pure, and without sin. No one on earth had blood like Him. So here’s what God did for us: At the perfect time in history, Jesus (God the Son) left His royal and majestic throne in heaven to do the unthinkable, He would perform the greatest act of love ever known. He would die for ungodly sinners, He condescended to earth to save you. The time had finally come to fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of God becoming a man.
A young Jewish virgin named Mary was the chosen vessel for this miracle. God, the Holy Ghost, put Jesus into her womb. The Creator of the universe was born as a little baby without sin. God Almighty (Jesus) humbled Himself and allowed Himself to be born in a smelly stable with animals. They called His name Immanuel, God with us. Jesus was God living on earth, He came to die and save our souls from a devil’s hell. He loved everyone He ever met on earth; He lived a spotless, sinless life.
Jesus’ words and teaching declared war on man’s religion. His gospel message cost Him His life. He claimed to be the Son of God and God Himself. The very people He created, hated Him. Jesus lived a sinless life and then at the end He was betrayed and arrested. The Jewish priests held an illegal trial at night, on the eve of the Passover, using false witnesses. Even the high priest demanded Jesus’ death. The priests brought Jesus to Pilate to be condemned, but Pilate, the Roman governor, repeatedly found Jesus to be innocent. But the howling mob demanded Christ’s death. And eventually, Pilate caved in to their wishes and ordered Jesus to be scourged with a whip, and then to nailed to a Cross to die.
All this fulfilled Biblical prophecy. God, who created all of us, allowed Himself to be wounded for our transgressions (sin). They even spit on the Son of God, and jerked His beard out. The Roman soldiers cut Jesus’ body to ribbons with their scourge, and yet He still survived. Crucifixion was the cruelest form of torture in that day. It delayed death until the worst pain had been inflicted on the victim. Jesus held back His angels and let the murderous crowd crucify Him like a common criminal, and through it all, He still loved them and forgave them. Right before He died, He cried out, “It is finished!” Jesus completed salvation’s work in full that day on Calvary’s Cross.
Finally, Jesus bowed His head and gave up the ghost and died. Jesus shed God’s holy blood that dark day to wash away your secret and public sins. Jesus died especially for you. Jesus endured all this for your rotten sins; He had to be sacrificed for your sins, to get you into heaven. Jesus Christ died for us sinners, His enemies. Jesus shed His divine blood (God’s blood) as a sinless human sacrifice. Jesus died for your sins, your guilt and shame He bore in His body, then He was taken down and buried in a borrowed tomb. But three days later, Jesus arose from the dead victorious, He triumphed over death, Satan and hell, and was later seen by over 500 witnesses.
Sinner friend, the way to heaven is very, very simple – God made it that way. Just trust only in Jesus to save you; rely ONLY on what He did for you, and in an instant, He’ll freely forgive you for all your sins – past, present, and future sins. This isn’t religion; this is how a lost sinner can enter into a real and lasting relationship with God Almighty Himself. You can become a member of God’s family through His redeeming grace and forgiving mercy. You are very selfish and you sin every day against your Creator. You will face Jesus one day at the Judgment. Will Jesus be your Savior, or will He be the most terrifying judge you could ever imagine? If you don’t put your trust in Jesus to forgive your sins, you will hear these awful words from Jesus’ mouth on Judgment Day: “I never knew you, depart from Me!” Don’t let this happen to you!
At death, all lost and Christless sinners will be cast into hell. Only Jesus can save your neck. Only Jesus can get you into heaven. Heaven or hell...what will it be for you...the choice is completely yours. What are you waiting for? Death is on your trail. Don’t procrastinate; seek the Lord while He may be found. The Bible says there is only way to Heaven (John 14:6). Nobody else can save you but Jesus Himself. Trust Christ alone now, never trust yourself, a church, or a religion at all. Confess that you are no good, and that your religion is no good, and that you cannot save yourself. Repent of your unbelief and sinfulness. Salvation is free, you cannot earn it – it is a free gift from God through Christ. Who are you going to believe, the Bible or the Pope? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved (Acts 16:31). Don't just accept Christ Jesus, ask God to accept you and save you through Jesus’ most Precious Blood now.
Religion or Relationship?
There is nothing more dangerous than religion apart from a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. For some odd reason, the natural man believes that in and of himself he is good enough to deserve Heaven without Christ's righteousness. Most would say they are good people. Everything about them looks right. They come to church, sit in the pew, they dress right, they do things in the name of Christ, they look alive, but they are in fact, dead. They are involved in spiritual activities, they talk about spiritual experiences, they use spiritual vocabulary. They stand out and draw attention to themselves, they look good and clean. But they are still without Jesus Christ, they are unregenerate, their spirit is dead on the inside, it has not been brought to life by Jesus Christ. Just about everyone today has a religion. They love the ritual, the liturgy, the ceremony, the form, the standards, the convictions, they look good, they look alive, but they have no true life in Christ. False religion caters to those who can pay and look good, false religion can be a mega-church, a best seller.
False religion (organized religion) is the true enemy of the Gospel of Christ. True religion could be a small group of people meeting in a basement or living room. More people will enter Hell through the doorway of religion than any other thing. False religion has always and will always be in the business of cleaning up the outside; it changes nothing on the inside, it merely focuses on the outside. Religion tries to clean up the outside to hide internal misery. Religion makes lost sinners look and feel better about themselves. False religion will say nothing, whether Catholic or Protestant, of sin and depravity; it says nothing of true spiritual life, such as hunger and thirst for righteousness or repentance, of confession of sin to God, and a commitment to moral purity. It will say nothing of the demands of discipleship and the internal and true transformation of life, lips, heart, motives, attitudes, appetites, and desires. The world's Religions leave you whitewashed and on your way to the Lake of Fire. You must Blood-washed before you are Heaven bound.
Church growth experts and specialists are in great demand today to be consultants to the church on how to invest in everything from telemarketing strategies to entertainment schedules; how not to offend the unbeliever; and how to market the church to the unsaved. Plain and open declaration of God's word is offensive to them. Their steeples are pointing toward Heaven, but their sermons are leading people to Hell. Many people today go to church to pass around business cards, a place to meet new clients, and to enhance their reputation. Spiritual activity for them is just another way of self-promotion. They have 'churchianity,' but not Christianity. Religion leaves you self-righteous, self-satisfied, self-confident, and self-deceived and following the road that leads to death and Hell. They are religious, but they are not redeemed by the Blood of the Crucified One. Salvation is found only by faith in the work of Jesus Christ alone. The religious man is as equally lost and in danger of the judgment of God as the immoral unbeliever. When you rest upon your religious faithfulness and confidence, it is a damning thing.
Religionists claim the name of "Christian." Millions today, in America, are Christian in name only. You see, calling yourself a "Christian" sounds better than atheist, or pagan, or unbeliever - they say, "Sure! I'm a Christian!" They rest and depend upon the teachings and traditions and standards of their church, or what their parents believed. They may even have a copy of the Bible in their house, they may carry it to church a few times a year, they are superstitious about the Bible, they think the Bible is going to help them somehow by having it around them. They possess the Bible, but they do not deny themselves and do the Bible. The know some of the truth found in the Bible, they are concerned over the wickedness of the world and moral decay of America. They are proud of their denomination and doctrines. They encourage others to join 'their church,' be baptized at their church, and learn from them. They speak respectfully of God, they pray over their food, they are not embarrassed about their God, but in private they are immoral and mean to others. They have the ability to discern between moral good and evil. They know and talk about the will of God, but they don't do it.
God's law and the true knowledge of it only makes you realize how unholy you are and how much of God's judgment you truly deserve. Just because you know God's standard for your life doesn't make you safe at all. The Law of God can only condemn us, it can never redeem us from sin. The Law only reveals what a lawbreaker you really are. The religionist today feels safe because of his religious title, his dedication to his church, his proud respect for his god, and his special knowledge of his god's will. They have regulation upon regulation, conviction upon conviction, that they feel these things are essential to pleasing God. But they miss the essential thing, they fail to truly bring true glory to Jesus Christ. These religious do's and don'ts give them a misguided, false sense of safety. There is an extreme danger of thinking that you are alright in the sight of God, just because you possess, rest, and trust in a denominational doctrine or hold to a set of convictions.
Religious sinners are unknown to God and lost and they are on that broad path that leads straight to Hell. They claim the name "Christian;" because of their dedication to their church or denomination; because of their own special knowledge and insight into God's will, and because they have a basic understanding of the major doctrines, principles, and stories of the Bible. Many religious people today fill the pews of churches, and they feel safe because they know the creeds, they know the verses, they know about the one and only true and living God. They are sincerely religious and, at the same time, they are unredeemed and on their way to Hell.
The religious man communicates truth to others, without genuine personal and practical application to his own life. Their religious creeds and sacraments do not produce righteous conduct and speech. What they say to others about what they believe never affects how they behave in private.
If you look around long enough, you will find someone that you are better than. However, if you look at the thrice holy God, and His Perfect Son, you are in deep trouble, even your righteous deeds are as filthy rags in God's sight, when compared to His holiness and glory (Romans 3:23). The Holy Spirit pulls away the natural blinders over your eyes, and shows you your sinfulness.
Do you steal? Are you a thief? You may have stolen the affections of someone's heart that does not belong to you, your stealing the credit and praise for doing something that someone else did, stealing from God by keeping your money and your possessions mostly to yourself, stealing your children from God, by not encouraging them or perhaps, not even allowing them to serve Christ and His church, or stealing from your spouse the fidelity and devotion that belongs only to them. Are you a thief? You try to sound holy, but in reality, you're a hypocrite. The religious man talks about integrity, but does not live honestly. The religious man bad mouths immorality, but never work on his own heart. The merely religious man will go on and on about how sexual sin is wrong, but he will not follow after moral purity. He will claim the name of Christian, but have nothing of the life of Christ. They are self-deceived and claim the name of Christian because it makes them feel safer and superior, but they are really unredeemed, they have nothing of the life of Christ in them or living through them. Put right all your wrongs.
Remember, adultery is as much a matter of the heart as it is the flesh (See Matt 5:28). You can commit adultery by watching the wrong things on TV or on the Internet, or by what you thought about someone you work with. You commit adultery when you wish the wrong thing in your heart someone else sexually. Your own nature is so sinful. You must depend completely on the blood of Christ for cleansing from your sin; trust HIS GRACE entirely for forgiveness. The Blood of the Lamb of God is your sin's only remedy.
The religious unbeliever looks and lusts all day and night and says, "Well, everyone does it, after all, that's the way God made us." He is deceived by sin and Satan and your flesh. You are religious, but not redeemed. One of the greatest evidences of true conversion is a passion for purity of the heart and life, not perfection but passion. One of the greatest evidences of true conversion is repentance and confession and sorrow over secret sinfulness (Romans 7:24).
Profit, greed, and materialism are the true marks of the unbeliever's unconverted, selfish heart. It is easy to be self-deceived - look at the practical facts. The checkbook is one of the most revealing characteristics between the religious and the redeemed. Applying the Scripture to our income and our giving, our honesty, and our sexual morality are distinguishing marks of our true spirituality. The religious man talks about character, but chooses cash. When the choice between God and mammon comes around, God always loses.
One of the marks of the unbeliever is that whenever the choice has to be made - between money or God; business or faith; career or character - money, business, and career will always win the contest. It is Cash over character, greed over godliness, these are the marks of an unbeliever's unconverted, self-centered heart (II Corinthians 13:5). Religious people put on a good front, they have a lot of people fooled, they are not genuine, they are living a lie. You are either living a lie, or you are spiritually alive. They are merely religious, but not truly redeemed and regenerated. You need more than fire insurance, you need forgiveness, friendship, and fellowship with God. You need to take the Bible very seriously before its too late.
Most people today don't want the Bible to control or direct their life. They don't want the Scriptures to determine what is right and what is wrong in their day to day lives. They just want to have a copy somewhere in their house as a good-luck charm, they think the Bible is a good Book to own, it is a nice thing to quote at weddings, funerals, and family reunions. They say the Bible has nothing to do with here and now, it was all for back then and there. They may use the Bible for ethically training their kids, but they don't believe it to be the word of God. They think it is just a collection of moral stories, at best, and not to be taken too seriously.
Maybe they can even quote a verse or two, they don't read and learn it, they don't obey and apply it, they don't take it seriously. The Bible is a living book, take the it seriously, or you will end up eternally wrong and damned. Don't take an eternal risk with your soul by rejecting Christ, you will be very sorry. If you don't take the Bible seriously, the lost world will take God seriously. Your daily attitudes, habits, conversation, responses, and decisions of your lifestyle either honor or dishonor God. Ethical conduct reveals your inner character: don't falsify your income tax returns and expense reports, commit plagiarism, bribe to obtain a building permit, ignore building specs, illegally copy a computer program, steal time at work, commit phone or cable TV theft, exaggerate a product.
It is possible for religious exercises and ceremonies to touch the mind and emotion of a lost man without ever changing their heart. It is possible for a person to be emotionally moved by religion without ever being spiritually awakened by the Bleeding and Risen Redeemer, and to be religious, but not redeemed by the Blood of God. You soul is lost in sin, and it needs saving by Jesus Christ Himself. You love darkness rather than light, because you love to wallow in sin. You are headed for hell, even if you don't feel like you are. If you do not trust in Christ Jesus' precious blood alone, you will be damned forever and ever.
