Biblical immutability is a difficult concept for a lot of people. It is one of the most seemingly self-contradictory attributes of God—even the Bible appears to contradict itself in places where the immutability or unchangeableness of God is concerned.  For example, the Lord says of Himself in Malachi 3:6a, “For I, the LORD, do not change …”  And 1st Samuel 15:29—“Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” And yet in places the Bible seems to indicate that from time to time God does change His attitude toward people. 

For example, Genesis 6:6—“The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.” And Jeremiah 26:13—“Now therefore amend your ways and your deeds and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will change His mind about the misfortune which He has pronounced against you.”

However contradictory these verses appear, when we see what the Scriptures actually say about God’s unchanging character, not only will these apparent contradictions melt away, we will have a new sense of peace and confidence in the promises of God.

Continue reading…

BASIC BIBLE DOCTRINE

Understanding God

Lesson Fifteen:  The Happiness of God

God is happy.  His happiness is an intrinsic part of who He is.  He was happy in eternity past, He is happy now, and He will be happy for all eternity.  There never was a time when He was not happy.  His happiness, like all of His other attributes, is infinite and absolute.  It is not subject to fluctuation.  It can neither increase nor decrease.  God did not attain His happiness, nor can He ever lose it.  It is an integral part of His being and has been so from eternity past.  Because God is absolute, infinite, and eternal, His happiness is absolute, infinite, and eternal.  God does not depend on anything external to Himself as a source of happiness.  He does not even need to do anything to keep His happiness.  God’s happiness has no need of sustenance or maintenance.  He is the God of perfect, absolute, and infinite well-being…

Continue Reading…

Read the full bible study here

Read the full Basic Bible Study on ChristReport.com

Basic Bible Doctrine

Lesson One

Getting Started in the Christian Life: The Filling of the Holy Spirit
by John McReynolds

elcome to the first lesson in a series we’re presenting called Basic Bible Doctrine.  This is a series of Bible studies that is primarily aimed at two groups of people: new Christians, but also Christians who have been in the faith for a while, and who want to go back and review the fundamentals of the faith.  This series will address the needs of both groups.

You can also read the full version of the study at ChristReport.com here.

However, this study isn’t for everybody.  There is one prerequisite to taking this course in Basic Bible Doctrine, and that is you must be a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Now I’m not trying to be exclusivist or elitist or anything like that—there is a very practical reason for this.  If you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you will get very little out of these studies—in fact they will probably make very little sense to you. 

Now there may be some who are reading this message, and you may not be sure whether you’re a Christian or not—you may not know for sure that you have personally received Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. 

If this is your situation, let me urge you to go back to our home page and click on the link “Plan of Salvation”.  It will give you the information you need to make a decision to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.  Then, after the question of your eternal salvation has been settled, you can come back here—in fact I urge you to do that, because as a new believer in Jesus Christ you need information with which to begin your new life in Christ.  And this is what we’re aiming to do with this course.

Now I’m going to ask you to do something that may seem a little strange to you.  What you’re going to do will show you how to get “plugged in” to God, so that you can begin building a relationship with Him.  There’s nothing weird or spooky about this, but it is the first thing you as a believer need to understand about living the Christian life.  What we are talking about here is prayer—the most fundamental prayer that can be prayed by a Christian.

What you’re going to do at the end of these brief instructions, is bow your head and close your eye.  In a public setting that gives you privacy.  But it’s a good idea to bow and close your eyes even when you’re in private, because it helps you to concentrate and focus.  However, bowing your head and closing your eyes are not mandatory—only helpful to most people.

What you are going to do now is communicate with God the Father silently in your mind   (if you’re alone you can speak verbally if it helps you form the words).  It shouldn’t surprise you to know the Father can hear your thoughts.  Now He’s not going to answer you back—at least not in a way that you can hear Him.  In fact you probably won’t notice any difference when you’re finished.  So what do I want you to communicate to God?

