MOM KEPT HER FORK

Toward the end of my mom’s life on earth I had sent her a letter with a story in it about “keeping the fork”. My mom cherished the story and held onto that letter. She told several people about the letter and this story. As time went by she became more and more troubled will health issues requiring hospitalization and finally she had to be placed in a nursing home to provide the care she required. She had been in the nursing home for a couple of months. My wife and I were living down in the Atlanta, Georgia area. One early evening our telephone rang. It was my sister informing me that our mom had just had a series of mini-strokes and was not expected to live all that much longer. She said if I wanted to see mom before she died I needed to get there ASAP. We had no money to afford to fly so we planned on driving. We were going to go to bed early that evening and get a few hours sleep before getting up early and embarking on the 10-11 hour drive. Before we even got to bed the phone rang again. My sister told me that mom had died. It ripped my heart out that we were not able to be with her before she passed away. The good news is just a few weeks before she died she got saved their in the Christian nursing home she was in. She had watched the Jesus film and the minister who came there had led her to the Lord. We went back home to attend the funeral and burial. Several in the family knew about the story of keeping the fork as my mom had told many about it. As various family members were viewing my mom’s body lying in the casket someone said “Hey, where is her fork? She should have a fork in her hand”. We agreed. Even my dad who had been a hard hearted person totally turned off to anything about of a “religious” nature agreed to this. I went out to talk to the funeral home people about getting a fork and placing it in her hand. They had encountered this request a couple of times before as I had asked them about it. So we got them a fork and they placed it in her left hand and a rose in her right hand.

I had taped a paper on her closed casket that read: MOM KEPT HER FORK!   I did this to spark peoples’ curiousity as I had also prepared a message I wrote to give to them explaining this sign.

Here is the message I wrote to give out to those who attended the funeral and/or burial service:

Yes, mom kept her fork. What about you? What have you done with Jesus? There is no more important question to be asked and responded to. Someday your heart will be asking … “What will Jesus do with me?”  That is aleady settled as should you die today “in your sins” you will spend eternity separated from God in hellfire. God has done all He can and all He needs to keep you from such a fate, but the choice is yours. Once you draw your last breath there is no more oportunity. Your fate will be sealed. God loves you, but He hates your sin. Call upon the Name of Jesus while He may be found. The best is yet to come for those who are IN CHRIST.

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COMING HOME TO THE FATHER’S ARMS

HEY MISTER, CAN YOU HELP ME WITH MY BIKE?

Hey mister, can you help me with my bike?
Are you here you looking for pornography? Sorry to disappoint you. You won’t find it here. But wait … I have good news that won’t disappoint you which I will get into a bit later. First I want to address what is going on here. You might be wondering how you arrived here. Well, I was wondering how you and many many others were arriving on one one of my other blogs. I noticed that one of the articles I wrote concerning “misters” was getting a lot of traffic. It didn’t make sense so I looked into it. I discovered that search engines were listing my blog article in response to the search term “hey mister can you help me with my bike”. I did a search for that myself and discovered why I was getting all the traffic. I can’t say I was pleased about it, but obviously there is nothing I can do about it. The title of my article is “Hey mister, can you help a fella out?“. Upon looking at my article it is quite obvious it has nothing to do with what all these people are looking for … pornography … specifically a particular video and still pictures.

As I was growing up starting at a very early age I got “hooked” on pornography and it nearly destroyed my life. It is a very natural thing for man as we are flawed from the gitgo. We are attracted to the opposite sex and for a man we are very stimulated by what we see … the physical realm of it all. Sight and touch turn us on. It might surprise you, but God created us this way. It is not a bad thing, but it is a dangerous thing which must be properly channeled and controlled. If not we will find ourselves on a slippery slope and in the end we will find ourselves in deep deep trouble that has no escape. We will do what are flesh dictates as we have no control over it. We are slaves to our sin nature. The problem is sin has a high price. It will cost us our eternal soul for the wages of sin is death.

Yep, we have a most serious problem. And there is nothing you or I can do about it ourselves. We are doomed! We need help beyond ourselves. The God Who created us and loves us beyond our comprehension has come to our rescue. He knows we can’t help ourselves so He did something about it. He left His heavenly throne and came to earth to be born as an innocent baby Who would grow up into a man and live among us to show us Who God is and demonstrate His love toward us … ultimately laying down His life for us dying a horrific death in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. He alone can save us and set us free from the bondage of our sin enabling us to live our lives in obedience to Him and bring glory unto Him.

That is not to say we will be perfect and never sin again. However, by repenting of sin and calling upon Him He forgives us of all our sin and cleanses us from our unrighteous so that we are acceptable to Him. Our sin separates us from Him which means at the end of this life on earth since we can’t be in His presence we will spend eternity apart from Him in the place He warns us about … hell. We not only have a dilemma, but thankfully we have a choice. We can continue on in our sin or we can repent and turn to God for His help and His offer of forgiveness and eternity with Him.

We are without excuse and will stand before Him in judgement. If we die in our sins our fate is sealed. Procrastination is a very dangerous thing as we don’t know when we will draw our last breath. So I say to you … you can continue to try to find the pornography you were looking for when you landed here … or you can respond to the God Who loves you and wants (and has) a great plan for your life if you will only turn to Him.

HERE is further help.

MIDDLE EAST SHOWDOWN

There is lots going on in this world we live in. Here is a video I highly recommend (as I do all of this man’s VIDEOS):

YOU CAN MISS HEAVEN BY 18 INCHES

Did you know you can miss heaven by 18 inches or less? It is true! That is the distance between our mind and our heart. Quite simply it is not enough to simply believe in our heads  in God and even the gospel message of “Jesus saves”. Satan believes in God and knows God’s Word but he won’t be going to heaven. We must embrace the gospel and the Savior deep within our innermost being. We must be “born again” and become new creations in Jesus Christ. Yes, it goes way beyond just simply believing in our heads.

I am reminded of the song “Born Again” sung by Evie Tornquist back in the 1970s.

Here are the words to the song:

You May Think It’s Foolish What I’m Going To Say,
I’m Not Ashamed, No Not Ashamed,
One Day I prayed Jesus, Take My Sin Away,
And That’s When I was Born Again,

Born Again, there’s Really Been A Change in Me,
Born Again, Just Like Jesus Said,
Born Again, And All Because of Calvary,
I’m Glad So Glad, That I’ve Been Born Again.

One Man Came To Jesus, John and Chapter 3,
Oh So Afraid, Oh So Afraid,
Master Your From God, I really Do Believe,
And Jesus said, Be Born Again.

