Echoes of Grace: 2021

A 27-year-old mystery was solved by a 13-year-old boy who used his natural curiosity and his GoPro camera. It would bring peace and closure to a family who had wondered for nearly three decades as to whatever had happened to their loved one who had vanished without a trace.

Max Werenka was swimming in Griffin Lake in Revelstoke, British Colombia, when he spotted what looked like the blurry outline of an overturned car about 15 feet below the surface. He was certain that it should be checked out, so his mother called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They responded by sending a dive team out on August 21, 2019.

Max jumped into the water with his camera and confirmed that it was indeed an overturned Honda. Three days later, the RCMP returned and discovered a body in the overturned car. They were able to use the license plate number to trace the car to Janet Farris, of Vancouver Island, who was 69 when she was driving by herself to Alberta to a wedding and disappeared. The car was found just 10 feet off the Trans-Canada Highway. Janet had gone missing in 1992, 14 years before Max was even born!

It was quite a find, and we can only imagine the relief of family members who had been tormented by the sudden disappearance of their loved one. “I think the worst thing was not knowing,” said her son, George Farris, 62. Now, there could be a proper funeral and burial for their mother and grandmother. Investigators determined that there was no foul play. Did she go off the road and lose control or fall asleep or try to avoid an animal or accident? They may never know the answer to these questions. Even so, her family was relieved at the discovery. Janet’s granddaughter made the comment, “This is a happy story in the end, knowing her final resting place and [knowing] that it was an accident.”

What Happens After Death

However, the Bible tells us that when we die, the grave is not our final resting place! It tells us “there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust” (Acts 24:15). God also tells us, “It is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:11-12).

The “just” know the Lord as their Savior and have put their trust in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus on Calvary’s cross for their sins. They are “redeemed ... with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19). They believe that “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. ... God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6,8). Because they have repented of their sins and put their faith and trust in the finished work on the cross for their sins, they have “eternal life.” Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish” (John 10:27-28). Eternal life is where “in Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

The “unjust” are those who have not trusted the Lord as their Savior, but have lived their lives apart from God and have never had their sins forgiven. Their end is dreadful! They shall be raised from the dead to “be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

The Bible tells us what happens to us right after we die, before our bodies are raised from the dead. Those that trust the Lord as their Savior go to “paradise.” Jesus said to the thief on the cross, who repented of his sins and trusted in Him, “Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). But there was a rich man who died, who did not have his sins forgiven, and we are told what happened to him immediately after death. “The rich man also died, and was buried.” His body was in the grave, but ... “in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments” (Luke 16:22-23). It was so bad that he cried out for someone to dip his finger in water and cool his tongue, because he was being tormented in “this flame” (Luke 16:24).

While the body lies in the grave, our soul and spirit go to either “paradise” or “hell.” It is God’s holding place for our souls and spirits while our bodies are waiting to be resurrected. When our bodies are resurrected, we will go to either heaven or the lake of fire. For the believer who is safe in Christ, it is paradise and heaven; for the unbeliever it is hell and then the lake of fire. The unbeliever will actually be raised to die again! This is called the “second death”! “Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Revelation 20:14).

Our final destination depends on whether we accept or reject God’s offer of salvation right now, while we are still living. Once we die, our destiny is set! Consider your end, and make your choice for Christ today! “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

7.9 Billion

Did you know that there are 7.9 billion people on the face of the earth and that every one of them is loved by God and watched over by God, as if all His attention was on them alone and no one else.

That should make each one of us feel very special indeed. However, it should never make us feel complacent because, although God loves each and every person, He hates their sins with a perfect hatred. If they go on in their sins until the day they die, they will pass out of this world and enter into a real hell from which there is no escape. They may die unsaved and end up in the darkness of hell, but they will never die unloved.

To save sinners, Christ came to earth and died on behalf of men and women. Nailed to a horrible cross, He bled and died so that sinners who had wandered into paths of self-pleasing might have a way to return to God and have their sins forgiven. His precious blood that was shed on the cross has enough power in it to wash away the sins of every sinner who turns to Him in faith.

God’s love is as active in this world today as it was on the day the Lord Jesus died on the cross. He shows His love to human beings, not by fulfilling their every whim and wish, which would make them selfish and self-centered, but by seeking them out in love and truth so that they may find life in His Son. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

One reason very many of the 7.9 billion people in the world don’t want anything to do with God is pride. Pride makes them think they know better than God Himself when it comes to sin, death and hell. Pride puts a barrier up between their hearts and God. Pride blinds a person to their need of God’s grace. It makes them feel self-sufficient when nothing could be further from the truth. Each one of us needs God in our lives as much as we need the air we breathe or the water we drink.

You might be only 1 person out of 7.9 billion people on the globe, but God loves you, and Christ died for you. You can be sure that Christ Jesus is looking to turn you away from your sins and bring you to Himself. You can be sure that once you believe in Him, He can take you safe home to heaven. Don’t let pride keep you from taking the first steps to the Lord Jesus Christ, which are repentance and faith. He is the Savior that every member of the human race desperately needs.

Not only do we desperately need Jesus Christ, but we are moving relentlessly toward meeting Him, as Rush to Judgment clearly presents.

Ah, Look at All the Lonely People …

The above words are taken from the refrain of a hit song from the 1960s.

What was true nearly 60 years ago is even more true in our present time. If there were many lonely people back then, there are even more today.

Do you know what it means to be lonely? Do you desire friends, or even one friend who will love you, love to be with you, who will always have your best interest at heart, a friend who won’t fail you, or leave you when the going gets rough? This is a tall order, but this desire just might be the deepest longing of our human hearts.

A True Friend

The good news is that there is such a friend: One who will never fail us and never leave us; One who, even if we pass through severe trials, will stay with us and never desert us; One who sees our deepest needs and is willing to meet those needs; One who is totally faithful; One to whom we may open our hearts.

Does this sound too good to be true? It’s not. I have such a friend, and you may have Him too. His name is Jesus. Nearly 2000 years ago He died on the cross. He died because He wanted people who had wandered away into sin to have a way to live with Him forever.

After His death, He was buried in a tomb. But death could not hold Him. He arose from the dead and showed Himself alive for 40 days. Then He ascended into heaven.

Our sins have separated us from God. “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). What a frightful separation it is, too. If nothing is done about it, this separation between God and sinners will continue for all eternity when souls will be sent away to the darkness of hell. The darkness of hell will be the loneliest place ever experienced. There won’t be any friendship, good will, or kindness in hell — just darkness, isolation and misery.

Lasting Friendship

The good news is that through faith in Christ we can have those sins put away. As a man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered death. As God, He now has the power to cancel out the sins of all those who believe. This is why the Lord Jesus is sometimes called the friend of sinners. Those who turn to God in repentance and go on to believe the gospel pass from a state of spiritual death into eternal life. Their alienation from God is ended. The Holy Spirit pours God’s love into their hearts so they are enabled to live in the love and friendship of God. This is the one and only friendship which can satisfy the deepest longings of their hearts. This is the friendship which will endure through death and last into eternity. This is a friendship into which you may pour all your heart, at all times, and it will never disappoint.

If you are going through life thinking you don’t have anyone, think again. The Lord Jesus is alive. He very much wants to be part of your life. He is waiting to hear you call out to Him in faith. His precious Word says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). You will never find one who loves you more!

Loneliness can really hurt. Don’t wait another moment. Come to Christ by faith, and find the love and friendship for which you were created.

Coming to Christ now is vital. But all will appear before Him someday. Read about it in The Lost Practice of Bowing.

The Ashtabula Train Wreck

On December 29, 1876, the trestle bridge over the Ashtabula River in Ohio collapsed as Train No. 5 of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, known as the Pacific Express, passed over it. Roaring flames engulfed the wreckage, leading to a terrific loss of life.

The train left Buffalo, New York, at 2 p.m. A snowstorm that had already dumped 20 inches of snow was pummeling the region. High winds were piling up huge snow drifts of five or more feet. To power through these drifts, a second locomotive was added onto the train as it left Buffalo.

At 5:01 p.m. it reached Erie, Pennsylvania, about an hour and 16 minutes behind schedule. Minutes are important when talking about train schedules, but what are minutes or even, for that matter, days, years or centuries when you compare them to eternity? Many of the people on the train would be dead before the day was over.

Gliding Into the Destination?

At about 7:30 p.m. the Pacific Express was nearing the Ashtabula Bridge. The two locomotives provided the power to pull the train, consisting of two baggage cars, two day-passenger cars, two express cars, four sleeper cars, and a smoking car. Onboard were 160 passengers, as well as 19 crew members. The cars were lighted and heated by oil lights and stoves. Visibility because of the driving snow was almost non-existent as the train approached the bridge.

With the low visibility, the train engineer could barely see the length of two train cars into the distance. How many people are going through life with low visibility when it comes to looking into their long-range futures? There is either a heaven or hell in the future for each one of us. But how many people never clearly see that far ahead because their hearts are so taken up with life’s responsibilities and pleasures? Have you considered that someday you will have to leave this world and give account to the God who is holy, just and good? Or are you passing through life like someone travelling through a blinding snowstorm, unable to see very far into the future?

Through the falling snow, the train engineer recognized the train was approaching the bridge. He shut off the steam and cut the power to the wheels in order to glide into the station. The station was about 1,000 feet away on the other side of the bridge. The engineer never suspected anything was wrong.

Are you gliding through life without any suspicion of trouble ahead? If you have not come to Christ through repentance and faith, trouble definitely is looming in front of you. Gliding through life like you have nothing to worry about will make you end up in a heap of trouble, because God is a sin-hating God and you are a sinner. The disaster of a lost eternity lies ahead of you and you don’t even know it.

Overconfidence

The Ashtabula bridge was an inverted trestle bridge with a span of 154 feet and sitting on two brick abutments. It was an impressive structure nearly seven stories above the river below.

The cast-iron structure was the second trestle bridge the engineer, Amasa Stone, had ever built. The first inverted trestle bridge he built was only 30 feet long and five feet high and crossed the Erie Canal. He thought the design of the iron trestle worked so well over a 30-foot span that, of course, it would also work over the much greater span of 154 feet. Other engineers tried to talk Amasa Stone out of building this type of bridge, but he wouldn’t listen. Amasa Stone even fired two of the construction foremen involved in the building of the bridge when they pointed out its flaws.

Mr. Amasa Stone’s pride led him to refuse to take the advice of others. His hubris would cost big time in the lives of many passengers on the train. You know where else pride and the refusal to take advice are going to cost people big time? It is going to cost those who think so highly of their own opinions that they never repent and believe in Christ for the salvation of their souls. It is going to cost them for all eternity when they are cast out of His presence forever. If you are having a hard time hearing the call to repent and believe in Christ because you think you know better, I advise you to ditch that pride and humble yourself before it is forever too late.

The Unthinkable

The train hit the bridge travelling at a speed of 10-15 miles per hour. The locomotive made it nearly all the way across to the other side when the unthinkable happened.

Do you know that at the end of your life, you will be crossing over a bridge of no return? You don’t want the unthinkable to happen then. Have you ever thought about how you are going to cross the gap between yourself and God, who is holy and righteous? God says, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Although we might like to forget the sins we have done, sin leaves an ugly stain on our personal record that time can never wash away. We might forget it, but God doesn’t. The Bible says, “God requireth that which is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). The only way to bridge the gap between us and God is to believe in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood Jesus shed at Calvary has the power to wash away every stain of sin. Also, when we believe in Christ, God pours His grace into our hearts, enabling us to live godly and righteous lives in a world that has gone astray.

Faith in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the only bridge from this life to heaven that will ever hold up. All the other bridges set up by men and women will come tumbling down and end up in ruin.

The first locomotive was almost over the iron trestle part of the bridge and passing onto the brick abutment when the engineer heard a horrible crack and felt a shift in the bridge beneath him. He knew at once the bridge was failing. He applied full power to the train wheels. The first locomotive heaved ahead and pulled itself onto the abutment at just about the same time the iron trestle behind it broke apart. The second locomotive was still on the trestle bridge. When it began to fall, its great weight tore apart the iron coupling between it and the first locomotive. Seventy-three feet through the air the locomotive fell, crashing into the river bed below. As it fell, it drew the rest of the train cars, one by one, behind it in a chain reaction, until all nine cars crashed in a tumbled heap below.

Chaos

Railway cars back in those days were made mostly of wood, and the oil in the lamps and heaters soon set the tangled cars blazing.

The commotion and noise of the train crash could be heard a long way off, alerting the nearby town of Ashtabula of the disaster. The volunteer fire department was poorly prepared to fight the fire. With the fire raging, any kind of rescue effort was nearly impossible.

Songwriter Philip Bliss and his wife were passengers on the train. Philip Bliss initially survived the wreck, but when he couldn’t find his wife, he went back into the flaming wreckage to look for her and neither of them was ever seen alive again. Philip Bliss was only 37 years old.

The confusion and commotion of the train wreck was almost unimaginable. It must have been extremely difficult for those who came out from the small town of Ashtabula to know what to do.

Death often is a time of confusion and commotion. If you are planning to wait until your deathbed to get right with God, think again. That time is likely to be a time of great confusion and commotion. You may be very sick and unable to think. You might find it hard to breathe. Doctors may lie to you and tell you that you are sure to recover, knowing you may not live out the night. It is always difficult to think clearly in times of great stress. Doctors may even administer drugs that make it impossible for you to think straight.

Now’s the Time

No! The time to get right with God is now when you are of sound mind and health. Now is the time to make the Lord Jesus your Lord and Savior and begin to live for Him. The thief at the cross was converted at the end of his life, but he is an exception. Deathbed conversions are rare. “Prepare to meet thy God,” the prophet Amos wrote (Amos 4:12). When he wrote this, he didn’t mean for anybody to wait till the end of their lives to get ready to meet God. The time to begin that preparation is right now at this present moment. This present moment is the only moment in your life you can be sure you will have. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

The Ashtabula Railway Disaster was the deadliest train wreck in America during the nineteenth century. Sixty-nine people died in the wreckage. Even under the best conditions, life is very uncertain. No one can say with any certainty that they will be given another day of life on earth. “Time and chance [happen] to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). When life is so uncertain, don’t you think it would be wise to come to Christ by faith so that heaven may be yours if you are suddenly called out of this world?

You’ll find lots more about how God bridges the gap with sinners in From an Enemy to a Friend.

