ISDAMan
06-15-01, 07:47 PM
Friday Night Sermon -- Online Bible Study
From: www.NailScarred.net (http://www.NailScarred.net?sciforums.com)
Falling In Line
Special Edition Of The FNS
It's good to be back after these weeks of reflection and learning. I can't say that I had any great mystical moment of light shining down from Heaven with singing angels in the background to reveal some special meaning or teaching from God. What I can say is that, in that still small voice as the Bible tells us, in that gentle way, God has been gracious enough to learn me a thing or two. We're stepping outside of our study in 2 Corinthians because there are some things that I believe God would have me to say to you this day. You have to look into this closely. There's no special punch that's going to all of a sudden make things click in your life to be drawn from this message. If anything, this is a message that will encourage work and effort on each of our parts. If I have come to learn anything in these past weeks, I have learned that God IS Good! He is good to everyone! Especially to we that are of His Body whom it is that Trust in Christ, but, to every last person on this Planet, He is a gentle and loving God.
I want to start by giving a brief and truncated history of God's life since just prior to His creation of mankind. Please, keep in mind, this is the ISDAfied version. It's very generalized so, here goes:
1) God IS.
2) God makes man and a place for him to live and gives him a free will and makes him good.
3) Man rebels thereby producing and releasing a poisonous and corrosive toxin into all of God's creation. This toxin is called sin.
4) God the Creator / Caretaker puts on the hat of God the EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) in a disaster worse than all the flash floods, earthquakes, and meteor strikes rolled up into one. Every man existing and to ever exist is doomed to die. God the EMT like the EMT's we know today had to make some hard choices to make things right. He didn't just have to cut off some gangrenous legs or arms trapped in wreckage to save lives. The foul infection and the broken destruction left in the wake of the toxin called sin had actually spread throughout the world to such a degree so as to bring about the hard choice of which whole lives were to be cut off so as to save those that could and would be saved. Like the EMT's and good Samaritans of today that have been sued because of choices made in the course of saving life, God, since then, has been branded as brutal.
5) God carried forward those He had found in danger. He didn't just tell them not to pull out the IV. He didn't just require them to stay within the bounds of the treatment facilities. He didn't just tell them to take their medications and get their rest. God wasn't just saving bodies made of flesh! God directed people to Love Him! He demanded obedience as He lead them, not simply to feeling good, but, to the actual final healing to be administered by The Great Physician, Jesus Christ.
6) God, having performed well in triage, made a way through Christ, God come as man, to shield man from the eternal effects of the toxin. With those He saved, He established His hospital, the Church. He sent them to spread the cure. God, the same God He ever was and Ever will be, having made the cure for sin, sent out litter carriers into all the world to collect up those that could be and would be saved so that they might be brought to Christ for healing. God, the same God He ever was and Ever will be, the same God branded by man to be brutal and even two faced because He made those wise and hard choices, got the job done in spite of great turmoil and cost to Himself.
7) God IS. God continues to Save to this day.
All this in mind, we must be aware of something. What does this mean to me? Where do I fit in? For the answer to these great questions, I'm going to turn to a movie, a production of man that unwittingly shows forth many wonderful lessons of God. Many of you have been here long enough to have seen me do this before with a movie. This time, we may go deeper than the last.
Despite a few obviously useless scenes and words, if you have not seen the movie Pearl Harbor, I highly recommend it. I do not for the historical value. There's not much. The acting is wonderful. The visual aspect is stunning. The story is captivating. More so than this, the human drama is true to life. The human drama, in this movie, is where we'll be able to examine some core lessons of the Christian walk that are to be applied to everyday life. It doesn't matter if you haven't seen it and I'll not have to go into detail of all that happened. I'll warn you though. These lessons are easy to learn and hard to make use of. One thing or another has to give; our willingness to self or our willingness to be faithful to God.
<b>I've Got No Time To Stumble</b>
Here is a lesson that is full of anguish. Though I had been learning this, I have learned it more from the passing of my mother than at any time in my life. As I watched this movie, God only focused my thoughts on lessons He has taught. You might ask yourself, "How can a lesson on stumbling be learned from a movie about war?" I'll tell you. These men and women that day, they were not prepared for such an event as happened. Yet, being military, they had preparedness of some sort already pre-prescribed. All that did not live up to just the basic standard of military preparedness, when the attack came, were just useless fodder for the enemy.
