John MacArthur: A Survey Of The Soils

From the parable of the sower, Mark 4:1-20

http://gty.org

Paul Washer: Regeneration Versus Decisionism

In this sermon Paul talks about the misuse of Scripture in the understanding of salvation.
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=1021081230111
Regeneration vs Decisionism – DEEPER Conference 2008 Breakout Session (Living Waters & Way of the Master)

How Do We Get The Gospel Of Jesus Christ Back To The Poor?

When Jesus Christ kicked off His public ministry (His turning the water into wine was done privately, as His time had not yet come) by reading the following Messianic prophecy from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19). Later, Jesus Christ received the strongest challenge to His ministry, and it came not from Satan, the Pharisees or Sadducees, or the Romans, but rather from His own prophet, the imprisoned John the Baptist: “And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3). To give evidence of His legitimacy, Jesus Christ cited these works: “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matthew 11:5).

Now the nature of the challenge to Jesus Christ’s authenticity as the Messiah by John the Baptist can be a matter of some debate. But Jesus Christ’s response in this matter, as well as His synagogue reading at the beginning of His ministry, should be a challenge to US. What, after all, is so important about preaching the gospel to the poor? 

Consider that during the time that these prophecies of Isaiah were written, Israel had long failure to be the holy nation that God intended to be, the one that through their distinct character of unparalleled righteousness would make YHWH, the God of this same nation and of all else, known to all other nations of the earth. Now in theologically conservative circles, the portion of Israel’s failure to obey God that is most often emphasized is their idolatry, and abominations (child sacrifice, ritual prostitution) that goes along with idolatry. Theological liberals, however, focus on the fact Israel had become socially unjust! God had given Israel a plethora of specific instructions to ensure A) that the poor – including widows, orphans, the elderly, and the infirm – would be guaranteed a minimum level of existence, B) that the lower and working classes would not be exploited, C) that the gap between the rich and the poor would not grow too wide, D) that wealth would not be concentrated within the hands of a few families and passed down from generation to generation, and E) that the rich would not be favored over the poor in the markets, courts, and official matters. 

Such regulations make up huge portions of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy (and the line of thought behind it is a frequently recurring theme in the rest of the Old Testament), and it is a crime that western conservative Christianity does their best to ignore them and their implications on what the attitude of the people of God should be towards wealth not only for an individual but society. Instead, far more time is spent on speculating whether it would be productive for Christians to keep the Sabbath and some limited portion of the dietary laws, and this is despite the fact that where the New Testament confirms the Old Testament Israel’s concerns regarding economic justice on an individual and corporate level – to the point where Jesus Christ refers to Christians that do not personally help the poor and oppressed as goats that will be cast into the outer darkness – it explicitly states that the Sabbath and dietary laws are matters that should not trouble Christians. 

There are reasons why God desires an economically, politically, legally, and politically just society. The most obvious is to mark an explicit easily seen contrast between Israel and the pagan nations, for pagan nations are notorious for having a tiny elite that is exceptionally oppressive and cruel towards everyone else (an incontrovertible historical fact denied by contemporary thinkers out of their hatred for Jesus Christ … neo – pagans actually blame the world’s unfairness on Christianity and insist that more paganism would increase fairness and personal freedom, a notion particularly espoused by feminists and homosexuals). So, a fair, just nation centered around the worship of a holy righteous God would have been a powerful living polemic against nations centered around the worship of pagan gods whose own religious myths revealed their exhibiting character and nature that was often actually worse than that of humanity. (Greek monotheistic philosophers claimed that polytheistic systems were invented by humans wishing to justify their desire to indulging in the very same sins as polytheistic myths depicted their false gods committing.)

