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Tag: salvation
A New Book Release!
At long last, the revised and expanded second edition of my book, The Salvation of the LORD, has been released! It goes on sale on Tuesday, April 23, 2024! It is already available for purchase from Amazon, Goodreads, and Abebooks, but it is just a matter of time before all the others catch up and begin carrying it, too. In order to find it on your favorite online bookseller’s site, just search on the book’s ISBN: 978-0-9888528-8-4 (try it with and without the hyphens).
I’m still working on the eBook conversion, but it should be available soon. I haven’t assigned an ISBN to the eBook editions, so you will need to search on the author and title to find it, and be sure to include “second edition” in the search to distinguish it from the first edition. Of course, once it’s available, I’ll provide the direct links to the sales pages here in my blog store and in the Parson Place Press Bookstore, as well as on my personal author website.
So, what makes the second edition distinct from the first? Besides correcting a couple of mistakes and revising some less-clear wording here and there, I also wrote an entirely new chapter on the doctrine of apostasy to explain what it is, how it can happen, and how to avoid it or counter it once it appears. The book was truly incomplete without this important chapter.
Please share this blog post with your family and friends or send them the links to both the print and eBook versions to purchase on their own. Also, once you’ve read my book, please, please, PLEASE write a review for it on at least two online bookstore sites, especially on Amazon. This will help immensely with getting the word out and with boosting sales. As an incentive for writing your review, send me the link to it once you’ve posted it and I’ll send you a special promo code to download the eBook edition of The Salvation of the LORD for free once it is available. If you’re interested, you may also browse and follow me on my Amazon Author page, too.
That’s all for now. I look forward reading your reviews and other comments soon!
A Matter of Pride
“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.”
(Proverbs 16:18 NKJV)
This bit of wisdom from the Hebrew Scriptures has been so popularized throughout the millennia since its initial composition that even secularists who reject the idea of God and His holy Word (the Bible) acknowledge its truth and validity. Furthermore, those who eschew the truth of this statement cannot disprove its reality, no matter how vehemently they oppose it. No amount of angry attempts at refutation can succeed. In fact, the very act of attempting to refute it results in the accomplishment of its warning, because arguing against the truth of reality serves only to prove one’s arrogance and foolishness.
Taking this warning a step further, devoting an entire month to the celebration of pride–and pride in something God has pronounced as abominable, at that–will only hasten the consequence of this truth. The steady slide of American and, indeed, global morality over the past 50+ years, at least, has demonstrated God’s divine judgment upon humanity in general, and the United States of America in particular. His prophecies about the Last Days before the culmination of His Plan of Salvation have been fulfilling right and left over these past few years, and everything is falling into place for the final seven years of human government, called the Seven Years of Tribulation, to commence. The time of Jesus’ return for His Church is close upon us, and the time when He will take up His rule over the entire earth will follow soon thereafter.
If you have not acknowledged who Jesus is and what He came into the world to do for you, then you need to understand that time is quickly running out for you to decide whether to accept His offer of salvation. The very first step you must take and, indeed, the only one you can take before you can be saved, is to humble yourself before God. Until you bow humbly before your Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot confess your sins or repent (i.e., turn away) from them, and until you confess and repent of your sinful lifestyle, you cannot be saved from its consequences. If reading these statements makes you angry and resistant to submission to God and His Word (the Bible), then you need to consider the end result of refusing to humble yourself before Him and accepting His offer of forgiveness. In case you are unaware of this result, you will be sentenced to eternal damnation in a fiery place called Hell. Refusing to believe in the existence of Hell does not change the fact of its existence or of your destiny to end up there by rejecting God’s offer of salvation. It’s like denying the existence of the Law of Gravity. Try jumping off a ten-story building and see whether denying the existence of the Law of Gravity prevents you from falling to your death!
