Tag: Allah or Jesus

COMMANDS

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COMMANDS

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 7:19 (NASB77) 19   Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God.

God so loved the world that He didn’t send a committee! He sent His only beloved Son, and when Jesus speaks, we listen and respond, “Yes Sir!” Our Lord isn’t into arm-wrestling with us over His will in our lives. We are to simply believe and obey Him. Even a slight hint a what will please our King is an imperative command, more than that, a demand we must hasten to obey.

What is lacking is both the church and the state is fear of God. If you are an unbeliever, fear of eternal dying in the flames of hell should deter you from ignoring His every wish. And fear of offending Him or hurting your feelings shold be a constant reminder to us to fear His displeasure. There is no need for a believer to fear God’s wrath: praise the Lord! But if you deny Him He will forsake you and Satan will have His way with you forever.

When the faith is set out before you and His biblical commands are clear, you walk in all His ways not yours. Once experienced however, His way becomes your preferred way because it is paved in peace, happiness, and the security that His will in heaven is being effected through you on earth. As His golden vessel or clay potty, you have obeyed Him.

What else can follow then but your love for Him, heart and soul? Bless the Lord, Oh my soul with all that is within me! Feelings and facts fall into place as He would have them because you believe and obey His wishes to the last drop of blood He shared for you. Really, all is in harmony when heaven and earth are tuned to the same key and you orchestrate as called and chosen.

Nothing is held back as you advance in rank and responsibility. The war is on and the evil one’s days are shortened as the time grows near so nothing less than complete obedience will do.

It’s so simple but keeping His commandments is the hardest thing you will ever be asked by the Lord to do. It’s impossible to obey His commandments to the letter of the law but it was accomplished in Him and it’s His righteousness that is placed on us and that’s why we can’t help but shout from the roof-tops, “My Daddy is the Commander-in-Chief of the universe!”

Believe and obey, there’s no other way…..

 

COME OUT

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COME OUT

By Rick Mathes

John 11:40 (NASB77) 40 Jesus •said to her, ” Did I not say to you, if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

He said, “I AM the resurrection. Do you believe this?” It’s an important question to ask your-self and answer honestly. Your faith and future depend on what you really, down deep believe. You can’t fake or con your way past the devil. Both Satan and Jesus know the true answer.

So you need to take an honest appraisal of yourself if you want to step away from death and move toward life everlasting, so ask yourself:

Are you a questioning believer? It is good to be the “devil’s advocate” that is, to challenge the Word of God to see what the truth really is. I went into the Bible to prove to my wife once and for all that Jesus did not raise form the dead anymore that Lazarus did at His word. Well He did and I believe but learning that truth has not stopped me 30 years later from questioning the Word and mining it for proofs.

Are you an anxious seeker? Anxiety is manufactured fear. Ninety percent of what you fear isn’t going to happen and the other ten percent is unavoidable It is good to fear the Lord, that is to fear offending Him but if you are a believer, you never need to fear His wrath.

Are you a suffering believer? He took the cross for you. What can man do to you to separate you from the love of God? Nothing! How deep is your love? You don’t really appreciate His mercy when you are on top of the world. Did you ever notice that you are closest to Christ when your knees are closest to the ground in prayer?

Step out of your grave of death and don’t be a discouraged worker for the Lord. We are only under assault by the demons for a season. All the Lord asks of us is to keep the faith, fight the good fight and finish the race. Don’t give up, maybe for the first time.

And lastly, you might be a dying Christian. Well praise the Lord you are close to meeting your Maker! Take heart. What greater thrill could there be but to sing, “Nearer my God to Thee” and really mean it. Come out and confess you believe today, there may not be a tomorrow.

COIN OF VALUES

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COIN OF VALUES

By Rick Mathes

Romans 7:21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.

Where you stand is where you will fall. If it isn’t worth dying for, it isn’t worth living for and yet most don’t hedge their bets with any semblance of a higher power, humility or restraint of their carnal desires. The old adage, “He who dies with the most toys wins” is a bold-faced lie. UYu will never see a U-Hall trailer behind a hearse on its way to the cemetery.

