The Parachute
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Author Ber berry@detailshere.com
Victory
is not how long you live or how rich you've become, or how big a house you
have acquired,
nor how many cars and toys you've accumulated, or how many women (or men) you've slept with.
Victory
is dying with a pure heart covered by the blood of the lamb so that at death our spirit can enter Heaven
and escape Hell,
where most people's spirits will go. When Jesus tells us to enter through
the strait gate
of salvation but wide is the
gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, Mathew 7:13, He means
just that.
The
LORD does not look at the things worldly man looks at.. Man looks at the outward
appearance,
but the LORD looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)
The entire message that God's Bible delivers can
be summed up in one short 60 second video found at http://www.godsolovestheworld.com/.
God is not so much interested in compliance
as He is in character.
God engineers our lives so that there are many moments of
character development. Once character is in place, obedience is the resulting
natural by-product. A leader with a heart for God will obey. It’s just who he
is. That’s
the way God wants it. Although
the Bible was written over the course of 1,600 years by 40 different authors
from widely
different occupations, cultures,
and time periods on varied and controversial subjects, they
essentially all agreed with each other
– a phenomenon unparalleled in literature.
Why
concern yourself with the message of the Bible? Because we are out of
time. Most all of the
things prophesied in the Bible have already come to pass. What little is yet to happen
is unfolding
rapidly to those that are paying attention and know what to expect. Revelation, the last
chapter in the Bible,
is playing out as this is being written. Jesus is coming soon for His bride. You don't want
to be one of the
ten virgins who forgot their oil and wasn't prepared to meet the bridegroom
(Matthew 25).
My
mission with this booklet
is to keep your soul and spirit from going to hell when you die.
It's that simple. That’s my goal. Of the
150,000 people that die on
this earth every day, the spirit of most go to hell at death. Why? Jesus gives
us the reason
in Hosea 4:6, "My people are destroyed for lack
of knowledge..." My job is to give you
the
knowledge spoken of here. It’s
your job to either take that knowledge and daily wear the parachute
of Jesus,
change your lives via the holy spirit living within you so you are righteous in the
Father’s eyes,
or suffer the torments of hell when you die. That is it in a nutshell. Sincerity
and being a good old boy will
never save a
soul from the consequences of believing error or choosing to ignore the
salvation issue.
This booklet, written in the simplest language possible,
without the big words, to reach as many people
as is practical, will teach you about the Jesus Parachute, your
lifeline to eternal life and not death.
It's not about being saved for a day by reciting
the sinner's prayer once in your lifetime. That prayer may
save you for a day, a week or even a month. Being saved every day requires a
daily walk with Jesus and
effort on your part
to allow the Holy Spirit who wants to live within you to change your heart,
change your
mind, change your speech, change your thoughts, change your character, and change your behavior.
Yes, we are only saved by grace, not by the works we do, but grace is not a license to freely
sin. If our
deeds, thoughts, speech and actions do not reflect the holy spirit living
within us, it simply shows we
have head knowledge, not faith. Sin needs to become the infrequent exception in our life, and not the
rule.
This booklet is the result of thousands of hours of research and study to
determine the important things
we need to know about our short life here on earth as
well as our infinitely long life in the hereafter. There
are things we need to
know in order to make that transition to the spirit realm successfully, ensuring we
end up in
the right place; heaven, and not hell. It
is not an issue to be taken lightly nor one to be ignored.
This information is
strictly non denominational. Christianity is not a particular
religious affiliation. Christ's
church is not a particular affiliation, but those who choose to follow His ways.
Jesus tells us if we love Him
to keep His commandments. Do You? The Bible does not preach a gospel of prosperity
and good times.
It preaches the good news of hoped for redemption. We are addressing the redemption issue. The people
2000 years ago
expected Jesus to come as a lion and rule the earth, but instead He came as a lamb and
they didn't recognize Him. His mission then of saving mankind from Satan's
stranglehold was different
than His mission this time around at the second
coming. Satan was defeated
2000 years ago when
Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected. Today the new age Jesus is the lamb but the real Jesus
is coming back as a lion and will rule the earth with a rod of steel. Don't be sucked into new age thinking.
When Jesus
comes back this time the tares, (weeds, the wicked) will be burned (destroyed).
Mathew 13:30 and 13:40.
As I do not pastor
for any particular affiliation
or church, I am
not under any particular church’s rules about what I can or cannot share with you.
For the
most part churches don't venture into gray areas or deal in information outside of what
the Bible specifically
says. And as you know, much of what the Bible says is subject to
interpretation. I do venture into areas outside
Bible scripture to help clarify what scripture is actually trying to tell us. I don’t know of any church
that will reveal
to you what I am going to share with you here in this booklet.
Today’s churches preach
messages of comfort instead of educating you with what you need to know
in order
to make the trip to heaven at death. Heaven is real, and so is hell. Both places exist today; now. If
you studied
hell as much as I have, and would come to realize just how terrible
a place it is, you would do everything in your
power to ensure as many people as
possible are reached with the message of salvation so they would not
chance going there
when they die. There are many things you are not being told when you go to
church that
you need to learn about and understand. These things are
critical to your salvation. Salvation is the most critical
aspect of our whole life and many don’t even
know what the word means. Many think of the Bible as a book
of stories or
myths, not realizing it IS God’s word and it IS our roadmap to heaven. Our
short life here on earth
is only a testing grounds to determine our eternal destiny after our human
elemental body dies and our soul
(mind) and spirit move on.
Do
all good people go to heaven when they die? Can
you get to heaven on your own good deeds and by
being a good person? Did you ever wonder about how good you would have to be to
make it to heaven without
Jesus as Savior? Well, God has told us how well we would have to do to get into
heaven. He has revealed the
passing grade in His class of life. Do you know what it is? Jesus
said: "Be perfect, therefore as your Father,
which is in heaven, is perfect" (Matthew 5: 48). There
it stands! That's the passing grade! The amazing thing
is that God doesn't grade on a curve. God says, "Be perfect"!
Is that possible? Well, no, in fact it is absolutely
impossible. When you commit your first sin as a child, you have
failed with plan A. But God HAS provided an
“out” for us sinners,
Plan B, through His son, Jesus; Yahshua our Messiah.
The
“out” – the other way to get heaven without having to be “perfect”.
If you willingly
accept Jesus as your savior (one who does for you what you cannot do for
yourself) His
righteousness is substituted for your sinfulness in the eyes of the Father. This
is called grace, a free gift that
can’t be earned, is not merited, and isn’t deserved. But
you DO have to accept this gift and show your belief
in that acceptance by repentance - your changed thoughts, words, actions, and deeds regarding
your behavior.
Grace is not a license to freely sin and there is a difference between knowing Jesus and
knowing ABOUT Jesus.
Putting your faith in
Jesus is the only pathway to heaven.
What
does it mean to "put your faith in Jesus Christ?"
It means to
personally trust in Jesus the same way you would trust in a parachute if
you had to jump out of
an airplane at 25,000 feet . The parachute would be the only support device that
would allow a safe landing.
You wouldn’t just "believe" in the parachute; you would put it on!
In the same way, the Bible says, "Put
on the Lord Jesus Christ..." and you will be saved. There are millions of
people who "believe" Jesus
exists (even the devil and his demons believe Jesus exists) . . . but they have
not put on the Savior. There’s
a BIG difference. And the difference will be obvious when you “jump” through
the door of death. That's our
focus; the parachute. Little else is important except the parachute and learning
why you need it, how you
obtain it, and how you keep it.
What
is the parachute? The
parachute is Jesus of course, the substitution of His righteousness for
our
sinfulness in the eyes of the Father. If you don’t accept Jesus as your Savior
and show that belief by your
changed behavior; your thoughts, actions, words, and deeds; then your
spirit will go to hell and either stay
there or be burned up and annihilated in the lake of fire at the end of the
millennium – the only possible
recourses. Being a good old boy or going to church doesn’t get you to heaven because you are not perfect;
God’s only passing grade. Only having the parachute on at death gets you to heaven and keeps you out of
hell.
Sadly, less than 10% of the people who obtain the parachute, keep it on. That means 90% of all those who
make the altar call to accept Jesus as their savior backslide away into sin
and take their parachute off at some
point in time afterwards.
I’ll
give you the punchline here.
Once in hell, there is no escape. It's a one way ticket only, no recourse, no
changing travel plans. You either
have your parachute strapped on all the time or you can lose everything.
Depending upon interpretation of
Rev 20:14 you will either stay in hell until you are terminated in the lake of fire at the
great white throne judgment
at the end of the millenium; or you will suffer “everlasting punishment”; Mathew 25:46.
The play on words is;
does that mean everlasting punishing forever and ever or annihilation in the lake of fire that is permanent
extinction
and final; meaning your spirit will literally cease to exist?
2 Timothy 1:10, John 6:47, John 8-51, and John
11:26 all tell us if we believe in Jesus we will not see death and we will have
life eternal. The Bible doesn't
seem to tell us that the spirits of the wicked and those not covered by the
blood the lamb will have eternal life.
Can you afford to wait and find out? If you end up in
the jaws of hell you can never say you weren't told what
you needed to know to
stay out of hell. Keep reading.
What is meant by the triune nature
of God?
Matthew
28:19 speaks of the three personages of the Godhead. "Go ye
therefore, and
teach all nations
nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and
of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost". God
has revealed
himself to mankind in three facets which comprise what we call the
Godhead. These facets are sometimes
referred to as persons or the trinity, or the triune nature of God, though it is
critical to maintain that the essence
of God is singular, "The Lord our God is one" Deuteronomy 6:4.
God the Father is unseen and unknown to us (John 6:46) except as he reveals
himself to us in the Son
(John 17:3-8). The Son proceeded from the Father (John 6:57) though the Son has
always existed as long
as the Father himself (John 17:5). The Son is the unseen Father made visible for
a time (John 14:9) who,
upon returning to heaven, then sent his invisible Spirit to be with us (John
14:16). Though the Spirit is unseen
(John 14:17), the Spirit influences us in the present by the authority of the
Son that we might give glory and
worship to the Father (John 4:23, 16:13-14).Thus God is but one God - being
Spirit and Son and Father - just
as time is similarly one continuum - being past and present and future.
"....Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God
Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." (Revelation 4:8) The
reason the word "person" is used in
describing the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit is because each exhibits different attributes of personhood,
not in a body of flesh and bones, but in personality. In other words,
each has a will, loves, speaks, is aware of
others, communicates with others, etc. These
are attributes of personhood and we see the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit each demonstrate these qualities.
Because
of the Triune nature of God, God can become
flesh in the form of the Son, and still exist in such a way so that He can run the
universe. And the Son
can communicate to us on our level.
The three personages
in one godhead concept
is not something all understand at first. To gain a good understanding of
the nature and character of God in His
three personages I suggest you read the riveting book "The Shack" by William P.
Young. It is a true story
although sold as fiction to avoid theological conflicts. You won't be able to put it down. McKenzie goes
camping
with his kids and while rescuing one in a canoe, a serial killer kidnaps his young daughter whose bloodied dress
is later found in a shack in the woods by a lake. After several years of
major grief and emotional pain, God
sends McKenzie
a snail mail letter inviting him to meet with Him in the shack where his daughter's dress was found
for a weekend.
McKenzie finally goes on a bleak wintry day but finds no one in the dilapidated shack. Just as he
turns to return to his car
the shack is transformed into a beautiful cabin, snow melts and months of winter
transform
into spring in a matter of minutes, and he hears voices inside and sees
smoke coming out of the chimney. He can't believe it. Although appearing not as expected, McKenzie meets God the Father, Jesus the son,
and the Holy Spirit. Many fascinating things are revealed in this book over that special weekend of healing for McKenzie about the
nature and
character of God and how the three personages of God relate to each another and
interact with us.