Man wants a religion where he can remain comfortable in his favorite sins. Man wants to whitewash his life with religion, he doesn't want to admit his sin and guilt. Ask the Lord to strip off all your filthy rags of religious self-effort. Ask God to take it all off. Stand guilty and exposed before God, with your sin ever before Him and admit your need for cleansing from your sins. Be willing to face the uncomfortable truth and acknowledge you are lost in your sins. Forsake your false security and false hope and admit your utter need for Jesus Christ. Right now, while there is still time, repent of your sinful wretchedness and place your soul in Christ's redeeming hands. Receive Christ into your heart of hearts - believe ON HIM alone. Confess your sins to Christ, ask Him to forgive you, redeem your heart, and save your soul. Lord Jesus, please cleanse me now in Your shed blood, wash my heart and make it whiter than snow.
These religious people possess the hardened heart, the crowded heart, or the insincere heart. They have no sincere desire and appetite for the word of God or the will of God, no heart for the character of the church of God, no personal walk with Christ, and no spiritual fruit or passion for Christ. A churchman and a Christian are two entirely different races. One is religious, the other is redeemed. Both are sincere, but only one is saved. Both have a form of religious exercise which is external, but only one of them has been truly regenerated by the Spirit of God. Our spiritual life should measure up to the lips, the walk should match the talk. (I John 2:4-6; 1:6; Titus 1:10,16). The fact is - Divorce, abortion, fornication, adultery, and pornography is running rampant in so-called Christian lives today.
Religion only whitewashes the gravestones of dead men’s lives. The only thing Religion can do is put make-up and clothes on a dead corpse; it can never give Life. Religion makes you look sanctified, sound holy; they appear to be alive and to be able to give life, but underneath, there is only death and coldness. They are sincerely religious, but unregenerate.
They consider themselves to be spiritual guides of the blind, but they are actually blind guides. They consider themselves to be the source of enlightenment, but they have rejected the true light. They consider themselves to the standard of morality. They think they can referee, draw the lines, blow the whistle, moral policemen, but they failed to police themselves. They consider themselves to be the fountain of wisdom. They have a a false sense of safety and superiority; they teach their rituals and traditions as doctrine instead of a true relationship with a holy and loving Creator God. They know the standards of morality, but in fact, they do not know God. They teach the word to others, but they do teach themselves, they don't apply truth to their own life in private. They have a religious creed, but not righteous conduct. What they believe never affects how they behave; they don't apply the truth to their lives and daily conversation.
They claim the name of "Christian" but they steal - plagiarism, employee pilferage (stamps, office products, computer software and media products), falsify business expense reports, falsify time cards, embezzlement, insurance fraud, burglary, shoplifting, computer fraud. Honesty and integrity is a true distinction between the religious person and a true believer. An unbeliever may tell a lie to get his way; but a believer will tell the truth, even if it means he does not get his way.
The merely religious man will talk about how sexual sin is wrong, but will not seek to deny himself and purify his heart. (Eph 4:17-22) One of the main characteristics of the unbelieving world is its utter abandonment to sensuality, sexual license, and sexual fulfillment. There is a line you cross between a simple look and the fantasy of the heart to sin. The line between temptation which is not sin, and lust which is sin is this: lust is the desire that conceives a plan to possess. When a look turns into desire you have crossed the line. Adultery in the heart is lust that mentally engages in sexual fantasy; adultery in the flesh is lust that carried out the fantasy. Lusting and scheming about sexual relations with someone other than our spouse is sin. One of the greatest evidences of true conversion is a passion for a pure heart and a passion for moral purity, a pure thought life. There should be a practice, a passion, a lifestyle of holy living, so much so that even the thought, even unclean lust in the heart brings you to confession, brings you before God in guilt, remorse, and true repentance.
Your spiritual soil may be very shallow, one day soon a crisis, or confrontation, a crossroads, some decision, some difficulty, sickness, or trial, and you turn your back on God and openly walk away from any appearance of a relationship with Christ. You will reveal to the world that you too were once involved in "churchianity," but not true Christianity; you were religious, but unredeemed and on the broad road that leads to the Lake of Fire. Examine the sincerity of your faith in the living Christ, examine the reality of your salvation, maybe this will arouse your conscience and reveal the potential for self-deception. Are you living a lie - or are you truly alive in Christ? Are you religious - or are you truly redeemed?
The greatest attraction to Christianity is humble and holy living. The greatest drawing force to Christ is a man or woman who lives like Christ. The reputation of God is at stake. The greatest obstacle to Christianity is hypocritical Christians. We talk so much about what we believe, but the world is watching very closely the way we behave. The way you behave speaks much louder than what you are saying. Don't just have a bunch of beliefs, have godly behavior.
People often say, "The reason I don't go to church is because of all those hypocrites." But they are just the people that need to be saved. Why? Well, because if they don't want to spend a hour with the hypocrites in church, you don't want to spend forever with them in Hell.
You can teach any subject or work any kind of job while living an immoral life, and today you can still be qualified to teach that subject or do that job. But if you teach Christ or work for Christ and then live an ungodly life in private or public, this will stop the ears of the lost world and cause them to mock God. Evangelism and holy living are inseparable. This is the time in history for the true believer, the born-again Christian to be different, distinctive, genuine, holy, passionate for purity, ethical, honest, self-controlled, hard working, and gracious - the time is now. Don't be bought by this world, keep your word, put character above wealth, put your testimony before your income, don't lose your purity in a crowd away from home, be honest in small things as in big things, don't compromise with sin in private, don't do thing just because everybody else does it, be true to your family, friends, and church; be faithful in adversity and prosperity; resist being cunning, shrewd, and hardheaded; be not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular; say "No" when the rest of the world says "yes."
Now understand - There is good and pure religion - it is centered on the Scripture and Christ Himself, preaching of the Cross, the Blood, warning of Sin and Judgment to Come, the New Birth, Godliness and Contentment, and acts of selfless love toward others.
False religion (organized religion) is the true enemy of the Gospel of Christ. True religion could be a small group of people meeting in a basement or living room. More people will enter Hell through the doorway of religion than any other thing. False religion has always and will always be in the business of cleaning up the outside; it changes nothing on the inside, it merely focuses on the outside. Religion tries to clean up the outside to hide internal misery. Religion makes lost sinners look and feel better about themselves. False religion will say nothing, whether Catholic or Protestant, of sin and depravity; it says nothing of true spiritual life, such as hunger and thirst for righteousness or repentance, of confession of sin to God, and a commitment to moral purity. It will say nothing of the demands of discipleship and the internal and true transformation of life, lips, heart, motives, attitudes, appetites, and desires. The world's Religions leave you whitewashed and on your way to the Lake of Fire. You must Blood-washed before you are Heaven bound.
Church growth experts and specialists are in great demand today to be consultants to the church on how to invest in everything from telemarketing strategies to entertainment schedules; how not to offend the unbeliever; and how to market the church to the unsaved. Plain and open declaration of God's word is offensive to them. Their steeples are pointing toward Heaven, but their sermons are leading people to Hell. Many people today go to church to pass around business cards, a place to meet new clients, and to enhance their reputation. Spiritual activity for them is just another way of self-promotion. They have 'churchianity,' but not Christianity. Religion leaves you self-righteous, self-satisfied, self-confident, and self-deceived and following the road that leads to death and Hell. They are religious, but they are not redeemed by the Blood of the Crucified One. Salvation is found only by faith in the work of Jesus Christ alone. The religious man is as equally lost and in danger of the judgment of God as the immoral unbeliever. When you rest upon your religious faithfulness and confidence, it is a damning thing.
Religionists claim the name of "Christian." Millions today, in America, are Christian in name only. You see, calling yourself a "Christian" sounds better than atheist, or pagan, or unbeliever - they say, "Sure! I'm a Christian!" They rest and depend upon the teachings and traditions and standards of their church, or what their parents believed. They may even have a copy of the Bible in their house, they may carry it to church a few times a year, they are superstitious about the Bible, they think the Bible is going to help them somehow by having it around them. They possess the Bible, but they do not deny themselves and do the Bible. The know some of the truth found in the Bible, they are concerned over the wickedness of the world and moral decay of America. They are proud of their denomination and doctrines. They encourage others to join 'their church,' be baptized at their church, and learn from them. They speak respectfully of God, they pray over their food, they are not embarrassed about their God, but in private they are immoral and mean to others. They have the ability to discern between moral good and evil. They know and talk about the will of God, but they don't do it.
God's law and the true knowledge of it only makes you realize how unholy you are and how much of God's judgment you truly deserve. Just because you know God's standard for your life doesn't make you safe at all. The Law of God can only condemn us, it can never redeem us from sin. The Law only reveals what a lawbreaker you really are. The religionist today feels safe because of his religious title, his dedication to his church, his proud respect for his god, and his special knowledge of his god's will. They have regulation upon regulation, conviction upon conviction, that they feel these things are essential to pleasing God. But they miss the essential thing, they fail to truly bring true glory to Jesus Christ. These religious do's and don'ts give them a misguided, false sense of safety. There is an extreme danger of thinking that you are alright in the sight of God, just because you possess, rest, and trust in a denominational doctrine or hold to a set of convictions.
Religious sinners are unknown to God and lost and they are on that broad path that leads straight to Hell. They claim the name "Christian;" because of their dedication to their church or denomination; because of their own special knowledge and insight into God's will, and because they have a basic understanding of the major doctrines, principles, and stories of the Bible. Many religious people today fill the pews of churches, and they feel safe because they know the creeds, they know the verses, they know about the one and only true and living God. They are sincerely religious and, at the same time, they are unredeemed and on their way to Hell.
The religious man communicates truth to others, without genuine personal and practical application to his own life. Their religious creeds and sacraments do not produce righteous conduct and speech. What they say to others about what they believe never affects how they behave in private.
If you look around long enough, you will find someone that you are better than. However, if you look at the thrice holy God, and His Perfect Son, you are in deep trouble, even your righteous deeds are as filthy rags in God's sight, when compared to His holiness and glory (Romans 3:23). The Holy Spirit pulls away the natural blinders over your eyes, and shows you your sinfulness.
Do you steal? Are you a thief? You may have stolen the affections of someone's heart that does not belong to you, your stealing the credit and praise for doing something that someone else did, stealing from God by keeping your money and your possessions mostly to yourself, stealing your children from God, by not encouraging them or perhaps, not even allowing them to serve Christ and His church, or stealing from your spouse the fidelity and devotion that belongs only to them. Are you a thief? You try to sound holy, but in reality, you're a hypocrite. The religious man talks about integrity, but does not live honestly. The religious man bad mouths immorality, but never work on his own heart. The merely religious man will go on and on about how sexual sin is wrong, but he will not follow after moral purity. He will claim the name of Christian, but have nothing of the life of Christ. They are self-deceived and claim the name of Christian because it makes them feel safer and superior, but they are really unredeemed, they have nothing of the life of Christ in them or living through them. Put right all your wrongs.
Remember, adultery is as much a matter of the heart as it is the flesh (See Matt 5:28). You can commit adultery by watching the wrong things on TV or on the Internet, or by what you thought about someone you work with. You commit adultery when you wish the wrong thing in your heart someone else sexually. Your own nature is so sinful. You must depend completely on the blood of Christ for cleansing from your sin; trust HIS GRACE entirely for forgiveness. The Blood of the Lamb of God is your sin's only remedy.
The religious unbeliever looks and lusts all day and night and says, "Well, everyone does it, after all, that's the way God made us." He is deceived by sin and Satan and your flesh. You are religious, but not redeemed. One of the greatest evidences of true conversion is a passion for purity of the heart and life, not perfection but passion. One of the greatest evidences of true conversion is repentance and confession and sorrow over secret sinfulness (Romans 7:24).
Profit, greed, and materialism are the true marks of the unbeliever's unconverted, selfish heart. It is easy to be self-deceived - look at the practical facts. The checkbook is one of the most revealing characteristics between the religious and the redeemed. Applying the Scripture to our income and our giving, our honesty, and our sexual morality are distinguishing marks of our true spirituality. The religious man talks about character, but chooses cash. When the choice between God and mammon comes around, God always loses.
One of the marks of the unbeliever is that whenever the choice has to be made - between money or God; business or faith; career or character - money, business, and career will always win the contest. It is Cash over character, greed over godliness, these are the marks of an unbeliever's unconverted, self-centered heart (II Corinthians 13:5). Religious people put on a good front, they have a lot of people fooled, they are not genuine, they are living a lie. You are either living a lie, or you are spiritually alive. They are merely religious, but not truly redeemed and regenerated. You need more than fire insurance, you need forgiveness, friendship, and fellowship with God. You need to take the Bible very seriously before its too late.
Most people today don't want the Bible to control or direct their life. They don't want the Scriptures to determine what is right and what is wrong in their day to day lives. They just want to have a copy somewhere in their house as a good-luck charm, they think the Bible is a good Book to own, it is a nice thing to quote at weddings, funerals, and family reunions. They say the Bible has nothing to do with here and now, it was all for back then and there. They may use the Bible for ethically training their kids, but they don't believe it to be the word of God. They think it is just a collection of moral stories, at best, and not to be taken too seriously.