But there are less obvious – but oddly more practical – reasons as well. God hates disorder and the persecution of the weak. Socially unjust societies plagued by things such as poverty and legal corruption are vulnerable to riots, uprisings, seditions, etc. by the underclass, which is confusion. Further, in such societies the upper classes often employ exceptionally brutal policies designed to create a culture of terror and hopelessness among the underclass to discourage just such rebellions. Also, vices such as street crime, economic corruption, high taxes, exploitation, and vicious underground economies are rampant in unjust societies, with children, women, the elderly, etc. the most often and brutally victimized. So yes, God has a huge stake in His people not only being just as a moral virtue, but in pursuing and demanding justice for the sake of the weak, poor, oppressed, and defenseless. Any system that ignores – or even does not emphasize – the social justice component is therefore not aligned with God’s Will or nature. Indeed, one of the reasons listed for warning Israel against desiring a king was that kings not only accumulated wealth taxed from the underclass and passed that wealth down from generation to generation, but would even conscript men and property into military service for the sole purpose of fighting wars to gain more land and wealth! In other words, earthly kings inherently and greatly increase social injustice.

And that is precisely what Israel had become in the time of the prophets, its last days shortly before the northern kingdom was wiped out by the Assyrians and the southern kingdom, Judah and Levi, fell to the Babylonians. The economic commands and principles carefully laid out in the law and exhorted by the writings had completely been cast aside. As a result, land and wealth was concentrated in the hands of a few families, and passed down from generation to generation. Poverty was rampant. Workers were exploited. Debt slavery was common. And “the system”, the courts and the authorities, institutionally favored the upper class IN ADDITION TO being easily manipulated with bribes. Israel had become just as socially, legally, and economically unfair as any pagan nation, with conditions so revolting that the prophet Amos stated that people were being forced into debt slavery no more money than it took to buy a pair of shoes (Amos 2:6;8:6)! (I cannot help but compare that to the modern situation where three strikes laws have been used to give lifetime prison terms for stealing golf clubs and slices of pizza.)

Now the worst part of the anti - God socially unjust situation in Israel was also the least surprising … the religious system of the day was a bought and paid for part of, defender of, and reinforcer of the status quo. Instead of fighting for reform and cajoling the powerful to implement the requirements of the law and respect the Spirit of God as reflected in the writings, they not only allowed the situation to continue but endorsed it with their teachings. This should not surprise you, because not only did the revolting religious structures of the pagan nations of the time do precisely the same, but co – opting corrupt religious systems has been a key component for corrupt and powerful ruling classes throughout the ages. (Not only has Christianity not been exempt from this sad record, but some have made the case that it has been among the leaders!)

Thus, the religious system of Israel in the time of the prophets had become one that was of, by, and for the wealthy and against everyone else. Had it been any other way, had the religious systems and the people that ran them been doing their jobs, there would have been no need for prophets in the first place. For the most part, the prophets during this time were so because they existed OUTSIDE the religious mainstream, the religious establishment, and CHALLENGED IT. The prophets bitterly denounced the religious scene of the day as wicked and corrupt and declared that God’s judgment was upon it along with the rest of the society, down to Ezekiel’s prediction that the temple would be destroyed and that the presence of God had departed it for BABYLON! As a result, the religious authorities of that time persecuted and killed the prophets just as they would go on to kill Jesus Christ and John the Baptist a few hundred years later. (If nothing else, the fact that prophets were hated and rejected by the powerful religious leaders of that day should give us pause concerning a great many of those that claim for themselves such a title – and the benefits that go with it! – in these times.)

As a result, you had a religious system that not only neglected the poor, but spitefully oppressed them and murdered those that sought to give the poor justice. Religious life and institutions had become status symbols for the rich, and the poor were not even considered worthy of consideration … carnal objects of no spiritual value only good to be subjugated and exploited for labor. It is no surprise, then, that Isaiah and the prophets knew that for a person to come and turn the world upside down by establishing the notion that poor people could and should be saved, that there was a place in God’s Kingdom for the low and wretched who at time were actually barred from participation in respected religious life, that for someone even to attempt a thing that was so radical, so subversive, so unthinkable in that time and place that he would HAVE to be the Messiah in order to do such a thing. That he would HAVE to be a Messiah in order to set things right.

