Tag: Bible

WORKOUT

By Rick Mathes

Philippians 2:12 (NASB77) ¹² So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

This is not a proof text for the works driven salvation proponents. It only implies that the salvation process is not just justification, the forgiveness of sins. That’s the cause of the pursuit of holiness, sanctification which takes on an effort in partnership with the Holy Spirit to accomplish and exchange of all of you for all of Him.

In the initial experience of receiving the forgiveness all the guile of past sins is erased from the Book of Life. You put your face in the mud, the blood and the tears at the foot of the Cross and beg His forgiveness for you having offended Him. He then forgives you. Guilt should now be gone as you receive the forgiveness and become forgiven: no guilt. If you still have guilt, you have not truly repented of that sin. You are still holding on to it. Let’s go stupid!

You are now released from the power of sin. You insides are lit up like a Christmas tree and the darkness cannot enter and conquer the brilliance of His glory in you. The wrath of God has now subsided and you have the deliverance from any future punishment. Now that is cause to rejoice!

What lessons can we learn from this?

Let’s start with having firmness off faith. We are virgins all over again and have developing faith and trust, the keys to heaven. Doubt and fear are vile sins in the face of God and must be repented of.

Hatred of sin follows love of Jesus. Have you ever hated before? Recapture that emotion momentarily and replace the object of your hate with a hate for the sin that killed Jesus Christ!

Obedience follows belief. It can do no other. When Jesus is Lord becomes Jesus as Lord you are secure in your salvation and not even the gates of hell can prevail against you!

There is no other effect but humility when you look into His eyes and know He knows everything about you. Nothing slips by His notice and He sure doesn’t wink at your favorite sin, He loathes it!

Your contempt of this world will grow in direct proportion to your love for Jesus. Human glory only rewards you with a crown of thorns. So abandon your old self in heart, mind and soul to Him, your only redeemer.

PRESS ON!

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WITHOUT HIM

By Rick Mathes

John 14:6 Jesus •said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

This verse is fighting words for all faiths and religions that rebel at this exclusivist challenge to their beliefs. Jesus does not provide an option. You must come to the Father through Him or go to Hell. He gives us one of the seven I AM’s in this gospel. I am still trying to reconcile a person (Jesus) being a concept (truth). I can understand that He knows the truth, teaches the truth or points you to the truth but how can He be the truth? All I can come up with is that the Word is the truth and the Word became man and dwelt among us in the flesh and His name was Jesus. Thus, Jesus is truth! The Word is the essence and the frame is the personhood of Jesus.

What I can understand from my own life experiences is where you won’t find the truth. These are the places where the father of lies counterfeits truth and uses the circular reasoning of relativity instead of the objective, pure logic (Logos) of the Word (Truth).

Health and wealth are the greatest deceivers of objective truth. How many have had a complete medical exam, passed with no problems have a serious illness within weeks or even die. I did. I even passed a stress test with my “compete exam” with a stamp of good health. But for the grace of God and an insistent nurse, the doctor reluctantly called me back to his office and within that week I had a successful quadruple bypass operation.

My goal without Christ in my life was to have, borrow or steal one million dollars. It drove me night and day until I destroyed my marriage with alcohol and drugs. All that stopped me from blowing my brains out was my fear of Hell and non “plan B.” I turned around, lost everything for me but I founded and established a ministry that is not mine, worth millions for the Lord.

Having a name and fame is a heavy narcotic for the super-ego. When I gave the booking sergeant my ring, watch, belt and shoe laces, I stood there all alone and the officer sure didn’t care who I was or who I knew.

So health, wealth, name or fame does not contain any truth about Jesus because the rewards of all of them are self-gratifying. It is only in servicing Him unconditionally that the blessing of truth becomes evident. It’s really just a matter of surrendering it all to Him. He will bless it and hand it back to you and this arrangement will work as long as your eyes are upward and not outward.

PRESS ON!

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WILL THE TRUTH PREVAIL?

