All The Counsel of God

Every day you live, you are getting nearer the time of Christ’s Return.

When he comes, will you be ready to leave the world and go to be forever with Him, like Enoch?

Enoch disappeared one day, and the Bible says it was because God took him. Why did God take him? Because he kept good company. The Bible says that “…Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Genesis 5:24).

It will pay you to examine your situation and make sure you are keeping good company. The apostle gave sound advice when he exhorted the believers to separate themselves from the lawless, the people who walk in spiritual darkness, the people who make idols of earthly things. To those who separate themselves from these people, God says, “..I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:16).

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-16)

Paul posed these questions to the Corinthians but did not answer them, for the answer is self-evident. You may say, “But we have to work together, and live in the same neighborhood. We have to be friendly and cooperative.” Yes, but we don’t have to be intimate.

What Paul is opposing is the yoking together of believers and unbelievers. This would include the marriage yoke, the business yoke, the social yoke-any voluntary binding of oneself together in intimate association with unbelievers. He calls it an unequal yoke. It can be a very galling yoke.

How different is the yoke of Christ! Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

When the Lord comes to catch away his people, it will pay us to be found keeping good company and walking with God, like Enoch.

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS

1. TRY THEM

1 John 4:1-3  ^“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”

2. MARK THEM

            Romans 16:17 “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.”

3. REBUKE THEM

            Titus 1:13 “This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;”

4. HAVE NO FELLOWSHIP

            Ephesians 5:11 “¹¹ And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”

5. WITHDRAW THYSELF

            2 Thessalonians 3:6 “ Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.”

6. RECEIVE THEM NOT

            2 John 1:10-11 (KJV) “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”

7. HAVE NO COMPANY WITH HIM

            2 Thessalonians 3:14 (KJV) “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.”

8. REJECT THEM

            Titus 3:10 (KJV) “A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;”

9. BE YE SEPARATE

            2 Corinthians 6:17 (KJV) “ Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,”

Too many people are looking to man for guidance rather than the clear teachings of the Words of God.

There are some practices and some phrases of worldliness which are so clearly unscriptural and inconsistent with true Christian testimony that there is no question as to the right and wrong of them. They are clearly recognized as in violations of proper Christian conduct. But there are other things which are not so obviously contrary to the Bible concerning which many Christians young people, and other folks alike, are puzzled. Desiring to be true to the Lord and obedient to His Word, and yet wishing to avoid unreasonable extremes, they sometimes find it difficult to decide as to their participation in a particular thing.

The Bible has a lot to say about the world. It uses the word world in three different ways: 1) The world of lost men. “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16); 2) The material world we live in. “For we brought nothing into this world…” (1 Timothy 6:7); 3) The third use – the one we are interested in – refers to the conditions and the influences around us that are opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, Jesus said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19).

Jesus is saying that believers are in the material world, but they do not belong to the system that controls it! In other words, there is an invisible “world” of evil that uses the material world and its activities to keep people from coming to Christ and obeying Him. It is that unseen system controlled by Satan that we refer to when we talk about the “world.” “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” (Ephesians 2:2)  “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

True Christians are recognized because they have no part in the activities of the Christ-opposing world around them. What a powerful testimony! “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15) “…know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4) Take notice and you will find that in all places where man finds his worldly enjoyment, he shuts out Christ-lest He should come in and spoil his pleasures.

We realize that part of the problem today is that standards are drastically changing. Deed and acts that were once labelled “unbecoming” for a Christian or “worldly” are now accepted and acknowledged without shock or shudder. What is your attitude toward all this? Are you going to accept the lowered and lowering standards around you? May God help you to say, “Most surely not!”

May you seek to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ and to daily guard your conduct. His standards have not changed – nor should ours.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1)

“Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” (1 Corinthians 16:13)

“If we allow natural affection and human admiration or the lack of these to govern our efforts, we will surely fail in our work and our lives shall be ruined. To obtain genuine fruitfulness, we frequently need to disregard fleshly relationships. Our thoughts and desires must be offered completely to the Lord.” -Watchman Nee

 

When Jacob Deshazer went as one of Jimmy Doolittles raiders on Japan on April 18, 1942, he was an atheist. He was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese. He saw two of his companions shot by a firing squad. He saw another die of slow starvation.

During the long months, he pondered the question of why the Japanese hated him, and why he hated them. He began to recall some of the things he had heard about Christianity.