If you have been deceived by Satan and one or more of his evil minions that constitute the horde of demons in the universe and have been convinced you were born homosexual, bisexual or a different gender than your physical genitalia obviously show, then consider why God would create you that way and then condemn you for being the way He created you. He simply doesn’t do that. Not only would it be unrighteous, which is impossible for God to be, but it would be illogical, which is just as impossible for God as being unrighteous. Moreover, if you are currently considering gender reassignment surgery, consider this, too: why did God assign your present gender at birth if He really meant for you to be the opposite gender? Does, or can, God make mistakes? Even if His divinity did not prevent Him from making a gender assignment mistake at your birth, can His divinity now prevent Him from correcting His previous mistake? Does He require the help of human sex-mutilation surgeons to correct His mistake? Once your sex organs have been surgically removed, they are gone forever. They cannot be reattached to you later if you change your mind and want to revert to your former gender.
Homosexual, bisexual and transgender ideologies are demonic lies devised by Satan to steer you away from the truth of God and His Plan of Salvation for your eternal soul. As long as you still have breath in your lungs, you can repent of these sins and receive God’s forgiveness for them so that you can spend eternity with Him in His Kingdom of Love, Joy and Peace. Repentance means abandonment of all sins, including idolatry, lying, stealing, blaspheming/profaning God and His name, adultery, and fornication, as well as those aforementioned perverted sexual ideologies, and then redirecting and living your life in accordance with the Word of God (the Bible). Don’t depend on letting someone else, like a pastor, evangelist, Bible teacher, or even me, tell you what the Bible says, but read it for yourself. There’s no better way for you to discover the truth about everything than by reading and contemplating what the Bible says. The final decision ultimately rests with you.
For more information about God’s Plan of Salvation, I invite you to read my book The Salvation of the LORD. It’s available in e-Book from the Shop menu here on this blog. I’m working on the publication of its second edition right now and hope to release it in the coming months. Watch for the announcement here on this blog.
When Lawlessness Abounds
Jesus warned His disciples that in the Last Days — meaning those days that occur just before His ultimate return to take charge of His Kingdom on earth — that lawlessness will abound (Matthew 24:12 NKJV). What, exactly, do you suppose He meant by that? To answer this, all we need to do is define the words “lawlessness” and “abound”. Lawlessness is the practice of being lawless. Lawless, by definition, can mean one of two things: 1) having no law in place, or 2) behaving as though no law is in place. That second definition means, essentially, ignoring whatever law is actually in force. If you have more confidence in Merriam-Webster’s definition of lawless, you can read it in their online dictionary.
The word “abound” is the root of the word “abundance”. So, having an abundance of anything is having more than enough of it. An abundance of lawlessness, then, means more than enough of it, which, in turn, means it’s basically everywhere you look. You can read Merriam-Webster’s definition of abound as well, if you like.
Truly, there has always been lawlessness among men since the fall of Adam — it evidently was the hallmark of the time which prompted God to send the Great Flood (Genesis 6:5-6) — but such an ethos of lawlessness has not existed globally on the earth since that time. Indeed, this sudden acceleration of lawlessness in our time appears to be one of the other key harbingers which Jesus has warned us to watch for: “. . . as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man . . .” (Luke 17:26 NKJV). By “the days of the Son of Man,” Jesus means the days of His return, His Second Coming.
In my humble opinion, the reason for this abundance of lawlessness is because Satan understands that he can accomplish so much more if he simply convinces his human minions to ignore all those laws — enacted by both God and men — that either hinder or outright bind him/them from accomplishing what they want to do, while simultaneously holding truly law-abiding humans to strict adherence to those same laws, even though their adversaries are obviously not obeying them. In the case of God’s laws, God wants our obedience to be voluntary, but He certainly wants us to understand the consequences of disobedience before we make our decision. I believe Satan was fully aware of this voluntary option for obedience or disobedience from the beginning, yet he chose disobedience. Furthermore, I believe it is because God created the angelic beings with near-unfettered access to His Presence and a full comprehension of His Divine Nature that He did not offer an opportunity for redemption to them as He has done for humanity. In fact, Jesus said this is precisely the reason that Hell was created (see Matthew 25:41).