By Rick Mathes

John 14:6 (NASB77) ⁶ Jesus •said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

Pilate asked, “What is Truth?” Jesus ignored him and remained silent. Why?

I asked as a teenager, “What is Truth?” and no priests could answer this simple question. I had been attending a Roman Catholic high school and was never required to look at one word of the Bible. I did sneak a peek at the front pages and learned that I could get 100 days off from the flames of Purgatory if I read the St. Joseph Bible for 15 minutes. It raised the question of why I went to confession in the first place. The Mass was a re-crucifixion of Jesus for our sins; the confessional was a place to be forgiven and then into the flames of Purgatory until enough Holy Candles were purchased to get me out sooner. It was all very confusing to me and sure didn’t nail down what truth was.

Many of the teaching brothers were homosexuals so it was a wonder how sex outside of marriage was a mortal sin but sex with a Marist Brother was ok? My sister couldn’t be a nun because my parents were divorced but priests couldn’t marry even though Peter and most of the Apostles were. It wasn’t adding up.

How did water from the sink turn into holy water when the priest prayed a blessing on it? And why did we go to hell for eating fish on Friday? On and on the absurdities continued. I finally gave up on religion and went south with the devil for another 25 years.

And now, having been a Protesting Christian for 30 years, I am still amazed that anyone would believe the nonsense of Roman Catholicism. I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter to most what they believe because even in the evangelical quarters, virtually no one asks the pastor what he believes when they join his church anyway.

An Assembly of God church I am familiar with did a survey asking those in  the area, “Why did you choose your church to join?” They responded that these were the  reasons in the order of importance:

• Youth Groups
• Social Contacts
• Friendly people
• Great Music
• Close Location

(Way down the list in #14 was the sermon message and beliefs weren’t even on the chart!)

I’ve been to the Vatican twice and had been in the presence of two Popes. It was awesome to visit the Vatican and investigate all the art and history on those 100 acres of land. I went away both times scratching my head and wondering why Catholics just blindly follow popes that have been representatives of the devil for so long. Just read their history of bastard children, immorality, inquisition, torture, homosexuality, murder, etc. of “infallible popes”!

I was led to the Syllabus of Errors that is the official doctrine and commandment of pope that are believed to speak  for Jesus Himself. I was astonished at the horrific denial of human rights and American ideals. They aren’t even close to what the Holy Bible teaches.

Galatians 1:5-15 (NASB77) ⁶ I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him

who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; ⁷ which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you,

and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

Let me answer my own question, “What is Truth.” You answer means heaven or hell for you!

True believers believe:

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

Roman Catholics believe:

• Bible plus the Pope speaking for Jesus is equal to the Bible
• Jesus plus the Holy Sacraments are necessary for salvation
• Grace plus works that earn more grace
• Faith plus whatever the Roman Church dictates as truth

Now this is the short form and I know I will get an avalanche of emails from angry Roman Catholics but they cannot deny the Syllabus of Errors that I have published in “Adults Only” of this web site.

Do you really want to know the danger Rome is to your salvation and to our country? It is so easy just to join the church and do more good than bad. I’m sure Jesus will understand. Or are the terrible “turn or burn” ministers like me right whan I insist that you repent, submit and obey his commandments. Make Him only Lord and believe the Bible only!

My disclaimer:

It is most certainly possible and even probable that there are more Roman Catholics going to heaven than Baptists, who knows? What I do know is that it isn’t what you know but who you know that gets you into glory. So if my Roman  Catholic brothers and sisters confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, they will certainly be saved and enjoy eternity in heaven with Him and with me. (I believe in the eternal security the Bible clearly teaches).

So where is all of this going?  What is truth! The Lord only knows and He has all He has to say about it in the Bible. Read it and believe it. Put aside all the human religion nonsense and get real truth, the only truth straight from the teachings of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God.

Put the “Roman” aside and just be a “Catholic” like the rest of us!

PRESS ON!