Man’s values are weighed heavily on appearance and having an impressive resume. It is a bogus and manufactured front to impress others with “How great I am” or “Look at me the epitome of success.” “See what a winner I am!” Well, I suggest that I would rather see the sermon than hear it so if you look long enough, you will see through the façade. You’ll see there is no substance. “Where is the beef?” It’s not on a false front outside of you, it’s on the inside. I’ve often said, “Why should we get to know each other and ruin a perfectly good relationship?” There’s more truth to that than you think.

It’s not in wealth, brains nor talent. It is only Him.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin of values and see a glimpse of God’s integrity and character. Those two pillars are what the holiness of God rests on from which you will fall if you don’t keep your balance.

It’s all a matter of achieving His attitude of justice and mercy. The Good Shepherd has both the rod and the staff. The rod is to rebuke and correct and the staff is for recovery and God used both to shape our attitude and His mold.

He who has the gold makes the rules is so true. We are blessed by our Lord’s generosity. Thank God that he police don’t have the record on you that Jesus does. Earning $8 per hour making hamburgers is better that $12 per month mopping prison cells for the DOC. So rejoice and have an attitude of gratitude that God isn’t giving us what we deserve.

And lastly, note our Lord’s faithfulness. He promised that He would never leave nor forsake us. I believe Him because He has believed in me. I have the coin of values that He blessed me with and you can have it too.

COFFIN NAILS

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COFFIN NAILS

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 1:2 (NASB77) 2  to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

Paul’s companion Clement became the third bishop of the Church in Rome right behind Cletus and Linus. Fifty years afer the Church of Corinth was founded, Clement wrote to them after Paul had written the letter “3rd Corinthians” to sort out the internal dissention and abuse of the gifts. Clement had to rebuke them again because now the younger members were disrespecting their Elders and the whole mess was stirring up all over again. I might add that charismatic churches in your community have continued in this prideful destruction and here are some reasons that keep reappearing over the years:

  • Dissentions
  • Personality Cults
  • Cliquishness
  • Moral Compromise
  • Carnality
  • Sexual Perversion
  • Fornication
  • Incest
  • Adultery
  • Worldliness
  • Materialism
  • Suing Christians
  • Idolatry
  • Selfishness
  • Homosexuality

The sign gifts were being perverted to mimic the old rituals that included estate behavior and glossolalia. They became boastful of the gifts they claimed they had and they used them at times for personal gain as they do to this very day!

How awful must the Holy Spirit feel when so called “Spirit-filled full-gospel” churches do the same thing? It’s as if nothing has changed. This type of behavior is flat-out prostitution of the gifts and dangerously close to the unforgiveable sin of unbelief!

 

 

CHARISMATICS

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CHARISMATICS 1

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 12:7-11 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

Fifty years after Paul penned Second Corinthians, Clement continued this epistle because the next generation of the Church of Corinth was still abusing the sign gifts as they are today. I have a standing offer of $1,000 for anyone on this planet that can prove they have a sign gift.

Let me ask you Mr. Spirit Filled Christian, “Do you really have a closer walk with God than I do?” Is your walk with Him closer than Chrysostom, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon and a litany of other fellow believers who do not claim to have the sign gifts?”

I have personally witnessed Jim Baker’s staff provide rented wheel chairs to older people standing in line for the healing service to be later wheeled out on the stage and miraculously walking from the chair! This “show time” is the equivalent of Saturday Night Wrestling on TV.

Even the famous Kansas City Prophets claim that they are only 70% successful with prophesies which is laughable. Faith healer Oral Roberts claimed that 4% of those patients in his ministry hospital (do you see the humor) were cured by prayer. Doctors of any hospital will tell you that 4% of their patients have psychosomatic illnesses (in their head). I could write a book on all the bogus claims I have seen and heard in my lifetime alone.

Their false prophets and faith healers with anointed prayer cloths are a complete charade. I stop just short of claiming that they are all from hell. Even Kenneth Hagen, Ken Copeland and Benny Hinn have led souls to an awakening of their salvation. My assessment before you and God is that this whole industry of merchandising Christ is pure spiritual humbug. Stay tuned for “Charismatics 2” to soon follow!

 

CHAINED

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CHAINED

By Rick Mathes

2 Timothy 2:9 )) for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal; but the word of God is not imprisoned.

Prison ministry is a rewarding effort to lead souls from crime to Christ in which I have been a full-time minister in for over three decades. I have led thousands to the throne of grace and many more thousands have passed through our successful aftercare program. I have leaned that there is no difference in prisons for those outside the Department of Corrections and those inside that are convicts. One got caught and the other didn’t which includes me. I have never been convicted of a crime.

