Another message from God that can't be changed, written to the Church in Rome.
Romans 7:4
4Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God1. (ESV)
The old law, the law of Moses was the schoolmaster2 to bring the Jews to Christ. There are a lot of people that still want to keep some things from the law of Moses. Some people want to keep the instruments of music3. Some people are still tithing4. Tithing was money or goods paid to the Levitical priesthood. Some people want us to still observe the Sabbath Day. The ten commandments are still held up as something we are commanded from.
We need to decide if we're going to follow the law of Moses or the law of Christ5. The message that Christ has taken away the "ministration of death"6 or the "ministration of condemnation" is a message that can't be changed.
1. Other Ref. Colossians 2:10-14, Ephesians 2:15, Hebrews 10:1-10
2. Galatians 3:24
3. 2 Chronicles 29:25-29
4. Numbers 18:26
5. Galatians 6:2
6. 2 Corinthians 3:7-9
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Which Church did Paul try to destroy?
Have a few questions while I'm working on the next dusty idea.
Galatians 1:13 - For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.
Paul is writing to the Church in Galatia. He is bringing his past life in Judaism to their remembrance and how he persecuted the church violently and tried to destroy "it". This blog revolves around "it". "It" in this passage is called the church of God. In other passages we find church of the First Born, church of the Living God, and also the Churches of Christ. In our day and age there is confusion with denominations and what the Bible regards as "it". We're going to investigate that for a few minutes.
First off lets just start from scratch here and see who's Church it is. I can glean two things from Matthew 16:18 - And I say unto you, thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. No doubt here, its Christ's church, it belongs to him. If it belongs to him, why would a church be named after a man or a method? I can also see that it will last forever because the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So it's Christ's and its gonna last forever. So we can see from this that Paul was persecuting the church that Christ built.
Next question before we can figure out what "it" is. On the day of Pentecost when Peter preached the first gospel sermon, there were about 3000 souls added to the church that day. Were they all put in the same church or divided out into 6, 7, 8, 20 or 1500 different churches like all the denominations we have out here today? Well lets see, we're gonna make some of you guys baptists, some methodists, some lutherans, some of you can be catholics. Does the Bible say anything like that? When the apostles received the baptism of the Holy Ghost earlier in the day were they all in the same church? They were the first converts to Christianity. The Bible doesn't say they all went out from that place and picked a street corner and started their churches. Acts 2:44 says they all stayed in the same place and had all things common. They were in the same church and had the same doctrine and they all spoke the same thing.
Now back to the original thought, what church did Paul try to destroy?
Take the pattern of your church (How, when, who you worship) lay it over the original pattern found in the New Testament and see if it fits. This would take some time and trouble, but isn't your eternal destiny and the eternal destiny of your family and children worth some of your time? If it doesn't fit, it isn't the church that Paul persecuted, it isn't "it". The "mourners bench" and "praying through" is that in the Gospel? See if you can find where an alien sinner was told to pray to get saved. You'll be reading till Jesus comes and you'll never find it. What about "tarrying for the Holy Ghost"? Find me anybody in the Bible that was sprinkled as a form of baptism, it's not in there. Do you have a woman preaching at your congregation, find that for me in the Bible. Are people in your congregation waiting for the "rapture"? Are you waiting for Jesus to return and set up a kingdom on this earth? If your church has a doctrine that includes any of this stuff it's not "it".
Galatians 1:13 - For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.
Paul is writing to the Church in Galatia. He is bringing his past life in Judaism to their remembrance and how he persecuted the church violently and tried to destroy "it". This blog revolves around "it". "It" in this passage is called the church of God. In other passages we find church of the First Born, church of the Living God, and also the Churches of Christ. In our day and age there is confusion with denominations and what the Bible regards as "it". We're going to investigate that for a few minutes.
First off lets just start from scratch here and see who's Church it is. I can glean two things from Matthew 16:18 - And I say unto you, thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. No doubt here, its Christ's church, it belongs to him. If it belongs to him, why would a church be named after a man or a method? I can also see that it will last forever because the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So it's Christ's and its gonna last forever. So we can see from this that Paul was persecuting the church that Christ built.