Boldly, he asked his, jailers if they could get him a Bible. At first they laughed boisterously, as at a good joke, then grew ugly and warned him to stop making a nuisance of himself. But he kept asking.

A year and a half later – May 1944 – a guard brought him a Bible, flung it at him, and said, “Three weeks you have. Three weeks, then I take it away.”

True to his word, in three weeks the guard took the Bible away, and DeShazer never saw it again.

In 1948, DeShazer, his wife, and infant son were on their w back to Japan as missionaries, all because he asked for a Bible and a Japanese guard gave him one for three weeks.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword…” (Hebrews 4:12)

 

“We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction” –H.A. Ironside

“Never think that you can live to God by your own power or strength; but always look to and rely on him for assistance, yea for all strength and grace.” –David Brainerd

“There is power through prayer. For many Christians, prayer is nothing special, just something we’re supposed to do-go to church, tithe, read the Bible, pray. But prayer should be so much more than an item on our ‘to do list.” –E.M. Bounds

A burden is something carried in a sea-going vessel (Acts 21:3). God’s people carry burdens in their earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7). The use of this word in connection with a ship’s cargo teaches us that a burden may weigh down a man, but that he is well suited for the purpose of burden bearing. In fact, for a ship to sail without a burden would be very dangerous. It needs to sit low in the water or it cannot be rightly governed. When a ship has no cargo, its hold will be filled with ballast to ensure that it does not sit too high in the water. This elevated position would cause it to fall over, so it is deliberately weighed down for its own safety.

Thus, every man has burdens and though some may help him carry them (Galatians 6:2) none can, or should, remove them (Galatians 6:5).

It is often said by preaches that Jesus will take away one’s burdens. This is not true. He will make that burden light by assisting us in carrying it (Matthew 11:30) but He knows we cannot sail safely without a burden.

Meditation from the Words of God

Scripture- Romans 12:1-2

Perfect Will of God

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Often Christians ask how I can know what the perfect will of God is for my life.

The Apostle Paul tells us clearly how a Christian can know the perfect will of God for his or her life.

First, we present our bodies a living sacrifice.  God wants us to present our bodies to Him, to be used as a sacrifice for Him.  Notice the verse says “a living sacrifice.”  Remember, to sacrifice it going cost us something.  The Christian martyr of old and today in other lands sacrificed their very lives for the cause of Christ.

By living sacrifice God means He wants us to sacrifice and surrender our lives totally to Him.

Also, notice in order for our living sacrifice to be acceptable to God it must be “holy.”

The word holy means consecrated or set apart solely for the worship of God.  Notice the word of God says “which is your reasonable service.” In other words, this is what is expected of a Christian.  When you present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,”  You are not doing something extraordinary but doing what you should doing.

In verse 2 we are instructed not to be conformed to this world.  In other words in every aspect of our lives we should not act or live as the world does.  The apostle Paul reminds us in Galatians 1:4 that Christ gave himself for us for the purpose of delivery us from this “present evil world.”  You see the world is evil because the god of this world is Satan.  The apostle John reminds us 1 John 2:15-16, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

So, how do we avoid being conformed to this world?  The answer is found here in verse 2, “but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,”.  We are to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.”  The only way we can renew our minds each day and be transformed is by reading, studying, meditating on the Word of God each every day.  We should be entering into our minds each day the things of God not the things of this world.

If we follow the instructions given in verse 1 and the first part of verse 2 the end result will be “that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

The word prove means know what the perfect will of God is for you life.

By following God’s instructions as found in Romans 12:1-2, we will be able to know what the perfect will of God is for our lives.

 

 

IF YOU DIED RIGHT NOW, ARE YOU 100% SURE THAT YOU WOULD GO TO HEAVEN?

“…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved…” Acts 16:31

1. YOUR CONDITION: “As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one.” Romans 3:10 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23
2. YOUR DESTINY: “For the wages of sin is death…” Romans 6:23 “And it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment.” Hebrews 9:27
3. YOUR SUBSTITUTE: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
4. YOUR OPPORTUNITY: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:9 “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:13 “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved…” Acts 16:31
5. REVIEW: (a) Do you acknowledge that you are a sinner? (b) Do you know that the final result of sin is death? (c) Do you realize that God loves you and sent His Son to die for you?
6. RESPONSE: Then acknowledge and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died for your sins according to scriptures; and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures; and be saved TODAY! PLEASE DO NOT PUT OFF BEING SAVED!