Tag: Truth

An Open Letter Regarding HEAL THE NATIONS

Heal the Nations is our annual conference.  On Wed 20th August, our second Heal the Nations kicks off.  We have an amazing array of guest speakers and we have a great worship leader.  We also have great ushers and hospitality people—a massive thanks for everyone who is involved.  I really love and appreciate you and your help!

Last year Heal the Nations helped people so much, and this year it is about to do the same again.  There is something about hearing the Word all day, worshipping all day and being in a positive atmosphere.  Healings happen, financial breakthroughs happen.  Lives change.  Freedom comes.  Vision comes.

I am just writing this to say that I want you to come to Heal the Nations, or at least as many sessions as you can.  Some people have contacted me and said “who is speaking when”… I have told them and indeed the speaker schedule is online—unlike a certain conference I have just been too where it was cloak and dagger!  But the truth is that if you come to hear one speaker although you will be encouraged and inspired by the Word, the whole conference has been planned with me carefully listening to God and asking who to speak and who to bring.  The messages I believe will blend together (like they did last year with each speaker mentioning that God was calling us to a feast) in a special way to inspire you and give you a healthy balanced diet that you may grow thereby.

I don’t want people to come so I can say “there were xxx people at Heal the Nations.” I don’t care—in fact the less people the more personal attention we all get!  I don’t want you to come to give in the offering, it has all been paid for in advance because of the generosity of this church and the wise planning of finances.

I want you to come because I know it will be the most awesome time of spiritual growth in your life.  I go to conferences, I know about many conferences—I know some are all about money, I know some are all about bragging that our conference is bigger than that conference.  I know that we are doing Heal the Nations for you.  God wants you to be healthy, He wants you to receive the Word in its entirety, He wants you to be a church changer, a nation changer, a world changer.  He wants you to be fully equipped to do the works of ministry.  All of the preachers at Heal the Nations are equippers—their heart is your best.  They wouldn’t be invited if it wasn’t so.

So whatever you are doing Aug 20th-23rd, plan to be where you can be equipped to be all God wants you to be.  Plan to be where the Word and the Spirit come together, where grace and faith are mixed together, and where dreams come true! 

Plan to be at an event that is going to help you, heal you, equip you, inspire you, challenge you, encourage you and lift you!

Plan to be where revival isn’t prayed for but is happening.  Plan to be where you are going to find out your destiny and begin to walk in your destiny.

Plan to be at Heal the Nations.

http://www.healthenations.net

Faith Works By Love

 

 
  • For years the faith movement has been telling people that “faith works by love”. It’s true, that’s how faith works, but they misunderstood “by love”, telling us that faith only works when we love.

    If we don’t love people, forgive people, help people, serve people, show compassion on people, help people, live for people then our faith won’t work, we will stay sick, stay poor, stay in defeat and that’s that.

    So we responded. We made our love confessions, we strained to feel good feelings for people who annoyed us, we made ourselves human doormats, we became our pastor’s armour bearers serving them to the detriment of our own families. In the name of love, we strained to the point we became unbearable to live with. Then we stayed poor, stayed sick, stayed in defeat and rather than receiving God’s grace and healing and prosperity and victory we wailed our lack of love, we condemned our unforgiveness, we beat ourselves up for not loving enough, not feeling enough love and not doing enough – no matter how much we did do and how much we sacrificed.

    The truth (which will set you free as you read this): the love that empowers our faith is not our feeble, human, limited, pathetic, self-obsessed, impure, roller coaster feeling of love; not that which we squeeze out of our hearts and then kick the dog the next moment because our heart now hurts so bad. It’s not even our love at all: it’s HIS LOVE.

    Faith doesn’t work because you have earned enough brownie points loving people. It works when you realize that no matter what you have done, no matter what you have felt, no matter what you have felt, no matter how half-hearted you have been, no matter how much you hurt inside: GOD STILL LOVES YOU.

    His love is unending, unconditional, undeserved. It is not a still, logical, passive love: GOD IS LOVE. He is alive with love for you, He is buzzing, sparking, zapping with love for you. He made you because He needed a vessel to love with all the love inside Him. He redeemed you through Christ and His death and resurrection just so He could pour that love inside you and love you from the inside out.