McKenzie even gets to walk across the top of
the lake to the other side with Jesus. The discovery of just who
God is, is so revealing in this book that my wife, with the help of the Holy Spirit,
literally translated the important
parts of the whole book into Russian for her
people. If you are Russian you can find this at Irina's blog, the link
to which
can be found at www.iisusbog.com,
her website. The Shack is a must read if you want to better understand
the nature and character of God in the three personages. Some
point out minor theological errors in the book. I
believe any errors in the book are irrelevant compared
to the mission of gaining an understanding of the triune
nature of God. When I summarize the story in Bible meetings, I can never get
through it all before tears come
to my eyes, I choke up, and I have to stop and regain composure before
continuing. It's that good.
Who is God?
God is the Supreme Deity of the universe. He is the Almighty, the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens, the
earth
and all things therein. He alone is immortal (1Tim. 6:16). He is our
God and Father and the God and Father
of Jesus Christ. He is the
Most High God and the One True God. God is the creator of all things; us, the animals,
the fish, the birds, the earth, the sun, the moon, the
planets, the stars, the universe; everything! Evolution and the
big bang
theory have been proven erroneous. God is responsible for creating the smallest
one celled creature
to the largest star or galaxy. God always was, is, and
always will be. The Bible teaches us that in all existence,
from all eternity, there has been and always will be only one God. God was
never created, is completely loving, completely just, completely holy,
completely merciful, and He desires the best for us. The Bible says there is
only one God: "I
am the Lord, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God,"
(Isaiah 45:5). Yet, the Bible
teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are part of the Godhead. Each of the persons in the Trinity share
the same
attributes that only God shares. But remember, the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit each have wills, and
speak, therefore, we say there are three
personages.
Who is Jesus?
Jesus is the first begotten
of the creation hence the beginning of the creation
of God. He is the only born
Son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born to the virgin Mary. He is the Christ or Messiah
sent from
God
to be our Saviour and Redeemer. He
is called the Son of the Most High God. He was designated Son
of God
in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. He is given the throne
of David to rule over the House of Jacob
forever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end. Jesus is God
Himself in human form who came to earth to rectify the grave sin Adam and Eve committed in the garden of
Eden to redeem
mankind from Satan. For those who are born again, Jesus lives or abides
inside of our heart
in the form of the Holy Spirit. To really understand
who Jesus was go
to http://www.ichristianlife.com/site/PageServer?pagename=media#page:player;media:The%20Jesus%20Film
online and watch a free 2 hour full length film of the story and life of Jesus
Christ.
Who is the Holy Spirit?
Forty days after Jesus was resurrected following His crucifixion, he left the earth and ascended back
into heaven.
He told His disciples He would send a replacement in the form of a comforter that would allow them to continue
on with the works they saw Him do. He sent the Holy Spirit ten days later at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4)
is
that essence or power of God which Christ promised to send to the elect. The Holy Spirit is the extension of
the living power of God. It is
the means whereby we become partakers of the Divine Nature, being
filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given by God
to those who ask and obey him, dwelling in those who keep God's
commandments . The Holy Spirit is the comforter that leads
God's servants into all truth. The Holy Spirit confers
the
power to witness (Acts 1:8). It administers gifts as recorded in 1Corinthians
12:7-11 and has fruits as described in Galatians 5:22-23. It is the means by which God can finally
become all, in all. When
we are born again we continue
to grow in the Spirit daily in Christ Jesus until we come into the
glory of God. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth
and by
speaking the Truth in all things we grow into Christ, our head, in all respects
. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit
of God and the Spirit of faith which searches all things and knows all things. The Spirit conveys to God an
understanding of our thoughts and very being. The Holy Spirit enables Christ to help, teach and comfort us and to
enable us to
exercise the power of God. The Spirit gives to each person the attributes God
desires in order to
benefit the body as outlined in 1Corinthians 12:7-11.
The Spirit can be quenched if you shun and ignore
Him (1Thes. 5:19) by being neglected or grieved (Eph. 4:30) and thus allows gains
and losses in the individual. The fruit of the
Holy Spirit is
love from Galatians 5:22. Therefore, if we do not love each other the Holy
Spirit is not evident in us.
The Spirit is the means by which
we worship God. It is a force which empowers Christ in
us.
Who is Satan?
The big question everyone asks, is; did God create the devil? The answer is yes
and no. God created an
angelic being who later rebelled against God and then became Satan, the devil.
The Bible says Satan was an angel in the heavens, a cherubim named Lucifer, a
most beautiful angel, made perfect
in every way; not really just an Angel like Michael, Gabriel, or Rafael. Cherubim had four wings, four faces (ox, man,
eagle, serpent). It also
speaks of him having pipes. Possibly on his chest where music came out. He
decided that
he did not want to obey God and started a rebellion in heaven. He
wrangled a third of the angels to come over to his
side. He was thrown out of
heaven down to earth for
the sin of rebellion and his name Lucifer was changed to Satan; father of lies,
the deceiver, the wicked one, abadon in Hebrew, apolyon in Greek, adversary,
angel of light, thief,
tempter, and ruler of this planet earth . His beauty was
removed from him but he can shape shift into however he
wants to appear. Satan's goal is to bring death, destruction
and ruin to mankind. He works 24/7 365 days a year
to get you to sin
and fall out of grace with God. If he can get you to backslide and ose
your faith your spirit will
go to hell at death instead of heaven. That's Satan's mission. Hear me.
Spiritual warfare is very real. The battle
for your spirit at death is a real battle.
Who are we, as humans?
1Thessolonians
5:23 tells us we are a spirit being, made in the image of God, living in a flesh
and bones body
and we have a soul. We
are made up of body, soul, and spirit - a trichotomy; just as God has a triune
nature of
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Our body is only elements
of the earth. Dust to dust.
Our soul is not our spirit and our spirit is not just our breathe of life.
Our soul is our mind with which
we think,
our psyche, our emotions with which we act or respond, our will with which we
decide - it constitutes our personality,
our individual self. The soul communicates with the body to tell the body how to
move and what to do. But our spirit
communicates with our soul to tell it what is right and what is wrong. It is our
spirit that is capable of communicating
with God.
God's son, came to earth in human carnate form, but God the Father has no
earthly form, He is spirit only. When
the Bible says we are made in the image of God, it is not bodily form it is
talking about, it is in spirit. It is why we
need to be born again, so the spirit that is in us that is dead at birth from
Adam and Eve's sin, can become alive
again so we can commune with God. Our spirit leaves our body at physical death
Spiritual death is the result of a person being separated from
God by sin, Eph. 2:1; 1Tim 5:6; Isa 59:2. At
physical death our spirit and soul leave the body behind and make a journey to
either heaven or hell. We will
discuss more about that journey later.
God has revealed many things to us in only the past 30 years that show
the events described in the Bible
did happen, and the people mentioned in the Bible did actually live on this earth, and that
God is real. God is
revealing these things through archeological discoveries. Why? Because we are
out of time. Jesus is coming
for His Bride very soon. The tares will be removed from the harvest at the second coming. By forensic analysis,
for example, the Shroud of Turin, containing over 50 different pollen
grains indigenous only to the Jerusalem
region, has been proven to be the real actual burial cloth
of Jesus. The shroud's authenticity was always in
question up until
1996 when the final pieces to the puzzle were put together. Watch the youtube videos at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYIwjYN4JVo
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKj56swhuVQ
for a
sample of what I am talking about.
I believe the location of the Ark of the Covenant has been discovered, in a
cavern 25’ below the crucifixion
posthole where Jesus was hung. See www.detailshere.com/arkofthecovenant.htm
for a good pic. It was placed
there 588 years before the crucifixion during a
siege of Jerusalem. All in God’s
plan. Noah's Ark has been found.
The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah have been found with
sulphur
pellets not indigenous to that region still in the surrounding sands .
The exodus path has been verified by a satellite in the sky which
searched for buried Iraqi
tanks and which senses temperature differences as
little as a half a degree in the earth and sands below. With
several million
people leaving Egypt they pulverized the sand into a fine powder and the
nighttime moisture fused
it into concrete which left a very dense sidewalk
buried beneath the sand which heats up during the day and stays
warmer than the
surrounding sands at night. . This
dense pathway shows up as a red line on the satellite imagery
all the way from
ancient Rameses in Egypt where the Israelites assembled, to Succoth, where they
collected
the
bones of Joseph (Exodus 13:19, 20). The line then extends onward to Etham,
and then over the high plateau of
the Sinai Peninsula, finally dropping down
onto what is today called the Gulf of Aqaba, the easternmost finger of
the Red
Sea. Then it resurfaces on the Arabian side showing where they crossed the Red
Sea and it extends
over to Mt Jebel el Lawz in Arabia which was the Mt Sinai
described in the Bible. Many
chariot parts of that era
and horse and human bones have been found in the Gulf
of Aqaba, where Moses and the Israelites crossed the
Red Sea over a land bridge
that lies just under the water there. God is real. The events and people
described in
the Bible were also real. Why aren’t churches talking about these
discoveries to increase people's faith that this
is all real?
Good question.
The
Bible - what is it?
Some term it as Basic Information Before Leaving Earth
The Bible, God's word, is a collection of 66
books written by about 40 authors, in three different languages, on
three different continents, over approximately 1600 years. The Bible claims to
be inspired and inerrant. This
means that the Bible claims to be from God and that it is without error in everything it
addresses. The Bible contains
many
different styles of writing such as poetry, narration, history, law, and prophecy and must
be interpreted in
context of those styles. It is the source of the Christian religion in that the Bible contains the words
of God and
how the Christian is to apply the words of God to his life. Basically, the Bible describes the origin of man in
the
Garden of Eden along with his fall into sin and out of fellowship with God. It then describes how God called out
a
special people to Himself, the Israelites. He promised the Israelites a future Messiah who would restore
mankind's
relationship with God. The Bible is the account of the work of God in history bringing to fruition His
prophetic declarations
concerning Jesus. Jesus was born of the Virgin, died on the cross, and
paid for our sins,
just as the Bible prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled
in the New. In short, the Bible points to Jesus,
"You
search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and
it is these that bear witness
of Me," (John 5:39). Furthermore,
the Bible teaches us that forgiveness of sins is found in Jesus alone, "And
there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that
has been given among men, by
which we must be saved,” (Acts
4:12). Some say that the Bible is nothing more
than fairy tales. But this cannot
be for it contains great wisdom and truth and it has been verified throughout history as being
accurate. Its
historical accounts are flawlessly accurate. In fact,
archaeology routinely demonstrates the accuracy of the
biblical records
concerning locations and events recorded in the Bible.
The Bible is a history book
that covers over 6000 years of time, from Adam and Eve to present and beyond.
The events described in the Bible have been proven to have actually
happened. Jesus Christ was a real man
and is the most documented individual in
history. Over 25,000 books have been written about him. Historians documented
His miracles, His life and His death without even believing He was the Messiah.
Over 500 people
saw Jesus in the flesh after His resurrection in the 40
days He was still on earth following His resurrection
before
His ascension into heaven.This is all documented historically. Over 300 prophecies or predictions were
made
about Jesus documented in the old testament before He was ever born,
and they all came true as shown in
the new testament. See http://www.detailshere.com/propheciesfulfilledbyjesus.htm
for a listing of these.
The probability of just eight of those coming true for
one man in that time period is one in 10 to the 17th power.
If you covered the whole state of Texas in 10 peso or silver dollar coins
two feet deep, painted a black dot on
just one of them, and tried to select just
that one coin out of all of those covering the whole state of Texas, that
is the
probability we are talking about. Basically, God is real and none of this is by chance.
Here’s the clincher though.
