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Tag: judgment

  • Times of Difficulty – 3

    Times of Difficulty – 3

    Watch Yourselves

    Luke 21:

    34 “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

    Watch yourselves! A warning of apocalypse.

    “Be on guard,” states the King James, with the same Greek word where Jesus warns to ‘beware of false prophets.’ And in case you missed it, Jesus reiterates the warning. “Stay awake;” “keep on alert,” the King James Version warns. Matthew records Jesus using these warnings together as one.

    [ctt title=”‘Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.’ – Mark 13:33″ tweet=”Do the cares of this life obscure the Light of eternal life? Watch yourselves!” coverup=”Kj6Z5″]

    Who does Jesus warn?

    21st century readers could easily dismiss this. Jesus is just preaching to the people of His day. The Temple will be destroyed and Israel will be destroyed. And that’s the end of it.

    Not quite. Although these events of which Jesus warned did take place, as is so often the case, prophecy also applies to other times. Just because you and I live in a different place and a later time does not exclude us from the truth.

    Jesus warns of impending disaster: ” and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.” How often over time does this apply to so many.

    [ctt title=”For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.- Luke 21:35″ tweet=”Disaster prophesied by Jesus: not just for a forgotten time centuries past.” coverup=”1nRD9″]

    Not just Jerusalem. A disaster of the scope of Sodom and Gomorrah comes more to mind. (Lot was on watch. Only Lot sought to obey the Lord by fleeing sin.)

    Jesus does not speak of only ancient Judea, Samaria and Galilee which Rome would destroy later. The Lord warns, “all who dwell on the face of the whole earth.”

    Do those who ignored the warnings of Noah also come to your mind?

    Judgment!

    We don’t like it, the thought of being judged by another. Yet a sovereign God surely rules in righteousness and will judge the living and the dead! We prefer to see Jesus as our humble example of living to love God. Jesus invites us to think of God as Father. Jesus challenges us to love others.

    Yet He often warned of a judgment to come, a judgment with eternal consequence. Here is just one more example of the Almighty authority of Christ Jesus (which could be easily dismissed).

    The Son of Man

    Allow me to isolate what Jesus warns.

    “… But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength… to stand before the Son of Man.”

    Judgment! Jesus clearly warns the He will be our judge. And you will not stand in your own strength, but in His.

    Jesus IS the Son of Man! Jesus also clearly states for all with ears to hear:

    “I and the Father are one.” –John 10:30

    Revelation 14:14-16

    Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand.

    And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud,

    “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.”

    So he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.

    To be continued…

     

     

  • The Fire of His Wrath, The Gospel of His Salvation

    The Fire of His Wrath, The Gospel of His Salvation

    The fire of the Lord consumes the complacent,

    The wicked and the righteous fleeing their homes.

    They flee His great wrath and abandon their plans,

    The Gospel of His Salvation will comfort or condemn. 

    Revelation 14 King James Version (KJV)

    NOTE: For ease of reading our contemporary language the ESV is recommended; I have chosen the KJV for its powerful poetic presentation and direct translation from the original Greek. The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John is presented here by excerpt only, a brief glimpse into awe unspeakable. Read the Book of Revelation in its entirety. You will be blessed.

    And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion…

    Make no mistake: the apocalypse here revealed is from the Revelation of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, to the Apostle John. The Book of Revelation is a trumpet warning of the wrath of God to this generation and generations to come.

    The-Sacrificial-Lamb-Josefa-de-Ayala-ca-1670Christ is Atonement for man

    He IS the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Messiah, Christ, who suffered and died for your sins and for mine.

    Leviticus 4:35
    And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement כָּפַר  for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him.

    Revelation 14:

    2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder:

    The LORD GOD speaks! The LORD speaks with a voice of absolute power and majesty and might. The LORD proclaims the victory of the Lamb of God over the sin of the world.

    And angels worship the LORD!

    3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne…

    Do you take ANY time to worship Almighty God? Do you worship the One who has created you? He has dominion over all creation; for the LORD IS and was and will always be! The LORD is worthy of worship. He IS a father unto those who seek him. He is a consuming fire to those who flee from him.

    6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

    7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

    What do you think of the Judgment?

    Who would not fall down in fear in this awesome moment? Who would fail to worship the LORD of all creation?

    How presumptuous of man to exhaust our brief days of mortal consumption with no regard of the Image reflected in our soul.

    Pompeii2Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? – Genesis 18:25b

    His purifying judgment shall consume more than Sodom. Neither shall pillar of salt stand nor ash-baked corpse remain in that awful day. His fire will make way for a new heavens and a new earth!

    Returning to Revelation 14

    …Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

    14 And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

    15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

    And in the end…

    Yes, there is more to the Apocalypse. Can your soul bear it? Will your soul not awaken from the sleep of death to the sounds of deafening waters and unspeakable thundering of His Voice? Are you not in awe of the LORD GOD?

    Remember your days, that we are dust. The LORD has created us for himself, for worship, for our own sacrifice of love to others, as the Lord God Almighty gave His only Son Christ Jesus on the Cross as Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

    The Lamb of God will come on the clouds! He will stand on Mount Zion once more and rule as the loving King of all creation. The Lord will judge the sins of mankind and He will cover the sins of the saints.

    Did you know that in Christ Jesus you are a saint of God?

    For God IS as a Father to you, as well as a Father to Jesus the Messiah, the Sacrifice of the LORD’s great love and mercy. The Lord God IS in the Holy Spirit reaching into your soul to embrace the worship of your soul with a purpose of love to follow faithfully.

    Will you respond? Will you call on the LORD, while it is yet today?

     

  • God’s Wrath & Our Unrighteousness

    “I am eager to preach the gospel to you also…  I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…

    Paul, to the saints (believers, mostly former pagans now Christians) in Rome.

    God’s Wrath on Unrighteousness

    Romans 1:

    18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

    19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

    21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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    Are you an unrighteous fool?

    Paul calls those of false religions, ‘fools.’ They worship cows and cats, ancestors departed and places on earth destined to destruction. They seek bearded sages or force upon the downtrodden ideology of glorious conquest.

    Consider the glory of the LORD, the heavens and the earth. NO big bang nor pain-stakingly slow sequence of unlikely perfect events could have created the earth upon which we walk or this miraculously intricate body which walks upon it.

    The vastness and perfection of the heavens is immeasurably beyond the comprehension of created man (adam).

    Think about those who are unrighteous. Think about the sins these inflict on you. Consider their sins against many, these sins of the ungodly, who will be called to account at the Judgment seat by the LORD who they refuse to worship. Paul describes these. You can likely put many faces to Paul’s long descriptive list of unrighteousness.

    28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

    29 They were filled with

    • all manner of unrighteousness,
    • evil, covetousness, malice.
    • They are full of envy,
    • murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.
    • They are gossips, [30] slanderers,
    • haters of God,
    • insolent, haughty, boastful,
    • inventors of evil,
    • disobedient to parents,
    • [31} foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

    32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

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    We see the faces of those who deserve God’s wrath. In all fairness, when will the LORD finally destroy the evil of the unrighteous?

    How long, O Lord, until Your Holy wrath consumes the evil which plagues us?

    A fair question. How long will God contend with their evil? … their evil … evil?

    Have I forgotten anything I should ask of God?

    To be continued…

    Third ‘Easter‘ message in Lenten Series, 2016