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WICKED MAN

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 5:13 (NASB77) ¹³  But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

No one needs to teach a young child to be bad. We are born inclined to evil rather than virtue because of Adam’s fall and the original sin passed on to us. That little “bundle of joy” is soon exposed as a troublemaker; ask any parent.

Unfortunately, some never grow up but rather devote their lives to be decisive in every social gathering including Sunday morning services. The most difficult for a pastor to deal with is a fornicator especially if his hunting grounds are the church fellowship. This predator can really get just below the radar and the church Elders become quite paralyzed by lack of evidence to confront.

Others become covetous of this sinner, secretly wishing they could have an affair that would not be discovered or uncovered. They make an idol of this “alley cat” and humor him instead of rebuking him and restoring him to the foot of the cross for correction and forgiveness.

This life style is usually accompanied with an abuse of liquid levity or drugs. Both anesthetize the conscience and help remove any desire to change or rehabilitate. As a former drunk I know that over indulging gives birth to a unique form of extortion. We grasp that most besetting sin of a loved one and use it to deny or shield our abuse of alcohol, drugs, sex, etc. When they rebuke us in our moral filth we remind them of their own faults: the plank in their eye.

As our wickedness is exposed, the hate within us begins to swell into a quest to drag others into our denial of God, to essentially recruit others of like habits to be unbelievers like us. We gather every backslider we can locate to join up with our lifestyle of lying and faithlessness to our family, employer and counterfeit friends.

As a teacher of falsehood we extol our heresies as doctrine so that others that are equally unrepentant will slip into denial and shameful rejection of all objective truth.

PRESS ON!

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WICKED CHURCH

By Rick Mathes

1 Corinthians 5:13 (NASB77) ¹³  But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

Liberal believers have a sense of relative rather than objective doctrine and biblical disciplines. Their interpretations of truth are open to flexible opinions of individual choice. The certainly are not legalist like those who spend the day following you around with a list of the do’s and don’ts you insist must be followed right to the letter Both liberal and legalist are nothing but trouble and explosive divisiveness to any fellowship.

I have the most problem with those who base their faith and live their lives according to a ritual-centered belief system. Stand now, kneel later, lift your hands, drop your eyes, parade and stand at a statue and recite long pontifical prayers the same way the same time and at every meeting of believers of like obscure nonsense.

Those tradition locked groups are so stiffly stifled that they are literally hand-cuffed to the same way things have always been done. I preached at a church once where everyone sat on the right side of the church and no one on the left because in the early days, the only air-conditioning was on the right, many years ago!

Our Lord felt the wicked church was the one that was lukewarm. In fact, He promised He would spit them out of His mouth. You can’t get more graphic than that to make our point that they were worth less. This church is one that compromises and hasn’t any absolutes in neither practical government nor biblical believers. It’s a “whatever” fellowship that is in fact “prostitutes of truth.” Lukewarm or compromising leaders have no objective or solid basis of uniform decision making. This is really just organized chaos.

It leads to a personality centered church and it is a proven fact that centralized power will ultimately corrupt the leadership. History proves that to always be true. This church is really a non-Christian church or as most would label it a carnal, worldly, corrupt and temporal fake that is destined to flames!

PRESS ON!

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WHY?

By Rick Mathes

John 20:15 Jesus •said to her, ” Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing Him to be the gardener, she •said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”

Why are you crying? Is your church dead and cold? Let’s sort out what church isn’t: it isn’t the building you attend on Sunday morning for an hour. It is the temple you carry on your two feet. Like metal to a magnet Christians are drawn together to worship as a community of believers but church is where you are standing, on holy ground,

Have you grieved the Holy Spirit? His feelings are hurt when you are an unrepentant sinner seeking God’s favor. This is akin to running you hands through a cesspool and then lifting them to God in prayer. You are making Him gag.

Are you mourning about unanswered prayer? Believe me, He answers all prayers yes, no or not yet. You are probably suffering from doubt and doubt is a sin you must repent of. According to your faith your prayer will be answered in His best interests for your well-being. This may not be as you want it to be.