A Deadly Surprise

U. S. agents were suspicious. Why would someone ship potato chips from Hong Kong to a Los Angeles-area address? Thinking that someone might be trying to smuggle drugs into the country, an agricultural specialist of Customs and Border Protection opened one of the three potato chip canisters — and saw something moving. They promptly contacted the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. When the potato chip cans were opened, it was revealed that the “something moving” was actually three two-foot-long king cobras!

Stuffed into the canisters along with the king cobras were three albino Chinese soft-shelled turtles. In order to catch the person responsible for this illegal shipment, they returned the turtles to the potato chip canisters and sent it on its journey through the U. S. Postal Service. The end result was that Rodrigo Franco, 34, was arrested on federal charges of illegally importing merchandise and falsifying records. He could face up to 20 years in prison for his activities.

When investigators inspected his home, he had a collection of exotic animals, including five terrapin snapping turtles and ... a baby crocodile. When questioned by investigators, he admitted that he had smuggled in 20 king cobras before, but that they had all died. Careful analysis of his phone records led them to disbelieve this, however, as he had mentioned feeding them and delivering five snakes. As to where they are now, no one knows.

Deadly Venom

Now, what to do with the king cobras? They contacted the reptile curator of the Los Angeles Zoo, Ian Recchio. But he said that they could not take them because they did not have antivenom in case of possible bites. He also made the observation “that if someone had been bitten by one of the cobras, they likely would have died, as there is not a ready source of antivenom that he knew about in Los Angeles.” The closest antivenom was at the San Diego Zoo, which would have been too far to travel to save someone’s life.

But there is a serpent who is far deadlier than the king cobra. He is the one who came to Eve in the Garden of Eden and said, “Yea, hath God said” (Genesis 3:1)? Because of his lies and deceptions, Adam and Eve disobeyed God, rebelling against His command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus, they became sinners and “children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2), along with everyone else born after them. Our sinful condition has alienated us from God, who is holy and righteous altogether. God sees us as being “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1); therefore, God tells us what the penalty for our sins is. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). God goes on to tell us exactly how awful that death will be. “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9), where “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Luke 13:28).

Hope

There is hope and a wonderful salvation for you, if only you will accept it. Because God “is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9), He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus, to bleed and die on Calvary’s cross for our sins. We can only have salvation through faith in the “finished” work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider these three verses for your eternal well-being: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16-18).

Shipping live king cobras in a flimsy potato chip can was a terribly dangerous and irresponsible thing to do, besides being illegal. King cobras are an amazing snake in their natural God-given habitat. They are the longest of the venomous snakes, growing up to 10-13 feet or longer. When threatened, they can raise their heads as high as six feet off the ground, and they will spread their fearsome hoods to make themselves look bigger. Not only do they intimidate by their size, but they can produce a ferocious growl! One scientist compared their growl to that of “an angry German shepherd.”

It is their venom that is feared the most. Though the venom itself is not as deadly as other venomous snakes, the amount that they can inject with a single bite certainly is. It can kill a human within 30 minutes (a strong bite can kill in just 10 minutes), and it is capable of killing a 12,000-pound elephant within three hours! They have the strongest bite of any venomous snake, and when they do, they hang on, not letting go until they decide to. Their fangs, with which they inject their venom, are perfectly hollow and strong, allowing for a high rate of flow. Their venom attacks the nervous system, causing crucial muscles to fail, such as the diaphragm and heart. Though they are not normally aggressive towards humans, they need to be regarded with the respect that they deserve. It would be foolish to become complacent or careless around them, even if you have one legally as a pet.

The Clever Serpent

Just as “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan” (Revelation 12:9), deceived Eve, so he is deceiving millions today. He deceives people into thinking that they can work their way into heaven and that it will all work out in the end. He will tell you that if you receive the Lord as your Savior, you won’t have any fun, you will become weird — and what will your friends and those that you love think? He will tell you that the cost is too great and that you’ll miss out on what the world has to offer you. He tells people that they are “good enough” and that there is “plenty of time” to think of these things later in life, but “not now!” Friend, the cost is too great if you don’t receive God’s free gift of salvation! Don’t listen to these deadly lies of Satan — “everlasting destruction” is God’s righteous judgment on those who do. Instead, accept God’s loving gift of salvation now, while you have the opportunity. “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Doers of the Word

Once more we come, God’s word to hear,
The word so pure and holy;
Now grant us, Lord, a listening ear,
A spirit meek and lowly;
For if we hear, and heed it not,
We hear for condemnation.

The life of God is in the Word;
And whosoever believes
The record there of Christ the Lord,
Eternal life receives;
But if we hear, believing not,
We hear for condemnation.

The Word of God, by faith received,
Leads to a new creation;
And he who has in Christ believed
Lives out that new creation;
But if we hear, and do it not,
We hear for condemnation

England Expects Every Man to Do His Duty

Off the coast of Spain, near the Cape of Trafalgar, on October 21, 1805, a great sea battle which would determine the course of history took place. England’s 27 ships of the line faced off against 33 warships of the combined fleets of Spain and France.

Napoleon wanted to conquer the world, but first he needed to deal a blow to England’s naval forces. As long as the English fleet was intact, he could not mount a successful invasion against his chief enemy.

The flagship of the British, the HMS Victory, was the pride of the English navy. This giant of a warship was constructed out of 6,000 oak and elm trees, had 107 cannons, 26 miles of rope for the rigging, and was manned by a crew of 861 men. This is how many men it took to both man the sails and fire the cannon. From this ship, Admiral Nelson commanded the fleet.

In those days, the ships of the line communicated with one another by running signal flags up ropes tied to the tops of their masts. Just before the engagement, Admiral Nelson signaled the famous message, “England expects every man to do his duty,” to the fleet.

How this message must have bolstered the courage of the sailors and steadied their nerves when the cannon started booming and the mayhem of battle erupted. You can’t always understand in the confusion of a battle what is taking place, but a person can always understand what their duty is. They can stand by their post and fire their cannons, even when the din of battle comes crashing in around them.

By the end of the day, England had won the battle, and Napoleon’s ambitions were thwarted.

Duty

Duty! Admiral Nelson reminded his men of the importance of it. He, himself, as well as many others, made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty that day.

The idea of a person doing their duty no matter the cost is not a popular theme in present times. But duties are solemn responsibilities.

Doubtless, we have as many duties as we have types of relationships. Sailors have the duty to obey their Admiral. A father has a duty to provide for his family. A mother has a duty to care for her children. Children have the duty to obey their parents, husbands and wives to love one another, citizens to pay taxes, police officers to protect their communities, and the list goes on.

Our Responsibility
to Our Creator

Do you know that each of us also has a sacred duty to our Creator? It is a duty that no man or woman can escape. Whether we acknowledge it or not, each of us is in a definite relationship with Him. The Bible says, “Behold, all souls are Mine” (Ezekiel 18:4). All souls are His because He has made each one.

God solemnly expects each one of us to do our duty. Duty means giving someone what is rightly “due” to them. What is rightly due to God? A number of things. Because He is infinite in power and goodness, the worship of our hearts is due Him! Because He is love, the love of our hearts is due Him. Because He is the highest authority in the universe, our obedience is due Him! Because He continually exercises His providential care for us, our unceasing thanks are due Him.

A just person is one who gives others, including God, their proper due. But the problem is that we have not lived justly. We are sinners — dark-hearted, treacherous sinners. Ecclesiastes 7:20 reads, “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”

God Acts Fairly

People may fail to live justly, but God’s justice will never fail. With unerring power and wisdom, He will see to it that every man gets their proper due. Those who deny God might seem to enjoy life right up until the end. But they will never escape justice in the world to come. They will experience the consequences of their sin in the darkness of hell. In the future there will be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust. “And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29).

So that this world of lost sinners might not have to come into judgment and condemnation, the Lord Jesus gave His life on Calvary’s cross. Sinners who don’t have a shred of righteousness may be declared righteous when they believe in the name of God’s Son.

“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39).

Even if you have thrown righteousness to the winds and lived as a high-handed sinner, if you repent of your sins and come to Christ, God in His goodness and mercy will forgive you. Your sins which are many will be blotted out. You can’t always count on others to help you when you need it, but you can count on God. God is 100 percent faithful to keep His promises. Listen to this promise He makes in the Gospel of John: “Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:15).

Once you come to Christ, you will find that He gives the power to live for Him and to do your duty to Him and to your fellow men and women. He wants us to live justly in this world in which He was cast out and crucified.

Come to Christ, the Savior of sinners, so that the final victory over sin and death will be yours.

“Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).

Intense stress doesn’t just occur in war. It can happen suddenly, as The Quicker, Cheaper and Safer Bridge illustrates.

From an Enemy to a Friend

Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to get rid of an enemy is to make him your friend.” He was president during the American Civil War.

One far greater than President Lincoln also made it His business to convert enemies to friends. He has been doing this for years. In truth, no one does it better, for no one has so much to give as He does.

He has converted hard-hearted, bitter enemies to being His friends. I should know. I was one. Many who were His enemies and had expressed a hatred for Him by their words or actions now have a deep and abiding love for and friendship with Him. This abiding love gives them a new and wonderful reason for living.

Who is this One — who, like no other, converts enemies to friends? It’s God. The enemies He converts are sinners. By their sinning, they have acted like rebels taking up arms to overthrow the rightful Sovereign. All sin is an attempt to throw down the majesty of God. Sin has made each one of us an enemy to God. We commit acts of open defiance to God when we sin.

Sinners are warring against the righteousness and goodness of their Creator. It is a conflict they will never win. Warring against God has a price attached to it. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Those who never repent will spend forever in the darkness of hell. “Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30).

How can anyone win in a war against someone who has the power to cast His enemies into hell? They never will. Yet this is what many in our world persist in doing. They are headed to defeat and destruction. If you are living like an enemy to God, you are not on the winning side.

God’s Way

How does God convert sinners to be His friends? Through the preaching of the cross!

Through the preaching of the cross, every sinner can hear the words of salvation and be saved. “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He opened up the door of salvation so sinners can obtain the forgiveness of sins. In order to pass through that door, sinners must lay down their arms, repent of their sins, and believe in the name of God’s Son.

It was no mere man who died on the cross nearly 2000 years ago. He was much more. He was God who also became a man with a body. He came into the world of rebellious sinners and suffered at their hands, so that through His death He could bring them salvation. After His burial, He arose victorious from the grave. Those who believe in Him will share in His victory over death and the grave. This is why the preaching of the cross is the power of salvation to all who believe.

When a sinner accepts God’s just condemnation of their past deeds and looks to Christ and the blood He spilt, they discover that God forgives them and washes them whiter than snow. “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” (Isaiah 1:18).

Looking to Jesus in faith, we pass from a state of enmity, or war with God, to a state where grace reigns and we have friendship with God. When we lived in sin, we lived in opposition to God’s will. Those who are saved by grace no longer seek to oppose His will, but the desire of our hearts is like His: “Not My will, but Thine, be done.”

Those who believe in Christ have love in their hearts. “Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).

Will every sinner be converted from being an enemy to someone who loves God? Sadly, no. Some of His enemies will refuse His reaching out to them until their dying day.

What a loss! God will not force a sinner to repent against their will. Christ died for all, but each individual must believe to be saved. Will you believe on the Lord Jesus so you may be saved?

Abraham Lincoln was a wise man to seek to get rid of his enemies by making them his friends. God would have all erring, wandering, gone-astray people return to Him in repentance and faith. It is not His will that one of them should perish. It is not His will that one of them should remain in enmity against Him. Won’t you lay down your arms and come to the God who loves you? “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10).

Oh, even if you have spent all your life at enmity with God and done horrible things against Him, you can still be reconciled to Him through the death of His Son. Believe in Christ today!

Good News

There flows a pardon, full and true,
To guilty sinners, through the blood
Of the Incarnate Son of God.

He paid all debt that you might owe;
He suffered death for all below;
He bore the wrath divine for you;
He groaned and bled, it’s true, for you.

Good news from heaven, good news for you,
There flows a pardon, full and true,
To guilty sinners through the blood
Of the Incarnate Son of God.

Good news from heaven, good news you see,
The Savior cries, “Come unto Me,
All you who toil, with fears oppressed;
Come, weary one, oh, come and rest.”

He loves you with a wondrous love;
He hears your prayer in heaven above;
He all your pasture shall prepare,
And lead you with a shepherd’s care.

The Gospel of Thy Grace

The gospel of Thy grace
My stubborn heart has won,
For God so loved the world
He gave His only Son, that ...

... Whosoever will believe,
shall everlasting life receive!

Not to condemn the world
The Man of sorrows came,
But that the world might have
Salvation through His name, for ...

Lord, help my unbelief!
Give me the peace of faith
To rest with childlike trust
On what the gospel says, that ...

The Gray Wolf Trailhead

After a big waffle breakfast, I asked my seven kids sitting around the kitchen table, “How about going to the mountains?”

“Hooray! Do we get to play in the snow? Can we get ready?”

“Yes, you can play in the snow, and yes, you can get ready as soon as we clean the table,” I told them.

In no time at all they had the table clean. Then they went in search of boots, hats, gloves, warm socks, and mittens. For a few minutes chaos broke out as the kids tried to round up these seldom-used items.

I helped the kids find their boots, which were lined up against the wall in the garage. At this point, I could have easily grabbed the tire chains which I saw sitting in a box on the shelf, but I thought, “We won’t need them.”

At last we were ready. At least, I thought we were ready. Yani, my ten-year-old son, in the excitement, forgot to wear his boots and only wore his gym shoes. We piled in the van.

We drove for ten minutes to a road directly uphill into the mountains. It was paved and a snowplow had recently cleared it of snow. Soon we reached a logging road that winds around the mountains and takes you into the middle of a wilderness area called the Olympic National Forest. It was covered with six to ten inches of freshly-fallen snow. The road was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. The forest, white with snow-covered branches, crowded the road on either side. Sometimes the edge of the road was only a few feet from a steep mountainside or a fall of hundreds or maybe thousands of feet. Plainly, I was overconfident.

The Road of Life

Permit me to detour for a moment and make a point. Lots of people suffer from overconfidence when it comes to their relationship with God. Traveling down the road of life with a broken relationship with God puts people in jeopardy of losing their never-dying souls.

Many are going through life on the very edge of a lost eternity and don’t even recognize the danger. Because of their overconfidence, they never think about the risk they are taking.