If the Bible is a history book and the
people, places and events described in it have already come
to pass what about
the events described in the Bible that are yet to come as described in both
Daniel and
Revelation? Same events
described by two different people from two different locations and in two
different
time periods of history. Isn’t
there a good chance that those things are going to happen also? Many of you
don’t
have internet access and most of you don’t have the time or the
interest to study these matters like I do. I am
here to tell you that we are
definitely in the endtimes described in the Bible, the time just before the
second coming,
and that the events
forecasted in Revelation are unfolding in the world today daily before our very
eyes. We are
told that WE are the
last generation. WE, you and I,
will be witness to the second coming of Jesus. Jesus said
He would not tell us
exactly when he would come again, only the Father knows the hour and the day,
but He did
give us the circumstances and sequence of events to watch for.
And those events are happening right now,
rapidly.
These include economic collapse, a new world government, a one world
religion, widespread disease, pestilence, plagues,
droughts, lack of food, famine, starvation, persecution; it’s all taking
place. Now. We need
to be
concerned about all this Bible stuff because we are out of time. Jesus is
coming soon. He has told people
He has visited that He is coming soon.
We have to be ready. We have
to put our Jesus parachute on and keep
it on. We have to have extra oil for our
lamps - Mathew 25 (obey God's commandments and live a righteous and
holy lifestyle in lieu of
sinning), or we will be considered tares and be destroyed.
The
whole message
is that we have a pathway to God’s Kingdom
through Jesus. Each one of us has
broken every one of God's
ten commandments; His law. You say, but I haven’t
murdered anyone; but the Bible says to have anger and
hatred is akin to murder.
Ever been through a divorce or child support issue? You say I haven’t
committed
adultery; but the Bible says to look at a person with lust is the same
as the act. Have you not ever wished for
something your neighbor had that you
lacked? Have you not ever told a lie, no matter how small?
Have you
ever not minded your parents? Have you not ever, even as a
child, taken something, no matter how small that
was not yours? Have you never
cursed? The Bible says that if we break just one commandment it is the same
as
breaking them all. We cannot get to the kingdom on our own deeds.
We are simply not perfect, God’s
only passing grade. God is a just
judge. He is not a corrupt judge. He will not let sin go without just
punishment.
Thinking that your God will let you in with sin on your soul because
you were basically a good old boy is
worshipping a false God. The real Yahweh
won’t do that. Someone has to pay for those sins; whether it be
you; or
someone who paid that price for you. No other alternatives. That's why we need a
savior. That’s why
we need to accept Jesus as our savior. Jesus paid the price
for our sins for us with His own death on the cross,
because we simply cannot
keep God’s laws, all of them, no matter how hard we try. His righteousness is
substituted for our sins in the eyes of the Father. That’s what a savior does.
He does for you what you cannot
do for yourself. He paid for our ticket with His
death on the cross. We just have to accept it, and show that we
have accepted it
by our repentance; changed behavior reflected by our thoughts, actions, words and deeds
reflecting the Holy Spirit living inside of us. We have to admit that we are
sinners (Romans 3:23), we need to
understand the wages of sin is death (Romans
6:23), we have to admit we cannot save ourselves (John 15:5),
we have to believe
Jesus died on the cross for our sins (Hebrews 2:9), that he was resurrected from the dead
(Mark 16:9), we have to believe that if we confess our sins Jesus
will forgive us (1John 1:9) and we will be saved
from hell. That's a quick summary of the
Gospel message. Detail follows. If you would like to see a short video
that
summarizes what the Bible is all about in a few short minutes go to
http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/gospel.htm
and watch the Dramatized Gospel, an exact presentation of what
the Bible is all
about. That's it in a nutshell.
And, I'm getting way ahead of the story.
Why do we need Jesus?
We have to go back to Genesis, the first
chapter in the Bible, to find out why Jesus is even necessary in this
picture today. In Genesis we learn that God created all things; the sun, the moon, the stars,
the heavens, the
earth, the animals, the fish, the birds in the air, and more. Darwin's evolution or the big bang theory
don't hold
water and have been proven highly erroneous. This creation includes
man whom He formed out of the dust of
the ground. God breathed His spirit into
him and gave him a soul - a mind, intellect, will, emotions. Genesis 2:7
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and
man became a living soul." John 4:24 tells us
that God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit
and in truth. As God is spirit, He created man as a
spiritual being. Man's body was created as the physical "house"
in
which man's spirit was to dwell and through which he was to interact with the
physical world through his senses.
Mankind was also given a soul which was
created as the site of man's consciousness and as the expression of his
personality. 1Thessolonians 5:23. Think of your soul as your mind or intellect; your harddrive which
contains your
will, your emotions, and your remembrances. The soul connects the
spiritual and physical aspects of man's nature.
The three parts of our nature;
spirit, soul, and body function in harmony with each other. We know at death
that our physical body decays back into the elements of the earth; dust to dust. Genesis 3:19 "...for dust
thou art, and
unto dust shalt thou return".
But what about our soul and spirit? Do they stay in the ground also or do
they go
somewhere at death? The religious community is split on this
issue. Some affiliations contend nothing goes
anywhere at death until the second
coming, but we lay in the ground knowing nothing as we sleep. They call
this "soul sleep". Body and spirit
(and soul) remain in the ground not separated, knowing nothing until the
second coming.
Other affiliations contend our soul and spirit are taken to heaven or
hell directly at death. Both
sides cite scriptural passages to support
their stand. If you step outside this box and review books, you tube
videos, near death experiences, and stories of people Jesus has taken to both heaven and hell so
they could
come back and write about it to tell us of the atrocities awaiting us
in hell as well as the glories awaiting us in
heaven, it paints a picture that our
spirits and souls make a journey at death. As I've read many books on
this
subject and watched hours and hours of testimonies of those making these
journeys and returning; I have to
vote that our soul and spirit go somewhere at
death.
What about purgatory?
There is strong evidence to suggest our spirit and soul go to
heaven or hell when we die even though we do
not have immortality at
that point in time. Our
immortal resurrection body is not part of the package at the time
of death if
our death is prior to the first resurrection at the second coming. Only God Himself has immortality
at
this point in time (1Timothy 6:16). 1 Corinthians 15:50-54 tells us when
immortality is given to us; at the second
coming, not at the end of physical
life, unless the end of physical life occurs also at the second coming when
we
are “changed in the twinkle of an eye”.
Although
you will NOT have a resurrection body at the time of death
when your spirit
departs, you will have all five senses. You will be able to see, smell,
hear, speak, touch and feel
pain which will not be pleasant if you end up at the wrong destination.
Hell is NOT just the absence of God.
And
purgatory , as a stopping off place to be
cleansed of sin, kinda like our prison system, makes sense, but it
simply
doesn’t exist. It's not in the Bible nor is the concept of purgatory in the
Bible. It was contrived by the
church in the dark ages as a means of extracting
more money from people. What makes sense to us is not
always how it is. There is no
stopping off place to be cleansed of sin before going to heaven. The Catholic
system of indulgences and monetary extraction continues on to this day. You can't buy
off someone else's
sins. If you don't have the Jesus parachute on when you die,
you are in deep trouble,
as hell is a one way trip,
there is no escape once there.
What
is heaven like?
The
near death experience documentations found
at www.spiritlessons.com,
and at www.bibleprobe.com/nde.htm, support the concept that hell is
a very real place; a place we don’t ever want to go to. It also supports the
glorious
life that awaits us in heaven. What
is heaven like? Revelation chapters 21 and 22 give us some good insight about
what heaven will be like with it's foundations of the wall of the city
garnished with all manner of precious stones, walls
of jasper, 12 gates made
of a single pearl each, streets of gold, crystal clear water, trees bearing
fruit each month of different kinds and different tiers, dwellings Jesus has created for us, incredible flora and
faunta, music and colors far beyond our imaginations, a pure river of water of
life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and
there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the
sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Jesus took Mary Katherine Baxter out of body and gave her ten different tours of
parts of heaven, which she describes
in her book Divine Revelation of Heaven
which you can read online for free at www.spiritlessons.com
or purchase at www.amazon.com or any
bookstore. She wasn't shown all of heaven, just parts. But what she was shown
sends shivers down one's spine in anticipation of what we can look forward to.
Actually there are three heavens. The first heaven is everything within our
atmosphere where the birds and the planes fly. The second heaven includes space,
where the sun, the moon and the stars reside. The third heaven is the
destination of the saved righteous and is beyond the atmosphere and starry skies. Paul wrote of this third heaven
in 2 Cor 12:2. God has storehouses in heaven, loaded with blessings
and healings that are constantly being dispensed to those in need down on earth.
There are warehouses of body parts
to replace worn out body parts here on earth, just
awaiting prayers to be received asking for those parts. People need
to know that their healing was paid for at the whipping post by His
stripes. (Isaiah 53:5). By His stripes we are healed.
We just have to claim it. When we take communion
we have to understand that the bread represents Jesus' body which was broken for
us at the whipping post. Lacerations is another synonym for broken. When we eat
the bread we must realize that our healing was paid for in full by that whipping
and the lacerations He received. Our salvation was paid for
by his blood
and death on the cross, which is signified by drinking the wine. Healing is for today, not just 2000 years ago. If you eat the bread or drink the
wine at communion and don't understand this, you are committing sin.
Heaven
is a very busy place.
Many many angels are constantly journeying between heaven and earth. Church
services are full of angels, watching the proceedings and recording what's in
the hearts of the people in attendance. Every time you give tithes, or give to
the poor or disabled, it is recorded in heaven. Each of us has a record
book in heaven noting our every thought, word, deed, and action. When a person
is born again, his book is taken to a room where all his sins are removed and
blotted out from that book. Rejoicing occurs in heaven whenever any person
comes to Jesus. There are horses and animals in heaven, but the lion
settles down with the lamb. There is no aggresion in heaven as there is on earth. Redeemed
saints in heaven are very busy too. You don't sit on clouds and play
harps. Heaven is very orderly. Both angels and saints are engaged in
stimulating, exhilarating, fulfilling tasks. The people she saw in heaven had
distinctive features and were from all nations of the earth. No person had any
scars, and all looked radiant and handsome, and about 25 to 30 years old. You will not be vapor and smoke. You
will have bodily form and features. Mary saw beautiful houses and mansions in
heaven. Jesus tells us in John 14:2 that he has prepared a place for us so we
can be where He is. There are huge chariots in heaven. Angels are big there too.
Chariot wheels are very large and studded with diamonds and precious rubies and
emeralds. When God speaks, twelve to fifteen foot tall angels stand in
front of the throne and blow trumpets. Jesus took Mary to hell 30
different times so she got that one right too. Mary saw no children in hell. All
children including those babies who were aborted or stillborn were taken to a
special place in heaven where they are raised. In heaven there is no sickness,
no wheelchairs, no disabilities, no disease, no corruption, no lies, no
sin. God will not allow sin to enter through the gates of heaven. When we
were children, we operated under a system of rewards and punishment.
Heaven is a reward for living holy and righteous. If you would but take the time
to explore what is known about heaven from both what the Bible says and from
what people who have been there tell us, it becomes something we absolutely
don't want to miss out on. But there are things you need to know in order to not
miss out, and that is what this booklet will teach you. Remember, grace is not a
license to sin. You can lose your salvation by backsliding. Read on.
What about a real Hell? What does the Bible say about Hell?
Please know, Heaven is real and
Hell is also real. These are not mythological places. Both realms
exist today.
We are comprised of spirit as well
as flesh and blood. Within one minute after you die on this earth, your spirit
and soul will
arrive at one of those two destinations, heaven or hell, and there is no
changing travel plans once
you arrive at the wrong destination.
Christ. It is described as a horrifying place. Matthew 18:8-9 describes the
eternal fire of Hell. Matthew 3:12
speaks of unquenchable fire. Revelation 20 describes the lake of burning sulfur
and place of perpetual torment. Revelation 20:10 states that the lake of fire is
forever and ever.
