Tag: Ten Commandments

Are you ready?


There will be some trying times to come in our future, are you ready? What about the things which are going to happen during that time, can you handle them too?

Yes, it is true that I speak of the times which are prophesied in the book of Revelation because since it came from God, then it will happen. “When?”, is the big question concerning the timing of all of these events, but they will come. So much that happens each and every day in the news in our country and around the world really is part of the prophecies which are contained in this book.

Yet, some of the more interesting or distressing news seems to be passed up by the news media, in favor of “fluff”. “Who is dating who?” “She did what?” It sounds like we are getting our so called serious news from a teen magazine or the National Enquirer instead of a real news organization with reporters working for them. And yet, the world around us is seemingly boiling and bubbling and about to blow! So where are the reporters and the headlines that should be pointing out these things? For the most part, they are ignoring the real news while reporting junk.

Like the so-called “reality” shows which command our attention each night and the cooking shows and competitions which demand our attention and our time, the news of the day is fluffed up to entertain and that is all. Many churches, mega-sized or not, even give sermons which are entertaining and informative but they are not bringing the good news and the conviction of people’s souls to a point where they realize that they truly need Jesus and the salvation that He provided through His sacrifice on the cross!

Some don’t even emphasize the sinful nature that we are born with. They don’t bring to mind the commandments set down by God such as : Don’t have any gods before me; Don’t covet anything of your neighbor’s; Don’t tell a lie; Don’t steal; Don’t commit adultery; Don’t commit murder!

These are the laws of God which most of our laws are based upon, but they are so watered down in our society and in our churches until nobody takes them seriously anymore. The problem with that is that God does take them seriously! They still matter and the distinctions that Jesus made about some of them, such as the distinction between lusting after a woman and adultery or hating someone being the same as murder are just as valid today! Even the smallest transgression of these, if you haven’t given your heart to Jesus, is enough to keep you out of Heaven.

The problem is that many people are not being told this, in church or elsewhere. For the most part, people are being told that these laws don’t matter anymore. That there are no consequences to pay for any of these transgressions, just ask God to forgive you and move on.

You are welcome to try that if you think it will work, but if you meet God tomorrow and you haven’t given your heart to Jesus and asked Him to forgive you for waiting so long, then I fear that you will find that is a pitiful excuse to give to the final Judge that you will see. It is true, I am trying to scare you into a belief in Jesus.

I am trying to impress upon you that there is a fine line between being a believer and an atheist, there is no gray area. You either believe in Jesus and ask Him into your life or you don’t, at which point you are in the same place as any demon condemned to hell. It is your choice, just make sure that you make a choice before your life ends because there is no “do-over” or re-spawn like in a video game.

The choices end when you take your last breath, regardless of your age when that happens.

What good are the Ten Commandments?


Today, do we still need the Ten Commandments? Are they relevant to our time and our lives today? Many people don’t think so today. According to most of those who don’t want to know about God and don’t want to believe anything that is contained within the Bible, these laws are null and void. According to them, God’s Word was made up by men so it has no authority. They even postulate that it had no authority at the time it was written and it specifically hasn’t any today!

Why is that? Our laws are based upon the laws given by Moses! We have laws against adultery, murder, perjury (lying under oath), stealing, neglecting your parents in their old age (honor your father and mother). Granted, you won’t go to jail for cheating on your wife or your husband, but if you are found out the divorce will cost you something! Dependent on how forgiving your spouse is, it may or may not cost you your life!

The Ten Commandments were given to begin to show people that they need a Savior, because there is no way that we can keep them perfectly. It just can’t be done, because by breaking even one of them, you have become guilty of all of them. If you have ever stolen anything, no matter how small or inconsequential it might have been, you are a thief. If you lied to your Mom or Dad about it, now you are a liar and a thief. Any one of these sins will keep you from having a relationship with God, but the most important decision of your life has nothing to do with these!

