Category Archives: Place of Testing

To the Journey

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We have a tendency to trivialize everything.  But we come to own this tendency with good reason.  Absolutely everything we know deteriorates.  Even the compassion of Man is in a state of flux; needs come and go, the sick get better or die, poverty evaporates at the end of its work, hatred goes to sleep when it is tired of destroying.  So even Man’s compassion (what is considered the best Man can offer) rests from its work.

We strive hard, but at the end of the day everything we know is trivial.  Everything we know is in a constant state of repair or deterioration.  Isn’t that why we sleep?

Most people, including myself, tend to apply this trivial mindset to the gospel of Christ.  We can’t help it, it’s in our nature to perceive things as if they are passing.  And without the constant help of the eternal Living God’s Holy Son we would never perceive the gospel as eternal.  It would remain in a mode of choice.  And isn’t that what we see when we look at those who call themselves Christians; constantly making the choice to do (or not to do) Christ-like things.

We need to be reminded that his promises last forever and never change.  That’s why we read the Bible often; to renew our decaying mind.  That’s why we pray, with whatever earnest soul we can muster.  Isn’t that why we are told to encourage one another?

Connected to this is an understanding that has come again to me this morning.  Everything we do is manufactured.  It’s in a constant state of repair.  But a love for righteousness cannot be in a state of repair.  For whatever constantly needs repair is also constantly deteriorating.  Love does not deteriorate, and eternal Righteousness does not fall into the realm of choice.  Let’s be honest, we either love righteousness or we don’t. 

What an amazing place God has created; it is not a place of deterioration, it is a place of potential eternal life.  There can be no better testing of a man’s heart than the state of affairs I have spoken of here.  On top of that, God knows the difference between a manufactured love of righteousness and one that is ingrained and sincere.

This is the nature of salvation.  It is not something that will be.  It is something that IS.  Christ has come, as the great power of God, to redeem the humble of heart.  He has come to teach us eternity.  Imagine that!  The sum of what we know about eternity is the simple word itself.  And without the presence of God, that’s where our knowledge remains.

Every man is encouraged to begin the journey of truth.  The journey is called Christianity.

Perfecting Afflictions

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Ramah: In Biblical, the meaning of the name Ramah is: Elevated, sublime.  People with this name have a deep inner desire for love and companionship, and want to work with others to achieve peace and harmony.  (It is not a name given by the mouth of man, so much as it is a name given by the horrors of this place.)

For such people to witness the tragedies that come from sin, it is too much.  And if the horrors associated with sin come home in a personal manner, destruction has a whole new body.

This is what the LORD says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”  (Jeremiah 31: 15)

Take away the best of hope from Man, and you will see deep and irreparable mourning.  This is the kind of sorrow that is born in the crucible of war.  But don’t we also find it in our streets?  Isn’t it also in our homes? 

Such sorrow does not choose between male or female.  Money or social position is no barrier for this kind of destruction.  And those who taste this are never the same again.

But this does not mean they cannot have hope.  God is able to open our eyes to a hope that is stronger than death; that death which is the end of Man’s greatest possible desires.

Even while we mourn the loss of what could have been, we rejoice inwardly at his Holy promise.  He has written perfectly in His Holy Blood.  “I stand ready and willing to give you eternal life.  I will wipe away all your tears and sorrow.  I will give you a joy in your heart that cannot be crushed.  And never again will you be disturbed in your place of holy peace and joy.”

Such is the power of the Living God’s promise.  Such is the strength of Righteous Mercy.  Even those souls, blackened with sorrow, can be filled with joy.  They can become useful to Life in this place of death.

I testify that this is true.  For I am one of those who has had exceedingly great loss yet has become useful to the Living God’s Great Mercy.

Take heart and understand.  Seek the face of the One who has tasted even the grave for your sake.  All his servants are broken and shattered in this place of “Perfecting Afflictions”.  Where sin was born to take away, Life has come to restore.

Amen.

Why the Wrath, Here?