Born Again, there’s Really Been A Change in Me,
Born Again, Just Like Jesus Said,
Born Again, And All Because of Calvary,
I’m Glad So Glad, That I’ve Been Born Again.

It is so true … God wants to recreate us from what we are and have become apart from Him and mold us into His image having the “mind of Christ”. Truly when we “receive” Jesus we will never be the same again. We will have a new life in Christ.

Please don’t miss heaven … not even by a mere 18 inches.

WHERE THERE IS DESIGN THERE IS A DESIGNER

Looking at the obvious complexity of this watch no reasonable thinking person would say that it just happened all by itself … that it evolved into what we see … perhaps from a stone or something such. No, someone designed it! This looks very complex for sure yet our human bodies are far more complex that this watch. The more we discover about this complexity we are totally amazed and, indeed, should be. Yet many many people so foolishly believe that somehow we humans just happened … that we evolved from the lowest life form into what we are today. What utter nonsense! WHERE THERE IS DESIGN THERE IS ALWAYS A DESIGNER!

God is that Designer. He created man in His own image. We are far above any animal God created. There has not been a computer made that can match the brain God designed in man. As awesome as computers are just think about it … they didn’t just happen. Man created them. Man used this fantastic brain God gave us to create all the things we see such as this watch, computers, space craft capable to travelling out into distant space and returning to earth, etc. How can anyone believe his ancestors crawled onto land out of a swamp? Satan is a deceiver and he is hard at work deceiving man.

We can be extremely sincere in what we believe but if we are wrong then we are simply sincerely wrong. Let God be true and every man a liar! (Romans 3:4)

Are you deceived or do you believe God and trust in His Word?

HANGING BY A CHAIN

It is said, and rightfully so, that a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link. Keep this in mind as I delve into an illustration of those who are trusting and/or hoping in anything else other than coming to God on His terms to save us and obtain entrance to heaven when we die. I am talking about such things as keeping God’s Commandments, trying to be a good person, doing good works, counting on the good in our lives outweighing the bad as if this is on a balance beam scale, etc.

One illustration I like to use is this: God is in heaven above, man is on earth below, and man is suspended by a chain made up of links. Hell is below man and the only thing keeping man from plummeting down into hell is the chain. The links represent God’s Commandments. Man is depending upon the chain to be used to pull him up to God in heaven. This means that man has to keep all of God’s Commandments all the time for his entire life. If man could do this God would honor it and this would work. The problem is we can’t keep God’s Commandments. We fail miserably at this starting as a little baby. So trusting in this is futile and foolish. The second we fail in keeping a Commandment that link is broken and we are doomed. This same illustration could be used with any of the other things I already mentioned above that man trusts and hopes in.

           

That is why we can’t make it on our own effort and merit. We need a Savior. God has said that “all of our righteousness is as filthy rags”. Isaiah 64:6 reads: “For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” In short, we are totally bankrupt. We have nothing to offer God other than what He requires … ourselves (a completely surrendered heart and life).

What will you do with Jesus?

YOU ONLY DIE TWICE

In 1967 the James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, was released. I, like many others, have always been a James Bond movie fan. This has nothing to do with what I am writing about today other than the fact that the title of this article is very similar to the title of that movie. Obviously I used the word DIE in place of LIVE. There is no truth to You Only Live Twice ** but there certainly is truth to You Only Die Twice. How do I know? The bible tells me so. I don’t think anyone would argue that we all eventually die. No one has ever managed to escape it with two exceptions and even those two will die physically in God’s timing. God’s Word (the bible) tells us ” And just as it is appointed for [all] men once to die, and after that the [certain] judgment,” (Hebrews 9:27 Amplified Bible) Yes, we will all die and then face God in judgement. So that is one death. Upon judgement those who have never repented of their sin and come to Jesus Christ for His forgiveness and salvation He alone offers will face a SECOND DEATH. There are various passages of scripture which speak of this, but probably the most profound is in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 20:11-15 we read … “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

Those who die in their sin will face Jesus Christ as their judge. This judgement is called the Great White Throne Judgement. As you can see experiencing this second death is not good news. It is, in fact, bad news … the worst! It is a horrific fate everybody faces if they ignore and reject God’s salvation He offers freely. It is called death but it is not death at all … not as we understand death. Actually it is eternal life where one will experience a horrific fate in the Lake of Fire where they will be tormented and in anguish forever. They w ill wish they would die and end this punishment for their sin.

There is good news however … “JESUS SAVES!”

“Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.” – Revelation 20:6

Those who have turned to Jesus Christ in repentance and received the eternal life He offers will not face the Great White Throne Judgement. Instead they will face a different judgement known as the Believer’s Judgement.

So we all have a choice. We can choose door number one or door number two … to say it is modern day vernacular (game show style). But this is no game. It could not be more serious!  We will either face God in judgement on our own and find ourselves in deep doo doo as we will have to pay the penalty of our sin … or we can repent and call upon the Name of Jesus Who suffered and died in our place so that we would not have to face this horrific penalty for our sin. Jesus will not only be our Savior but He will be our Advocate (our defense attorney) representing us before God the Father as the charges against us are read. Those who have rejected Christ as Savior are on their own and will have no defense. And they will have no excuse which is acceptable. We have been warned!

What will you do with Jesus? 

** I said that there is no truth to You Only Live Twice. What I mean by that is there is no such thing as reincarnation. We are born and die physically one time. There is, however,  the matter of being born spiritually … born again … which some call a second birth. Truly those who are born again have a New Life in Christ. Never the less, we are still living only one life (one physical birth) and facing at least one death. Most will face this second death I am writing about.

DID GOD CREATE EVIL?

Did God create evil? Sounds like a fair question. And after all does not God’s Word say in John 1:3 … “All things were made through Him (Jesus Christ), and without Him was not any thing made that was made.”? (Also other verses say this … 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Colossians 1:16) It sure sounds like God created evil if you go by these verses and don’t bother to look further and “rightly divide” (interpret, understand and apply) God’s Word. Man gets into all kinds of trouble by failing to do so. Many things are misunderstood and as a result we can get all messed up in what we believe. The answer to the question is … NO. No, God did not create evil … but what He created was the potential for evil to come about. He originally created angels as free moral agents with self will. They had the ability to choose to obey Him or disobey Him just like we humans do. All was fine at first as the angels obeyed God, but after awhile one angel became prideful and decided he was going to disobey. He thought he could take upon himself God’s glory and position. This angel persuaded a third of all the angels to join him in this rebellion and attempt to overthrow God’s rule … to exalt himself above God. A war took place in which this angel and all the others quickly discovered they were no match for God after all. You can read about it in various passages of scripture …

Isaiah 14:12-14

12 “How you have fallen from heaven,
O [a]star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who have weakened the nations!
13 “But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
14 ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’ ”  New American Standard Bible (NASB)

This angel’s name was Lucifer. He was a special angel and was very pleasing to look upon. He was in charge of the worship of God in heaven. You can read more about Lucifer and how he became prideful which led him to rebellion which resulted in his becoming Satan (the devil). Some of the angels who joined him in this rebellion became demons and they serve him in carrying out his evil in our midst.