The prophets Isaiah (14:3-27) and Ezekiel (28:1-19) both explain all about Satan’s rebellion and demise. Don’t be confused by the address of these biblical statements to the king of Babylon and the prince of Tyre. They all refer to one entity, the being we call Satan. The name/word “Satan” is actually the Hebrew word for adversary. When you read carefully the descriptions of these individuals by Isaiah and Ezekiel, you can easily see that they could not possibly refer to any mere human beings, because they possess super-human characteristics, including a wisdom that exceeds that of the great prophet Daniel. Ezekiel 28:3 states that “There is no secret that can be hidden from you.” Really? No secret? What mere mortal man possesses that ability? Ezekiel 28:13 states, “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. . . .” How was the prince of Tyre “perfect in beauty,” and when was he ever in the Garden of Eden? The Garden of Eden was most certainly destroyed from the earth at the time of the Great Flood, if not earlier, and the prince of Tyre lived a couple thousand years after that event. Furthermore, Ezekiel 28:14-15 makes the case complete when God says, “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.”
When was the human prince of Tyre ever an “anointed cherub who covers” anyone or anything? When we read what the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, however, it is easy to understand that the king of Babylon and the prince of Tyre are descriptions of one and the same entity — a spirit principality we call Satan.
Now, back to Jesus’ warning that in the Last Days lawlessness will abound. Have you looked around at the world lately, especially here in the USA? Have you noticed that what started as a seemingly isolated incident in government when Barack Obama directed his attorney general, Eric Holder, to flatly refuse to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has now become a full-blown, open defiance of any and every law that is intended to restrict governmental control and over-reach? Time and again throughout the late-summer and early-autumn of 2020 leading up to the November 3, 2020, national election we saw federal officials, state officials, and city officials all around the nation flatly ignore the election laws that were in place to prevent election fraud. Why? It was for the express purpose of flaunting those laws and stealing a Presidential election right in front of the world! If you don’t believe the 2020 U. S. Presidential election was stolen, go to LindellTV and/or FrankSpeech and watch the archived video evidence there. If you don’t watch any others there, be sure to watch Absolutely 9-0 and China Puts Biden in the White House. Using the cover of the so-called COVID19 pandemic, they illegally amended election laws and suspended long-established election day practices, such as extending voting hours beyond the usual time frames and accepting absentee and/or mail-in ballots after the posted deadline for counting them. In fact, many of these bogus ballots did not even contain a signature or other means of proper voter validation, yet they were still accepted. Interestingly, all of these bogus ballots were cast for Biden, not Trump. What are the odds of that happening without intention? In the wake of all this apparent election fraud, we hear an increasing clamor to enact stricter election laws. Folks, we don’t really need stricter election laws; we just need to enforce the election laws we already have enacted!
Government isn’t the only arena where we are seeing this increase in lawlessness. Throughout 2020, we saw repeatedly where rioters were permitted to loot and burn businesses in presumed protest over supposed racial injustice. That was merely a pretext to create chaos and mayhem, otherwise known as lawlessness. Those rioters weren’t required to follow the same pandemic rules set forth for every other citizen. They weren’t arrested for theft or arson, despite being caught in the act on video. They weren’t even fined for organizing a protest without a permit. Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens who wanted to protest were required to obtain a permit before they could hold a truly peaceful protest, and many times they were even denied those permits.
Unfortunately, the lawlessness doesn’t end with corrupt government officials or even with the hoodlums on the street. No, lawlessness is even rampant in the Church now. Pastors and lay leaders all around the globe have gone all-in for ignoring God’s Word not to “forsak[e] the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25 NKJV) and to “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29 NKJV) when it comes to a choice between submission/obedience to God and His Word or submission/obedience to governmental officials who couldn’t care less about God or obeying His Word. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when He said the kingdom of God “. . . is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened” (Luke 13:20-21 NKJV). Folks, leaven doesn’t represent righteousness; it represents unrighteousness! This is partly why God commanded the Israelites to remove all leaven from their homes prior to the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:15 NKJV).
I don’t know what you are thinking right now, but I am thinking we are at the threshold of Jesus’ rapture of the Church! I personally believe the rapture will occur on a future Yom Truim (or Day of Trumpets; read my blog post about this assertion a few years ago, where I cover it extensively). When is the next Day of Trumpets? It begins at sundown on September 6, 2021, and ends at sundown on September 7, 2021. However, with so much inaccuracy in calendars, including the Jewish calendar for observing their feast days, it’s entirely possible that the actual Day of Trumpets could be on another date which God knows but of which we have no idea! Perhaps this is just one more reason Jesus said, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matthew 24:36 NKJV).