“Oh, I will be alright if I never get serious with God,” they might think. But what right do they have to think this when God, in His Word, the Bible, has so clearly spoken of the need of sinners to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus? God paid a great price to redeem sinners through the death of His Son. Yet because of overconfidence in their own abilities, the vast majority of people on earth feel they have no need of redemption. Don’t be like those that leave God out of their lives. Think clearly and come to Christ, the Savior of sinners.

The Fun Begins

I certainly wasn’t thinking clearly when we drove six or seven miles, going around bends and curves, sometimes going up and sometimes going down. “Hold still,” I told my kids who were bursting with excitement and were squirming around.

At last we came to part of the road that sloped down for about a quarter mile. We drove down this section of road and arrived at the trailhead. As soon as I parked, the kids piled out, and the fun began.

We walked down the wilderness trail kicking snow up with our boots. Every once in a while, we would round a bend and get an incredible panoramic view of the Olympic Mountains covered with fresh snow. The boys playing in the snow reminded me of river otter pups. Whenever they came to a small slope, instead of walking down it, they would slide down it on their bellies, and then roll over onto their backs and make snow angels by waving their arms up and down. Seven-year-old Arvids was so covered with snow I could only see two of the thousand freckles on his face.

On we walked for a couple of miles until we came to a side trail called “Cat Trail.” This trail got its name from mountain lions that have been spotted on it. This trail took us into a ravine whose sides were so steep that the only way down was to slide on our behinds. We crossed a creek on a slippery wooden bridge and hiked on. The kids were having such a good time they lost track of the time. At last it came time to turn around and return to the car.

On the way back it felt like the temperature was dropping. Also, the light was getting dimmer. Night comes quickly in the shadowy mountains.

When we got back to the van, I was surprised to see how wet the kids were. Snow had gotten in their boots and fallen through their collars, and then melted, soaking their clothes. I had them take off their coats, boots and socks so they could get warm in the car.

Stuck

When I turned the key and started the van I noticed that the van was low on gas. I put the van in low gear and stepped on the gas, and that’s when our troubles began. The wheels spun but they could get no traction on the road. A layer of ice had formed beneath the snow on the road. I tried rocking the van back and forth by stepping on the accelerator but it didn’t work.

With cold fingers I fumbled with the cell phone to call for help, but it was useless. The cell phone didn’t have any reception in the mountains.

I was worried about the kids, so I told them to huddle close together on the back seat. I took off my coat and covered them up with it to keep them warm. I felt Yani’s bare feet. They felt as icy cold as freshly-caught Arctic trout. I gave him my stocking cap to put his feet into.

I had an idea. I thought if I could build up a little speed and momentum I could make it up the road. I could back up in reverse because the road sloped gently down in that direction. I told the kids not to make a sound so I could concentrate and started to drive in reverse down the winding mountain road. I could only see where we were going by looking in the side view mirror. I knew if I went off the road we would get stuck or, even worse, tumble hundreds of feet down the mountainside. We drove like this for a mile or so until we came to a flat stretch of road where we could turn around and I could pick up speed.

The moment of truth had come. I took a deep breath and stepped on the gas. The van started moving back up the hill. I dared not go too fast. Back to the trailhead we drove, and then when we got to the part of the road that went steadily uphill, the tires started spinning on ice once again, and we came to a complete standstill.

“Wow, I think we’re in big trouble,” I told the kids. The van was getting really low on gas, nightfall wasn’t far off, and we were stuck on the mountain.

Rescue

“Dad,” Yani said, “you know how you tell us to pray about things?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“I think we should pray about this.”

I was a little shocked that I hadn’t thought about praying. When we ran into trouble, my mind got immediately busy trying to figure out how to get out of the trouble and I had never thought to pray.

“You know, Yani, I think you are right.” So we all bowed our heads in the car and prayed, asking God to help us get off the mountain and back to our home. After we prayed, I told the kids to remain quiet and try to stay warm. Every so often I would run the engine to warm the car up, but I didn’t want to keep it running in order to save the gas in case we had to spend the night on the mountainside. We waited like this for an hour or so.

Lost in my thoughts, I was surprised when two young men in a small four-wheel-drive pickup truck drove up. I believe in angels. I know these two men were not angels, but they were like angels in the way they went about cheerfully helping us. They offered to tow us off the mountain. Crawling in the snow, they hooked a tow rope from the back of their truck to the front of our van. Slowly the tow rope went taut and I gently stepped on the gas in the van to help out. But the van still didn’t budge.

I gave the two young men the cell phone number of my father-in-law who I thought could drive out with the set of tire chains. They agreed to give him a call and drove off. But they did much more than this. They drove back into town and got a friend who also had a four-wheel-drive pickup truck. They hooked up a tow rope from this pickup truck to the front of their pickup truck, and then a second tow rope from the back of their truck to our van so that we had all three vehicles connected. We were sort of like a train with two locomotives hooked up to a caboose.

It was touch and go for several minutes when they started pulling, but then the van started to move up the hill. By now it was pitch black. The last thing I wanted was to have another mishap on the icy mountain road. They towed us the six or seven miles out of the National Forest and back to the paved road. In the darkness and cold, we unhooked the vehicles. We gave the fellows our heartfelt thanks. They had saved us from spending a bitterly cold night lost in the mountains. It was a really good feeling to be on the road headed for home.

The Road Home

I firmly believe that God answered our prayers. Prayer is one of the most important things anyone can do in life. Do you know that there is a prayer God wants to hear from every sinner? It is the prayer for forgiveness. He wants sinners to come to Him to seek His pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7 reads, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” He wants them to get off the slippery slopes of sin. He knows how helpless they are in their own strength and is very willing to help them. Apart from the help and grace of God, not a soul alive could ever get off the dark mountain of sin. Without faith in Christ, sinners will, at best, be perpetually spinning their wheels getting nowhere. Won’t you get on the road that leads home to heaven by putting your faith in Jesus Christ? The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). He is the Savior that will take those who trust Him, not partway, but all the way home to heaven.

Thank God there has never been a heartfelt prayer for deliverance that God didn’t delight to answer. “Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee” is a verse full of encouragement (Psalm 50:15). Call upon Him today and see what remarkable deliverance He can do on your behalf.

When we’ve been rescued, as Overlooking the Most Important Person points out, gratefulness comes next.

Growing Before Your Very Eyes!

Like Mr. Cheval, Clarence E. Willard had a very unusual talent. While his audience watched, he would literally “grow” before their very eyes! Standing behind a wire that was stretched in front of him at forehead level, he would increase his height from 5'10" to 6'4" in a matter of seconds. Somehow, he was able to manipulate the space between his vertebrae to either increase or decrease his height. Not only could he manipulate his vertebrae, but he could also make one arm 4" longer than the other as well as one of his legs. Being totally paralyzed on his left side, he said that he developed this skill as a child in order to compensate.

Willard (1882-1962) performed in many vaudeville shows which were a very popular form of entertainment in the late 1800s to early 1900s. He became quite well-known for his talent, performing in the Barnum and Bailey’s Circus, in the 1939 World’s Fair, and in Ripley’s Believe It or Not show.

Strange Diet

Michel Lotito (1950-2007) gained fame by cultivating an unusual diet of metal, glass and rubber. Doctors determined that he had an eating disorder called pica, which is the psychological desire to consume things that are normally non-digestible and non-nutritive. Doctors determined that the lining of his stomach and intestines was twice as thick as the average person’s. He also had some powerful digestive juices that enabled him to handle his unique diet. Of course, he helped his physical anatomy along by breaking and chewing the pieces of metal, glass and rubber into small chunks and used water with sizeable amounts of mineral oil to slide it down during his feasts.

You would be surprised at what he ate and how much he ate! It all started when he was 9 years old and the drinking glass that he was using broke and shattered. Then, he began to munch on the family’s TV. Things progressed from there, and at 16 years of age, he began to perform publicly. While performing, he would eat approximately 2.2 lbs. of metal daily. It is estimated that between 1959 and 1997, he consumed nearly 9 tons of metal! Here is a list of some of the things that he managed to devour:

1 Coffin, handles and all!

2 beds

7 TVs

6 chandeliers

18 bicycles

15 shopping carts

1 Cessna 150 airplane — this was his most memorable feat and took him two years to consume (1978-1980).

The Guinness Book of Records awarded him a brass plaque for the “strangest diet,” which, you guessed it, he also ate. Michel earned the nickname of Monsieur Mangetout (“Mr. Eat-All”) and lived to the age of 57, dying of natural causes not related to his strange diet.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Both Mr. Willard and Mr. Lotito were good at turning their handicaps to their advantage, eventually making a living from their work. I hope they had faith in God to save them from their sins as well.

God’s Word tells us that when we use our abilities, talents and the very breath that He has given us to go about our daily lives without acknowledging Him as the Creator God and our need of a Savior, it is sin. It doesn’t matter how gifted or talented we are. It won’t matter how famous we were or even that we just quietly went about our lives making a decent and upright living. God says, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22). This is what is most important! This is what truly matters!

Two Destinies

Our lives here on earth go by in a flash. God tells us that we will go to either heaven or hell after we die. Those of us that know the Lord as our Savior and have our sins forgiven will go to be with Him in heaven, “for by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Those who have rejected God’s way of salvation will go to hell with the devil and his angels, “who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

We are all born into this world under Satan’s power and in his domain. But God sent His Son Jesus into the world to shed His precious blood on Calvary’s cross and to die for our sins, rising on the third day. Faith in Jesus is our only way of escape from Satan’s grasp and ending up in the pit of hell. God’s Word tells us that Jesus came “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified [set apart] by faith in Me [Jesus]” (Acts 26:18). “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). This is God’s promise, made out of love for you — have you called on that holy name for forgiveness of your sins?

Existence doesn’t end with death. What we do in this life matters. Three Questions dives more deeply into that truth.

Heart Issues

Doctors, nowadays, have many ways to diagnose physical heart issues. They may run ultrasounds, echocardiograms, PET scans, or even do a catheterization where they run a silky tube with a tiny camera in it through a vein and into the heart to take pictures. Technology has made it possible, in most cases of heart failure, to figure out exactly what is wrong.

God doesn’t need any technology to see what is going on in our hearts. Our hearts are the inmost part of our being from which all the issues of life flow. Our hearts enable us to love, rejoice and delight in what is good, beautiful and true, but when they are ill, they get full of hate, malice, murder, lust and darkness.

God knows exactly what is going on in your heart. He is infinite in wisdom and knowledge, and there is no hiding what is in your heart from Him.

Doctors have many ways to diagnose heart disease, but sadly, they don’t always have a way to treat it, and heart disease is still a leading cause of death.

FOOLPROOF TREATMENT PLAN

God does have a treatment and a foolproof plan for every heart that is sick with sin. His treatment has never failed. Nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was crucified and nailed to the cross. God’s foolproof plan is for sinners to look to Him in faith for the salvation of their souls. “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isaiah 45:22).

Looking to Jesus by faith involves looking away from the sins we once loved. Accepting God’s verdict on our behavior, instead of our prior thoughts about it, is called “repentance.” Those who repent find something much better to fill their hearts with — the living God!

FORGIVENESS

When people realize their lost condition and turn to God by faith, God forgives them and blots out their sins.

“Forgiveness, what a joyful sound for sinners doomed to die!” a songwriter wrote.

The sin which would have sunk them to hell after death is forgiven. God forgives them for Jesus’ sake because He hung on the cross, died and shed His blood to redeem them — buy them back — from sin and death.

A FULL HEART

Not only does God forgive sinners, but He comes to them and makes Himself known to them in the most marvelous way. The Author of everything good, beautiful and true comes to live in their hearts. The Apostle Paul wrote, “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). They find in Him the one object that can satisfy their hearts.

Are you heartsick, lonely, loveless, drowning in life’s problems? Oh, look to Jesus! He knows your heart through and through. He died so you can be forgiven, and when you believe in Him, He will come into your heart and give you something infinitely better than sin to live for. He will give you Himself!

Oh, come to Him who came to give life to the world!

Find out more about true love in Love From a Close Friend ...

Jesus, I Will Trust Thee

Jesus, I will trust Thee, trust Thee with my soul;
Guilty, lost and helpless, Thou canst make me whole;
There is none in heaven or on earth like Thee:
Thou hast died for sinners — therefore, Lord, for me.

Jesus, I can trust Thee, trust Thy written Word,
Since Thy voice of mercy I have often heard,
When Thy Spirit teaches, to my taste how sweet —
Only may I hearken, sitting at Thy feet.

Jesus, I do trust Thee, trust Thee without doubt:
“Whoseover cometh, Thou wilt not cast out”;
Faithful is Thy promise; precious is Thy blood —
These my soul’s salvation; Thou, my Savior God!

A Killer Slug

Have you ever dared someone to do something? Maybe you dared someone to run up the down escalator, or maybe you actually did it yourself. Maybe you dared someone to hold their breath underwater for two minutes or actually tried to do it yourself. Usually a dare involves an element of risk and danger. But sometimes they can have devastating results.

Sam Ballard was just 19 and full of life, fun and energy. He was a rugby player with a big, wide smile and blond hair, the perfect picture of vitality and health. One night, he and some friends were in the backyard drinking some red wine and “trying to act like grown-ups.” Suddenly, a slug crawled across the patio and Sam’s friends dared him to eat it! In a flash, on a silly dare, the slug was ... gone! The farthest thing from any of their minds was the possibility of the disastrous consequences of eating a garden slug. They were just happy, young teenagers having a lot of fun together!

How many young people are just like them? They start out with just a little bit of smoking marijuana or taking other drugs, just a small amount of alcohol, the occasional violent video game or the occasional looking at pornography. It seems like such fun, and, after all, “it’s the in thing” and “what harm will it do?” They’re just looking to have a good time! They never think to consider where these choices will lead them, or how they will affect themselves and others around them.

Strange Illness

At first, everything seemed fine. But in the days following, Sam complained of severe pain in his legs. He wondered if it was because of the slug, but his mother said that no one ever gets sick from that. Then he thought that maybe he had multiple sclerosis, inherited from his father who had had it. But that was soon ruled out.

After further testing, doctors discovered that Sam had contracted rat lungworm. This parasite is found in rodents, but slugs and snails can become infected if they eat rodent feces. Most people are not affected by this infection, but on rare occasions it will cause an infection of the brain. This is what happened to Sam. He was diagnosed with eosinophilic meningoencephalitis, a condition that many people recover from.