Ezekiel 28:12-19

12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 “You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: the ruby, the topaz and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared. 14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. 16 “By the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; Therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God and I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings that they may see you. 18 “By the multitude of your iniquities in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries. Therefore I have brought fire from the midst of you; It has consumed you and I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the eyes of all who see you. 19 “All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; You have become terrified and you will cease to be forever.”’”  New American Standard Bible (NASB)

We find more concerning the story of how Satan (the devil) came about …

Revelation 12:7-9

7 “And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, 8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”  New American Standard Bible (NASB)

This was the introduction of evil into God’s creation. When God created man and then woman Satan came in the form of a snake to the woman lying to her and deceiving her so that she chose to disobey God. She called out to man wanting him to join her in this disobedience. Man was not deceived but he did give into to the woman and went along with her disobeying God.

Genesis 3:1-6

3 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. ”  New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Upon disobeying God all sorts of problems began and continue on to this day. This comic book style tract tells the story well …

ONE WAY!

So did God know all this would happen? Yes, He did! You might be thinking “Then why would He do this knowing what was going to happen?” That too is a fair question. I will state upfront that God knows what He is doing and has a purpose in all that He does. And everything He does will ultimately bring glory to Him. So what is His purpose in this?  I just told you … to bring glory to Himself. “But how will allowing evil and all the horrible things which have happened, are happening and will yet happen in the future bring glory to Him?” He is in the process of proving to Satan and his fallen angels as well as to all of mankind that LOVE IS GREATER THAN ANYTHING ELSE. By this I mean He is showing that because He loves and first loved us there will be many who will love Him in return and live their lives in obedience to Him motivated out of love. Thus LOVE TRIUMPHS OVER EVIL! When we fully and truly understand His great love for us then we are greatly attracted to Him. We are all very special to Him.

God is bringing all of this to a close as we are living the the End Times. It won’t be long before some very horrific things happen as this age we are living in comes to an end. Satan knows his time is short and he and his demons are working hard to do all they can trying to thwart God’s plan and to accomplish all they can to deceive man and take as many with them to hell as they can. They will lose in the end and will admit defeat and that God is Supreme.

What about you? What have or what will you do with Jesus? There is nothing more important than this. Your eternal soul is at stake! There is no neutrality. We are either for Jesus or against Him. And being for Him is not just something we say from our mouths. Jesus Himself said that we must be born again. Otherwise we will all die in our sins and enter a Christ-less eternity in hell fire suffering torment and anguish forever and ever. It could not be anymore serious.

God’s plan of salvation

FIRE! FIRE!

These are U.S. Navy firefighters. I spent 8 years in the Navy and among other things I was a firefighter. I was a shipfitter/hull maintenance technician. I was well trained in firefighting and damage control and taught many others aboard ship. Fortunately during those 8 years the only fires I had to deal with were relatively small. Another one of my jobs in the Navy was welding. It is very common for welding operations to create fires so we had to always be alert and act quickly to extinguish the fires before they grew out of control. I have been a weldor thruout my civilian life as well so I still had to deal with fires. Fires are a very serious matter and even more so aboard ship. Although it is true there is no shortage of water available (saltwater) there is the matter of placing water inside of the ship as it can only hold so much before it affects the ship’s buoyancy and stability. And besides, there is a whole lot of stuff that any water and especially salt water can destroy. Another factor is that unlike dealing with a fire on land there is no place to escape to so the fire must be contained and conquered quickly as the personnel aboard are in grave danger.

When I look at these pictures it is almost too much for me to fathom as it wasn’t like this when I was in the Navy. We had no special firefighting clothing or high tech equipment. All we had is our work uniform and an OBA (oxygen breathing apparatus). Today navy firefighters have pretty much the same equipment and protective clothing as civilian firefighters.

Here is the old technology. Now they use compressed gas cylinders as seen in the images above.

I was usually either the number one OBAman or the Scene Leader. The number one OBAman is the one who is actually most upfront dealing with the emergency at hand. The number two OBAman is directly behind him and his job is to provide protection for the number one OBAman. The number one OBAman is more less in charge of dealing with the scene of the fire since he is the one there. The Scene Leader is in charge overall of the entirety of the scene, but he remains back where it is safe until such time as the actual scene of the fire has been made safe for others to go to without special safety equipment such as wearing an OBA. He can send in orders and  suggestions to the number one OBAman so that is why I said the the number one OBAman is more less in charge at the actual scene. Obviously since he is the one right there dealing with what is going on he has to call the shots according to his training, knowledge and best guess. And obviously sometimes someone who is further back has a different perspective than someone who is right on top of things. There is also a number three OBAman whose job it is to help handle hoses and assist on the scene in anyway needed including running messages back and forth to and from the scene leader. The scene leader, although in charge of the scene, is functioning under the authority of the Damage Control Assistant (DCA) who is an officer. The DCA is under the authority of the Damage Control Officer and he is under the authority of the captain. So as you can see there is a chain of command.

Anyway, my Navy training helped me considerably in civilian life as I have had to put it to use more in civilian life than I did in the navy. Fire which is under control can be a real friend but out of control it can be a horrible terrifying enemy.

A basic fire consists of three elements … fuel, oxygen and heat. All three must be present in order for a fire to occur.

Firefighting consists of removing one or more of these three elements. If you remove the fuel source the fire will go out. Physically removing flammable materials, shutting off fuel (liquid fuel flowing thru piping or leaking tanks, etc.) are means of removing fuel sources. If you remove the oxygen the fire will go out. Displacing the oxygen with CO2, Dry Chemical, Steam, etc. are common means of dealing with the element of oxygen. If you remove the heat the fire will go out. Water removes the heat. Of course, once the fire is out it is important that the source of fuel be totally removed or extinguished as otherwise the fire can restart. Any remaining “hot spots” need to be eliminated. This is done by raking apart embers and using water on them to further cool them so they won’t reignite.  Obviously there isn’t much that can be done about the presence of oxygen since the atmosphere is about 21 percent is oxygen.