So we go forth to the time of Jesus Christ. If you think that things were bad for the poor in Israel shortly before that nation’s destruction, they were oh so much worse under Roman domination. Not only was Rome a pagan nation who lacked any concept of the societal betterment as commanded by the Jewish scriptures, but they lacked even the high notions of an ideal human society as advocated by the Greeks. (Recall that Alexander the Great sought to conquer the world out of his twisted conviction that a Hellenized world would be a better one!) No, the Romans turned the art of cruel injustice that Israel merely practiced during the time of the prophets into a science that they perfected, with their most cunning achievement being Pax Romana, whose pursuit and maintenance justified any level of both systematic AND arbitrary savagery against non – citizens (the overwhelming supermajority of the empire) to allow the exceptionally tiny citizen class to harbor the pretensions of being civilized. On top of that, the common people of Judaea – which had been granted some degree of autonomy by the Romans – were persecuted even more by corrupt Jewish collaborators such as the Herods, the Sadducees, and the tax collectors. Jews had to pay taxes to support both interests, and were given only injustice by the authorities and courts of both as well. Things were so bad that a number of the common priests (meaning priests not financially supported by the temple system) actually starved to death!

Another factor in the time of Jesus Christ: the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees advocated the cause of the poor, and were popular with them. But – similar to the limousine liberals of our time – they did not actually INTERACT with the poor. The Pharisees considered the poor to be ignorant concerning the law, and furthermore any effort to reach out to or transform them a cumbersome task on a wasted effort. It was not considered wasted solely because they provincially doubted the ability of the commoners to be spiritually transformed in large numbers – though that clearly was a factor – but rather because the Jewish religious beliefs of the time sincerely held it to be unnecessary. The Pharisees legitimately thought that it was their duty to be as righteous as they could so that through their righteousness God would send the Messiah and the whole nation would be saved. All that was required of the common people was keeping them to a minimum level of piety (i. e. Sabbath observance) that would not negate the Pharisees’ efforts to secure salvation for themselves and everyone else. (This explains why the Pharisees were so furious at Jesus Christ for brazenly and publicly flouting their Sabbath regulations … in their minds the people following after Him in doing so would have negated the “credits” that the Pharisees were earning with God, which in their minds would not only result in God withholding the Messiah from them, but destroying the nation again.) So no, the Pharisees, who actually believed that they could become unclean by coming into close regular contact with common people, were not preaching the good news to the poor but only giving them rules to follow and judging the poor quite harshly – and arbitrarily – based on them. And even that made them eminently better than the Sadducees, who loathed the poor due to their adopting Hellenistic philosophy that denied the afterlife and held that the purpose of piety was to secure benefits in this life (for them godliness was gain!) and also better than some of the other religious parties that simply pronounced damnation on the whole nation (including the poor) and withdrew from everyone (including the poor) to their own enclaves to secure salvation for themselves.

So, Jesus Christ was operating not only with a contemporary situation, but what had been a fact of Jewish life for several hundreds of years. No wonder, then, did He dare to make serving the poor every bit as integral to His case for being the Messiah as miracles like casting out devils, raising the dead, healing lepers, and causing the blind to see. (Contemporary Christians should use this as yet another example that the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the edifying gifts of the Holy Spirit that are needed for effective ministry to the poor are far more important than the “sign” gifts of the Holy Spirit.) And no wonder did His mighty works among and resulting huge popularity with the poor make those same people fearful that Jesus Christ would unite and lead them into a mighty rebellion!

Again, consider the point made earlier: the prevailing religious thought for hundreds of years had been that the poor had no spiritual worth. That explains the “no prophet/nothing good comes from Nazareth” insults of the religious establishment. By this they were not claiming that the people of Nazareth and Galilee somehow were not actually Jews. No, it was entirely about class … no prophet or anything spiritually good could come from those people because they were POOR.

So by feeding five thousand of the poor with the loaves and fishes, by raising the poor’s dead, by casting devils out of the poor, by healing the poor’s lepers, by making laborers His apostles, EVEN BY LETTING THE POOR REGULARLY PHYSICALLY TOUCH HIM, Jesus Christ established the notion that there were no class distinctions in God’s eyes, and thereby nullified hundreds of years of Jewish thought very much enhanced by their exposure to (and willingness to emulate) pagan thought. The ministry of Jesus Christ brought the poor to the desire that God expressed for them in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. In this way, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, fulfilled the law in a specific and very important area that Israel, whom God called His national son in Exodus, failed. And so in this way, Jesus Christ very much proved Himself to be the Messiah!