Are you ready for that day if it were to happen today? Do you know where you will spend eternity if you die in your sleep tonight or in some freak accident today or from some dreaded disease like cancer, heart failure or even COVID? You can be sure where you will spend eternity! You simply have to humble yourself so that you can confess and repent of (that means turn away from) your sins and call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be both your LORD and as well as your Savior. The Bible has promised in multiple places in both the Old and New Testaments that “. . . whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21, and Romans 10:13 NKJV). Making Jesus your LORD means you will submit to (that means obey to the best of your ability) His Word. The Apostle Paul — that same Apostle of Grace that everyone likes to quote from Ephesians 2:8-9, also wrote in Hebrews 12:14 that we are to “Pursue peace . . . and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord . . .” (NKJV). What is holiness? It is a sanctification, a distinction, a separateness, a differentiation between righteousness and unrighteousness. In other words, it is being set apart for eternal fellowship with the One True and Living God.
In order to receive this salvation, you must start by humbling yourself, because until you do that, there is simply no way you will ever acknowledge your sinfulness or personal need of divine forgiveness. Once you can kneel before God and confess your need of His mercy, you can then call upon Him for pardon and salvation. After you have accepted His mercy and grace, you should then rise to your feet with a fiery zeal to live a life that is pleasing unto Him — that is, a life of holiness, righteousness, love, kindness and gentleness.
Contrary to popular misbelief, this does not mean that you become a pacifist pansy who never fights back or defends yourself, your family or friends, or what is right and good. While a Christian will seek to avoid conflict with others insofar as it is possible (read Romans 12:18), he/she will not shrink from defending truth and righteousness according to the Word of God — the Bible.
If you’d like to read more about what this salvation is all about, why it is necessary and how you can obtain it and know you’ve obtained it, I invite you to read my book The Salvation of the LORD. It’s available here in the Parson Place News and Views Shop in both EPUB and Kindle eBook editions, or you may purchase the print edition from the publisher’s online store.
If you made a decision to call upon Jesus Christ for salvation after reading this article, would you please let me know? I would be absolutely elated to know that and will gladly offer you any mentoring or discipling you may request. Just send an email to
at your convenience. Are You Sure You’re Going to Heaven?
Random street interviews I’ve watched seem to indicate that the majority of people believe they’re going to Heaven because they’re a “good person”. But is that the qualifier for going to Heaven? If not, what is the qualifier for entering Heaven? How can one know he or she is going to Heaven?
In my latest book, The Salvation of the LORD, I go into great detail discussing this topic, including a discussion of the character of God, the origin and problem of sin, Heaven and Hell, the doctrines of predestination and the unpardonable sin, God’s judgment, everlasting life, and more. If you want to know how to obtain the salvation of the LORD and how to know you’re going to be in Heaven with Him forever, I strongly encourage you to read this book and share it with anyone else you think will benefit from reading it.It’s available in print wherever books are sold. Just search on the ISBN: 9780988852877. It’s also available in eBook for both Kindle and Nook. Be sure to investigate the Kindle Matchbook Program for even more savings.
I want to help as many people as I can to learn this very important truth, because both God and I want to see you in Heaven. It truly will be the most joyous celebration of all time!
After you’ve read my book, will you be so kind as to share your thoughts about it here on this page? I also encourage you to write a short review on all of the popular book retail and sharing sites, including Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Goodreads.com.
A Matter of Faith
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV).
***
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6 NKJV).
Many Christians can quote these Bible verses with ease, but they tend to miss the meaning wrapped up in them. Because of Hebrews 11:1, faith is perceived as some nebulous, intangible idea that one must accept in order to be a believer, but it is so much more than that. It is true that one cannot be a true believer without putting one’s faith in God, but how do we really put our faith in God? Until you can answer that question satisfactorily, you will find yourself faithless, lost, and at the mercy of adversity in your life.
Basically, faith is having full confidence in someone or something. “Full confidence” means having no doubt that someone or something can do what is promised. We put full confidence in the furniture we sit on or lie on, in the machines we use to achieve our goals and desires, and sometimes in the people we respect as capable of doing what they say.