Aboard ship there are special fuels and concerns which go beyond a simple basic fire like I have been talking about up until now. Magnesium is one of those special fuels that pose a very serious threat. When magnesium burns it produces it own oxygen and so it burns intensely. It can literally melt steel and burn it’s way thru … going thru bulkheads (walls) and decks (floors) … sometimes one after another. Theoretically an intense magnesium fire could burn thru the hull of a ship and possibly sink it. Magnesium which is on fire can not just be sprayed with water like a common fire. To do so would cause it to explode violently and cause much further damage and threat including great harm to personnel. Burning magnesium requires huge amounts of water to put it out. The best thing is to toss it overboard into the ocean … submerging it is a large quantity of water. I don’t know if it has changed or not, but when I served in the Navy helicopters had a lot of magnesium in their construction. Our training in firefighting a crashed helicopter was to lay down fire fighting foam up to the burning helicopter to try to control burning fuel on deck and then quickly approach it wearing a special aluminumized proximity suit to rescue personnel from the helicopter. The priority of rescue was always: pilot first, co-pilot second and others afterwards. Then the helicopter was to be shoved over the side of the ship into the ocean.

Again, fortunately we never had to deal with this scenario. It is a good thing to as many times the helicopter came and left before we could even get ready as a firefighting team. We were not given sufficient notice to “set the helo detail”.

Yes, fire is a most serious thing. It can be a real killer. At the very least it can do tremendous damage and we can suffer great loss. We should always be on guard and careful as a fire is all too easy to start and get out of control quickly. Many years ago when we lived down in Georgia we were awakened early on a Sunday morning by someone banging loudly on our front door. I got up and went to the door but no one was there. I looked over to the other side of our home (a mobile home) where a sliding glass patio door was at and had vertical blinds installed. I  noticed it was  sort of a bright orange in color … unusual. It caught my attention so I went over to it and peeked out between the vertical blinds. I was not expecting what I saw. Our next door neighbor’s mobile home was on fire and as mobile homes go it was spreading quickly. I yelled at my wife to alert her so she could get dressed and be prepared to do whatever we needed to do ourselves as certainly it was possible for the fire to spread to our home. The firefighting training kicked in and after quickly dressing I ran outside and grabbed our garden hose. It isn’t sufficient to fight such a fire but it would help until the fire dept. arrived. I turned on the valve and nothing … no water. I couldn’t believe it … as in this can’t be happening. So I couldn’t do anything as far as fighting the fire. The police showed up first and made us move further back away. The fire dept. showed up and fought the fire and got it under control and eventually put it out. The mobile home was a total loss. The saddest part of it all is that our neighbor died of smoke inhalation. She was an elderly widow. We had just had her over to our home a few days before this for Thanksgiving. There is good news in the midst of this sad story. She got saved just a couple of weeks or so before her death. She gave her heart and life to Jesus. She was ready for death even though I am sure she was not expecting it that morning. We never know what a day will bring forth. It could be our last day … any one of us could suddenly die. Are you ready for death?

I have been talking about fire. There is another fire God’s Word speaks about …

HELLFIRE !!!!

This fire is eternal and cannot be extinguished. The billions of souls who will spend eternity there will be in great torment and anguish. The fire of hell will not burn out like those here on earth we deal with. And those who go there will not be destroyed (burnt up). The torment will be everlasting. No one has to go there however. God has provided the means to escape such a fate. All we have to do is come to Him on His terms. Truly it is better to turn than burn!

NOAH’S ARK 2014

Currently, much to my surprise, the brand new movie, Noah’s Ark 2014, is available to view on YouTube. I watched it a couple of weeks or so ago. I was extremely disappointed by it as it was not only ridiculously dumb as it was not at all scriptural, but it made God out to be some kind of an incompetent fool Who didn’t know what He was doing and had regrets over His decision. I could not recommend this movie to anyone. Those responsible for its creation will answer to God for what they have done. God will not be mocked. Whatever a man sows he will also reap! (Galatians 6:7)  It was bad enough that they smeared the good character of Noah and his family, but to portray God as a fool is simply intolerable. I could not help but wonder if whoever wrote this script was on drugs.

I was just thinking … Noah’s Ark was built by amateurs while the Titanic was built by professionals. The major difference was that the builders of the ark didn’t mock God. The builders of the Titanic made the boast that even God could not sink the Titanic. Having spent 8 years serving in the U.S. Navy aboard a total of 7 ships and one large boat (some very short term and one pier-side no longer used for going out to sea) I know what it is like to sail the ocean waters as well as Lake Michigan. The dimensions God gave to Noah for the ark were later discovered by man to be the most stable ship design.

A full-size Noah’s Ark will be built in Kentucky biblical park. Builders of a Noah’s Ark in Northern Kentucky put faith, painstaking detail into $50 million tourism project. And it’s to be big. Five hundred and fifty feet long, 85 feet wide and 51 feet high. You can read about it here as well as view a video.

http://bit.ly/1fuPQCF

As I have spent a few hours looking thru websites, YouTube videos, etc. looking for ark related stuff to share here I found a whole lot of very critical commentaries, etc. of people who reject the biblical account of Noah’s Ark and the global flood. I guess that doesn’t surprise me, but it does sadden me. We are living in the End Times and God has said that people will be the same as they were back in Noah’s day. They laughed at Noah and his family and rejected the warnings. When the water level got deep enough they finally realized too late that there must be something to all this. Only 8 people were spared. They were safe in the ark. Everyone else drowned. Jesus Christ is the “ark” of salvation and only means of escaping what is coming upon the earth … when God pours out His wrath upon sinful mankind. Only those who are in this ark will be spared. What will you do with Jesus?

 

GOD LOVES AND GOD HATES

One of the search terms someone used resulting in visiting my blog was “God hates”. I Googled this and when I looked thru the search results I was quite saddened by much of what I saw. There were so many people who have grossly misquoted and misapplied Scripture and in thus doing have painted a very wrong picture of Who God is. They will be held accountable for doing so, but it concerns me greatly the damage people like this can do in influencing others. For instance, when people say things like God hates homosexuals they are most definitely guilty of misquoting and misapplying God’s Word. God does not hate homosexuals. He loves homosexuals. What He hates is the sin of homosexuality. There is a difference … a major difference! Nowhere in God’s Word does He say that He hates anyone. He loves everybody. He does, however, hate all sin. This is such a key thing. People are good at taking God’s Word out of context and misusing it. Another often misquoted passage of scripture is 1 Timothy 6:10 … “for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”. We often hear/read “money is the root of all evil” … leaving the “love of” off. Again, there is a big difference.