    God is eternal, and every moment of that eternity is crammed with His love for you. God is infinite – and every iota of that space is exploding with the heat of a million suns with love for you. It’s not love based on your goodness, your strength, your joy, your ability to do. It’s love that comes straight from His nature, His heart, His being. The core of God is love for you.

    God is all-powerful and every ounce of His infinite strength is for you not against you. God can think a million thoughts at once, and all of them are thoughts on how to prosper you, how to get you through, how to make your life heaven on earth. His whole nature is love.

    When you realize the depths of His love for you, and when you grasp that He will never let you go, never let you down, never do or think anything that is not for your highest. When you realize that Christianity is not your utmost for His highest, but His utmost for your Highest; when you find out that you are not a sinner in the hand of an angry God, but a child of a loving Father. When you find out that the faith-life isn’t about your love for Him, but His love for you: then FAITH WORKS.

    Why wouldn’t He heal me when He adores me? Why wouldn’t I get the promotion at work? HE ADORES ME. HE LOVES ME. He wants me to have good things to enjoy. He wants to supply my needs according to His riches in glory. He is awesome to me. He can’t stop thinking about me.

    Of course I am going to walk in victory because He loves me. Passionately. Always. Not based on what I do, but based on what He has done.

    That’s why faith works by love: it’s easy to believe good things are going to happen to me the more I realize and grasp and meditate on His love for me.

Ten Reasons to Speak in Tongues…

10.  You edify yourself and build yourself up

9. You train your mind to shut up and listen to your spirit speaking out of your mouth

8. You build up yourself in the faith

7. You speak mysteries to God

6. You can pray with the spirit, and then interpret and pray with understanding.  It’s a better way to pray!

5. You can pray in tongues in the car, walking to work, doing the dishes – in any situation in which your mind is unfruitful

4. Paul prayed in tongues and he told us that we should imitate him

3. Mary prayed in tongues, and that’s just awesome!

2. In the early church, they all spoke with tongues – and the church hasn’t changed since then.

1. Jesus said “In my name, you will speak in tongues”

You Are Greater than Elijah!

Matthew 11.11 says “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Think about that statement for a minute! The group of people born of women includes Elijah, Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joshua, Hosea and Elisha! And Jesus said clearly that John the Baptist was greater than all of them. And then Jesus said – just as clearly – that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.

Do you realize the magnitude of what Jesus has said? You might be the worst Christian on the planet, the least Christian in the history of the world – but you are greater than Isaiah, than David, than Abraham, than Moses, than Elijah!

You are a born again Christian. You are right with God. You have the same spirit inside you that raised Christ from the dead. You can speak and it happens. You can live a life of freedom, grace and wisdom that the Old Testament Christians could only dream about!

They had to beg for the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit lives in you and will never leave you.
They had a set of commandments to obey to be blessed, you are already blessed.
They had accredited righteousness, you have been made righteous.
They had faith in God, you have the faith of God inside you
They had dead spirits, you have a living spirit.
They had to contend with the accuser of the brethren, you live in an age where the devil has been completely dealt with.

The Mandate for a Grace Filled, Guilt Free, New Testament Church

Arthur’s messages during our Restoring Leaders conference have really challenged me and lifted my thinking.  He is possibly the single most powerful Bible teacher in our generation (yes, I know I have said something superlative there and I have considered my thoughts and words carefully).

Something he said several times was this: we have to take a stand.  And that is so true.  It’s all right claiming that we are a grace church, and that we are a church that take the New Covenant and the complete work of Christ seriously, but then when it comes to worship we sing “I’m so hungry, so desperate, I’m going to the enemy’s camp, I surrender all” when it’s nothing to do with “I” but with “HIM”.  This Sunday I determined to only select songs that would be appropriate in heaven – that led to me rejecting a huge number of songs.  Well over 80% of what is written today is about us, about begging God, and about “warring with the enemy”.

That is not the worship of heaven and it should not be the worship of the redeemed either.

Then we have the offering and we beg and plead for money and make prosperity something you have to “DO” to be prosperous, when prosperity is rooted in the redemptive work NOT IN OUR ACTIONS!