So, what does it mean to have “full confidence” in God? Well, it means that we take Him at His Word and do not doubt His capability to perform what He promises in His Word. There’s where the real rub comes in, because so many people claim to have faith or full confidence in God and His Word without even knowing what His Word promises or without giving His Word the respect it deserves. If you truly believe that it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18; Titus 1:2), then when you read in God’s Word (The Holy Bible) that He will do a certain thing, you will have no doubt that He will do what He has said. There are times in God’s Word where He puts a contingency on a promise, such as in John 15:7, so if it appears God is not keeping His promise, we need to re-examine the circumstances to see what is preventing God’s promise from being fulfilled. It is certainly not God Who is faithless in such cases, but we are the faithless ones!
One of the biggest hurdles many people have to overcome, whether they are professing Christians or unbelievers who are seeking for truth, is whether to accept The Holy Bible as God’s written Word inspired by His Holy Spirit. It all comes down to a matter of faith. Since the Bible has never been disproved on even one point, but rather it has been proven time and again by people who start out to disprove something in it, only to become fully convinced of its truthfulness in the end, is it worthy of our full confidence? Granted, there are some translational vagaries that have crept into the various translations of the Bible over the centuries which have diluted its truth in some places, but a diligent search of the original languages in which the Bible was written will clarify any of these points. With such marvelous technological inventions as the computer, you don’t have to know Hebrew or Greek in order to search out these points. All you need is an electronic Bible with the words in your native language linked to the words in the original Bible language to compare meanings. One excellent electronic Bible that is also FREE is e-Sword by Rick Meyers.
Accepting the Bible as Personally-inspired by God’s Holy Spirit is the first step to securing your faith in God and His promises. After all, where are the promises of God found, other than in The Holy Bible? If you’ve been visited by some spirit being claiming something contrary to what the Bible says, then you know you are dealing with an evil spirit which is not to be believed. If you’ve listened to a preacher or teacher anywhere who is telling you something different from what the Bible says, you know you are dealing with an evil spirit which is using a human being as an instrument of evil. This does not necessarily mean that such a preacher or teacher is evil or has evil intentions, because it is possible for preachers and teachers to be misled or to misinterpret Scriptural statements or to be ignorant of certain aspects in God’s Word (compare this idea with what happened in Matthew 16:13-23 and Acts 18:24-26). So, we need to be very cautious about either trusting a preacher or teacher blindly or condemning him or her as a false teacher based on one erroneous presentation. If after we’ve tried to correct them about something they still reject the truth, however, then we should distance ourselves from them.
The Bible even tells us how to discern when evil spirits are attempting to deceive us. John tells us: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world” (1 John 4:3 NKJV).
Accepting The Holy Bible as the Personally-inspired Word of God is just the first step to securing your relationship with Jesus Christ and your place in His eternal Kingdom. The next step is trusting everything the Bible commands us to believe and do, including such fundamental truths as the creation story (no, God did not combine evolution with His created order and then leave everything to its own devices). Rejecting what the Bible says about anything is tantamount to calling God a liar. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “… Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar….” (Romans 3:3-4 NKJV). The Apostle John even goes so far as to say, “… he who does not believe God has made Him a liar….” (1 John 5:10 NKJV). While John is writing specifically about faith in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for our sins, I think we can rightly extrapolate this truth and apply it to anything else God has said, including how the world was created and such supernatural events as Jonah being swallowed by a great fish for three days and the Red Sea parting for 2-3 million Israelites to cross over on dry land, and many other astounding facts from the Bible narrative. Whether or not to accept all this and put our full confidence in it as TRUTH really is a matter of faith.
Now, are you a true believer? Do you accept The Holy Bible as the inspired Word of God and believe everything it says happened exactly as it says? It’s one thing to have questions about how these things could have happened as the Bible depicts them, but it’s another matter entirely to discount them because they’re impossible in the natural. That’s the whole point! God is supernatural, so most of His wondrous deeds as described in the Bible are supernatural, too! If you can’t accept and put your full confidence in such things as this, how can you believe in a God you’ve never seen? Jesus asked Nicodemus this question: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12 NKJV). Good question!
