Category: Evangelical Christian

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father but through Me.”

Is Jesus a liar, lunatic or Lord? (You must answer this question to press on!)

DIABOLOS

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DIABOLOS

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

The forsaken one, Lucifer, reached beyond his grasp in pride and fell like a rock to depths of the abyss of hell. Satan has been a raging explosion of insanity that devours all within his damning reach. Like unleashed lightening, he strikes at the most vulnerable pressure points of any spirit he happens to target for eternal dying. Yes, I said “dying.” Those hopeless demons who would not pledge allegiance to our King Jesus are never consumed to death. Their torture for rejecting salvations call to humility is a sizzling death on a skewer of endless flames.

Beware! These fallen angels attack unexpectedly. We tend to drop our sword when we are prospering and our weakest point is most vulnerable. Our resistance in the flesh is useless and powerless against the devil’s allurements of lust, money and power. The devil keeps his prey in sight and on friendly terms until his appetite of destruction is awakened and an entry level is provided by the victim. His favorite perch to strike you from is the pulpit of your house of worship. It’s really a synagogue of evil and you are blind-sided. He is a polished and persuasive speaker that knows the Bible verses backwards in Hebrew. You are no match for our Lor’s arch-enemy, the whore of Babylon.

Satan’s most effective weapon is doubt and fear: the keys to hell’s gate. When your faith and trust are conquered diabolos will misuse his power by destroying the church from the inside out as he does to you. It all boils down to spiritual pride and selfish ambition.

The nail that seals your coffin and eternal terror is self-gratification. When it’s all about you, there’s nothing left for Jesus. You can see the end from the beginning as your life crumbles before your eyes. All and eternal terror is self-gratification. When it’s all about you, there’s nothing left for Jesus. You can see the end from the beginning as your life crumbles before your eyes. All you thought you were you find out was just an illusion. Nothing real remains. It’s all smoke and mirrors. All you thought was wasn’t; Nothing to hold on to and no reason to press on. How sad!

DEVOTED

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DEVOTED

By Rick Mathes

Acts 2:42 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

How simple can it get?

  1. Teaching
  2. Fellowship
  3. Breaking of Bread

I ache to step back in time to the Primitive Church before 325AD when Constantine ruined it all until Martin Luther raised the true faith from the ashes and the Puritans brought it to our shores. It was a time when correct doctrine was not optional and the gospel still had the ring and memory of John the Revelator.

The fellowship was as much a struggle then as it is now but restoration was mandatory and love was unconditional. They had the problems as we do but their world view was fresh from the forty day seminar the Lord held with His disciples before He went home to the Father. We don’t have to like each other but we must love each other.

Our communion is unbreakable because our body is one: it is in unity with the Triune Godhead with our own trinity of mind, heart and soul. We can sense the spirits in our midst and the love that flows between us. We are only one heartbeat and one glimpse away from all of glory before us.

The communication that seals our security is prayer. It is a fragrance of praise to take to our Daddy (Abba) and tell Him how much we love Him. The fuel of faith is the prayer of a righteous saint and the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

The Baptist of believers makes us one in the Spirit and faith. Oh there are denominational distinctives yet to be agreed upon, but the basic fundamentals of Protestantism are unified and cannon. There is the rock solid agreement of Bible only, Jesus only, Grace only and Faith only. Any deviation from Calvinism is heresy. We believe that everyone else has a God given rightr to be wrong or too stupid to understand that TULIP is the only gospel. (I’m in trouble now!)

So let’s praise Him with joy in true worship. It can only be found at the feet of the Master. Just a look in His eyes will cause you to be devoted to Him to the end of eternity.

DEVIL’S CHILD

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DEVIL’S CHILD

By Rick Mathes

Acts 13:10 (NASB77) 10  and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

A living abortion of the whore of Babylon is deceit, the root of lies. As you well know, Father Lucifer is the father of lies. His commitment is to hinder all forms of objective true knowledge. This infection of the terminal disease of unbelief will keep you from God, the Great Physician. The doctor of death will persuade you that pride is the cure. When you are secure in your confidence of handling it one more time, you will prove as you have many failures before that you can man up on your own and handle life’s problem without any major change in your life-style.

Deceit and all its offspring gives birth to fraud which is nothing new. Nothing is as it appears to be and everything is broken. This is the reality when your knee bows to the angel of light and his fallen demons.