Though Sam seemed to be recovering at first, he soon lapsed into a coma for 420 days. When he woke up, he had acquired a brain injury and was now a quadriplegic. He now required care 24/7. Sam was fortunate in that he had a loving mother and true and loyal friends, or mates, as they are called in Australia. Faithfully, his mother cared for him through the years. Faithfully, his friends came to visit and support him until his death in 2018.

Big Consequences for a Silly Moment

Because of a silly dare, many lives were changed forever. Sam had to be fed through a tube and needed help going to the bathroom. It took him many months of hard work to regain some use of his legs and arms. He suffered seizures and could not control his body temperature. His mother had to deal with his government funding being cut off by more than two-thirds, before the problem was corrected. She bore the responsibility of being the main one to care for him for years. Though his friends tried to do many of the same things they did before Sam’s illness and were his loyal friends to the end, they will have to deal with a lifetime of regret — regret for a situation that didn’t have to be.

Lisa Wilkinson of Australia’s “The Sunday Project” ran a segment on the family chronicling Sam’s ordeal. As a warning to other young people watching, she asked one of Sam’s friends what advice they would give to them. This is what he said: “Just take care of your mates. Before you jump off a roof into a pool, or if you’re daring a mate to eat something stupid, just think about it, because it can have the worst consequences, not only on your mate, their family and the rest of their friends. The rest of your life. Just take care of each other.”

This was great advice from men who had experienced the devastating result of a bad choice firsthand. Things can and do go terribly wrong. We live in a day and age where people “just don’t think about it” when they do something because everyone else is doing it. So many young people are led into gangs, drugs, drinking, stealing and many other harmful activities and never even think of where it will all end. They don’t see the penniless drunkard, the desperate drug addict or the jail time that awaits them for certain crimes. They “just don’t think about it” and so finish their sinful lives, dropping into hell forever.

A Time to Pause and Consider

There is another crowd of people who “just don’t think about it” also. These are the upstanding citizens of society, the churchgoers, the ones who do good works and donate to charities. They are kind, good neighbors and will help anybody in an emergency. They believe there is no need “to think about it” as they too finish their sinful lives, dropping into hell forever.

What does all humanity need “to think about”? The Bible, God’s Word says, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” (Ecclesiastes 12:1). Why? Because “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This means that we are sinners and unable on our own to enter into heaven. But God has told us how we can be made right with Him. In His great love towards us, He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross and shed His precious blood for our sins. Jesus could die in our place because He was sinless and perfect. The Bible says, “I declare unto you the gospel [good news] ... how that Christ died for our sins ... and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

Anyone and everyone can be saved if they put their faith and trust in the work that the Lord Jesus did on the cross for our sins. “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9). This is not just an “Oh, I believe that” response and then you go on living your life without another thought or care towards God. No, God wants us to repent of our sins, to accept His forgiveness, to simply accept that what Jesus did on the cross is enough for our salvation. There needs to be “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). So serious is this matter that the Bible tells us that the choice we make is either “eternal life” or “eternal destruction.” “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Sam didn’t have to eat a slug. Impulsively, he chose to do so. You have the chance now not to be one of those “who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

What will you do with Jesus? Do not carelessly waste the time that God has given to you to come to Him for your eternal salvation! “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Hebrews 3:12,15).

Sam isn’t the only one who has been casual with danger. The potato chip cans in A Deadly Surprise had a much more lethal payload than potato chips.

Le Palis Idéal

What comes to mind when you see a pebble or a stone? Many people will use them for landscaping or for painting beautiful designs and pictures on them for a doorstop or paperweight. But one man had a grander idea than that—he actually built a castle out of pebbles, stones, porous tufa and fossils. It is open for the public to see today and stands in Hauterives, southeastern France. Just looking at the pictures leaves you in awe of this man’s talent and labor!

Ferdinand Cheval was born in the year 1836 into a poor farming family. At the age of 13, he dropped out of school to become a baker’s apprentice, and he later became a postman. One day, when he was 43 years of age, he was walking very fast while delivering his mail and nearly tripped over a stone. Noticing its unusual shape, he put it into his pocket to admire later. But it reminded him of a dream that he had had 15 years before. In his dream, he had built “a palace, a castle or caves, I cannot express it well ... ”

Amazing Dedication

The next day, he went back to the same spot and noticed even more beautiful stones. He began to collect them and to bring them home, first in his pockets, then in a basket and then in a wheelbarrow. For the next 33 years, he worked on his Le Palais Idéal. Being a mailman by day, he would often work by night in the light of an oil lamp.

It took him 20 years just to build the outer walls. Working pebble by pebble, rock by rock and with fossils of all shapes and sizes, he used lime, mortar and cement to hold it all together. Though he had never travelled or seen these places (perhaps he got his ideas from postcards), his architecture resembles a mixture of Chinese, Egyptian, Algerian and Northern European influences, with themes of Christianity, Hinduism and Islam throughout. Many of the walls have animals carved into them: two ostriches and their chick, a four-foot camel, flamingoes, octopi, lions, dragons and a polar bear. The palace also includes two waterfalls, named the Source of Life and the Source of Wisdom. It is an incredible 85 feet long and 30 feet high!

There are inscriptions of quotes and poems that he carved into the walls of the palace. Some of them are quite interesting. Here are a few of them: “If you look for gold, you will find it in elbow grease.” “The ecstasy of a beautiful dream and the prize of effort.” “The work of one man.” “Dream of a peasant.” “Palace of the imagination.” And most telling of all: “1879-1912, 10,000 days, 93,000 hours, 33 years of struggle. Let those who think they can do better try.”

After Mr. Cheval finished building his Le Palais Idéal, he opened it up for the public to see. But that was not the end of his story! It was his wish to be buried in his palace, but it was illegal, so he spent the next eight years of his life building a mausoleum to be buried in. It turned out to be no less intricate and detailed than his palace! He lived almost a year after finishing his mausoleum and passed into eternity in 1924.

Vital Importance

Mr. Cheval found something to do that was very important to him, so important that he devoted many years of his life to it. Towards the end of his life, he received recognition from quite a few famous people, including Pablo Picasso himself. But if Mr. Cheval worked for his personal honor and pleasure, he had a sad surprise coming. God tells us that one day all of man’s works that he takes such pride in will be burned up! “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). This will happen when God’s patience with the results of man’s rebellious ways will finally come to an end.

God tells us what is important and what really matters. It is the choice we make regarding His dear Son, Jesus. Jesus died on the cross for our sins; He paid the penalty for our sins so that we wouldn’t have to. But we must put our trust in Him (Jesus) and come to God in repentance. This means that we realize that God is right when He says that we are hopeless, helpless sinners and deserve eternal damnation. When we put our trust and confidence in the work of Jesus and the blood shed on Calvary’s cross for our sins, trusting God to forgive us, we then have eternal life. Everything else in life is secondary! To have saving faith in Jesus is essential.

Carefully consider these verses: “Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him 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 3:15-18).

To admire Jesus as “a good man” is not enough. To admit that there is a God is not enough. To know the facts in your head about Jesus’ death and resurrection is not enough. To respect the creation above the Creator is deadly. In fact, this seems to be the mistake that Mr. Cheval made, for he said, “It’s a sandstone shaped by water and hardened by the power of time. ... I said to myself: Since nature is willing to do the sculpture, I will do the masonry and the architecture.”

All of us can make one of two choices: to believe or not to believe. God states it very clearly, in these sobering words: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). The consequences are eternal — what will your choice be?

Ferdinand Cheval had a unique talent that no one since has been able to match. Read about another man who had a physical ability that has not been matched since in Growing Before Your Very Eyes!

Lies, Lies,All Lies

It’s a good thing that there is always some truth being spoken in this old world of ours. “Lies, lies, all lies” can never be one hundred percent true. It is what is called a “self-defeating statement.” If it were true, then it would defeat the notion that everything spoken was a lie.

However, without a doubt, there is a great deal of deceit, falsehood and crookedness in this world. Deceit has a lot of sad consequences. One of the worst is that it keeps people from knowing God. A verse in the Bible reads, “Through deceit they refuse to know Me” (Jeremiah 9:6). So many lies are being spread about God that many people are finding it easy to ignore God’s claims on their lives.

Lies Like the Following:

1. “Man is a purely biological organism.” This is one lie that is being bandied about, and because of it, men and women in general are no longer concerned about their eternal destiny. What a mistake!

They say that “life as we know it just evolved out of nothing.” Because people buy into this, they no longer look at the beautiful world we live in and recognize it as the handiwork of God. What a loss for them!

2. “Each individual has the power to determine what is right and wrong for themselves.” This may sound plausible at first, but if you think about it, it is utter nonsense and confusion.

So many lies are being told about God that it is no wonder that people latch onto them and refuse to come to know Him.

There is a lot of darkness and deceit in this world. What can drive it away? Just one thing — the truth! The truth shines brightly in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who came to earth, suffered, died and rose again — His truth outshines the sun. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus said; “no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

Truth Wins

Truth will always win out over the darkness of deceit. It will always win out like the light of the sun wins out over the darkness of night and drives it away. It won out at the cross when Jesus Christ gave His life for sinners. It won out when the Lord Jesus arose victoriously from the grave. It wins out every time a sinner bows before the Lord Jesus Christ and receives Him as their Lord and Savior. It will win out in the future when the wicked and impenitent are at last sent out of God’s presence forever. And truth will win out at the resurrection of the just when the souls who trusted and loved the Savior while on earth are reunited with their bodies which have been made new, never to suffer pain or death again.

Will truth prevail? Always and ever! Then the only sensible course of action is to come by faith to the One who is faithful and true and gave His life for sinners.

A simple definition of truth is that it is conformity to reality. God wants you and me to be connected to reality and truth. He doesn’t want us to live a lie. He wants us to be real. Jesus Christ is a real Savior for real sinners who cannot save themselves.

“Lies, lies, all lies.” Don’t believe that extraordinary statement. The truth exists in a wonderful way in this world in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Savior this world so desperately needs.

Finding true answers is vital. 27-Year-Old Mystery Solved shows the closure that comes with truth.

Losing Everything!

As the Tubbs wildfire and many others tore through California in October 2017, many people had to flee for their lives, with some just barely escaping with the clothes on their backs. Such was the case for John and Jan Pascoe of Santa Rosa, California.

The Pascoes’ home was unique. It had 11 levels and was shaped like a boat, surrounded by large decks that took advantage of every angle of the beautiful scenery and landscapes surrounding their property. John, who was a wine broker as well as a painter, had many of his paintings displayed throughout their home. Each level was divided into small rooms and decorated with memorabilia from many of the places that they had vacationed in around the world. In short, their life experiences and memories were wrapped up in their home!

That night, at 10 p.m., Jan went outside to check on her tomato plants and to look at the moon. It was a beautiful, clear night with no sign of fire or the smell of smoke. Coming inside, she took a shower and when she got out, she thought she smelled smoke. But when John went to check, there was just the moon coming up.

When Jan checked her phone, the fire was 11 miles away, not close enough to panic. Besides, there had been no official alerts, so they decided to retire for the night. It was then that their oldest daughter called, saying that her father-in-law’s house had burned to the ground. Though it was 40 miles away, she told her parents that she thought they should evacuate now.

But the Pascoes didn’t think so. Just to be ready, though, they carefully wrapped up some of their valuables, including some of John’s many paintings, which they loaded into his truck. What they didn’t know then was that their time to escape was rapidly running out!

So Many in the Same Shoes

How many people are just like them! They know life is fragile. They know the danger of dying any day from any number of causes. They instinctively know that there is existence after death, but ... they delay and put off attending to their eternal well-being. They never bother to search out the truth about God. They never bother to learn about heaven and hell, their soul’s destiny, and their need of a Savior. Far worse are those that know the way of salvation and know that their soul will continue in hell forever — separated from all God’s mercy. They’ve heard a true gospel (good news) preached; they’ve had family and friends beg them to come to faith in Jesus now. But they’ve refused by saying, “Later!” or, “Someday when I get around to it!” or, “I want to have fun and experience life first!”

A Wall of Fire

A few hours later, a mighty, dry wind rose which felt like a dry hurricane. Again, their daughter called at midnight, telling them that they needed to get out. This time, when they looked out of their window, they could see a red glow in the sky. Now they realized their danger! Picking up their 17-year-old cat, Jan got into her Mercedes-Benz and John got into his truck. Driving down to the end of their long driveway, they were met by a wall of flames coming their way. Quickly turning around, they drove back up to the house. When Jan opened her door, the cat jumped out and disappeared. What were they going to do? How were they going to survive?

They decided that their only hope was to get into their neighbor’s swimming pool, which was a third of a mile away. Standing at the edge of the blackened, debris-filled pool, they debated as to when they should get in. Now, or the last instant? John decided to wait because the water was so cold. But the air soon turned super-hot with intense heat. Then the neighbor’s house caught fire. The tree next to the pool burst into flames, and the wooden tiers framing the cement steps leading to the pool ignited.

As the neighborhood around them went up in flames, they got into the pool. Hours went by, six of them, in fact, as they waited for the houses around them to burn down and the fire tornado to pass. They wondered how it could take so long for a house to burn, and why did the moon not seem to be moving at all? It was freezing in the pool! Fortunately, the pool was only four feet deep, which made it easier for them to come up for air. As the hours went by, they talked of their deep love for each other and family.

Devastation

At last, they were able to get out of the pool — but what a scene met their eyes! Jan had put her cell phone in her shoe by the side of the pool — the phone had melted and so had her shoe. The landscape was charred and blackened. The neighbor’s house and theirs had completely burned to the ground. The remains of their truck and car were burned and sitting on their rims. But they had each other and they had escaped with their lives, for which they were deeply thankful.

The Pascoes had almost lost their lives because they didn’t leave as soon as they could or should have. They had both time and warning — but they decided to take a chance. Comfort and possessions held them back, but in the end both were lost. But God tells us that there is something far more valuable than riches, possessions, fame, or even power, which can all be lost. Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37).

Our Destinies

We each will continue to exist forever. Our bodies are the shell that our souls inhabit. When God created man, He breathed into him the breath of life. The Bible puts it this way: “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).

Therefore, because our souls continue on, it is critical that we know where we are going. Jesus used figurative language to tell us not to let anything or anyone prevent us from having eternal life with Him in heaven. “If thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life [heaven] maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9:43). In verse 45, Jesus says, “If thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.” The hands remind us of what we do; the feet remind us of where we go.

