Well, it happened again. A shooter goes into a public location and opens fire killing and injuring people. The location? A college in Oregon. What can we do to stop it, people ask? Have you heard of the saying? “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” Fact is, you cannot stop what you don’t know about, and Jesus knew the private nature of the heart (Matthew 15:19). Guns can be removed from the planet, but the evil of the heart will remain and killing will just move to another way to present itself.
The heart of man must change and that cannot be done by the White House passing laws. Repentance from evil is commanded by the word of the Lord and living a life of godliness is required in order to see God in peace (Hebrews 12:12-14). This is where the teaching of the gospel of Christ comes into play. Mankind must conform with the message in order to live a changed life. With evil in the heart, giving birth to sin the violation of the word of God will occur. The problem with the times is sin and as long as sin exists; shooters will shoot. Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. God doesn’t like ugliness, and He does get tried of dealing with unruly men (Proverbs 6:16; Genesis 6:5-17). Thing is, man thinks that God doesn’t care nor sees what happens on earth. But guess what? God sees and He cares (Psalm 94:9). God is in control of everything, and He doesn’t have to rush to get things done. So God will make all men reap what they have sown (Galatians 6:7-8). Some people have sown large fields of evil—that means they are in store for a huge payback. Perhaps the suffering one is enduring at the present is the payback from the hand of God. Best thing is to sown seeds of what is right, so that the return will be pleasant.
Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. People are always in love with things which they ought to condemn. This verse shows a clear reason why Hell will have more people than Heaven, once the Judgment Day is over (Matthew 7:13-14). Pleasure gives men satisfaction and that is enjoyment he doesn’t wish to miss out on. But in order to please God and save the soul at the end of life, man must understand that he has to deny himself. Man must not place his desires above the Lord, but seek what pleases God and walk therein. Pleasure can be right or it can be wrong, and the word of God is the standard by which one can understand the difference between sin and righteousness. So, what is your pleasure and does the Bible describe it as good or evil?
Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. Philippians 2:3-4.
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves. And look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” If this advice were followed by every person, we would have no bad things happening. No back stabbers at the job, no burglary in the neighborhood. No children without parents, no drug dealers standing on the corner. etc. Now it is wishful thinking to imagine the whole world adapting to this scripture because that will never happen. However, if a certain percentage of people would start viewing life as the scriptures teach, great changes would begin. For example, the man who was stabbed to death in Wilmington after trying to stop another man from stabbing someone else. This would have never happened if the killer was following the scripture above. People must begin following the word of God in order for things to get better. Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. “Cursed is he that puts his trust in man and makes humans his savior” (Jeremiah 17:5). With the coming of the pope and the selection of people running for president, that is all one hears these days7#8212;men praising and celebrating other men. It is getting to be pretty pathetic because the praise which should be offered to God is now bestowed upon humans (Acts 10:25-26).
Jesus Christ is the Son of God and savior of the world (John 1:29-36). When the people waved the palm branches to celebrate Jesus arrival into Jerusalem, they did the right thing because He is worthy (John 12:12-16). But to do the same for men who don’t have a heaven to give us or a hell in which to punish us, we must ask; what in the world are we doing? Let us respect all men who are worthy; but let us not worship them (Revelation 22:9; 1 Peter 2:17). Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. It has been said that America is going secular in its beliefs, and there will be no room for the church in years to come. If that is the case, man will have to answer as to why the majority will spend eternality in hell (Matthew 7:13-14). Jesus spoke regarding the condition of man on the last day. He said that most men travelled the “broad way” or the highway to hell and only a few walked on what He said was the “narrow way.”
Jesus built and died for His church, and He didn’t do so without a purpose (Matt. 16:18; Acts 20:28). The church is to be like the ark was for Noah during the flood—for the church are the people called from the sin of this world and placed into the safety of the Lord‘s flock (Colossians 1:12-13; Acts 2:47; John 10:9; Ephesians 5:23). Like there were no saved people outside the ark, there are no saved people outside the church. So if man became secular during life, then man had no use for the church, thereby keeping himself out of it and at the same time condemning himself to the fires of hell. Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. Make no mistake about it; there are religious fanatics, and you better be careful. Now I’m not talking about the Muslim bomber, but the person who isn’t into terrorism. This person works and lives right beside you and could be related to you. All the person can talk about is, “the Lord this and the Lord that.” “hell fire here and hell fire there and begone all you devils”, etc. One cannot even sit down and talk about the weather without the person flying off into a religious uproar. Now yes, God wants His people to speak of Him and show His light in this world (Matthew 5:13-16). But some church people just go too far with their behavior and turn off potential people (1 Corinthians 8:9). The word of God must be lived and used properly; for there is a time to speak it and a time to refrain (Ecclessiastes 3:1; James 1:19. Ephesians 5:15.
Hope to hear from you or see you at the services When Obama ran for his first presidential term, he had a poster which appeared all over the country. The poster was a picture of his head with the caption “hope” underneath. The prophet Jeremiah said, “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed is the one that trusts in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart departs from God.” (chapter 17:5) The Psalmist also wrote, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returns to the earth and in that day his thoughts perish. But happy is he that has the God of Jacob for help, whose hope is in the LORD his God.” (chapter 146:3-5)
Far too many are placing their trust in the wrong hands and the need to listen to the scriptures is now. Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. God has a book in which He records the names of all persons who will go to Heaven, and this is one book that you will want your name in (Luke 10:20; Philippians 4:3). In order to be written in this book, a person must obey the gospel of Jesus Christ and not only that, but remain faithful in the service of the Lord (Revalation 2:10; 2 Timothy 4:6-8; Rev. 3:5).
A person could start out right with the Lord, but fall out of favor by willfully sinning and God will blot that person’s name out of the book of life (Exodus 32:33). You don’t want that to happen to you. On the Day of Judgment, men will stand before Jesus Christ to be judged according to their works and all whose names do not appear, will be casted into the everlasting lake of fire which is hell (Rev. 20:10-15). Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. With all of the hot weather, it is our hope that sweating and heat has done one good thing; and that is to get people to think about Hell (Mark 9:43-48; Matthew 13:49-50, 10:28). You see, all will spend eternality somewhere (Matthew 25:31-46). Unbelievers laugh and say there is no such thing, but how do they know that? Unbelievers have deceived themselves into believing something that they cannot prove (Psalms 14:1-3). God does exist because one cannot get something from nothing and since He does, Heaven exists and so does Hell (Romans 14:8-12; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Matthew 5:22).
Hope to hear from you or see you at the services. |