1) Christians have got to be founded in the Basics before the attack comes if they are ever to stand in the heat of Spiritual Battle! Prayer to God and Study in the Word of God are our Basic training. Without this, you cannot even make the first step. You're only to be found cowering somewhere and useless.
Now, while this attack went on, there were some that were faithful and had stuck to their basic tanning The enemy prevailed against some and men fell all around them. The faithful pressed on to their goal to more greatly take the fight to the enemy.
2) We don't fight this battle on Satan's terms. He might launch a sneak attack but, we've got to be striving to get to our guns and rally the troops too. There are no Lone Rangers or Rambo Christians. We, too, do not have time to sit and lament the loss of one that was once faithful but is now in sin. We have to press forward in taking the fight to the enemy. The Word of God is our gun. Truth is our ammo. Prayer is the adrenaline that keeps our feet under us so we can keep on keeping on! For every one of us that falls, at least one other person is now left unprotected. For every one of us that falls because we fail to pray, don't study the Word, or refuse to tell the Truth, which is to share the Gospel, that's at least one more demonic stronghold, one more enemy fighter, one more noncombatant (lost person) that will be slain, and one more Christian Brother or Sister put in danger.
Prepare well NOW! We do not know when the attack will come. Gain ground NOW! Every life saved by the Gospel is a life not to be taken by the enemy! As always, remember, other people's lives are depending upon your actions. I cannot stress enough. Do IT and Do IT again when it comes to telling the Truth on God! If you knock on 1000 doors and don't get one positive response, knock on 1000 more. Just be sure to share the Gospel at every one. That's how my litter carriers brought me to Christ. They knocked on a door and found me standing there dead! Is it worth it to save just one life? Because of them, and the fellow Christians they kept in company with, my mother, then my brother and sister, then my step-father and others from there have been Saved. Are 1000 rejections worth the reward of just one life? Your answer had better be, "YES"! Then, let me ask you something. Have your actions been in agreement with the answer you just gave? If, "YES", do it again. If, "NO", get your tail in gear. Practice the basics. Prayer, Study the Word, Tell the Truth!
<b>Keep Good Company</b>
Anyone that has ever seen battle or even prepared for battle as a member of the military can tell you that you live and die by those around you. A weak willed commander or even an inept private can spell disaster for your unit. When the battle rages and the heat is on, all you have to turn to in the physical realm are those you surround yourself with. Choose well! Choose well who you run to and who you call on to cover your rear. Choose poorly and the enemy on your tail might not be the one getting shot down by your friends. They might just end up shooting you.
Now, we could dig around for many more things to say but, I'm not interested in just looking wise here. I think it's easy to answer those two questions now. To me it means Life or Death. I fit in so that, to others, I can also mean Life.
KJV
Book: Psalms
Chapter: 15
A Psalm of David
1 LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
3 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
4 In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
5 He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
NLT
Book: Psalms
Chapter: 15
1 A psalm of David. Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
3 Those who refuse to slander others or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends.
4 Those who despise persistent sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the LORD and keep their promises even when it hurts.
5 Those who do not charge interest on the money they lend, and who refuse to accept bribes to testify against the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.
OK., I know it looks like we just fell into a totally different FNS. Don't worry we didn't. We just fell into a longer one is all. This is a snapshot of the resulting person that is prepared in the basics of Prayer and Bible Study. This is a snapshot of the person you want to have fighting on your team. This is a snapshot of the person you want to become. This is a snapshot of the person you want to marry. This is a snapshot of the person you want teaching your children. This is even a snapshot of the person you want fixing your car. What God wants for us should be all invasive in our lives. We do not live lives of a battle here and a battle there and rest between. Always, there is someone slipping off into hell. Always, there is a fool believing a lie. Always, and my crowd in West Virginia will love this, there's a chance to fire your guns for God. Lay down that suppression fire, that Truth of God. The Word is your gun! The Truth is your ammo! Prayer is your life! Snipe at the devil every chance you get!