However, rest assured that Jesus Christ did not intend for this work to end with Him. Jesus Christ made explicitly clear that as His Body, the church is to continue His Work with the poor, and to do so with the same goals that God had for national Israel: order and social justice. Uplifting the poor lowers crime, limits disorder and subversion, and marks a difference between God’s people and everyone else that manifests itself the most among society’s weakest: children, orphans, the sick, the elderly, etc. It is so important to God that Jesus Christ stated that whatever a Christian does to the least of society, that Christian has done the same to Him (Matthew 25:38-46)!

Yet it is a message that, at least in the west, is foreign to contemporary Christianity. Theological liberals deny the reality of the Body of Christ and as such seek to create a heaven on earth using government social programs. Further, they oft defend social policies and societal attitudes that incubate disorder, crime, and poverty itself i.e. out of wedlock pregnancy. And that speaks nothing of the horror of abortion, which God clearly hates and will judge just as He judged Egypt for murdering the Hebrew babies and the pagan nations for their practice of child sacrifice.

Theological conservatives for their part reject social justice almost entirely. First they attribute poverty among individuals and nations to their failure to adopt Christianity (or the heresy of the “Christian nation” and its equally heretical and more dangerous replacement “Judeo – Christian values”), and to poor Christians they turn around and demand that they either be satisfied with the prospect of their needs being met in the next life or be charged with being bad Christians. Many of them exhibit an outright hostility to the poor. Some allege that poverty is due to character flaws (which on a wide or national scale they attribute to flawed cultures), others insist that the notion that they have a responsibility to the poor means questioning the legitimacy of their having wealth. When confronted with scripture concerning these attitudes, they will insist that said scriptures are being taken out of context in order to advance a secular agenda, when the truth is that with regards to this area they are no better than are the attempts of theological liberals to justify homosexuality and abortion.

So from a Biblical perspective, an “Animal Farm” situation results, where the theological liberal and the theological conservative can both sit in a room with a poor person being unable to distinguish between the two insofar as his legitimate interests are concerned. The truth is that James Dobson is no more likely to do anything about crime, a lack of jobs, and poor education in a Washington D.C. ghetto than is Barry Lynn. And it is precisely because of this vacuum that false belief systems such as Islam, Mormonism, and Scientology are rapidly spreading to these areas, just as communists and socialists gained a degree of inroads into the poor and black communities in decades past.

So in closing, how do we Christians get the gospel back to the poor? It must start by our ceasing to deny portions of the Bible that we personally find inconvenient, so that we thereby allow the full message of the gospel to reach and transform ourselves to the point where we recognize that it takes more than an “I gave at the office” Christianity for the church to fulfill its mission on earth. Follow The Three Step Salvation Plan By Clicking Here!

Is Magdi Allam The Muslim Baptized By Pope Benedict on Easter Even Saved?

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(John 3:16, Ephesians 2:8,9, Romans 10:9,10)

Is the Muslim baptized by Pope Benedict on Easter saved? A big news item
this Easter was the “conversion” of Magdi Allam, a Muslim author and critic
of Islamic fundamentalism who was publicly baptized by the Pope on Easter
Sunday. Allam, whose wife is Catholic and described himself as a
non-practicing Muslim, is the deputy director of the Corriere della Sera, an
Italian newspaper. Allam has been very sympathetic to Israel in his
writings, and stated that his conversion would likely procure him “a death
sentence for apostasy,” or the abandoning of one’s faith. The fact he might
be killed for leaving Islam, which is called for in the Koran, makes my
question even more critical. Is Magdi Allam even saved?

This is a legitimate question since the Bible clearly states in Ephesians 2,
verses 8 and 9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and
this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” We are saved by God’s
grace, His unmerited favor, and our faith in Jesus Christ, the only name by
which men are saved. Period! This passage goes on to clearly state that
good works won’t save you. Joining a church and sitting in the pew doesn’t
save you. The fact your mom and dad are Christians doesn’t make you saved.
BAPTISM DOESN’T SAVE YOU! The Bible teaches that baptism is an act of
identification with Christ as a public proclamation of your relationship
with Jesus AFTER you have accepted Him by faith.

