Category: righteousness

Iniquity Not Yet Full #13

Saturday, May 24, 2014

“But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15:16 KJV).

Today’s Scripture expressly declares why the God of the Bible “takes His time” when dealing with sinful mankind.

Just as God finally had enough of the sinful Amorites and evicted them (today’s Scripture), so the unbelieving, unrighteous world will be dispossessed from God’s planet one day (the day of His wrath). Rest assured, God will right the iniquitous deeds of the world one day, just not today, not in our Dispensation of Grace.

Regarding our dispensation, God has given all of mankind nearly five times as much longsuffering as He gave the Amorites, but how mankind has squandered that goodness! “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11). God has given all of mankind nearly five times as long as He gave the Amorites, to prove Himself righteous in pouring out His wrath on them.

As in Peter’s day, the Christ-rejecters still inquire about the Lord’s return in flaming fire and vengeance (2 Peter 3:3,4). Peter replied, “[5] For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: [6] Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: [7] But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. [8] But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. [9] The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

Dear friend, you can be saved from God’s wrath, so please do not reject His grace. Come by faith alone in Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork, and your iniquity will be paid in full! 🙂

Iniquity Not Yet Full #10

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

“But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15:16 KJV).

Today’s Scripture expressly declares why the God of the Bible “takes His time” when dealing with sinful mankind.

While the God of the Bible is unfathomably gracious (giving us what we do not deserve), incomprehensibly merciful (holding back what we do deserve), and unconditionally loving (what we do not deserve), He is also a God of justice (what we do deserve) and a God of wrath (what we do deserve). For the last 2,000 years, sinful mankind has grown comfortable with the God of grace, mercy, and love—too comfortable, actually. They have forgotten that He is also a just and holy God, and He will not let their sin go unpunished forever.

Indeed, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing [reckoning, applying, incurring] their trespasses unto them: and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19). The God of the Bible is not pouring out His wrath today; rather, He is offering every person in the world a chance to be made right with Him. Jesus Christ wants all people to be saved (2 Peter 3:9), so He died for the sins of all people (1 Timothy 2:3-7; Hebrews 2:9). By God’s grace through faith alone in Christ Jesus (His death, burial, and resurrection as sufficient payment for our sins), every single person has been granted an opportunity to have his or her sin debt paid, to receive salvation from the penalty of his or her sins (eternal hellfire)!

Alas, that Gospel of Grace has been largely ignored these past 20 centuries. The Gentiles in the Dispensation of Grace have largely done what Israel did in her program before God set her and it aside—discarded God’s Word to them, and preferred works-religion. Jesus Christ’s perfect sacrifice at Calvary literally means nothing to works-religionists: they offer the “good” works of their sinful bodies hoping to please Almighty God like Jesus Christ did! Accordingly, the lost Gentiles of our world today, with Israel, will also experience God’s wrath. Once our dispensation concludes, their iniquity will be full….

Heart Service #9

Sunday, May 4, 2014

“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you” (Romans 6:17 KJV).

Today’s Scripture is the key to being delivered from and guarded against today’s apostate Christendom.

Even the great Apostle Paul, as late as 30 years after his salvation, was still attempting to “know [Jesus Christ], and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). He knew that he was already in Christ, saved unto eternal life, forgiven, justified (made right before God), bound for heaven, and so on (Romans 8:30-39; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5:1-10; Galatians 2:20; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18; et cetera). However, to bring that identity into his daily living experience was difficult.

Romans chapter 7—with which we can all identify—explains how Paul would return to old, sinful thinking patterns. Sin would defeat him every time because he thought he had to perform in religion and make himself holy before God (the same thinking patterns he had before he met Jesus Christ; Philippians 3:4-6). Essentially, Paul, a saved man, was acting like a lost man because he was thinking like a lost man (instead of thinking like a Christian). He needed to realize that Christ’s resurrection life, not his performance, was the Christian life!

Romans 12:1,2 explain how our Christian lives operate: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Like Paul, we have to learn that we, in Christ, are already holy before God, already justified, sanctified, forgiven, redeemed, and so on. The grace doctrines found in his epistles must be studied, to the end that they correct our thinking, remind us of who we are in Christ, so that we can then walk in that identity.

Only God’s grace had saved Paul from the penalty of sin (eternal hellfire), so only God’s grace could save Paul from the power of sin (daily failures)….

Heart Service #7

Friday, May 2, 2014

“But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you” (Romans 6:17 KJV).

Today’s Scripture is the key to being delivered from and guarded against today’s apostate Christendom.

The moment we trusted exclusively Jesus Christ’s bloodshed, death, burial, and resurrection as the sufficient payment for our sins, we received the very life of God Himself. We died with Christ, we were buried with Him, and we were resurrected with Him (verses 3-11). God could do nothing with our flesh, our ability, so He killed it. He made us a “new creature [in Christ]” (2 Corinthians 5:17), a new type of humanity, identical to Adam’s righteous standing before the fall!

