Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: hell

  • Because the days are evil – 5 – a Perilous Dark Path to Perdition

    Because the days are evil – 5 – a Perilous Dark Path to Perdition

    But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

    1 Timothy 6:9 KJV

    Destruction and Perdition

    Perdition. Now there’s a word rarely heard in these last days. Do you know what it is?

    Of course we can imagine several paths to destruction and doubtless destruction of the body is inevitable. Yet what of perdition?

    ἀπώλεια – apōleia

    Destroy, Destroyer, Destruction, Destructive:

    … indicating “loss of well-being, not of being,” is used
    (a) of things, signifying their waste, or ruin; of ointment, Mat 26:8; Mar 14:4; of money, Act 8:20 (“perish”);

    (b) of persons, signifying their spiritual and eternal perdition, Mat 7:13; John 17:12; 2Th 2:3, where “son of perdition” signifies the proper destiny of the person mentioned; metaphorically of men persistent in evil, Rom 9:22, where “fitted” is in the Middle Voice, indicating that the vessels of wrath fitted themselves for “destruction;” of the adversaries of the Lord’s people, Phl 1:28 (“perdition”); of professing Christians, really enemies of the Cross of Christ, Phl 3:19 (RV, “perdition”); of those who are subjects of foolish and hurtful lusts, 1Ti 6:9 (for the preceding word “destruction” see No. 3, below); of professing Hebrew adherents who shrink back into unbelief, Hbr 10:39; of false teachers, 2Pe 2:1, 3; of ungodly men, 2Pe 3:7; of those who wrest the Scriptures, 2Pe 3:16; of the Beast, the final head of the revived Roman Empire, Rev 17:8, 11;

    (c) of impersonal subjects, as heresies, 2Pe 2:1, where “destructive heresies” (RV; AV, “damnable“) is, lit., “heresies of destruction” (marg., “sects of perdition”); in ver. 2 the most authentic mss. have aselgeiais, “lascivious,” instead of apoleiais.
    See PERDITION, PERNICIOUS, WASTE.

    I include source detail due to our unfamiliarity.

    1 Noun Strong’s Number: g684 Greek: apoleia
    Waste (Noun and Verb):

    “destruction,” is translated “waste” in Mat 26:8; Mar 14:4.
    See DESTRUCTION, B, II, No. 1.

    You never gave this sin a thought, not even for a moment.

    It was harmless. And you just did it (this one time).

    But then your path of doing right becomes shrouded in darkness.

    Once again, and then twice (and more) your path toward the deeper darkness quickens your heart.

    I hear the cries of perdition in the near distance! But from which cluttered maze of sin have they come?

    Works of the Flesh

    Now the works of the flesh are obvious:

    sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar.

    I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. –

    Galatians 5:19-21

    Paul brings light to these dark sins with great clarity. Need I say more?

    Where do you stand during these last days which are evil?

    With those revelers standing in the shadows of darkness? Trying to hide your sins luring you into the mire of a slippery path near the entrance of destruction?

    Lord, help you.

    Call upon the only One who can save your soul from perdition and destruction, the One who loved the world so much that He suffered for you one the Cross — died — rose from the grave…

    Christ Jesus will judge the living and the dead.

    Which are you?

    Because the Days are Evil,
to be continued... God-willing

  • Covenant and Truth – 3

    Covenant and Truth – 3

    Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement;

    when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us:

    for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:

    Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD,

    Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation:

    he that believeth shall not make haste. – Isaiah 28:15-16 KJV

    Two issues & two cases continually used as precedent by God and Jesus (Advocate for believers):

    1. Covenant between God and man, broken by man
    2. Covenant between a man and his wife, broken by a man (who was the only one permitted by the Law to write a bill of divorce to put away his wife).

    Malachi addresses the issue of unfaithfulness of God’s chosen people of Judah and the Priests of the Temple in Jerusalem by comparison of Judah as the chosen wife of God.  Malachi 2:16 in the Revised Standard Version is translated:

    “For I hate divorce, says the LORD the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.” – Malachi 2:16

    As we will address later, Jesus points out that from the beginning it was not so.