Hell
may not be a politically correct topic
these days, as many churches sweep the issue under the rug, but many people
enter hell everyday. Out of the
150,000 people that die on earth everyday, most
end up in hell. Hell is a real place despite the fact that people
augh and say
that they want to go there. They simply don't understand how terrible hell is.
Just because you've
never seen hell doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If you only
have time for one book, read Katherine Baxter’s “Divine Revelation of
Hell” available free online at www.spiritlessons.com
or available through www.amazon.com
Yahshua took her to hell
30 different times to make sure she got it right and that she explained it right
for you.
Hell is intricately described there in very blatant graphic detail. He
also took her to heaven and she explains
the glories and intricacies of heaven
in her book "Divine Revelation of Heaven".
Mary Baxter describes Hell’s burning pit in
her visitations to hell. Hell is
a place of constant agony, unbearable
heat, great stench, darkness, and ugly grotesque demons of all shapes and sizes whose job it is to torment the
occupants. Although hell was created only for the devil and his demons
(Matthew 25:41) , Hell is also set aside
for all of those who reject Jesus Christ. No person
on earth would willingly walk into hell. But so many people
are doing just that.
Despite warnings, people continue to live in denial and are walking straight
into Hell at death.
If this is you,
please consider heeding the warnings of Scripture and answering the call of the
Holy Spirit by
accepting Jesus as your personal Savior. 1 John 1:9 promises, "If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just
and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness."
Some affiliations teach that there is no hell. That there are only two
options at death, only two fates listed.
Sinners will perish, but the faithful
will receive eternal life. John 10:28 "And I
give unto them eternal life; and
they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out of my hand." The wicked are never
given immortality.
Only the righteous are give immortality as
a gift from God. The problem is the when. The when for the righteous
is at
the second coming per 1Cor 15:50-54. But when will the wicked perish, and do
their spirits perish with them? The answer
is a thousand years later, after the millenium, at the Great White Throne
judgment when death and
hell are cast into the lake of fire per Rev 20:14
So what happens to the wicked, the sinners who didn't accept the salvation of
Jesus, up until that point in time where they perish? I believe, and near death
experiences
support this, that there is a real literal hell they go to today
where they are under torment until that point in time
when they are annihilated
and they literally perish, cease to exist; forever. However, keep reading
as the
doctrine of annihilation may be a false doctrine.
Many documentations of near death experiences
lend
strong evidence for a real Hell that exists today, deep within our own earth, has
souls being tormented,
tortured and burned there today, is receiving new
occupants daily and is expanding every day. In fact, just
as the Bible states, (Matthew 7:13) MOST of the 150,000 people that die on this earth every day go to hell.
How many? A South Korean Pastor named Park was given a tour of hell one day
because even
though he
had a congregation of 45,000 and had written 53 books on theology, ,
he had committed a grave sin, the sin
of unforgiveness. In this tour he was totally blown away at the
immensity of hell; how large it was. He asked
his tour guide angel how many
people were in hell. His angel tour guide stated he didn't really know but for
every single person that went to heaven, a thousand went to hell.
Why? Mainly because of forgiveness
issues or these people did not accept or believe in Yahshua (Jesus) as
their Savior.
They may have known
ABOUT Jesus, but they did not believe that Jesus IS God, that He came to earth
in
human form and died for our sins on a wooden cross, and was resurrected on
the third day after death as
was prophesied, and ascended back into heaven.
These people are not covered by His shed blood. Their sins
are not substituted
by His righteousness. They did not understand the concept of what a savior does.
And
because they are not perfect and flunked God’s Class of Life, Satan gets
them by default. Contrary to popular
opinion, there are not multiple paths to
the Father and His Kingdom. There
is only one; via Yahshua (Jesus).
False
religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, New Age Spiritualism and false deities
only take you to hell
via the
wide
gate and broad way that leadeth to destruction. Read about a Buddhist’s near death
experience
at www.bibleprobe.com/nde.htm
entitled "Back from the Dead" where he met Jesus in the afterlife, not
Buddha.
Modern medicine has reached a point where some people who are pronounced clinically dead; no
heartbeat,
no brain activity; can be brought back to life in a 4 to 6 minute
period after true death. And others
have come back
to life after even longer than that. Some, like Lazarus and a
preacher man in Africa, after
several days even. The
stories of where these
people went and what they experienced show a different scenario of what happens
to our
spirits and souls at death rather than the soul sleep version being preached by churches who
don’t want you to
step out of your comfort zone today.
I have to hold the distinct possibility, and this is what I currently
believe,
that within one minute after we die our soul and spirit will enter heaven or hell and once there, there is no changing
travel plans. Go to www.youtube.com and
type in "near death experiences". There's many to view and
listen to.
The interesting part is that in almost all cases involving
aetheists or people who didn't believe in God, that they
turned their lives
around after they came back. Some preach on the road about their experience.
Some wrote
books about their experience; Bill Weise Twenty three minutes in
hell, The testimony of Theo Nez are two
xamples. Dr Maurice Rawlings was
getting so many patients dying and coming back to life reporting on their
experience in the afterlife that he started
documenting these cases and put them in a book entitled To Hell and
ack. Not every case went to hell, some went to heaven, but most went to
hell and came back terrified. You can
read many of these for free online
at www.spiritlessons.com .
These cases support a belief that hell is terrible
and exists today.
Remote
Viewing
Our governments have perfected a mind control technique called "remote viewing"
which allows them to look
into the past and the future to determine things and find people. They claim they have this
down so well they
can achieve a 95% accuracy in some areas. I personally consider this
channeling and it is not from God. The
Bible warns against using familiar spirits to obtain unrevealed information. One
of the areas they pursued was
"what happens to us when we die". In all
of their experiments the same thing happened no matter which person
in history
they chose to work on. When the person died two angels came; one took his soul
and one took his spirit.
The body of course remained behind. They did not
elaborate on where these souls and spirits were taken.
One
of the strongest reasons for a Christian to believe in Hell
is that Jesus Himself believed in it, and taught about it
strongly, clearly, and frequently. According to Josh McDowell
in his book
"Evidence that Demands a Verdict", Jesus Himself talks about Hell over 70 of the
162 times it is
mentioned in the New Testament. Free will is one of the most
convincing reasons for the existence of hell.
Jesus Himself, in Matthew 25:46,
tells us, in the same sentence, that the righteous will have life eternal
and
if you don’t choose that door your other option is everlasting punishment;
“ And these shall go away into
everlasting punishment; but the righteous into
life eternal.” The question becomes: will hell be a permanent
annihilation as
some interpret Rev 20:14 to say (..death and hell are cast into the lake of
fire); or will it really
be everlasting torment for
eternity???? Interestingly, the Greek word
"anonion" is used at both ends of that
sentence to describe both
"everlasting punishment" as well as "life eternal".
See a Greek concordance at http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Greek_Index.htm.
It would
seem that if one were forever and ever, so would be the other. However "aonion"
refers to a block of
time called an eon. One eon of time can differ from another eon of time in
the length of time that is covered. In
the Bible seven
eons of time are mentioned. Creation and Adam and Eve living in paradise, Adam
and Eve eating
the forbidden fruit to the flood, the flood to Abraham,
Abraham to the exodus, the exodus to Jesus first coming,
Jesus first coming to
the second coming, and then the millenium. Each of these eons were different
lengths of
time but were still considered an eon. So going back to Matthew 25:46 can
we interpret these two eons of time,
even though the same word is used, to
reflect different lengths of time? In Ezekiel 28:18-19 there is a passage
which says, "Therefore I will bring forth a fire in the midst of thee, it
shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes
upon the earth in the sight of
all of them that behold thee... And never
shalt though be anymore." Can this mean
that the eon for
eternal life is forever and ever but the eon for everlasting punishment is
cessation of existence
for eternity when hell and death are cast into the
lake of fire?? I believe this is the passage relied upon for
the annihilation of the spirit theory. There are other places in the Bible where it says the spirit
lives forever though,
at least the spirit of the righteous. 2 Tmothy 1:10 tells us Jesus
has brought life and immortality through the light
of the Gospel. In John 6:41 Jesus tells us that whoever believeth on Him shall
have everlasting life. In John 8:51
Jesus tells us if we keep His sayings (commandments) we shall never see
death. And in John 11:26 Jesus tells
us that whosoever liveth and believeth in Him shall never die. But nowhere
can I find passages regarding the
immortality of the unrighteous. However, go back four paragraphs where we
discuss the possibility of the theory
of annihilation being a false doctrine. There is much disagreement amongst
affiliations on this issue. Can you
afford to find out which side is right in this matter? Keep your parachute
on at all times and for you it won't matter.
Forgiveness
One
of the most intriguing realities to come out of studying the Near Death
Experience cases is just how
important
our ability to forgive becomes in pleading our case. Preachers, men of
God, who were dying and repenting of
their sins as they were dying, did not have
their prayers listened to because they harbored unresolved forgiveness
issues.
You HAVE to forgive if you want to be forgiven. “For
if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you:
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses” (Mat.6:14-15). Once saved, always saved does
not work. It takes a daily walk
with Jesus to stay on the narrow path
to the kingdom.
When Jesus cured somebody’s disease He forgave sins of that
sick person (Matthew 9:2). That was
the cure. That means when God forgives; a
person can get well ( if, of course, it is not his appointed time to die).
So if we will be forgiven, we will get well. That means, if we will
forgive we will get well.
For our selfish nature
it is difficult sometimes to forgive. It may be easy to forgive some nice person
for something
wrong he or she has done against you unintentionally, but it may be very
difficult to forgive a nasty neighbor who
always does something bad to you on
purpose. We can forgive such people one or two times and after that our
patience
with them seems to disappear. The apostles knew this feeling, therefore they
asked, what should the
limit of our forgiveness be: “Then
came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me,
and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee,
Until seven times: but, Until seventy
times seven” (Matthew.18:21-22),
pretty much meaning as many times as it takes. Jesus said we need to
forgive
always. And He taught us not only to forgive our brothers, but our
enemies also. To have forgiveness issues at
death can prevent your spirit from
entering heaven.
put, if you can't forgive your fellow man, God will not forgive you.
Think about that next time a potential grudge
shows up. Don't
gamble and wait
until you die to find out forgiveness is a salvation issue. What if the theory
of
annihilation is a false doctrine and "everlasting punishment" really is forever and
ever?? Eternity is a long time.
According to Sam Bacchiocchi, a respected Adventist theologian, in his chapter "Hell
as an eternal torment",
The
"eternal punishment" of Matthew 25:46 is eternal because its
results are permanent. It is a punishment that
results in their eternal
destruction or annihilation. The
only way the punishment of the wicked could be inflicted
eternally is if God
resurrected them with immortal life so that they would be indestructible.
But according to the
Scripture, only God possesses immortality in Himself (1 Timothy
1:17; 6:16). He gives immortality as the gift
of the Gospel (2 Timothy 1:10
& 1Corrinthians 15:50-54) to the righteous at the second coming, not to the
wicked.
In the best known text of
the Bible, we are told that those who do not "believe in him" will
"perish [apoletai],"
instead of receiving "eternal
life" (John 3:16). Actually, that is inferred. The passage really says that those who
believe
in Him shall not perish but will have eternal life. The ultimate fate of the lost
then may be complete
destruction by eternal
fire and not punishment by eternal torment. But even with this version, mortal
souls
will suffer torment in hell from when they die until the Great White
Throne judgment at the end of the thousand
years up until death and hell are
cast into the lake of fire per Revelation 20:14.
However,
it is also possible that the annihilation theory is a false doctrine.
According to Erwin Lutzer, in his book “One Minute after you
Die”, the fire does not annihilate the wicked
but torments them. There will be
no periods of rest during which the wicked are unconscious of torment.
