Sunday, May 21, 2017

BOOK: Exhortations

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e-Book & paperback




Volume 6 ... #3
We Must Run The Race Until The End... If We Drop Out We Lose Everything

When a person enters a race, if he fails to cross the finish line he receives nothing.

When we are born again, we enter a race, so to speak.  We are full of excitement over God and things of God.  We anticipate others being this way also.

But along the years, we see people, even church people, bored when we speak of things of God.  We often find they do not want to hear.

We see churches pervert scripture and eliminate scripture.

We expect the world to be wicked but when the churches change scripture and cast aside the pure meaning of the instruction from God in Bible, we are often devastated.

Jesus said, concerning the end times ...  And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.  Mt. 24

We must not allow our heart to grow cold for the scriptures.  And we must endure to the end of our own lives on this earth or until Jesus returns for the church and removes us from this earth.

Jesus speaks about this in the following scripture:

Rev. 3 ... And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 


*****

The sins around us cause the danger for us.  The danger is allowing the word of God to grow weak and dim in our hearts.   

I am convinced one key to endurance is to make a practice of daily Bible reading and the reading of godly exhortations.

The reason for my confidence is the following instruction from the Book of Hebrews.

Heb. 10:25 ...   exhorting one another:and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
 

26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.


Paul told Timothy:  Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. I Tim. 4:13

Reading Bible and godly exhortations are like throwing logs on a fire that is about to go out.

We also stir up the gift of God that is in us by reading Bible and godly exhortations.

*****

We must not just start the race.  We must cross the finish line. 

To become discouraged and drop out will be our destruction. 

So we must "endure" to the end says Jesus. 


Mt. 24:12-13 ... And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.