There's another pressing question that all this discussion brings about. For this, I'm going to pull up an old example I've given. The question is a simple one. Why didn't God just get rid of man when man unleashed sin? I'm going to share with you a question and answer session I had with someone online Aug of 1999. I hope this helps.
<A HREF="http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=2266" FONT="1">To Read The Whole Session</A>
<B>Q:</B> Basically about the meaning of life. In your opinion why did God create humans?
<B>A:</B> Corp.Hudson's answer was actually accurate to a degree. God has not left us totally in the dark. We see through a glass darkly,... not a brick wall. To add to it, He creates because He is all good and good desires to not be contained up in oneself. There being no one else, He made plenty of someone's to share good with. Who can know the whys to His types of designs. He's very creative.
<B>Q:</B> In your opinion what was the reason for this?
<B>A:</B> Same answer.
<B>Q:</B> Why the need for us to accept him?
<B>A:</B> A master hacker (Satan) has infected us with the worst software virus (Sin) known to ever exist. It's fouled up our cpu's (Minds) and will eventually crash our hard drives (Bodies). If we don't accept the patch (Jesus) from the manufacturer (God), we'll never process anything right and our best performance level (The lives we were intended to live) will never be met. It's funny. We wouldn't accept our own behavior from our computers. Yet, somehow, we expect God to accept this poor performance from us.
<B>Q:</B> Why does God want to be with us so badly after we die?
<B>A:</B> Try and build a computer from the ground up. I mean straight from nothing. You have to even make the resistors, capacitors, and what not. Painfully labor through the planning. Go through all of the soddering, wiring, and so forth. Personally design and select everything that you want to have in it as hardware. Design the OS from your own wisdom and give it life to flow through the cpu that you created with no help from anyone. Now, tell me. When it is all complete, is there a sense of satisfaction to be had? Would you not take time to admire the work of your own creation? It is a truth that you would be more fond of that computer than any other. Now, with the modem that you created, allow your creation to reach out into the world wide web. When that master hacker attacks your system, despite your safeguards, will you not be distraught? Will you not fight to get your creation back to it's original form? Will you not also make provision so that once you restore your creation, you can also keep the master hacker from ever attacking your restored creation again? We all understand, in terms of computers, the rational for virus cleaning and software upgrades. Well, God, having created us from the nothing up, is quite fond of us. He is willing to fight tooth and nail for us. He Loves us dearly and had that Love even before He made us!!! His goal is the same. He wants to clean the virus out of our system with the Blood of Christ. He also wants to upgrade us so that we can function as we were designed from the start. The upgrade is by His Holy Spirit living within us. When He fixes us, that is the point when His children die. We are dead to the ways of the world and that old virus called sin! AMEN!!! He raises up the New Man, Christian version 5.0!!! He'll go 0-Prayer in less than 2 seconds. He comes complete with GPS (Godly Positioning System). There's even free fuel and maintenance for life! God's goal was never to be with us after we die in the flesh. His goal was always to be with us IN LIFE!!!
<B>Q:</B> Why make us living humans then make us die in order for us to be with him in the first place if he really wanted to be with us, and not just put us through a test to see if we make the grade?
<B>A:</B> God's work, the work He put so much effort into, just like your own work, has value. To have value is to have a cost. God's system is a system of payment for this reason. The wages of sin is death. God did not design us to die. Sin, being malignant, had caused us degradation. We are tainted with it and our value is lost. Just as the tiny seed will grow into a great tree, the tiny seed of sin will grow into great destruction.
<b>Romans 5</b>
<b>15</b> But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
<b>16</b> And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.