The problem I have with this story is wondering whether Magdi Allam thinks
that by joining a certain church, being baptized, and taking communion,
saves his soul. Actually, I have this concern about many people who seem to
think that as long as they have joined a church they are saved. Listen to
me carefully my friend, joining a church and sitting in a pew doesn’t make
you any more saved than if you went to the zoo and stood in the lion’s den
would make you a lion! You are only saved because you have made the
conscious decision to ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins, repent, turn
from your sins, and ask Christ into your heart and life by faith. You are
only saved because you have given your life by faith to Jesus!

It was Jesus who said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and
only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal
life.” The Book of Romans in Chapter 10 tells us, “That if you confess with
your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him
from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you
believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and
are saved.” No church can save you, no amount of good works can save you,
no special acts can save you, all the money in the world can’t save you, the
only way you can be saved is by putting your faith in Jesus Christ! The
church helps you to grow in your faith AFTER you are saved. Good works flow
from your life AFTER you are saved. Baptism and communion are acts of
remembrance AFTER you are saved. Giving becomes an act of worship AFTER you
are saved.

This is so critical. Let me ask you a serious question. Are you saved?
Have you consciously made the decision to ask Jesus into your heart and life
by faith? Many people have said the “sinners prayer,” but there are no
magical words to save your soul. Those words are simply a verbal guide to
what you are doing in your heart by faith. If you are reading these words
today and have never really made the conscious choice to ask Christ into
your life by faith, or if you don’t have 100% assurance that you are saved,
I would invite you to go to, http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.cfm. Pray
to ask God to open your heart, read the words, pray the prayer, and accept
today God’s gift to you of everlasting life through His son Jesus.

I love you and care about you deeply. For those of you who already know
Christ as your Savior, I would encourage you to forward this email to those
people in your life who may not know Jesus as their Savior. Some of those
people may think that just because they belong to a church they are saved.
Some of those people may think that because their parents are Christians
they are also. Some may think that because they are “good people,” and do
many good works they are saved. Sadly, with the watered down, politically
correct preaching in so many of our churches today, with most TV preachers
only preaching about how to give them more money or how to be happy and
prosperous, most people simply don’t understand that salvation is only a
prayer of faith away.

It sounds easy, and it is. It is easy because Jesus already did the hard
part. However, it is not a decision to be taken lightly since when a person
accepts the Lord, they are turning from their sins, promising to follow the
Lord, and that means His Word (that is why I wonder how someone can call
themselves a Christian, yet live in rebellion to the Word of God!), and
literally giving their life to Him. The Bible says that we have been bought
with a price, that it is no longer our life any longer. When you accept
Jesus by faith, you are giving your life to Him. It no longer belongs to
you, it belongs to Jesus. Everyone wants the benefits of being saved, but
few want to pay the price of being saved. It cost Jesus His very life so
you can be saved, and it costs you your very life to be saved!

In many parts of the world, people are literally killed for accepting
Christ. I am encouraged by the tens of thousands of Muslims in Iraq who
have come to know Jesus as their Savior in the past 5 years. It is one of
the great testimonies of our involvement in Iraq. I pray for these new
brothers and sisters daily and ask you to as well, since they all face great
persecution and even death for leaving the lies of Islam for the truth of
Christianity. Many brave soldiers of the cross are on the front lines in
the Middle East, many of them converted Muslims, taking Christ’s hope to
those still lost in the darkness of Islam.

So I pray for Magdi Allam, that he has not just joined a church and thinks
that his church membership and getting baptized saved his soul, since it did
not. I pray that he has made the conscious decision to accept Jesus into
his heart and life by faith, since the Bible proclaims there is only one
name by which men are saved, the name of JESUS!!!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND ETERNITY? The fact is you will die one day. At that moment, you will either spend eternity with the Lord or
be cast into everlasting darkness forever separated from God your creator.
To know for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to: http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.cfm

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer Daily Devotional is now
available via AUDIO each day. Simply go to http://www.liveprayer.com/Audio.cfm
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by phone by calling 1-727-342-5673

(C) Copyright 2008, Bill Keller Ministries. All rights reserved.