God is love! That doesn’t mean He can’t and doesn’t hate. What it does mean is that He is just and fair in all things. We hear people say that  they can’t believe in and follow a God Who would send someone to hell. All I can say to them is … “you don’t have to”. However, if you continue to take your position on this, you will be the loser as your ignorance and stubbornness comes at a very high price. You will stand before Jesus Christ in judgement and have no excuse … at least none that is acceptable. First of all it is not God Who is responsible for anyone going to hell. We are! God in His great love for us has done all He can do to keep us from ending up in hell. He loves us so much that He left heaven to come to earth to show us His love and to take upon Himself the punishment we deserve. He suffered and died on a cruel cross … the most terrible form of death devised by man. Yes, I said “we deserve”. You see, that is the problem! With the position some take concerning God they are not willing to own up to the fact that they are responsible for themselves … for their sin … and accountable to Him. They want to blame God and make Him responsible for their sin. That is ludicrous! It ain’t gonna’ happen!

God is holy and perfect in every way. We are sinful and our sin separates us from Him. He can not allow sin in His presence. That is why we must deal with the sin problem. We have nothing to offer Him other than ourselves. All of our own efforts are unacceptable to Him. We must come to Him on His terms. He requires of us that we acknowledge our sinfulness and that we are willing to turn from sin (repent) showing Him that we desire to follow Him and obey Him … to give ourselves in total surrender to Him. This is the only way we can receive His pardon and the death sentence over us. In doing so we not only receive His forgiveness, but we are adopted into His family with full benefits including eternal life with Him. That is a great deal! That is the ultimate expression of a loving God. He did not have to do this for us. Our sin condemns us and He could have left us in that state … without any hope … assured of eternal damnation in the lake of fire and anguish and torment forever and ever.

Here is another excellant video 28 minutes in duration which you can watch if interested:

Dr Richard Kent – What was it like to be Crucified, being intervied on Revelation TV

I encourage you to READ what Jesus went thru to provide salvation for you and I so that we don’t have to go to hell. If after reading this about what God did for you I would ask you … do you still hold the same view and position? And if you do I would further ask you … how can you?

Yes, God loves and God hates but we need to understand things right. Sin is sin, however God calls some sin an abomination before Him. There is much difference between the word sin and the word abomination.      SIN VS. ABOMINIATION

Solomon spoke of the things that God hates, and the things that are an abomination unto Him in the book of Proverbs: “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes (a proud look), a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.” (Proverbs 6:16-19)  “A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is His delight.” (Proverbs 11:1)

The Greek word for sin is HARMATRIA or HARMARTANO. The meaning is “to be without a share in; to miss the mark; to err, be mistaken; to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour, to do or go wrong; to wander from the law of God, and to violate God’s law”. The Hebrew word for sin is CHATA and means “to miss the way, to err, to miss the mark, to wander from the way, to become unclean”. Another Hebrew word used for sin is PESHA and means “transgression and rebellion”. It refers to those who rebel against God’s intended way in their lives.

The word for abomination in the New Testament, it is the Greek word BDELUSSO or BDELUGMA and means “to abhor, a foul thing, a detestable thing, to stink, smell bad, odious, wickedness, and to turn one’s self away from on account of the stench”. In the Old Testament there is more than one word used for abomination. The main word used is TOWEBAH and means “a disgusting thing, a thing of wickedness”. God hates all sin but there are certain sins which God has listed as an abomination before Him. Certainly the sin of homosexuality is one of them. Sexual perversion is an abomination in the sight of God. There are many forms of sexual perversion and mankind is involved in all of them. Most, if not all, are found in the church. God spoke to Moses, “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Leviticus 18:22 Homosexuality and lesbianism are abominations in the sight of God, a stink in His nostrils, that He will turn His face away from. All types of sexual sin defiles a society and will incur God’s judgement and wrath. We tend to forget Sodom and Gomorrah … two cities and their citizens God totally destroyed because of sexual sin. It is only by God’s grace that we too are not destroyed … yet. We live in a day and age where those who practice this wickedness boast about their disgusting sin. We even have the term “gay pride”. As a society we not only tolerate this in our midst, but a very large percentage of the population fully support the idea of such sin. How sad this all is. We even have homosexual churches and ministers. What an oxymoron!

Homosexuality is not the only sin going on in our midst that God is extremely displeased with so I don’t want to come across as singling out this sin and ignoring all others. And truthfully God is far more upset with sin among those who call themselves Christians that He is those that make no such profession.

God has made the difference between sin and abominations very plain in His Word. Sins are those things in our lives that cause us to miss the mark of the high calling in God. Abominations are those things that are an abhorrence unto Him, and a stink in His nostrils.

Yes, God loves but He also hates. Understanding the truth about both is essential. Acting upon that understanding of the truth is also essential.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (but not necessarily in that order)

Ah yes, those good ol’ Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns. Who can forget them? I am sure many can if they aren’t fans of Clint Eastwood, but for those of us who like his movies/his acting they remain high on the list. Certainly they did launch his career.  Then there was Charles Bronson who also got a big boost by succeeding in Europe before making it big here. This article I am writing is not about either of these actors, movies, or anything of the sort. If fact, as often is the case I don’t have a clue what I am going to write about as I start typing away here. I was just sitting here when the words “THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY” popped into my head followed by “not necessarily in that order”. Now all I have to do is make something out of this. Does that sound strange to you? Sometimes things just happen this way for me when it comes to writing something for this blog … and not just this blog, but all the blogs I have had before. I guess it is just the way my mind works … at least some of the time.

When I look at those words … good, bad and ugly … I really don’t think of the infamous western movie so much as I do “good news”, “bad news”  and “ugly truth” or “ugly situation”. And when I think of good news, bad news and ugly truth/situation I then think of “but not necessarily in that order”. I would imagine that this isn’t making much sense to you but I will further explain it. I will try to make it a short explanation. Good news  equates to the “Gospel” (of Jesus Christ) as that is what the word gospel means … good news. Bad news is the fact that hell awaits all mankind. And that is the ugly truth! In order to grasp and appreciate the good news (the gospel) one has to first grasp and understand the bad news. The good news is just not good news unless one has become aware of and is concerned over the bad news. Are you following me? The bad news is we are hellbound! The good news is we don’t have to go to hell! And with that the ugly truth is changing dramatically into something beautiful.