Sin = Order to Mass Disorder
Jesus = Mass Disorder to Order
God still sees the value of what we were and what we can be. Incidentally, that's why God flooded the world. With man's heart continually upon sin, there was no longer any potential value in what He could be. He was rotten to the core. Enough of that commercial though. We were never supposed to die. We were always supposed to have the same intimate contact with God that Adam had prior to being booted out of the garden. God gave us a free will. He did not give us a chance to choose right and wrong. He placed before us the choice to choose right. However, the giving of a chance to choose right also contains the chance not to choose it. No other choice needs bee given. Furthermore, there was no special power in the fruit on that tree. God gave the right choice to follow His direction and stay away from that tree. Now that we find that it burns, we want to blame God for having the rule not to have anything to do with that tree in the first place. That's as foolish as a murderer saying that if it weren't for the laws against murder, he wouldn't have done it. It's that crazy! Yet, we use that same basically stupid logic in relating to God. Heck, we do it all over. Just look at everyone that wants to legalize drugs because they think that if it wasn't marked as illegal, there'd be no problem at all. Would you like a drug user to be your bus driver, surgeon, accountant, chiropractor, care giver, baby sitter, or judge? If God allowed just any old thing, He would be guilty of doing the same thing. He is working properly. We are malfunctioned. If, in our cpu's (Minds), we refuse to accept the upgrade (Holy Spirit) by way of His fix (Jesus), our hard drives (Bodies) are doomed to crash (Die) and scatter our data (Spirits) into oblivion (Hell). God has a recovery program that takes effect before the crash,... and PRAISE GOD that He will provide a New Body, one that is incorruptible, to those that have accepted the upgrade.
Fear the Day or the Lord when His righteous judgement will come and be wise to accept His salvation,
ISDAMan
<A HREF="http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=2266" FONT="1">To Read The Whole Session</A>
Another question is, "How is it that Satan and evil men get to have so much power in the world?" I have another old answer of mine shared in a discussion online.
You have a choice as weather or not to take another breath. You can do it or you can drown in the tub or do any number of things. None of these things was given so you could kill yourself. Yet, by your own choice, you can. Even more, you only have access to the things God first provided you. You can create no new matter with which to halt your next breath. This existence belongs to God. The interaction He allows us to have through our own choices is often confused for power. For Satan, it is the same.
He has no real power. He is a bug trapped in a jar. So, you have a choice. You WILL fall in line. Only, will yours be a falling in place into proper order or a stumbling and a crash away from God. For that reason, I leave you with this:
ACTS 10:35-36, NLT
In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. I'm sure you have heard about the Good News for the people of Israel – that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.
Christian website of the week: WATCHMAN FELLOWSHIP (http://www.watchman.org/?www.nailscarred.net-ChristianSiteOfTheWeek06-15-01)
From: www.NailScarred.net (http://www.NailScarred.net?sciforums.com)
Falling In Line
Special Edition Of The FNS
It's good to be back after these weeks of reflection and learning. I can't say that I had any great mystical moment of light shining down from Heaven with singing angels in the background to reveal some special meaning or teaching from God. What I can say is that, in that still small voice as the Bible tells us, in that gentle way, God has been gracious enough to learn me a thing or two. We're stepping outside of our study in 2 Corinthians because there are some things that I believe God would have me to say to you this day. You have to look into this closely. There's no special punch that's going to all of a sudden make things click in your life to be drawn from this message. If anything, this is a message that will encourage work and effort on each of our parts. If I have come to learn anything in these past weeks, I have learned that God IS Good! He is good to everyone! Especially to we that are of His Body whom it is that Trust in Christ, but, to every last person on this Planet, He is a gentle and loving God.
I want to start by giving a brief and truncated history of God's life since just prior to His creation of mankind. Please, keep in mind, this is the ISDAfied version. It's very generalized so, here goes:
1) God IS.
2) God makes man and a place for him to live and gives him a free will and makes him good.
3) Man rebels thereby producing and releasing a poisonous and corrosive toxin into all of God's creation. This toxin is called sin.
4) God the Creator / Caretaker puts on the hat of God the EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) in a disaster worse than all the flash floods, earthquakes, and meteor strikes rolled up into one. Every man existing and to ever exist is doomed to die. God the EMT like the EMT's we know today had to make some hard choices to make things right. He didn't just have to cut off some gangrenous legs or arms trapped in wreckage to save lives. The foul infection and the broken destruction left in the wake of the toxin called sin had actually spread throughout the world to such a degree so as to bring about the hard choice of which whole lives were to be cut off so as to save those that could and would be saved. Like the EMT's and good Samaritans of today that have been sued because of choices made in the course of saving life, God, since then, has been branded as brutal.
