Rev 11:16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God,
Rev 11:17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned.
Praise God!
Rev 11:18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Rev 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
Amazing.
And people refuse to believe that God is in control. People believe they are in charge of themselves and that's all that matters. There is no real beginning we can fathom, and there is no end. Forever things will always be the way they are until mankind destroys the earth, or the earth is destroy by an asteroid or some other natural disaster outside of mankind's control. Their lives are filled with heartaches and joy, pain and happiness, tragedies and triumphs. Yet, way too many people don't have an even mix of the two extremes of joy and heartache. Too many people have more heartache than joy. And happiness has been found in perversion- many, many perversions and at the expense of other human beings. We live in a very perverse world, and in most ages throughout earth's history each generation can say the same. An historian would be quick to tell people how things were in the first century- the horrors of living in that time. An historian could easily inform us of the horrors of the middle ages. An historian would have no trouble at all expounding on the horrors of the twentieth century. Yet during these times there are lulls in the horror at various places around the world. Those lulls make the horrors all that much more astounding. And these are just historic horrors we're discussing right now, we aren't discussing all the private perversions of mankind- and they've existed for a long, long, long time. Is this truly the sort of world that you want to choose to believe is all that exists for us? So many do believe this, they really, really do.
Then there is another sort of person who believes that there is another phase of existence and they will go there upon leaving this world- by dying. They believe they will take on a new form of life and that form will be untouched by all the horrors of this world. Depending upon who you talk to there are those who believe that their spirit form after death will have a whole new world of good and evil to live in as a spirit until they once more transform into a higher level of spirit form.
We're busy, busy, busy caught up in our suppositions and everything we think about on these subjects is centered around ourselves. Of course, who else can they be centered on? Even the most seemingly self-less person could be self-less selfishly, trying to garner good will towards themselves through their self-less acts. We only have ourselves. And yet we know that we have only so much control over ourselves. Not a single person controls whether or not some disease will befall them. Yes, there are some diseases we bring upon ourselves, but there are a whole slew of others we cannot control. Even the most health-conscious human being who does all the right things- eats right, exercises correctly, deals with stress in a healthy manner, even this person can get cancer, a brain tumor, a blot clot, have a weakened artery wall, birth defects that come about through NO fault of their own. The healthiest person will still end up dying of old age though they do all they can to keep themselves healthy. We only have so much control over ourselves. We cannot- barring extreme plastic surgery- change our appearance, change ourselves into another person. We cannot control the size of our bones, we cannot change the genetics within us that give us our complexion- even if we can do things to alter that complexion. It's undeniable that we are born with very little control over so much of ourselves. Even our personalities aren't under our full control. We are born with traits- inherited traits that try as we might we can't seem to get rid of.
If we have so little control over so much of ourselves then why are we centered on ourselves so much?
Jesus had this to say- Mat 10:30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
By who?
Mat 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
Mat 10:30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Mat 10:31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
Mat 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
Our Father in heaven.
Our Creator.
God's written word to us reveals this glorious story of mankind. The story is amazing and every bit of it is true, is fact.
Created sinless.
We sin.
We inherit death.
Created sinless.
He doesn't sin.
We inherit eternal life through Him.
We're born.
We live.
We're born again in Christ.
We live.
We die.
We sleep.
Our breath goes back to God.
Christ returns.
We wake.
We are given new bodies - sinless bodies created by Christ.
Rev 11:18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
Rev 11:19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
We will be judged- those who are going with Christ must be judged as being Christ's before they can go with Him. Those who are not Christ's will be judged as such as well. It won't matter what sin they possess- if they are not Christ's that alone is enough to be judged unworthy. We aren't judged worthy by our own merit, but by Christ's. No merit of ours will ever make us Christ's. Accepting that Christ alone can make us His, that Christ alone matters in this world of uncertainty and sin, along with the results of sin, is our duty. We have control over that choice. We have control over what we choose to believe. A lot of times you'll hear people say they have no control over their beliefs because they were raised to believe in a certain faith and that is all there is to it. They need to realize that they are choosing to believe the way they were taught, the way of their family, they are making a choice and they DO have that choice to make. Some have to make that choice under the threat of death. Believe in the way of their forefathers or die for abandoning that faith. Their choice is the hardest.
The control we have is over our choice of who to believe in- God, self, Satan, Allah, Buddha, Moon Goddess etcetera. This choice is all that truly matters yet we are so incredibly caught up in many, many things that we think have nothing to do with this choice, but the truth is everything we do is part of that choice- everything! While we might think we aren't making a choice we are every single day, every hour of every day. Every breath we take is taken under the choice we make. Do we live for God or for a false god? If we aren't living for God then we are living for a false god no matter what we name that god.
Judgment is something we all face and it's not necessarily at the end of our lives. There will be people alive when our Savior returns and some will be alive in Him and some won't- all of those alive will have faced a judgment that determined whether or not they are God's.
By the grace of our God may we choose always and forever to be His, in His righteousness, by His grace and love, and mercy. When we are judged may we be judged in Christ's righteousness, not our own. By His forgiveness.
Amen.
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