God considers us to be so indescribably valuable that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for us. God’s love is so vast, full and free that He offers salvation to all who will have it. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God wants us to come to Him in repentance and faith, trusting in the death of Jesus for our sins. God wants our complete and total trust. Again, Jesus said, “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). God’s way of salvation is so simple that anyone can have it, rich or poor, the learned and the unlearned, the haves and the have nots. God paid a great price to be able to have you! Come to Him now, while you have the chance! To delay may mean an eternal separation from God.

The Lost Practice of Bowing

Bowing — the practice of bending over at the waist or kneeling and lowering one’s head as a way to show respect — isn’t used much anymore. Performers in a play or musical performance still take bows, in certain countries students bow to their teachers at the beginning of their classes, and I suppose a few young men may kneel and bow when they propose marriage, but overall, bowing just isn’t as common as in the past. I imagine many people today have never bowed at any point in their lives. But a certain super-event is coming in the future and will change all this.

At this event “every knee shall bow.” “I have sworn by Myself, the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (Isaiah 45:23).

Oh yes, bowing is going to make a big comeback! Even those who have never bowed to anyone or anything in their lives will be compelled to bow down and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God. The power of God will see to it.

Do you know what will make all the difference at this time when every knee shall bow?

All the Difference

What will make all the difference will be whether or not a soul has bowed their hearts to the Lord Jesus in this life and made Him their Lord and Savior.

Those who, in sorrow for their sins, bow before the Lord, their God and Maker, now and ask to receive His forgiveness will receive the gift of eternal life. It is their joy to confess the risen Lord as Lord of all. Those who in this life have never bowed their hearts to Jesus Christ will be forced to bow in the future and confess that He is Lord before they are everlastingly sent out of His presence to a place called “hell.”

This event when all shall bow is the time when God will judge every man and woman who has refused to believe in Him. “I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled, and place was not found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is that of life. And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books according to their works” (Revelation 20:11-12).

We live in a world where many people have not bowed their hearts to the Lord, and they have no intention of doing so. After all, why would they bow to the Lord who is holy, just and good when their lives are full of the sins He hates? And why would they bow when false pride makes them feel like they know better than God Himself? In the blindness of their hearts, they simply see no reason for it.

God’s Holy Spirit can open a sinner’s eyes so that they see their need to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus in this life and plead for His mercy.

Wonderfully, God is ready to forgive the sins of those who see the errors of their ways and put their faith in Christ. On the cross, the Lord Jesus gave His life for all those who have wandered away from Him. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

Decision

Before that day when every knee shall bow, will you make the decision to bow your heart voluntarily to the Lord of lords and King of kings and receive Him as your Lord and Savior?

Only then will you not be compelled to bow your knee before the great Judge of all. Bow now in this life in repentance, or bow later in the final judgment. The choice is yours alone. You alone will bear the enormous consequences of your decision.

“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker” (Psalm 95:6). Because He is God and we are His creatures, bowing before Him is always the right thing to do.

Bow before the Lord Jesus and receive Him as your Lord and Savior. He alone is worthy.

A Lost Soul

Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist and cosmologist who studied cosmology, quantum physics, black holes and the nature of spacetime. His intelligence was impressive, scoring an IQ of 160 and belonging to the genius group of people, which makes up 0.003% of the world’s population. He was light years ahead of most of us when it came to physics and mathematical equations, and he was highly regarded in the scientific community.

Hawking had enormous physical limitations to overcome. At the age of 21, he was diagnosed with ALS (a neurodegenerative disease that eventually causes total paralysis), and he was given only two years to live. Yet he lived to be 76 years of age, defying all of the odds. For the second half of his life, he was almost totally paralyzed, so he used a voice synthesizer to speak by using a cheek muscle.

He won many prestigious awards and medals for his work. He also wrote many books, even co-authoring three children’s books with his daughter Lucy. But he was also famous for something else — his statements about God and the origins of the universe!

Let’s look at a few of them and see what God’s Word, the Bible, has to say about them. In A Brief History of Time, he says, “I believe the simplest explanation is, There is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.”

Wisdom

You might wonder how you could look at the “grand design” of the universe and say “there is no God”! Both Templeton and Hawking’s unbelief was not because of their intelligence! They both had a moral issue: their stubborn, rebellious and willful hearts! It was a matter of pride and a determination to trust in their human reasoning, even if it didn’t satisfy or make sense! Don’t ever think that if there’s a God, He’s given you a bum deal because you would believe if you could, but you just can’t, because there are things that you don’t understand! This is a lie of the devil. If you are an honest inquirer, ask God to show you the truth and He will! “Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

God sums it up this way: “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Corinthians 1:18-21).

God is the One who is all-wise and all-knowing; He doesn’t want or need our intelligence or our philosophical arguments. We can be mighty thankful that He doesn’t! Imagine if you had to be a genius to understand the gospel! Then only 0.003% of the world’s population would have a chance of salvation. But God has made salvation available to all, intelligent or not, rich or poor, powerful or lowly. “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11). When we open our hearts to God in faith, He reveals Himself to us. “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

Bold Ignorance

In 2008, in an interview with Charlie Rose, Hawking said, “I regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark.” Jesus Himself spoke of heaven and hell more than any other person in the Bible. Luke 16 tells of the story of a rich man who died and was buried, “and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments ... for I am tormented in this flame” (verses 22,24). When Jesus was dying on the cross for our sins, one of the thieves that was crucified with Him repented of his sins, putting his faith in Jesus. Jesus said to him, “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). God is faithful to warn all men: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). This is one of the most sobering verses in all of Scripture! God wants us to consider our eternal destiny because there is the reality of a heaven and a hell.

In another interview, Hawking also commented, “There is nothing bigger or older than the universe.” How can anyone be certain of that? None of us were there to witness the creation of the universe! But in Genesis 1 we are told how God created the universe and the world in which we live. Psalm 90:2 states it in these majestic words: “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”

Sinking further into unbelief and atheism, Hawking made more bold statements: “One can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but science makes God unnecessary” (in an interview with Nick Watt on September 7, 2010). Finally, one last quote from a brilliant mind, but a lost soul: “God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God” (Time Magazine, November 14, 2010). Man has two witnesses within him that instinctively cry against these statements. They are creation and conscience. The problem is that man does everything he can to stifle and silence these two witnesses because he does not want to answer to a just and holy God.

The Personal God

Every one of us has the outward witness of creation and the inward witness of conscience. As to creation, God says, “The invisible things of Him [God] from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). The laws of physics can never create; they just describe what is! Mathematics does not create; it just describes what is! Science is just the study of things that are made which show forth God’s eternal power. No, the eternal God who made it all and continues to maintain the laws of physics has given all of us a daily witness so that we are without excuse. As to the inward witness of God, we are told, “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly” (Proverbs 20:27).

God is not impersonal! He is intensely interested in each one of us as individuals — so much so that He says, “God commendeth [shows forth] His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The gospel is all-inclusive; “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). God paid a great price for our souls by giving His only begotten Son to die on the cross to pay our sin-debt. The problem is not our intelligence; it’s our stubborn unbelief. God wants us to trust Him and to live by faith in Him. “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him” (Hebrews 10:38). Templeton and Hawking drew back from not two but three witnesses: the Word of God, creation and their conscience. On the day of judgment, all those whom the Lord has no pleasure in will hear Him say, “I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23). Far better to repent of your sins, putting your trust in the finished work that Jesus did on the cross, and to trust Him for your soul’s salvation. Those that do will one day hear Him say, “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21).

Love From a Close Friend

When it comes to love, we expect to be loved by those who know us intimately, such as family members and close friends. We are delighted when those who are casual acquaintances show us genuine love by doing us a favor. We are surprised when a distant stranger does an unexpected kindness towards us. Often that unexpected kindness may change the entire course of our lives. The love of the Lord Jesus comes to sinners in all three ways.

It may come as a surprise to you, but God is closer to you than any other person on the face of the earth. He knows all your thoughts and feelings better than you do yourself. “There is not a word in my tongue but ... Thou knowest it altogether.” “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; Thou understandest my thought afar off” (Psalm 139:4,2). He knows who we are perfectly. And this means He knows the sins we have committed. Notwithstanding those sins, He still wants each one of us to repent, or forsake our sins, and believe in Christ. It doesn’t make any sense to pretend that you are not a sinner in His sight. Your life reads like an open book before Him. Won’t you come by faith to the Lord Jesus so that those sins may be washed away? He wants you to come to know Him so that He may dwell in your heart forever. What could be more intimate than this?

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP

Many people in this world know something of the Lord Jesus. However, without a personal relationship with Him, they are, at best, only casual acquaintances. They know of Him, but they don’t belong to Him. They have not bowed their hearts to Him and made Him their Lord and Savior. To become more than just casually acquainted with Him, you need to believe in Him as He presents Himself in His Word, the Bible. Genuine faith will always bring us near to God. Being casually acquainted with the facts about Him is not enough to deliver your soul from hell and sin’s darkness. If you are only casually acquainted with Him, please know that you are one of the ones He died to save, and He invites you to come to Him by faith and receive the gift of eternal life. The immense blessing of eternal life can be yours through faith in His name. “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name” (John 20:31).

STRANGERS

The Lord Jesus came down from heaven to make known the Father’s love to us. He came into the world when we neither deserved Him nor desired Him. He came as a pure and sinless Stranger into a world of wayward sinners. Everything He did and said pointed men back to God. In the greatest act of love the world has ever known, He gave His life at Calvary. After He was crucified, He was buried in a tomb, but death couldn’t hold Him in the ground. He came back to life after three days and nights. What love the Father showed to us when He sent His Son into the world! It is a love He wants each of us to know!

The love of the Lord Jesus is the most intimate of all loves. He wants every member of the human race to have more than just a casual acquaintance with Him. He doesn’t want anyone to die a stranger to His grace and end up in hell. Instead, He wants them to have a personal relationship with Himself that will last for eternity. He came into this world that had fallen into sin and darkness. Because He is the “light of the world,” He is able to bring light and love into the darkest of hearts.

Will you come to the Lord Jesus by faith that you might know God’s wonderful love?

The Love Jesus Has For Me

The love that Jesus had for me,
To suffer on the cruel tree,
That I a ransomed soul might be,
Is more than tongue can tell!

His love is more than tongue can tell;
His love is more than tongue can tell;
The love that Jesus had for me
Is more than tongue can tell!

The bitter sorrow that He bore,
And, oh, the crown of thorns He wore,
That I might live forevermore,
Is more than tongue can tell!

The peace I have in Him, my Lord,
Who pleads before the throne of God
The merit of His precious blood,
Is more than tongue can tell!

The joy that comes when He is near,
The rest He gives, so free from fear,
The hope in Him so bright and clear
Is more than tongue can tell!

Magawa, The Herorat

When God created man, He gave him dominion over the earth and everything in it, including every type of animal. Genesis 1:26 tells us, “God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth over the earth.”

When God gave man authority over the animal kingdom, it was to care for and tend to them in a just manner. In order to do that, we need to study them, to learn their habits and ways, and to develop their abilities to the fullest potential for the benefit of all. This is the story of how rats are trained for the good of mankind — saving millions of lives in the process.

Bart Weetjens grew up loving everything rodent —hamsters, rats, mice, Guinea pigs and squirrels. Many of these he would raise and sell to pet shops. Later, he had many African students in his home, so he learned a lot about their culture and the problems that they faced. One of the problems that they faced was land mines. This formed the foundation of the nonprofit organization that he created — APOPO, based in Belgium, with branches in other countries.

APOPO uses African giant poached rats to sniff out the land mines. Though they have poor vision, they have a sharp, acute sense of smell. These cat-sized rats are still light enough to walk over a mine and not set it off. It also costs about one-fifth the amount to train them as it does to train dogs. Besides, dogs are much more costly and harder to transport than rats.

Rats are trained by using a clicker, because they cannot understand verbal commands. A click means a food reward, which is mashed bananas and peanuts. First, they must be raised from birth around humans. Then they must learn to put their nose in a TNT-scented hole for five seconds — a long time for a rat. Next, they are presented with 10 holes randomly scented with TNT. The rat must identify each TNT scented hole correctly. They alert their handler by stopping and scratching the spot where the TNT is. Then they are trained to walk on a long leash and taught to walk on a rope grid outside, after which they must find real mines in a real minefield. The final test is to correctly identify all mines in a 400 square meter field. (Yes, it’s a big area — approximately 4,305,564 square feet!) Having done all of this accurately, they are then licensed and accredited to work as a minefield detecting rat. It takes approximately 9 months to train each and every rat. As they only live an average of 8 years, the training takes a big part of their lives. APOPO calls them HeroRATS, an excellent name for what they do!

Enter Magawa, the HeroRAT raised and trained in Tanzania. Magawa works in Cambodia, where farming and agriculture are the main livelihood. However, much of the land remains unused because of unexploded land mines which were laid during the wars in the 1970s. It is so dangerous that Cambodia has the largest number of mine amputees in the world, 40,000 of them, along with 64,000 casualties. Magawa is by far the most successful HeroRAT as of this writing, accurately detecting 39 land mines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance. Magawa has cleared more than 35 acres of land, or the equivalent of 20 soccer fields! This is much faster than a human with a metal detector could do it, because every suspicious ping must be checked out. A HeroRAT can clear a space the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes; a human would need four days to do the same area.

Magawa’s bravery and dedication has been recognized by PDSA, a prominent veterinary charity in the U. K., which awarded him a Gold Medal. In their 77 years of operation, Magawa is the first rat and the thirtieth animal to receive this award, after dogs, horses, pigeons and a cat. Awards are given to raise the public’s awareness of the wonderful service these animals do for mankind.

Important Lessons

Just as Magawa gives clear warning of danger, so does the Book of books, the Bible. God, who created us and who knows what our end will be, gives us clear warnings about what happens to all who disobey Him. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20). “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). “There is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:12). God uses “all” and “none” to describe how each and every one of us is born into this world as a sinner in His sight. God is speaking of spiritual things — that our sins ban us from His presence, earning us His judgment and our death in hell. “As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). This verse does away with the idea that “once you die, that’s it; that’s the end of you,” and it certainly does away with the idea of reincarnation.