5) God carried forward those He had found in danger. He didn't just tell them not to pull out the IV. He didn't just require them to stay within the bounds of the treatment facilities. He didn't just tell them to take their medications and get their rest. God wasn't just saving bodies made of flesh! God directed people to Love Him! He demanded obedience as He lead them, not simply to feeling good, but, to the actual final healing to be administered by The Great Physician, Jesus Christ.
6) God, having performed well in triage, made a way through Christ, God come as man, to shield man from the eternal effects of the toxin. With those He saved, He established His hospital, the Church. He sent them to spread the cure. God, the same God He ever was and Ever will be, having made the cure for sin, sent out litter carriers into all the world to collect up those that could be and would be saved so that they might be brought to Christ for healing. God, the same God He ever was and Ever will be, the same God branded by man to be brutal and even two faced because He made those wise and hard choices, got the job done in spite of great turmoil and cost to Himself.
7) God IS. God continues to Save to this day.
All this in mind, we must be aware of something. What does this mean to me? Where do I fit in? For the answer to these great questions, I'm going to turn to a movie, a production of man that unwittingly shows forth many wonderful lessons of God. Many of you have been here long enough to have seen me do this before with a movie. This time, we may go deeper than the last.
Despite a few obviously useless scenes and words, if you have not seen the movie Pearl Harbor, I highly recommend it. I do not for the historical value. There's not much. The acting is wonderful. The visual aspect is stunning. The story is captivating. More so than this, the human drama is true to life. The human drama, in this movie, is where we'll be able to examine some core lessons of the Christian walk that are to be applied to everyday life. It doesn't matter if you haven't seen it and I'll not have to go into detail of all that happened. I'll warn you though. These lessons are easy to learn and hard to make use of. One thing or another has to give; our willingness to self or our willingness to be faithful to God.
<b>I've Got No Time To Stumble</b>
Here is a lesson that is full of anguish. Though I had been learning this, I have learned it more from the passing of my mother than at any time in my life. As I watched this movie, God only focused my thoughts on lessons He has taught. You might ask yourself, "How can a lesson on stumbling be learned from a movie about war?" I'll tell you. These men and women that day, they were not prepared for such an event as happened. Yet, being military, they had preparedness of some sort already pre-prescribed. All that did not live up to just the basic standard of military preparedness, when the attack came, were just useless fodder for the enemy.
1) Christians have got to be founded in the Basics before the attack comes if they are ever to stand in the heat of Spiritual Battle! Prayer to God and Study in the Word of God are our Basic training. Without this, you cannot even make the first step. You're only to be found cowering somewhere and useless.
Now, while this attack went on, there were some that were faithful and had stuck to their basic tanning The enemy prevailed against some and men fell all around them. The faithful pressed on to their goal to more greatly take the fight to the enemy.
2) We don't fight this battle on Satan's terms. He might launch a sneak attack but, we've got to be striving to get to our guns and rally the troops too. There are no Lone Rangers or Rambo Christians. We, too, do not have time to sit and lament the loss of one that was once faithful but is now in sin. We have to press forward in taking the fight to the enemy. The Word of God is our gun. Truth is our ammo. Prayer is the adrenaline that keeps our feet under us so we can keep on keeping on! For every one of us that falls, at least one other person is now left unprotected. For every one of us that falls because we fail to pray, don't study the Word, or refuse to tell the Truth, which is to share the Gospel, that's at least one more demonic stronghold, one more enemy fighter, one more noncombatant (lost person) that will be slain, and one more Christian Brother or Sister put in danger.
Prepare well NOW! We do not know when the attack will come. Gain ground NOW! Every life saved by the Gospel is a life not to be taken by the enemy! As always, remember, other people's lives are depending upon your actions. I cannot stress enough. Do IT and Do IT again when it comes to telling the Truth on God! If you knock on 1000 doors and don't get one positive response, knock on 1000 more. Just be sure to share the Gospel at every one. That's how my litter carriers brought me to Christ. They knocked on a door and found me standing there dead! Is it worth it to save just one life? Because of them, and the fellow Christians they kept in company with, my mother, then my brother and sister, then my step-father and others from there have been Saved. Are 1000 rejections worth the reward of just one life? Your answer had better be, "YES"! Then, let me ask you something. Have your actions been in agreement with the answer you just gave? If, "YES", do it again. If, "NO", get your tail in gear. Practice the basics. Prayer, Study the Word, Tell the Truth!