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I sat with the Holy One, reflecting on the nature of things in this world.  I saw that His Holy Wisdom has been loosed in this Place of Testing; a Great display of His Majesty to sustain life, even among a people who detest His Holy Right to Rule.  Then I settled on a question.  “If the destruction of the wicked will surely come to pass, why bring the volume of the seven seals among Man?”

I did not mean to judge His Holy Wisdom to seal the end of this Place of Testing with violence.  I simply did not understand the necessity to bring the plagues upon humanity, since the destruction of rebellion will surely come to pass.

I asked this question.  He told me to go and write, as is the custom of revelation between He and I.  He spoke to Moses face to face.  He speaks to many in dreams.  He has spoken to me in the means of writing.

Let understanding come as it will.  The following is His answer.

They will receive (even in their place of flesh; even in this “place of testing”), the due penalty for their willful ignorance.  The punishment of wickedness will certainly begin while the consummation of the war against evil rolls toward finality.

It is not the state of man to endure this war.  It is not Man for whom this war has been engaged.  But it is the state of those who side with the unholy one to endure the same “ripping away of willful disobedience”.  Those who desire to side with evil will certainly endure that taste of coming and sure destruction.  All that belongs to the hands of the accuser will suffer loss, even while those hands are busily destroying.  Man is caught in the war between God and the accuser, whether he desires to be involved or not.

It is Man who is become the display of contention.  It is Man who is either saved for the Glory of Christ, or it is Man who is delivered to humiliation for the sake of he who is humiliated for his accusation against the Holy One Forever.

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Who can understand the Holy Wisdom of the Most High God?  What man can speak of the beauty that belongs to He who Lives Forever?  As we endure in His Marvelous Mercy, so the wicked will surely endure in His Marvelous, Righteous, Just, and Eternally Powerful Wrath.  May the will of the Living God be done forever, and that in His Holy and Righteous Living Son, Jesus the Christ.  Amen.

Challenge

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I present a challenge to all.  It doesn’t matter how you perceive Christ.  Come and convince me that anything other then the full acceptance of His Gospel is truth.

Invited is the scholar.  Welcome is the agnostic.  The atheists already know they have been invited openly.  Invitation is extended to the religious.   Let the drunkard try to compel me this way is better.  Come and speak to me about finance, and how money is the end of all good things.  Let the violent receive the best of House seats.  Let the timid display the grandiose crown of their fear. 

Regardless who you are, come and convince me. 

Christ Jesus is king of heaven and earth.  By His merciful grace I am his servant.  It will not be me you challenge.  It will be the living God in me.

Let us all either “Put up or shut up”.

Why am I making this challenge, and doesn’t it seem rather absurdly stupid?  Yeah, it does.

I’m making this challenge because I am sick of watching the world decay all about me.  I am sick of watching Christian cower,  all the while the Living God promises strength.

By the looks of things around me, I surmise one of us is a liar.  Either it is Man or it is God in Christ.  You know the summation of that.

At the outset, I will admit that I know nothing about Islam, Buddhism, and whatever other religion you want to throw on the table.  All I know about them is that they are false.  I will speak of the gospel in Christ. 

Required materials: Pack a lunch.

“Places Everyone!”

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Man is placed in a place remote.  For if his place were among the things of God, Man would try to dethrone Him.

This place of testing, this place of proving, this place of violence or love. 

This place of choices, this place of life or death, this place of time and decay. 

This place of anarchy, this place of treason, this place of hatred or faith.

They refuse to listen.  They despise the one who speaks.  And at every possible convenience, they turn away from knowledge. 

This place of filthy, this place of ludicrous, this place of blood and flesh.

This place of confusion, this place of pride, this place of accomplishment and humiliation.

Lest every man be utterly destroyed, God has set a place for rebellion.

This place of wondering, this hopelessness, place of vile distrust, this place of alienation and rare embrace.

Two doors exit this place.  One is wide to accommodate the masses.  The other is so narrow you cannot point it out.

One is proportioned for the violent fits which company the chaos of rebellion.  The other is only large enough for the soul.