Maybe they can even quote a verse or two, they don't read and learn it, they don't obey and apply it, they don't take it seriously. The Bible is a living book, take the it seriously, or you will end up eternally wrong and damned. Don't take an eternal risk with your soul by rejecting Christ, you will be very sorry. If you don't take the Bible seriously, the lost world will take God seriously. Your daily attitudes, habits, conversation, responses, and decisions of your lifestyle either honor or dishonor God. Ethical conduct reveals your inner character: don't falsify your income tax returns and expense reports, commit plagiarism, bribe to obtain a building permit, ignore building specs, illegally copy a computer program, steal time at work, commit phone or cable TV theft, exaggerate a product.
It is possible for religious exercises and ceremonies to touch the mind and emotion of a lost man without ever changing their heart. It is possible for a person to be emotionally moved by religion without ever being spiritually awakened by the Bleeding and Risen Redeemer, and to be religious, but not redeemed by the Blood of God. You soul is lost in sin, and it needs saving by Jesus Christ Himself. You love darkness rather than light, because you love to wallow in sin. You are headed for hell, even if you don't feel like you are. If you do not trust in Christ Jesus' precious blood alone, you will be damned forever and ever.
Man wants a religion where he can remain comfortable in his favorite sins. Man wants to whitewash his life with religion, he doesn't want to admit his sin and guilt. Ask the Lord to strip off all your filthy rags of religious self-effort. Ask God to take it all off. Stand guilty and exposed before God, with your sin ever before Him and admit your need for cleansing from your sins. Be willing to face the uncomfortable truth and acknowledge you are lost in your sins. Forsake your false security and false hope and admit your utter need for Jesus Christ. Right now, while there is still time, repent of your sinful wretchedness and place your soul in Christ's redeeming hands. Receive Christ into your heart of hearts - believe ON HIM alone. Confess your sins to Christ, ask Him to forgive you, redeem your heart, and save your soul. Lord Jesus, please cleanse me now in Your shed blood, wash my heart and make it whiter than snow.
These religious people possess the hardened heart, the crowded heart, or the insincere heart. They have no sincere desire and appetite for the word of God or the will of God, no heart for the character of the church of God, no personal walk with Christ, and no spiritual fruit or passion for Christ. A churchman and a Christian are two entirely different races. One is religious, the other is redeemed. Both are sincere, but only one is saved. Both have a form of religious exercise which is external, but only one of them has been truly regenerated by the Spirit of God. Our spiritual life should measure up to the lips, the walk should match the talk. (I John 2:4-6; 1:6; Titus 1:10,16). The fact is - Divorce, abortion, fornication, adultery, and pornography is running rampant in so-called Christian lives today.
Religion only whitewashes the gravestones of dead men’s lives. The only thing Religion can do is put make-up and clothes on a dead corpse; it can never give Life. Religion makes you look sanctified, sound holy; they appear to be alive and to be able to give life, but underneath, there is only death and coldness. They are sincerely religious, but unregenerate.
They consider themselves to be spiritual guides of the blind, but they are actually blind guides. They consider themselves to be the source of enlightenment, but they have rejected the true light. They consider themselves to the standard of morality. They think they can referee, draw the lines, blow the whistle, moral policemen, but they failed to police themselves. They consider themselves to be the fountain of wisdom. They have a a false sense of safety and superiority; they teach their rituals and traditions as doctrine instead of a true relationship with a holy and loving Creator God. They know the standards of morality, but in fact, they do not know God. They teach the word to others, but they do teach themselves, they don't apply truth to their own life in private. They have a religious creed, but not righteous conduct. What they believe never affects how they behave; they don't apply the truth to their lives and daily conversation.
They claim the name of "Christian" but they steal - plagiarism, employee pilferage (stamps, office products, computer software and media products), falsify business expense reports, falsify time cards, embezzlement, insurance fraud, burglary, shoplifting, computer fraud. Honesty and integrity is a true distinction between the religious person and a true believer. An unbeliever may tell a lie to get his way; but a believer will tell the truth, even if it means he does not get his way.
The merely religious man will talk about how sexual sin is wrong, but will not seek to deny himself and purify his heart. (Eph 4:17-22) One of the main characteristics of the unbelieving world is its utter abandonment to sensuality, sexual license, and sexual fulfillment. There is a line you cross between a simple look and the fantasy of the heart to sin. The line between temptation which is not sin, and lust which is sin is this: lust is the desire that conceives a plan to possess. When a look turns into desire you have crossed the line. Adultery in the heart is lust that mentally engages in sexual fantasy; adultery in the flesh is lust that carried out the fantasy. Lusting and scheming about sexual relations with someone other than our spouse is sin. One of the greatest evidences of true conversion is a passion for a pure heart and a passion for moral purity, a pure thought life. There should be a practice, a passion, a lifestyle of holy living, so much so that even the thought, even unclean lust in the heart brings you to confession, brings you before God in guilt, remorse, and true repentance.
Your spiritual soil may be very shallow, one day soon a crisis, or confrontation, a crossroads, some decision, some difficulty, sickness, or trial, and you turn your back on God and openly walk away from any appearance of a relationship with Christ. You will reveal to the world that you too were once involved in "churchianity," but not true Christianity; you were religious, but unredeemed and on the broad road that leads to the Lake of Fire. Examine the sincerity of your faith in the living Christ, examine the reality of your salvation, maybe this will arouse your conscience and reveal the potential for self-deception. Are you living a lie - or are you truly alive in Christ? Are you religious - or are you truly redeemed?
The greatest attraction to Christianity is humble and holy living. The greatest drawing force to Christ is a man or woman who lives like Christ. The reputation of God is at stake. The greatest obstacle to Christianity is hypocritical Christians. We talk so much about what we believe, but the world is watching very closely the way we behave. The way you behave speaks much louder than what you are saying. Don't just have a bunch of beliefs, have godly behavior.
People often say, "The reason I don't go to church is because of all those hypocrites." But they are just the people that need to be saved. Why? Well, because if they don't want to spend a hour with the hypocrites in church, you don't want to spend forever with them in Hell.
You can teach any subject or work any kind of job while living an immoral life, and today you can still be qualified to teach that subject or do that job. But if you teach Christ or work for Christ and then live an ungodly life in private or public, this will stop the ears of the lost world and cause them to mock God. Evangelism and holy living are inseparable. This is the time in history for the true believer, the born-again Christian to be different, distinctive, genuine, holy, passionate for purity, ethical, honest, self-controlled, hard working, and gracious - the time is now. Don't be bought by this world, keep your word, put character above wealth, put your testimony before your income, don't lose your purity in a crowd away from home, be honest in small things as in big things, don't compromise with sin in private, don't do thing just because everybody else does it, be true to your family, friends, and church; be faithful in adversity and prosperity; resist being cunning, shrewd, and hardheaded; be not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular; say "No" when the rest of the world says "yes."
Now understand - There is good and pure religion - it is centered on the Scripture and Christ Himself, preaching of the Cross, the Blood, warning of Sin and Judgment to Come, the New Birth, Godliness and Contentment, and acts of selfless love toward others.
Switch Families Fast
You were born into a very bad family: the family of Adam. The main trouble is that all men are born WRONG. You need to make a family switch and change families. You need to be adopted into a new family. This is a crucial change. Your physical ancestor is Adam who was created by God in Genesis 2, but then Adam fell into sin in Genesis 3. You now have Adam and Eve's DNA in you. But Adam's deadly sin nature has also been passed on to you from your parents (Psa 51:5). Your very nature is polluted with the evil of sin. Your relationship to Adam guarantees that your outcome will be eternal death (Romans 5:12; I Cor 15:21-22). You need the NEW BIRTH, it is a miracle from God. Your first birth came through the suffering, pain, blood shed of someone else, your mother. Your SECOND BIRTH comes through the sufferings of Another, Jesus Christ.
The first birth also means, as a sinner, your 'spiritual ancestor' is Satan (John 8:44; I John 3:9-10). When Adam yielded to Satan in the Garden of Eden and sinned against God's words, Adam's spirit and soul died, and he became a child of Satan and partook of Satan's evil nature. If you are lost in your sin and without Christ today, you are kin to the devil. Having the devil as a spiritual father means your inevitable outcome is eternal judgment. All those souls in the devil's family, and not in the family of God will share in Satan's final outcome - the lake of fire. What every sinner needs is a NEW BIRTH, a new Father, and a new family. The only way to get a new father is to experience the NEW BIRTH of the Spirit of God.
The NEW BIRTH cannot be accomplished by human energy. The best we can do will never suffice. Jesus said, "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). When Jesus says "MUST," we had better listen very closely. We must realize and acknowledge that we are sinners to the core, we must receive the work of the Spirit in our hearts. Religious works and experiences can never bring the NEW BIRTH to pass in your soul. Your religion or reformation can never eradicate your sinful nature. Turn from your dead works and selfishness, let the Spirit of God wash you clean with God's blood and give you a NEW NATURE inside. God's family is only entered by the NEW BIRTH (I John 5:1; I Peter 1:3-4; Eph 2:19; Eph 1:11,18). Without the NEW BIRTH from the Spirit of God, you will never enter of see the Kingdom of God no matter kind of religion you believe.
The reason why the Bible cannot be tolerated is because it treats "man" as a fallen, depraved, degenerate, sinful rebel whom his Creator will not accept on the grounds of his "humanity"- his FIRST birth. In the Bible, the Lord God of Heaven and Earth demands a SECOND birth. All humanists, atheists, evolutionists, and pragmatists believe that "man" ("mankind") is the "measure of all things."
The lost world thinks that "MAN" is the ABSOLUTE supreme authority when it comes to ethical and moral standards, conduct, motives, goal setting, progress, and knowledge-just as he "is"- without any New Birth. In short, this is why all eight major "religions" (Catholicism, Protestantism, Greek Orthodox, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Judaism) emphasize man's ability to get to "Heaven" or "Paradise" or "Samadhi" or "Nirvana" or "Prajna" or the "Happy Hunting Ground" or "Valhalla" or etc., blah, blah, blah) by self-effort with no "new birth" required. If you die without the NEW BIRTH, you will bust hell wide open. "Religion" has always been the shortest shortcut any sinner could take to get to Hell; the road to the lake of fire is "paved with good intentions" (positive thinking about yourself) the whole way (Matt. 7:22; Prov. 14:12; Rom. 10:1-6; Ecc. 7:20; Psa. 39:5; Isa. 64:6).
Jesus Christ is NOT DEAD, He is alive. Christ Jesus is GOD manifest in the flesh, He came into the world to die for your sins because you are lost in sin, and without Christ you don't have a chance of a snowball in hell of getting past the White Throne Judgment. Without Jesus Christ' you're lost and going to hell, because He is the true and living God that died for you. There is no salvation in any other name except Jesus Christ. The best you can do will put you in the bottomless pit, because eternal salvation is in a living PERSON - CHRIST JESUS. Salvation is not in you or in ANY religion on the face of this earth. All religions in this world are FALSE because they teach a sinner can DO SOMETHING to get to heaven. The NEW BIRTH is a heavenly thing, that when you receive you can't tell where it came from, you can't see or get your hands on the ONE that gives you the NEW BIRTH. Nothing you can see or touch can give you the NEW BIRTH. Regeneration is God's work - you must believe and receive Christ. The moment you believe on Christ, the divine nature is planted in your soul by the Holy Ghost. Why aren't you born again? How are long are you going to wait till get your soul fixed up? Born once, die twice; born twice, die ONCE. You need two birthdays (physical and spiritual) in order to die safely and make it to heaven. You must be born from on high - a child of the King of the Universe.
"Religion" is a set of WORKS that sinners do to make themselves feel comfortable when they have a bad conscience (see Gen. 3:10). The Bible defines it as "the FIG LEAF factor" (Gen. 3:7; Matt. 21:19). Religions will teach that you can EARN immortality by WORKING your head off serving their church or temple, and being a good little boy or girl, good enough to EARN eternal life, so you can reject Christ and His FREE GIFT of salvation (Romans 5:15,18; 6:23). Religion thinks that it can makes its own rules and assumes that God will one say to them, "That's OK, you're just human, come on in." But remember this, all religions do lead to the same place - the eternal lake of fire. That is why there are so many religions and why so many people follow them instead of 'scriptural truth.' "Religion is the quickest way to HELL on which you can travel. It is an 10-lane paved slick highway, 'fully-lit' at night, and marked all the way without one curve, bump, or stop sign on it. Religion is a set of WORKS that guilty sinners continually do to try and win favor with God and get past the White Throne Judgment of Jesus Christ.
All the world religions are different so they can give a self-righteous sinner something 'special' which he can hold over the head of someone else, they appreciate their own 'belief.' By studying your religion, you raise your own self-esteem because you convince yourself that YOUR religion is better than theirs, and THIS gives you self-confidence, this self-confidence is satanic and will end up damning you. Every man has a conscience (Romans 2:15) with or without "religion," and every man has defiled his conscience or disobeyed it a number of times (Titus 1:15; Romans 9:1; Acts 9:5; 1 Timothy 4:2). When a man defiles his conscience, he then invents a set of "beliefs" and "teachings" by which he professes to live; he may or may not live up to them, according to how big a liar or hypocrite he is. Ridiculous religious beliefs are a dime a dozen, new ones come out every month.