No – I am taking my stand.  This Sunday.  If I lose 1/2 the church, then that is what will happen, but Tree of Life Church is a New Testament Church.  We are not going back to the law.  I have already dealt with a lot of this in the series I did on Witchcraft in the Church, but I am going back to this ground and staking a claim.  The foundation of our church is God’s grace as found in the complete redemptive work of Jesus.

No more do to be.  No more heavy burdens.  No more guilt, no more fear, no more shame.  No more condemnation.  No more law – law was our master until grace set us free.

That nagging, doubting, harsh voice inside you – IT’S NOT GOD!  He loves you.  He adores you.  He only has thoughts to prosper you.  He isn’t angry at you, and he isn’t mad at you, and He isn’t out to get you.  

When people say it’s greasy grace: GOOD!  We need to slide in, we couldn’t even walk in through the door of works, none of us could!

When people try and make you feel ashamed because you preach and believe grace and that the law is over, let them know: you are NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL!

I’ll let you know how it goes.  I believe it will go awesome because God is initiating it, and God is in it. And our church are a bunch that just want to know His Word so they can know Him better.

 

 

Harmony House *IMPORTANT NEWS*

Starting April 4th (Easter Sunday) and every Sunday morning following we are meeting between 10.30am and 1pm in Harmony House for worship, fellowship and the preaching of the Word.

You are more than welcome to attend these meetings.  Don’t feel that you have to dress up or prepare to come and meet with us.  We welcome you as you are!  We have a crèche for pre-school children and a children’s ministry for 6-14s.

The address for Harmony House is:

Harmony House
Baden Powell Close
Dagenham
Essex
RM9 6XN

You can get directions to Harmony House here.

Romans 2.2-3

But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

Religious people often think that they are immune from laws that apply to everyone else, as if their religious rituals and rites make them immune.

If you read 2 Chronicles 26.1-15 you will the story of Uzziah, and it is a wonderful story of a brilliant king. He was a man of vision, a man who sought the Lord, a man who built many wonderful things. You could preach many sermons on these verses about the need to have a vision, the need to seek the Lord, the need to be bold and build great things for God and do great things for God.

But I want to focus on what happens next because we need to know what to do when we prosper. We need to know how to avoid the pitfalls of success. God wants us to succeed, and God will heal you, bless you, prosper you and make you a success. If you spend time in his Word you will be a good success and everything you do will prosper. Look at what happens next to Uzziah:

But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the LORD followed him in. They confronted him and said “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honoured by the LORD God.

Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the LORD’s temple, leprosy broke out on his forehead. When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead so they hurried him out. Indeed he himself was eager to leave, because the LORD had afflicted him. King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house where he was relieved of responsibilities, leprous and excluded from the temple of the LORD. Jotham his son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land. Uzziah rested with his fathers and was buried near them in a field for burial that belonged to the kings, for people said, “He had leprosy.” – 2 Chronicles 26.16ff

The Bible said as long as Uzziah sought the Lord he prospered. But at the height of his success, he went wrong. We have had in the charismatic church far too many people go wrong at the height of their success. And one of the reasons why some people go wrong is religious pride.

Now I am only writing this to people who are seeking the Lord and increasing in success because if you do not really care about the things of God, this problem will never happen to you. If you read 2 Chronicles 26.16 you find that when Uzziah got pride into his life he went to the temple of God. His pride led him to the temple of God – not to the world. This is not worldly pride; most Christians would be too smart to fall for worldly pride. This is religious pride – it goes to church, it prays and it wraps itself up in the pretence of being Biblical.

And one of the greatest problems of religious pride is that it makes you think that the rules that apply to every one do not apply to you. That what you judge and condemn other people for doing you will have no consequences for.

Uzziah knew his history – as a king he would have had to have known the history of his nation. In his case, it was even more important because the history of Israel is the history of a God who makes and keeps promises to people. Uzziah knew the stories of Abraham, Moses, Saul and David probably better than most Christians do today. Uzziah must have known that Saul offered a sacrifice he was not supposed to and stepped into a calling that was not his – and Uzziah must have known that this action cost Saul the kingdom. (The story is found in 1 Samuel 13, and contains one of the most important statements that will prevent religious pride: “To obey is better than sacrifice.”)

Uzziah knew that Saul tried to fulfil a priestly role and it cost him the kingdom. Yet Uzziah thought he could repeat Saul’s sin and not have Saul’s consequences. Why? Religious Pride!