A Powerful Picture of Salvation!

Original Link: Pastor Michael Lewi’s Blog: Powerful Picture of Salvation!

I am so enjoying studying and preaching through the book of Romans. A study entitled, ‘Expedition 116′ for we are on a journey with a specific destination in mind. I hope you will journey with our church and invite new friends to journey with us. This Sunday I will be
preaching on the Rescue – i.e. our salvation in Christ.As I was reading before the Lord this morning His Word, He gave to me a powerful picture of salvation from the life of David from Psalm 18:16-19. Obviously this was the ‘fleeing years’ of David as he fled from the hand of King Saul and God continuously delivered him from the hand of his insane enemy. “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He pulled me out of deep waters. 17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my distress, but the Lord was my support. 19 He brought me out to a wide-open place; He rescued me because He delighted in me.”The Lord has reached down from heaven and taken hold of me in Christ Jesus….. He has saved me from the guttermost to the uttermost! The Lord is my Rescuer, my Savior, and my Sustainer! Salvation is a wide-open place, and it is all based on His grace, His delight, His unmerited favor in my life. I am forever grateful!

Prayer:
Father God, I picture myself in the ocean of sin sinking… crying out for
help, and You rescued me by the marverlous mercy of the cross of Your
Son. You have reached down and taken hold of me.. .pulling me from the
waters and delivering me from the enemy of the devil and death. I
rejoice in the wide-open space You have brought me to… It is all
because of your Amazing Grace! In Jesus’ name I praise You….. Amen
and Amen!

One Way to Salvation John 14:6

 

BIBLE MEDITATION:
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” John 14:6

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Materialism says, “Buy your
way out.” The politician says, “Legislate.” The army says, “Fight.”
Industry says, “Work.” The philosopher says, “Think.” But Jesus says,
there’s no way out but through Me. Jesus will save you by His grace,
and He’ll save you all by Himself or you won’t be saved at all. When
you are saved by the grace of God, you are saved instantly, and you are
saved eternally. Your goodness is not enough to save you, and your
badness is not enough to keep you away. Jesus loves you so much that He
died to save you.

ACTION POINT:
Have you taken Jesus at His Word
and followed His way of salvation? Maybe you have a friend who needs
this truth today. Share it; don’t suppress it. share devotional with a friend    visit lwf.org

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Adrian Rogers: Why The Cross?

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The Tragedy Of Heath Ledger: Without Jesus Christ One Has Nothing

(C) Copyright 2008, Bill Keller Ministries. All rights reserved.

liveprayer.com/signup.cfm

(Luke 14:23; Titus 1:16; Galatians 6:1-12 )

You can have it all by the standards of this world, but without Jesus, you
have NOTHING! The world is mourning today the loss of a great actor, Heath
Ledger. At just 28 years old and with an already impressive list of acting
credits on his resume including an Oscar nomination, Ledger was a major star
in the movie industry. Like many of the stars in the entertainment
industry, he was also very troubled. His battle with heroin led to the
break-up last September with actress-girlfriend Michelle Williams who is the
mother of their 2-year-old daughter. Reports are that he battled with
depression and insomnia. It really makes you at least wonder how much
affect playing some of the dark roles he did, the gay cowboy in “Brokeback
Mountain,” a heroin addict in the movie, “Candy,” and his latest role as the
dark and macabre Joker in the newest “Batman” movie to be released this
summer, had on his real life.

Sadly, there is no hint of any faith in Ledger’s life. He recently spoke of
death in an interview, dealing with the subject from the typical perspective
of someone who sees death as simply the end of life. Like so many in the
entertainment field, their faith is in themselves and in this fleeting life
that ends sooner than anyone expects it to. The cold hard reality of this
life is that it will end one day for each of us. Usually before we are
ready for it to end. At that moment, in that instant, we will immediately
be standing before God our Creator. God is not going to be interested that
we were a successful Hollywood actor or whatever our profession may have
been. The only thing God will be interested in is do we have a personal
relationship with Jesus by faith, nothing else.