The most important time of your life is to realize that you are a sinner, separated from God and then to realize that you need Jesus in your life! That is the purpose of these Commandments! To make you realize your sin, regardless of your faith! If you have heard them or read them, then your heart will let you know when you break them. That is their purpose, to bring you to the point where you know that you need Jesus.

Your decision, the one which will determine your eternity, is whether you will accept God’s grace to you through Jesus or not. That is what decides your final destination, not a loving God. He didn’t create hell for any of us, it was created to punish the angels and Satan who rebelled against God. We have always had a reservation, an invitation to Heaven, all we have to do is accept Jesus as our personal Savior and when we follow Him, we will be where He is, where our reward is, in Heaven. It is your decision and yours alone that determines your eternity, this is why we were given a choice because God wants us to choose to serve Him!

Even the angels have a choice, they are not required by instinct or design to serve God. We are created with a spirit of choice as well. We can choose to live by the rules of the world and do what we want to do, trying to do it all on our own,to see if we can be good enough, righteous enough to earn our way into heaven. Except, we are flawed because of our sinful nature and we can’t be perfect enough, righteous enough to earn our way. Jesus is the only way into Heaven because He paid the price of a perfect sacrifice for all of mankind and all that we have to do is accept it and believe that He did it for us.

Don’t believe the lie that time is on your side, because that is a deception from Satan himself. He is using that to make you believe that you have plenty of time to make your decision. The problem with that is that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, we don’t know if we will wake up when the alarm goes off tomorrow or if we will open our eyes to gaze at the judgment seat of God!

Truthfully, I am not trying to frighten you, I am not saying that your life might end tonight. But, kids who were just 19 years old have died in their sleep, people get killed in accidents every day, none of them saw this coming, none of them knew that it was about to happen, but it did. What if, for the sake of your eternal soul, I am right. What will happen to you if you have not asked Jesus into your heart? It will not be God’s fault that you will end up in hell, it will be yours! Because you have heard the message and the way out of hell is faith and acceptance of Jesus as your Savior. There is no other way. Religion won’t save you, your own version of righteousness won’t pay your way into Heaven, none of your wealth on Earth will go with you and it won’t help.

The only way into Heaven is by faith in Jesus.

 

Our cluttered, busy lives


Have you noticed that your life and the lives of many people are so cluttered with stuff to do and things which need to be done that there is no time to do them all? All of these electronic devices and gadgets which were supposed to make our work life and our daily lives more relaxing and easier to manage have actually done the opposite! Those of us who have cell phones and the coverage to use them, are constantly connected to e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or some other service that pings us all of the time. We are never disconnected unless we get to an area that doesn’t have coverage and even then…we panic! Until we are connected again, then we feel that life can go on. Why?

Why do we have to be connected all of the time? Our data, our lives should not revolve around a device or a service that is not much more than a way to keep up with everything and everyone that we have added as a friend! Your life was not designed to be this way, your brain was not created to do this! Even though the use of these devices (I have one too) has caused many to seemingly attach them to their ears and never put them down, we are supposed to be following and speaking to God in this way as well! In Deuteronomy 6:7 it says: “Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Of course it is referring to the Ten Commandments, but the point of this is that we are to think about, meditate on God’s Word during our day, using its wisdom as a guidebook for our life. Many of us have replaced it with our cell phones. Granted, there are “apps for that” which will allow you to read God’s Word on your phone, but do we do that?

Being connected to the world through our phones is fine, but we need to stay connected to God as well. If you are not saved or have just brushed off religion or Christianity all together as a bunch of nonsense, I pity you. Many of you will be thinking at this point that you don’t want my pity, but the reason for it is simple. If you don’t accept Jesus as your Savior, then your eternal destination will not be an enjoyable experience at all. Each of us has a choice and it is simple, which is why many people think that it is too simple! That choice is between doing what we feel like doing or giving our heart and our life to Jesus and submitting ourselves to His will and not our own.

The consequences of not giving your life and your heart to Him, in this life, are few. You will be able to live and go on with your life without Him, but the comfort and strength that you would’ve had access to won’t be there. There will always be an empty space in your soul and in your heart where He should be, and you will feel it. Trying to fill it with something else or someone else won’t work until you realize Who needs to be there and ask Him to come in.