What I want you to do is think of all the sins you have committed since you accepted Christ as your Savior.  Don’t worry about the ones you committed before you were saved—they were cleansed the moment you believed in Christ.  It’s the ones you committed after you were saved that we’re concerned with here.  It doesn’t matter if it’s just a few sins or a whole boatload of them.  There may be so many that you just have to name them as categories, like lying, gossiping, stealing, lustful thoughts, adultery—there are all kinds of sins.  If it’s easier just try to remember the different kinds of sins you have committed.  And don’t worry about the one’s you can’t remember—just name the ones you can. 

Now, as you think of each of these sins or categories of sin, silently name them to God the Father.  That’s all—just name them.  You don’t have to do anything else to accomplish what we’re trying to do here.  You don’t have to do penance, or confess them to a priest or anybody else.  Just silently name them to God.  Now you’re not telling God anything He doesn’t already know—He knows each and every sin you’ve committed—He just wants you to acknowledge them to Him.

Now don’t worry if you can’t get them all named.  If you really want to have a relationship with God He’ll know what you’re doing and He will honor it.  During this moment of silent prayer just think of your sins and name them to God.  So now just bow your head and name all of your sins that you can remember.  Then come back here and I’ll follow up with a brief prayer.  Now let us pray…

Thank you, Father, for the privilege of being able to come before you confessing our sins and receiving Your forgiveness and cleansing.  Thank You for enabling us to understand Your words to us through the power of the Holy Spirit who fills us according to Your promise.  Now cause us to understand the things You have for us today, for we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ who shed His blood for us that we might have abundant life with You, not only in the heaven of our future, but also in this life as well, amen.

All right, that little exercise we just went through is technically known as “Confession of Sin”, or as one theologian has called it, “Rebound.” It is based on a specific promise of God that if we, as Christians, confess, admit, cite, or name our sins to God that He will forgive us and clean us up.  We’ll get into detail on this whole technique of Rebound in a later study.  For now it’s just important that we know how to do it—and why it is necessary.

Now I want us to go back to when you were first saved—when you were born again.  When you first accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior a lot of things happened.  You didn’t notice them at the time because they all happened in the spiritual realm.  Being newly born again—that is born spiritually—you had no way to make sense of what was going on around you in the spiritual realm, any more than a human baby can make sense of what’s going on when he or she is born into the physical realm.

What I want to do right now is to briefly go into one of the things that happened at the moment you were born again.  That thing is that you were filled with the Holy Spirit of God.  This event is known theologically as the Filling of the Holy Spirit, or the FHS as we abbreviate it.  So what is the FHS?

The FHS is essentially what empowers us to live the spiritual life that God has left us here to live on earth after salvation.  You may have noticed that God didn’t take you directly to heaven the moment you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior.  That’s because He has a plan and purpose for you for the remaining years of your life on earth.

What God wants us to do as Christians on earth is to live an impossible life.  What do I mean “impossible”?  I mean impossible from the viewpoint of the world—from the viewpoint of unbelievers.  Now that I’ve gotten you really scratching your heads let me try to illustrate what I mean. 

Think back to just before you were saved—to just before you decided to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.  What motivated you to do that?  Probably part of it was because somehow you became aware of yourself as a sinner, and you saw yourself and your life as dirty and in need of cleansing.  But for some of you another part of it was someone you knew who was a Christian.  In the time before you accepted the Lord you would sometimes look at that person and think to yourself, “Wow, that is such a good person—never uptight, always at peace, never talks badly about other people or to other people—there is a peace and serenity there that I can’t explain—it doesn’t make sense, but I sure wish I had it!”

That’s what I’m talking about.  God wants Christians to be a witness to the lost world—the lost world of unbelievers out of which you were saved.  He wants you to be like that person you so admired—He wants your supernatural way of life to motivate some unbeliever to want the same thing you have.  That’s why He keeps us here after we’re saved, to live a supernatural life and be a witness to unbelievers.  How to live that supernatural life is mostly what we’re going to be studying for the rest of this course in basic Bible Doctrine.

Now just a couple of minutes ago I said it is the FHS that empowers or enables us to live this supernatural way of life.  I’m going to make an analogy here that will hopefully illustrate what I mean.  Most of us own or use or have access to a personal computer.  PC’s have revolutionized modern life.  We have access to information on a scale unprecedented in our parents’ lifetime.  I can write papers and books and make them look like they were professionally printed.  I can keep track of my finances and even conduct my banking without leaving my home.  We can communicate with each other by e-mail without filling out an envelope or licking a stamp. 