When I was a teenager I remember reading in the newspaper about the Bishop of Gallaway who mysteriously vanished. When he was found again, it transpired that he had run away with a married woman. When he was interviewed in the newspaper, I remember he actually said that because he had spent 20 years sacrificing and serving God he was entitled to a weekend off. This was a blatant example of religious pride: the bishop saw the source of his serving God and sacrifice as himself, not the grace of God. He thought that he was above the rules that applied to other people because of his great service to God.

Now I am sure that most people reading this would never assume because they have twenty years good service they are entitled to a dirty weekend! However, we do act at times like we are exempt from rules that apply to other people. More recently in a discussion with a pastor he told me that he never tithed or gave offerings because he was in full time ministry and had given his life to Jesus. This is an example of making yourself exempt from rules that apply to others, because of his “great” sacrifice. It is religious pride.

I think sometimes we treat our religious services like a Tesco Clubcard. If we do enough religious works, we get enough points and we can trade them in for something we like. I can watch this rubbish on TV because I prayed this morning. I can be rude to that person because I lead worship at church and it is hard work.

This is the message of Romans 2: God does not work on a points system. It is all grace. So stop condemning other people. Stop pointing out how other people are unclean and unworthy – of course they are and so are you. Let’s realize we all need the grace of God and start showing that grace to the church and the world.

To serve God fully, we need a vision of God. We will never have a commissioning to bring the Word of God to this nation; we will never have a revelation of God’s holiness and goodness until we deal with the attitude of Uzziah – the attitude of religious pride – and eradicate it from our lives:

In the year king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim: each one had six wings, with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet and with two he flew.

And one cried to another and said:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

Selah.

Romans 1.25

Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Here we find the process of degradation of any nation, any community, any person who rejects God spiral even more out of control.

Let’s look at what has happened so far:

An individual or a community or a nation has rejected God by failing to give Him the weight He deserves, failing to be grateful to Him, failing to keep their imaginations under control and failing to keep in the Word. (v. 21)

This individual or community starts to call himself or itself intelligent, wise and rational. It starts to see pride as an asset, not a sin. At this exact moment, they become foolish and start making bad decisions (v. 22).

This individual or community turns to false idols, drawing strength from and giving worship and time and energy to false gods. (v. 23).

This individual or community then turns to unclean practises – helping people with mixed motives, sexual immorality and the degrading of their bodies in sexual acts outside of marriage. (v. 24)

You might recognise yourself in this list! You might realize that you are starting the spiral. It all starts with being unthankful – and it never happens overnight.

When you read of a “successful” man of God falling into some horrific sexual sin or being caught in some financial compromise, you often think: well, if it could just happen to them, it could just happen to anyone. Let me tell you something: it did not just happen to them. It cannot just happen to anyone.

You cannot have a harvest without a seed being sown. This is a spiritual and physical law that is part of the nature of God and is woven into the spiritual realm and the physical realm. A serious action of sin does not happen instantly. You cannot jump from Romans 1.21 to Romans 1.25 without going through the steps in between.

You have to be failing to thank God, failing to keep your imagination under control, be turning to idolatry and then finally – after a long process – do you end up with something publically known. We only see the public exposure and the public fall of a minister, but we do not see that for a long time that individual was not grateful to God and was not keeping their imagination under check and was not feeding from the Word.

In this process, it starts to become obvious that someone is rejecting God. You can keep your lack of control of imagination secret. You can keep your lack of gratitude to God secret. You can even keep your sexual immorality secret – for a season. But you cannot keep your exchange of truth for a lie a secret – because you aren’t even aware of the problem to hide it. You will make statements in front of people and then be surprised that they as Christians are shocked at what you say. You don’t even know the lie is a lie! With great sin comes great deception, which brings great errors in theology, in practise and in what you think and believe.

At this point, you are so unclean and have so rejected God and His standards and goodness, you actually cannot grasp the truth. You end up believing lies. There is an old cliche that says if you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.

If you do not stand up for God, stand up against circumstances by giving God the glory due His name, stand up against your flesh when it wants to grumble and not thank God, stand up against your imagination when it wants to imagine doom and gloom and lust and filth, stand up against sexual temptation when it comes your way… if you do not stand up for God, you will accept and receive a lie.