Being connected to the world all of the time is fine, but being connected to Jesus is much better! It is better for you, it is better for your friends and family, and it is better for eternity! Think about it.

Marriage by any other name?


Our country is venturing down a dark path, one that our grandparents or parents wouldn’t have gone down. This is a very contentious and charged issue politically and otherwise. So, why are we having this issue in our country anyway? America is a free country so why is there any dis-unity in our laws? It is because this country was founded by God-fearing people and the foundations of our laws are or at least were based on the Ten Commandments and biblical principles. One of those principles happened to be that God established the union of a man and a woman as a marriage, the first marriage was performed by God Himself.

In nature, there are aberrations occasionally in the “orientation” of the sexes, but they are just that…aberrations! God did not design nature or human beings to have relations that are unnatural. Procreation cannot happen unless there is a female and a male together as a couple, other than that it is an aberration of natural law. Animals of any kind know this by instinct, that only males and females will continue the species, anything other than that you are just following the lust of your own self and lust for unnatural relations.

This is wrong and no amount of legislation will convince me otherwise. In the church where I am the pastor, there will be no same-sex “marriages“, period because I will not perform them. You are welcome to call me a bigot if you wish, but I follow Jesus and the Word of God and God doesn’t condone this type of behavior in any shape or form, whether it has been legislated into our culture or not. We are accountable to God for anything that is against His laws, because His law is above our laws. So, regardless of the law here, you will still be accountable to God for what you do in this life. Give your life to Jesus, follow Him so that you will be cleansed of your sinful ways.

Persecution of Christians


The news media doesn’t report this much, but it is still happening. Christians in many countries are being imprisoned and tortured or killed because of their beliefs. Christianity is not a popular religious belief in countries where Islam is the main religion. Converting to Christianity in those countries can get you put in prison or killed. The so-called “religion of peace” is not at peace with anyone.

Our faith in Jesus and in His grace gives us hope for a life in eternity with Him. Can any other religion give you eternity? Some claim to, but if you look closely at their claims it is a lie! Thousands of Christians have died for their beliefs since Jesus’ time, because they would not reject their beliefs or their faith in Him. They received their reward and are now in Heaven with Him. Few other religions, if any, can claim this truthfully.

To go to other countries and try to evangelize people with the message of Christ is our duty and privilege but it is dangerous in some parts of the world. Jesus told His disciples that they would be hated because the world hated Him and in many places that is still true today, even in our own country. Our country has banned prayer in schools and has taken any display of the Bible or the Ten Commandments from public buildings. In the media Christian principles are being challenged every day as well as in the courts.

We have to stand in our faith but we cannot be truly open about it or we get labeled as extremists. Any other belief, regardless of what it is, can be talked about and spoken aloud openly in the media and in public but not Christianity. Is it because no one wants to hear about a religion which has, as its base, truth and moral absolutes which no person in the world wants to hear about.

Moral absolutes are wrong by most people’s standards. We all ascribe to “personal or individual or even relative absolutes” or so the media reports. What is relative to me doesn’t have to be relative for you. For most of the past two thousand years there has been a standard by which the un-believers and the believers were judged and that standard was and is the Bible.

It is true that there have been wars and other atrocities over religious viewpoints as well as whether the church was the only authority in a nation or who could have access to the Bible itself but there are always opinions in our world. Opinions are going to differ inside a home, let alone on a planet where there are more than six billion people!

The point is that God has not abandoned us to our own devices and beliefs! He is still in control, although He is allowing our own choices to play out as they will. He doesn’t control us, but gives us the choice and the opportunity to see the Truth and to accept it. It is our own choice that will condemn us or save us because the choice is between living as if we are in control of our life or allowing Jesus to have control of it. One will allow your own desires and passions to rule your life and the other will change you into the person you are truly meant to be!

Many people don’t want to accept this change, they fear it. They don’t want to lose the life or the friends that they have. But, your life won’t change only your character and when your character changes, people will notice. Your friends may not like the change but they also may want to know what has made such a difference in your life!