Now I know that the computer and computer technology has its down side as well, but we won’t mention that, mainly because it’ll spoil my analogy.

One thing I’m sure you’ve noticed is that in order for your computer to work it must have a source of power.  Unless it is plugged into a wall socket it won’t function.  Even battery powered laptops have to be charged up at some point.  And then it’s still not going to do what you want it to do unless you press the power button. 

Before you were saved you were like a computer in the box, sitting on the table—a collection of wires, cables, boxes, electronics, all just sitting there.  But then when you accepted the Lord He came in and set you up, and connected all the parts together, plugged all the cables into the right sockets.  And most importantly He plugged that power cord into His “wall socket” so that you could get some divine electricity into your life.

Now when you got your computer up and running you were loading programs and getting on the internet and just having a high old time of it.  And everything was going along fine, when all of a sudden you heard a rumble of thunder.  Oh Oh!  But it was fine, that computer screen didn’t even blink, and so you just went merrily along, until CRASH!  Here came a lightning flash and a big loud thunderclap, and out went your lights, and your computer screen went dark along with the rest of your house.

So now here you are, you’re saved—you’re plugged in to the power of God.  You’re tooling along in the filling of the Spirit—but then along comes a thunderstorm in your life.  You encounter some difficulty or some temptation, and then before you know it, BOOM!  A lightning bolt of sin completely knocks the power out of your spiritual life, and you are unable to do anything.

Now in our computer analogy, as you sit there staring at your dark computer screen the lights go back on.  But interestingly enough, your dark computer screen just keeps on staring at you.  Then you remember … you have to turn the computer back on!  So you reach over and push the power button and soon you’re back up and running.

So here you are, a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, but you’re out of fellowship.  At some point you realize that your spiritual life has lost its power source, and you realize it’s because of the lightning bolt of sin.  You can’t go back and undo the sin any more than you can undo a lightning bolt.  But God has provided you with a power button.  And you press that power button by claiming one of the great promises of God.

If you have a Bible I want you to turn to the little book of 1^st John.  Now this is the first epistle or letter of John—not the Gospel of John.  First John is located almost at the back of the Bible.  If you turn to the back of your Bible you’ll find the Book of Revelation.  Find the beginning of Revelation, then turn back a few pages.  Eventually you’ll find 1^st John.  When you get there we’ll be looking at chapter one. 

Remember that this is a course in Bible basics.  We have a textbook—the Christian Bible.  If you have a Bible but you don’t have it right at hand, you can put this down and go get it.  If you don’t have one you really need to get one as soon as possible, because everything we’re going to be studying is based in what we find in the Bible.  Don’t worry if you don’t have one right now—I’ve included the Scripture passages we’re going to be looking at.  But you really should get yourself a Bible as soon as possible.

All right, if you’ve found 1^st John chapter 1, I want you to look down at verse 9.  Here’s what we see in the New International Version of the Bible:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Now, in case you’re not perfectly clear about what we’ve been talking about, let me try to clarify it.  When you are first saved you are in fellowship with God.  You are plugged into God’s power source.

But the first time you sin you’re immediately out of fellowship with God.  There is sin in your life and God cannot have fellowship with sin, and He will not have fellowship with you until you are cleansed of the sin.  This is a bad situation.  What makes it worse is that you can do absolutely nothing about it.  So you are completely stuck.  But again, God comes to your rescue.  This verse, 1^st John 1:9 (First John, chapter 1, verse 9) says that if you’ll confess that sin, God will forgive you and clean you up, and you’re back in fellowship with Him.  More importantly you are plugged back in to the Divine power source. 

All right, a minute ago I mentioned this as a promise of God, and it is, but it is a very specific promise in that it is targeted toward a specific group of people—it’s not for everyone.  I mentioned this at the beginning of this lesson.  This verse—like this course—is for believers only.  Unbelievers can confess sin all day long and it will not get them any closer to God.  The issue for unbelievers is not sin, it is the Lord Jesus Christ! 