Next question before we can figure out what "it" is. On the day of Pentecost when Peter preached the first gospel sermon, there were about 3000 souls added to the church that day. Were they all put in the same church or divided out into 6, 7, 8, 20 or 1500 different churches like all the denominations we have out here today? Well lets see, we're gonna make some of you guys baptists, some methodists, some lutherans, some of you can be catholics. Does the Bible say anything like that? When the apostles received the baptism of the Holy Ghost earlier in the day were they all in the same church? They were the first converts to Christianity. The Bible doesn't say they all went out from that place and picked a street corner and started their churches. Acts 2:44 says they all stayed in the same place and had all things common. They were in the same church and had the same doctrine and they all spoke the same thing.
Now back to the original thought, what church did Paul try to destroy?
Take the pattern of your church (How, when, who you worship) lay it over the original pattern found in the New Testament and see if it fits. This would take some time and trouble, but isn't your eternal destiny and the eternal destiny of your family and children worth some of your time? If it doesn't fit, it isn't the church that Paul persecuted, it isn't "it". The "mourners bench" and "praying through" is that in the Gospel? See if you can find where an alien sinner was told to pray to get saved. You'll be reading till Jesus comes and you'll never find it. What about "tarrying for the Holy Ghost"? Find me anybody in the Bible that was sprinkled as a form of baptism, it's not in there. Do you have a woman preaching at your congregation, find that for me in the Bible. Are people in your congregation waiting for the "rapture"? Are you waiting for Jesus to return and set up a kingdom on this earth? If your church has a doctrine that includes any of this stuff it's not "it".
Saturday, September 18, 2010
What must I do to be lost?
Dusty idea is the idea that I might be lost. What is lost? It means that you have died in your sins, and you will go to Gehenna or hell as described by Jesus in Matthew the 25th chapter. You will be in outer darkness for all eternity.
Most people you see will tell you that when they die they want to go to heaven. Most people aren't making any preparations to go there though. It's like the person that wanted to be a doctor when they grew up, but didn't want to study anything in school. They want, and they hope, but without any preparation how many patients do you think they'll get as a doctor? I know some people have fake degrees and get by with things for a while or maybe never get caught playing doctor. I promise you your fake Christian degree isn't going to fool God. You're not going to duck and dodge or slip and slide into heaven on some kind of accidental thing that God somehow forgot about you. If you go to heaven it will be because you have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ1. It will be because you believe it2. Then you repented3 of sinful practices. You confessed4 Christ as the Son of God. Then you contacted the blood of Jesus through baptism5 (not infant baptism but an accountable age), which blood washed6 your sins away. Then you continued following Jesus, seeking to save that which is lost7. Converting people like you once were. Then The Lord wrote your name in the Lamb's Book of Life8. Then you worshiped right, worked right and walked right so it wouldn't be blotted out9.
One of the ideas people seem to have is that God is going to just go around saving random good people or good as the world defines good. There aren't any good people Mark 10:18. Ephesians 5:23 says that Jesus is the savior of the body, you have to get into the body to be saved. He will not save you outside of the body.
What is the body? It's the Church, Colossians 1:24 Paul says Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
Are you in the body? The title of this dusty idea was what must I do to be lost, well here it is: don't do anything listed above in red. Whatever you do don't do that, because it's the only thing that can take you to heaven.
1 Acts 15:7
2 Mark 16:16
3 Acts 2:38
4 Luke 12:8
5 Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38, 1 Peter 3:21, Colossians 2:12
6 Eph. 1:7, 1 John 1:7, Revelation 1:5, Acts 22:16
7 Mark 16:15
8 Philippians 4:3, Revelation 21:27
9 Revelation 3:5
Most people you see will tell you that when they die they want to go to heaven. Most people aren't making any preparations to go there though. It's like the person that wanted to be a doctor when they grew up, but didn't want to study anything in school. They want, and they hope, but without any preparation how many patients do you think they'll get as a doctor? I know some people have fake degrees and get by with things for a while or maybe never get caught playing doctor. I promise you your fake Christian degree isn't going to fool God. You're not going to duck and dodge or slip and slide into heaven on some kind of accidental thing that God somehow forgot about you. If you go to heaven it will be because you have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ1. It will be because you believe it2. Then you repented3 of sinful practices. You confessed4 Christ as the Son of God. Then you contacted the blood of Jesus through baptism5 (not infant baptism but an accountable age), which blood washed6 your sins away. Then you continued following Jesus, seeking to save that which is lost7. Converting people like you once were. Then The Lord wrote your name in the Lamb's Book of Life8. Then you worshiped right, worked right and walked right so it wouldn't be blotted out9.