But God not only warns us of our problem and its consequences; He gives us the solution to our desperate need. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). Jesus is the Savior of sinners! Jesus is the ONLY way to God. “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. ... God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6,8). Jesus died to pay for our sins on the cross — there is nothing for us to do but to believe on His name and receive His forgiveness of our sins. These verses make it clear that God’s way of salvation is available to all who will have it.

A Danger Worse Than TNT

So just how good are these rats? They have cleared 13,200 minefields from Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola and, most recently, Cambodia, Magawa’s territory. According to PDSA, there are 80 million land mines in the world that are active and unknown, with 4-6 million in Cambodia alone. But there is a much, much bigger problem than land mines in Africa — and that is tuberculosis (TB).

Over 9 million people a year are infected with TB in Africa. Of these, 3 million will not be diagnosed and 1.5 million will die. The fact is that TB kills more people than any other infectious disease. If caught early enough, TB is curable. But the problem is diagnosing it correctly, especially in children and people with HIV. The most widely used test is microscopy, but it is inaccurate with only a 40-60% reliability, generally missing half of the cases. A mycobacterial culture is accurate but slow, taking up to 6 weeks for results.

This is where the HeroRATs can help! It takes 9 months to a year to train them to consistently and accurately sniff out the scent of TB positive samples from the negative samples. Here’s how it works: A sputum sample is taken from a patient displaying symptoms at a public clinic. All samples, positive and negative are then sent to APOPO’s testing centers, where they are tested by HeroRATs within 24 hours. When a rat signals a positive sample by hovering over it for 3 seconds, he is rewarded. The sample is rechecked by WHO (World Health Organization) standards, and, if positive, the clinic is notified so treatment can be started immediately. The sniffing skills of the rats have been so successful that it has increased TB detection by over 40%, thus saving millions of lives. A trained rat can check 100 samples in under 20 minutes; the same job would take a technician at least four days.

A Kind Warning

When a HeroRAT gives clear warning of a land mine or TB, it is taken seriously and action is taken. God has given us clear warning of our soul’s destiny and we need to take it seriously. “He that believeth on Him 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). We need to accept His gift of salvation and put our trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Every one of us is either “not condemned” or “condemned already.” Which one are you?

Christ came to save, not to condemn. He showed out His immense, personal love, as 7.9 Billion shows.

A Miracle They Survived

Many young people, particularly teenagers, do not realize just how fragile life can be. Oh, they know accidents happen, but that somehow doesn’t apply to them! They know that you can be struck down suddenly with some nasty disease and even die, but it somehow applies to everybody else — just not them.

One September afternoon, five young people in California were having a good time, but it nearly cost them their lives. They were driving down Yankee Jims Road in Colfax, just outside of Sacramento, which is a narrow, winding road. Their SUV ended up going over the edge of the cliff and tumbled more than 200 feet to the bottom before becoming wedged between large boulder-like rocks and trees. As it flipped over several times on its way down, all of the young people were ejected because they were not wearing seatbelts. One young person was in good enough shape that they could scramble up to the road and wave down a car for help.

There were two young men, a 20-year-old driver and an 18-year-old passenger in the front seat. In the back were three 16-year-old girls. It took rescuers several hours to haul the young people up the side of the canyon, as several rope systems had to be set up. One of them had to be airlifted, while the others were taken to trauma centers with moderate to severe injuries.

Police did arrest the 20-year-old driver for suspicion of driving under the influence, an incredibly dangerous and reckless thing to do, especially driving on a road that would require the full attention of a sane and alert person. Not only was his life endangered, but so were the lives of four other people, as well. But really, just how bad was it? “Absolute miracle. It was a total miracle that they all survived,” California Fire Captain Chris Baldoni told the news reporter.

It Isn’t Really “Harmless”

You know, having a “good time” and “just trying it to see what it’s like” can seem harmless, but it is really just a lie of the devil. The Bible speaks of “the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25). Yes, there can be pleasure in sin — at first. But what people don’t realize is the strength of the sin, any sin, actually — and its awful end. When they start out, they don’t see the penniless alcoholic, the desperate drug addict, or the diseased body due to illicit sex. But the Bible tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” Living in sin and unrepentant towards God will land you in a lost eternity. You may wonder, How bad can it really be? Jesus said of the wicked (those without repentance or faith towards God) that they shall be cast “into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:50). The time for repentance and forgiveness of sins will be over — there will only be endless sorrow and regret for what could have been, but you will realize then that it’s too late!

Just like those five young people who now have a second chance at life, you now have the chance to come to Jesus in faith. “The wages of sin is death; BUT the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Salvation is through faith in Jesus and His shed blood and death on the cross for our sins alone. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Oh friend, while you have life and are able, put your faith and trust in Jesus’ death on the cross for your sins now! Receive God’s forgiveness and He will give you eternal life. Yes, it is real. God will give the truly repentant person a new heart that wants to please and serve Him in everything.

Careless decisions were costly for the five young people. But the couple in Losing Everything! weren’t indifferent. They just didn’t fully understand how serious their situation was.

Montezuma's Castle

Europeans who first discovered these cliff dwellings in the above photo dubbed them Montezuma’s Castle, and the name stuck. However, these homes made of rock and mortar were built by the Sinagua tribe around the year 1100 A.D. and had nothing to do with the Aztec people that Montezuma led. But they are worth seeing and doubly worth thinking about.

Guarded by Rock

The buildings begin about 90 feet off the floor of the valley and more resemble a multi-story apartment building than a castle. The walls of the dwelling are made out of limestone, and they rise up from their base more than five stories high. Historians estimate that the ruins were once occupied by about 35 families, and for some unknown reason they were deserted about 1500 A.D.

People have speculated why the tribe went to the trouble of building the dwellings high up in a rock wall. Several reasons seem plausible. First, if you have ever experienced summertime weather in Arizona, you might guess they built their homes in the rock to escape the heat. The dwellings were built in an alcove of the rock that provided shade. Historians also guess that they built their homes high up on the rock wall because of severe floods in the nearby Beaver River. A third reason, and the one that seems most obvious, is that these homes would be easily defended against raiders. By just pulling up the ladders, the homes would have been all but impregnable.

These are some of the reasons why the Sinagua tribe may have decided to build their houses in the rock face of a cliff.

Christ the Rock

Do you know Christ is the Rock, and through faith and repentance we should all build our lives on Him?

The reasons we should come to Christ are very similar to the main reasons the Sinagua tribe built their homes in the rock. First of all, they probably built their homes to escape the scorching Arizona heat. No matter where we live, whether in a cold or hot climate, we have all experienced the “sweltering oppression” of sin. Sin has scorched our lives: our families, our hearts, our health, and all we hold dear. Sin will also bring us into the scorching fires of hell unless something is done about it.

To save lost sinners, the Son of God came and gave His life at Calvary. He was not only a man, but also God. The blood He shed on the cross has the power to wash away the sins of every person who has ever lived.

When sinners believe in Christ, He gives them His forgiveness of sins and comes to live in their hearts. His grace enables them, strengthens them and keeps them from being scorched by sin. We get a sense of this in what King David wrote long ago: “The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.” Only by coming to Christ will any of us find a refuge for our souls from the blasting heat of sin.

Safe From the Flood

The second reason we need to come to Christ and build our lives on Him is because of floods.

“Whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24-27).

The floods which threaten to sweep us away are not limited to the ones caused by excessive rainfall. They include every trouble in life that may hit us in overwhelming power like the death of loved ones, the loss of income, health issues, our own death, political upheavals, and so forth. These floods have the power to sweep everything before them to destruction. The only way to avoid their destructive power is to build your house upon the rock, and that rock is Christ.

Safe From Enemies

The third reason the Sinagua tribe built their homes in the rock was likely for protection against hostile neighboring tribes. Did you know that each one of us has a deadly enemy who seeks our ruin?

That enemy is called Satan. Both he and the fallen angels under him are at war with mankind. They know that every soul who dies apart from Christ will experience the everlasting destruction of hell. Because of the fallen angel’s hatred of God, they want to destroy everything God loves, and that includes every member of the human race. Only by coming to the One who died on the cross and arose from the grave can any of us be delivered from the power of sin, death and Satan.

The Sinagua tribe had good reasons to build their dwellings in the rock. And each one of us has good reasons to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ too. Will you believe in the Lord Jesus? Only then will you be saved from the scorching effects of sin, withstand the floods of life, and find protection from the enemy of our souls.

“The Lord liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of the rock of my salvation” (2 Samuel 22:47).

We can also find refuge from the deception around us as explained in Lies, Lies, All Lies.

A Muslim's Dream

Ali Khan, a Muslim, was highly respected. He performed his religious duties faithfully, he gave alms, he never omitted the prescribed prayers, and he kept the fasts his religion required of him.

Ali Khan was proud of his conduct! His whole bearing showed it. With superiority he seemed to look down on his neighbors. People were so accustomed to his haughty manner that it was with shock that they noticed one day that he was depressed.

“Ali Khan,” a friend said to him, “what is the matter? You look sad. Is anyone in your family ill?”

“No,” he replied, “no one is ill, nor has any misfortune befallen me, praise be to God! But I have had a strange dream which worries me. I am going to my uncle, Suleiman the Wise, to ask him to interpret it for me.”

“You had better not go to old Suleiman,” said his friend. “He has read many Christian books and has accepted foreign teachings. What advice could he give you, anyway?”

“Suleiman has often given me good advice. That is why I want to ask him today,” Ali insisted.

Ali Khan’s Dream

He soon reached his uncle’s house and related his dream as follows: “I dreamed that I was dead. They had buried my body with the most solemn rites, and my soul was awaiting the arrival of the two angels of death, as we have been taught.

“I don’t know where I was, but I saw an immense pair of golden scales. I knew that my good and my bad deeds were going to be weighed in them. Angels in robes of dazzling whiteness stood ready to carry me to Paradise, if my good deeds made the right side of the balance descend. On the left side Satan was watching for me, ready to take me away, if the bad deeds should outweigh the good. However, I was not afraid of him, for I was sure that I was headed for Paradise.

“Next I saw the servants of Satan carrying big parcels done up in black tissue paper, and I understood at once that these were my bad deeds. Their number and size surprised and frightened me. Acts which I had regarded as the folly of youth, acts long forgotten, made the scale dip more and more. I began to tremble, and Satan looked at me triumphantly, as if I were already his prey.

“‘Now bring his bad words,’ he shouted.

“My terror grew, for I had always thought words did not count. I had never considered that words uttered in anger or irritation were sins, and I certainly thought mine less bad than my neighbor’s. The words were in the form of black balls of various sizes, but all appeared as heavy as lead by the way the mocking, grinning imps threw them into the scale on the left, which descended more and more, so low that it seemed to reach hell itself.

“But worse was yet to come. ‘Now bring his bad thoughts,’ Satan ordered. I thought I should sink into the earth, and I could not help exclaiming: ‘Are we responsible for our thoughts, too?’”

“Indeed we are,” interrupted Suleiman at this point, “for the Word of God says that the imaginations of the hearts of men are evil from their youth up. So thoughts can also be sins. Evil thoughts defile a man.”

But Ali continued his story. “Although these thoughts only looked like a black cloud, their weight seemed to make the scale dip dreadfully into a horrible abyss from which red flames and smoke ascended. I would have lost consciousness had I not been sustained by the thought that my good deeds and words and thoughts would weigh heavy, too, for I believed I had a great number to my credit. ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ I shouted to the angels. ‘Throw my good deeds, my good words, my prayers, my alms into the scale!’

“They obeyed and brought, slowly and with solemn faces a certain number of parcels wrapped in white. But the chief of the angels said to me: ‘Only what was done for the love of God possesses weight. Whatever was inspired by self-interest is lighter than a feather.’

“The parcels were thrown into the scale and what did I see? The whole of my good deeds weighed as if it were nothing at all. They did not raise the scale a little bit. My fasting, my alms and my pilgrimages were without any value! ‘But my prayers!’ I cried in despair. ‘For 50 years I have prayed five times a day. If my bad words have weighed so heavy, surely the good ones will weigh more!’ But I was mistaken. The angels who brought my prayers in white parcels handed them to the bad angels, whose mere touch turned them black. Then to my horror they threw them into the scale containing the bad deeds.”

The Dream Explained

Ali stopped; his face betrayed his perplexity.

“I can explain the matter,” said Suleiman quietly. “Till now you have used the name of God only with pride, vanity and a defiled heart, and that is sin. But what else did you see, Ali Khan?”

“I saw the evil spirits come and stretch out their hands to seize me, and in that terrible moment, O Suleiman, I awoke.”

“I, too,” said Suleiman, “have experienced something similar, only I was awake; it was no dream. All my deeds, words and thoughts came up before me in the light of truth, and my soul shuddered as I heard the words, ‘Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.’ Then I realized that I possessed nothing which could be cast into the scale on the right of the balance.”

“Then,” exclaimed Ali, “will all men have to be plunged into that terrible abyss with the left-hand scale? Is there nothing that can be put in the right-hand scale to outweigh their sins?”

“Indeed there is,” Suleiman replied. “We are not destined to eternal misery. I saw the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It was shed for me in payment for my load of sins. As soon as I believed on Him, I instantly saw the pan on the left, which my sins had weighed down, rise up empty. In truth, ‘we have redemption through His blood’ shed on Calvary for sinners. In the joy of my soul I cried out with the man of God: ‘Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.’”

“But, Suleiman,” exclaimed Ali Khan, astonished, “is it possible that you are a Christian?”

“Yes,” he replied, “by the grace of God I know that the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can take away all the sins of which our consciences and the Word of God accuse us.”

Perhaps Ali Khan became a Christian, like his uncle. We are told that God has spoken to men “in dreams and in visions of the night” upon their bed, “to keep back their soul from the pit” (Job 33:14-18). So let us listen to what He says further: “There is none righteous, no, not one”; “there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Therefore we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:10,22-24).

Muslims are not the only people who think that their good deeds balance their sins, but God’s Word tells us that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Let’s acknowledge the truth of what God says about us: that we are sinners and that we have earned the wages of sin, which is death—not merely the death of our bodies but the banishment from the presence of God into hell for all eternity—and accept His free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Overlooking the Most Important Person

Saying “Thank you” to other people for the favors they do for you is just part of common decency. Thankful people are generally happier than non-thankful people because they have made it a habit to acknowledge goodness in others. Gratitude helps smooth the road of life. Thankful people generally get along better with others. People like to be around those who appreciate them.