The Greek word for lie here is pseudos. Webster’s defines pseudo- as an adjective that means “being apparently rather than actually as stated”. In other words, it is all pretend. For example: pseudonymn is a pretend name, pseudoscience is something pretending to be science and pseudo-intellectual is when someone pretends to be an intellectual.

If you do not stand for God’s truth, you will fall for imitations. You will buy a fake religion, fake ideas and ultimately a fake god. This is not the way forward! What will be worse is that you will not be able to tell the difference between the fake and the real.

If you notice you are on this spiral, get back to thanking and glorifying God now before you end up unable to tell the difference between truth and fake.

Glory and freedom,

Benjamin

Romans 1.18

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

This is a very serious verse and one that needs considerable contemplation by all Christians. Let’s first of all define the phrase “wrath of God”. The Greek word is orge (pronounced or-gay) and it can mean violent emotions or it can mean punishment.

Most commentaries I read seem to lean towards defining orge in this verse as violent emotions. This goes back to the Calvinist idea that God is angry with the world. I even read one commentary that said that God hates sinners – that if you sin, God hates you until you repent.

I believe whole heartedly that this idea of “sinners in the hand of an angry God” is a false one. We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God, and we were never sinners in the hands of an angry God! We were sinners, but God was not angry. Now, as Christians, we are not sinners any more: we are righteous saints in the hands of a loving Father.

The preacher of “sinners in the hands of an angry God” first transcribed sermon was about how God will not save anyone who comes to Him in sincere faith, as God can do what He likes and God will only save who He wants to save! People in his church were so depressed by his preaching that some of them committed suicide, including his own uncle. He then said that it was God that made them kill themselves! If I thought that unless I was specially chosen by God there was no way I could be redeemed from sin, no matter how much I wanted to be, I think I would be suicidal too! It is utterly Biblically incorrect to say that we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, yet many Christians use this era of Christianity as their benchmark of living Christianity and ignore the book of Acts!

Let’s look at this topic of the wrath of God across the wider Biblical teaching of God and then let’s look at this within the context of Romans 1 and unpick what this verse means. I believe it means that the legal punishment of God is revealed, not God’s emotional anger.

Firstly, let me say that the Bible is clear that God is pure and righteous and holy. Godliness is about being pure and acting right and living holy. I am not for sin – sin is a killer: sin will keep you enslaved and take you places where death can attack and destroy you. However, the sin problem has been dealt with. Sin will never affect your relationship and intimacy with God.

You see when God created Adam and Eve and when they first sinned, God did not punish them. Pain in childbirth, having to work and sweat to make the world produce, difficulty in relationships, being dead spiritually and eventually dying physically were not placed on Adam and Eve by God – they were just the natural consequences of kicking God out of your life and your planet. God gave Adam and Eve planet Earth and they booted God out of it – no wonder the planet is in a mess! No wonder marriages are in a mess – they booted God out of marriage! No wonder child-rearing and producing a living are such hard work – they booted God out of these things!

God wasn’t punishing them, they were just dealing with the natural consequences of their actions. If you live a promiscuous lifestyle and catch a sexually transmitted disease, God didn’t put that on you – it is simply the natural consequence of you actions. If you eat 5000+ calories a day, and you have a heart attack – God didn’t do it. If you drink and drive and crash your car, God didn’t do it. If you sin and end up in hell because you never accepted the redemptive work of Christ at Calvary, God didn’t send you to hell – it is simply the consequence of your actions.

God found Adam and Eve and clothed them with the skin of an animal. God brought death into an animal, so that Adam and Eve could live. That is not the actions of someone who is “violently emotional and angry”. You don’t make a sacrifice for someone you hate.

Now, God continually showed love and affection to the human race. Cain murdered his brother and God marked him. The mark of Cain wasn’t judgment it was mercy: it said that you couldn’t punish Cain. It was protection. You don’t protect a murderer if you are violently emotional and angry.

However, people took the love and mercy of God and the goodness of God for granted. The world became more and more wicked, and people such as Lamech said essentially if Cain could murder and God still loved him, I will go and murder who I like. The goodness of God leads to repentance (Romans 2.4) but not if we take it for granted.