Diablo conceal hate in counterfeit love. Flaming, smoldering embers from hell are the nest of counterfeit relationships and self-serving love: narcissism. I love me and I will take down anyone who thinks differently. It’s all about me and everyone else are just tools for me to use to my advantage. Those that resist are disposable and are of no consequence anyway.

Lies grow on lies and the offspring of the whore conceive one evil plan after another hammering the cross to splinters. What a wonderful fire it will kindle to celebrate the death of truth. Everything is relative so condemnation of sin has been eliminated because there is no law.

Everyone is encouraged to exercise their freedom to sin because there is no opposition unless you allow it. So the children of Esau and Ismael will stand together, God’s truth will never prevail.

Islam and Roman Catholicism are the right and left hands of Satan. Just a touch by either will pollute your soul to eternal death and your hardened heart will never recover. Finally, with lies and deceit ruling, Jesus will bow before Lucifer and worship the darkness that has conquered the light when you ae a child of the devil. He’ll love you!

DESIRES

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DESIRES

By Rick Mathes

Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

What are you going to do with the rest of your life? “Duhhhh…I don’t know.” Most people spend more time planning their weekend than the next 10 years of their life much less next month. I ask, how can you know when you have arrived if you don’t know where you are going or how you will get there?

If you are a believer, you must win Christ and celebrate your victory over the evil one. It all begins with where you begin and if you are found in Him, nothing but good stuff lies ahead.

We must exchange our self-righteousness for His or we will fall back on our own resources and repeat the cycle of failure again. Satan will do his best that this time you learned from past mistakes and now you can do it your way one more time. It turns out to be a merry-go-round to hell or stated another way a dog going returning to his vomit. When you can be found in Him Satan can’t be found!

The same Holy Spirit of the Old and New Testaments that hovered over creation is still just as powerful as He always was. If only you would know His power, you would never yield to Satan’s lies again. In fact, when the Spirit is upon you, all of hell’s inhabitants tremble in terror. The lost in hell are better believers than we are. They really know Jesus is LORD but their desire to be saved now is too late.

Seek the fellowship of His suffering for your faith even unto death. If He isn’t worth dying for He isn’t worth living for. To prepare ourselves to be conformed to His death we need to be perfectly holy. It is impossible for us to be so but in Him and His resurrection we are assured that we will win the prize as long as our passionate desire is to be exchanged for Him in Him.

This is what causes the unity of believers, one faith and one Body in one accord. We are changed. Our body is is exchanged for His and we are united in Him because there is only His Body that will save us from the eternal death of flames. I beseech you to desire Him with all that is within you and finish the course to the finish line. I’ll be there to greet you into glory!

DELIVERED

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DELIVERED

By Rick Mathes

2 Corinthians 1:10 (NASB77) 10  who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us,

There is very little fear of God or hell in the hearts of most professing Christians. My fear of dying, frying and being in the flames of hell’s furnace without a “plan B” was more than I could bear. I came to Jesus to escape a certain death in sin without a Savior. This was a bad place to be.

Without hope there is only a despair that convicts you of futility. All you cn do is jump into life without direction or any destination and aimlessly take on whatever comes your way.

Lucifer has studied you very carefully, every move and mood. He knows exactly what buttons to push and strings to pull; he puppet master. Deception builds on every sin that catches your eye and then the father of lies gets in gear. He’s four-wheeling you past everything that is fight and escaping your conscience with all the tricks in His book.

What appears to be daily temptations from the devil are really targeted tribulations from our Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ. Our Lord is eager to toughen your resistance to sin because the final 12 round championship bout is just around the corner,

It’s imperative that we as soldiers of Christ put on the armor of God to deflect the unseen dangers of poisonous darts and explosive land-mines of spiritual death or disability. How can e walk through these killing fields of Satan’s temptations without the assurance of protection that only the Holy Spirit can furnish.

When you are delivered from the clutches of the evil one you begin to see the devil’s error run rampant. Did it ever occur to you that Satan is more dysfunctional and screwed up than you are? There are natural corruptions which come with the original sin of fallen man. There is also spiritual chaos that the moron demons cause whie they know that they are under the sentence of death in the flame-throwing abyss: their eternal reward for rebellion.

So, heads up, be alert and see the punch coming so that you might counter that knock-out puch the devil doesn’t fear enough. He has lost all reality and only lives to take you down.