Resources

My Personal Testimony

Perhaps the next time you think of this movie title you might think beyond

as there are far more significant matters to concern ourselves with

WHAT’S WRONG WITH _____________?

The internet and search engines have become so very handy to look stuff up. Of course, just because one finds something on the internet does not make it factual trustworthy truth. I had a pastor once many years ago who used to say “you can make your mouth say anything”. When it comes to scriptural truth God has made it very clear that there are those who mislead others. God has instructed us to search the scriptures diligently and to properly understand and apply God’s Word. We are not just to accept any and everything that is presented. Many many things come to mind when I think about this subject. Getting back to the internet and search engines one of the popular means of searching is to type in “what’s wrong with _____________?” (fill in the blank).  I have done this many times. 

I just checked the “stat” page of this blog and noticed that somebody visited this blog as a result of an internet search for “has anybody went to purgatory”. I would assume that they are Catholic as Catholics are the only ones I know of who believe in such nonsense. In the Tom Cruise movie, “Jerry Maguire”, a line has become well known … “Show me the money”. To anyone who believes in “purgatory” I say “show it to me in the bible”. Therein lies the problem … people believe all sorts of falsehoods accepting these things without ever checking it out for themselves. God has said “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge“. (Hosea 4:6) We get caught up in false teachings and if we believe and follow them we greatly endanger our eternal souls. God has given us His Word. We are responsible to study it and are accountable to Him. We should never just accept something we hear or read as truth without checking it out against what God has said in His Word.

What I am writing about here may come across as unloving but actually just the opposite is true. If I didn’t care about the eternal soul of others I would just keep silent. It is not loving toward others to allow them to walk down a path of destruction. It is loving to warn them and try to rescue them from destruction. If you were sound asleep in bed at 2:30 in the morning and I was driving by your house and noticed it was on fire would you want me to just pass on by and let you sleep or would you want me to stop and try to awaken you and your family so that you could escape the danger?

Have you ever looked at and thought about the word “PROTESTANT”? … PROTEST & ANT which is one who protests. So what are they protesting? Martin Luther started it all. He was a Catholic who dared to look into the bible for himself to see what it says. Upon doing so he realized how messed up the Catholic religion is … how it has so many things very wrong … not in accord with what God has said in His Word. Martin Luther could no longer just sit back and continue on with the teachings and practices of the Catholic church. He could not just remain silent. He protested these false teachings and practices he had discovered by reading the bible.

When I first got out of the Navy I went to work as a maintenance weldor at Kraft Foods. Shortly before I hired in something happened which I was told about. Two maintenance mechanics were up on the roof of the building walking along during the night when it was quite dark and they couldn’t see very well. The area of the roof they were walking on had multiple levels and no kind of railing along the edge of the roof to keep someone from stepping off the edge and falling down onto the level of the roof below. They were walking along one in front of the other when the lead man stepped off the edge and fell onto the roof level below. The man following him did the exact same thing. You might say it was a case of the blind leading the blind. Fortunately neither of them got seriously hurt. Why they didn’t have flashlights with them and use them I don’t understand. Many laughs resulted of the telling of this story. In the image below you can see the various levels of the roof. The dark areas are higher than the lighter areas and there are even different levels among the dark areas.

I share it here because it illustrates exactly what is going on in any false religion. The only difference is those who step off the edge plummet into eternal damnation. How tragic … especially since we have God’s Word to light our way. Like these two maintenance mechanics most people walking along are not using the light to help them avoid tragedy.

My sister and her husband as well as my wife used to be Catholic. My brother in law did as Martin Luther did. He looked into God’s Word for himself and found the truth and saw the great falsehoods of the Catholic church. Many people have left the Catholic church as a result of discovering the truth and understanding the deception and danger of the false religion that they had been a part of.

Let’s look at some of the things people believe that are not in accord with God’s Word. I am not going to take the time and go to the effort to type all this out as there are numerous resources available already …

What’s Wrong With Roman Catholicism?

False Doctrines

Why Catholics Are Going To Hell

Are Roman Catholics Christian?

Much of this not only applies to the Catholic church but it also applies to other false religions.

What Is A False Religion?

GOD HATES RELIGION!

“Religion is the opium of the people”. This is a well known quote attributed to Karl Marx. From what I read he did not actually say these exact words, but they are credited to him anyway. Regardless I want to go on record saying that I could not agree more. Religion is something most dangerous. I want to further go on record saying that GOD HATES RELIGION! Satan, on the other hand, loves religion. You see, Satan is all about deceiving people and keeping them in spiritual darkness and ignorant of the Truth. His goal is to ensure that people end up in hell. He is a master at it. He doesn’t care what church organization a person belongs to although most certainly he prefers some over others. I say this because some preach and teach the Truth according to God’s Word while others do not. Obviously Satan would much rather see a person be a part of a church which does not present the Truth than one that does. Being in a church where one is exposed to the presentation of the Truth just might result in that person coming out of spiritual darkness and into the Light.

Yes, God hates religion. Religion is something contrived by man and Satan. Satan is quite guilty of leading people astray and keeping them lost. But we need to be careful not to give too much credit to Satan. Man is quite capable of accomplishing this all by himself. We have churches full of people who warm the pews (seats) on a regular basis who go thru all the motions and feel good because they have done their duty or spiritual service unto God (at least that is their thinking). They might even be very involved in their church serving in one capacity or another. They might be involved in community service and affairs. There is nothing wrong with any of these things and, in fact, more of us should do so. However, if we are only religious and not BORN AGAIN as God requires then it is all for nothing. We will remain lost and eventually die in our sins and spend eternity in torment of hell fire. God hates religion. He is “into” and is all about PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP. He wants us to know Him personally and be “in relationship” with Him.

I can say that I knew various things about President Ronald Reagan, but I never met him and established a personal relationship with him. Knowing things about someone is not the same as knowing them personally. A lot of people know things about God, but they have never met Him and established a personal relationship with Him. We must come to God on HIS TERMS.

I mentioned earlier that Satan is a master deceiver. It stands to reason that he will always try to thwart God’s plans and God’s ways. When someone attempts to share about being BORN AGAIN you can bet that he will try to explain it away and convince people who are trapped in spiritual darkness that they are ok and that they are or will be BORN AGAIN when they are not. This is very prevalent in the Catholic church.

