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!)

WHY DO YOU LOVE SATAN?

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WHY DO YOU LOVE SATAN?

By Rick Mathes

We are the sum total of the choices we make. They are sewn together by the family who raised us, sown by those we hung out with and collected with those of a feather: in church or in prison. The constant I have noticed with those in trouble and out of sorts with the Lord is that they make bad decisions and compound the likelihood of wrongdoing with those we associate with.

Peer group pressure can foster bad habits that we hang on to as natural because we don’t know any better. Evil thoughts materialize and become reality that includes the seven deadly sins. Think, who do you love and faithfully follow, Satan? Be honest when you consider your underlying and ulterior motives. You have them both you know.

When you choose sin over the Savior you love Satan and you are call Christ a liar.

(Read this over and over until you get this into your thick scull.)

The first tip off of totally turning your back on Jesus is when you are self-sufficient: when you sing throughout the day, “I did it my way!” Believe me you’re no Frank Sinatra. You will soon be making your jail cell bunk your way.

Another dead give-away is being self-serving. You don’t win because you died with the most toys. But when you do have that last visit to the center isle of your church, notice outside, there isn’t a U Hall attached to your hearse.

My biggest gripe is shallow, empty headed people who are too dumb to get saved. You can spot them having a meaningful conversation with their tossed salad before they eat it! Hello cucumber. Oh look there’s Mr. Radish and his girlfriend Olive. Duhhhh!

The sum of all the above feel they are above the laws of heaven and are led about my moron demons because that’s all that is needed to make them the “Saturday Night Live” comedy show of Hell. They become open sores and diseases corpses: the walking dead in memory of Michael Jacksons “Thriller.” The dead burying the dead.

What is it that makes you love Satan (sin) more than the Savior? You need to answer this.

WHICH DONKEY ARE YOU?

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WHICH DONKEY ARE YOU?

By Rick Mathes

(Author of Allah or Jesus)

When I study the Word to prepare for a sermon I try to sink my toes into the Israeli sand, look around and absorb all that is around the obvious message the Holy Spirit intended me to preach.

One such scene is the Lord’s triumphant donkey ride, as King, into and through the Jerusalem gate and the throngs of those attending this parade. Let’s do a 360 degree turn and soak in the drama that is surrounding god’s Son as He has His victory march on the Holy Hill.

Can you see them? There’s Peter of course, leading the entourage with John and James marching oh so dignified on the Lord’s right and left followed by the future potentates of the 12 kingdoms. They are so proud and holier-than-thou.

Not so the Pharisees, Sadducees and other officials. They are seething in jealousy and anger just waiting for their hired assassins to put a dagger in our Lord’s ribs. Look over there at the cheering mob of leftist liberals shouting for their entitlements. After all, Jesus could heal their diseases, raise the dead and feed the multitude. They will never have to work a day in their life. Long live King Jesus! Enough of this silliness.  Let’s get serious and ponder, “What was the donkey thinking about all of this?”

I’ll bet he was really angry that on this hot and humid day he had to labor away carrying this heavy body on his back while the crowd was shouting with ear-splitting noise during his migraine headache. Unbearable!

Let’s give this donkey some slack and suppose he really thought the parade was all about him. How excited and proud he must have been with his head held high, his chest pressed out, his tail up and footsteps in precision and perfection of a a pure-bred donkey. I don’t think so.

If I could get into his head, I would bet my last dollar that he was totally astonished that out of all the donkeys in the world, God chose him. How humbling can it get? He knew what unworthy an unworthy ass he was and yet out of all the donkeys that were behaved and more worthy, God chose him.

You know out of all those in the excited and cheering mob, I can relate to the donkey best. Within hours that same crowd was shouting “Crucify Him!” while the donkey wept for his precious Savior. I can feel his pain and I too weep for what I did to cause His death on the Cross for me.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

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WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

By Rick Mathes

I have been privileged to walk in the very dust the early saints walked and died in. May times I have imagined myself living in Biblical times with those Ancient Fathers of faith such as Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David, Isaiah, Jesus and His “gang of twelve.” I often wish a lost gospel will be found disclosing more about the words and works of our Lord. For now, I have to be content to just imagine the questions I would have asked and the probable answers I would have received if I lived in those times to question my favorites.