    IF God and Christ hate divorce, THEN so should Christians.

    IF God and Christ love truth, THEN so ought the vows of a Christian speak truth.

    Isaiah takes it a step further and points out that the unfaithfulness of God’s wife is a covenant with death and warns us that such unfaithfulness to God not only breaks His covenant with us, but places us as adulterers against God in a counter-covenant: and with hell are we at agreement.

    God instructs the Prophet Hosea to take the illustration of the covenant of marriage and the counter-covenant of the unfaithful woman with hell a step further. Hosea is told to marry a whore!

    We will address the witness and truth of Christian marriage once again, later. We will also address the issue of truth verses hypocrisy.

    Truth and covenant (solemn promise and vow of permanence) stand as witness before God in the Court of our betrothal to Righteousness.

    Again, as books are opened before God our Judge, Isaiah indicts:

    “for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves…”

    Yet before the all-knowing eyes of the Lord our Creator, we stand naked in our sin. Again, in Hosea, God threatens to uncover our nakedness for all to see! God will show our naked sin to all IF we do not repent and return to Him who has married us, against whom we have committed adultery.

     Hosea 13:14 

    Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
    Shall I redeem them from Death?
    O Death, where are your plagues?
    O Sheol, where is your sting?
    Compassion is hidden from my eyes.

    We have broken our covenant with God!

    Will the LORD not also punish the one who would stand before Him without truth?

    • Consider your covenant with God and with our Lord, Christ Jesus.

    Before we reexamine the covenant of our ‘Christian Marriage,’ next we will consider God’s premium He places on truth.

    To be continued…

  • Closer to Hell than Heaven

    Closer to Hell than Heaven

    A descent of God from the Throne of the Third Heaven, down to the heavens seen by man, and down to the clouds of the first heaven above us in this earthly atmosphere; even down to the dust and ashes upon which we walk is a great humility for the Living God Who created it all.

    As if Jesus being born of ‘adam (Mary, betrothed to Joseph of Nazareth) is not humility enough – as if crucifixion for our sins is not humility enough; Jesus descended into Hell before He was raised to His former glory.

    Ephesians 4:9 In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?

    We walk closer to Hell than the Third Heaven of our Lord God. We are nearer to perishing than to salvation.

    Romans 3

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    “None is righteous, no, not one;

    11     no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
    12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
    13 “Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
    “The venom of asps is under their lips.”
    14     “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
    15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
    16     in their paths are ruin and misery,
    17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
    18     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

     23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

    Pompeii2mount st helensDo you recall the devastation of Mount St. Helens in 2008 A.D or Mount Vesuvius burying Pompeii in 79 A.D.?  Certainly the power and wrath of God are in evidence in current disasters: hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, even the eruption of mountains spewing out hot lava from the depths of the earth.

    Can you think vertically? We walk nearer the bowels of the earth than to the Third Heaven of God.

    God can wash the sea upon us, crack the earth beneath us or cover us with the ashes that were once a mountain.

    Why do the nations not worship God? Why do the people refuse to follow Christ Jesus, our ONLY hope for eternal life?

    Think horizontally for a brief moment in these last days:

     Genesis 1:1-2 KJV

    In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

    OR to put the beginning in a context of Christ:

    John 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    The Word Became Flesh

    1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

    Matthew 1 provides a genealogy of the Son of man, Christ Jesus, beginning from Abraham, the descendant of Adam. We refer to this horizontal timeline as B.C., that is: Before Christ.

    2013 A.D. (from the Latin) means in the year of our Lord.

    We have no problem projecting horizontally into 2014 A.D., 2030 A.D., even perhaps a time beyond our certain death like 2100 A.D.

    Think ahead.

    Think of Jesus Christ as the center of the Cross of grace for you. HE has descended into the depths of hell from the heights of Heaven.  HE was before the beginning. HE was before His incarnation, His own death and His resurrection. HE IS.

    HE was before you and I were born. HE IS now. HE will be after our death.

    Jesus Christ will be after the end.

    What must we do for eternal life?

    Worship the Lord and bow down.