Being thankful, I think you will agree, is a good thing. Are you thankful? Are you saying a heartfelt thanks to those who do you a good turn?

Could it be you are overlooking the most important person in your life when it comes to being thankful?

For instance, you may be thankful to someone who sits and watches a sunset with you, but have you been thankful to the One who made the sunset?

The Most Important Person

The most important person in your life is not another man or woman. It is God. He is the One who has showered you with favor upon favor, and maybe you haven’t even acknowledged His existence.

Many of these favors He showers on both the just and the unjust. Matthew 5:45 reads, “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Will you acknowledge the incredible goodness in God and thank Him for it?

He is so good that nearly 2000 years ago, He opened heaven and sent His only begotten Son to die for sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross and gave His life so that those who believe in Him might be brought home to heaven.

No matter how deeply stained with sin a person may be, they may come to Christ and have those sins washed away. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

Not a single one of us could ever deserve such a favor from God.

The love in God’s heart is immense. For such favors as Christ’s coming into this world and His suffering and death on the cross, shouldn’t you bow before Him, acknowledge how you need His forgiveness and thank Him for it?

Will you not believe in Him who gave His life for you that you might be redeemed? In your life you have doubtless received many favors from God but none so great as this. No favor has ever been done on your behalf with greater love or concern for your welfare than this one. Truly nothing even comes close.

If you have not done so yet, will you not tell Him “Thank You” for what He has done?

Through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, each one of us may get off the broad road which leads to hell and get on the road to heaven. When a soul places their faith in Jesus Christ, the contention that must exist between a soul that is cleaving to their sins and God who is holy, just and good is over. “Being justified by faith; we have peace with God” (Romans 5:1). The absence of contention is peace — plain, wonderful peace. Peace is another generous gift God has to give us. Will you believe in Jesus Christ and then thank God for His many blessings? No one has showered you with so many blessings as He.

How sad when people go through life and never acknowledge God as the giver of all good things. They are overlooking the most important One in their lives, the One they should thank far above all others.

Panic in Hawaii!

Imagine if you woke up in the morning to hear the news that a missile was zeroing in on you and that you only had minutes to take shelter. What would you do? What about your loved ones, children and friends? What if you were out in the open with no place to run to?

It was Saturday, January 13, 2018, in Hawaii and most people were just starting their day at 8:07 a.m. local time, when, suddenly they received a frightening alert. “EMERGENCY ALERT,” the message read. “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” As you can imagine, this caused a tremendous amount of fear and panic!

PANIC

Some parents put their children down a manhole to protect them. Many people ran out on the street from their hotels until they decided that buildings were safer places to be. Beaches cleared in minutes after everyone’s phone rang at the same time. Many people were crying and dazed and many were on their phone, trying to call loved ones to say good-bye in case they didn’t survive. One young man described the scene, saying that people were driving “a hundred miles an hour and running red lights” trying to get where they wanted to go. The power surge was so great that cell phones stopped working, so people couldn’t get information. One 13-year-old boy said to his father, “I’m too young to die!”

It was not until 8:20 a.m. that Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency managed to tweet out that there was “NO missile threat.” An electronic sign over Honolulu’s highway declared, “MISSILE ALERT IN ERROR. THERE IS NO THREAT.” However, for those who could not check social media, fear, panic and confusion reigned for another 38 minutes before another follow-up phone alert was sent out.

One tourist who was interviewed said, “Freakiest thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole life. I never want to have this happen again!” Another young man that was interviewed said, “It made me think that Hawaii’s Emergency Services either got hacked or were pretty incompetent!” Quite rightly, everyone wanted to know the cause behind this frightful fiasco!

ALARMING MISTAKES

It was not long before the truth came out. An employee for Hawaii’s EMA “was 100% sure” that it was a real attack. He had confused a drill with a real-life situation. Even though the recording began with “Exercise, Exercise, Exercise,” he only heard, “This is not a drill.” Nor did he hear the word “Exercise” at the end of the drill, even though five other people in the room heard it! When he did realize his mistake after sending out the alert, he “froze” and seemed “confused,” forcing another employee to take over his duties.

He had worked for the EMA for over ten years and this was not the first time he had confused a drill for a real-life situation. Once he had mistaken a tsunami drill for the real thing, and then a fire alert drill as well. These two mistakes earned him counselling sessions before a return to work. But the missile alert mistake got him fired from his job. Clearly, this was not the person who should have been sitting at the alert terminal!

What started it all was that a shift supervisor decided to run an unannounced drill. But it was between the night and morning shifts and three supervisors who were on duty at the time were in the hallway when all of this was happening. Once the alert was sent, the software was not set up to easily and quickly send a retraction. Since this incident, these tsunamis of mistakes have been corrected. The software has been updated to quickly send out a retraction and it will now take two officers to send out an alert.

AN ACCURATE ALARM

Because of the mistakes of several people and a flawed system, along with the paranoia of one man, a false alarm was given that caused mass fear and panic. But there is another warning of eternal consequence that has been going out to all mankind for centuries, and it affects every one of us. It is God Himself who gives the clear warning to all, and it is this: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Why are we judged and what is the judgment? God gives us the answer. The WHY is because we are all sinners before God, and God cannot allow sin into His holy presence. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The WHAT is hell and eternal separation from God, forever! “Who [sinners] shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Jesus described hell as “the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:50).

A WAY TO ESCAPE

But God, who is “not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9), has made a way to escape for everyone who will come to Him in repentance. He sent His beloved Son Jesus to die an agonizing death on a shameful cross to pay for our sins so that those who put their trust and faith in His finished work will have certain salvation. Jesus is the ONLY WAY to heaven and God!

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15).

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

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

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).

There are no false alarms with God. His Word is true and sure. Those of us who have put our trust in Him and know His forgiveness for our sins have experienced the joy and peace that He gives to His own. Consider this question: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3). The answer is that there is NO escape! Our lives can end at a moment’s notice, sending us into eternity. We must decide now where we will spend it. There is no second chance after death! “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).

Another intense time of crisis is described in England Expects Every Man to Do His Duty.

The Quicker, Cheaper and Safer Bridge

Richie was a college student in Miami, Florida, who was driving in a car with his friend Alexa on Thursday, March 15, 2018. They were driving under a new bridge that had been built for the students to walk over a canal and six lanes of traffic to their houses.

The bridge was a project using a quicker, cheaper and safer method of construction. Two days before, an engineer had reported some cracks on one end of the 950-ton bridge. No one had received his message. A “stress test” was tightening the cables when Richie and Alexa and at least five other cars drove under the bridge.

Richie heard a long, creaking noise coming from the bridge. He couldn’t believe his eyes when, all of a sudden, the bridge collapsed! Vehicles all around him were smashed like pancakes! Men were yelling at him and pried open the rear door to pull him free. Sadly, his friend Alexa and at least five other people died.

God has built an invisible bridge to carry us from this earth up to heaven to be with Him forever. He did not use a quicker and cheaper method. No one will ever find any cracks in His bridge. The bridge we must take to get to heaven is His own dear Son, Jesus. God sent Him down here to earth to die for our sins and make us prepared for His presence.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” Come to the Lord Jesus today. Admit to Him that you’ve sinned against Him and deserve judgment for it. Accept Him into your heart as your Savior. Then, when you leave this world, He will carry you safely to heaven.

Rush to Judgment

Time, like the steadiest stream of water, is rolling along at a constant pace. It is carrying us to the moment when each of us will stand before God and give an account of our life to Him.

We can no more escape having our life evaluated by God than we can somehow escape being carried along by the stream of time. The stream of time is relentless. You can’t stand on the banks and idly watch it flow by. You can only float on its current and let it carry you along, every second drawing you nearer and nearer to the time when we must leave this life and stand before God. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Are you ready to give an account of your life to God? Before you answer, consider that God is holy, that is, He loves righteousness and hates sin. Every sin ever committed in the universe will receive its just punishment. People may escape justice in this life for their misdeeds, but not when they meet God. God will see to it that everyone receives his just due. This is why, before we leave this life, it is so important to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Through the death of God’s dear Son on the cross, sinners may obtain the forgiveness of sins. “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 13:38). Only by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ can any of us have our sins forgiven so we may enter into heaven.

Some people might think that the passage of time can erode our sins away. But don’t believe this. The stream of time is insufficient to accomplish this. The sins we have committed may fade in our memories, but they will never fade in God’s memory. “God require[s] that which is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15).

Where I live, rivers formed by melting glaciers cut away steep sand cliffs called “high banks.” The rivers carried away billions of tons of sand and pebbles over thousands of years to create these high banks. But a million years is insufficient to weather away the tiniest bit of guilt from our souls. After a sin is committed, the ugly stain of sin will remain on our souls. Only one thing in the universe has the power to take away those sins and that is the blood of Christ. Only the blood of Christ can wash sinners clean and make them ready to enter into heaven. Have you come to Christ and know that your sins are forgiven?

Won’t you bow your heart before Him and receive Him as your Savior? Time is carrying us along like a rushing river. What we do with the Lord Jesus in our short life will make all the difference in our eternal destiny. Oh, be wise and come to Christ before it is forever too late!

Templeton: A Man of Unbelief

Intellectuals and men with incredibly high IQs have debated and argued life’s greatest questions, and with all of their learning, they have not come to the knowledge of the truth. There’s a reason for this! The Bible says, “Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17). They are looking in the wrong place — within themselves to their own intellect, instead of in God’s Word, the Bible, where He reveals His love towards man and His plan of redemptive salvation for their lost souls.

One such man came really close to the truth! In fact, he came so close that he actually preached it and brought many others into the knowledge of the truth. Charles Templeton was the co-founder of the organization Youth for Christ, and he actually shared the platform with Billy Graham. One night Billy would speak and the next night Charles would speak. Charles was incredibly talented and gifted, young and handsome, and many thought that he would be the more successful preacher of the two. But what happened next was truly sad.

He began to entertain doubts after reading books by well-known atheists. He began to question and doubt the Genesis account of creation; he questioned whether there was a heaven and a hell, and how a loving God could allow suffering and evil in this world; he questioned, doubted, and finally rejected the deity of Jesus Christ.

He attended a liberal seminary where it was cemented in him that human reasoning should replace simple faith in “thus saith the Lord” and anything else that he couldn’t understand in the Bible. After graduating, he preached for the next several years, but refined his “gospel” to something that was intellectually respectable, abandoning the need for “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21) as the only way to heaven and eternal life. It was a feel-good, live a better life, be-happy “gospel,” which can never satisfy!

Then God gave him a warning! He began to experience chest pain, and often he had difficulty breathing. He went to a doctor and was shocked to hear the results; the doctor told him that there was nothing wrong with his heart. The problem was in his head. There was some conflict in his life, some unresolved issue, and unless he got it resolved, his symptoms would continue and even get worse. God was giving him one more chance to make the right choice: abandon his human reasoning and put his faith and trust in the Lord Jesus who died on the cross to save lost sinners from hell and a lost eternity.

Templeton’s Choice

But he chose to become an apostate. He quit preaching and renounced his faith, moving from New York to Toronto. He claimed to be an agnostic, which means he didn’t know if there was a God or not. Six years before his death he wrote a book in which he rehashed the usual arguments of well-known atheists against the Bible and faith, that “neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Three years before Templeton’s death, Lee Strobel, a Christian apologist, asked for an interview. They were two opposites: one had professed Christianity and given it up for agnosticism; the other had been an atheist and had accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. By this time, Templeton was on his third marriage and often suffered periods of confused depression, but he agreed to an interview.

Templeton outlined his case for agnosticism, vigorously defending it. But then Strobel asked him, what did he make of Jesus? His answer was incredibly sad and absolutely astounding. It shows just how deceived he was, and there are countless millions who are deceived in the same way. Strobel recounts how his whole manner softened, and Templeton spoke as if he was remembering a dear friend. Here are Templeton’s exact words, as told by Strobel:

“He was,” Templeton began, “the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I’ve ever encountered in my life or in my readings. His commitment was total and led to His own death, much to the detriment of the world. What could one say about Him except that this was a form of greatness?”

Templeton went on to say that Jesus was the most important thing in his life and that he “adored Him”! He also stated that everything good, decent and pure that he knew, he learned from Jesus.

Faith, Not Intellect

What Templeton failed to understand was that you cannot say that you love Jesus and turn your back on God. It is a total contradiction! Jesus said that He was the Son of God, came down from heaven and was the Bread of Life. Listen to Jesus’ words: “This is the will of Him [God] that sent Me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). A few verses down Jesus says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life” (John 6:47-48). In verses 62-63 Jesus further explains, “What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before [heaven]? It is the Spirit that quickeneth [gives life]; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Simply put, to reject God is to reject Jesus, His only begotten Son. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh; Jesus was God, is God, always will be God. “The flesh profiteth nothing” means that these things cannot be understood with the human intellect and mind; they are spiritually discerned and understood by faith.

Templeton was not a saved man. What he had was a mystical, emotional, streaming tears experience that he thought was salvation. His trust was in his emotions and feelings, which, in the end, produced nothing but emptiness. What he did not do was repent of his unbelief. He did not accept Jesus into his heart. He simply didn’t believe that “by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Instead, he just saw Jesus as a man just like us, albeit the best of the best, but nothing more. To admire Jesus is not enough! You must put your faith and trust in Jesus, accepting Him as the Savior-God of sinners.

Do not put your faith and trust in your human intellect like Templeton did. He had questions that he never got the answers to, and so will you, if you trust in your reasoning mind. You’ll reason yourself right into hell, and you still won’t have all the answers!

In A Lost Soul, we will consider the life and work of one of Earth’s brightest minds. He was a world-renowned scientist, and people would breathlessly hang onto his every word!

There Is a Name I Love

There is a name I love to hear;
I love to sing its worth;
It sounds like music in my ear —
The sweetest name on earth.

It tells me of a Savior’s love
Who died to set me free;
It tells me of His precious blood —
The sinner’s perfect plea.

It tells of One whose loving heart
Can feel my smallest woe —
Who in each sorrow bears a part
That none can bear below.

It bids my trembling soul rejoice,
And dries each rising tear;
It tells me in a “still, small voice”
To trust and not to fear.

Three Questions

Life is full of questions. The following are three questions that no one should leave unanswered.

Question 1: Does God exist?

Atheists and materialists would say, “No, only the things that can be measured or perceived somehow with the senses are real. God can’t be perceived with the senses, so He is not real.”