Let’ just take a peek at a few characters in the New Testament and we would ask such as:

Mary: “When Gabriel gave you notice that the Holy Spirit would overcome you and you would give birth to the world’s Mesiah, what was going through your mind? Did Jesus give you clues as he grew in wisdom and stature? Or was His Godhead a total surprise to you when you saw Him arisen?”

Peter: “Why didn’t you understand His teachings and forewarning of His death, burial and resurrection?”

Simeon: “What was going through your mind as you carried His Cross to the top of Calvary? What happened to cause your two sons to become the first two Bishops of “color?”

Pilate: “What was the aftermath of His resurrection in your home? Did your wife tell you, “I told you so?”

Barabbas: “Of all those Jesus died for, no one knows better than you. What were you thinking as you looked to your substitute die for you? Did you repent and accept Him as your Lord and Savior? I sure hope so!”

Good Thief: “How did you feel to be in Paradise at the moment your heart had its last beat? Did you welcome Jesus into glory three days later?

Lazarus: “What was it like to be dead and then summoned back to life by Jesus? What did you, your two sisters and Jesus talk about when you all fellowshipped over dinner?”

Mary: “When you saw your Son die and then rise from the dead, what went through your mind” What sis you and John talk about in your last years?”

There is so much I want to know! I can hardly wait until the Lord calls me home and I meet those notables in His Word. I know one thing for sure, I will shouting “Praise the Lord!” at the top of my lungs for at least the first hundred years. Then I take time to teach Dave a few licks of blues on his guitar. We’ll jam for ever!

WHAT IS TRUTH?

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WHAT IS TRUTH?

By Rick Mathes

You have to be real careful when you list the absolutes of your life. When you insist something is “always” someone will come up with an exception. The only yardstick we Christians stake our eternal life on is that only the Word of God holds within it 66 volumes of the only truth.

When Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus didn’t even waste His breath to tell him, “I AM the way, the truth and the life.” “Thy Word is truth.” We have the answer and anyone who disagrees is dead wrong.

So what is truth? Let me begin with original sin. When Adam and Eve believed Satan and defied God, hey knew good and learned evil. That same sin is passed on to every living soul through our DNA. You don’t teach a baby to be bad, it just comes naturally. Good comes supernaturally.

Another truth that so many people just plain hate is election. Consider just good logic. If God is all-knowing, he knows who will be saved and who won’t be before they are even born. After they are born they can’t change what God pre-knew, can they? That’s election or predestination. No one “accepts” Jesus as Lord, He “chooses” them!

When Jesus wants you, He’s going to get you because He is all powerful. Like a worm on a hook, you may squiggle and squirm but you are hooked. This is His effectual calling. A hen has a general calling to let her chicks know where she is and she has her “get under my wings” cluck for the chicks to hurry, they are in danger. Get the point?

My favorite truth is “once saved, always saved.” We just don’t quit. We keep the faith, fight the good fight and finish the course. You can’t knock us down and keep us down. We always get our back off of the canvas and press on!

The least favorite truth is that Jesus didn’t take the unbelievers punishment on that cross. He died for those who would believe. If you are without faith in Christ, you will suffer your own hell that He suffered for me. This is called “limited atonement.”

I just know I know you know the truth. You may hide in denial or your might invent a convenient religion for yourself but in your heart of hearts, you know the truth, Jesus is Lord!

THE HAMMER

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Guest Column

By Dr. D. James Kennedy

As early as the seventh century, Muslim forces led campaigns to spread Islam across the Middle East. At one time the Islamic Empire eclipsed that of the Roman Empire. However, attempts by Muslim forces to push their way into Christian Europe were stymied by the famous 732 a.d. Battle of Tours in France. Charles Martel, popularly known as “Charles the Hammer,” led this battle against the Muslim armies and is largely credited for preventing Europe from succumbing to Islam’s control.

Today, militant Islamists are back and willing to lay down their lives to destroy both Europe and America. The President of Iran has promised that, “The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.