Jesus Christ settled the sin issue on the Cross when God the Father poured out on Him all the sins of the whole world, and then judged them all in Him on the Cross.  Jesus paid the penalty for those sins specifically so that when the unbeliever is brought face to face with God in this life the only issue that he has to decide is whether he will accept Jesus Christ as his substitute for payment of his sins.  If he does not then he will come face to face with God again in the next life,  and that meeting will have only one outcome—a very unpleasant one.

What I have just described in a nutshell is the doctrine of salvation by grace, which requires faith alone in Christ alone.  Today there is a tendency among many Christian groups to make repentance of sin a condition of salvation, but that’s not the clear teaching of Scripture.  The Bible makes it plain: salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone—Ephesians 2:8-9 (chapter 2, verses 8 and 9).  Now you may have a lot of questions and uncertainties about this—I would ask you to just set those aside for the time being—we will study this whole concept in greater detail later in this course.  But for now let’s look back at our verse.

The verse starts off with, “If we confess our sins…” In the original language of the New Testament, the word “confess” is the Greek word homologeo, and literally it means to “speak, name, or cite the same”.  Many preachers teach that this means to “speak the same as God thinks”, or to “agree with God about your sin”.  And while that is not an incorrect interpretation, it really doesn’t go far enough in explaining what the Apostle John was trying to tell us.  When one teaches from the original language, he has to interpret not just the vocabulary meaning of the word, he has to interpret the word in its historical context—he has to show the meaning of the word as it was used in the time in which it was written.

When this epistle was written in the first century AD the most common use of this word was as a technical legal term, and it meant to “cite or reference a past court case”.  If a legal precedent had been set, and a lawyer wished to base his case on it, he might cite “Jones versus Smith”. 

For the Christian, the past court case is “The Father versus the Human Race”, wherein Jesus represented all of fallen humanity.  In this case, all of the sins of every person who has ever been born—including you and me—was placed on Jesus while He was being judged on the Cross.  So the specific sin you are naming has already been judged and the penalty for that sin has already been paid by Jesus. 

So when you name your sins, you are in effect citing this monumental court case which was heard in the Supreme Court of Heaven, and the Father is obliged to regard your sin as already judged, and the penalty for it as already paid.

Next in 1^st John 1: 9 we see “…he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins…” God is faithful—he can be counted on to do the same thing every time.  He is just—God is justified in forgiving our sins because the penalty for the sin has already been paid by Jesus.  He will forgive our sins.  It is this forgiveness of sins that gets us back into fellowship with God and restores the Filling of the Holy Spirit.

Now the last part of the verse says, “…and purify us from all unrighteousness.” What in the world does that mean?  Think back to a few minutes ago when you were trying to remember your sins.  Do you think you remembered them all?  Probably not, especially if you have a memory like mine.  What about things you didn’t know were sins?  If you’re just getting started in the Christian life, there’s probably a bunch of sins you don’t know are sins yet.  I sure was surprised to learn about some sins I had never thought of as sins when I was a new believer!

Okay, the verse says “If we confess our sins…” But if we don’t know they’re sins, or if we’ve forgotten about them do they just remain unforgiven?  Well, we’d never even get to first base in the Christian life if that were the case.  God is aware that we are human and we have human weaknesses – Psa.  78:39.  So because He knows if our intent is to confess all our sins to Him, then He is justified to purify us of all unrighteousness.  That means He forgives the unknown, and even the forgotten sins too.  That all is covered under the concept of “all unrighteousness.” In the Greek the word translated “all” means “everything in a category.” The category is all the unrighteousness that you are guilty of, so that includes unknown and forgotten sins.  It does not, however, cover deliberately unnamed sins.  If you deliberately omit a sin you know you’ve committed, you are not forgiven, and you’re still out of fellowship. 

All right then, let’s summarize.  We’ll do this in points.  We’re going to summarize information we’ve already given, plus we’ll give you some information you haven’t gotten you, so be alert for those points. 