Eternal damnation will be the sentence a sinner get who has sinned against an Eternal Being - God Almighty. Your punishment will be permanent and eternal because your sin has been against an unseen Person who lives forever. If you die in your sins without Christ as your personal Savior, you will be tormented in flames as long as God lives (Heb 12:28-29; Matt 13:30, 40-42). You are going to run into the eternal, infinite, holy God Almighty after death. God is perfect, absolute, all powerful, sinless, holy perfection; He will not tolerate SIN in any form; Christ's atoning death for shows what God thinks of "SIN." If you are 'only' religious, you are headed for pure fire without any protection (Psa 9:17; 139:8; Matt 23:33).
Religions such as Church of Christ, Catholicism, JWs, 7th Day Adventism, Taoism, Humanism, Greek Orthodox, Islam, Atheism, Buddhism, Christian Scientists, Baha'i, Hinduism, Judaism, Shintoism, Agnostics, Protestants, Scientology, and Mormonism all have the same thing in common: they are all working their way to heaven in some way or fashion - they are all different road maps to the Lake of Fire that Satan has drawn out for self-righteous sinners that love themselves and reject Christ Jesus. All man-made religions teach that no sinner can know absolutely 'for certain where he is going to wind up after death.
All religions are based on guilty consciences and self-righteousness no matter what 'beliefs' or 'teachings' they invent (I feel guilty, so I better go do better). Religion teaches you can trust your own righteousness to gain Heaven, and depraved man can take 'some' credit for 'earning' eternal salvation. You will wind up in the lake of fire with your father Satan, if you miss the NEW BIRTH (I Peter 1:23; John 3:3; John 1:12-13; Col 2:11-13; II Cor 5:17), and don't have your name written in the Lamb's book of life (Rev 20:16). In order to get into God's heaven, you must trust God's righteousness (Romans 3:21-27; 10:1-4; Rom 4:5; Eph 2:8-9), instead of your OWN righteousness.
The purpose of all world religions and higher education is to destroy belief in 'absolute truth.' They will try to teach you this, all truths are 'relative,' and you are your own final authority, in other words, believe in yourself, you are God (Genesis 3:5). Man's sinful nature always tries to sidestep, duck, and dodge the truth of scripture, he loves 'relative' truths, he will avoid finding 'THE TRUTH' at any cost. Their alibi for sidestepping the truth is always "love" and "concern for others" or "being sensitive to others" or "a willingness to reach out and touch others" or "a meaningful exchange of ideas" or "doing good to your fellow man" or "making the world a better place to live in," "improving relations" or "building bridges" instead of "fences."
They say, "Don't rock the boat, just believe whatever you think is right, just don't upset anyone. Let's get everyone to love each other at the expense of the absolute truth of scripture." But remember, Jesus Christ IS 'absolute truth' (See John 14:6). Modern man cannot tolerate truth; he must have his own opinions, delusion, deceit, equivocation, and counterfeit religion in order to carry out his purpose driven life in a seek for hope and change. Your first birth isn't right, and you do absolutely nothing to fix it. You can spend 50 years trying to be a good and upright person, you'll still go to Hell in your self-righteousness. You were born wrong! Except a man be 'born again' he cannot enter or see the kingdom of God.
At conversion, Christ Jesus comes to where you are, and takes you where you couldn't go. He takes you as you are, and makes you what you couldn't have been, and takes your sins away, and gives you His priceless and infinite righteousness and make you acceptable in God's sight. Have you been born again? Some people blame their rotten sins on being born that way. By this admission, they testify that have not been born again. This is why Christ said, "ye must be born again." A man that is born again is not the way he was born. He has a New Birth.
Your GREATEST NEED in this temporal life is to get out of your old family (Adam/Satan) and be 'born again' into a new family (Jesus Christ/God) through the NEW BIRTH. You need to switch families as soon as possible. Christ Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, left His majestic throne in Heaven, so free, so infinite His grace, He emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam's helpless race (See Romans 5:8-9; 8:3; II Cor 5:21; Galatians 3:13). Jesus Christ bore our infected sinful nature, our rotten sins, in His own body on the tree, so that we could freely be given His sinless nature (righteousness) freely by faith in His precious blood. Jesus became SIN and was cursed of God in your place.
You need the only cure for sin - the NEW BIRTH. The NEW BIRTH comes only through the Holy Ghost when you take a simple look of faith at the Bleeding Lamb of God on Calvary's tree (John 3:14-16). Bring your sin burden to the foot of the Cross, and look and live. The Cross is the way to New Jerusalem. You don't want to die with your first birth, and die in your sins. Without Christ your youth is a blunder, your adulthood is a struggle, and your old age is a regret. But with Christ as your Savior and Lord, when it comes time for you to die, there will be no regrets.
Sacraments, religion, sincerity, setting a new standard or morals for yourself, or reformation cannot help your sin-sick soul at all. You're not born right, ye must be born again. You can't work up this faith - it is a gift of God - not of works, lest any man should boast. Don't look at your faith - look to Christ, He will give you faith and repentance freely. Believe in Christ alone, looking only to the Cross. Dump all your sins at the Cross. Jesus said, Look unto ME and be ye saved. Give up your dependence on yourself, your cleverness, your self-improvement, your plans of doing better or becoming religious - just look to Christ and receive the NEW BIRTH and everlasting life.
The 'good life' is eternal life, and a life that God approves of, that's the GOOD LIFE. God will show His goodness and grace to the ungodly sinners that trust His Son, but God will show His severity and wrath to those wicked sinners who reject His dear Son. Count on Jesus' blood and righteousness ALONE to keep you out of hell and get you into heaven. If you're tired of eating out of the devil's garbage can, repent towards God and trust His Son with your soul. Christ dying in your place, count on Him alone to keep you out of the lake of fire. Put all your reliance on the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on Calvary's Cross to save your soul from hell fire (Acts 13:38-39; John 1:12; Heb 7:25; I Corinthians 15:1-4; Matt 11:28; I Timothy 1:15).
Instead of just memorizing your SSN, address, cell phone number, zip code, passwords, you need to memorize, believe, and keep these eternal promises: See John 5:24; John 3:3,7; Romans 3:10,13,23-27; Romans 5:8-9; Romans 10:3,13,17; Romans 5:12; 6:23; John 1:12; Phil 1:6; Eph 4:30; Heb 13:5-6; Isa 26:3; I Cor 10:12-13; I John 3:16; Romans 8:28-29; Rev 20:15; Phil 4:13, 19; Romans 8:38-39; I John 5:13, 20.
New Birth brings New Activity, Appetite, Awareness -
* New Activity - thinking about God, learning about God, fearing God, trusting God's Son, loving God, doing something for God, longing for God...
* New Appetite - for the Bible, for prayer, for the Holy Spirit, bread of life, water of life, fellowship with the saints, teaching and preaching, winning souls, yoke of Christ
* New Awareness - of your sinful state, the law of God, imminent danger, rejection of Christ, judgment to come, Satan, hell, fear of God, grace of God, the Cross, blood of God, the Lord Jesus, heaven, eternity
The first birth also means, as a sinner, your 'spiritual ancestor' is Satan (John 8:44; I John 3:9-10). When Adam yielded to Satan in the Garden of Eden and sinned against God's words, Adam's spirit and soul died, and he became a child of Satan and partook of Satan's evil nature. If you are lost in your sin and without Christ today, you are kin to the devil. Having the devil as a spiritual father means your inevitable outcome is eternal judgment. All those souls in the devil's family, and not in the family of God will share in Satan's final outcome - the lake of fire. What every sinner needs is a NEW BIRTH, a new Father, and a new family. The only way to get a new father is to experience the NEW BIRTH of the Spirit of God.
The NEW BIRTH cannot be accomplished by human energy. The best we can do will never suffice. Jesus said, "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7). When Jesus says "MUST," we had better listen very closely. We must realize and acknowledge that we are sinners to the core, we must receive the work of the Spirit in our hearts. Religious works and experiences can never bring the NEW BIRTH to pass in your soul. Your religion or reformation can never eradicate your sinful nature. Turn from your dead works and selfishness, let the Spirit of God wash you clean with God's blood and give you a NEW NATURE inside. God's family is only entered by the NEW BIRTH (I John 5:1; I Peter 1:3-4; Eph 2:19; Eph 1:11,18). Without the NEW BIRTH from the Spirit of God, you will never enter of see the Kingdom of God no matter kind of religion you believe.
The reason why the Bible cannot be tolerated is because it treats "man" as a fallen, depraved, degenerate, sinful rebel whom his Creator will not accept on the grounds of his "humanity"- his FIRST birth. In the Bible, the Lord God of Heaven and Earth demands a SECOND birth. All humanists, atheists, evolutionists, and pragmatists believe that "man" ("mankind") is the "measure of all things."
The lost world thinks that "MAN" is the ABSOLUTE supreme authority when it comes to ethical and moral standards, conduct, motives, goal setting, progress, and knowledge-just as he "is"- without any New Birth. In short, this is why all eight major "religions" (Catholicism, Protestantism, Greek Orthodox, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and Judaism) emphasize man's ability to get to "Heaven" or "Paradise" or "Samadhi" or "Nirvana" or "Prajna" or the "Happy Hunting Ground" or "Valhalla" or etc., blah, blah, blah) by self-effort with no "new birth" required. If you die without the NEW BIRTH, you will bust hell wide open. "Religion" has always been the shortest shortcut any sinner could take to get to Hell; the road to the lake of fire is "paved with good intentions" (positive thinking about yourself) the whole way (Matt. 7:22; Prov. 14:12; Rom. 10:1-6; Ecc. 7:20; Psa. 39:5; Isa. 64:6).
Jesus Christ is NOT DEAD, He is alive. Christ Jesus is GOD manifest in the flesh, He came into the world to die for your sins because you are lost in sin, and without Christ you don't have a chance of a snowball in hell of getting past the White Throne Judgment. Without Jesus Christ' you're lost and going to hell, because He is the true and living God that died for you. There is no salvation in any other name except Jesus Christ. The best you can do will put you in the bottomless pit, because eternal salvation is in a living PERSON - CHRIST JESUS. Salvation is not in you or in ANY religion on the face of this earth. All religions in this world are FALSE because they teach a sinner can DO SOMETHING to get to heaven. The NEW BIRTH is a heavenly thing, that when you receive you can't tell where it came from, you can't see or get your hands on the ONE that gives you the NEW BIRTH. Nothing you can see or touch can give you the NEW BIRTH. Regeneration is God's work - you must believe and receive Christ. The moment you believe on Christ, the divine nature is planted in your soul by the Holy Ghost. Why aren't you born again? How are long are you going to wait till get your soul fixed up? Born once, die twice; born twice, die ONCE. You need two birthdays (physical and spiritual) in order to die safely and make it to heaven. You must be born from on high - a child of the King of the Universe.
"Religion" is a set of WORKS that sinners do to make themselves feel comfortable when they have a bad conscience (see Gen. 3:10). The Bible defines it as "the FIG LEAF factor" (Gen. 3:7; Matt. 21:19). Religions will teach that you can EARN immortality by WORKING your head off serving their church or temple, and being a good little boy or girl, good enough to EARN eternal life, so you can reject Christ and His FREE GIFT of salvation (Romans 5:15,18; 6:23). Religion thinks that it can makes its own rules and assumes that God will one say to them, "That's OK, you're just human, come on in." But remember this, all religions do lead to the same place - the eternal lake of fire. That is why there are so many religions and why so many people follow them instead of 'scriptural truth.' "Religion is the quickest way to HELL on which you can travel. It is an 10-lane paved slick highway, 'fully-lit' at night, and marked all the way without one curve, bump, or stop sign on it. Religion is a set of WORKS that guilty sinners continually do to try and win favor with God and get past the White Throne Judgment of Jesus Christ.
All the world religions are different so they can give a self-righteous sinner something 'special' which he can hold over the head of someone else, they appreciate their own 'belief.' By studying your religion, you raise your own self-esteem because you convince yourself that YOUR religion is better than theirs, and THIS gives you self-confidence, this self-confidence is satanic and will end up damning you. Every man has a conscience (Romans 2:15) with or without "religion," and every man has defiled his conscience or disobeyed it a number of times (Titus 1:15; Romans 9:1; Acts 9:5; 1 Timothy 4:2). When a man defiles his conscience, he then invents a set of "beliefs" and "teachings" by which he professes to live; he may or may not live up to them, according to how big a liar or hypocrite he is. Ridiculous religious beliefs are a dime a dozen, new ones come out every month.
Eternal damnation will be the sentence a sinner get who has sinned against an Eternal Being - God Almighty. Your punishment will be permanent and eternal because your sin has been against an unseen Person who lives forever. If you die in your sins without Christ as your personal Savior, you will be tormented in flames as long as God lives (Heb 12:28-29; Matt 13:30, 40-42). You are going to run into the eternal, infinite, holy God Almighty after death. God is perfect, absolute, all powerful, sinless, holy perfection; He will not tolerate SIN in any form; Christ's atoning death for shows what God thinks of "SIN." If you are 'only' religious, you are headed for pure fire without any protection (Psa 9:17; 139:8; Matt 23:33).