Now is not the time to cut and run. Now is not the time for retreat. We need patriots and Christians like “Charles the Hammer,” to rise up and oppose those who would destroy this country.

Rick Mathes, minister of Mission Gate Prison Ministry in Missouri is a real Christian patriot standing up for the truth. Several years ago Mathes participated in a training session in which Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim clerics explained their respective beliefs to inmates.

Afterwards, during a question and answer period, Mathes asked the Muslim Imam this questions: “I understand that most Imams and clerics of the Islamic faith have declared a holy jihad (this is a holy war) against the infidels of the world and that by killing an infidel, which is a command to all Muslims, they are assured a place in heaven. If that’s the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel? As Mathes recounts, the Imam answered immediately: “A non-believer.”

“So let me make sure I have this straight,” Mathes said. “All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith, so that they can go to Heaven. Is that correct?” the Imam sheepishly answered, “Yes.”

Mathes, not surprisingly, told the Imam he had a problem with being his friend when he, his  fellow  clerics and followers, wanted to kill him.

“Would you rather have your Allah, who tells you to kill me in order for you to go to Heaven, or my Jesus, who tells me to love you because I am going to Heaven, and He wants you to be there with me?”

Mathes asked. The Imam offered no answer.

There needs to be more champions like Mathes who are willing to stand against those who spread deceptive teachings. I believe such patriots exist. I also believe that America is not going to cut and run. I believe that we are going to take our stand and defeat the plans of the unrighteous. The future of our nation depends on it.

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BELIEVE IN HIM

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BELIEVE IN HIM

By Rick Mathes

Romans 4:24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be reckoned, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

What we do with our belief is not prescribed by manmade rules or rituals such as the Church of Rome are so choked by. No, real belief results in a real spontaneous response from our mind, to our heart and from our soul. Hands up, down, folded, all this is not something to follow because others do it that way.

What I do know about believing in Him, worship just happens. So as not to be distracted by others, when I want to approach Jesus and worship Him I close my eyes and get into my own little private chapel. I also have observed that everyone who approached the Lord fell on their face and were overwhelmed with shame at the sin they were still infected with. How horrible can it be to be transparent before our Lord and have Him see us as no one else can?

Repentance is the issue believers constantly wrestle with. Repenting of our sins is the absolute opposite of what our natural self wants to do. It is down-right ugly how we resist the holiness required of us by God’s breathed Word in the Bible.

Once we make an honest confession as believers in the Holy of Holies, we are supernaturally to let Him live through us. We imitate in our flesh the Lord of heavens that is clothes in our skin. When people get to know us, they get to know Him. As a bond servant, it is not too hard to conclude that we are to live to serve Him.

This can be done in a number of ways but it all begins with selflessness and sacrifice. The Lord knows all that needs to be done by us to advance the Kingdom but the heart of all efforts is our relationship to Him. It isn’t what you do t counts, it’ who you are in Him that is everything. St. Francis of Assisi said it so well when he said, “All I want to do is go about the Lord’s business and not know it.” That’s what I call humility.

Would make this suggestion to you, “Do the best you can for Jesus and let someone else get the credit” or “Replace thyself.” It’s all about Him not you.

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!

WHAT IS GRACE?

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WHAT IS GRACE?

By Rick Mathes

The simple answer to this question is, “unmerited favor.” But what does grace do? That was my question all through Roman Catholic grade and high schools. I finally have come to this conclusion:

The effect is not the cause of the effect; the cause is.

Works is not the cause of works; grace is.

That is as succinct as I can word it. So I am going to consider that you understand that and move on to some of the effects (works) of His Grace.

I thank God every day that the police don’t know all the crime that I have committed. If they did, I would be in prison for a long, long time. I have a full pardon now and I will be eternally grateful to our Lord’s grace that enables me to devote my life to His works.

  • Bible Only
  • Jesus Only
  • Grace Only
  • Faith Only

It blesses my heart to wave through my rear-view mirror at police putting a “make” on my plate’s numbers. The car is legally mine, the insurance card is real, I didn’t buy my driver’s license in California, I didn’t have a gun in the glove-box, no cocaine in the trunk and no pregnant girlfriends! I am clean and free!