DEEP FAITH

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                                                                   DEEP FAITH          

By Rick Mathes

1 Timothy 3:9 but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

We are created by a creator much like a painting is created by a painter. Just think of what the painting would think of the painter. It would only understand that which was revealed in the painting such as brush strokes and colors. But there would be a wealth of understanding beyond the ability of the painting to comprehend much like we have the mysteries of our Creator God. Let me name just a few.

Why do the wicked prosper? For example, I did quite well making dishonest money and fleecing people before I was saved. I had two Cadillac cars, a 50 foot cruiser and partied around the world. When I came to Christ broken and empty handed I was perplexed how I would thank Him that I was never caught or convicted of a felony. On the other hand, partners and friends of mine all wound up dead, crazy or incarcerated.

You tell me: What is born again? If I ask 100 Christians I will get 100 different answers. We all can look at this beautiful gem sparkling and glowing from a different angle while describing the same gem or crown of jewels.

The Muslims call it “Kismet” which means “fate.” The Calvinists call it “predestination” and yet there is a world of difference between the two. So those who oppose both subscribed to the “free will” or “humanism” is indifference to the Word of God’s teachings of unconditional election. Free will or fates are fatalistic.

The Pharisees believed in a life after death and the Sadducees did not. The Jehovah’s Witnesses say there is nothing but soul sleep at death and the Mormons believe we will become gods and have our own plane. It gets worse! The Roman Catholics re-crucify Christ in their Mass for our atonement, then they go to a priest they call Father for him to forgive their sins which were atoned by Jesus as the Mass and then they die and go to the flames of Purgatory to purge them of their sins. Duhhh? But if you buy enough prayer candles and say lots of rosaries, those who died might get a 1,000 off their sentence in these temporary flames. Where is this in the Bible?

Lastly we misunderstand the incarnation or hypostasis of the God-Man we have given ouir lioves to. It is a mysterious union with Christ that Ws birthed by His resurrection as a reward for His suffering our sins on that cross. He died so that we may live and we must do the same. We must died to sin that we might live in Him. Amazing!

 

DEEDS OF DARKNESS

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DEEDS OF DARKNESS

By Rick Mathes

Ephesians 5:11 (NASB77) 11  And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;

The darkest deed Satan ever had in his arsenal was to kill the Son of Man on the death stake. This victory overGod caused the fallen angels to rejoice that Lucifer was the prevailing king of the universe. How could He have gotten that low in His miserable existence.

For starters his only weapon is sin. Sin murdered our Savior in the worst manner ever conceived by man: crucifixion. Sinning results in death and that death results in an eternal dying in the flaming furnace reserved for those who have not stepped out of darkness into life.

The only action worse than sinning is teaching others to sin; you can do this by actual one on one lessons for sure. But many more learn by watching you allow others to sin without our intervention. When you do not rebuke and correct an active sinner, your absence of remedial correction endorses the sin and absolves the sinner. It’s a silent green light to go and likewise sin.

Akin to teaching others to sin is tempting them to sin. Nothing tempts more than a successful sinner flaunting the treasure of his evil deeds. Just seeing a fallen man basking in the glory of his plunder provokes others to go and do likewise.

A hidden deed of darkness is when you know someone is up to no good and everyone else doe also and you don’t rebuke or correct the sinner, especially if they are professing believers. This lack of correction, this apathy toward the evil deed is perceived as an endorsement. Not doing something is something indeed. It’s joining you to the sin because you wouldn’t take acts against them.

So your sinful examples of hurting people, places, damaging things and burning bridges behind you has a  debt to pay and you will be the beneficiary of its consequences: a cross to carry. This consenting to sin is literally giving Jesus the finger! This includes tolerating the sin. How many lives have you destroyed because of your personal example?

Will you then put on the armor, lift up the sword and defent sin or pledge your life and fortune to the service of the King of Kings? The God of light not darkness: stop, stand still, turn around and come back to Jesus your Lord. Welcome home!

DEEDS OF DAWN

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DEEDS OF DAWN

By Rick Mathes

Romans 13:12 (NASB77) 12   The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

The darkness of days is rapidly being overcome by the dawning of our Lord’s glory and His coming kingdom. The long wait is almost over and the wait is certainly worth it. Our King is returning and the deeds of darkness will soon be exposed in the light of His searching righteousness.

All of our deeds are like weeds that can

Grow into flowers or grow into weeds.

The works of darkness can always be seen in the night because that’s where evil lives and grows. Mutant beings that have morphed into the gargoyle image and likeness of Lucifer and his fallen angels. Nothing pleases the former “morning star” more than for you to go about his damaging works and calling him your lord: certain hell!