Religions such as Church of Christ, Catholicism, JWs, 7th Day Adventism, Taoism, Humanism, Greek Orthodox, Islam, Atheism, Buddhism, Christian Scientists, Baha'i, Hinduism, Judaism, Shintoism, Agnostics, Protestants, Scientology, and Mormonism all have the same thing in common: they are all working their way to heaven in some way or fashion - they are all different road maps to the Lake of Fire that Satan has drawn out for self-righteous sinners that love themselves and reject Christ Jesus. All man-made religions teach that no sinner can know absolutely 'for certain where he is going to wind up after death.
All religions are based on guilty consciences and self-righteousness no matter what 'beliefs' or 'teachings' they invent (I feel guilty, so I better go do better). Religion teaches you can trust your own righteousness to gain Heaven, and depraved man can take 'some' credit for 'earning' eternal salvation. You will wind up in the lake of fire with your father Satan, if you miss the NEW BIRTH (I Peter 1:23; John 3:3; John 1:12-13; Col 2:11-13; II Cor 5:17), and don't have your name written in the Lamb's book of life (Rev 20:16). In order to get into God's heaven, you must trust God's righteousness (Romans 3:21-27; 10:1-4; Rom 4:5; Eph 2:8-9), instead of your OWN righteousness.
The purpose of all world religions and higher education is to destroy belief in 'absolute truth.' They will try to teach you this, all truths are 'relative,' and you are your own final authority, in other words, believe in yourself, you are God (Genesis 3:5). Man's sinful nature always tries to sidestep, duck, and dodge the truth of scripture, he loves 'relative' truths, he will avoid finding 'THE TRUTH' at any cost. Their alibi for sidestepping the truth is always "love" and "concern for others" or "being sensitive to others" or "a willingness to reach out and touch others" or "a meaningful exchange of ideas" or "doing good to your fellow man" or "making the world a better place to live in," "improving relations" or "building bridges" instead of "fences."
They say, "Don't rock the boat, just believe whatever you think is right, just don't upset anyone. Let's get everyone to love each other at the expense of the absolute truth of scripture." But remember, Jesus Christ IS 'absolute truth' (See John 14:6). Modern man cannot tolerate truth; he must have his own opinions, delusion, deceit, equivocation, and counterfeit religion in order to carry out his purpose driven life in a seek for hope and change. Your first birth isn't right, and you do absolutely nothing to fix it. You can spend 50 years trying to be a good and upright person, you'll still go to Hell in your self-righteousness. You were born wrong! Except a man be 'born again' he cannot enter or see the kingdom of God.
At conversion, Christ Jesus comes to where you are, and takes you where you couldn't go. He takes you as you are, and makes you what you couldn't have been, and takes your sins away, and gives you His priceless and infinite righteousness and make you acceptable in God's sight. Have you been born again? Some people blame their rotten sins on being born that way. By this admission, they testify that have not been born again. This is why Christ said, "ye must be born again." A man that is born again is not the way he was born. He has a New Birth.
Your GREATEST NEED in this temporal life is to get out of your old family (Adam/Satan) and be 'born again' into a new family (Jesus Christ/God) through the NEW BIRTH. You need to switch families as soon as possible. Christ Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, left His majestic throne in Heaven, so free, so infinite His grace, He emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam's helpless race (See Romans 5:8-9; 8:3; II Cor 5:21; Galatians 3:13). Jesus Christ bore our infected sinful nature, our rotten sins, in His own body on the tree, so that we could freely be given His sinless nature (righteousness) freely by faith in His precious blood. Jesus became SIN and was cursed of God in your place.
You need the only cure for sin - the NEW BIRTH. The NEW BIRTH comes only through the Holy Ghost when you take a simple look of faith at the Bleeding Lamb of God on Calvary's tree (John 3:14-16). Bring your sin burden to the foot of the Cross, and look and live. The Cross is the way to New Jerusalem. You don't want to die with your first birth, and die in your sins. Without Christ your youth is a blunder, your adulthood is a struggle, and your old age is a regret. But with Christ as your Savior and Lord, when it comes time for you to die, there will be no regrets.
Sacraments, religion, sincerity, setting a new standard or morals for yourself, or reformation cannot help your sin-sick soul at all. You're not born right, ye must be born again. You can't work up this faith - it is a gift of God - not of works, lest any man should boast. Don't look at your faith - look to Christ, He will give you faith and repentance freely. Believe in Christ alone, looking only to the Cross. Dump all your sins at the Cross. Jesus said, Look unto ME and be ye saved. Give up your dependence on yourself, your cleverness, your self-improvement, your plans of doing better or becoming religious - just look to Christ and receive the NEW BIRTH and everlasting life.
The 'good life' is eternal life, and a life that God approves of, that's the GOOD LIFE. God will show His goodness and grace to the ungodly sinners that trust His Son, but God will show His severity and wrath to those wicked sinners who reject His dear Son. Count on Jesus' blood and righteousness ALONE to keep you out of hell and get you into heaven. If you're tired of eating out of the devil's garbage can, repent towards God and trust His Son with your soul. Christ dying in your place, count on Him alone to keep you out of the lake of fire. Put all your reliance on the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on Calvary's Cross to save your soul from hell fire (Acts 13:38-39; John 1:12; Heb 7:25; I Corinthians 15:1-4; Matt 11:28; I Timothy 1:15).
Instead of just memorizing your SSN, address, cell phone number, zip code, passwords, you need to memorize, believe, and keep these eternal promises: See John 5:24; John 3:3,7; Romans 3:10,13,23-27; Romans 5:8-9; Romans 10:3,13,17; Romans 5:12; 6:23; John 1:12; Phil 1:6; Eph 4:30; Heb 13:5-6; Isa 26:3; I Cor 10:12-13; I John 3:16; Romans 8:28-29; Rev 20:15; Phil 4:13, 19; Romans 8:38-39; I John 5:13, 20.
New Birth brings New Activity, Appetite, Awareness -
* New Activity - thinking about God, learning about God, fearing God, trusting God's Son, loving God, doing something for God, longing for God...
* New Appetite - for the Bible, for prayer, for the Holy Spirit, bread of life, water of life, fellowship with the saints, teaching and preaching, winning souls, yoke of Christ
* New Awareness - of your sinful state, the law of God, imminent danger, rejection of Christ, judgment to come, Satan, hell, fear of God, grace of God, the Cross, blood of God, the Lord Jesus, heaven, eternity
Fall is Approaching
Fall is now approaching us again. The harvest will soon be past. The corn is harvested, the flowers begin to die, the summer heat declines, the leaves start to turn, and the fall of the year is here. All of the seasons are a picture of what happens to every person in life. Spring is our childhood, Summer is our 20-30's, Fall is our 40-50s, and then winter comes in our 60-70-80s. Creation itself speaks and warns us that there is a harvest and a death for us all, and we all fade and fall as a leaf. The grass of our physical strength withers, the flower of our natural beauty fades, and then death comes and takes us away. Nature preaches to us every year as well as the Scriptures; Summer is ended, harvest is past, prepare to meet your God!
Death will soon come up into all of our windows. Death will set its axe to every tree. Our strength soon begins to depart, and then we are not. Death honeycombs the earth with graves. Death beds, the grave, and the Judgment throne of God are solemn subjects. We need to become familiar with the world to come before we enter it. We must all take the inevitable journey into Eternity, every one of us. All men are mortal, but we always make an exception for ourselves and put off the evil day. We admit we are mortal, but do not expect to die anytime soon. Even the old man looks forward to a continuance of life.
Men spend thousands of dollars just to extend their earthly life a few months or years. But as surely as you live, you will die one day. You will lie on a death bed before long. There will be very little hope for you to recover. The doctors will begin to whisper in your room and shake their heads. The doctors all know your end is near. Your loved ones begin to weep and pray for you. People tread softly in the room where there is a dying man. Death is an awesome thing. You must go to your long home. Where will you spend all of Eternity? No one on earth can delay the departure. All the gold in Fort Knox cannot bribe Death's cruel hand. One day soon, you will not be able to buy yourself another hour of physical life; your time will come, and you must go the way of all the earth.
Your spouse will want you stay, but you will torn from their embrace. No friend can take your place and die for you, there can be no proxies in death. You must do your own dying all alone. It is appointed unto all men once to die, and die you must. The hour will come! Your pulse will begin to slow, your eyes will begin to glaze, and then you will flatline, and your soul will depart your body. Every individual must do his own dying and giving account to his Maker.
Salvation and character become very important as death approaches. Your life is now put into the balance, you begin to look back over all your years. It will be the most important thing in the universe to you. Your sickness is now a small matter compared to Eternity, your soul is your main consideration. Did you live a righteous or wicked life? Were you a fearer of God or a despiser of Christ's grace? The best physician, the softest bed, and finest medical care will not be able to comfort you then. It is the man himself, the man's soul, and the man's personal character that is now seen in its true light; death demands your whole thought.
Whether you be a prince or peasant, a king or pauper, we are all the same at death. You have to face for yourself the great things of Eternity, and you cannot hand these things off to another to handle for you. You used to hear others speak of Eternity, but now you must experience it alone. Into the cold river of death your own feet must step, death bony hand will touch your body, and into the unknown future you must plunge all alone, you must pass through tracks unknown. You must believe in the Risen Savior for yourself, and you must have a good hope through grace in your own soul, or death will be the king of terrors to you. Men never think of these things till it comes time for them to die.
You may have made plenty of money in your life selfishly and sinfully. But all men at death come to a level. In death, finances will mock your lost soul and become contemptible. Moral and spiritual issues are most esteemed at death. How you lived, your thoughts, your heart towards God, repentance of sin, real belief in Jesus, resting upon the finished work of Christ or no - these are the things that will really matter. You must now look to what you did, and what you were, and what you are. Now is reckoning time, and the sum total will be added up. It will matter very little what you were before men, but the solemn question will be, what were you in secret before the all-searching eye of the Almighty? You will have to render an account.
Death tests all things. You will be past the time for pretenses and shams. The salvation you professed must be truthful now, you must be really regenerate, or you must perish forever. You will need the sweet and sure Promises of Scripture at death: "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out." "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "The blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth me from all sin." You will need the plain truths of the Gospel to rest your soul upon. You must come face to face with Eternity. Are you ready? You may think yourself to be somebody in the church, but that will be of small account in your last moments. No man can die on stilts.
Death finds out the truth of our condition and blows away all the chaff which we thought to be real wheat. You must look to the mercy of God, trust to the Blood of Calvary's Lamb, the Promises of the Gospel, you must cling as a poor, needy, and guilty sinner to the free and rich and good grace of God, or else your soul will sink into the firepit of Hell. When life is ebbing, nothing will do but the Grace and Blood and Promises of God in your last moments. You will need Christ Himself to get you past death's terrors. You will have to come to God as a needy sinner, and find in Jesus all your hope. Dying men want realities, they need a sinner's Savior, they desire an Atonement for their guilt, so they can pass out of this world with real hope. Dying sinners want a real living Savior, no one else can help you when it comes time for you to die.
You must go the way of all the earth, there is no alternative. You will not be able to resist the power of God's summons for you to depart this world and come before His bar of Judgment. Willing or unwilling, it matters not, you must go and meet your Maker. Be wise - prepare to meet God now. Nevertheless, whether you are ready or not, it makes no difference, you will have to leave all and take your solemn journey and face God. Your family and necessities will not be able to detain you. You may not have a will and your business affairs may all be tangled, but still you must go. The clock will tick next to your bedside in the silence of your last night. The doctors will consult with each other, and they all will have to admit that there is no remedy for you. It is clear that your hour has finally come; you must go. This must happen to you, lay it to heart.
You will breathe your last, and the medical examiner will come and take your body to the morgue. Your loved ones will weep a while, and then they will all come to view your body and gaze once more upon your face, and say their final goodbyes. Your family and friends will all gather at the funeral home, the minister will say a few choice words, and then the cars will proceed to the graveyard. You will take your last ride. All the cars stop and pay respects while your funeral procession passes by. Face it - this funeral will soon be yours.
The obituary will soon have your name there in black and white. Your corpse will be hauled out by the pall bearers and carried to your grave. Within a very short time each one of us must lie within a coffin, and then will come the open grave, the gathering of the mourners, the minister's final words, and then the lowering of your casket. The dirt will begin to fall upon the coffin lid. Earth to earth, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. A mound of dirt will cover your body, and maybe a flower or two, perhaps a headstone, to this end you must come. Do you realize that this is so near?
Your soul will leave your body at death. You will be stripped of this house of clay, and you will die, but you will live again, live forever. You will be judged, to be justified or condemned by your Maker. You will live forever either in happiness or torment. You will go where you shall not return, there will be either endless bliss and joy, or ceaseless woe and torment for your soul. Your soul's real state immediately after death will be known beyond question. Whether you are accepted before God, or whether you are reprobate, condemned, and beyond all hope, this will be known in a moment. It will be either happiness or misery.