God wants to be believed. The salvation of our very souls depends on whether we believe what God says. As Paul recounted the story of Abraham’s faith, he wrote, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS ACCOUNTED TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’” (Romans 4:3 NKJV). In fact, I recommend you read the entire Book of Romans in the Bible, but Romans 4:1-5:2 is particularly apropos to my point here. Put your trust in God by believing what God says in His Word, The Holy Bible. Not only is it a matter of faith, but it’s a matter of everlasting life and everlasting death!
Is God Pro-Choice?
I mean, really: is God pro-choice? That’s a very good question, and I think the answer may shock you even more. Before I proceed with the answer, however, let me first say that personally I am unabashedly pro-life and unapologetic for it. Furthermore, I believe God is pro-life, too. So, if I think God is pro-life, why did I ask that provocative question? Well, it wasn’t just to get your attention (though that was part of it), but it’s because our contemporary understanding and use of the term pro-choice is misguided and misused.
Before the abortion debate raised its ugly head 40 years ago with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, the idea of being pro-choice meant one had the right to choose something for himself or herself, even if he or she made a bad choice with that right. The United States of America was founded on that very principle of personal freedom — to a point, of course. For instance, one doesn’t have the right to take another human being’s life simply because of personal freedom. At least, that was the case until 1973 when the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling decided that an unborn baby was not a human being. That is pretty much like saying a caterpillar isn’t a butterfly in the making. Just because the caterpillar doesn’t resemble a butterfly at first, doesn’t mean it won’t resemble one as it develops further along.
The very concept of personal freedom implies the ability to make choices that profoundly affect one’s own life, although those choices should be informed by the Word of God as their guide to right decision-making. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, even among supposed Christians. This part of the abortion issue is true, however: a woman always has had the right to choose to terminate her pregnancy if she desired (simply by participating in activities that jeopardized her unborn child’s safety), just as she has had the right to choose whether to eat spinach or broccoli for dinner and just as she has the right everyday to choose whether to rob a store or help her neighbors or serve God as a faithful, believing, and obedient Christian. Why does she have the right to choose between good and evil? She has this right because God gave it to every human being ever to be born into this world. God gave this basic human right to choose between good and evil because He wanted people to be able to choose for themselves whether to be in relationship with Him and live under His authority and rule forever.
Perhaps the best proof we have that God is pro-choice is found right in the Bible. You may ask, “Where?” Well, during the Exodus from Egypt, God spoke through Moses to challenge the people of Israel to make a choice. He said, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live….” (Deuteronomy 30:19 NKJV). You see, not only has God placed these choices before us to prove that He has given us the right and power to make our own choice (as He did for the nation of Israel thousands of years ago), but He has even told us what the right choice is for us to make! We don’t even have to stroke our chin with contemplation or scratch our head with indecision about which one is the right or best choice for us. God has taken all the guesswork out of it already!
Since it is plainly God’s will for people to choose life through obedience to His commands, that means God is obviously pro-choice. So, why does God use His Own power of choice to allow such evil things in the world as abortion on demand? Well, it’s because He has deliberately limited Himself from intruding into our lives in order to permit us to make our own choices in life. In fact, He won’t even intervene without a direct appeal from us. The flip side that so many people rarely (if ever) think about is that the choice for evil results in death, whereas the choice for good results in everlasting life with God where we will never again have to face the consequences of evil, though that won’t begin until after Christ’s return.
It’s not God’s will for us to choose evil, but because it is oftentimes our will to do evil, God lets us have our way. This includes letting a government legalize the murder of unborn children under the guise of personal freedom and letting thousands of women everyday choose to abort their babies for any reason. It also includes letting a man or a parent or a set of parents or a supposed friend or relative or even a complete stranger pressure an individual woman into aborting her baby for all kinds of reasons, such as “You’re just too young,” or “How are you going to feed that baby when you can’t even feed the ones you’ve got already?” or “Aborting a handicapped baby is just the humane thing to do.”