Please notice Rev. 20:10;
"and the devil, who
deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur,
where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented
day and night for ever
and ever." According
to Rev. 19:20, the beast and the false prophet were thrown into "the fiery
lake of
burning sulfur" before the Millennium. "But the beast was
captured, and with him the false prophet who had
performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had
deluded those who had received
the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive
into the fiery lake of
burning sulfur." But Satan, who was chained in the abyss
during that time period was also thrown in the
lake of fire to join them after the millenium. Notice the beast and the false prophet were NOT annihilated
in
hell during that thousand years. Eternal conscious
torment is clearly taught;
there is no other honest
interpretation of these passages.
men will be tormented in this unusual fire, prepared for spirit beings, without
being annihilated. Furthermore,
those men will be thrown into this fiery lake with the kind of bodies we have
now. This infers that that fire
may not be the kind of fire we are familiar with, for if it was, their bodies
would be burnt to ashes in just
a fraction of that time. Also,
since the devil is a spirit and he will be tormented by this fire, it can't be
the
kind of fire with which we are accustomed to. In other words, the fire God has
in store for those who die
in an unsaved condition can torment spirits. Although hell was created
only for the devil and his demons
(Matthew 25:41) , Hell is also set aside for all of those who reject Jesus
Christ .Their torment
will never
cease in the final place for them, the lake of fire. Again, the jury may be out on
this issue. Do you want to
wait
until you die to find out which school of thought is correct? Keep your parachute on!
Why would a God of love send someone to
Hell?
Many people waver whether or not to become a follower of Jesus because
of this question. How can a God of mercy allow people to go to Hell?
Each and everyone of us is born with a sinful nature. The sad thing is we
are destined for Hell. The Bible says “For all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God" But.....
What if God has provided the way of escape?
Wouldn't that display mercy? It
is God's desire that no person would suffer an eternity in Hell. The Bible says,
"He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come
to repentance" (2 Pet. 3:9). God
could not allow sin to go unpunished. But being merciful, God sent His very own
Son to be the final payment for the sins of those who believe. It only takes
faith. God gave so much but required so little. That is the epitome of a God of
love.
Will the person who goes to hell cease to
exist?
The body of the person who is lost or refused to accept Christ as Savior
will be resurrected from the grave at the second resurrection after the thousand
years. Some say this body is barely put back together enough to be tossed into
the lake of fire, and the lake of fire will be permanent annihilation, that body
and spirit will then cease to exist forever and ever.
But others say that this body will be supernatural and indestructible. It
will join with the person's soul for eternity in “everlasting punishment”.
"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the
books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and
the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books,
according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and
death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged
every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake
of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the
book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:12-15). It is a state
of dying eternally, but death may never be achieved. Jesus warned about those
headed for eternity apart from God and the second death.
Is Hell eternal?
We are brought into this earthly world as eternal beings. Our life here
is simply a stop in God's plan. We can't even
begin to get a glimmer of what Heaven and Hell are really like. The only thing
that we can comprehend is that each and every single one was created by God the
Father. God wishes that "none of us should perish."
Because of God's great love for us, his
children, He gives us free will. We
are given the choice to either accept or reject Him.
Just as we want our children to come to us willingly and lovingly, God
wants us to come to him that same way, and as much as we love our children God
loves us, plus more. The choices are either Heaven or Hell, accepting what His
son Jesus did for us on the cross or not. It is that simple and each is
"forever".
God doesn't send anyone to hell,
we choose our final home. Hell has to be forever because Heaven is forever. What
would be the reason for anyone to choose Heaven if we knew we would eventually
"get out" of Hell? Hell is a consequence of a choice we make. The Bible refers to
the fate of the unsaved with such fearful words as the following: “Shame
and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2)
“Everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46) “Weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:51)
“Fire unquenchable” (Luke 3:17)
“Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish” (Romans 2:8,9)
“Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians
1:9) “Eternal fire...the
blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 7,13)
Revelation 14:10,11 tells us the final, eternal destiny of the sinner:
“He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...the smoke of their torment
ascended up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day or night."
Honestly, I don’t know today
whether hell will be annihilated in the lake of fire at the end of the
millennium as some interpret Rev 20:14 to say, or if it will go on forever and
ever somewhere. Both views are a
matter of interpretation using the same scriptures. It makes sense to me that a
loving God wouldn’t punish people forever for their short time of disobedience
here on earth. But then purgatory makes sense also except that it simply
doesn’t exist. What makes sense to us is not always how it is. The point is,
can you afford to gamble and find out the hard way when it is so simple to just
get your parachute, keep it on, and ensure your salvation today and everyday?
Your
free will,
your acceptance and belief in grace and salvation, and how you handle
your life now and show that belief, especially
regarding keeping the ten
commandments and forgiving others and your treatment of others, determines your
travel destination right here; right now, on earth, before death.
It is just as important to not get the ticket to hell as it is to
get
the ticket to heaven. Eternity is a long time. I am going to tell you
outright in this booklet how to make sure your journey at death takes you to the correct
destination.
But, I'm getting ahead of things again.
Again the question, why do we need Jesus? We have to go back even further to
when God created this perfect covering cherub angel named Lucifer in
heaven. Lucifer is well described starting in Ezekiel 28:13 as
of Lucifer didn't happen overnight. Lucifer's unrest cost
him his position in heaven and even his title after he tempted Eve,
but he could still traverse between earth and heaven.. In Job 2:2 we see
even though he is now called Satan, he still has access to heaven (...the LORD
said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and
said,
From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.)
What's important to note is that Lucifer lost God's
spirit, his spirituality was compromised, and he lost his title and became then
known as Satan. At the time Satan tempted
Eve in the Garden of Eden, he no longer had God's spirit inside of him,
even though he could still transport between
heaven and earth.
The rebellion and being cast out from heaven
along with a third of the angels that followed him happened much later. He
created a rebellion in heaven to try and take
God's throne away from Him. Well, Lucifer lost the war in heaven and was
cast out of heaven down to earth but did covet a third of the angels to side
with him, and they accompanied him in the fall; hence the term "fallen
angels " which are our present day demons and evil spirits. Those beings we call
extraterrestrials or aliens are felt by many to simply be these fallen angels
who now reside inside our earth. Isaiah 14:12 covers this fall of Satan.
Lucifer had the name change while yet in heaven having lost God's spirit due to
his progressing rebellion. From thence forward he was known as Satan; the
adversary, the destroyer, the accuser, the evil one, the liar, the deceiver, the devil,
the tempter, the leader of all apostate (fallen) angels, and eventually ruler of
hell. Hell was created for Satan and his fallen angels. Hell was never meant for
man to go to. The question becomes, just when did the war in heaven occur and
when did Satan and his fallen angels get cast down to earth? Without going
into the book of Daniel and discussing the 69 weeks and the command to rebuilt
Jerusalem which is the starting point, ending with the cleansing of the heavenly
sanctuary (Satan being cast out of heaven) and timelines associated with
that discussion, take a look at the clues
found in history. What did people drive up until about the mid 1800's? They rode
horses and drove around in horse pulled buggies. How many years of history
was that since Adam and Eve; 5850 years plus or minus a few ?? Hmm?? When did
the technical and industrial revolution start? 1850's?? Cars,
machines, electricity, the telephone, airplanes, trains, motorized ships; where
did the knowledge for these things come from all of a sudden that hadn't been
available for the past 5850 years? Virtually everything we take for
granted today was invented or happened since 1850. The knowledge came
from the fallen angels when they were cast out of heaven and sent down to earth. Read
Revelation 12 starting at verse 7 which describes this fall. Tying in with
the timelines and events regarding the cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven
discussed in the book of Daniel , I believe this fall to earth by Satan and his
fallen angels occurred around
1850.
Getting back to Adam and Eve
When God created Adam and Eve about 6000 years ago, he gave them dominion over
everything on earth; the animals,
the birds, the fish, and more; Genesis
1:28. And God gave to Adam and Eve "...every herb bearing seed, which
is upon
the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of
a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." Genesis 1:29. They had it made; free fresh fruits and veggies, nuts,
rivers with pure clean water, great place to live in
the Garden of Eden AND - remembering man is a spiritual being - they had God's
spirit inside of them. In the cool of the day God walked with them and
communed with them. They were immortal at that point in time. With God's spirit
in them they would not get
sick and would not die.
But there was a catch.
In Genesis 2:16-17 God tells Adam "...Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, But of the tree of the knowledge
of
good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die". WOW, only one little thing to stay away from. And
this was told to Adam even before God made Eve. Well, you pretty much know the
rest of that story.
Adam didn't do a very good job of explaining the obedience thing to his wife and
power hungry Satan wanted dominion over the earth and the animals, and fish and
birds and everything. He hadn't even been cast out of heaven yet but probably
had many of his responsibilities taken away from him in heaven by that point in
time. He couldn't share dominion over the earth with Adam, he had to take
it away from Adam. So he had to put Adam into disobedience in order to get
it. Knowing that
Adam loved his wife and would probably do for her what she
asked, Satan went to work on Eve. He appeared to her in the form of a serpent
and convinced her that it was God who was
trying to be the sneaky one and that she surely wouldn't die
if she ate the forbidden
fruit but would have her eyes opened and they would be as gods knowing good and
evil.
This deception is covered in Genesis 3. She ate the fruit, enticed Adam to eat
the fruit, and from that point on they died a spiritual death and were no longer
immortal. The death God spoke of in Genesis 2:17 was spiritual death. That was
instantaneous. They didn't die physically right away, but now they had lifespans
just as you and I do. Adam lived to be
930 years old. Genesis 5:5. His descendants had many years also. Satan got dominion over the earth and a promise from God
that that wasn't the end of it, and Adam and Eve no longer could commune with
God in His presence and got kicked
out of the Garden of Eden to now labor the
soil for their own food and sustinence; free ride was over. You may wonder
why
these guys lived so long and we are doing good to make 70 today. In those days
the oxygen content on the earth was much greater, maybe as high as 38% as
studies suggest, instead of the 21% or less we have today. And there was a
protective water canopy in the atmosphere surrounding the earth protecting life
from the sun. This protective water canopy was released during Noah's
flood. If you study the Bible you will note that age to death dropped
rapidly after Noah's flood. Plus they didn't suffer soil depletion and all the
chemicals we pour down our bodies today from the air we breathe, the poisons we
drink,
and the contaminated foods we injest.
The big problem with the sin
in the Garden of Eden is that God then removed His spirit from Adam and Eve and
they died spiritually. The spirit that they then had was not of God. Their
spirit was dead. And all their decendants would receive this "dead
spirit" and not the spirit that was of God. You and I, as their
descendants, are born with this "dead spirit". Human
beings became miserable and impure, no longer the perfect image bearer of
God. They fell more and more into the image of Satan, full of pride and
arrogance,
and bore the image of corrupted animals, full of sexual desire and lusts. After
the fall, all descendants of Adam and Eve
were born, not bearing the image of God, but with the image of Satan. We
are "spiritually dead" when we are born to our natural parents. All
human beings who are born in sin must be born again. All born of woman also need
to be born of the holy spirit. This brings us to the Nicodemus conversation with
Jesus discussed in John 3:1-8. Jesus declared to him that no one could see the
kingdom of God unless he was "born again". He goes on further to state
that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of both the water and
the spirit. Nicodemus can't understand what he means by this.
What being born again means
We must understand what being born again is not, to better understand what it
is. It is not the same as receiving forgiveness.
It is different than being made righteous. It does not mean receiving
forgiveness for our sins through faith and being freed from judgment and
condemnation. It does not mean a change in our status. Having a change of status
as a child of God is a result of our being born again but it is not being born
again itself. It is not the same as being converted. Conversion occurs when we
change our religion, but just because a Buddhist becomes a Christian does not
necessarily mean he is born again.
