Thank You Lord for your Word and Your Son.
Oh it's long today longer than the news paper and with better news.
It might be 20 pages so brace your self and have an open heart to hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to you today.
If it ain't for you, it ain't for you.
Be blessed.
What is punishment?
Suffering the consequences for our actions.
When we understand the seriousness of paying a penalty versus punishment we will understand our need for a Saviour.
The penalty for sin is too great for us to cover.
Romans 6:23 teaches us that the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Sin is not like a parking ticket.
We couldn't collect enough bottles and cans(do enough good deeds) to pay this off.
As I look at the world today and how little attention they give to honoring God, I just pray and even get angry sometimes, because we have as a nation and a society turned so far from right with our thinking, that the thinking is creeping into the heart of Christians.
We have too many Christians who think that what God deems unholy is alright.
It's 2010, that doesn't mean that God has changed His mind.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.
We talked about king David and how he suffered the consequences of his actions and they were harsh.
And the reason that I want to share this with people who don't already know and understand this is because whether you are saved or not there are going to be consequences to every action.
Whether they be good or bad.
Seed time and harvest, reaping and sowing are kingdom laws that apply to everything and everybody.
No man is exempt.
I want you to know that whatever you do will come back to you.
Look at Jonah and how he suffered the consequences of his actions or his lack of action by being swallowed up by a great fish.
Jonah may have felt as if he was in hell, but he wasn't.
David's life may have felt like hell many times, but it wasn't.Job must have felt like he was in hell too, but he wasn't.
You might feel like you are living in hell right now, been dropped in a well and left for dead, but I assure you that you are not, because you are reading this page.
King David's suffering came to an end.
Jonah was spat up out of that big fish.
Even Job's suffering came to an end and he was restored.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning when we acknowledge God and turn from our own thing.
Because consequences have an end to them but hell is everlasting.
All of these men played a part in whether or not their trials would come to an end, it ain't automatic.
There were a couple of things that they all did or had in common.
A repentant trusting heart towards God.
How do I get that kind of heart?
Yield your self and go to the Word, go to a Bible teaching church and hear it preached.
Like I said yesterday, seeker friendly won't tell you that repentance is a turning away from sin and a following of Christ.
We want to put Christ on our name without following Him, but He said my sheep know me and they follow my voice and not the voice of a stranger.
To follow Him means to obey Him.
To follow God means to imitate Him.
To follow God means to trust Him.
The Bible says that God prunes or chastens those whom He loves.
John 15:1,2 Jesus said:
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
If you belong to God and want to walk in the blessing of God be prepared to be pruned.
Proverbs 23:14 Wisdom of God speaking:
Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Proverbs 15:24 says,
The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.
That says that our way of life is with God and the things that He has set us to do.
I have an example.
My grandparents helped raise me for a portion of my childhood and when I would do something to get into trouble my grandfather would give me the option to take a spanking or stay in the house.
I would usually mess up during summer vacation when:
Kids are running up and down the block, riding their bikes, jumping rope, playing tag, eating ice cream, playing football, baseball, with dolls, lighting fireworks and everything.
Well whatever I had done I would be called on it and a punishment was inevitable, because they loved us enough to correct us before our choices killed us.
Like Father God.
I wanted to be out with my friends but I knew that I messed up and had to pay a consequence for my action, so my loving grandaddy gave me an option.
Like our God has given us a choice, (good old free will.)
Grandaddy asked, "Would you like a spanking or to stay indoors for the rest of the week?"
I had to make up my mind because I knew I had done wrong and I had to pay the piper.
We have to make up our mind.
LORD! a week seems like an eternity in July when you are 11 years old.
A week is seven days but that was too long to miss out on all the good things that were happening in the summer.
I'll take "Spanking" for 600 Alex... so I CAN GO OUTSIDE!
(That was my Jeopardy joke)
Sitting in a stinking fish for three days beats hell for 3 seconds.
Unlike my summer spanking you ain't coming out of hell after the spanking.
We can keep allowing the devil to burden and punish us here on earth and then go and live throughout all eternity in hell with him, because we won't spend 20 years in hell and come out.
Hell is not a reform school.
OR
We can receive the goodness of God.
Understanding how good God is will lead a man to repentance.
God doesn't prune us by beating the skin from our flesh or striking our body with incurable disease, He does it with His Word.
The devil is knocking you up side your head and trying to make you believe it's God, it ain't God.
If God wanted to make you pay for something, He would have made you pay for it.
He would have put you up on a cross.
Jesus Christ was tortured and tormented for us, Jesus paid our penalty.
Isaiah 53:4,5
4 Surely He(Jesus Christ) hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
5 But He ( Jesus Christ) was wounded for our transgressions, He (Jesus Christ) was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him (Christ Jesus) ; and with His
(Christ Jesus) stripes we are healed.
With what the Saviour suffered on our behalf we are set free and delivered from the curse of death, disease, sickness, fear and lack.
Delivered from the bondage that is sin.
The burden is only removed and the yoke destroyed by the anointing of God and Christ Jesus is that Anointed One with the Anointing of God.
God said that it pleased Him to sacrifice His Son to save you and me.
It pleased God to do this so that you and I wouldn't have to suffer eternal torture, terrorism and torment in a hell built for the one who tries to deceive and accuse us.
Colossians 1:19-23; 2Peter 1:17
Hell wasn't even designed for you, it was made to throw the devil in.
Matthew 25:41
Jesus went away to make a place for you and for me.
John 14:2,3
What does that make you in the eyes of God?
Precious, Loved, Not Forgotten or Forsaken.
John 3:16; Hebrews 13:5
Jesus Christ is the only One who ever had to go to hell for someone else.
Christ Jesus was the only One to ever go there and be literally taken out.
Ain't gonna be any more like that.
There is nobody who you have to go to hell for.
There is nothing worth going to hell for, no need for you to go to hell.
Your children don't have to go.
Your parents don't have to go.
Your sibling's don't have to go.
Your neighbor's don't have to go.
Your co-worker's don't have to go.
Nobody has to go to hell.
But many will go to hell simply because they refuse this gospel.
God says that the wisdom of this world is foolishness because it can't know Him.
But He sent His Word through the simplicity of preaching the gospel to save them that will believe.
1Corinthians 1:21
You don't have to be overthrown and die in the wilderness, the only reason the people don't make it into the promised land is because they fail to believe God.
Look at the level of the task that Jesus had in going to hell and then look at how simple God made it for us.
Jesus did that for you and me, no boy friend or girlfriend or buddy went to hell for you.
Jesus did.
God's Word says that we can't redeem our selves because we have all sinned and fallen short of His Glory.
The One who knew no sin is the redeemer.
Romans 5:7,8, 12
Christ Jesus is His Name.
John 10:10
Jesus Christ is also the only One who was literally taken up out of hell and seated at the right hand of God.
Unless we receive Him and follow Him we are not seated where He is.
Colossians 3:1
He ain't in hell.
John 11:25
Where do you want to spend eternity?
Look at the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31
Not a sin or a problem to be rich, his sin was ignoring the state of that man who laid at his gate.
Lazarus the man who needed help in the earth, who needed to be ministered to was with Abraham.
The man who ignored his fellow man was in agony and torment.
Listen, Listen, Listen, Listen
to God's Word.
LOVE Y'ALL
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