Dec 26 2005
As human beings we have a ‘terminal disease called mortality.’ The current death rate is 100%. We don’t like to ‘think about death,’ especially our own, yet, worldwide, 3 people die every second, 180 every minute, and nearly 11,000 every hour. That’s 250,000 a day ‘who transition’ from ‘this life.’
This brings up the question for each of us: Where will we spend eternity?
If you want to ‘know more’ about the ‘destination’ read on.
Dec 26 2005
This may be a bit long, and certainly is intense…….but then, since, according to Scripture, everyone’s final destination is either Heaven or Hell, and, they are ‘eternal destinations,’ (that there is no ‘state of complete annihilation’ as we are ‘eternal beings’)……shouldn’t we know more about each?
In his book, Heaven, by Randy Alcorn, he quotes Ivor Powell, “At the age of 83 I asked myself what I knew about the home of God, and I was truly shocked to admit I knew very little….Increasing age and the fact that I shall soon be making my own pilgrimage, have begotten within my soul an intense desire to explore this fascinating subject.”
Again, please realize that no matter how impassioned I write, or ‘how authoritatively’…………I am fallible, and am not your pastor, or a person of ‘authority’……and certainly not your Holy Spirit………rather one who is ‘saved by the merciful grace of God, through Jesus Christ’…….and is so thankful that I spend time trying to have a better relationship with Him through the reading of His Word………and this is my ‘illumination’ of what I read………and is meant to be a ‘stimulus’ for you to study the Word yourself, to decide what you feel it says to you………..
Hell is real!
Is Heaven our ‘Default Destination’ Or…Is Hell?
CS Lewis wrote: “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one….the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
GK Chesterton wrote: “Hell is God’s great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice.”
Dante, in the Inferno, envisioned this sign chiseled above Hell’s gate: “Abandon every hope, you who enter.”
Novelist Dorothy Sayers wrote: “There seems to be some kind of conspiracy to forget, or to conceal, where the doctrine of Hell comes from. The doctrine of Hell is not ‘mediaeval priestcraft’ for frightening people into giving money to the church: it is Christ’s deliberate judgment on sin………We cannot repudiate Hell without altogether repudiating Christ.”
Randy Alcorn writes (and his book, Heaven, also supplied the motivation and many of the thoughts): God and Satan are not equal opposites. Likewise, Hell is not Heaven’s equal opposite. Just as God has no equals as a person, Heaven has no equal as a place.
CS Lewis wrote: “There have been times when I think we do not desire Heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else.”
And he also wrote: “All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the final grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach, and you have lost it forever.”
Of course, Hell being real is based upon the Word of God revealing it, just as it also reveals Heaven, and our way to Heaven through our faith in Jesus Christ, and His redeeming act of dying on the cross for us, and that He is risen—-and lives forever, and is ‘preparing a place’ for us ‘with Him’ forever. They are ‘all interdependent’ on God’s truth—thus each one of them is dependent upon the other.
(And, I believe that whether a person ‘believes it or not’ God’s truth is absolute.)
Dec 14 2005
As we approach the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, may this help you to even focus more on His Person and work.
Basically the tabernacle (in the Greek) speaks of Christ, the Word who became ‘flesh’ and ‘tabernacled’ among us: John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Worship and holiness go ‘hand-in-hand’ in a believer’s life. Even when we sin, as we all do, and repent, and confess our sin, and the Lord is faithful to cleanse us and restore us to relationship (communion) with Himself, He does not ‘take us to penance’ but ‘direct to worship.’ (Christ has paid our penalty—and His work is totally sufficient and completed for all things.)
Dec 14 2005
As we approach the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, may this help you to even focus more on His Person and work.
Basically the tabernacle (in the Greek) speaks of Christ, the Word who became ‘flesh’ and ‘tabernacled’ among us: John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Worship and holiness go ‘hand-in-hand’ in a believer’s life. Even when we sin, as we all do, and repent, and confess our sin, and the Lord is faithful to cleanse us and restore us to relationship (communion) with Himself, He does not ‘take us to penance’ but ‘direct to worship.’ (Christ has paid our penalty—and His work is totally sufficient and completed for all things.)
I am so blessed by the older saints who have spent so much more intense time in the study and meditation of the Word, that the Holy Spirit has given them an illumination that stimulates my mind and heart to be even more focused on the Person of our Lord, Jesus Christ in worship. Today I’ll share with you parts of that I have read in Believer’s Bible Commentary, by William MacDonald. My prayer is that this also stimulates your heart and mind in the Lord.