Part of what they say is true. You can’t see God. But this doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist. It only means that He is a spiritual being. He is not a physical part of the time/space universe. He is its Creator. He is far greater than anything He created. As you can know about a cause by studying its effects, so you can learn of the Creator by studying His creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

“The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

God does exist and those who deny His existence are without excuse. They should know this by looking at the beautiful world they live in. These things didn’t make themselves.

Question 2: Will men, women
and children exist forever?

A lot of people in this world are taking it for granted that this one life on earth is all there is, and then poof, every trace of their being is gone forever. Materialists deny the existence of the soul for the same reason they deny the existence of God — you can’t see it, touch it or measure it. And they are wrong for the same reason. The soul of man is not physical. It is spiritual.

The Lord Jesus taught the existence of a never-dying soul. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). By God’s mercy, have a care for your soul which will never go out of existence.

Question 3: Does it matter how we live?

Life is soon over. What does it really matter how we live when we are here today and gone tomorrow?

It matters a great deal, because when this short life is over, each one of us will have to give account of our lives to God. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). This short life is important because every part of it will come under review at the judgment seat of Christ.

How we live matters because God hates sin, even though He shows love to the sinner. Have you come to Christ so your sins might be forgiven? Or are you stained with those sins God hates? Only the blood of Christ can wash away the stains of sin from our record. God hates sin so much that those who die in their sins will be cast out of His presence forever, while those who repent and believe in His Son will enjoy eternal life in heaven. Sin is not some harmless plaything. Those who go on in their sins will pay bitterly for choosing their sin over God. There is an eternal consequence for rejecting God’s grace in our life. How you live makes all the difference in the world.

I hope you give these three questions serious consideration. I hope they get you thinking about the Savior, and, better yet, I hope they lead you to trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation. Those who come to Christ will have eternity to thank Him and praise Him for all He has done.

Two Scenes of Impotent Rage

A homeless man, in the downtown of the small town where I live, set up camp in front of a store on the sidewalk. He had stretched a dirty brown blanket between two newspaper dispensers as a shelter. All his belongings were piled in a shopping cart. A policeman had come and told this man he had to move on. The man responded by yelling, screaming, shaking his fist, and throwing stones at the policeman in an impotent rage. The policeman retreated to call for help in dealing with the situation. The man was so mad and full of rage that when I saw this heartbreaking scene, I figured drugs and mental illness had deprived him of his reason.

Another Scene

This is one scene of impotent rage. Let me draw your attention to a second scene of impotent rage.

Imagine what it will be like when sinners who have left God out of their lives and lived all their lives at odds with Him come into judgment with the living God. God surely had called them to repentance at some time in their lives, but they resisted and refused His grace. Before God, who is holy, just and good, they must now appear in judgment and give account of their lives.

“We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

They might have been respectable members of their society, they might have been famous and highly esteemed, there might have been thousands living in far worse sins than themselves, but because they rejected God’s grace, God will judge them. What a terrible, final, awful judgment it will be. From His presence, He will separate them not for a day, nor for a lifetime, but for eternity. At God’s great white throne judgment every mouth will be stopped.

Sinners will rage in their hearts against this judgment! But their rage will be impotent. It won’t bring about the least bit of deliverance for them. Afterwards they may grimace in pain. They may shake their fists in anger at God! They may yell and scream and cry out in bitterness! But their rage will not help them in the least to escape the punishment they will be enduring in hell.

The time to change was in this life! The time to repent was while they lived in this world. After death it will be too late. If they had cried out to the Savior of sinners for mercy, He would have received them and had mercy on them. But this they never did!

Will their anger help them? Not a bit. For the endless ages of eternity their hatred against God will make them gnash and grind their teeth in rage. Matthew 13:50 reads, “Shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

I don’t know how the poor homeless man ever ended up as he did. Maybe his downward slide began when he was a boy and he didn’t listen to the advice of his teachers in school or his parents at home. Perhaps it began in a home that was abusive. Perhaps his downward path began with some gateway drug that seemed harmless enough to start with, but led to worse drugs that damaged his mind. But what a sad state of affairs his life had come to.

How Do People Get in Such a Condition?

How do those who end up in the sad state of a Christless eternity begin? Is it by not listening to those who would point them to the Savior? Is it by throwing off any convictions of what is right and wrong? Is it by justifying sinful acts by saying everybody else is doing it? Is it by a subtle and almost imperceptible hardening of their heart towards God?

But what insanity the hardening of the heart leads to! Do you know that those who reject God’s mercy for their souls are destroying themselves? By their refusal of God’s grace, they are committing spiritual destruction. Is there anything mentally healthy about destroying one’s self? And why do they do it? Perhaps they indulge themselves in the horrible vanity that they know what is best for their own lives, and nobody can tell them any differently. Perhaps thoughts like, “I am the boss of my own life. I am not going to let anybody, even God Himself, tell me what to do!” run through their minds. Like the homeless man, they make themselves a world unto themselves and lose sight of the greater reality all around them. An astute observer of life once said, “The smallest package in the world is a man all wrapped up in himself.” They seek to have life on their own terms and leave the God who made them and the world they live in out of their lives!

Don’t Make the Same Mistake!

But don’t make the tragic mistake of leaving God out of your life. If you do, you will end up in one unending episode of impotent rage. Instead, come to Christ by faith. Lay open your heart to Him and tell Him you need Him. On the cross, He suffered, bled and died, so that anyone may return to God. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

As long as you are alive, it is not too late to change. Come to the Savior of sinners so that you never have to experience the impotent rage of the lost when they must come into judgment for their sins.

God wants to bring you to His heavenly home. Only God can give the gift of eternal life. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Don’t go on insisting on doing your own will and having your own way. If you do, you will end up homeless and lost in the darkness of hell forever. Jude described the lost as “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 13).

The Lord Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). Come to Him by faith so that you may find a home in His love both in this life and the life to come.

Separation from others is painful, but separation from God would be far worse. It doesn’t need to be that way. Read Ah, Look at All the Lonely People ...

A Very Special Teddy Bear

Some people have just the right knack for giving the perfect gift. The gift in this story was both unusual and special, and it brought a lot of comfort to the person who received it.

Dakota was just 16 years old when he was tragically killed in a car accident. Because he was young and healthy, the family made the decision to donate his organs. As a result of this, a blind man was able to see, and two other lives were saved.

Two of the donor recipients reached out to thank the family right away. But they did not hear from the third recipient until a little over a year later. There was actually a very good reason for this. One day, Dakota’s father John received a package in the mail. Upon opening it, he found a large teddy bear with a note included. The note was from Robert O’Connor, the man who had received Dakota’s heart.

A Very Special Thank-You

Robert said that he would have preferred to give them his gift in person, but he didn’t know when that would happen, so he was mailing it to them. At his one-year check-up, he had made a recording of his EKG readout of Dakota’s heart beating in his chest. Then he had had it inserted inside a Build-A-Bear teddy bear. The big, furry teddy bear was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Best Dad Ever.” What a thoughtful, meaningful gift to send! Just the sight of the bear brought back a flood of memories to John of spending hours at his son’s bedside in the hospital.

John’s wife Stephanie recorded him opening the box and reading the kind note. As John held the teddy bear up to his ear to listen to his son’s heartbeat, he was so overcome with emotion that he quickly motioned to his wife to stop the video.

John’s grateful reaction was really touching. “When I got the bear, my heart was filled with joy. I did not expect any of this,” said John. “I never left Dakota’s side. At night I would lay my head on his chest for hours at a time, every night, listening to his heartbeat. Now, thanks to Bob, I can listen to his heartbeat again!”

John is glad that Stephanie’s video has gone viral. The family wants to encourage other people to become organ donors themselves. “To give the gift of life is to continue God’s plan for both the donor families and the recipient,” John said. He wants to promote awareness of organ donations to show that it helps the donor families with healing and closure to know that their love lives on. Just knowing that Dakota helped save other people’s lives eases the pain of losing his son.

An Even Bigger Gift

Dakota had no idea that his life would be taken at such a young age and that through his death three other people would receive blessing and health. But the Bible tells us of One who chose to give His life for us that we might live. “But I have life now and am living just fine!” many people say. But that is where they are quite mistaken. Unless we have life in Him (Jesus), the Bible describes us as being “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Dakota’s death gave physical life to others, but the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross for our sins gives eternal life to those who believe on Him.

Dakota’s death could only temporarily preserve a few lives, but the death of Jesus on the cross for our sins gives eternal life to all those who receive it through faith in Him. It is God’s gift to all those who accept it. “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The love of God reaches out to all men and is free! “God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:3-6).

John was looking forward to the pleasure of meeting Robert, because, he said, “we are blood now! We are family!” This was all true because Robert had received the gift of Dakota’s heart. When we repent toward God for our sins and put our faith and trust in His Son Jesus for forgiveness of our sins, we also have great joy. Jesus describes it this way: “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). Not only do we have joy in our hearts, along with eternal life, but God tells us that we are born into His family and become His sons! “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1:12).

Do you know for certain that you have forgiveness of sins and are born into the family of God? You can have certainty today through faith in what God says in His Word about Jesus dying on the shameful cross for your sins!

You already know that heart issues are vital. But Heart Issues deals with far more than the medical procedures it talks about.

A Visit By Night

About 33 A.D. there lived in the city of Jerusalem a gentleman by the name of Nicodemus. He was a ruler of the Jewish nation and a member of their Sanhedrin. He was religiously connected with a respectable denomination called the Pharisees, a group that was intensely focused on their religious practices.

During the Passover week, when many strangers from around the world were in the city, there was a considerable stir concerning one, Jesus of Nazareth, who was at that time in Jerusalem. He had been working miracles and had turned out of the Temple those who had turned it into a market.

This caused a great sensation among the more religious of the people, and the denomination to which Nicodemus belonged united against Him. Despite all this, Nicodemus was unsatisfied. He would not be led by public opinion, but was determined to go and hear for himself. So after it was dark one night, he set off alone to have an interview with Jesus. The interview resulted in this religious gentleman’s eventual conversion. Previous to that night, he had been a follower of the religious customs of that day, but afterward he became a possessor of salvation and a follower of Christ. Let’s see how it happened.

New Life, Not Religion

Before Nicodemus had been with Jesus very long, Jesus told him that “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

This startled Nicodemus; it was entirely new to him. He believed in men being religious and keeping the feasts. But he didn’t know anything about being “born again.” Before he had time to be puzzled over the new doctrine, Jesus told him something else more startling still. It was this: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” Not only wicked men like drunkards and thieves need to be born again, but you your own self need to be born again.

This cuts at the root of all human religion. It matters not how “good” people are or “what church” they belong to or how often they “take the sacrament.” Jesus says they must be born again, or never enter God’s kingdom. It doesn’t matter even if they “say their prayers and read their Bibles,” and “do the best they can”; if they are not born again, they cannot see the kingdom of God and they must be in hell for all eternity. It’s “must be,” not “you might want to consider.”

Perhaps you don’t believe this. Now, if any man could have gone to heaven without new birth, that man was Nicodemus, and yet to him the Savior said, “Ye must be born again.”

You must be born again.
Not because you are worse than your neighbors,
Not because you sometimes lose your temper,
Not because you are a very wicked person,
But because you are a sinner, a sinner at the core.

You were born a sinner, you grew up a sinner, and you are a sinner still, with a sinner’s nature. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” Not even one. Why? Because they were born that way. We cannot be reformed so as to please God; we cannot be improved so as to gain heaven. We need to be made new. We cannot bear the fruit of the Spirit so long as we are in the flesh, any more than a bramble bush could grow apples or a thorn tree grow cherries. It is not a little help we need to make us all right — it is not a good religious education — it is a new life. And this new life must come from somewhere outside ourselves; we cannot find it within ourselves — we cannot earn it by our works.

A blacksmith once said: “I have often tried to be good; I have often made resolutions to live better, but this being born again is beyond me: I have never tried that.” It was something he could have no hand in; it is God’s work.

Is it Personal for You?

Have you found this out for yourself?

What does being born again mean?

It is not being baptized with water.

It is not becoming religious, or making a new start.

It is not turning over a new leaf, or joining a society.

None of these things, nor all of them put together, is being born again.

Some people think that when they reform, it is the same thing as being born again, but that’s a great mistake. A young man once told us he was “quite sure he would be in heaven, because he didn’t drink now.” “Very good, sir; glad to hear it, but are you born again?” He knew nothing about that. He was as unprepared for heaven as he had ever been.

A preacher of the gospel once told us that he had preached to others for seven years before he knew God’s salvation for himself.

What a terrible work! It’s time that some other religious men and women were asking themselves this question: Am I born again? or, do I just go to church and keep up a profession because it is a respectable thing?

Have you been born again? Think about this seriously. Remember that nothing else will do instead, and nothing but this will fit you for being in heaven.

What must I do to be
born again?

Nicodemus asked almost the same question: “How can a man be born when he is old? ... How can these things be?”

Listen to God’s answers to his questions: “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,” and “as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”

Notice, He did not say, “As many as are sorry for their sins,” but, “As many as received Him ... even ... them that believe on His name.” When a man enlists, he becomes a soldier. When a man receives Jesus Christ, he becomes a Christian, or, in other words, he has become God’s child — he has been born of God.

Have you received Jesus as your Savior? Can you say, “Jesus is mine — my Savior; He has saved me”? If you have received Jesus, then God has received you — you have become a child of God and a joint-heir with Christ.

Don’t I Need to Feel Different?

But must I not feel a change?

Certainly you will. But what kind of change do you expect and when do you expect to feel it? When the doctor gives you medicine, do you expect to feel better before you take it or after? When your friend brought you that gift, did you feel it was yours before or after you received it? It’s the same with salvation; you cannot expect to feel saved when you are not. You cannot expect to know that Jesus has saved you until you have received Him.

Many people are “waiting for a change.”

They want to feel a burden roll off; then they think that they will feel “nice” and “happy.” God’s way is: Receive Christ first, and the change will come along afterwards, but don’t wait until you feel a change before you accept God’s remedy, or you may die in your guilt and perish eternally.

Don’t wait to feel anything; rest where God rests in Christ. Christ has so glorified God that God can send a message of love to you and say, “God is satisfied.” Now, are you?

Find out more about forgetting about religious works and trust Jesus Christ’s finished work of salvation in A Muslim’s Dream.