Your witness about many things that you like or are passionate about is known to all of your friends because you talk about it and you tell them about it! It should be no different if you decide to follow Christ as your Savior  But in some countries, it is dangerous for you to witness to people, to tell them about Jesus. He will be with you to strengthen you and guide you through this, no matter what happens.

If you live in an area where persecution against Christians is normal, pray about it. God hears those prayers and He will send a comforter and a Helper. You are not alone. If you are considering becoming a Christian in a country where persecution is harsh, become one and then get on your knees and pray for strength and for help in your new faith. God is near you, when you ask Him into your life, He comes into your heart and is there always. You can make the choice to “kick him out” but that is the only way that you can “lose your faith” and it is your choice to do so!

He won’t leave you unless you force Him out and no one can take you from Him! Eternity is the prize that we strive for but the life that you will “live” in eternity is dependent on which choice you make while you live today, because once you die, the choice has been made. You will either live in eternity with Christ or you will be condemned to spend eternity away from God in a place only reserved for Satan and his fallen angels. It is your choice.

When will it end?


The time is not yet for our world to end. The looming date set by the Mayan calendar is going to come and pass but we will have Christmas and New Year‘s day to follow. The ending that I am speaking of is the hatred toward Christians. Every news outlet that I know of, with the exception of one, seems to discount or discredit only one religion and that is Christianity. Every other religion in the world, regardless of how silly it may be, is fine. Why is that?

The only reason that I can think of is because Christianity has a living Savior and the Bible to back up its claims. No other religion does this. The places and people of the Bible can be traced by history and archaeology to the places that are referenced in the Bible. A few other religions have this as well but not to the extent that the Bible does.

Many people have claimed that the Bible is just a made up story, a book full of fairy tales. The historical record of the Israelite people shows that this book is true and that it is linked to them and their history, so why is it so important that the Bible be discredited? I think it is because of fear.

People are afraid that it may be true and if it is, then all of it is true and our world needs the hope that is found in it. If the words and the message of it is true, then there are many people who are needing salvation through Jesus. Why is that such a bad thing? He doesn’t require you to go by the rules of the Old Testament Jewish laws. The only ones that are even mentioned in Jesus’ teachings are the Ten Commandments.

Is it possible that people just don’t want to be responsible for their actions and the things that they say or do? Have we become so callous that we want a society that is that “self driven”? Humanity has always had a tremendous capacity for evil thoughts and actions, regardless of the religion of the time. We have never shown, in any redeemable way, that lack of religion has made things better. In countries where organized religion was outlawed, the people were controlled by fear of the government itself.

That is no way to live. Satan fell from his position because of pride and we are subject to the same thing. Without Christ in your life and sometimes with Him, pride still gets in the way but you can overcome it through Him. Our world is going to end. When will it happen? No one can predict that because God is the only one who knows the day and the time. The surety and the hope that we have through Christ is that His word is true and the prophecies contained in the Word are sure to come to pass because most of the prophecies that are in it have already come to pass.

There is no part of this book that is fiction, nor is it fantasy, it is real and true. You can choose to believe it or not, but that doesn’t change the words or the prophecies contained in it. You can choose to believe or not believe in gravity but that won’t change the fact that it is there either. When the time comes for you to stand in front of God at your own judgement, you will realize too late that the Word and the truth contained in the Bible are true. Although nothing can be done about it then.

We only have the time that is given to us on earth to realize what is true and what is not. The decision is yours to make. So which will it be? Follow Jesus into eternity or spend eternity wishing that you had?

Are you good enough?


In our world today there are many people who think they are in pretty good shape to get to heaven. They don’t steal, they aren’t committing adultery, they don’t cuss, and they haven’t killed anybody (yet). So, they consider themselves to be pretty good but those that I listed are just four of the Ten Commandments. What about the other six? They mostly deal with pride and selfishness. How are you doing on those? What about having anything take God’s place, which is the first commandment? Is there anything or anyone which you value more than God?