1) When you were first saved you were filled with the Holy Spirit. 

2) The FHS provides the spiritual energy to live the Christian way of life. 

3) When you sin you lose the FHS.  Now it’s important to note here that when you sin you do NOT lose your salvation.  Salvation is permanent according to the Gospel of John 10:27-30 and other passages.  Your salvation is eternally secure—and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. 

Just tuck that thought away in your mind and we’ll come back to it in a future lesson.  For now just remember that as a Christian—as a BAB—when you sin you loose the FHS, but you never loose your salvation.

4) God gives the solution for sin in your life in 1^st John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 

Sin in your life stops all spiritual progress.  It stops spiritual growth and prevents spiritual production and spiritual maturity.  If you stay in sin for long it will begin to reverse the spiritual progress you have made so far—it sets you back. 

But God gives you a way to bounce back from this condition—that’s why sometimes we refer to the use of 1^st John 1:9 as “rebound.” Sometimes we’ll refer to it as “confession of sin” or “restoration to fellowship” and we’ll use acronyms like RTF or COS as a kind of shorthand. 

Whichever term is used it refers to the same thing.  Personally, I like “rebound”—it is descriptive of what happens in the spiritual life when you name your sins to God.

5) Rebound takes care of two categories of sin: known sins and unknown sins.  Known sins are the sins you remember and name.  Unknown sins are generally those sins that you aren’t aware of as sins—you haven’t learned that they were sins.  Also in this category are forgotten sins.  Now I want to issue a word of caution concerning forgotten sins, but I’ll take that up in the next point.

6) Keep short accounts with God.  This is one of those points I referred to a few minutes ago that is giving you some new information.  What do I mean by short accounts?  When you commit a sin you need to confess it to God as soon as you are aware you committed it—don’t wait.  Now I’m not talking about dropping on your knees and closing your eyes in public—just mentally, in your thoughts, acknowledge to God that you have committed that sin.  Don’t accumulate your sins and try to confess them all at the end of the day.

This ties in with that word of caution I referred to a moment ago.  Sometimes believers will get “caught up” in a sin.  For example, suppose you are indulging in a choice bit of gossip about someone, or you are ogling some particularly good looking member of the opposite sex and indulging in some impure thoughts about them, and you become aware that you’re sinning.  You may in effect say to yourself, “Wow, this sure is pleasant—I know it’s wrong, but I really don’t want to stop now.  I’ll just let this go on a while and I’ll rebound later.”

My friends, when you do that you are abusing God’s grace.  God does not take abuse of His grace lightly.  When you take that attitude toward a sin in progress, that attitude is itself a sin.  Sin has a tendency to occur in clusters, like a bunch of grapes.  You commit a sin, and if you don’t confess it right away pretty soon you have a whole bunch more related sins clustering along with it.  That’s the problem with unconfessed sin.  And if you delay rebound you tend to forget about the sins.

But, you might say, you just told us that God will take care of unconfessed sin!  Yes I did, and yes He does—but He still holds you accountable, and you are still liable for Divine discipline for those sins that you deliberately committed—such as deliberately delaying confession of sin.  Like I said, God does not take kindly to those who try to “milk the system.”

When you find yourself frequently in situations where you are naming sins and you know that there are clusters of sins that you have committed that have not been confessed, and they are so many and so long ago that you have lost track of them, my friends that is an indication that you are in trouble in your spiritual life.  You need to confess that you are guilty of abusing God’s grace and get back on track, and confess those sins as soon as you are aware of them—don’t delay.

There is a lot more that can be said about this whole issue of confession of sin, or rebound, but we’ll save that for a later study.  For today our goal was to equip you to be restored to a condition of fellowship with God, and to make sure you are filled with the Spirit so that as we progress in our studies in basic Bible doctrine you’ll have the Divine power you need to be able to understand these things and to grow spiritually and begin to apply them in your own spiritual life. 

So once again, 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” This is a promise from God to us.  Every day when you sit down to study the Word, claim that promise to make sure you’re filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to look into God’s wonderful Word.

Let’s bow for a moment of prayer.