So God had to develop a system of laws. He had to wipe out everyone in a flood. But God did it as a discipline and a punishment for sin – not out of a temper. He is our Father – if a father disciplines and punishes a son, that is fine. If my son was rude or stole something, I would punish them in some appropriate way. But, if I did it out of violent anger (which I have on occasion lost my temper at my children and had to repent of it) then you would say that this was bad parenting. How much more is God a good Father?

He flooded the world because He was the judge of the world, not because He violently hated mankind. Someone in a violent emotional state would not have led Noah to build an ark and waited 100 years to discipline humanity, spending that time calling them to repent with a powerfully anointed preacher. Violently angry people do not wait 100 years pleading with people to change!

He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because He had to stop their wickedness spreading. Violently angry people don’t wait until people escape before destroying a city – God did.

You see this idea of God being violently angry and needing to be placated is actually a pagan idea, not a Christian one. The truth is that sin does need a punishment, a death, but God is the one providing the lamb that takes away the sin of the world, not the one looking for it. We are the ones looking for it, and we found it at Calvary – the love of God in a human, giving up His life for us. That is the nature of God.

God must punish sin. The wages of sin is death, and if you die in sin you will go to hell. Sin cannot enter heaven. God’s justice demands that sin is punished. But the love of God triumphs over sin through Calvary. Mercy has triumphed over justice.

This is what this verse is talking about, not a God in heaven looking at people enjoying getting them and blasting them and being violently angry at them. It is a God who knows that sin must be punished and needs to deal with that so that He doesn’t have to punish sin. God doesn’t want anyone going to hell, God doesn’t want anyone sick, anyone suffering, God loves people! Your ungodliness must be punished, your unrighteousness has to be punished! But Jesus was punished so you don’t have to be!

The context of Romans 1.18 is the gospel. The whole reason we need the good news of Jesus is the wrath of God. Not the capricious anger of God, but the punishment of God. God must punish every sin you have ever committed, every impure thought you have ever had. But far from being violently angry with you, God loves you so much that He gave up His only Son to die your death, to bear your iniquity, to take the punishment for your sin – so you could have eternal life, so you could be righteous and pure and so you could have a relationship with God! Selah!

You deserved hell, Jesus went there so you don’t have to. You deserved death, but you are going to live forever if you accept by faith that Jesus took your place. This is the good news. The wrath of God is what makes the good news good news. If there is no wrath of God, then the gospel is meaningless. If sin did not warrant death, then the gospel is useless.

But let that realization of a clear punishment for sin lead you to say that God is an angry God – He is a God who only has thoughts to prosper you not to harm you. Angry people cannot think like that. God is angry – but not at humans, He is angry at injustice, He is angry at ignorance, He is angry that the devil keeps tripping people up and lying to them and making them think that He hates them. He is angry at anything that stops you and Him enjoying fellowship and friendship. But He is not angry at you.

Look at Isaiah 54.7-8:

8In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.
9For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.

God compares His never being wroth (angry) with us again like the promise that He will never flood the earth again. They are as important to Him. Every Christian knows that God will never flood the world again like He did. You need to know as well and as deeply in your spirit that God will NEVER be wroth with you. Ever.

Next time you see a rainbow, thank God that He is not and will never be angry with you. The wrath of God was entirely poured out on Jesus, the entire punishment for the sin of the world was laid entirely on Him.

That is good news!

Careless Atheist (Ray Comfort)

Careless Atheist-Ray Comfort

“I became an atheist to distance myself from people like you, but since becoming an atheist I’ve found that I don’t care – I honestly don’t care – if there is a God. I don’t care if there is an afterlife. I don’t care if I’m going to Hell. Oh, you can say all you want about that, I just don’t care. You can’t save me.”

And I don’t believe a word you are saying. If you became an atheist to distance yourself from people like me, why are you writing to me? You may say that you don’t care, but you do, and so do I.

I care enough to get up on a soapbox thousands of times and look like a fool, to plead with people like you who either say that they don’t care about their eternal welfare, or show that they don’t by their godless lifestyle.