Every time I am confronted with a sin I rebuke it and like a whipped puppy it puts its tail between its legs and crawls off in a hurry. I prefer to take on the big sins first because I know that if I whip Goliath the Philistines (lesser sins) will run like scared rabbits. Grace strengthens me.

One of my favorite verses is, “Though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Notice we walk “in the shadow of death” not in the darkness of death because we are walking in the Light. By grace we are saved, not by works lest we should brag or boast.

Hope is before you by grace as you have never known it if you will only take the first step, He will take the rest of them with you. He quickens the spark of life in you to into a bonfire of love and desire to exemplify Him. When people get to know you do they get to know Him?

You will be astonished at the changes in your as God begins, by grace, the process of restoring you to your first nature in His Image and Likeness walking with Him in the cool of the evening.

WHAT IS FINISHED?

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WHAT IS FINISHED?

By Rick Mathes

Jesus commissioned the Holy Spirit to carry on until He returned. It to Him we seek God’s works by grace in us. As Christians, sold out and totally committed to our returning King we have had our vanity transformed into humility. Once we understood His atonement for our sins on the cross we dropped to our knees, put our faces in the mud, the blood and the tears and cried out, “It is finished!” Our old self died.

In the deepest humility we have an earnestness of purpose that only God knows where it came from. It sure hasn’t been natural since we accepted Him in our head and heart as Savior and Lord.

Because of His finished work we are now friends of God. Can you get a handle on that? We are not at enmity with the Lord of our universe but rather personal friends of His now. We can walk into His presence and be more than welcomed at any time we want to. Imagine that for a moment.

We have been declared righteous. This is not a righteousness of our own but one imputed by Christ’s death on the cross. He took our rap-sheet (list of crimes) with Him. Our record is spotless. God will not even know we ever sinned! Isn’t that something? It is finished! I know that because we have been rescued from sin. The devil hasn’t got his claws in us because we are friends of God.

The cell door has come off of its hinges and the bars have been sawn asunder. We have been set free from the power, punishment and will soon be set free from the presence of sin.

How proud can we be when the Lord stepped from the tomb and Satan knew he was finished. Now like a junk-yard dog, he’s trying to take down every Christian he can until he is thrown into the lake of fire.

We have been chosen of god and predestines to be in that parade when the Lord comes back and reins forever. We who are born again will lift up our hands and shout, “Only you O Lamb or God are worthy!”

WHAT IS FAITH?

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WHAT IS FAITH?

By Rick Mathes

Faith is not a power you appropriate, it is an assurance you grow into for the certainty of things hoped for and not seen. We just don’t pull up to the Holy Spirit and get a fill-up. In Christ we always have a full charge but we control the dimmer switch in us. We can turn its power up or down as we choose to.

Our arsenal is stocked with weapons that are to eradicate or at least seriously cripple our arch enemy, pride. Untamed pride left to grow exponentially was the fall of the Angel of Light Lucifer. He swelled up in his imagined egotism, armed with an ultimate high of narcissism, he challenged Jesus and with just a Word our Lord sent him to planet earth like a flaming meteor; a fallen star that would never return to its orbit of prominence in the endless sea of God’s glory.

There is no greater God-pleasing gift but faith. This is the hinge that opens all the doors of spiritual knowledge and hope. It’s not a blind leap of faith but rather a certain absolute. We may not understand all of God’s actions or purposes in our life but by faith in His Word and the unbending assurance of its absolute reliability, owe appropriate more and more faith the closer we draw to Him and see His truths materialize, even those that defy our natural understanding. Strong faith pleases Jesus.

You were created for a purpose and God has a vision for your life that con only come to fruition by appropriating more faith and doing spiritual weight lifting. A steady diet of His Word will ignite your faith to blossom and to explode in revelation of who you are in Him your mind had never before even imagined. I challenge you to unleash the faith of God in you, get out of the boat and walk on the water!

I know it can be done. I have been out there in the midst of those sometimes terrifying waves for many decades.

It’s so simple and I must add easy: Just listen to the teaching and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Let god be God and step out in faith, face to face with the new you in His image and likeness, not yours.