Category Salvation & Judgement

Isaiah 64: 5-6 “You meet him who rejoices and works righteousness, those who remember You in Your ways. Behold, You are angry, for we have sinned. In those is continuance, and we shall be saved. But we are all as an unclean thing; and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…”

All our good deeds and right actions are just a dress-up to masquerade as ‘worthy’ of God’s approval.It is not enough to put on an outfit to appear as something we are not. All of our ‘goodness’, as great as it may be, is not goodness if it is not a reflection of our communion with God. If we are in rebellion against God, we are automatically evil. Any performance on our part is reduced to just that: a performance; a show of our good impression of ourself. 

Goodness is defined by God...

When man chooses to refuse God, why does he then accuse God of abandoning him to the consequences of his independence? While demanding that God exercise no authoritative influence over his life, he continues to expect Him to exercise exceptional benefit in interfering with any negative influences that may cross his path.

When we meet other people who desire the kind of relationship with us, one in which they only desire our presence to improve some otherwise unpleasant reality in their life, we call those people “users”.

Somehow, men have come to believe that because God is abundantly able to affect any aspect of our material existence, that if He is a good God, He is also obligated to do so to our advantage...

Even with the hurting Jesus spoke of sin, because without sin, the message of the gospel is meaningless. If we had no sin, we would not be enemies of God, we would not be under His judgment, we would not need reconciliation with God, nor salvation from His justice. 

Most people are not murderers, rapists, bank robbers, and child abusers. Most people’s sins are of the ‘milder’ sort: lying, gluttony, jealously, gossip, laziness, cowardice. We don’t see ourselves as ‘bad’ people because we don’t see our sins as ‘bad sins’. Consequently, most people expect God to freely allow them access to His glory on the basis of their being ‘good’ people, and do not see a need for Christ to save them...

Luke 24:36 – 48 (45)

“And as they spoke this, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you.’

But being dismayed and becoming afraid, they supposed they were seeing a spirit.

And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled and why do thoughts come into your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that I am Myself. Handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see I have.’

And saying this, He showed them His hands and His feet.

Because they still yet disbelieved for joy, and wondered, He said unto them, ‘Have you any food here?’

And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of honey from the comb, and taking it, He ate it in their sight.

And He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still together with ...

Sometimes people have trouble understanding that we are justified before God by faith, and not by how good we are. Some people are offended at the thought that God would justify everyone only on the basis of faith, and not on the basis of an inventory of their good works; they feel that ‘good people’ should be acceptable to God, and He should open wide the doors to His presence to all those who are ‘good’. These latter often raise the argument of the injustice of ‘horrible people’ who will get into heaven because they have faith, and therefore God is ‘unfair’. Most of this misunderstanding is rooted in the failure to understand  the key words “faith” and “justice”. 

The word ‘justice’ refers to receiving what is deserved by our actions...

John 3:3         Jesus … said unto [Nicodemus], “Truly, truly I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jn 3:16           For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Jn 3:18-21      “He that believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the condemnation: that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed...

Many atheists condemn God for the penalty of death for sin; they consider eternal punishment unjust. They and many others say that God is unjust to consign to hell eternally those who are unfaithful to Him. Their lack of understanding of death and hell result in wrongful accusations against God. 

God Himself is the Source of Life.[i] Separation from Him is death. Just as an offense in our human relationships creates a rift, so also sin, including unfaithfulness, separates us from God. Therefore, sin brings death upon us.[ii] 

This is beautifully illustrated by the account of the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve first resided. In the garden grew two trees, referred to only as ‘the Tree of Life”, and “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”...

Jesus foretold wars and rumours of wars to a nation beleaguered for centuries by foreign occupation: Matthew 24:6

He told of famines, ‘pestilences’, and great earthquakes to a nation that had experienced obliteration, drought, a land razed by enemies, diseases like leprosy, and was no stranger to earthquakes: Mat 24:7; Zechariah 14:5

He told of fearful wonders and signs ‘in the heavens’ to men who knew the heavens were the exclusive jurisdiction of Almighty God: Joel 2:30

He even warned that many people would come claiming to be Christ, many claiming to speak for God, and many false teachers calling themselves spiritual leaders: Mat 24:5, 11, 24

He warned of increasing wickedness among men, and hatred, and division: Mat 12, 1 Tim 4:1, 2 Tim 3:1-9

And He told them that men would dismiss...

Eternity is what God inhabits beyond time.[1] Before God created time, God was.[2]Before time, was eternity. When time ceases in our experience, and our body dies, our spirits leave time and enter eternity,[3] that state where time does not exist.

Time is material, and relative to space and matter. The universe, the earth, our bodies, exist in time. But God is spirit;[4] He is not material, and is not dependant upon or bound by space or time.[5] When we die and our spirits are freed from our physical bodies, we will also leave space and time; we will enter eternity.

But will we occupy eternity in God’s presence or condemned to the lake of fire,[6] that place of eternal judgement[7] separated from God for eternity? 

Jesus told His disciples that not everyone who says to Him, “Lord,...

Then He began reproaching the cities in which the most of his powerful deeds occurred because they did not repent:

‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to youBethsaida! For if the powerful deeds done in you had occurred in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sack-cloth and ashes.  But I tell you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.

And you, Capernaum, the one exalted to the heaven shall be brought down to hell; for if in Sodom had occurred the powerful deeds that occurred in you, they would still be here today! Moreover I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land ofSodom in the day of judgment than for you.” Matthew 11:20-24

Many unbelievers insist that they would believe God if He would only perform some mi...