At the top of my list of those imprisoned in the “free world” are ministers. They are so beholding to the deacons and elders for their jobs that their knees shake in the pulpit at the thought of offending anyone. They have to have a grand-slam sermon every Sunday and grow the church or they will be selling hardware within 4 years.

I have often thought about how proud the donkey must have been that carried Jesus into Jerusalem. Out of all the donkeys in the world, Jesus chose him. Contrast that to the grumblers the minister asks to help him in the everyday chores of the church. Grunt work has a special reward in glory.

Some I have met who think they are free have concrete between their ears. It’s an understatement that they are unteacheable. Their mouth is going a hundred miles an hour and their ears are folded over and sown shut. Their minds are in bondage to relativity.

When I was growing up I lost all feelings from being abused mentally by a very dysfunctional family or lack thereof. My hero was Dr. Spock from Star Wars. He was without emotion, just stoic and logical. So I grew more hardened to my pain and the pain of others. I became introverted and obsessed with reading and acquiring knowledge: Maybe because I was treated like I was a useless dummy.

Here is the hypocrite with two mouths. The apostate that is enjoying his walk down the wide road to hell and the heretic that goes to church but lives for the devil. There is no fear of God in any of them. Satan’s battleground is your local church that for many is a prison with stained glass windows. Well let me tell you, you can park your hose in a garage but that doesn’t make it a car. The House of God has become the synagogue of Satan. Shame on us!

 

CAUSE OF PAIN

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CAUSE OF PAIN

By Rick Mathes

Romans 12:12 (NASB77) 12   rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,

Sin obviously is the culprit. The wages of sin is a “painful” death. It hurts you to hurt Jesus. When you offend God you have put your trust of protection into yourself which is the same as the flesh or in the devil. When your sin turns your back on Jesus, you become a Satanist because sin is proof that the devil is your lord. You are on a “highway to hell” and the only way to turn back is to stop your backsliding immediately.

The subtlety of sin can begin it’s poisonous attack with your tongue and the words that flow from that sewer you call your heart. The foulness of hat you say falls back on you in the form of resentments. You can even resent yourself and the verbal vomit that flows from the belly of the beast you have created and feed with pride.

It makes my eyes cross to try to make sense out of the dichotomy of comedy and tragedy those battles within your battered soul. That pride will put up all impenetrable wall, a Masada or impenitence. Bold faced, in your face, two-faced sin is the womb you were born in. From your first breath came forth a cry of anguish that represents the doubt and fear you wake up to every moment you torture yourself without our Lord’s love and forgiveness.

The mistreatment you receive from unbelievers begins with those closest to you, your family and friends. This element of environmental and societal cancer is unavoidable in its infancy but as you suffer the pain of your choices, you learn what can be done for pain avoidance. Your hard heart though hammers your self-gratification with glittering idols that pull your eyes, mind and heart outward instead of upward.

Forgetting Jesus and pretending to be His is an unforgivable hypocrisy that can only be remedied by a genuine born again experience? Satan however, will convince you that the pain is a small price to pay for the freedom of restraints!

BY THE CROSS

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BY THE CROSS

By Rick Mathes

Colossians 1:15 (NASB77) 15  And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.

When I was a teenager run away I was always getting into fights and quite frankly losing most of them. Anyone who wanted to beat me up did. That’s why now I so thoroughly enjoy knocking Satan and/or his demons right on their butts. When I am hit with a big temptation I remember I love the Lord more than I love the sin and I whip it When I do I feel like King Kong. I put down the bottle and picked up the Bible. I put down the drugs and lifted up my cross. I threw donw my evil ways and lifted my holy hands to the King. I am redeemed!

The Cross put the fear of God into evil influences. The demons know that Jesus is Lord and they tremble and cringe in terror. The cross fends off the flaming arrows from the abyss and quenched the exploding darts that wee meant for me. Satan cannot make yuou sin and all you have to do is look to His Cross!