Being born again is a total holistic change. The person is a new creation, not
just a new mouth or a new hand. Being born again means "the rebirth of our
spirit". Again, a person is a spirit, has a soul, and lives in a
body. Being born again is the rebirth of the spirit in man. It is our spirit
that is born again. Humankind experienced death of their spirit when they
fell.
After the fall of Adam and Eve, all human beings were born with dead spirits,
even when their physical bodies were born alive from their mother's womb. Born
again means "born of God". We can only be born again through God. Many
people describe being born again as inheriting the life and nature of God.
It is a radical transformation of our character. 1John 3:9 says "No one who
is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in
him..." Because of God's seed abiding in us, we cannot continue to
habitually sin. We inherit God's nature and God's life.
We are made holy by the holy spirit. God's holy spirit now lives in us
just as it did in Adam and Eve before they fell. The new birth is an act
of God that makes people holy, while justification is an act of God that makes
people righteous. Being born again means true inward holiness through the work
of God. We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good
works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do. Without being born again
no one can live righteous and holy lives. You have to be born again to overcome
the world. To be happy one must be rid of his sins ansd become holy. This is
only possible after he has been born again. If we are born once we will die
twice, but if we are born twice, we will die only once. If a person is born one
time from his mother, he will experinece physical death and then his second
death when he is thrown in the lake of fire. Rev 21:8. A person who is
born twice, once from his mother and a second time a spiritual rebirth from God
may experience physical death but will never face the second death. He will live
forever in heaven. Only a life of God can exist in heaven. If you want to live
in heaven, you must be born again of the water and the spirit and receive the
life of God while you are on earth. Now.
So --- how do we get born again?
Jesus presents FAITH as the way to be born again.
ing born again means that our spirit, which had died, is born again.
Sabbath Matthew 28:1-10
1)
Now after the sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary
Mag'dalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulchre.
Do
all good people go to heaven?
Can you get to heaven on your own good deeds and by being a good person? Did
you ever wonder just how good you would have to be to make it to heaven without
Jesus as your Savior? Well, God has told us how well we would have to do to get
into heaven. He has revealed the passing grade in His class of life. Do you know
what it is? Jesus said: "Be
perfect, therefore as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect" (Matthew
5: 48). There it stands! That's the
passing grade! The amazing thing is that God doesn't grade on a curve. God says,
"Be perfect"! Is
that possible? Well, no; in fact it
is absolutely impossible.
But God
HAS provided an “out” for us sinners, through His son Jesus, Yahshua the
Messiah.
The
“out” – another way to get heaven without having to be “perfect”.
If you willingly accept Jesus as your savior (one who does for you what you
cannot do for yourself), His righteousness is substituted for your sinfulness in
the eyes of the Father. This is called grace, a free gift that can’t be earned
and isn’t deserved. But you DO
have to accept this gift and show your belief in that acceptance by your changed
thoughts, words, actions, and deeds regarding your behavior.
Grace is not a license to freely sin and there is a difference between
knowing Jesus and knowing ABOUT Jesus. But putting your faith in Jesus is the
pathway to heaven.
What
does it mean to "put your faith in Jesus Christ?"
It means to personally trust in Jesus the
same way you’d trust in a parachute if you had to jump 25,000 feet out of an
airplane; the parachute being the only support device that would allow a safe
landing. You wouldn’t just
"believe" in the parachute; you would put it on and keep it on until
you reached your destination on the ground! In the same way, the Bible says,
"Put on the Lord Jesus Christ..." and you will be saved. There are
millions of people who "believe" Jesus exists . . . but they have not
put on the Savior; there’s a BIG difference. And the difference will be
obvious when you “jump” through the door of death. That's our focus now; the
parachute. Little else is important except the parachute and learning why you
need it, how you obtain it, and how you keep it.
What is the parachute?
The parachute is Jesus of course, the substitution of His righteousness for
our sinfulness in the eyes of the Father. If you don’t accept Jesus as your
Savior and show that belief by your changed behavior; your thoughts, actions,
words, and deeds; then you will go to hell and either stay there or be burned up
and annihilated in the lake of fire at the end of the millennium – the only
two recourses. Being a good old boy doesn’t get you to heaven because you are
not perfect; God’s only passing grade. Only having the parachute on gets you
to heaven and keeps you out of hell. Less than 10% of the people who obtain the
parachute, keep it on. That means 90% of all those who make the altar call to
accept Jesus as their savior take their parachute off at some point in time
afterwards and backslide into sin. That's sad.
I will give you the punchline here, why that is, on this page, as most will never make it past this page
into the study guides on my website links or Bible lesson CD’s and will
therefore pass through the door of death without their parachute on and land
smack dab into the middle of the jaws of hell. Once in hell, there is no escape.
From those who have been there and have come back to tell about it; hell is a
hot, dark, place of burning and torment by demons of all sizes and
disfigurations with an unbearable stench. It's a one way ticket only, no
recourse, no changing travel plans. You either have your parachute strapped on
before death on earth, or you lose everything. Depending
upon interpretation of Rev 20:14 you will either stay in hell until you are
terminated in the lake of fire at the great white throne judgment at the end of
the millenium; or you will suffer “everlasting punishment”; Mathew 25:46.
The play on words is; does that mean everlasting punishing or annihilation in
the lake of fire that is permanent extinction and final? No one knows for sure.
Can you afford to find out?
Forget about religion, forget about which affiliation teaches what, forget about praying to your angel or the saints or the Pope (you are only supposed to pray to Jesus or God the Father anyway), or buying crosses and necklaces and pictures and figurines to show your allegiance (the second commandment forbids that also), or learning everything there is to know about the Bible. That is only nice to know information. And learning about the Bible may help you to keep the parachute on after you get it, but it doesn’t get you saved. Getting to heaven and staying out of hell is simple. Just understand what is on this one page. It is all that matters when all is said and done. Learn the parachute and teach the parachute to others. Especially stay away from religious arguments regarding interpretations that can poison you with doubt and tempt you to remove your parachute. Focus on what gets you saved and keeps you saved. That’s what this page is all about.
Heaven
or Hell?
Please know, Heaven is real and Hell is also
real. These are not mythological places. Both realms exist today. Purgatory is
a mythological place, invented by Rome to extract more money from people. Great
concept, but it doesn’t exist. Nowhere in the Bible will you find the word
purgatory or even the concept of purgatory as a stopping off place to be
purified in before going to heaven. Even Catholic priests today admit there is
no such thing as purgatory. You will not go to some middle ground prison in
purgatory to work your sins off; you will go to either heaven or hell upon
death, period.
We are comprised of spirit as well as flesh
and blood. One minute after you die on this earth, your spirit will arrive at
one of those two destinations, heaven or hell, and there is no changing travel
plans once you arrive at the wrong destination.
The
whole message
of the good news of the Gospel is that we have a pathway to God’s Kingdom
through Jesus. Each one of us has
broken every one of God's ten commandments; His law. You say, but I haven’t
murdered anyone; but the Bible says to have anger and hatred is akin to murder.
Ever been through a divorce or child support issue? You say I haven’t
committed adultery; but the Bible says to look at a person with lust is the same
as the act. Have you not ever wished for something your neighbor had that you
lacked? Have you not ever told a lie, no matter how small?
Have you ever not minded your parents? Have you not ever, even as a
child, taken something, no matter how small that was not yours? Have you never
cussed? The Bible says that if we break just one commandment it is the same as
breaking them all. We cannot get to the kingdom on our own deeds.
We are simply not perfect, God’s only passing grade. God is a just
judge. He is not a corrupt judge. He will not let sin go without just
punishment. Thinking that your God will let you in with sin on your soul because
you were basically a good old boy is worshipping a false God. The real Yahweh
won’t do that. Someone has to pay for those sins; whether it be you; or
someone who paid that price for you. No other alternatives. That's why we need a
savior. That’s why we need to accept Jesus as our savior. Jesus paid the price
for our sins for us with His own death on the cross, because we simply cannot
keep God’s laws, all of them, no matter how hard we try. His righteousness is
substituted for our sins in the eyes of the Father. That’s what a savior does.
He does for you what you cannot do for yourself. He paid for our ticket with His
death on the cross. We just have to accept it, and show that we have accepted it
by changed behavior reflected by our thoughts, actions, words and deeds
reflecting the Holy Spirit working inside of us.
Grace
versus works – which is it; it can’t be both, right?
Our works, no matter how much we try to do good on our own, will never get
us to heaven; grace is the only thing that gets us to heaven. Grace is the gift
of God, undeserved and unmerited by us because of our sinful nature.
As a gift it is unearned. But grace is not a ticket to freely sin. It is
NOT a free ride. “Grace only” churches today are preparing people to go to
hell. Backsliders after being initially saved still end up in hell. Accepting
grace comes with responsibilities; repenting of our past sins, and being careful
about committing new ones. We show our belief in God’s grace and our
acceptance of the salvation of Jesus as our savior by our works; allowing the
Holy Spirit to work within us. If the Holy Spirit is truly in us, our behavior
changes. If no works or fruits of the Holy Spirit are evident, it means we do
not really have the belief. We have not really accepted the offer of grace; and
no belief, no salvation. Head knowledge doesn’t cut it. Only knowing Jesus,
allowing Him to be our Savior and to work within us and help us follow the
narrow path leads us to heaven. And there’s more to it than just repenting our
past sins, forgiving others and accepting grace.
Full immersion baptism to be born again and witnessing our faith to
others so they might also be saved is part of the package if you want to do it
right
Beware
of “grace only – once saved, always saved”
churches who preach that the new testament covenant doesn’t depend on
promises or obedience from us. A covenant is a contract involving two parties,
not just one. God is one side of this contract; we are the other. These people
teach that Jesus “fulfilled” the law with His death and nothing is required
of us in this contract. A careful analysis of that word “fulfill” from Greek
using a concordance shows that word should have been more accurately translated
“establish”. These people are claiming Jesus did away with the law by
“fulfilling” it. The truth is, He came to “establish” the law, the ten
commandments; He didn’t do away with them. In fact He clarified the law even
further by stating that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto
us; which is in essence what the last six commandments require of us in relating
to our fellow human beings. In the
new covenant God’s blessings are ours when we place our trust in Jesus. True.
But the teaching that our own behavior and performance are not involved in our
acceptance into the new covenant is a dangerous erroneous teaching. Jesus IS our
salvation; our ONLY pathway to the Father. But again, if our changed behavior
doesn’t reflect that belief, it means we have head knowledge only. We know
ABOUT Jesus, but we don’t really KNOW Jesus and we have not really accepted
the offer of grace in order to be saved.
Accepting Jesus means you have a lot of freedom. It is not expected that you will lead a sinless life. It is expected that you will sin a lot less than before though and that you will resist sin and temptation much more so than before. It lets you focus on getting others their parachute without worrying about your own salvation any more. When you slip and fall, Jesus makes up the difference, picks you back up and you continue on. Say you’re sorry and you’ll try not to do that again and move on. When your own salvation is secured, you are better able to focus on helping others get saved also.
Again,
it is more important that you know Jesus than to know facts about Him!
If you believe that Jesus is
coming again, you will watch for His coming. If you earnestly watch for His
coming you will purify yourself before Him by being obedient to His
commandments, loving your neighbor, and witnessing your faith to others so that
they might be saved also. You will commit some of your time and financial
resources to that end also. You WANT
to be part of the bride He is coming for. The door the five wise virgins who
carried extra oil for their lamps entered through is a symbol of the rapture on
the last day; at the second coming. Remember five of the ten didn't get to
enter. They weren't ready. The wedding banquet is the wedding feast of the Son
of God and His Bride. Not all Christians get to go to this feast, therefore,
not all Christians are part of the Bride of Christ. Only those that have taken
the time to get to know Jesus will be allowed in. That is why he said, "I
do not know you." These Christians will be left to be refined as gold
during the great tribulation that is about to unfold instead of being protected
by Yahweh by having His seal or mark during this time period. Yahweh states that He knows those who belong to Him to seal
because they keep His commandments and keep His Sabbaths (plural) ; the weekly
– Saturday, the 7th day of the forth commandment, as well as the 7
annual holy feastdays. Some
Christians obey God; and some do all the things the world does, even the evil
things. Those who obey now will be rewarded. The rest will discover that they
should have. If you are not praying, giving, and working in the "Harvest
Fields" for Christ, YOU DON'T BELIEVE HE IS COMING, no matter what your
Church doctrine teaches! If you believe there is a literal Hell, where men and
women go that do not know the forgiveness of sins, and you are not making
some attempt to warn them, YOU don't believe He is coming back.
