Whenever You Find a Man Who

“Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later.“ C S Lewis

Christ Our Propitiation

Please don’t let that title scare you off. That is a beautiful and profound word.

Christ’s death turns away the wrath of God. The apostle Paul said Christ is our propitiation. He is a propitiatory sacrifice. It refers to what Christ did on our behalf before God.

We are “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption, which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (Romans 3:24-25).

God gave His Son as the means of the propitiation, “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). A. T. Robertson said, “God could not let sin go as if a mere slip. God demanded the atonement and provided it.” It was “by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9).

The word “propitiate” in its classical form was used of the act of appeasing the Greek gods by a sacrifice, of rendering them favorable toward the worshipper. The sacrifice was offered by the pagan worshiper to buy off the anger of the god and buy his love. Note very carefully that this idea is not brought over into the New Testament. The LORD God does not need to be appeased nor is His love for sale.

In the New Testament it refers to the act of getting rid of sin which has come between God and man. The word hilasterion is used in the Greek translation of Leviticus 16:14 to refer to the golden cover on top of the Ark of the Covenant. In the Ark, below this lid, were placed the tablets of stone upon which were written the Ten Commandments, which Israel had violated. On the Day of Atonement before the Ark stood the High Priest representing the people who had sinned. When the sacrificial blood is sprinkled on this cover, it ceases to be a place of judgment and becomes a place of mercy. The blood comes between the violated law and the violators, the people. The blood of Jesus satisfies the just requirements of God’s holy law which mankind broke, pays the penalty for man, and thus removes that which had separated between a holy God and sinful man, sin, its guilt and penalty. This is far removed from the pagan idea of propitiation. Jesus Christ is God’s High Priest who was both the Mercy Seat and the Sacrifice, which transforms the former from a judgment seat to one where mercy is offered a sinner on the basis of justice satisfied.

Bengel observed that God, “’placed before the eyes of all’ unlike the ark of the covenant which was veiled and approached only by the high priest.”

The LORD God set forth His Son, the Lord Jesus, as the One who would be the satisfaction for our sins. Because God is satisfied with the payment of the sin debt, His wrath is turned aside, away from the believing sinner. Christ absorbed the wrath of God on our behalf. He bore our punishment as our substitute.

When God looked down upon the sacrifice He judged man guilty, the payment was paid in full, and in His righteousness could therefore acquit the believing sinner who put His trust in the Lamb of God. That mercy seat is the place were God met man in His grace since the sacrifice turned away the wrath of God because His righteousness was satisfied. The guilty sinner is spared because of the death of Christ in our place. When God looks down upon the believing sinner He sees not our sins and guilt, but the blood of Jesus. He is our expiatory sacrifice that satisfied the righteousness of God. His death paid our debt in full and a holy God was satisfied.

All of the lambs in the sacrifices in the Old Testament pointed to God’s perfect Lamb who would wholly remove our death penalty.

How do we know this is all true? We know we can trust God because a holy and righteous God tore the veil in the temple from top to the bottom. The moment Christ died it was like God the Father reached in and took hold of His outer garment and tore it from the top to the bottom in His mourning for His only Son. God tore the veil in two to open the way into His presence for all who believe on His Son as their sinless sacrifice who died as their propitiation. Bloody sacrifices came to an end in the temple because the death of Christ alone met all the holy demands of a thrice-holy God.

Have you placed your trust in God’s Lamb?

Is All You Need.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you Matthew 5:44 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 The Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

Prayer: Please Jesus bless me with Your grace to forgive those who have abused me so that I am blessed with Your love, joy and peace. In this manner I will be able to serve you better, especially while encountering the wicked ones that love to torment me.

Please bless me to always reply with a gentle answer to extinguish the fires of hate and rage in those I encounter.

Please bless me to always behave in a loving manner to those who are hurt or are unlovable.

May this bless them that through Your grace through me it will bring them unto repentance.

Please Jehovah Jireh ( God will supply ) bless me with Your precious love, joy and peace so that I am be able to serve Jesus by serving others with love, joy, patience, self- control, wisdom and compassion.

I humbly request this in the name of The Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. Amen

May you have a grateful heart towards He who has given so much to you. indeovi vas ( may you live with Jesus in Latin )

Seleh- stop and think about it.

This photo and article @ Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah 2023 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it but it may not be sold without authors consent

If You Want to Succeed in Life

If you want to succeed in life, always listen and obey The Holy Spirits guidance Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah

We are Cruel to Ourselves If

We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it.
J. I. Packer

Christian Perfection (I)

How good does a person have to be in order to be saved? Perhaps we can best answer that question by asking, how perfect is God?

Jesus said, “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

The LORD God told the children of Israel, “You shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2; cf. Deut. 18:13).

The Hebrew word tam or tamim means to be “without defect” or “without blemish.” The Hebrew sacrifices had to be “without blemish,” spotless and entirely without defect (Exodus 12:5; 29:1; 1 Pet. 1:19; Eph. 5:27). Another word shalem means “whole” or “complete.” That which is without defect or blemish is complete.