These sorts of arguments are perfect proof that aborting a baby is the epitome of self-centeredness, but then that’s how that little baby came into existence in the first place. The parents, however old they were, married or not, mentally and economically prepared or not, were so focused on satisfying their own selfish desires for pleasure that they chose not to think of the possibility of generating a child when they came together, and when they learned the woman was pregnant, they chose not to think of their baby first but to think of their own selfish interests once again, such as how inconvenient having a baby was going to be. Yes, inconvenience is really at the root of practically every abortion. It wasn’t convenient to be pregnant or to have a baby right then and the crimp that responsibility was going to place on their free-living lifestyle and their other personal plans was just more than they could bear.
For those comparatively few cases of rape or incest, no one stops to think how that tiny, helpless baby had no choice in who his or her parents were. She couldn’t help it if her daddy was a rapist, and he couldn’t help it if his daddy was also his grand-daddy. Killing an unborn child that is the result of rape or incest is just as wrong and unacceptable to God as killing any other baby. It’s still murder, even if a baby was sinfully or criminally conceived or if the baby will have (or, as in many cases, is wrongly suspected to have) mental and/or physical disabilities. Did you know that God even goes so far as to tell Moses that He makes people with certain disabilities (see Exodus 4:11)?
Indeed, God is pro-choice because He desires to let us choose between good and evil, right and wrong, living eternally His way or suffering eternally our way. It’s a simple choice and, for me, at least, it’s an easy choice. I choose life, and I choose life God’s way. Therefore, like God, I, too, am pro-life. Furthermore, because it is God’s choice to let human beings be free to choose between good and evil, thus making God deliberately pro-choice, I, too, am pro-choice — not pro-abortion, mind you, but pro-choice in the truest sense of the term. Like God, I’d rather you didn’t choose evil, but since God is your judge (and I am not), I will leave the judgment and disciplining to Him.
Make no mistake, there will be a reckoning for the unrepentant sinners one day. If you need it spelled out for you, an “unrepentant sinner” is one who refuses to turn away from his or her sin and embrace God’s way of living. If you are a woman who has had one or more abortions or if you are a man who has pressured a woman to get an abortion or if you are a medical professional who has performed one or more abortions, it’s not too late — yet — for you to confess (agree) that you have sinned against God’s will and turn away from this evil deed called abortion and all other evil deeds you have done in your life. You can ask for God to forgive you and begin living life God’s way from now on. Read His Word (the Bible) and obey His commandments contained therein to the best of your ability, not in order to be saved from your sins but because you have been saved from your sins. The proof of your salvation will be in the way your life is changed for the better, from practicing sin and evil to practicing righteousness and good.
If you’ve never sought this salvation before, or if you sought it once and drifted back into disobedience, now’s the time to come to Christ and begin living your life for Him once and forever. Living eternally with Him will be far better than anyone (except God) can describe. To put it simply — the rewards will be out of this world!
What’s Your Purpose?
Here at the beginning of the New Year is a perfect time to reconsider one’s purpose in life. Have you ever asked yourself one or more of the following questions: “Why am I here? Why do I exist? What’s my purpose for existence?” I believe everyone has asked these questions, not only of themselves but of others, too. Maybe you’ve even asked them of God. In fact, God is the best Person for you to ask such a question, since He is the only One with the full knowledge and understanding of why every single creature exists, because He created everything (including you) with a purpose. In fact, we all probably have more than one purpose in existing, and many may have the same or a similar purpose, but everything indeed has a purpose.
It has taken a while, but I have come to realize that my purpose in life is to fulfill the divine purpose for which God created me. Yes, even though I was conceived by my parents and born into this world, it was still God Who created me. I base this understanding on what the psalmist and king David wrote in the book of Psalms:
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. (Psalms 139:13-16 NASB)
There have been times throughout my life when I’ve paused to contemplate my purpose for existence. While I believe I was created for fellowship with God, as is every other human being, I also believe God has a specific, maybe even a unique, purpose for me in particular. I have come to believe, after observing how God has used me most effectively throughout my life, that God’s purpose for me is to influence others — though not everyone yields to this influence — to consider the Word of God and decide whether to obey and follow it or not. It’s just that simple.