Are you falling back into your old evil nature? Chances are you have gotten lazy about your prayers, bible studies, fellowship and repentance. If you don’t feel as close to Him as you once were, you can rest assured it wasn’t Jesus who moved. You need to work at it. Let me ask you this, “How long can you coast your bike uphill without pedaling?” You have to work at it!

Most likely you are in the midst of sinful gain and you refuse to get honest and make things right. You can’t enjoy Satan’s treasure that caused our Lord’s tears. The biggest fear is that you have reached a point of no remorse or conviction of wrong-doing. When there is no more of your heart to break you will continue to be Satan’s right hand man. It’s hard to let go of the world and be belly-up. People of the world will hurt you but Jesus suffered a whole lot more than yhou for you. There won’t be a U-hall on the back of the hearse carrying you to a hole in the ground that you will be planted in.

Chances are that you don’t understand the Word because you have not been in fellowship with the Words of God. You let them take your Lord away. Little by little, one thing after another has filled your time until there is nothing left between you and the gates of Hell. That will make any grown man cry. Jesus saw ahead of time to this moment of your grief and cried tears of blood.

Believe me, He feels (felt) your pain!

PRESS ON!

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WHY WEEP?

By Rick Mathes

Luke 7:38 and standing behind Him at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears, and kept wiping them with the hair of her head, and kissing His feet, and anointing them with the perfume.

The first thing to do when you are down and out is to kneel at the feet of Jesus and pour your heart out to Him. A love spurned is a common offender of driving one to depression and extreme futility; life isn’t worth it any more. Neither considers that God is love and His love will never leave us nor forsake us, so refreshing yourself in Him will make your worldly sorrow fade away.

The extreme materialism of our culture is designed to fan the flames of your low self-esteem and hound you to pursue the vanities of Satan’s kingdom. Now when your heart is humble in the3 face of God you are spot on! You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit’s esteem in Jesus. You will see your seed of faith grow and your weeping will turn to tears of joy. Yes, there is a remnant and it has come from your care: your family.

Turning now to your life, Satan’s greatest entrapments to despondency is money and sex. Let’s face it. Whatever your worth is or isn’t, it’s much more than you deserve. If your wife got you with her sexy ways, chances are another man with better sex will get her from you. Be satisfied with what you have and don’t get sucked into porno and skin-flicks. She will do just fine.

I really believe the root cause of sorrow and weeping is loneliness. Man was not meant to be alone. So the Lord created all life to please us through Him. Nothing or no one can stand alone and satisfy your seed for a relationship but through, in and for Him. He is always there for you. No one can take you out of His hand and He promised He would never leave you nor forsake you. You can count on it so stop your weeping.

And lastly, aging people often get sad over what they could have done or who they could have been. Let me tell you, the best is yet to come in who you will be and what you will be doing in glory!

PRESS ON!

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WHY WAIT?

By Rick Mathes

Isaiah 40:31 (NASB77) ³¹ Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.

It is not our style to wait. We are an impatient people largely, I believe, because technology is moving faster than we can process. Everything almost becomes a blur and the good things of life, as God intended, pass us by.

Good things take time to grow. Why do we set up a resistance to slow steady progress? That which is slow to reach fruition is not in a hurry to evaporate so it demonstrates endurance that we see in any animal, plant, fish or human: the strong survive. It may not happen overnight but if you are steadfast in your growth in the Word you will have a joyful experience that lasts for those that are faithful and persevere. Nothing good comes easy. Easy come – easy go!

When we grow at His pace, the Holy Spirit will revive us if we begin to drift from our goal to know Him. Your spiritual strength is not caused by Satan’s steroids. As strong as our sinful second nature is, take time and don’t be rushed to return to your first nature in His image and likeness.

You can plant a seed in good soil, water it, and give it some sunshine and it will grow in its own good time. You can stomp on the ground you can curse it and it will not respond nor grow any quicker. Good things take time. God things take time. Can I get an Amen?