We must all leave this place.  But we do not all arrive in the same Place. 

Every man who owns rebellion alone, will certainly find himself alone. 

But every man who has been stripped of rebellion, to a sort, that which remains cannot die.  Lessened, such men will find good company.

In all things, the endlessly spacious Place of God is utterly unlike ours.

Moment by moment, every man chooses his destiny.  But let us not think that the destiny of man is varied in context.  No!  There is either eternal inclusion, or eternal desperation.

Debate all these things, Oh wandering souls of men.  Or kneel before the Living God in faith.  Plead with him for understanding. 

All that belongs to Man is death.  All that belongs to God is Life in Christ Jesus His holy and Righteous Son.

By His Grace

What is Sin?

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Sin is “doing wrong”, whether in the mind or by the hands.  Sin is a living being, expressed by the individual.

I have spoken often about how sin disrupts the Righteousness of Eternity.  I have written of how the will of God is staved off by our disobedience called sin.  But Charles Spurgeon takes this concept one step farther than I had perceived.  You can find the entire audio of his sermon, “Thoughts on the Last Battle” at this link http://www.spurgeongems.org/messages/028chs.mp3.

Brother Spurgeon speaks of sin, as it is, past the sealing of the soul.  He asks, (in my own words) if sin destroyed the will of God while the man lived in this place of testing, what will it become when the soul is sealed in sin for eternity?  What will the “man” become when all the restraints of God’s beautiful Grace of the Holy Spirit’s influence is removed?  When the Holy Blood of Christ is no longer effective, when repentance is no longer an option; for the man is now sealed in the manner of soul he allowed God to create.

What then is sin?  Is it simply a game we play between ourselves?  Is it simply a futile expression of disruption in the Truth of God for Eternity?  Is it simply being a rebellious child who stands outside the door of God’s Holy Family?  Is it simply pleasure?  Or is sin a growing monster?

Will hell restrain the wickedness of wicked souls?  Do you think that you will live one slight moment in hell with a smile on your face?  You will be frustrated beyond description.  You will find desire consuming you.  Yet there will be no more avenue to disturb the Holy Will of the Living God or His Holy and Righteous Christ.  You will no longer have a body to command.  You will be only an essence of SIN.  You will be a distilled form of desire, with no possibility of expression or gain.

If God had not designed hell to be obliterated, there would be eternity to suffer within an indescribable torment of desire.  But ask yourself this:  How long will the Living God allow the display of tormented, wicked, desire ridden, useless souls to remain?  Even if He allows the display to remain for the sake of reminder to His Holy People, there is a place where even the display will be done away with.

Not only will those multitude of souls be in agony of frustrated desire.  They will face the prospect of eternal extinction.  And they will know it for certain.  For in their consignment to hell, they will have, no doubt, been told that death must join them.  When death arrives, “Nothing” becomes.

Is that what you want to be?  When your moment of transfer from “life” to the grave comes upon you, is that what you want for your hope?  Pleasure calls now.  But do you think you’ll love pleasure as dearly when there is no longer any means to employ it?

The offer of transformation remains, only as long as a man is in this place of testing.  Only while we are in the flesh of this body, is the Holy Blood of Jesus of any effect.  He calls all men to take from His Holy hand the things of Grace.  But when our hands are no longer able to hold anything, what is Grace to us then?

Jesus stands ready and willing to embrace any man in the Righteous Way of Christianity.  But who will consider these things and live?

Addition:

I have wondered why, in the story of the Rich man and Lazarus, Abraham sat on a hill overlooking Hell.  Can it be that Abraham and Lazarus were learning about the prospects of God’s Holy Promise to eternally punish the wicked?  (Luke 16: 19-31)

And I am reminded of the words of Christ Jesus, 9 “A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, 10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” 12 This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commands and remain faithful to Jesus. (Revelation 14)

Let us wake up to the reality of the Gospel’s power.  The promise of eternal life is TRUE!  The promise of eternal torment is TRUE!  Which will each man choose?  We all, every man, know.