<b>Keep Good Company</b>
Anyone that has ever seen battle or even prepared for battle as a member of the military can tell you that you live and die by those around you. A weak willed commander or even an inept private can spell disaster for your unit. When the battle rages and the heat is on, all you have to turn to in the physical realm are those you surround yourself with. Choose well! Choose well who you run to and who you call on to cover your rear. Choose poorly and the enemy on your tail might not be the one getting shot down by your friends. They might just end up shooting you.
Now, we could dig around for many more things to say but, I'm not interested in just looking wise here. I think it's easy to answer those two questions now. To me it means Life or Death. I fit in so that, to others, I can also mean Life.
KJV
Book: Psalms
Chapter: 15
A Psalm of David
1 LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
3 He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
4 In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
5 He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
NLT
Book: Psalms
Chapter: 15
1 A psalm of David. Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
3 Those who refuse to slander others or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends.
4 Those who despise persistent sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the LORD and keep their promises even when it hurts.
5 Those who do not charge interest on the money they lend, and who refuse to accept bribes to testify against the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.
OK., I know it looks like we just fell into a totally different FNS. Don't worry we didn't. We just fell into a longer one is all. This is a snapshot of the resulting person that is prepared in the basics of Prayer and Bible Study. This is a snapshot of the person you want to have fighting on your team. This is a snapshot of the person you want to become. This is a snapshot of the person you want to marry. This is a snapshot of the person you want teaching your children. This is even a snapshot of the person you want fixing your car. What God wants for us should be all invasive in our lives. We do not live lives of a battle here and a battle there and rest between. Always, there is someone slipping off into hell. Always, there is a fool believing a lie. Always, and my crowd in West Virginia will love this, there's a chance to fire your guns for God. Lay down that suppression fire, that Truth of God. The Word is your gun! The Truth is your ammo! Prayer is your life! Snipe at the devil every chance you get!
There's another pressing question that all this discussion brings about. For this, I'm going to pull up an old example I've given. The question is a simple one. Why didn't God just get rid of man when man unleashed sin? I'm going to share with you a question and answer session I had with someone online Aug of 1999. I hope this helps.
<A HREF="http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=2266" FONT="1">To Read The Whole Session</A>
<B>Q:</B> Basically about the meaning of life. In your opinion why did God create humans?
<B>A:</B> Corp.Hudson's answer was actually accurate to a degree. God has not left us totally in the dark. We see through a glass darkly,... not a brick wall. To add to it, He creates because He is all good and good desires to not be contained up in oneself. There being no one else, He made plenty of someone's to share good with. Who can know the whys to His types of designs. He's very creative.
<B>Q:</B> In your opinion what was the reason for this?
<B>A:</B> Same answer.
<B>Q:</B> Why the need for us to accept him?
<B>A:</B> A master hacker (Satan) has infected us with the worst software virus (Sin) known to ever exist. It's fouled up our cpu's (Minds) and will eventually crash our hard drives (Bodies). If we don't accept the patch (Jesus) from the manufacturer (God), we'll never process anything right and our best performance level (The lives we were intended to live) will never be met. It's funny. We wouldn't accept our own behavior from our computers. Yet, somehow, we expect God to accept this poor performance from us.
<B>Q:</B> Why does God want to be with us so badly after we die?