Follow the logic, the way God thinks, how He would have us to think. It is senseless for us Christians to return to our old identity in Adam, to think those old, vain, sinful thoughts that only lead to wrecked Christian lives. It is senseless to place ourselves under any law-based system: “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). The Bible says sin will dominate your life when you return to religious performance, whether it be the Mosaic Law, a church’s law, a preacher’s law, my law, your law, any system that makes you the issue.

The verse that follows today’s Scripture says, “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness” (verse 18). How do we have victory in the Christian life? We already have it in Christ by God’s grace! Jesus Christ paid the price to liberate us from sin’s dominion. “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:22,23). Dear saint, if you want the eternal life, God’s life, you already have in Christ, to be brought into your experience, it is through Jesus Christ our Lord, not through you!

Oh, the wonderful grace of God….

A Holy Nation #9

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

“For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45 KJV).

Today’s Scripture summarizes a book most burdensome to many.

When JEHOVAH God first proposed the Mosaic Covenant, Israel declared, “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). After that Covenant of Law was delivered and before it was ratified, Israel again affirmed, “All the words which the LORD hath said will we do,” and “All the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient” (Exodus 24:3,7). After the 40-year wilderness wanderings (due to Israel’s disobedience), the new generation of Israelites echoed, “And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us” (Deuteronomy 6:25).

The Israelites, like any descendants of Adam (sinners), wrongly believed they could actually do everything that God commanded them, that they could actually be separate from the pagan Gentiles around them. They believed they could be righteous—that they could have a right standing before God—by keeping hundreds upon hundreds of divine laws. Even today, millions of souls in “Christian” churches and groups have “revived” this legalistic system—a system that God has already deemed a failure because man is naturally unrighteous. Religion (even the Mosaic Law) merely reforms the outward activity (behavior), not the inward nature (the root of the behavior). Man’s nature must change if he is to keep God’s laws.

As the centuries passed, Israel’s corrupt religious leaders polluted God’s pure Law system first given through Moses, by inserting their (manmade) rules and regulations. Eventually, it did not involve honoring JEHOVAH and having faith in Him (His original intention): it became a monotonous system of religious busyness that made people appear godly (and yet, God was not in their hearts). This was the vain system that Jesus condemned in His day (Matthew 23:1-36, Mark 7:1-23, et cetera). Israel used the Law, not as a means for proving God’s righteousness, but for demonstrating their self-righteousness (the Pharisees, for example).

Let us learn the lesson that Israel will one day learn….

A Life That Will Please

Saturday, January 4, 2014

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).

Today’s Scripture tells us who alone can live a life pleasing in God’s sight!

Everyone does “good” deeds. Yet, doing “good” is not necessarily good. For instance, people often do “good” just to receive praise/reward, make up for their wrongs, feel good, et cetera. Furthermore, despite our “good” deeds, we have plenty more bad ones! Pride, lying, evil thoughts, being a false witness, and being contentious are some of the things the LORD hates (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Mankind cannot even keep 10 simple rules from God. However, religion continues to urge us to keep seven sacraments, utter various prayers, give assorted offerings and “tithes,” attend numerous feasts and festivals, and perform sundry other tasks to “hopefully” please God and avoid hellfire. Whether we attempt to keep a church’s laws, our laws, or God’s laws, our flesh is far too weak to ever measure up. Just look at what God’s religion did to Israel—how much worse some man-made religion does to us!

As Saul of Tarsus, the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee, a religious leader of Israel. He was a nitpicker concerning Law-keeping, and yet, after his soul salvation, he admitted that all of his religion was “but dung” compared to Jesus Christ’s righteousness (Philippians 3:3-11). Even for the Christian, to live a perfect life is impossible (read of Paul’s miserable existence in Romans chapter 7). Paul had to forsake his vain religion and learn today’s Scripture: the Christian life is NOT the performance of the Christian, but the Lord Jesus Christ living and working in the Christian, as the Christian walks in an intelligent understanding of God’s Word to him or her!

If we trust a Saviour who will save—the Lord Jesus Christ—and trust a Book that will teach—the King James Bible—we can redeem the year for the great God and our Saviour, “who loved [us], and gave himself for [us]!”

A Saviour Who Will Save

Thursday, January 2, 2014

“…Jesus Christ of Nazareth… Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:10,12 KJV).

Today’s Scripture tells us who alone can save man from the everlasting hellfire he deserves!

A frequent objection made against Christianity is that every religion has “good” members, and to ignore them and limit heaven to a few Christians is unfair. This is a defected notion. How does one arrive at a definite conclusion when there is no one standard to gauge everyone’s “goodness?” They are “good” according to whom, according to what standard? Remember, relative morality actually does not help the sinner—he may be a “better” sinner than another, but he is also a “worse” sinner than yet another, and whether “better” or “worse,” he is still a sinner!

The God of the Bible has a simple method for determining righteousness. Today, He sees two types of people—saints and lost people. While both groups were born in sins (Ephesians 2:1-3), “shapen in iniquity [in the womb]” (Psalm 51:5), and “condemned already” (John 3:18), only the saints have come to realize their lost state. Job asked in Job 9:2, “How should a man be just [righteous, acceptable] with God?” Saints have come to the acknowledgement that they needed God’s righteousness, that they had a massive sin debt that they could never satisfy, that their “righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), that they could never possibly make themselves right before a holy God (He is the standard; Romans 3:23). The lost people, however, do not realize they are lost, for they believe their religious works “score points” with God and make up for their sinful deeds (2 Corinthians 4:3,4). They ignore the finished crosswork of Jesus Christ as sufficient payment for their sins (1 Corinthians 15:3,4).