In closing I just want to say that we can hear and read lots of things from many different sources. They may sound good, convincing, authoritative, etc., but if these things are not in accord with God’s Word (and a proper understanding and application of it) then it is all very dangerous poison we should steer clear of. Everything needs to be carefully examined in the light of God’s Word. Our eternal soul is at stake.

WHAT TO DO TO GO TO HELL

WHAT TO DO TO GO TO HELL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently you scrolled down here so I assume you are looking for something. You didn’t see anything further up for a very good reason. There isn’t anything anyone needs to do to go to hell. Every human being who has reached the age of accountability or has the mental capacity to be held accountable is going to hell. It is a sure thing. Why not? We have all earned it. We all deserve it. And God most certainly has given us ample warning and instruction concerning the matter.

In this modern day of technology we have the common term “by default” or “default setting”. Using either of these terms is fitting here … by default we are all going to hell upon our death. This is because we are all sinners and God can not allow sin in His presence for He is holy. Our sin separates us from Him. We have a problem here … a very big problem. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We are doomed! Between man and Satan there have been and are numerous concepts about trying to remedy this situation, but none of them work. We can try and try to be acceptable to God but nothing will work for us. God says that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. We have nothing to offer Him which is acceptable to Him.

So what can we do? Is there hope? Is there a way … a means of our being acceptable to God? It should be obvious that no one in their right mind would want to go to hell. This puts us in a most desperate situation. We need help! God knows this and He in His great love for us provided what we need. “While we were yet sinners Christ Jesus died for us.” (Romans 5:8) “But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name…” (John 1:12) We are “by default” children of Satan (because of our sin), but God wants to adopt us and have us join His family. It is not complicated. In fact, it is as simple as ABC …

A = Acknowledge before God that you are a sinner and need His forgiveness and salvation He alone offers.

B = Believe on and accept Jesus as Savior and allow Him to be Lord of your life. This means we must repent of our sin … turning away from it and desiring to follow Jesus Christ in total obedience.

C = Confess with your mouth what you embrace in your heart concerning Who Jesus is … Savior, Lord and soon coming King. Tell others about Who He is … share about His love, goodness, grace, faithfulness, and this salvation He offers.

Nothing is required of us to go to hell, but something is required of us not to go there. We must come to God on His terms. We have no assurance of our next breath or heartbeat. If we die in our sin our fate is sealed. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. You may not have another opportunity.

RESOURCES

MY PERSONAL TESTIMONY

THIS WAS YOUR LIFE!

I am sure many of us have seen the Chick tracts before. They are often found laying around here and there. They are the comic book type tracts. I used to see them laying around aboard ship when I was in the navy. I looked at a couple of them while aboard ship but I didn’t pay much attention to them and really didn’t have much interest in them at that time. There is a reason for that which I won’t go into at this time. Chick has many very good tracts but there are two or three that really stand out in my mind. One of them is what I write about today. I invite you to read this tract now. It might be your last opportunity as we have no assurance of our next breath or heartbeat. It would be most tragic to die without ever dealing with the most serious problem we all have  …

THIS WAS YOUR LIFE!

This Was Your Life
©2002 by Jack T. Chick LLC

THE STORY OF JESUS

It is Easter Sunday so it is only fitting to share THE STORY OF JESUS.

I came across an audio narration produced by Zondervan telling the story of Jesus Christ which I have been listening to and enjoying. It is dramatized and well done. I often listened to the audio bible on this same website but had not seen this offering before. Most of it is the reading of the text from the NIV bible. They have added some additional wording here and there to help tell the story. This would even be good for children to listen to. I encourage you to check it out.  HERE is a link to this audio story of Jesus.

There are 7 parts to it …

1) The birth of the King

2) Jesus’ ministry begins

3) No ordinary man

4) Jesus, the Son of God

5) The hour of darkness

6) The resurrection

7) New beginnings

In addition to the story of Jesus there are also several other readings available to listen to. You select from this same window (media player) which will appear:

Addiction – By My Spirit

           Comfort In Affliction

           You Were Called To Be Free

            Fixing Our Eyes On Jesus

            Now Is The Day Of Salvation

            Our Help Comes From God

            The Issues Of Life

             Light Shines In The Darkness

             Justice & Righteousness

              Forgive As The Lord Has Forgiven You

              You Are Loved & Of Great Value

              Hearts That Are Healed

              Fullness Of Joy

Finances –  Then You Will Be Prosperous & Successful

              God Loves You

               In Everything God Has Supremacy

                Rest In The Lord

                The Work Of God

                Find Hope

                Guard Your Heart

                The Word Of Life

                 Love The Lord

                 Wisdom & Understanding

                  We Are God’s Fellow Workers

                  Love One Another

                  Trust God

                  The Joy Of The Lord Is Your Strength

Peace –  My Peace I Give You

                  Fear Not

                  I Will Give You Rest

                  Righteousness, Peace & Joy

                  Angels

                   Straight Paths

                   Do Not Let Your Hearts Be Troubled

                   The Tender Mercies Of God

                   The Blood Of Christ

                   By His Wounds We Are Healed

                   Quietness & Trust

                   Take Refuge In The Lord

                   Love One Another

                   Humility & Gentleness

Witness The Bible –  Genesis To Jesus

                   Welcome

                    Creation, Genesis 1

                   Adam & Eve, Genesis 2

                    The Fall, Genesis 3

                     The Flood, Genesis 5, 6, 7 & 8

                     Abraham’s Calling, Genesis 10, 11 & 17

                      From Abraham To Boaz, Matthew 1, Ruth 1

                      A Family Reunited, Ruth 2

                      The Kinsman Redeemer, Ruth 3

                       Ruth’s Royal Line Of Redemption, Ruth 4

                       David & Goliath, 1 Samuel 17

                       From David to Jonah, Matthew 1, Jonah 1

                       In The Belly Of The Great Fish,  Jonah 2

                       The Second Chance, Jonah 3

                       Angry Unto Death, Jonah 4

                       A Greater Than Jonah Is Here, Matthew 12: 38-41

                       Gabriel Visits Mary, Luke 1: 26-38

                       Mary’s Prayer, Luke 1: 39-56

                       Return To Bethlehem, Luke 2:1-7

                       The Shepherds, Luke 2: 8-20

                       Wisemen, Matthew 2:1;12

                       Conclusion, John 3:16

Witness The Bible – Mark (readings from several chapters of the Gospel of Mark)

Witness The Bible – Joseph & Judah

                      Now Israel Loved Joseph

                      Potiphar

                      The Butler & The Baker

                      And Pharaoh Also Dreamed

                      Zaphnath-Paaneah

                      You Are Spies

                      Set On Meat!