Death is filled with hope for the Christian, but it is a terrible dread for the ungodly. Your soul will never return to this world's cares. You will stand before the Judgment and receive the final divine verdict from the lips of Christ Jesus, the appointed Judge of all mankind. You will either be accepted or condemned based on what you did with the Man Christ Jesus. It will be bliss unspeakable or misery unutterable, you will either be blessed or cursed.
Life is so short. At the commencement of life, it looks like an endless road, but as we advance along the path the end seems very near, and we begin to perceive how very short our time is here on earth. Your age is descending, and your time for lingering here is certainly short. Your lease has almost run out. In a short time, you must set sail for the land which is afar off. Life is so short, that we have scarce begun to live before we are called to die.
Any work to be done for Jesus, let us do it at once, or else it will never get done. If your salvation is to be sought, seek it now, for you shall soon be where salvation is no more preached. If you possess worldly goods, hold them very loosely, for in a short time you must leave them all behind. Give your goods to God's glory, your stewardship will not last for long, and you shall soon give an account. Always be prepared to die.
Who'll be the next? No one knows. The cemetery's gates open every day and the funeral procession passes through. Who'll be the next to go? To be ready to depart this world is wisdom. Look ahead, be not as the fool, be prudent, consider your latter end. It is the mark of the blinded worldling that he confines his thoughts within only a short period of time. Look out into the everlasting future as an immortal being should do. Don't perish with the careless and thoughtless worldlings. To be prepared to die is an immediate duty. Don't neglect your soul's deep need - the Forgiveness of Sins through God's Blood. To be unprepared for death, and to know it may come at any moment, must keep your soul in fear and dread. To be prepared to die is to be prepared to live; to be ready for Eternity is in the best sense to be ready for time.
You need to unload your sins at the Cross today, and find mercy through the Blood of Christ, and be reconciled to God by the bloody death of His Son. See to your soul's needs at once. There is no time to spare, the end is drawing near, every flying moment is hastening on our last hour. It is high time to awake out of your sinful, suicidal slumber and in earnest seek and trust the Savior's Blood.
Your occupation, your home, your family and friends, the pleasures of life, hopes and fears, joys and pains, you shall never return to these after death. To spring's flowers, the summer's sun, the fall's colors, the winter's snows, you shall not return to these. To your brothers, children, spouse, you shall not return. To the preaching of the Gospel, to the Bible, to opportunities to be Born Again, to space for repentance, and to the mercy of God in Christ, you shall not return, you will never hear any more invitations to be saved. He which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and where the tree falls, there it must lie. Once you pass the threshold of life unsaved, you cannot return to be saved, you die is cast.
If you were at this very instant to leave your body, where would your soul be? You will go and dwell with the people you loved to be with here on earth. Yes, you will keep the same company forever. What you have chosen on earth shall be your portion hereafter. The scoffer, the drunkard, the infidel, the liar, and the unchaste shall be your companions in hell, if they were so here on earth. If you really like the earth, you will get to go live right in the middle of the earth in Hell, where you belong. If you loved sin, you shall be steeped up to your throat in it in Hell's fires. Sin will be everywhere in Hell, Sin will all around you there like liquid fire.
The wages of sin is still eternal death. But if your trust and delight has been in God and His Son, you shall dwell in Heaven. If you have believed and rejoiced in Christ Jesus' blood and righteousness, you shall abide with Him forever. Your disembodied soul shall dwell with Christ and His people, or with Sin and lost sinners forever and ever - Either in paradise with Jesus, or in Hell with Satan. If you die in Satan's family, you have to go and live in Satan's house forever - Hell. If your sin is not put away forever by the Lamb of God Himself, then you can be sure your will find you out at the Judgment. Lay it to heart!
If you are Born Again, seek to mend your matters now, avoid the doing of evil in private and public. Forsake and stop all known sin. Keep to the truth of Scripture and the good old Gospel. Live surely, honestly, and thoroughly. See to the bringing up of your children in the fear of the Lord, the conversion of your neighbors, give your talents for Christ, consecrate all your substance to God. The curfew of life is sounding for you.
Death will soon come up into all of our windows. Death will set its axe to every tree. Our strength soon begins to depart, and then we are not. Death honeycombs the earth with graves. Death beds, the grave, and the Judgment throne of God are solemn subjects. We need to become familiar with the world to come before we enter it. We must all take the inevitable journey into Eternity, every one of us. All men are mortal, but we always make an exception for ourselves and put off the evil day. We admit we are mortal, but do not expect to die anytime soon. Even the old man looks forward to a continuance of life.
Men spend thousands of dollars just to extend their earthly life a few months or years. But as surely as you live, you will die one day. You will lie on a death bed before long. There will be very little hope for you to recover. The doctors will begin to whisper in your room and shake their heads. The doctors all know your end is near. Your loved ones begin to weep and pray for you. People tread softly in the room where there is a dying man. Death is an awesome thing. You must go to your long home. Where will you spend all of Eternity? No one on earth can delay the departure. All the gold in Fort Knox cannot bribe Death's cruel hand. One day soon, you will not be able to buy yourself another hour of physical life; your time will come, and you must go the way of all the earth.
Your spouse will want you stay, but you will torn from their embrace. No friend can take your place and die for you, there can be no proxies in death. You must do your own dying all alone. It is appointed unto all men once to die, and die you must. The hour will come! Your pulse will begin to slow, your eyes will begin to glaze, and then you will flatline, and your soul will depart your body. Every individual must do his own dying and giving account to his Maker.
Salvation and character become very important as death approaches. Your life is now put into the balance, you begin to look back over all your years. It will be the most important thing in the universe to you. Your sickness is now a small matter compared to Eternity, your soul is your main consideration. Did you live a righteous or wicked life? Were you a fearer of God or a despiser of Christ's grace? The best physician, the softest bed, and finest medical care will not be able to comfort you then. It is the man himself, the man's soul, and the man's personal character that is now seen in its true light; death demands your whole thought.
Whether you be a prince or peasant, a king or pauper, we are all the same at death. You have to face for yourself the great things of Eternity, and you cannot hand these things off to another to handle for you. You used to hear others speak of Eternity, but now you must experience it alone. Into the cold river of death your own feet must step, death bony hand will touch your body, and into the unknown future you must plunge all alone, you must pass through tracks unknown. You must believe in the Risen Savior for yourself, and you must have a good hope through grace in your own soul, or death will be the king of terrors to you. Men never think of these things till it comes time for them to die.
You may have made plenty of money in your life selfishly and sinfully. But all men at death come to a level. In death, finances will mock your lost soul and become contemptible. Moral and spiritual issues are most esteemed at death. How you lived, your thoughts, your heart towards God, repentance of sin, real belief in Jesus, resting upon the finished work of Christ or no - these are the things that will really matter. You must now look to what you did, and what you were, and what you are. Now is reckoning time, and the sum total will be added up. It will matter very little what you were before men, but the solemn question will be, what were you in secret before the all-searching eye of the Almighty? You will have to render an account.
Death tests all things. You will be past the time for pretenses and shams. The salvation you professed must be truthful now, you must be really regenerate, or you must perish forever. You will need the sweet and sure Promises of Scripture at death: "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out." "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "The blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth me from all sin." You will need the plain truths of the Gospel to rest your soul upon. You must come face to face with Eternity. Are you ready? You may think yourself to be somebody in the church, but that will be of small account in your last moments. No man can die on stilts.
Death finds out the truth of our condition and blows away all the chaff which we thought to be real wheat. You must look to the mercy of God, trust to the Blood of Calvary's Lamb, the Promises of the Gospel, you must cling as a poor, needy, and guilty sinner to the free and rich and good grace of God, or else your soul will sink into the firepit of Hell. When life is ebbing, nothing will do but the Grace and Blood and Promises of God in your last moments. You will need Christ Himself to get you past death's terrors. You will have to come to God as a needy sinner, and find in Jesus all your hope. Dying men want realities, they need a sinner's Savior, they desire an Atonement for their guilt, so they can pass out of this world with real hope. Dying sinners want a real living Savior, no one else can help you when it comes time for you to die.
You must go the way of all the earth, there is no alternative. You will not be able to resist the power of God's summons for you to depart this world and come before His bar of Judgment. Willing or unwilling, it matters not, you must go and meet your Maker. Be wise - prepare to meet God now. Nevertheless, whether you are ready or not, it makes no difference, you will have to leave all and take your solemn journey and face God. Your family and necessities will not be able to detain you. You may not have a will and your business affairs may all be tangled, but still you must go. The clock will tick next to your bedside in the silence of your last night. The doctors will consult with each other, and they all will have to admit that there is no remedy for you. It is clear that your hour has finally come; you must go. This must happen to you, lay it to heart.
You will breathe your last, and the medical examiner will come and take your body to the morgue. Your loved ones will weep a while, and then they will all come to view your body and gaze once more upon your face, and say their final goodbyes. Your family and friends will all gather at the funeral home, the minister will say a few choice words, and then the cars will proceed to the graveyard. You will take your last ride. All the cars stop and pay respects while your funeral procession passes by. Face it - this funeral will soon be yours.
The obituary will soon have your name there in black and white. Your corpse will be hauled out by the pall bearers and carried to your grave. Within a very short time each one of us must lie within a coffin, and then will come the open grave, the gathering of the mourners, the minister's final words, and then the lowering of your casket. The dirt will begin to fall upon the coffin lid. Earth to earth, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes. A mound of dirt will cover your body, and maybe a flower or two, perhaps a headstone, to this end you must come. Do you realize that this is so near?
Your soul will leave your body at death. You will be stripped of this house of clay, and you will die, but you will live again, live forever. You will be judged, to be justified or condemned by your Maker. You will live forever either in happiness or torment. You will go where you shall not return, there will be either endless bliss and joy, or ceaseless woe and torment for your soul. Your soul's real state immediately after death will be known beyond question. Whether you are accepted before God, or whether you are reprobate, condemned, and beyond all hope, this will be known in a moment. It will be either happiness or misery.
Death is filled with hope for the Christian, but it is a terrible dread for the ungodly. Your soul will never return to this world's cares. You will stand before the Judgment and receive the final divine verdict from the lips of Christ Jesus, the appointed Judge of all mankind. You will either be accepted or condemned based on what you did with the Man Christ Jesus. It will be bliss unspeakable or misery unutterable, you will either be blessed or cursed.
Life is so short. At the commencement of life, it looks like an endless road, but as we advance along the path the end seems very near, and we begin to perceive how very short our time is here on earth. Your age is descending, and your time for lingering here is certainly short. Your lease has almost run out. In a short time, you must set sail for the land which is afar off. Life is so short, that we have scarce begun to live before we are called to die.
Any work to be done for Jesus, let us do it at once, or else it will never get done. If your salvation is to be sought, seek it now, for you shall soon be where salvation is no more preached. If you possess worldly goods, hold them very loosely, for in a short time you must leave them all behind. Give your goods to God's glory, your stewardship will not last for long, and you shall soon give an account. Always be prepared to die.
Who'll be the next? No one knows. The cemetery's gates open every day and the funeral procession passes through. Who'll be the next to go? To be ready to depart this world is wisdom. Look ahead, be not as the fool, be prudent, consider your latter end. It is the mark of the blinded worldling that he confines his thoughts within only a short period of time. Look out into the everlasting future as an immortal being should do. Don't perish with the careless and thoughtless worldlings. To be prepared to die is an immediate duty. Don't neglect your soul's deep need - the Forgiveness of Sins through God's Blood. To be unprepared for death, and to know it may come at any moment, must keep your soul in fear and dread. To be prepared to die is to be prepared to live; to be ready for Eternity is in the best sense to be ready for time.
You need to unload your sins at the Cross today, and find mercy through the Blood of Christ, and be reconciled to God by the bloody death of His Son. See to your soul's needs at once. There is no time to spare, the end is drawing near, every flying moment is hastening on our last hour. It is high time to awake out of your sinful, suicidal slumber and in earnest seek and trust the Savior's Blood.
Your occupation, your home, your family and friends, the pleasures of life, hopes and fears, joys and pains, you shall never return to these after death. To spring's flowers, the summer's sun, the fall's colors, the winter's snows, you shall not return to these. To your brothers, children, spouse, you shall not return. To the preaching of the Gospel, to the Bible, to opportunities to be Born Again, to space for repentance, and to the mercy of God in Christ, you shall not return, you will never hear any more invitations to be saved. He which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and where the tree falls, there it must lie. Once you pass the threshold of life unsaved, you cannot return to be saved, you die is cast.
If you were at this very instant to leave your body, where would your soul be? You will go and dwell with the people you loved to be with here on earth. Yes, you will keep the same company forever. What you have chosen on earth shall be your portion hereafter. The scoffer, the drunkard, the infidel, the liar, and the unchaste shall be your companions in hell, if they were so here on earth. If you really like the earth, you will get to go live right in the middle of the earth in Hell, where you belong. If you loved sin, you shall be steeped up to your throat in it in Hell's fires. Sin will be everywhere in Hell, Sin will all around you there like liquid fire.
The wages of sin is still eternal death. But if your trust and delight has been in God and His Son, you shall dwell in Heaven. If you have believed and rejoiced in Christ Jesus' blood and righteousness, you shall abide with Him forever. Your disembodied soul shall dwell with Christ and His people, or with Sin and lost sinners forever and ever - Either in paradise with Jesus, or in Hell with Satan. If you die in Satan's family, you have to go and live in Satan's house forever - Hell. If your sin is not put away forever by the Lamb of God Himself, then you can be sure your will find you out at the Judgment. Lay it to heart!