We’re grateful Heavenly Father, for these things that You have for us today.  May the Holy Spirit take these truths and build us up with them that we might begin to glorify Christ in our bodies, for it’s in His name we ask it, amen.

ello, friend.  My name is John McReynolds.  I’d like to take a few minutes of your time to talk with you about the most important decision you can ever make in this life.  Now, I don’t know why you logged onto this web site, or what motivated you to click on this particular message.  Maybe you were just idly curious, or perhaps intrigued by the title.  Or maybe you’re responding to a spiritual hunger—you may not even recognize it as such.  But whatever the reason I want to ask you a rather direct and personal question.  Since we’re not communicating directly you don’t have to answer me.  But you do need to answer yourself—and answer yourself honestly:

If you were to die today do you have any idea where you would go? 

Be honest now—in considering this subject this is one time when you don’t need to play games with yourself.  If you died today would you go to heaven, or hell?  Not sure?  Well you have plenty of company—neither are many millions of other folks. 

Maybe you haven’t worried much about it, or maybe you believe that there is no hereafter—that after you die there’s nothing as far as you’re concerned.  Or maybe you do believe in a hereafter, but there’s not any heaven or hell, just another plane of existence, or maybe you get reincarnated and you get another chance at life. 

Perhaps you do believe in heaven and hell, but you figure if you do more good things than bad things St.  Peter will open the Pearly Gates for you.  Or maybe you’ve done some horrible things and you feel that you’re doomed—that there’s no way that God would forgive you. 

Maybe you just don’t believe in God, or maybe you do, but you think that He doesn’t really care one way or the other what you do—that you have no accountability to God.  Perhaps you think God doesn’t really care about sin.  Well friend, there are multiplied millions all over the world that hold these same and many other beliefs about God and heaven and hell.

But there is a document that has been around for 1900 years—and portions of it are far older than that—and it has something to say about all these beliefs.  We know it as the Bible.  And many millions of people throughout these 1900 years have staked their lives on the belief that the Bible is the very Word of God.  Now I’m not going to get into a discussion as to whether the Bible is or isn’t the inspired Word of God—this isn’t the time for that.  But I would like you, for these few minutes, to just assume that it is, and that what the Bible says is true—just for these few minutes.  If you’ll do that for me I’d like to look at some of those beliefs and show you what the Bible says about them.  Let’s take them one at a time:

·         Do you believe that there is no hereafter—that after you die there’s nothing?  Listen to what Hebrews 9:27 says: “…  man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” The Bible says that there is an afterlife, and that there will be a judgment.

·         Do you believe there’s not any heaven or hell?  Listen to Isaiah 66:1: “This is what the LORD says: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool …” Not only is there a heaven, but it’s God’s own throne!  And there’s Matthew 5:12 which says, “Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven …”

And John 14:2, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.” Not only is there a heaven, but people will be getting rewarded there and will be living there. 

Now what about hell?  Here’s a passage in Luke 16:22–23 where Jesus, in talking about a deceased rich man said, “The rich man also died and was buried.  In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side …”

In Revelation 20:15 hell is referred to as the Lake of Fire: “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” And in Psalms 9:17 the fate of the wicked is presented: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”

The Bible presents the reality of hell in no uncertain terms.

·         Do you think that reincarnation will give you another shot at life?  Look at Hebrews 9:27 again: “…  man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” The Bible emphatically denies the existence of reincarnation.

·         Do you think that if you do more good things than bad things you’ll get into heaven?  Here’s Ephesians 2:8–9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” The Bible makes it plain that no one can be saved by anything they can do—the Bible calls that “works”—so doing more good than bad won’t get you into heaven. 

·         Maybe you don’t think you’re really a sinner?  I John 1:8: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Romans 3:10, “As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one …” And Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God …”

·         Do you think that you have done things so awful that you can’t get forgiveness from God?  Not so!  The Bible declares in many places that salvation is available to everyone: In John 6:37 Jesus says, “whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” Acts 2:21, “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 5:18, “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.” Titus 2:11, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”  And just in case you were wondering, that phrase “all men” means all women too!

