You’ve Been Warned

Oh, sing unto Jehovah a new song!  Sing unto Jehovah, all the earth.  Sing unto Jehovah, bless His name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.  Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples.  For Jehovah is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.  For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Jehovah made the heavens.  Honor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.  Ascribe unto Jehovah, O families of the peoples, ascribe unto Jehovah glory and strength.  Ascribe unto Jehovah the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts.  O bow down before Jehovah in the beauty of holiness!  Tremble before Him, all the earth.  Say among the nations, Jehovah reigns; the world also is firmly established, it shall not be shaken; He shall judge the peoples with equity.  Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and all its fullness; let the field be joyful, and all that is in it.  Then all the trees of the forests shall rejoice before Jehovah.  For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.  He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with His truth.  Psalms 96   A lot of people would disagree with somebody telling them that they have been warned about seeking Salvation before it is too late.  Some would tell you that they don’t fully understand how to seek Salvation, most would simply scoff at the idea and say that...

If Today Were The Last Day?

What if today was the last day? What if you knew that there would be no tomorrow, that sudden death and destruction were upon you? What if it was just your last day, as you sit in a hospital bed, knowing that death is about to come?   How many people go through out life knowing that they have to be right before God, but not ever spending the time to figure out exactly how to do that? Many people believe that there is a God, yet why will they not give Him the time of day to figure out what He requires of them?   “For man does not see as He sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but Jehovah looks at the heart.” 1st Samuel 16:7b   Man’s logic is backwards. How many hours will be spent not only watching television, but watching a rerun that you have already seen, yet not picking up God’s Word and seeking Him? Do you not realize that the nagging feeling that you have about getting right with God is His warning to you that you ought to seek Him and find Salvation through His Son before it is too late?   “The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness, but is longsuffering toward us, not purposing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2nd Peter 3:9   “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?  I Jehovah search the heart, I examine the soul, even to give to each man according to his ways,...

Who Will Remember You?–Vanity

“For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and with success; yet he shall leave it as inheritance to a man who has not labored in it. This also is vanity and a great evil.” Ecclesiastes 2:21   “For the living know that they shall die; but the dead do not know anything, nor do they have any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, have now perished; nor do they ever any longer have a part in anything that is done under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 9:5-6   The American Dream, for many it has become the American Nightmare in the past several years. The idea is simple.   After high school, go to college or get a good hard-working American job.  Either way, once your career choice is established, meet the woman of your dreams, buy a house, have a family.  From there take vacations to great places throughout your life, all while saving for retirement. Retire at a decently ‘young’ age and enjoy your later years without having to worry about money.  Die.   While the exact definition of the American dream may vary a bit, none of the versions include the last word, die.  There is a reality behind it, nobody like to think about it, but we all know that eventually death will come to find us.  We will all die.  So what has happened in the past several decades in America to help alleviate this uncomfortable truth?   The churches in America have grown in unison with...

Heaven or Hell?

If I were to take a walk down main street and asked 100 passers-by how many of them believed in Heaven, I do believe I would get an overwhelming majority. While there would be some that would scoff at such an idea, the vast masses of people believe in Heaven. Now if I were to take the same walk and ask 100 passers-by how many of them believe in Hell, I believe I would get an entirely different response. Here I would probably dare say that I would be closer to 50%, perhaps even only a third of people believing in Hell. For the sake of argument, let’s assume 50%. If I posed a second question to these same people, how do you think they would respond? How would you respond? If I were to ask these people who believe in Heaven whether or not they were going there, I would assume nearly all of them, but not all of them, would tell me that they would go there or think they would go there when they died. Likewise if I were to ask these same people that believe in Hell whether or not they would go there, I would assume most would say no, probably a few would say that they hoped not. Now the problem herein lies with this. If I were to ask those who believe they were going to Heaven if they believed in a Hell, I believe that it would quickly dive down to the 50% ratio. Now if I were to ask these same people how I would get to Heaven, assuming 85...

Bearing Your Cross

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Matthew 16:24   “Then He said to them all, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23   “And when He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Mark 8:34   Who is Jesus?   Jesus is the Son of God, born of a virgin birth, He lived nearly 2,000 years ago in Israel, preaching the gospel and providing a means for all mankind to find Salvation by believing into Him and repenting of their sins before a just and holy God.   Jesus was He who created the heavens and the earth. He is the one whom was convicted to death by the Jews, carried out by the Romans. He died on the cross, guiltless, yet for us, for our sins. For anyone who would choose to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, He will be just that and more, a friend to those in need.   Jesus is the One whom rose from the dead, after having been put into a tomb, sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers. It is He who now sits on the right hand of God, waiting patiently for the time of the Gentiles to be fulfilled. It is also He who is going to come back...

Separated Unto God

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Let it not be! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were immersed into Christ Jesus were immersed into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through immersion into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be nullified, that we should no longer serve sin. For he who has died has been justified from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For...