All you’re present and former lusts rise up for battle and then comes the dawn and their flight to our Lord’s glory. His will is Divine in His elect and the gates of hell cannot prevail. The devil will drag your memory back to the sewer of every sordid affair you ever had and remind you of all the ugly details and sickening consequences.

Lying and anger are the right and left hand punches the devil uses to drive away godly saints that want to turn your hands from fist to hands up in worship. If only you will surrender to truth the peace of God will follow you all the days of your life. The deeds of evil fade away as the dawn and it’s light breaks over the horizon of salvation.

As the sun rises, the light of the Son blots it out! Such is the Glory of the risen King. All filthiness flees and the darkness cannot overcome the Shekinah Glory of His resurrection. The remnant of  the night yielding to the day is the grey of malice.

You might not want to admit it but from time to time you secretly approve bad things happening to people you are not fond of. All this means is that you are not seeing them with our Lord’s eyes. If you were, you would grieve their fallen condition and not applaud their misfortune. Stay fast and continue from night to day and the bring morning star of Jesus will shine on in your life.

 

 

DECEIT

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DECEIT

By Rick Mathes

Acts 13:10 and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

The devil keeps his prey in sight and on friendly terms until the time is right to strike and make him a child of Satan. Jesus said, “I AM the way, the truth and the life.” Satan is the wrong way, a father of lies and an executioner of your soul. When you sin you are declaring, “Satan is my Lord.” Let that sink in a minute.

The sewer of truth is deceit and we all have a place for it in our hearts that we are not willing to give up. It’s this resistance to repentance that hinders knowledge. Didn’t the Word warn, “My people perish for lack of knowledge?” The lies you choose to nurture keeps you from God. Oh how He wants to hold you in His arms and love you but the slime of deceit, dripping from your soul makes God gag.

It’s buying the lies Satan throws at us that leads to pride. We have success with a little lie; get more things so we escalate our lies and deceit to get a bigger slice of the world’s toys and trinkets. We become like a decorated Christmas tree blinking and beautiful. But when the decorations are put away we notice that the tree is dead. It was all a false façade with no living substance to sustain it.

Everything contrary to truth is a fraud. When Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Jesus didn’t waste is breath explaining it to him because all Pilate was doing was concealing that hate that throbbed through his heart. Most inquirers are only conceiving evil plans and distracting truth by semi-truth twisting or circular reasoning. It’s all relative they claim because they don’t want the light to shine on their darkness.

Lies and deceit can only encourage sin. They have no other motive but to slash that whip on the Lord’s back one more time. The dirty-duo grinds that crown of thorns into His head again and again. They thrust the sword of death into His heart again and again all because you have polluted your souls with unconfessed sin.

In the last analysis your heart hardens I was shocked to learn I had four hardened arteries. Within two days I was on the operating table and my physical life was extended. But a hardened heart has no cure but to repent, submit and obey Him. Otherwise you are going to burn baby burn!

 

CRUCIFIED

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CRUCIFIED

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:23 (NASB77) 23  but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness,

The Jew as well as Roman Catholic and a host of other faiths are what are called ceremonialists. They have a variety of rituals, sacrifices, processions, holy celebrations and so forth that they participate in as they attempt to petition God and explain the unexplainable.

The Greeks were not much for feelings or experiences. They were thinkers and needed to be reached through logical persuasion or intellectual assent. One and one had to equal two so that the supernatural was not a consideration. God dying on a cross then a dead body rising to life was written off as nonsense.

Paul kept it simple for those simple and preached only Christ crucified. He saved the deeper waters for those experienced swimmers. This took not only to be called but also to be chosen. As any minister will confess, we are door mats for the general public to wipe their feel on. As an evangelist, I prefer to view myself as an anvil that has been the cause of many broken hammers.

When you put your face in the mud, blood and tears at the foot of the cross, you become born again: the minute Jesus is your Lord. This transaction unleashes God’s Holy Spirit’s power in you. You don’t need to be baptized again in the Holy Spirit according to both Paul and Jesus. You have the full power but you have a dimmer switch to turn it up or turn it down. The sin you have that reduces the power is one you want more than Jesus or you would repent of it.

As you stand in front of Christ on the cross you realized how rejected he really was.

As you stand in front of the empty cross you sense the triumph he has had over your sin.

As you stand before the empty tomb you realize how admired you are by the angels and all who have passed into glory for being believers.

And lastly, how proud Jesus is of you His trophy of grace!