There is no sin you have committed that cannot be forgiven when you accept Jesus Christ as Savior: The Apostle Paul said in I Timothy 1:15, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst.” Paul wasn’t exaggerating here, he really was one of the worst sinners who ever lived!  Listen to Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

·         Do you think that God doesn’t really exist?  If so I’m afraid the Bible isn’t very flattering toward you: Listen to Psalms 14:1, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” The Bible describes the atheist as a fool.  But even atheists can be saved—if they change their mind about God.

·         Do you think that God won’t really hold all men accountable to Him?  Don’t kid yourself friend—you will be held accountable.  Ecclesiastes 12:14, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”

Read Revelation 20:11–15.  It describes the Last Judgment:  “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.  Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.  And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.  Another book was opened, which is the book of life.  The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 

“The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.  If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

·         Do you think that God doesn’t really care about sin?  Listen to Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” God says the ultimate consequence of sin is death!  But He also says that He has a gift for man, and that’s “…  eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Romans 3:23 says that “…  all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God …” And that means you too, friend.  The Bible describes all men as coming under judgment, and that includes you.  And the Bible describes all those whose names weren’t found in the Book of Life as being cast into the Lake of Fire.

So let me ask you again.  If you were to die today, do you know where you would go?  You might not be any closer to an answer than you were before, but perhaps now you’re a little more concerned about it than you were a few minutes ago!  Hopefully by now you have a sense of the terrible predicament that you’re in if you have not accepted God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.  So what is this gift of eternal life?  Let’s talk about that a minute.

God the Father, who knows everything—past, present and future—knew who you were back before He ever created man.  Jesus Christ knew you too, and had you personally in mind when He went to the cross.  They knew every sin you would ever commit.  And so when Jesus Christ hung on the cross the Father poured out on Him every sin that would ever be committed by every human who would ever be born—past, present and future—including yours.  God then judged those sins and condemned them, and He assessed the penalty for those sins—death!  And so Jesus Christ died for the sins of mankind, yours, mine—everyone’s who ever lived and who will ever live.  And because Jesus died for your sins and mine, He made it possible for us to have eternal life with God, instead of the second death, or the Lake of Fire we read about a minute ago.

So how do we go about getting this eternal life that Rom 6:23 talks about?  Well this is the Good News, my friend.  Because all we have to do to live with God forever is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s it!  We must express faith alone in Christ alone.  Jesus Christ is the only way to God!  Listen to Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  

There’s nothing we can add to faith in Christ, either.  Adding anything we can do is works—remember Eph 2:8, 9?  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.”  John 3:16,  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,  that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

What’s the alternative?  John 3:18, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

Friend, if you have never believed in Christ—if you are an unbeliever—then in that condition you are without any hope for eternal blessings.  Instead, eternal condemnation is your future, unless you make the one good decision that is open to you.  God has placed before you today the opportunity to gain eternal life—an eternity of inconceivable blessings in the very presence of God. 

We’ve already read about the alternative to this—eternal separation from Him.  As an unbeliever your eternal future is one of endless regret, misery and conscious agony in the Lake of Fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  You can change this horrible future by one conscious decision.  God has made a way of escape for you, but you must choose to do it God’s way.  Existing in hell forever doesn’t have to be your fate.  Here’s the greatest opportunity of your life, right in front of you.  You can be saved, right now, right where you sit.  How? 

Acts 16:31 says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved …”

Simply in the privacy of your own thoughts tell God the Father that you are believing in Christ and accepting Him as your Savior.  The instant you do that is the instant that you receive eternal life, and are assured of an eternity with the Lord.  It doesn’t have to be a fancy prayer—in fact it’s better if it’s not, because no one is saved because of flowery phrases.  Something as simple as this will do:

“Father I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I accept Him as my Savior.”

That’s it!  Faith alone in Christ alone.  Are you worried that maybe you don’t have enough faith?  Listen—God knows your heart.  If you truly want to be saved, your simple statement of faith is enough! 