Many
people know little about Jesus,
correctly named Yahshua, which means “Yahweh saves”.
Yahweh is God’s proper name. Yahshua is Jesus’ proper name. J
didn’t even enter the English language until around the 15th
century. Who is this man Yahshua, translated as Immanuel, and presently known as
Jesus? Why is He so important? Why is He the most written about
person in the history of mankind? If He died here on earth 2000 years ago why
will He affect where we end up after we die? If you don’t know the story
about Jesus, I strongly suggest you go to http://www.jesusfilm.org/languages/index.html
and watch a 2 hour video of his life. It is available there in hundreds
of different languages and many speed options from a slow dial-up connection to
T1 speeds. You need to know the story of Jesus to understand His importance as
your Savior to you. If you do not have a computer or internet access, contact me
and I will copy you a VHS movie of the Life of Jesus. Free.
Did
you know that
if you do not belong to Jesus Christ you belong to Satan, by default? You don't
have to be a card carrying Satanist to serve Satan. You don't have to be a
murderer, drunkard or drug addict, either. He
will punish all the rapists, murderers, and thieves...But he won't stop there.
He will also punish all liars, the lustful, adulterers, fornicators, idolaters,
and blasphemers. You’ve
already broken all of God’s ten commandments and all you have to do is ignore
Jesus Christ; or fail to have a relationship with Him and call upon Him to be
your savior. He isn’t big on lip
service. If you don't have Jesus in
your life and in your heart today, you are deceived and hell bound--you are a
child of hell, a child of the devil. And hell is the place where you are
punished if you fail to have your parachute on when you die.
How
many times have we heard
someone say, "A loving God wouldn't put His creatures in hell." Well,
God doesn't put anyone in hell--their sins put them there. God is a just judge
and sins require sentence. The Bible tells us all have sinned. ALL! Not ONE of
us can get to heaven by our own accord. Satan gets you by default if you don’t
have a savior. Know ye not that
hell was not created for man? Hell was created for the devil and his
angels—but it is also home to unrepentant sinners who have not called upon the
shed blood of Jesus to save them. That’s what we need to teach you; that not
having Jesus as your savior to keep you out of hell at death is simply not an
option unless you want to toast and roast.
Savior
– Why do we need one?
Savior
– derived from salvare – to save
Refers to a person who
is a redeemer, deliverer, rescuer, who saves someone else from danger, harm,
loss, peril, or destruction. A savior is someone who can do for you what you
cannot do for yourself. Jesus, as
our savior, allows us to achieve salvation, which we cannot achieve on our own.
Salvation gets us into the kingdom and keeps us out of hell.
Salvation is the act of being saved from the fires and torments of hell.
Salvation buys us the ticket to pass through the pearly gates
into heaven. And yes those huge gates, all twelve of them, are each made
of one huge pearl.
Example:
In the United States from the 1640’s until 1865 when laborers were needed to
plant, nurture, weed and harvest the cotton, sugar, and peanut plantations of
the deep south, Negro slaves who had been purchased or shanghaied from Africa
against their will were shipped across the Atlantic to the South to provide the
large workforce to do this. These people were bought and sold just as we handle
cattle, pigs or chickens today. The internal slave trade became the largest
enterprise in the South outside of the plantation itself.
A Negro slave at that time
had virtually no money of his own and was essentially bought and paid for by the
plantation owner. He was considered property. He was in servitude to that
plantation owner until he died or could buy his way out of slavery. For most,
that was never a possibility. But for some fortunate slaves, someone else came
to their rescue; a savior - a relative, a friend, a person who didn’t believe
in slavery, and paid the plantation owner whatever sum it took to buy their
freedom so they were no longer slaves, but could become free men. The vast majority of black slaveholders were free men who purchased members of
their families or who acted out of benevolence to free their compatriots.
They were the saviors of that era.
They did for the slaves what the slaves could not do for themselves. If you will remember history, the civil war was essentially fought over
the issue of slavery and human rights and ended with the Emancipation
Proclamation which freed all the slaves. But the point is; without a savior, the
slave could never escape slavery.
We are in the same boat as those black
slaves.
Different set of circumstances, same need
for a savior if we want to be emancipated from our sins in the eyes of Father
Yahweh. We CAN’T get there on our own accord. We do not achieve His passing
grade of being “perfect”. We have broken every one of His laws; sometimes
unknowingly, sometimes accidently, sometimes in anger, sometimes in rebellion,
sometimes in sorrow and oftentimes in remorse; but we have done so.
We need someone to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We need to
exchange our sinfulness for our Savior’s righteousness in the eyes of the
Father or we simply aren’t allowed into His kingdom. If we don’t get into
the kingdom, our sins send us to hell. No alternative.
Please take this seriously, your afterlife depends upon it. "You
shall not steal." "You
shall not lie." "You
shall not make for yourself any idol."
"You shall not take the name of God in vain." "Honor
your father and your mother." "You
shall not murder." The Bible
says, "He who hates his brother is a murderer," (1 John 3:15).
We can violate His Law by attitude and intent. "You shall not covet."
"You shall have no other gods before Me."
Have you ever failed to put Him first in your life? How many of us can honestly
state we put God before our spouse? Another
tough one. "Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it
holy." "You shall not commit adultery."
I say to you that whoever looks at a woman with lust for her has already
committed adultery with her in his heart. The
Bible says that adulterers (having sex with someone other than your spouse) and
fornicators (those who have sex outside of being married) will not enter the
kingdom of heaven.
Who
can say that they are not guilty of breaking these Commandments?
All of us have broken ALL of them at one time
or another no matter how hard we’ve tried not to.
The Bible tells us that everyone has sinned.
There is nobody that is without sin.
This is what the Bible means when it says, "All have sinned and fall
short of the Glory of God."
Can
you see our predicament?
You are guilty of sinning against God
Himself, and, because you have a conscience, (con-with, science-knowledge) you
have sinned "with knowledge." Isn't it true that every time you lied,
stole, or lusted, etc., you knew it was wrong?
Does the fact that you have sinned
against God scare you?
It should. You have actually angered Him by your sin. The Bible says His
wrath abides on you, that you are an "enemy of God in your mind through
wicked works." Perhaps you
think God is good and because of his goodness He will overlook your sins?
But if you knew of a human judge who turned a blind eye to the crimes of
a guilty murderer or rapist... would you describe him as a "good"
judge? No.......... That would be a "corrupt" judge. God could never
be a corrupt judge. He will punish
all the rapists, murderers, and thieves. But
he won't stop there. He will also punish all liars, the lustful, adulterers,
fornicators,idolaters, and blasphemers.
The place of eternal punishment is Hell.
God
does not want you to perish.
He is rich in mercy and compassion, and has provided a way for you to be
forgiven. He has invited you to come to Him for a full pardon and receive the
free gift of Eternal Life. You cannot earn it, and you do not deserve it, but
God is offering it to you as proof of His love for you. Imagine
you are standing in front of a judge, guilty of multiple serious crimes. All the
evidence has been presented and there is no doubt about your guilt. Your
apologies and good works cannot erase your crimes; therefore you must be
punished. The fine for your crime is $500,000 or imprisonment, but you don’t
have two pennies to rub together. The judge is about to pass sentence when
someone you don't even know steps in and pays your fine for you! The court
accepts the money and declares that you are free to go. The law has been
satisfied, your debt has been paid in full, and the stranger’s sacrifice was a
demonstration of his love for you. That’s what God did for you 2000 years ago.
The
Bible says that the God of the Universe became a man (Jesus Christ), and
suffered and died on the cross for your sins and mine so that we could be set
free. It's as simple as this.... we broke the Law, and Jesus paid our fine.
"God demonstrated His own love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) "Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us."
(Galatians 3:13)
Do you see God’s great love for you?
Do you see your need for His forgiveness? Do what He commands and
“Repent…that your sins may be wiped out and times of refreshing may come
from the Lord.” (Acts 3:19) You
must turn away from sin and turn to God. Desire to have NOTHING to do with sin,
and surrender your life to the One who can save you. Jesus died to set you free,
and then he rose from death to be your Lord. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the
Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If you
will confess and forsake your sins (repent) and trust in Jesus Christ as your
Savior and Lord, God will forgive you and you’ll pass from death to life. If
you are not sure how to pray, read Psalm 51 and make it your prayer.
You can pray something like this
Lord Jesus Christ, I know I am a sinner
and do not deserve eternal life. But I believe you died on the cross for my sins
and arose from the grave to purchase a place in heaven for me. Lord Jesus, come
into my life and take control of my life. Forgive me my sins as I forgive others
who have sinned against me and save me. I repent of my sins, and I will turn
away from sin, and I will place my trust in you for my salvation. Please forgive
me, and grant me your gift of everlasting life.
In Jesus’ name, amen
There
is nothing magic about these words
It is the attitude of your heart that God cares about. God
will transform you from the inside out. You will think and feel differently as
you learn to trust and obey Him. God will give you new strength to live right
and love Him above all else. Read your Bible daily and obey His Word. You can
trust God—He loves you and will always be faithful. If you've decided to reject the gift of forgiveness and you
die in your sins, there is no hope for you. There is no purgatory. The wrath of
God abides on you and you will spend eternity in Hell. Please take the time to
read the Heaven and Hell Books in the “Libros de Cielo Y Infierno” folder,
translated into Spanish there so you know what to look forward to in hell.
Are
you beginning to get the jist of this salvation thing?
Wow – we inherit this sinful nature from
the first humans, Adam and Eve, who first sinned in the garden of Eden, so it is
our nature to sin even if we don’t want to. God gives us His law to obey if we
want to be considered righteous but as simple as these ten little rules are, we
just can’t seem to follow them. We end up breaking all of them at one time or
another during our lives. We know that if we are not righteous we will not enter
the kingdom of heaven when we die. If
we don’t go to heaven, we know we will go to hell.
We know that hell is real and a very, very bad place to end up at, a
place of everlasting punishment. There is no purgatory in the Bible where we can
work our sins off. What a dilemma!
The Problem and the Solution
Let’s go over this one more time to make sure you get it right!
If you want to get to heaven on your own good deeds without the Jesus
parachute, you have to be perfect, God’s only passing score. That’s not a
possibility for any of us as we have broken ALL of God’s ten commandments; ALL
of them. Every one of us. Romans 3:23 “For ALL have sinned and come short of the
glory of God.” Sin is
transgressing God’s law, and includes such things as lying, lust, cheating,
deceit, anger, evil thoughts, immoral behavior, and more; essentially breaking
His ten commandments. And
because of this man cannot save himself. If
you wanted to save yourself by good deeds, you have to be as perfect as God
Himself? Mathew 5:48 “Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.” With such a high
standard, no one can save himself. However,
in spite of our sin…
There’s ONE solution.
No other options. That solution is the Jesus parachute. You put on Jesus and you
keep Him on until you jump through death’s door. The Bible tells us how we can
know for sure that we will have eternal life and will be with God in heaven.
1John 5:13 “These things I have
written unto you…that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”
Romans 6:23 “…the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord.” And because heaven is a gift, like any other genuine gift,
it is not earned or deserved. No
amount of personal effort, good works or religious deeds can earn a place in
heaven for you. Ephesians 2:8-9 “For
by grace are ye saved by faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast.” sin…
God is merciful
And therefore doesn’t want to punish us, and He says….Jeremiah 31:3
“I have loved thee with an everlasting love”.