Please take a moment today and pray for Heath Ledger’s family, friends, and
many fans. I pray that his untimely death will be a reminder to all of how
brief this life really is. I pray that those who mourn his loss will find
the comfort and strength of Christ and that they will turn their lives to
Him. If you have not accepted Christ into your heart and life yet, the
Bible says that today is the day of salvation. I would invite you to go to
my website, www.liveprayer.com and click on the button that says PLAN OF
SALVATION (direct link: www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.html ). Read those
words, pray that prayer, and accept today God’s gift to you, the gift of His
son Jesus.

Knowing that there is the better percentage of two full generations living
today that don’t go to church, were not raised in a Christian home, and have
no spiritual foundation to their lives, I am motivated daily to bring these
people the Truth of God’s Word and the hope and love of Christ before they
fall into the hands of the many cults and false religions that exist today.
Let me help you understand something. When man sinned and his relationship
with God was broken, there became a void in man that only God can fill. Deep
down, sinful man knows something is missing in his life, something that the
things of this world can’t fill, and he begins a search to fill that void.

Everyone who lives has to deal with the trials, the pain, the challenges of
living in this sinful and fallen world. Those who have no spiritual
foundation to their life will spend their teen and young adult years trying
to fill that spiritual void with the things this world promotes such as
alcohol, drugs, relationships, sex, money, career, material possessions, and
all the other temporal things of this life. It is usually when a person hits
their 30s that they realize that the things this world offers simply do not
fill that void they have in their life. That is why during their 30s and 40s
so many people begin to explore the spiritual side of their life.

Those of us who know Jesus Christ as our Savior, who know the Truth of God’s
Word, have the ONLY answer these people are looking for. That void in their
life is there due to their broken relationship with God their Creator and
can only be filled by being reconnected to God their Creator thru faith in
His Son Jesus Christ. What upsets me more than anything else is to watch the
cults and false religions of the world boldly and aggressively market
themselves to the lost and hurting in this world as the answer they are
looking for. They don’t do this by creating their own subculture and hoping
people will come to them, they actively go out and pursue people, using the
resources of this world to reach them with their lies and false hope.

Let me be blunt. While we have become content with building beautiful
buildings with all the modern conveniences and technologies of the world for
our people to enjoy, while we have set up our own TV, radio, music, and
publishing empires to preach to ourselves, the cults of the world like the
Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Kaballah, Scientology, Moon’s Unification
Church, the false religions of the world like Islam, Buddhism, B’hai, Hindu,
and the many New Age philosophies, are reaching out to the lost and hurting
in this world through secular TV, radio, music, advertising, and publishing
vehicles that reach the world’s masses each day.

We have forgotten that Jesus told us to, “Go out into the highways and
hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” (Luke
14:23 KJV) At some point it became too much work to go out and reach people
and much more financially profitable to simply preach to the choir. So we
abandoned the world, retreated to the subculture we created for ourselves to
enjoy, and in the process have left the souls of men to the scavengers of
satan who are having a field day leading the lost into eternal damnation,
while we sit in our $20 million buildings singing about going to Heaven.

SHAME ON US, AND GOD WILL JUDGE US!

One of the fastest growing cults today is Scientology. As I have shared with
you in the past, cults and false religions are nothing new to the time we
are living in. Man has been trying to find ways to fill that void created by
his broken relationship with God since the very beginning. You don’t go too
many chapters into the Book of Genesis until you come to the story of the
Tower of Babel. That story is literally about men who decided to create
their own religion. The cults and false religions of this world are all
traced back to the hearts and minds of men who lived in rebellion to God.