Our new strength, from the Lord, begins where our personal strength leaves off, just beyond our grasp. We rise above our self-imposed level of mediocrity and to His level of excellence. To do that we have to contend with many temptations along the way Satan will put up every obstacle he can everywhere he can to try and stop us. Our downfall is his passion.

It’s time in His time to have victory over flesh and to soak in the Spirit. We must discharge duties of faithful ministry to have a faithful minister be faithful in His distributions of life or a continuum by whatever prism you look at it through, the Lord’s timing ultimately prevails and we become mot equipped to meet and handle the many trials we have during our pilgrimage on planet earth.

PRESS ON!

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WHY THE BIBLE?

By Rick Mathes

Ephesians 6:17 (NASB77) ¹⁷  And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

The Lord’s form ascended into heaven but His essence remained in the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to quicken to your understanding. Why? He’s not done with us until after the White Throne Judgment. In the meantime, His Word, the locus comes alive and convicts us of sin according to His first earthly sermon, “Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” John the Baptist, Peter, Paul and the rest knew God’s arch enemy was sin so it was sin that must be attacked at its source.

So with His stooping grace the Bible converts our soul from death to life, from sin to repentence so as to cleanse the soul of all unrighteousness. This results in a consecration to Him who has no remnant of the sin that tortured and killed the King. After all we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit and priests of the children of the promise.

From cover to cover, God’s Word corrects all wrongs. If you truly love Jesus as your Lord when all that’s within you aches for holiness, the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. By confirming what is right, we can plainly see what is wrong. By being and expecting what is right makes what is wrong obvious. O comfort your heart and get your nose in the Word. How?

The Word of God:

• Heed it
• Seed it
• Desire it
• Divide it
• Live by it
• Use it
• Suffer for it!

When God speaks, we must listen! He has the words of life bot for day to day existence and the hereafter in the mansion He has prepared for us. Let me ask you a most important question: “What is the last thing the devil wants you to do?” You know that answer? But what are you going to do about it? Yes, read the Word!

PRESS ON!

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WHY TEMPTATION?

By Rick Mathes

I know, don’t tell me: we aren’t tempted as believers, we are tested. I know that but still, with the Lord’s permission, Satan can tempt us to sin with all our senses and we must wonder, “Why does the Lord allow temptation from that slime-bag devil?”

• Well there are a few reasons to consider:
• He may be testing our sincerity, faith, love or patience.
• He may be testing our growth in grace and blessings.
• He may be testing for our usefulness to comfort and warn others.
• He may be testing for our victory over Satan and sin.
• He may be testing to see evidence of His glory in us.

One of the reasons I founded our prison ministry, aside from the Damascus Road experience I had, was that I really believe that those that were in Satan’s camp are the best recruits for the Lords army and triumphant return in victory. We former demon followers know how Satan thinks, where he lives, how he lives, what he does, how he does it and where he does it at. We have a Master’s degree in alcoholism, drug addiction and crime. And to his eternal dismay, we have turned-over and now are in the Lord’s Army!

What better combatants’ can there be but ex-offenders that have confessed that Jesus is Lord but more, have confessed Jesus AS Lord. We have put on whole armor of God, have lifted up the sword and we stand firm as the Holy Spirit lays it on the idiot demon on our behalf.  When I was a “street thug” in Detroit Michigan, I was the skinny little kid that would have two beers and pick a fight with the biggest guy within reach. I was in too many fights (I’m paying the price for them now with my arthritis). I never won a fight!

Now I can knock the snot out of that fish faced, thumb sucking, bed wetting punk Satan! When I walk by, he better tremble because my Daddy is King of the Universe and I am on a mission for Jesus to grasp souls from his clutches and lift them up as trophies of grace to my commander-in-chief General J.C.

• Take notice recruit:
• You are never alone.
• You are in a desert.
• You are with wild beasts.
• You are hungry for God’s Word
• You have His Sword for combat.
• You are victorious in Him.

I really believe that the Lord is near. I can hear the hoof-beats. The trumpet is about to sound.

MARANATHA!

PRESS ON!

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