God’s righteous standard never changes because He does not change. God is the perfect standard or He would not be God.

Jesus used the word “perfect” (teleioi from telos) meaning end, goal, limit. It is the absolute standard of our heavenly Father. Such a person is perfect or fully developed “in a moral sense.” Therefore, in the moral realm it means “blameless.”

Jesus is the perfect example of that divine standard (1 Peter 2:21-25).

The word “holy” in Leviticus 19:2 gives us the reason for the sacrifices under the Mosaic law. God is holy and man is a sinner. Sin separates man from God. The source of our sanctification is “the LORD who sanctifies you” (20:8). The meaning is to set apart or separate.

God’s standard for man is complete, perfect, moral rectitude. To be acceptable to God every human being must be as blameless and sinless as Jesus Christ.

That standard of righteousness creates a moral and spiritual crisis for all mankind. The Bible tells us we have all sinned and fall short of such moral perfection. “There is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God’s standard is a clean heart and it is evident from studying the Sermon on the Mount that no one can live up to its demands (cf. Matt. 5:20-25, 27). The center of our personality condemns us. Jesus said, “Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornicators, thefts, false witnesses, slanders,” etc. (15:18-20). It is the heart that has to be changed (2 Cor. 5:17).

I have a problem. I am a sinner. But my problem is even greater than I ever imagined. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Our sinning can be illustrated by an archer shooting his arrows from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Central America, at the North Pole. He will miss it every time. It will always fall short. No one will ever get to heaven by his or her own efforts because we miss God’s perfect standard.

God never lowers His standards to accommodate sinful man. His absolute holiness is the standard. He will not accept half-way or half-hearted obedience. God is infinite in His perfections.  Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:48, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  We are to be “brought to completion, full-grown, lacking in nothing.”

How can that be since what has been written describes me?  Great!  Because that is why Jesus Christ went to the cross and died as a sacrifice for sin.  “The wages of sin is death,” and Jesus died your death on the cross.  Based on the atoning sacrificial death of Jesus Christ as our substitute, God can now save us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  God credits to our account the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.  God dealt in full with our penalty by sending Christ to the cross to die for us.  When we believed on Christ, God the Father and Judge declared us acquitted based on the saving work of Christ.

Every Christian struggles with holiness in his life, and all of us will until we see Jesus Christ face to face (Phil. 3:12-16).

God makes us holy by changing us from the inside out (2 Cor. 3:18).  It is a progressive sanctification, not a once-for all sinless perfection before we die.

The ultimate goal of the believer is to live in harmony with Matthew 5:48, and “to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.”

We will be established “unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints” (I Thess. 3:13).

It is to those who strive to attain the goal that the victory is assured.  We will reach the ideal goal of perfection when we see Jesus in glory.  It will be the perfect gift to the believer (Psa. 17:15); Phil. 1:6; 3:12; II Tim. 4:7, 8; Rev. 21:27; 7:14).

May you have a grateful heart towards He who has given so much to you.

indeovi vas ( may you live with Jesus in Latin )

Seleh- stop and think about it.

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006

Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

To the Comfort Animals

I pray I can be almost as good of a care giver to the comfort animals Poppa has blessed us with as He is with me. Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah

History Records that When

History records that when homosexuality is dominate in society it breaks down the family of which every moral society is based upon. Soon lawlessness, depravity and disease is rampant in that society and it collapses from with in and then conquered from without. Joseph- Anthony a son of Jehovah

The Carnal Mind and a New Mind

George Whitfield, the eighteenth century evangelist, was correct when he said, “If the unregenerate man could enter heaven, he would be so unhappy in heaven, that he would ask God to let him run down to hell for shelter.”

How could the enemies of God sit down at the banquet of the Lamb of God?

Universalism wants us to bury our heads in the sand.

The carnal mind is enmity against God all the time.  So why would such a person ever want to be in God’s holy presence?  It is against everything God is for in His universe.  It sets the world system and all it teaches in opposition to the LORD God.

The carnal mind is a “depraved spirit that is set on those things which are not proper” (Romans 1:28).  How would you know one if you saw it?  Romans 1:29-32 says, “Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

It is a dreadful picture of human depravity.  The apostle then declared, “Therefore you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things” (Romans 2:1-2).

There is a day coming when “God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus” (v. 16).  It is not because we do not deserve it.  The Bible testifies that we are all guilty.  “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5-6).

After a detailed presentation of our sins against us in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul concludes, “But glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:10-11).  “You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?” (Romans 2:23).

How many of us have not wished in the depths of our hearts, “Would to God these sins were not forbidden!”  Spurgeon asked, “Who among us has not been so foolish as to desire that there were no God?”

But neither solution makes the problem go away.  We still stand guilty before God.  “Every carnal mind in the world is at enmity against God.”

The carnal mind declares that by our very nature we are the child of evil.  What part of man was affected by the fall?  The entire man, every part of him – every power, every passion is at enmity with God.  You may say, “Oh, Wil, I am not really that bad.”  God says, “The heart is deceitful above all things.”  It is desperately wicked.