If you are Born Again, seek to mend your matters now, avoid the doing of evil in private and public. Forsake and stop all known sin. Keep to the truth of Scripture and the good old Gospel. Live surely, honestly, and thoroughly. See to the bringing up of your children in the fear of the Lord, the conversion of your neighbors, give your talents for Christ, consecrate all your substance to God. The curfew of life is sounding for you.
Run and Hide
A farmer once looked at what was left of his farm after a forest fire had destroyed everything. Dead chickens lay on the ground, they were unable to escape the fast-moving, ravaging flames. The farmer bent down to pick up one of the dead chickens, and to his amazement, he found a number of chicks sheltering under the wings of their mother. The chicks did nothing to help save themselves but just "run and hide". The mother hen had instinctively spread her wings to save her beloved offspring.
That's what God did for us in Jesus Christ on Calvary's Cross. Jesus likened the love of God to a chicken gathering her chicks under her wings (See Matthew 23:37). It is there under the wings of Grace at the Cross, that we receive shelter from the devouring flames of the wrath of a holy God. It is under the shelter of the wings of mercy that we are safe from the fury of God's Eternal Justice. "Run and hide" under the Lamb of God at the Cross today. The Man who died on Calvary was God; He shed God's precious blood especially for you. Your sins must be punished or pardoned. Jesus must save you entirely, or you must die in your sins.
That's what God did for us in Jesus Christ on Calvary's Cross. Jesus likened the love of God to a chicken gathering her chicks under her wings (See Matthew 23:37). It is there under the wings of Grace at the Cross, that we receive shelter from the devouring flames of the wrath of a holy God. It is under the shelter of the wings of mercy that we are safe from the fury of God's Eternal Justice. "Run and hide" under the Lamb of God at the Cross today. The Man who died on Calvary was God; He shed God's precious blood especially for you. Your sins must be punished or pardoned. Jesus must save you entirely, or you must die in your sins.
The Way of Cain or Calvary?
In Genesis 4, Adam's two sons were born and grew up. Cain was a farmer, and Abel was a shepherd. They both believed in God and learned of the need of an atonement for their sins against their Creator by watching their father Adam offer sacrifices for his sins. They were not left to their own ideas in deciding how God was to be approached. Adam had told them all about what happened in the Garden the Eden, about the serpent, their sin and rebellion against God's words, the stolen fruit, and shedding of blood for sin, and the coat of skins that God made to cover his nakedness.
Cain approached God with an offering of fruits and vegetables. Cain was no atheist. He was very conscientious, deeply religious, and was interested in approaching God. But he approached God in his own way apart from the word of God - with no bloodshed, no atoning sacrifice of an innocent victim. Cain approached his Maker with something that represented the works of his own hands. Cain tried to impress God with his human effort and self-accomplishments. There has to be Blood Atonement for human sin; human works cannot take away human sins. God is Holy and can only be approached by the shedding of the blood of an innocent Victim. Jesus is the Ransom who shed His Precious Blood for us sin-loving, self-promoting sinners.
Abel approached God by faith, by God's words. *Hebrews 11:4* Abel brought the firstborn lambs of his flock. Cain's offering represented self-made religion by *human works*, and Abel's offering represented redemption by blood. Cain despised Abel because he was righteous, and violently murdered him. Murder was first in Cain's heart and mind, and then it was in his hands.
The world is divided into two congregations today - the congregation of the dead, and the congregation of the righteous. Those who are trying to find their own way to God by the "way of Cain" or those who are coming to God by the way of Calvary, the atoning blood sacrifice of Christ Jesus - God manifest in the flesh. The way to heaven is by blood - God's Blood. The way to Hell is by human works and human wisdom. Every person must decide the way they will take.
The protection of your soul by the Lamb of God must be personal - salvation from Sin is a personal choice you must make for yourself. The blood-mark of the Lamb must be placed on your heart by the Spirit of God, or you will die in your sins. Is the Gospel just another story to you? When did Jesus become your personal Savior from the *love of sin*? Salvation is a personal transaction between you and Christ Himself. Your sin must be transferred from your shoulders to Christ by putting your trust in His Precious Blood. The only way to approach a holy and righteous God is by the payment of the *Lamb of God* - His sinless blood sacrifice on Calvary's Cross.
The bleeding, dying, and risen Savior was made SIN for you, and He paid the Full Ransom Price with the Blood from His own veins so He could freely save your sinful soul from the curse of the Law of God and the vengeance of the Justice of God. God's wants to control over your sinful past, present, and future. Salvation with change your vile nature and make a new creature within - after the New Birth (John 3:7; I Peter 1:23; James 1:18,21), you will begin to long for *humble purity* instead of proud sinfulness. The wisdom of God that is from above is FIRST PURE, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
The way of Cain sounds like this, "God has done a great deal for you, but you must do the rest, and you may be saved, if you live it. You do one part, and God will do the other part." This is a very popular doctrine in the world's man-made religions.But this is a delirious and damnable dream. This self-righteous teaching flatters man's pride very much, for he gets to help save himself, and get some glory in it.
There are many people today who have two Saviors. You ask them, “Do you know for sure you are going to Heaven?” They reply, “Oh yes.” And when you ask them WHY, they reply, “Because I believe in Jesus, and I am doing my best.” How many Saviors are in that answer? Two. The first One is what they believe about Jesus, and the Second One is what they are doing to help save themselves. You cannot get to Heaven with two Saviors, you will get there with only one. If you depend upon yourself in any way or fashion, you will perish, but if you depend only on Jesus Christ Himself - His doing and dying, you will be saved, everlasting life will be yours in an instant.
But Christ Jesus says, "I will do everything for you, come and fall down at My feet, give up your deadly doings, let Me undertake and save you completely by My Power. I will make you a new creature within. Confess your sinfulness, let go of your darling sins, fall down at the foot of the Cross. Give me your sins, and I will give you My Righteousness freely." You are undone and hopeless without the Savior's free grace. Tell Christ personally, that you have nothing, you are nothing, and you will never be anything more than nothing. Christ Jesus doesn't need any help from you at all, He will take you just as you as are - filthy, lost and hungry.
Don't seek to come to Christ with anything besides your sins. You cannot have faith apart from Christ. Christ only saves sinners by Blood, you must come directly to Christ for all you need for time and Eternity. Come to Him now, come blind, sick, and lost, and He will save your soul from the *love of sin*. The way of Calvary (The Full and Free Pardon by God's Blood) is the only way to Heaven (II Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15).
Cain approached God with an offering of fruits and vegetables. Cain was no atheist. He was very conscientious, deeply religious, and was interested in approaching God. But he approached God in his own way apart from the word of God - with no bloodshed, no atoning sacrifice of an innocent victim. Cain approached his Maker with something that represented the works of his own hands. Cain tried to impress God with his human effort and self-accomplishments. There has to be Blood Atonement for human sin; human works cannot take away human sins. God is Holy and can only be approached by the shedding of the blood of an innocent Victim. Jesus is the Ransom who shed His Precious Blood for us sin-loving, self-promoting sinners.
Abel approached God by faith, by God's words. *Hebrews 11:4* Abel brought the firstborn lambs of his flock. Cain's offering represented self-made religion by *human works*, and Abel's offering represented redemption by blood. Cain despised Abel because he was righteous, and violently murdered him. Murder was first in Cain's heart and mind, and then it was in his hands.
The world is divided into two congregations today - the congregation of the dead, and the congregation of the righteous. Those who are trying to find their own way to God by the "way of Cain" or those who are coming to God by the way of Calvary, the atoning blood sacrifice of Christ Jesus - God manifest in the flesh. The way to heaven is by blood - God's Blood. The way to Hell is by human works and human wisdom. Every person must decide the way they will take.
The protection of your soul by the Lamb of God must be personal - salvation from Sin is a personal choice you must make for yourself. The blood-mark of the Lamb must be placed on your heart by the Spirit of God, or you will die in your sins. Is the Gospel just another story to you? When did Jesus become your personal Savior from the *love of sin*? Salvation is a personal transaction between you and Christ Himself. Your sin must be transferred from your shoulders to Christ by putting your trust in His Precious Blood. The only way to approach a holy and righteous God is by the payment of the *Lamb of God* - His sinless blood sacrifice on Calvary's Cross.
The bleeding, dying, and risen Savior was made SIN for you, and He paid the Full Ransom Price with the Blood from His own veins so He could freely save your sinful soul from the curse of the Law of God and the vengeance of the Justice of God. God's wants to control over your sinful past, present, and future. Salvation with change your vile nature and make a new creature within - after the New Birth (John 3:7; I Peter 1:23; James 1:18,21), you will begin to long for *humble purity* instead of proud sinfulness. The wisdom of God that is from above is FIRST PURE, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
The way of Cain sounds like this, "God has done a great deal for you, but you must do the rest, and you may be saved, if you live it. You do one part, and God will do the other part." This is a very popular doctrine in the world's man-made religions.But this is a delirious and damnable dream. This self-righteous teaching flatters man's pride very much, for he gets to help save himself, and get some glory in it.
There are many people today who have two Saviors. You ask them, “Do you know for sure you are going to Heaven?” They reply, “Oh yes.” And when you ask them WHY, they reply, “Because I believe in Jesus, and I am doing my best.” How many Saviors are in that answer? Two. The first One is what they believe about Jesus, and the Second One is what they are doing to help save themselves. You cannot get to Heaven with two Saviors, you will get there with only one. If you depend upon yourself in any way or fashion, you will perish, but if you depend only on Jesus Christ Himself - His doing and dying, you will be saved, everlasting life will be yours in an instant.
But Christ Jesus says, "I will do everything for you, come and fall down at My feet, give up your deadly doings, let Me undertake and save you completely by My Power. I will make you a new creature within. Confess your sinfulness, let go of your darling sins, fall down at the foot of the Cross. Give me your sins, and I will give you My Righteousness freely." You are undone and hopeless without the Savior's free grace. Tell Christ personally, that you have nothing, you are nothing, and you will never be anything more than nothing. Christ Jesus doesn't need any help from you at all, He will take you just as you as are - filthy, lost and hungry.
Don't seek to come to Christ with anything besides your sins. You cannot have faith apart from Christ. Christ only saves sinners by Blood, you must come directly to Christ for all you need for time and Eternity. Come to Him now, come blind, sick, and lost, and He will save your soul from the *love of sin*. The way of Calvary (The Full and Free Pardon by God's Blood) is the only way to Heaven (II Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15).
Saturday, September 29, 2012
The Incarnate God 5
God condescended to Earth to become a Jewish man, and He offered Himself up to divine justice as an atoning Sacrifice for human guilt. Jesus was a voluntary, vicarious Atonement for the sins you have committed against God. Soul-saving faith rests upon Christ Jesus as God Incarnate bleeding and dying for sinners. God was made flesh and dwelt among us; He who made the heavens, and without whom was not anything made that was made; He came down from Heaven and was born in Bethlehem's manger.
God was manifest in the flesh as a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth. Stand still and trust Christ to save your sinful soul, and it is all done. God became a man out of infinite love to sinful men, that He might save them from their sins. Christ Jesus is God, He became a man. He suffered, bled, died, and rose from the dead according to the Scriptures. Jesus loved you to death. He who was eternal and immortal died in my place. He was pure and perfect and without sin, He didn't deserve death. He condescended for our sake to yield Himself up to die. Incarnation - God became a Jewish man; Substitution - God died in my place to atone for my sins.
Being found in fashion as a man, God in Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. God made flesh, loving, suffering, bleeding, dying, buried, risen from the dead, ascending, interceding, coming again, and reigning forever. Jesus was despised, mocked, treated like a criminal, brutally abused, all out of pure Love to His enemies. God in Christ Jesus loved and died for sinners. True theology is God in the living person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Wisdom of the Scriptures.
The God of Eternity entered into time and was made flesh, He lived upon earth for sinful man's sake, and after spending His life in holiness, He was offered up as a Propitiation for human sin, upon the Cross He made an Atonement for your sins. Here is a great wonder - God clothed in human flesh came down here to suffer, bleed, and die for me a sinner. God can now be Just, for He punished my sins in His Son, He can be gracious to me, for He can freely forgive my sins for Jesus' sake.
God incarnated Himself, God surrendered the glories of His throne to become a man, and then stooped to the shameful death of the Cross. God humbled Himself to become a man in order to save sinful man. He endured the spitting, shame, scourging, smiting, suffering, and nailing for me. The Great Atonement was offered personally by the Great Incarnate Savior God. God Almighty took upon Himself the form and nature of man, He lived a life of Perfection, never sinning, always full of selfless love and holy service, both to God and man. Jesus is over all, God blessed for ever.