The Mormon cult came from the imagination of that pedophile murderer Joe
Smith, another pedophile murderer Mohamed dreamed up what we know of today
as Islam, Mary Baker Eddy created the Christian Science cult out of her
blackened heart, and Charles Taze Russell created the Jehovah’s Witness
cult. Every cult and false religion can be traced back to a man who lived
his life in rebellion to God and created the cult or false religion out of
his imagination. The Truth, the Christian faith actually started in the
Garden of Eden and comes directly from God Himself, the very God who created
the heavens and earth and made man in His own image.

I am always amused at people who reject the story of Christ and God’s simple
plan to redeem fallen man, yet buy into the wild theology of cults like
Mormonism and Scientology. Christianity requires that you use your God-given
intelligence to make the choice to accept Christ as your Savior based on
reality. Cults like Mormonism and Scientology require that you abandoned all
intelligence and blindly believe wild stories based on no facts. I have to
be honest with you, I will never have enough faith to believe the fantasies
of Mormonism or Scientology, but many who are hurting and lost and looking
to fill that spiritual void in their life, will.

I love you and care about you so much. I pray that you will not neglect the
commandment we have from our Lord to share the hope and love of Christ and
the Truth of His Word with those you meet along your journey. The Lord
didn’t sit in a church and wait for people to come to Him, HE WENT TO THEM!
Christ is our example and we need to not only follow His example but His
words to, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in,
that my house may be filled.” (Luke 14:23 KJV)

This is not complicated. We have the better percentage of two full
generations of people out there who have never been to church. They are
living their lives void of Christ and His Truth. We know they have a
spiritual void that at some point they will try to fill. That is why now
more than ever we need to be bold and aggressive in letting people know that
there is only ONE TRUTH in this world, there is only ONE ANSWER for their
problems, and there is only ONE WAY to fill that void in their life…FAITH
IN JESUS CHRIST!

God’s desire is that none be lost, that all come to repentance. May that
become our desire as well. Those who follow cults like Mormonism and
Scientology are on a conveyor belt to hell. Let us bring them the Truth of
God’s Word and the hope and love of Christ, so that they can get off before
it is too late and get on the conveyor belt to HEAVEN!!!

In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller bkeller@liveprayer.com

***ARE YOU 100% CERTAIN WHERE YOU WILL SPEND ETERNITY? The fact is you will
die one day. At that moment, you will either spend eternity with the Lord or
be cast into everlasting darkness forever separated from God your creator.
To know for certain you will be forever with Jesus, go to:
http://www.liveprayer.com/bdy_salvatn.cfm

***I am excited to let you know that the Liveprayer Daily Devotional is now
available via AUDIO each day. Simply go to http://www.liveprayer.com/Audio.cfm
Also, you can now listen to the Daily Devotional by phone by calling 1-727-342-5673

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No Backdoor To Salvation: Jesus Christ Is The Only Way!

From “The Thanksgiving of Solomon” by Dr. J. Vernon McGee

Men down through the ages have had their viewpoints, and they always pass away. But this viewpoint is the one that shall abide. God says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” He says to you and me as individuals today we have come short of His glory and we’re sinners. He hasn’t any back door. He hasn’t any side entrance. God has only one way by which He’s being approached, and that’s a mercy seat that He established by the death of His Son upon the cross. That makes it
possible for lost sinners to find mercy with God.

The Three Step Salvation Plan

Heaven Is Not For Good People

http://liveprayer.com

Assurance of Your Salvation Acts 16:31

 

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

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: A Christian is not somebody who merely believes that Christ died for his sins. The devil believes that (James 2:19). A Christian is somebody who has repented of his sins and invited Christ into his heart to be his Savior and Lord. You can intellectually believe that an airplane can fly, but in order to fly you must try out its wings. In the same way, when you give your heart to Jesus Christ, He takes control of your life and begins to make you into the person He wants you to be. Your life doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect for you to go to heaven. At the moment you trust Christ as your personal Savior, you are eternally saved, eternally secure, and God begins to work on you.

ACTION POINT: Isn’t it wonderful to know you are saved? Now, spread the word of that assurance to a neighbor today. visit lwf.org

assurance of salvation

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A Nine Point Gospel Presentation: Do You Realize How Valuable You Are?

From http://derekprince.org [splashcast FMJJ3044VX]

You Must Be Born Again