<B>A:</B> Try and build a computer from the ground up. I mean straight from nothing. You have to even make the resistors, capacitors, and what not. Painfully labor through the planning. Go through all of the soddering, wiring, and so forth. Personally design and select everything that you want to have in it as hardware. Design the OS from your own wisdom and give it life to flow through the cpu that you created with no help from anyone. Now, tell me. When it is all complete, is there a sense of satisfaction to be had? Would you not take time to admire the work of your own creation? It is a truth that you would be more fond of that computer than any other. Now, with the modem that you created, allow your creation to reach out into the world wide web. When that master hacker attacks your system, despite your safeguards, will you not be distraught? Will you not fight to get your creation back to it's original form? Will you not also make provision so that once you restore your creation, you can also keep the master hacker from ever attacking your restored creation again? We all understand, in terms of computers, the rational for virus cleaning and software upgrades. Well, God, having created us from the nothing up, is quite fond of us. He is willing to fight tooth and nail for us. He Loves us dearly and had that Love even before He made us!!! His goal is the same. He wants to clean the virus out of our system with the Blood of Christ. He also wants to upgrade us so that we can function as we were designed from the start. The upgrade is by His Holy Spirit living within us. When He fixes us, that is the point when His children die. We are dead to the ways of the world and that old virus called sin! AMEN!!! He raises up the New Man, Christian version 5.0!!! He'll go 0-Prayer in less than 2 seconds. He comes complete with GPS (Godly Positioning System). There's even free fuel and maintenance for life! God's goal was never to be with us after we die in the flesh. His goal was always to be with us IN LIFE!!!
<B>Q:</B> Why make us living humans then make us die in order for us to be with him in the first place if he really wanted to be with us, and not just put us through a test to see if we make the grade?
<B>A:</B> God's work, the work He put so much effort into, just like your own work, has value. To have value is to have a cost. God's system is a system of payment for this reason. The wages of sin is death. God did not design us to die. Sin, being malignant, had caused us degradation. We are tainted with it and our value is lost. Just as the tiny seed will grow into a great tree, the tiny seed of sin will grow into great destruction.
<b>Romans 5</b>
<b>15</b> But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
<b>16</b> And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.
Sin = Order to Mass Disorder
Jesus = Mass Disorder to Order
God still sees the value of what we were and what we can be. Incidentally, that's why God flooded the world. With man's heart continually upon sin, there was no longer any potential value in what He could be. He was rotten to the core. Enough of that commercial though. We were never supposed to die. We were always supposed to have the same intimate contact with God that Adam had prior to being booted out of the garden. God gave us a free will. He did not give us a chance to choose right and wrong. He placed before us the choice to choose right. However, the giving of a chance to choose right also contains the chance not to choose it. No other choice needs bee given. Furthermore, there was no special power in the fruit on that tree. God gave the right choice to follow His direction and stay away from that tree. Now that we find that it burns, we want to blame God for having the rule not to have anything to do with that tree in the first place. That's as foolish as a murderer saying that if it weren't for the laws against murder, he wouldn't have done it. It's that crazy! Yet, we use that same basically stupid logic in relating to God. Heck, we do it all over. Just look at everyone that wants to legalize drugs because they think that if it wasn't marked as illegal, there'd be no problem at all. Would you like a drug user to be your bus driver, surgeon, accountant, chiropractor, care giver, baby sitter, or judge? If God allowed just any old thing, He would be guilty of doing the same thing. He is working properly. We are malfunctioned. If, in our cpu's (Minds), we refuse to accept the upgrade (Holy Spirit) by way of His fix (Jesus), our hard drives (Bodies) are doomed to crash (Die) and scatter our data (Spirits) into oblivion (Hell). God has a recovery program that takes effect before the crash,... and PRAISE GOD that He will provide a New Body, one that is incorruptible, to those that have accepted the upgrade.
Fear the Day or the Lord when His righteous judgement will come and be wise to accept His salvation,
ISDAMan
<A HREF="http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=2266" FONT="1">To Read The Whole Session</A>
Another question is, "How is it that Satan and evil men get to have so much power in the world?" I have another old answer of mine shared in a discussion online.
You have a choice as weather or not to take another breath. You can do it or you can drown in the tub or do any number of things. None of these things was given so you could kill yourself. Yet, by your own choice, you can. Even more, you only have access to the things God first provided you. You can create no new matter with which to halt your next breath. This existence belongs to God. The interaction He allows us to have through our own choices is often confused for power. For Satan, it is the same.
He has no real power. He is a bug trapped in a jar. So, you have a choice. You WILL fall in line. Only, will yours be a falling in place into proper order or a stumbling and a crash away from God. For that reason, I leave you with this:
ACTS 10:35-36, NLT
In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right. I'm sure you have heard about the Good News for the people of Israel – that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.
Christian website of the week: WATCHMAN FELLOWSHIP (http://www.watchman.org/?www.nailscarred.net-ChristianSiteOfTheWeek06-15-01)