All the evil power of hell is nothing but an annoying itch on God’s butt. Satan is a fish-faced, thumb-sucking, bed-wetting gay punk in the Name of Jesus. I know that if you kill Goliath (your main sin) the Philistines (smaller sins) will scatter. God is still God and David’s faith can be yours because the real spirutal power belongs to God. The devil, his fallen angels and the lake of fire are all creations of Jesus and isn’t the Creator much greater than the created? Get some spirutal “T” will you?

The severest afflictions will have no power over you if you know that the Lord is testing your faith. Know that “it came to pass.” Just hold on , take the tsunami of grief and pain and the peace that follows will be worth it; like having a baby in your arms after the pain of delivery.

Lastly as you look around you can’t help but notice that worldly allurements are in sight in every direction. We are almost swallowed ina sea of sinful allurements of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll violence and every other perversion ever invented in the lowest levels of hell. All the satanic power in the world like a laser on you cannot make you sin. Think about this. Only you an walk to the Cross, give Jesus the finger and sin. Only you alone can do this or not. Make your choice.

BY GRACE

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BY GRACE?

By Rick Mathes

Ephesians 2:5 (NASB77)              5  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved),

I went through all of grade school and high school in the Roman Catholic education system. I can remember like yesterday asking the Marist Brother, “What is grace?” many times and I couldn’t understand what he said. Also, I never understood that I deserved anything. I was on my own from age 13. My life was like endlessly swimming against the current of black ink: dark and ugly.

Then at the age of 38 a Presbyterian minister told me that it was by grace that I was saved. “What is grace?” He responded, “Unmerited favor.” All of a sudden “Tetelestai” became crystal clear, “Paid in full!” I dropped to my knees and sobbed, “Thank you Jesus” and I have never turned back since. His saving grace was all I needed and for His reasons alone He chose me to be His. Talk about a lucky draw? I had 5 aces!

I soon learned that His grace didn’t end there. Time after time temptations would have overtaken me had it not been for His sustaining grace. I can’t walk on water without His empowerment. When we surrender and step out of the boat, saving grace is the ability to stand on the surface of the deep. Sanctifying grace is walking on the water. Our need for grace continues to the grave.

We can’t walk through that dirty world without getting some dirt on us. It’s like walking through a coal mine in a white suit. It is inevitable that we will soil ourselves from time to time. That’s why “Repent” was the first sermon of John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, me and many other evangelists. We must repent, submit and obey!

“I don’t get no satisfaction” from any counterfeit the Devil may invent. My only peace and contentment is in His satisfying grace of love and eternal security in Him. It’s by grace we are saved and I thank God He chose me so that I might respond by choosing Him! But if you choose sin of the Savior, Satan doesn’t have any grace. You will drop like a rock into the eternal abyss of flames?

 

BURIED ALIVE

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BURIED ALIVE

By Rick Mathes

Ephesians 2:5 (NASB77) 5  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved),

We were just musing over the pros and cons of cremation. I’m against it because I have made great efforts over the years to avoid the flames. Also, I want to have all my body parts in one place to make it easier for our Lord to reassemble me! Both reasons, of course, are nonsense because there is no such thing as dead. Either you are living in glory with Jesus and your loved ones or you are dying in hell with those who tried to take you down with them but you are alive in either instance.

It’s by grace that we have our next heartbeat to celebrate. My point is that there will never be a last heartbeat. We will have a moment when breath one breath hear and the next there. You will have a physical death but the beat goes on. Either you were born twice and died one or born once and died twice. In either case you will be fully conscience of the consequence of your decision to believe in Christ or not. There is no “plan B.”

If you choose to have Satan as our Lord you will experience a second death that is spiritual. All Satanists, those who call Satan Lord, will suffer an eternal nightmare of pain and anguish. If I could open up the floor beneath you to gaze at Hell you would go insane. Hell is worse than anything you can imagine. Hour sin killed God’s only Son!

Eternal is forever. Get a grip on that. Let me help you. Consider what is at the end of the sky. What is past are all the stars we see. Where is the end of it? It’s called the n’th degree. Our minds cannot conceive infinity but it is there and you will be there either in the blessings of heaven or the blaze of hell.

It is by grace that you are saved from hell and only because God feels like saving your rotten hide. We don’t even deserve our next breath but He loves us so much that if His being crucified again would bring your heart to Him, He would come back and do it all over again. You are going to be buried alive and were you live is your choice.