One of the ideas people seem to have is that God is going to just go around saving random good people or good as the world defines good. There aren't any good people Mark 10:18. Ephesians 5:23 says that Jesus is the savior of the body, you have to get into the body to be saved. He will not save you outside of the body.
What is the body? It's the Church, Colossians 1:24 Paul says Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
Are you in the body? The title of this dusty idea was what must I do to be lost, well here it is: don't do anything listed above in red. Whatever you do don't do that, because it's the only thing that can take you to heaven.
1 Acts 15:7
2 Mark 16:16
3 Acts 2:38
4 Luke 12:8
5 Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38, 1 Peter 3:21, Colossians 2:12
6 Eph. 1:7, 1 John 1:7, Revelation 1:5, Acts 22:16
7 Mark 16:15
8 Philippians 4:3, Revelation 21:27
9 Revelation 3:5
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Do people really believe in Heaven and Hell?
Dusty idea is Heaven and Hell are real. Heaven is wonderful enough to dream of and Hell is awful enough to be scared of.
Some of the things I do sometimes, makes me think I have the ability to forget that hell is real. It's not right in front of me, and it's not something I've ever seen or heard or smelled. I don't have a memory bank of first hand experiences to call up like I do for other things that have scared me in my past. I flipped a tow motor on it's side one day at work. That was a scary experience. I know exactly how I did it. When I drive a tow motor now do you think I won't do whatever it takes to avoid that same outcome? People don't have any experience with hell. There use to be a saying from Vietnam Vets that when they died they'd go to heaven, because they had spent their time in hell. I respect veterans of all wars, but if any of them think they have seen hell, they haven't seen anything yet. If people really believed in hell they would do whatever it takes to avoid that outcome.
One person that walked this earth knows exactly what hell is like. He's seen it, he helped prepare it and he's warning us about it. He left the warnings in a book called the Bible, more exactly in the New Testament. His name was Jesus. The apostle Paul taught Felix and his wife of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come in Acts 24:25 and it says that Felix trembled. It scared him so much he was shaking. I've had fellow Christians tell me that they wish preachers would stop talking about hell so much and just focus on the love of God. I think if reminding people of hell helps them to miss it, that's love you can't buy. You know that commercial on tv that use to end with something that was "priceless"?
Here goes.... Winning the lottery - $200 million dollars...... gaining the whole world - $999,999,999,999,999,999.00 + dollars.... Avoiding hell - PRICELESS!
What do you think would really happen if everyone believed in heaven and hell. People would probably study the treasure map that God through the Holy Spirit left us a lot more. It's amazing that people could have the map to the greatest treasure in the universe, the Bible, and decide it's not worth following.
Some of the things I do sometimes, makes me think I have the ability to forget that hell is real. It's not right in front of me, and it's not something I've ever seen or heard or smelled. I don't have a memory bank of first hand experiences to call up like I do for other things that have scared me in my past. I flipped a tow motor on it's side one day at work. That was a scary experience. I know exactly how I did it. When I drive a tow motor now do you think I won't do whatever it takes to avoid that same outcome? People don't have any experience with hell. There use to be a saying from Vietnam Vets that when they died they'd go to heaven, because they had spent their time in hell. I respect veterans of all wars, but if any of them think they have seen hell, they haven't seen anything yet. If people really believed in hell they would do whatever it takes to avoid that outcome.
One person that walked this earth knows exactly what hell is like. He's seen it, he helped prepare it and he's warning us about it. He left the warnings in a book called the Bible, more exactly in the New Testament. His name was Jesus. The apostle Paul taught Felix and his wife of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come in Acts 24:25 and it says that Felix trembled. It scared him so much he was shaking. I've had fellow Christians tell me that they wish preachers would stop talking about hell so much and just focus on the love of God. I think if reminding people of hell helps them to miss it, that's love you can't buy. You know that commercial on tv that use to end with something that was "priceless"?
Here goes.... Winning the lottery - $200 million dollars...... gaining the whole world - $999,999,999,999,999,999.00 + dollars.... Avoiding hell - PRICELESS!
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