But the Bible teaches that sinful mankind doesn’t “care” about God. He gave them life itself and they don’t care. He gave them eyes to see His incredible creation, ears to listen to incredible music, taste buds to enjoy incredible food, and they don’t care. As the Psalmist says, “God is not in their thoughts,” and yet at the same time they vainly use His name as a cuss word.

If you had to give up one of those senses, which would it be? Sight? You don’t care if you go blind? How about giving up your taste? Or your hearing? Imagine, never seeing a beautiful rose or a sunset, or the color blue ever again, or never tasting good food, or hearing the music of a bird in the early morning? If you are sane, you care.

But the loss of those precious senses are nothing compared to giving up your soul. You “soul” is the real you. It’s the interchangeable Bible word for your life. Your soul looks out the windows you call “eyes.” It’s your soul that responds to the 10,000 friendly little taste buddies on your tongue. Your soul listens to the amazing sounds that are pulled into your inner ear. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Familiarity does breed contempt. Jesus said that if a man gained the entire world but lost his soul, he is the biggest of losers.

Yet, every day more than 80 Americans “don’t care” enough to take their own lives. Life’s circumstances have tragically driven them to that terrible point. Atheism is your first step in that direction. You owe it nothing.

You are right about one thing though. I can’t save you. Only God can. So after you have read these words of mine, how about reading the words of God? Read Matthew chapter 5-7 and get a glimpse of His perfect holiness. Then think about how we all justly deserve Hell if God is that holy, and think about how Jesus cared enough to take your punishment upon Himself–to pay your fine so that the Judge of the universe could dismiss your case. What more could you want?

An atheist’s question . . .

“Do you ever doubt the existence of God? And if so, why?”

Do I ever doubt the existence of God? Not for a moment. However, an intellectual belief in God’s existence is really a non-issue. This is why: I live in a solid, well-made house. Do I ever doubt the existence of a builder? Not for a moment.

My wife has a well-made and reliable vehicle. Do I ever doubt (for some strange reason) the existence of a car maker? Not for a moment.

I own a well-made computer…I’m sure you get the message. I never doubt that there was a maker of these things, because these things can’t make themselves. My common sense tells me that they had to be made by someone with an intelligent mind. The alternative is ludicrous.

However, the issue I think you may be driving at is rather, “Does my faith in God ever waver?” The answer to that one is the same. Do I ever doubt God? Not for a moment. There’s a reason for this unwavering faith.

If you asked me if I ever waver when it comes to faith in my wife, I would answer the same–not for a moment. This is because I trust her with all of my heart. She is a trustworthy person. She always keeps her word. However, there is a possibility that she could let me down. That could happen because she is a sinner. She is fallible. But God is not. He is without sin, so you can totally trust Him with all of your heart, and you will never, ever, be disappointed in Him.

Life’s terrible circumstances may shake you to the core, but if you catch a glimpse of God’s incredible integrity as well as His ability to keep His word, and therefore you trust Him, your faith will only grow through life’s lion’s den experiences. His promises are immutable. They are a solid rock. See Matthew 7:24-25 for details.

Not the Wisest Thing to do

“So if I were to blaspheme the Holy Spirit would you still try to convert me?” Templar Ben

I can’t “convert” a soul. It’s God that does the converting. However, I will continue to plead with you and others to seek His mercy as long as I have a heartbeat.

There was a group of folks who received national publicity some time ago who aired videos of themselves on line, saying that they were blaspheming God. They were called “The Blasphemy Challenge,” and their challenge was, “Do you dare accept the Blasphemy Challenge? Show the world how sure you are that the Christian God doesn’t exist!”

I knew (and liked) their leader, so I emailed him with a little advice. I reminded him that the name “God,” when translated into Arabic is “Allah,” and that it wasn’t wise in today’s political climate to create a video of yourself, saying (when translated into Arabic), “My name is such and such, and I blaspheme Allah, and I am not afraid.” Moslems have murdered those who have mocked their prophet (let alone their god), and they threatened a school teacher with death, simply because she named a teddy bear after him.

Since sending that email I have noticed that the leader of “The Blasphemy Challenge” seems to have disappeared. My friend Brian Sapient used a fake name, but the faces and real names of those atheists who responded to his challenge are still permanently on the Internet for all the world to see. If I was one of them, I would be praying. www.LivingWaters.com
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By Ray Comfort

Email: email@livingwaters.com

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