Christ Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, God manifest in the flesh, JEHOVAH made in the likeness of of men. Jesus smarted in the sinner's place. There is merit and power enough in Jesus' Blood to remove all of my sins. The Infinite Invisible Creator became Incarnate in Christ Jesus. The great Scriptural fact on which genuine Faith rests is this, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. *John 1:1,14* Jesus took our nature upon Himself, then He took our sins upon Himself, then He took our sins' punishment upon Himself. Divine Justice required eternal punishment for human sin, and Jesus bore that punishment instead of sinners. Deity became Incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
Complex religious machinery will never tell you this great Truth. God Himself became Incarnate to finished the Atonement, so He could freely pardon human sin. God was made flesh, crucified for sinners, and now whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have Everlasting Life. The manifestation of God in human flesh was so that He might save men from their sins. He that believeth in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God, is saved to the uttermost. True Faith turns to God in human flesh and rests on His Precious Blood with its entire confidence.
God was manifest in the flesh as a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth. Stand still and trust Christ to save your sinful soul, and it is all done. God became a man out of infinite love to sinful men, that He might save them from their sins. Christ Jesus is God, He became a man. He suffered, bled, died, and rose from the dead according to the Scriptures. Jesus loved you to death. He who was eternal and immortal died in my place. He was pure and perfect and without sin, He didn't deserve death. He condescended for our sake to yield Himself up to die. Incarnation - God became a Jewish man; Substitution - God died in my place to atone for my sins.
Being found in fashion as a man, God in Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. God made flesh, loving, suffering, bleeding, dying, buried, risen from the dead, ascending, interceding, coming again, and reigning forever. Jesus was despised, mocked, treated like a criminal, brutally abused, all out of pure Love to His enemies. God in Christ Jesus loved and died for sinners. True theology is God in the living person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Wisdom of the Scriptures.
The God of Eternity entered into time and was made flesh, He lived upon earth for sinful man's sake, and after spending His life in holiness, He was offered up as a Propitiation for human sin, upon the Cross He made an Atonement for your sins. Here is a great wonder - God clothed in human flesh came down here to suffer, bleed, and die for me a sinner. God can now be Just, for He punished my sins in His Son, He can be gracious to me, for He can freely forgive my sins for Jesus' sake.
God incarnated Himself, God surrendered the glories of His throne to become a man, and then stooped to the shameful death of the Cross. God humbled Himself to become a man in order to save sinful man. He endured the spitting, shame, scourging, smiting, suffering, and nailing for me. The Great Atonement was offered personally by the Great Incarnate Savior God. God Almighty took upon Himself the form and nature of man, He lived a life of Perfection, never sinning, always full of selfless love and holy service, both to God and man. Jesus is over all, God blessed for ever.
Christ Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, God manifest in the flesh, JEHOVAH made in the likeness of of men. Jesus smarted in the sinner's place. There is merit and power enough in Jesus' Blood to remove all of my sins. The Infinite Invisible Creator became Incarnate in Christ Jesus. The great Scriptural fact on which genuine Faith rests is this, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. *John 1:1,14* Jesus took our nature upon Himself, then He took our sins upon Himself, then He took our sins' punishment upon Himself. Divine Justice required eternal punishment for human sin, and Jesus bore that punishment instead of sinners. Deity became Incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
Complex religious machinery will never tell you this great Truth. God Himself became Incarnate to finished the Atonement, so He could freely pardon human sin. God was made flesh, crucified for sinners, and now whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have Everlasting Life. The manifestation of God in human flesh was so that He might save men from their sins. He that believeth in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God, is saved to the uttermost. True Faith turns to God in human flesh and rests on His Precious Blood with its entire confidence.
Stop and Think
Every man wanders around in the darkness of sin for years, lost, with no real life, not knowing truth, not knowing who God really is, it's not fun, it's confusion. Life is only a meaningless rat race without Jesus Christ. Making money will not make you happy, another promotion will not bring you satisfaction. Sin will never satisfy your lost soul. The truth is that you are not right; the truth is that you are chained with sin and selfishness believing the devilish lie that you can live independent of God and His Son. Everyone that is of the Truth heareth Christ's voice. You are a sinner, and there is no human cure for your sin. You must come to Christ Jesus Himself and trust to Him in order for your sins to forgiven. *Matthew 11:28*
Sin poisons every soul, just like cyanide poisons the body. Sin is deadly and damning. Sin will eventually destroy and damn you if you continue to ignore it. You are chock full of all kinds of sins in thought, word, and deed. Give up your sins, or you will lose your soul. Come to Jesus first. Trust to His merits and Precious Blood. Renounce your evil thoughts and filthy ways. Atheists and religionists believe in themselves in some way or fashion and end up in Hell, because they will not submit to Christ Jesus. Heartily accept Christ's Blood Atonement as the full payment for your sins. He bore for you the Law's Curse until divine justice was infinitely satisfied.
Only Jesus' Precious Blood can win for me the smile of infinite justice. The essence of Salvation is to rest yourself for eternal Salvation upon the Atonement and Righteousness of Jesus Christ. Salvation means to have done once and for all with all reliance upon your doings, and to trust to Jesus Christ, and in what He did for your Salvation. That is Bible Salvation. Real faith in Jesus makes a man henceforth hate his sins; for he cannot love the thing which made the Savior bleed.
As long as you cling to any of your works, you are in the utmost danger, but when you give yourself up entirely to the mercy of Christ, you are safe forever and ever. The Gospel invitation is to all sinners who are athirst. Let every soul that is athirst for the forgiveness of sins come to Jesus. No sin can be forgiven without satisfactory punishment. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. No sin against a holy God is pardoned without a propitiation. Sin is only forgiven through the atoning sufferings of Jesus Christ. The divine Law knows no exception; there is no respect of persons with God.
Every soul that ever sinned must die eternally in its sins, or die in its Substitute. No debt due to God is remitted unless it is paid for by Precious Blood. At times God interrupts our presumptuous plans with some difficulty in order to get us to think about Eternity - health, job, education, career, spouse, children, house, income, ambitions, losses, bereavements, trials, circumstances, infirmities, and afflictions. Jesus is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He will give unto the sinner that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Trust your soul with Jesus, for He suffered in your place. Rely upon Jesus by an act of simple faith. Immediately after you rely upon Him, you are freely forgiven. Your transgressions are all blotted out for His name's sake. The free grace of Jesus Christ is available to the thirsty, needy, laboring, weary soul. Lay hold on eternal life. No works or merits or preparations of yours are required, but trusting to Jesus - that is all. Believe in Jesus, rely, depend upon Him. *Acts 16:31* Heart trust in Jesus' atoning blood. Give up all reliance upon yourself at once. The only way to be saved is to come to Jesus. Think of Him, pray to Him, trust to Him, rely upon His finished work and power that save sinners to the uttermost. Nothing else is to be done.
The whole way of salvation is to believe in Jesus' finished cross-work. That being done - you are saved eternally from the wrath to come. Commit your sinful self to His saving Grace and Blood. To Believe means to Trust. Come to Jesus all guilty and filthy, relying upon His blood to take your guilt and filth away. Confide in Jesus and in Him alone. Religion will teach you to rely upon yourself in part and upon Christ in part, but Christ will never be a "part Savior". He must do All for you, or Nothing. Leave off depending upon yourself at all, and rely only upon Jesus. Faith is simply trusting Christ Himself, not yourself. Fix your entire trust in Jesus. Rely on the Lamb of God alone to land you safely in Heaven.
If you try to add anything to Jesus, you have insulted His perfect finished work. Take the finished Savior just as He is, and you are saved instantly, although you have no good thing of your own to offer. Away with your own self-merit, and all your doings. Sinners can only sin; therefore, they cannot help save themselves. Trust Jesus for His Righteousness, Forgiveness, Pardon, Redemption, Sanctification. When you heartily trust your soul with Christ, your sins are forgiven through His Blood, and His Righteousness is freely imputed to your soul. You see, Christ's Righteousness is what you need to protect you from God's divine justice, and make you acceptable in God's sight on Judgment day.
I believe that Jesus came to save sinners. I rest myself on Him. I know that His Righteousness justifies the ungodly. I trust myself to the Son of God, who suffered for me, and I plead only His infinite merits and Precious Blood. I trust to Him to be my Righteousness. His Innocent Blood is able to take away all my sin. Confidence in yourself leads to the lake of fire. Confidence in Jesus leads you to Heaven. Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. God has a right to your whole being. There should not be anything supreme in your affection save Jesus Christ. If you worship or love anything, or any ideal, whatever it may be, rather than your Creator God, you are an idolater.
If you reject Christ and die in your sins, eternal Retribution for your sins will fall upon your soul forever in Hell. Christ took the place of the sinner, Christ suffered the sinner's punishment, Christ satisfied divine wrath for what we ought to have suffered as the result of our sins. God says to me through Jesus, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." God's dear Son was slain for human sin, how terrible sin must be if God Himself had to become a man in order to pay sin's penalty.
Sin poisons every soul, just like cyanide poisons the body. Sin is deadly and damning. Sin will eventually destroy and damn you if you continue to ignore it. You are chock full of all kinds of sins in thought, word, and deed. Give up your sins, or you will lose your soul. Come to Jesus first. Trust to His merits and Precious Blood. Renounce your evil thoughts and filthy ways. Atheists and religionists believe in themselves in some way or fashion and end up in Hell, because they will not submit to Christ Jesus. Heartily accept Christ's Blood Atonement as the full payment for your sins. He bore for you the Law's Curse until divine justice was infinitely satisfied.
Only Jesus' Precious Blood can win for me the smile of infinite justice. The essence of Salvation is to rest yourself for eternal Salvation upon the Atonement and Righteousness of Jesus Christ. Salvation means to have done once and for all with all reliance upon your doings, and to trust to Jesus Christ, and in what He did for your Salvation. That is Bible Salvation. Real faith in Jesus makes a man henceforth hate his sins; for he cannot love the thing which made the Savior bleed.
As long as you cling to any of your works, you are in the utmost danger, but when you give yourself up entirely to the mercy of Christ, you are safe forever and ever. The Gospel invitation is to all sinners who are athirst. Let every soul that is athirst for the forgiveness of sins come to Jesus. No sin can be forgiven without satisfactory punishment. Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. No sin against a holy God is pardoned without a propitiation. Sin is only forgiven through the atoning sufferings of Jesus Christ. The divine Law knows no exception; there is no respect of persons with God.
Every soul that ever sinned must die eternally in its sins, or die in its Substitute. No debt due to God is remitted unless it is paid for by Precious Blood. At times God interrupts our presumptuous plans with some difficulty in order to get us to think about Eternity - health, job, education, career, spouse, children, house, income, ambitions, losses, bereavements, trials, circumstances, infirmities, and afflictions. Jesus is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He will give unto the sinner that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Trust your soul with Jesus, for He suffered in your place. Rely upon Jesus by an act of simple faith. Immediately after you rely upon Him, you are freely forgiven. Your transgressions are all blotted out for His name's sake. The free grace of Jesus Christ is available to the thirsty, needy, laboring, weary soul. Lay hold on eternal life. No works or merits or preparations of yours are required, but trusting to Jesus - that is all. Believe in Jesus, rely, depend upon Him. *Acts 16:31* Heart trust in Jesus' atoning blood. Give up all reliance upon yourself at once. The only way to be saved is to come to Jesus. Think of Him, pray to Him, trust to Him, rely upon His finished work and power that save sinners to the uttermost. Nothing else is to be done.
The whole way of salvation is to believe in Jesus' finished cross-work. That being done - you are saved eternally from the wrath to come. Commit your sinful self to His saving Grace and Blood. To Believe means to Trust. Come to Jesus all guilty and filthy, relying upon His blood to take your guilt and filth away. Confide in Jesus and in Him alone. Religion will teach you to rely upon yourself in part and upon Christ in part, but Christ will never be a "part Savior". He must do All for you, or Nothing. Leave off depending upon yourself at all, and rely only upon Jesus. Faith is simply trusting Christ Himself, not yourself. Fix your entire trust in Jesus. Rely on the Lamb of God alone to land you safely in Heaven.
If you try to add anything to Jesus, you have insulted His perfect finished work. Take the finished Savior just as He is, and you are saved instantly, although you have no good thing of your own to offer. Away with your own self-merit, and all your doings. Sinners can only sin; therefore, they cannot help save themselves. Trust Jesus for His Righteousness, Forgiveness, Pardon, Redemption, Sanctification. When you heartily trust your soul with Christ, your sins are forgiven through His Blood, and His Righteousness is freely imputed to your soul. You see, Christ's Righteousness is what you need to protect you from God's divine justice, and make you acceptable in God's sight on Judgment day.
I believe that Jesus came to save sinners. I rest myself on Him. I know that His Righteousness justifies the ungodly. I trust myself to the Son of God, who suffered for me, and I plead only His infinite merits and Precious Blood. I trust to Him to be my Righteousness. His Innocent Blood is able to take away all my sin. Confidence in yourself leads to the lake of fire. Confidence in Jesus leads you to Heaven. Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. God has a right to your whole being. There should not be anything supreme in your affection save Jesus Christ. If you worship or love anything, or any ideal, whatever it may be, rather than your Creator God, you are an idolater.
If you reject Christ and die in your sins, eternal Retribution for your sins will fall upon your soul forever in Hell. Christ took the place of the sinner, Christ suffered the sinner's punishment, Christ satisfied divine wrath for what we ought to have suffered as the result of our sins. God says to me through Jesus, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." God's dear Son was slain for human sin, how terrible sin must be if God Himself had to become a man in order to pay sin's penalty.
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