Saints have come by faith to Jesus Christ, whose name literally means, “Anointed Saviour” (cf. Psalm 2:2; Matthew 1:21). As the writer of the book of Hebrews said, “[Jesus] is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him” (7:25). Literally, no world religion has such a “Saviour” as Jesus Christ!

The Prince of Peace, Born in the Middle East

Saturday, December 21, 2013

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6 KJV).

Ironically, God’s wisdom ordained the birthplace of the Prince of Peace to be the contentious Middle East….

Almost from the very beginning of time, the Middle East has been a battleground, the chief war zone of good and evil. Originally the peaceful home of Adam and Eve, today it is the most contentious region on the globe. Because of Adam’s sin, what was a paradise is now known as the area where man joined Satan in his rebellion against God. Adam and Eve utterly failed to reign over the earth for God’s glory (Genesis 1:26-28). Instead they united with the opposition, and were banished from God’s presence and the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:23,24).

“Wherefore, as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Romans 5:12). Verse 14 says that Adam “is the figure of him that was to come.” God would send another Man, Jesus Christ, and He would accomplish what Adam failed to do: glorify God on the earth by dispossessing it from Satan, and reigning in righteousness. This is the “government” spoken of in today’s Scripture.

“For if by one man’s [Adam’s] offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (verse 17). Adam plunged the human race into sin and made it God’s enemy; Jesus Christ offers mankind eternal life, forgiveness of sins and a reconciled relationship with God! This was God’s goal in sending Jesus Christ.

As our world desperately continues to seek peace, let us remember there will be no peace on earth until the Prince of Peace returns to His nation, Israel, and rids our planet of Satan and his policy of evil (the root of the Middle Eastern turmoil). At Christ’s Second Coming, there will be peace on earth (Luke 2:14), and especially in the Middle East.

Who Is a Sinner? #7

Thursday, August 22, 2013

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 KJV).

Behold, God’s standard of righteousness, of which we all fall short!

“He that believeth on him [Jesus Christ] is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). Right from birth, every person is destined for everlasting hellfire. Scripture says that everything we are by nature and everything we do by nature are offensive to God. Just as physical illness has symptoms, our (invisible) sin nature generates sins (the actions). If we are to be made right in God’s sight (justified), there must be a drastic change in our makeup. The illness, the nature—not merely the symptoms—must be treated.

The only way to avoid that penalty of that sin nature is to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). When we trust alone in the shed blood, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the fully-satisfying payment for our sins (Romans 4:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3,4), we receive the very standing (position) that Jesus Christ has before God the Father. God “makes us the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and we thus have in Jesus Christ the righteousness needed to fellowship with God forever in heaven. We become “a new creature in Christ”—we lose our “old man” identity in Adam and God gives us a new nature in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 6:6).

We have nothing in which to boast, for that eternal life is a gift, and a gift is only free—we do not deserve it (Ephesians 2:8,9). Jesus Christ paid it all, and we accept His righteousness by faith in Him alone.

Who is a sinner? A sinner is one whose nature does not measure up to God’s standard of rightness. Dear readers, please remember, it is only a sinner that the Saviour Jesus Christ can save. Howbeit, for those sinners who do trust Him alone, He does save them from sin and eternal hellfire, free and forever. 🙂

Who Is a Sinner? #2

Saturday, August 17, 2013

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 KJV).

Behold, God’s standard of righteousness, of which we all fall short!

I once posed this simple, straightforward inquiry to a priest: “Where would your soul go if you died right now?” He answered, “Heaven, after I am cleansed in purgatory.” I explained to him God’s Word declared we could be “made the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21) by simply trusting in Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as sufficient payment for our sins. When I thus questioned him regarding the purpose of purgatorial cleansing, he (blasphemously) replied, “Yeah, but now we are not talking about what Jesus did. We are talking about what I am going to do!”

Beloved, billions have allowed religion to burden them which such a weight that they, sinful people, will have to please a holy God before they can get into heaven. They are basing the salvation of their eternal soul on the presumption that they can do what Jesus Christ—God manifest in human flesh—could not do! Exactly what can we weak, mortal men do to measure up to Almighty God? How can we even think about proposing a more perfect sacrifice than what Jesus Christ offered on Calvary’s cross nearly 20 centuries ago? What utter foolishness!

God the Father said to Jesus Christ, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). Jesus declared, “And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29). Can God say that about us sinners? Is He really “well pleased” with us all the time? Can you honestly say with Jesus, “I do always those things that please [God the Father]?” Nay! That is what sin is!

We would do well to swallow our pride and confess that we will never measure up to God’s standard of holiness “doing the best we can.” Our character, our sinful nature, produces sinful behavior, only bringing shame to our Creator, Jesus Christ, and gendering nothing but His wrath….