                      The Silver Cup

                       Then Judah Drew Near To Joseph

                       You Sent Me Not Here

                       Land O’ Goshen!

                       Ephraim & Manasseh

                        Jacob Prophesies

                        ending with 5 cute songs by children

Morning & Evening Devotions by Charles Spurgeon for every day of the year

GOODNIGHT OR GOODBYE

I think one of the most powerful Christian tracts I ever read was one entitled “Goodnight or Goodbye”. It is a story about a man about to die who is spending his last moments of life on earth with his family at his side. One by one he speaks to them. I could relate the story paraphrasing it from my memory, but instead I will simply post it here exactly like the tract shares it.

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“A devoted Christian business man was struck by an automobile and rushed to a hospital. He was informed by the doctors that he had only about two hours to live. He had implicit faith in the goodness of God and in His Word, so to him death was only a gateway leading to the glory of heaven and the presence of God. He had his family called to his side, and thus addressed them:—
“Goodnight, my dear Wife. You have been the greatest woman in the world to me. Through sunshine and shadow we have walked together. You have been my inspiration in everything I have undertaken, especially in my walk as a Christian. Many times I have seen the Spirit of God shining in your face. I love you far more than on the day you became my bride. Goodnight, dear; I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Mary. Mary, you are our firstborn. What a joy you have been to me! How glad I am that in face and spirit you have always reminded me of your mother. I see in you the sweet, beautiful, young woman who left her home to be the builder and keeper of mine. What a Christian you are, Mary! Never forget how your father loved you. Goodnight, Mary, goodnight.”
He then turned to his eldest son:
“Goodnight, Will. Will, your coming into our home has been an incredible blessing. You were a manly boy, and you have become an exemplary man. You love the God of your father. How proud I am of such a son! May you grow in every Christian grace and virtue. You have my love and blessing. Goodnight, Will, goodnight.”
Charlie was the next. Charlie had fallen under evil influences and grievously disappointed his father and mother. The dying man skipped him, and spoke to the youngest child, a beautiful young girl.
“Goodnight, Grace. Grace, your coming was like the breaking of a new day in our home. You have long been a song of gladness and a ray of light, filling our hearts with music. When you surrendered your life to Christ, my cup of happiness was filled to overflowing. Goodnight, my little Grace, goodnight.”
He then called Charlie to his side:
“Goodbye, Charlie. Charlie, what a promising boy you were. We believed you would develop into a great and noble man. We gave you all the opportunities we gave to the other children, but you have disappointed us. You have followed the broad and downward road. You have not heeded the warnings of God’s holy Word or hearkened to the call of the Saviour. But I have always loved you, and love you still, Charlie. God only knows how much I love you. Goodbye, Charlie, goodbye, goodbye.”
Charlie seized his father’s hand and between his sobs he cried out, “Father, why have you said ‘goodnight’ to the others and ‘goodbye’ to me?”
“For the simple reason that I will meet the others in heaven. But all the promises of God’s Word that assure us of a reunion also tell me I can have no hope of seeing you there. Goodbye, Charlie, goodbye!”
Charlie, realizing his lost condition, fell on his knees by his dying father’s bed and cried out to God in the agony of his soul, praying for the forgiveness of his sins and the hope of meeting his father again.
“Do you mean it, Charlie? Are you in earnest?”
“God knows I am,” said the brokenhearted young man.
“Then God has heard you and saved you, Charlie. It is goodnight and not goodbye. “Goodnight, my boy.” With this the father was gone into eternity.”

Goodnight or Goodbye Story

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My eyes tear up just reading this story as it is so powerful and so true. There is no hope without Jesus Christ! Oh what a blessed Savior! I cannot keep silent. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so! I am redeemed, I am redeemed! Praise the Lord! Redeemed by His infinite mercy! His child forever I am!

I hope to see you in the morning!

BAAAAAA! BAAAAAA!

We are all like sheep! Sheep are a vulnerable creature and quite helpless oftentimes. Left on their own they wander off and get lost. They get themselves into trouble that they aren’t likely to get out of without help. Without a shepherd they most likely sooner or later would die from one cause or another. Most likely they could end up on the lunch menu of some other animal such as a wolf, bear, etc. In short, sheep need a shepherd to watch over them, protect them and guide them along.

Yes, we are all like sheep! We have gone astray. (see Isaiah 53:6) We have wandered off on our own into dangerous territory. We will surely perish if we don’t get help. A shepherd who is watching over a flock of sheep oftentimes will leave the flock and go looking for a single sheep which has wandered off of its own … to rescue it and bring it back to the fold.

God’s Word tells us that Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd (John 10:14). He has a flock He watches over. He is out looking for lost sheep and wanting to bring them back to the fold.

It is God’s love for us that compels Him to be the Shepherd Who was willing to lay down His life for us. Upon finding lost sheep there is reason to rejoice for we are so very precious in His sight.

Yes, Jesus is looking for lost sheep, but the problem is some sheep don’t want to be found. In God’s great love for us He created us with free will. We have the ability and freedom to choose. We can remain lost and wandering if we want to, but we are told that if we make this choice we will have a tragic fate. Jesus is a gentle Shepherd. He won’t force Himself upon us. But understand this … He loves you and I so much that He was willing to lay down His life for us … to take upon Himself the horrible punishment for our sins … in our place so that we would not have to face this ourselves. Only God could have provided the “innocent blood” needed … indeed, demanded and required … to accomplish this for us. Yes, even if one of us underwent the beating and crucifixion Jesus did it would have been in vain as none of us have “innocent blood”. We are all sinners. Only Jesus was without sin in His life. He paid the price so that we won’t have to. He offers us forgiveness and a new life in Him. But it can and will only happen if we come to Him on His terms. So if you are a lost sheep I encourage you to start bleating out … BAAAAA! BAAAAA! so that you may be found. Don’t be like this guy below.

If we choose to do so we can, but we will die in our sins and surely perish into eternal damnation. Jesus is coming back to earth soon. When He comes He is not coming as He did the first time. He is coming in righteous anger to pour out His wrath upon sinful Christ rejecting mankind. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart and ignore and reject Him. Seek Him while He may be found … while He is out looking for you … a lost sheep.  BAAAA!