The last instruction, Jesus gave to His
disciples, was to ‘Go into all the world baptizing in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things [Jesus] commanded.
Those that believe will be saved and those that don’t believe will be damned’
(Matthew 28: 19, 20; Mark 16:15,16).
Now I’m having a disagreement regarding
methodology of spreading the gospel. My – for want of a better term – opponent
believes in full focus on the damnation part of the preaching. Now I can
understand this pull. My church and so many in the world today are stuck on
mercy and unending grace. This saccharine sweet gospel irritates me to no end;
however, swinging the pendulum completely in the other direction should not be
the alternative. Both are a gross misrepresentation of God. He is not some soft
namby-pamby pushover that we can wilfully violate His laws and He will say
‘it’s ok you can still live forever with Me’ – that’s rubbish! But He’s not a
brute either, standing over us waiting for us to fall so He can say you’re hell
bound – if this were the case I’d say so be it.
Fact remains we are living in the close of
this part of earth’s history. We see the signs everyday. Satan has us so mixed
up and confused we don’t know right from wrong, or good from bad. The gospel is
to be preached so as to warn people that continuing to live in violation of
God’s laws will undoubtedly lead to eternal death and the time for that final
death is frighteningly near. But we also need to make it equally clear that God
is still merciful and will forgive us and help us to forsake our sins. This is
the hardest part forsaking the sin. Because we have a sinful nature it is easy
for us to slide deeper and deeper into a pit of sin – it’s entropy.
The key to railing against sin is learning
to forgive. Yes, forgive others but a huge part of being a forgiving person is
forgiving ourselves. We find it hard to believe that an All Perfect God would
even consider forgiving us because we find some of the things we’ve done so
repulsive we can’t forgive ourselves. Fight this! Fight this with all you have
because the All Perfect God is able and willing to ‘forgive us of all
unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). With our acceptance of His forgiveness begins to
process of purification.
Accepting the fact that we are forgiven is
the key to living a transformed life. Most of us feel that if we choose not to
sin we’re being hypocrites. We compare the good we want to do with the good
with the evil we have done. This is no way to live. A certain level of
separation needs to occur. Acknowledgement of the past needs to occur. It
happened, we did it, nobody else – ‘I did it’. The dread of whatever the action
may be is usually what drives us to God. This is the place to be. But when we
come to Him we must believe that He is able to forgive us and get us past it.
The purification process continues as God
helps us reject the sin that is so easy to slide into. This also can be rough.
The daily struggle against ‘pet vices’ may seem to drive you crazy. This is
where constant prayer and vigorous studying of God’s word is pivotal. Replacing
thoughts of our vices with the word of God is the all-powerful way to bring
true change into our lives (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whatever we spend our time
focused on becomes a part of us modifying our character.
In recent times there has been a flood of
information released about secret groups with nefarious schemes infiltrating
and controlling various organizations. These data show that these groups are
directly controlled by Satan and they control, every influential government,
church, and media in our world. Now I am by no means naïve, the fact that
various events have happened and are leading to one particular outcome is very
obvious. However, I don’t believe that these people and their schemes should
become my obsession. The knowledge of these things should drive me deeper into
the word of God.
Becoming fixated on this evil will either
drive us to want to become apart of the system or cause us to loose sight of
the ‘whole duty of man – Fear God, and keep His commandments’ (Ecclesiastes
12:13). My opposer has become obsessed with this system and this concerns me. I
believe that this recent rise in knowledge of an order that is to be ‘secret’
is intentional. Satan knows human nature. He knows how to distract us. He knows
what inducing fear in us will do. It is good to know that there is evil out
there and we should be prudent in our actions, however, our true purpose in God
should not be sacrificed to this knowledge.
The wise man – Solomon – knew better than
any of us could. He did it all, he knew about the secret organizations, he
lived the wild life and at the end of it all he said “the conclusion of the
whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: For this is the whole duty
of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
God’s Blessings