But the same Bible that tells us
God loves us also tells us that God is just and must punish sin. He says: Exodus
34:7 “…(I) will by no means clear the guilty”
Ezekiel 18:4 “ … the soul that sinneth, it shall die”.
We have a problem.
God loves us and doesn’t want to punish us.
But He is just and must punish sin.
God solved this problem in the person of
Jesus Christ; Yahshua our Messiah.
Who is he? The Bible tells us clearly He is the infinite God-Man, God
the Son. John 1: 1,14
“In the beginning was the word (Jesus), … and the word (Jesus) WAS
God. And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…”.
Jesus came to earth and lived a sinless life, but while on earth he died
on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and arose from the grave to
purchase a place for us in heaven. Isaiah
53:6 “All we, like sheep, have
gone astray; we have turned, every one of us, to his own way; and the Lord hath
laid on him (Jesus), the iniquity (sin) of us all.”
Jesus Christ bore our sin in His
body on the cross and now offers you eternal life (heaven) as a FREE gift.
This gift is received by FAITH, saving
faith.
Faith
is the key that opens the door to heaven.
Many people mistake two things for saving faith.
a.
Saving faith is not mere intellectual knowledge, like believing certain
historical facts. The Bible says that even the devil believes there is only one
God, so believing that there is one God is not saving faith.
b. Saving faith is not mere temporal faith, that is, trusting God for a temporary crisis, such as family, financial or physical needs. These are good and you should trust Christ for these, but they are not saving faith.
Saving Faith is trusting in Jesus Christ
alone for salvation and eternal life.
It means resting on Christ alone for what He has done rather than in
what you or I have done to get us to heaven.
Acts 16:31 “Believe
(trust) on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”.
You have just read the greatest
story ever told, about the greatest offer ever made, by the greatest person who
ever lived; Jesus Christ.
The question that God is asking
you now is: Would you like to
receive the gift of eternal life?
Because this is such an important matter, let’s clarify exactly what
this involves. It
means that you need to:
1.
Transfer your trust from what YOU have been doing to what Christ has done
FOR YOU on the cross.
2.
Accept Christ as your savior. Open the door to your heart and invite him
in. Rev 3:20
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice, and
opens the door I will come in to him…”.
3.
Receive Jesus Christ as Lord; give Him the “driver’s seat” and
“controls” of your life, not the “backseat”.
4. Repent of your sins. Be willing to turn from ANYTHING that is not pleasing to Him. He will reveal His will to you as you grow in your relationship to Him.
You can go to God in prayer, right here,
right now, right where you are.
You can receive God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ right
now. Romans 10:10,13
“For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name
of the Lord shall be saved.” If
you want to receive the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, then call on
Him, asking Him for this gift right now.
Here’s a suggested prayer.
Lord Jesus Christ, I know I am a sinner
and do not deserve eternal life. But I believe you died on the cross for my sins
and arose from the grave to purchase a place in heaven for me. Lord Jesus, come
into my life and take control of my life. Forgive me my sins as I forgive others
who have sinned against me and save me. I repent of my sins, and I will turn
away from sin, and I will place my trust in you for my salvation. Please forgive
me, and grant me your gift of everlasting life.
In Jesus’ name, amen
If this prayer is the sincere desire of your
heart, look at what Jesus promises to those who trust and believe in Him. John 6:47 “Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
Welcome to God’s Family!
Today is your spiritual birthday; a day you
will want to remember. The Bible speaks of those who receive eternal life in
these words. John 1:13 “Which
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God”.
Are
we done??? Is that all there is to
it??? Well, no. It isn’t.
Consider the term
“Backsliding”.
Out of every 200,000 people that make the
altar call and ask God to save them and give them eternal life, only about
15,000 to 18,000 keep the parachute on and stay with Jesus and remain saved. That’s less than 10%. The rest backslide back into their
sinful ways and forget all about Jesus; some thinking that grace is a free
license to sin now and others because they just become caught back up with the
materialistic world we live in and the sinful influences Satan has provided to
steal their salvation. I personally
believe a large reason for this is that the people were never taught from the
git-go the truth about the torments and fires of hell or the truth about how
being good does not get them to heaven. They
never went through the presentation you have been shown above.
The evangelists that brought them to that altar call preached about the
glory of God, how good God is, how loving God is, how God would not send them to
hell; but they didn’t talk at all about how God is a just judge and the
punishment for sin is hell. They didn’t tell us just trying to be good doesn’t work.
They preached nice instead of necessity. They didn’t properly explain what the
term savior means and exactly why Jesus as our savior is absolutely necessary to
our salvation. No savior, no parachute, no heaven, we go to hell; no
alternatives. Keep a daily walk with Jesus and don’t be a backslide statistic.
Grace
is not a license to freely sin.
It is not easy to explain to someone that
although our works will not get us to heaven; if we do not show good works by
our thoughts, actions, words, and deeds; it simply proves we lack the belief
that we have been saved. James 2:17
says "In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action; is
dead". Mathew 7:21 is pretty explicit ," Not everyone who says
to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will
of My Father in heaven." Whoever has the faith can't help but show it
by his/her actions. Logically,
eternal salvation is provided for man solely by God's grace through the
substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. Man is saved through faith alone in
Christ alone, independant of his works, but good works are a necessary result of
true faith; like doing the rest and worship thing on Sabbath, keeping
the ten commandments as well as you can, treating your fellow man with respect
and forgiving his faults against you, witnessing your faith to others, and being
baptized by full immersion are all part of being born again.
Slipping into sin occasionally
like a white lie here or a slip of the tongue there, staring too long at a low
cut blouse, wishing that yellow corvette across the street was yours, or getting
angry with your kids but realizing it and reconciling soon thereafter; these
things are expected. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect like He is. We are
covered by Jesus’ righteousness as long as we continue to wear the parachute
and we pick ourselves back up, quickly repent, and try not to do it again. We
keep His commandments as best we can. We
forgive our fellow man when he trespasses against us. We treat our fellow man as
we would want to be treated. This
is MOST important in retaining your status of saved. We put our relationship
with Jesus above all else. We pray daily. We open our Bibles and study some
daily. We don’t just ask Jesus to grant us grace and then put Him on the
shelf.
Baptism
If not already, you need to be baptised; full immersion Baptism to be specific.
Full immersion means going completely under the water, just as you see John the
Baptist doing at the river Jordan in the Jesus movies, not sprinkling. See the
document “Baptism” for a full explanation of why this is also a
necessary requirement to get into heaven. Christ
emphasized, baptism is necessary! It's in the Bible. (See John 3:5).
" I am telling you the truth," replied Jesus, "that no one
can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without being born of water and the
spirit".
Baptism demonstrates true repentance.
Such repentance is a turning to believe, follow, and obey Jesus Christ, and is
the only kind of repentance that will save us. True repentance must lead a
person to the waters of baptism. In baptism we identify ourselves with the
death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Jesus died, bearing our sins and
paying the penalty for them in Himself. He was buried, taking our old life into
the tomb with Him. He was raised from the dead, that He might give to us by the
power of God, His new life, a supernatural resurrected life of peace, joy and
victory over all that previously bound us.
Are there any prerequisites for it?
Among the prerequisites for baptism noted in the Scriptures are belief in Jesus
Christ as the Son of God (Acts 8:36,37) and repentance (Acts 2:37,38), and being
of sufficient age (usually ten or older) to know what Baptism is really all
about. Baptism isn’t about being dunked in a pool of water. It is about taking
off the old self, getting rid of all sin, and starting anew; giving your life
over to Jesus, letting Him have the helm. It’s about letting God’s Holy
Spirit come upon you and show you what to do.
It’s a serious step in your life. Being baptized lets you show that you
understand what the parachute is all about and you have made the decision to put
it on and wear it. God’s Holy
Spirit working within me allowed me to cast out demons in a possessed woman in
Jesus’ name; a day in my life I can never forget.
Witnessing
to others
Are you ashamed of your new status of being
saved? Do you want to keep it a secret? Do you think your friends will laugh at
you if you tell them you asked God to give you eternal life so your spirit
doesn’t go to hell when you die? God
never promised easy. In fact He says you will be mocked and scourned because of
Him. Don't keep it a secret because
people might think you are a little strange talking about God and what's right
and what's wrong. When he tells us to share the good news; he means just that.
I get angered at the people who badmouth the Jehovah's witnesses or Mormons for
their house to house tactics. I certainly don't agree with
everything these people had to say to me over the years, in fact both groups
have serious flaws in their doctrine and belief system, but I have to give them
an A for effort in trying to share the "good news"; because many
people are just downright mean to them and slam doors in their faces; or issue
profane words at them for bothering them, or call them kooks and cultists; it
takes a lot of guts and fortitude to continue witnessing under those demeaning
circumstances. With that, why would you want to witness about the salvation
of Jesus to others? Maybe a better
question is; knowing what you now know about hell; why wouldn’t you want to
keep others from going there?
If you are not praying, giving, and
working
in the "Harvest Fields" for Christ, YOU DON'T BELIEVE JESUS IS COMING,
no matter what your Church doctrine teaches!
If you believe there is a literal Hell, where men and
women go that do not know about eternal life as a FREE gift and the
forgiveness of sins, and you are not making some attempt to warn them and teach
them about salvation, YOU don't believe He is coming back. Witnessing your faith
to others is all a part of knowing Jesus. See tracts
at http://www.detailshere.com/tracts.htm
for more about witnessing along with sources of witnessing tracts to hand out.
In fact, in the book The Divine Revelation of Heaven by Mary Baxter,
which you can read in the “Libros de Cielo Y Infierno” folder on the Spanish
Bible lessonCD, she was shown that angels are actually keeping track of who and
how many each of us bring to Jesus through our witnessing efforts.
Witnessing to others may not only affect getting into heaven but may well affect
what your reward is once there.
Entering
into the Kingdom of Heaven is by grace only,
but the test of that faith in the salvation of Jesus, manifests itself in
obedience to the will of God. "Not
everyone who says to me, Lord Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but
he who does the will of my Father in heaven." "Be doers of the
word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves," James 1:22
The kingdom of God is a Spiritual realm, attained by walking in the Spirit, and producing the fruit of the Spirit; which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
We need to study the love walk
and how we're to walk in love as if our Kingdom citizenship depended on it,
because it does. Why does citizenship depend upon love? Because if we don't
learn how to forgive and love, we can't claim to know Him. Pay particular
attention to the word documents on this cd
or on this website “Saved – How do I know” and “Saved – grace
or grace plus works”. It’s a touchy but important subject. You must learn
that works cannot save you, only faith in salvation can save you; but if works
are not manifested in your life, it also then shows you don’t have true faith
but only head knowledge.
True salvation is turning from sin (repentance) and trusting in
Christ Jesus 100% (Acts 20:21). Prove your
repentance by your deeds (Acts 26:20). The road to life is hard and only a few
find it (Matthew 7:13,14). Many
who get saved fall away (Luke 8:13; John 6:66; 1 Timothy 1:19). After initial
salvation we must endure to the
end to escape the lake of fire (Matthew 10:22; Hebrews 3:14; Revelation2:10,11).
Eternal life comes the
moment we believe on Jesus for salvation (John 3:16; 6:47; 1 John 5:12,13).
According to true
grace teaching,
eternal life is a hope (Titus 3:7), yet to be reaped (Galations 6:8, 9), in the
age to come (Mark 10:30) for
only those who persist in doing good (Romans 2:7), and do not grow weary and
give up (Galations 6:9).
Que
Dios le bendiga – may God bless you,
Ber
berry@detailshere.com
www.detailshere.com/bible.htm