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 blood 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.
Please.
Amen.
******* Continuing our prophecy study-- Please GO back and READ the study from the beginning to gain full understanding of where we are if you haven't been following this study daily. Thank you :) We are on lesson number 92. God bless you! ******