Most everyone has trouble with those at one point or another. Everything that we have is a gift from God whether we purchased it or He brought it into our lives. Your children, your wife or husband are all gifts from God, you may not be happy with them all the time but neither is He happy about us and our choices, which is why we have the ability to choose. God wants us to have the choice and the ability to choose Him as an act of love not because we had no choice.

When we were still sinners and blind to the truth of God’s love…did His love for us still exist? Of course it did! Even the smallest detail regarding sin is a sin. The thought you had about someone having more than you do…is a sin. The envy that you feel toward someone you may not even know is a sin. Any word or thought that we say or think that is hurtful or to spite someone is also a sin. Speeding on the highway, taking a pen home from work, using something that is not yours without asking, these are all sins and we will be held accountable for them unless we repent and ask forgiveness.

The world and every created thing in it exist regardless of our position in it or our comprehension of it. The sun and the moon rise and set, the tides come in and flow back to the sea and the seasons change just as God said that they would from the beginning. Animals, birds, fish, and insects all live according to God’s plan because they don’t have a choice regarding what they are or what they do. They glorify God by living and reproducing. We should glorify Him in our walk with Him daily and by our character that everyone sees daily because to some people that may be the only reflection of Christ they ever see.

The same is true in our lives. We wake up and go to sleep at night. We dream, we wake in the morning, eat breakfast and get ready for another day. This is a ritual which will continue until we retire or we die whichever comes first. The true novelty of life is that it shouldn’t be a novelty; we should live it as real as it is and thank God every day that we have that privilege. The life that we are given to live is for God’s glory and His purposes. Whether we choose to work for Him and with Him is our choice but our life will be much greater for it if we choose to walk in His ways and follow His purposes.

While we are here, regardless of our vocation, we should use our time and energy to witness to people by our lives and what they see of Christ through our actions. Remember, the pay for God’s work may be small compared to what others get in this world but our retirement plan is out of this world! No one on earth could possibly measure what the streets of gold or your mansion in glory would be worth. The wonderful presence of God Himself and the fact that you will be with Him for eternity is also beyond anyone’s comprehension.

Our life will be more than we can imagine when we are in His presence and we will be for eternity if we are His. I can’t comprehend one thousand years or one million and eternity is far longer than either of those which is why Christ said that we live like flowers, here today and gone tomorrow. We have to allow Him to work through us while we are here because we only have a short time on this earth, and yet if we belong to Him we will have eternity to learn from Him and to be with Him daily. Heaven will be a place where we will experience freshness and joy all of the time because we will never be tired or run out of things to do, ever!

Even the apostle John couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing when he saw the vision of heaven and the angels and even God Himself. We truly haven’t a clue in regard to what is in store for us and our loved ones in Heaven or even when the earth is remade in the image of the paradise that it was in the Garden of Eden. I have left out reference to scripture in this morning’s sermon because the whole Bible from beginning to end declares God’s majesty and the magnificence of His creation. The sky, the trees, the birds and all the creatures that have ever been on the earth as well as the universe declares His creative power and wondrous love for us. He created all of these things for us to marvel at and consider because He is God, period!

I am bringing this message of praise and adoration before you because it is necessary to realize God’s presence and who He is. We are coming to the end of the church age and our time on earth will soon be done so the time to make your choice regarding who you will serve and where is now, not tomorrow or next week.

What would you say to a person who thinks they are good enough to stand in front of God and declare that they are eligible for heaven? Are you sure about your salvation? If you or a friend of yours thinks “I hope I can get into heaven when I die”, unless your “hope” is in Christ you won’t! If you are counting on your deeds to get there, you will be sorely disappointed. Our righteousness is as filthy rags without the blood of Christ because nothing that we can do on our own will ever be good enough.

John 3:16 says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Give our life to Christ and ask Jesus to save you from your sins today. We aren’t guaranteed tomorrow or even tonight so the time is now. Once you do that and are sincere in your repentance there will be no doubt about where you will go after you die. You will be with Him and then your life will really begin!