Friend, if you just prayed that prayer in faith, then you are now a child of God.  According to I Peter 1:4, 5  you have just entered “…  into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed …”

Now, if you’ve accepted Christ as Savior, then you’re ready for the next part of God’s plan—which is what we’ll cover in the next several messages.  As a brand new born-again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to immediately begin a diet of spiritual food.  What do I mean by that?  I mean you need to begin hearing, and reading, and feeding on the Word of God just as a brand new baby needs to feed on his mother’s milk!  That’s one of the meanings of the phrase “born-again—you have just been born into the spiritual realm, and you need spiritual food.  We have a number of resources on this website that will help you to get started.

But these resources are not enough by themselves.  You also need to seek a local church that teaches the Bible.    It is very important for your spiritual growth that you have the frequent company of other born-again believers.  God designed the local church to meet the needs of believers—brand new ones, as well as those who have been in the faith for many years.  Ask God and He will lead you to one. 

In the meantime, congratulations on the wisest choice you’ll ever make, and welcome, my brother or sister in Christ, to the Family of God.

By John McReynolds

In this political season of 2008, it seems that more people than ever before are engaged in the political process.  Partisans of every political persuasion tell us that the stakes have never been higher; that the results of this election could well determine whether our nation as we know it will continue to exist, or morph into a country that we cannot even recognize.  Recent generations of Americans have had a tendency to ascribe American greatness to the American people, instead of giving the sole credit to God. All that has been good in our land has ultimately come from Him—even the timeless principles that our founding fathers incorporated into our Constitution had their origin in God’s revealed Law.  And all that has been bad in our land has ultimately stemmed from our rebellion against Him.

The problem has always been in the souls of the American people.  Any nation that exists, exists only at the sovereign pleasure of the Lord Jesus Christ; it is He who controls history, both in its details, as well as its trends.  With respect to the Lord’s control of history I firmly believe the following:

 1.    In history God raises up nations that—initially at least—are aligned with His purpose and will.  This alignment with His will and purpose is expressed, not so much in the actions and policies of its leaders, but rather in the collective mindset of its citizenry—which is what defines its culture.  The nation or nations that are aligned with His purpose and will, serve as His client nation among all the nations of the earth, by providing a place for the protection and nurturing of the Gospel, a platform for world evangelism, and a haven for His dispersed people Israel—whom He has not forgotten nor abandoned.  So long as that client nation remains aligned with His will, it will enjoy protection and blessing beyond what its populace collectively deserves.

 2.    When the client nation reverses its course, during the process of its reversion, there are those of its citizenry who remain faithful to God’s purpose and will.  The true history of the world turns upon this pivot of faithful believers.  God continues to bless that client nation, even in its reversion, for the sake of that pivot of believers—a part of whose Divine blessings is the continuance of their nation’s prosperity, far beyond what its populace collectively deserves.

 3.    When apostasy and national reversion have become widespread enough and the pivot of faithful believers has diminished sufficiently, God will judge that nation, even to the point of withdrawing His blessings and that nation’s status as a client nation.  Then the nation’s citizenry will begin to suffer as it never has before—even while God continues to individually bless and protect the faithful few that may remain.  At this point the nation will progressively begin to experience exactly what its populace collectively deserves.

We were at stage 1 from the inception of our nation.  We began the process of reversion in stage 2 probably sometime in the late 19th century, continuing past the mid 20th century.  Now I fear that we are fully mired in the tar pit of stage 3.  We are far beyond the point where we can trust that the political process will raise up a leader who will turn us from our present course toward destruction.  From a strictly human standpoint I do not see much hope for a turnaround in the heart and souls of our fellow citizens, apart from severe national discipline from God.  But that is strictly my own viewpoint.

 From a Divine perspective, our hope must return to where it always should have been—in the Lord.  If, as Christians, we will continue in the purpose and will of the Lord by: 1) learning His purpose and will by studying His word the Bible, 2) believing what is contained therein, 3) applying it in our daily lives, and 4) proclaiming it through our lips and our lives to our neighbors that they may also get into His will for their lives – then God might yet extricate us from the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.  At the very least, He will walk with us through the many shadowed valley if we must share in the suffering that our nation—at this point at least—seems destined to endure.               

                                                                                                                                                                                        12 February 2008

                                                                                                                                                                                             Baytown, Texas