Though I have been very discouraged at times when folks chose to ignore my presentation, whether I gave it in a sermon or a lesson or a written form or a personal communication of some sort, I have continued nonetheless to press on with sharing what I’ve learned from reading and meditating on God’s Word throughout my life. I sometimes wonder if there will be a time of vindication at the time of judgment for those whom God sent to share His Word or message with others, both in the Church and in the world. Will I hang my head in shame because I ignored a Word from the Lord, simply because it came from a human messenger for whom I had insufficient respect? Will there be believers in the Kingdom who will hang their heads in shame because they chose to disrespect and ignore the message I gave them from the Lord? I don’t know, but I think about these kinds of things often during my quiet times.
The Good News is that for those who enter into the Kingdom of Christ forever will not be ashamed forever. Once we have been gently scolded by our Lord for ignoring His messengers who bore His message unto us, we will then enter into His everlasting joy and never give our past failings a second thought, except to remember that we are able to enjoy His eternal blessings entirely because He ransomed us from our sinful past nature. HALELUJAH!
Have you discovered your purpose for existence? You already know that you were created for eternal fellowship with God, so have you entered into that fellowship by accepting His offer of salvation which He made possible through the atoning sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ and Jesus’ resurrection from the dead? You can’t be in fellowship with God any other way. Jesus Himself stated:
“…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father [the One True God] except through Me.” (John 14:6 NKJV)
The Apostle Paul tells us:
…if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9-10 NKJV)
In other words, put your full confidence in the fact that Jesus rose from the dead after He sacrificed Himself on the cross for the sins of the world (and your sins, in particular), and then say it out loud to yourself and to anyone else who will listen that you agree Jesus is indeed the Lord and King of all. If you truly believe that, it will impact how you think, speak, act, and live your life foreverafter. Those who claim to have believed in Jesus and confessed His Lordship over their lives and yet continue to practice sin (that means commit sins without any attempt at restraint) are deceiving themselves and are in for an everlasting shock when Jesus returns for His faithful ones. No wonder Jesus says,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from,’ then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 13:24-29 NKJV; compare also Matthew 8:11-12; Matthew 22:1-14; Matthew 24:45-51; and Matthew 25:13-30)
What a frightful time that will be! God insists on holiness (Leviticus 11:44-45; 1 Peter 1:13-16 & Hebrews 12:14-17). Those who try to side-step living a life of obedience, righteousness and holiness are overlooking and ignoring all of the other commands of God in both the Old and New Testament Scriptures to live righteous, holy lives of obedience to His Word as proof of their commitment to and love for Him (John 14:15, 21, & 24). They base their position on the misunderstanding that, since they are “under grace” (Romans 6:14 & Ephesians 2:8-9), they don’t have to obey any of the commands of God, because that is perceived as works-righteousness and living under the Law. However, Jesus once asked,
“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46 NKJV)
God is indeed a merciful, gracious, and forgiving God, but ONLY when a sinner is humble and repentant before Him (see James 4:6 & 1 Peter 5:5). If you want to play fast and loose with your eternal soul like an addicted gambler at a casino table, that’s your decision, but be forewarned that your final “roll of the dice” (when you die) really is for keeps — everlasting keeps.
What is my purpose? I’m fulfilling it right now by sharing the hope of salvation with you and warning you that time is running out to make your decision whether to accept, follow, and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are ready to do that now, just do as I wrote above: put your full confidence in Jesus and tell everyone you meet what you’ve done and invite them to do the same as you have done, and then live your life for Jesus, according to His command to love one another (particularly fellow believers in Christ) as He has loved us (John 15:12-14). That’s it!
Now, do you know what your purpose is for existing in this world? You were created for fellowship with the everlasting God of all creation, so go fellowship with Him by reading, believing, and obeying His Word (the Holy Bible) and sharing His glorious hope with everyone who will listen. Join in corporate worship each week with other sincere believers who believe and try to practice the command to love one another as Christ has loved them, and finally, keep looking UP, for our redemption is nearer than we first believed (Luke 21:28)!
NOTE: I’m currently writing on a book about God’s Plan of Salvation in which I go into much more detail on this subject. Keep a watch here and at my published books Web site http://books.parsonplace.com for an announcement on when it will be available for purchase.
