Tag: ash_wednesday

Ash Wednesday is the yearly beginning of forty days of penitent consideration of the cost of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross for our sins.

  • Ashes to Ashes

    Ashes to Ashes

    Genesis 18:27 KJV And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes:

    Do you know the context of this? (Answer in a moment; but first another quote and some additional background.)

    Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

    Remember: you are dust and to dust you will return.

    Genesis 3:4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

    17 And to Adam he said,

    “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
    and have eaten of the tree
    of which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
    cursed is the ground because of you…
    19 By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread,
    till you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
    for you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

    Numbers 19

    9 And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering. 10 And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.

    The ashes are a sin offering to the Lord for the altar of worship.

    Returning to Abraham in Genesis 18:

    Pompeii2Abraham is standing before God pleading for mercy for the people of his nephew Lot’s city. It is a city and a place full of sin on which God will rain down His Almighty wrath and judgment – the city of Sodom.

    26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

    27 Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” 29 Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” 30 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” 31 He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” 32 Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” 33 And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

    It is the office of the Priest to intercede for the sins of the people. Abraham, in this instance, is a Priest before Almighty God.

    Christians have a greater Priest and Perfect Sin Offering, Christ Jesus the Very Son of God.

    Abraham failed in saving Sodom, because not even ten righteous men could be found; only Lot. Even Lot’s wife (who did not obey the Lord) was lost for her sin. The wrath of God brought quick and unexpected justice against the entire town and valley.

    Ashes rained down and purified the sinful.

    God had formerly judged the whole earth and purified it by water, saving only Noah and his family. Yet God kept His covenant to never destroy the whole earth again by water. Part of it? Yes. Cities by fire? Yes. By war? Certainly. God confirms in scripture His support of enemies to purify the unfaithful Chosen who by obedience to God’s Law are supposed to live with God’s righteousness.

    Time after time and Prophet after Prophet, up until John the Baptist and even the teaching of our Lord, Christ Jesus; the message of God does not change.

    Repent. Return to God. Turn from your sin. Return to righteousness.

    Repent to dust and ashes and bow down in worship to the Lord, your God.

    We have been following Jesus’ early ministry and many miracles in Galilee. (This is not even to mention His Sacrifice of the Cross for your sins and for mine.)

    Do you recall what Jesus said of repentance to these towns where He has just preached to the multitudes, yet most would not follow Him by faith?

    Here is Jesus’ warning to those who refuse to hear the Gospel from us:

    Luke 10

    10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’

    12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

    Woe to Unrepentant Cities

    13 “Woe to you, Chorazin!

    Woe to you, Bethsaida!

    For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.

    15 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?

    You shall be brought down to Hades.

    16 “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

    Therefore, dear brother or sister in Christ Jesus, know that as you call on the world around you to repent to dust and ashes and they will not listen; neither did they hear our Lord. For they hung Him in disgrace on a Cross, for all to see His Sacrifice for the sins of the world.

    The Blood of Christ, sacrificed in Jerusalem, cries out from the Altar of all Righteousness for the wrath of God to rain down, even as His mercy has been sacrificed for us.

    It is Ash Wednesday – a time for repentance, in these last days.

    It is a time of urgency for us to proclaim the love of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, who gave Himself that we might have eternal life.

     

  • Ashes of Ash Wednesday + a Preparation of  Repentance

    Ashes of Ash Wednesday + a Preparation of Repentance

    Ash Wednesday

    We pause momentarily today [AD 2022] from consideration of God’s love to prepare for the season of Christ’s Blood of Sacrifice.

    Consider your own unrighteousness to receive any grace.

    Bow down in the dust of your crumbling bones; cover with ashes your sin-consumed flesh.

    Will the LORD not have mercy on me, a sinner?

    Who will pay any ransom for your many sins? Who has redeemed the faithful who fall short of righteousness? Who only can cleanse the soul of sin and the heart of continual iniquity?

    Jeremiah 6:26

    O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth,
    and roll in ashes;
    make mourning as for an only son,
    most bitter lamentation,
    for suddenly the destroyer
    will come upon us.

    Mark 1

    14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 3:3

    Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

     2 Peter 2:

    But false prophets also arose among the people… And many will follow their sensuality… And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

    For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell… if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly… then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment…

    Repentance Of Sinners: v.12

    But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed… They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you…

    Peter is warning the church here of those CLAIM to be christians, but actually are wed to Satan the master of their sin.

    Is this not a timely loud caution for our contemporary church?

    14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray…

    20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

    21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

    The ashes of Ash Wednesday traditionally come from the burnt palms of the prior Palm Sunday, a day with the crowds shout, HOSANNA! The KING, our LORD Jesus approaches the gate.

    Yet how quickly we turn on HIM, when we see the CROSS we must also bear to follow Jesus.

    In this season of preparation for Easter, less than 40 days until the dark celebration of our own sin for which our Lord suffered and died on Good Friday, let us repent in dust and ashes before the Lord our God. Let us bow down to Christ Jesus, who suffered all for our sins that we might be redeemed by His grace to the Light of Eternal Life.

    Hebrews 3

    7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

    “Today, if you hear his voice,
    8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion…

    12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said,

    “Today, if you hear his voice,
    do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

    Are you prepared to meet the LORD your GOD Face to face?

    Are you prepared to face Jesus should today bring your last breath of life before eternal Life or prior to Christ’s triumphant return and Judgment?

    Like Job, do you repent in dust and ashes before God?

    Like Peter, do you come before Jesus Christ confessing, I am a sinful man?

    Christians hanged in Egypt 2015

    Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord in these troubling times?

    Mark 8: 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

    35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?

    38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

    edgar-cayce-time

    Yes, false Prophets will come, but the time is not yet.

    isis-beheading-21-coptic-christians-in-libya-resized

    No man knows the day or the hour. Some claim tolerance with darkness and Jesus.

    Churchill Islam quote

    He is NOT Christ to them. They twist truth into lies with self-serving sinful false prophesy!

    Some proclaim loudly choruses of peace, while they proclaim God’s lands for the destruction of evil.

    Our United leaders of this world excel as the Chamberlains of peace, rather than admit evil’s destruction of the truth and the truth of evil’s destruction.

    Some sing loudly a Hallelujah Chorus to Jesus, while they lead astray softly in the sin of their hidden ways.

    Are you a secretive christian, tolerant of those who hate Christ and the Cross?

    REPENT in dust and ashes! For in these last days the signs are many and the Day and hour you do not know.

    Prepare and wash your soul in the Blood of Christ Jesus, in preparation for the Good Friday of the Cross and our only hope and joy, the Resurrection and Victory of the love of God celebrated in 40 days (God willing) on Easter.

    Revelation 7

    A Great Multitude from Every Nation

    After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

    13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.”

    And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

    16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
        the sun shall not strike them,
        nor any scorching heat.
    17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
        and he will guide them to springs of living water,
    and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

    Revelation 11

    The Seventh Trumpet

    15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,

    “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”

    HALLELUJAH! CHRIST OUR LORD IS! JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN. HE WILL RETURN ON THE CLOUDS IN VICTORY OVER ALL SIN. HE WILL PUNISH ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.

    Repent, therefore, and worship Christ Jesus our Lord. Bow down only to Christ in the dust of your flesh and the ashes of your sinfulness. Christ Jesus IS and will judge you and me and all.

    Remember you are dust and into dust you will return.

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