Why would any carnal person want to be in the holy presence of a righteous God? It would mean to be guilty and condemned twenty-four hours a day. We would never be able to escape His holy, hot wrath.  Our sense of guilt would always be a state of awareness.

The only solution to the desperate plight of man is to have a new mind and a new heart.  If we have not experienced a change of heart, our carnal mind will always be at enmity against God.

Our thoughts, our decisions, our behaviors all testify that we deserve God’s holy wrath.  Every person born into this world deserves God’s wrath and damnation.

Because we are guilty sinners, God must provide the solution.  Since the carnal mind is at enmity with God, salvation cannot be by any merit on our part.  It must be by God’s grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.  If we are at enmity with God, what merit can we have?  How can we deserve anything from the person we hate?  Therefore, God must step in and rescue us by His grace.

The Spirit of God must lay His hand on you and renew your heart or there is no chance of your entering into heaven.

Jesus Christ can make peace through His blood.  If the Spirit of God has convinced you of your sin as you read this, you can become a new creature, a new person, with a new heart if you will ask Jesus Christ to be your Savior.

By our physical birth we are at enmity with God, but by the new birth we are made His friend.  Our nature must be changed if we are to enter into God’s holy presence.  Here is the most precious promise for every sinner to believe.  “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

SELAH! Pause – reflect- just think of that!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.

Carefully Read the Warning Label

Depravity.

That is not a beautiful word. It means that the corruption of sin has extended to all aspects of our nature, including our entire being. Because of that corruption there is nothing man can do to merit or influence in any way a saving relationship with a holy God.

The fallen person’s relation to a holy God has been radically affected. Because of the effects of the fall, man’s original relationship with God was broken and our entire nature was polluted. As a result of the Fall of man, no individual can do anything, even religious things, that will merit salvation, or eternal life, in God’s sight. There is nothing an individual can do to influence in a positive way a right relationship with God. No action that man does, no matter how good or religious can gain favor with God for salvation.

What was affected by the Fall? The mind (Rom. 1:28; Eph. 4:18), the conscience (Heb. 9:14), the heart or inner being were all corrupted spiritually (Jer. 17:9; Mk. 7:20-23).

We see the depravity of mankind most clearly in the rejection of Jesus Christ in John 1:11. “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”

Spiritual depravity is demonstrated by the willfulness and spiritual blindness of everyone apart from the grace of God. The cross of Jesus Christ is the response of fallen man to the goodness of God (1 Cor. 2:14).

How far did man fall? The Bible tells us that when man fell into sin he fell all the way to the bottom and there he lies hopelessly lost, blind and spiritually dead, unable to help himself until God reaches down by grace, lifts him up and gives him spiritual life through the new birth (Rom. 3:9-18).

Left to ourselves we are not the least bit righteous. Sinful man has no ability to save himself (Jn. 1:13). We are corrupted by sin and in rebellion against God.

The apostle Paul tells us how our sinfulness affects a holy God. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). The wrath is revealed against us because we are without excuse (vv. 18-32; cf.1:18; 2:5, 8; 3:5; 4:15; 5:9; 9:22; 12:19; 13:4-5).

The reality and terror of the wrath of God is emphasized in both the Old and New Testaments.

The Bible places emphasis on the wrath of God as a strong and settled opposition to all that is evil. This holiness comes from God’s very nature. He is a holy and righteous God.

The wrath of God is that in His character that is in absolute opposition to all that contradicts His holiness.

God does not flare up with red hot anger as human beings do, but His wrath is described in the Bible as a firm, fearful, hatred of all wickedness that builds up and will one day result in eternal condemnation of all who reject His grace and mercy provided through the atoning death of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Robert Haldane said, “The wrath of God was revealed when the sentence of death was first pronounced, the earth cursed and man driven out of the earthly paradise, . . but especially by the reign of death throughout the world. It was proclaimed by the curse of the law on every transgression and was intimated in the institution of sacrifice and in all the services of the Mosaic dispensation. . . . The whole creation has become subject to vanity and groans and travails together in pain. . . But above all, the wrath of God was revealed from heaven when the Son of God came down to manifest the divine character, and when that wrath was displayed in His sufferings and death in a manner more awful than by all the tokens God has before given to His displeasure against sin.”

Biblical Christianity is God reaching down to save perishing sinners, not men and women reaching out to Him. Jesus Christ died for those who deserve God’s wrath. His death is fully adequate to cover all our sins and depravity and to reconcile us to God (1 John 1:6-9; Rom. 3:21-26; 5:12-21).

Jesus Christ is our only hope. Be sure and read the label. There is a day coming when men are warned to flee the wrath of God (2 Thess. 1:6-10; 2:11-12; Heb. 10:29-31). The coming of Jesus Christ a second time will be suddenly and unexpectedly. Some will meet Him as their Judge and other as their Savior.

If you have never put your trust in Jesus Christ for eternal life I pray that you will right now. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved today from the wrath of God for all eternity.

SELAH! Pause – reflect- just think of that!

Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006 Anyone is free to use this material and distribute it, but it may not be sold under any circumstances whatsoever without the author’s written consent.