Tag: death

 

THE SWORD

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.

What is it about the Word of God that equates it to the sword of the Spirit? We’ve always been taught that a sword is a weapon for combat and our enemy si not out there in the world, the battle is within us so we need a weapon that will combat our most inner places the enemy can found.

When you are torn down to basically nothing, that’s when the Word of God will build you up. When your knees are weak and your countenance is trembling, and then is the time to put on the armor, lift up your sword and let the Holy Spirit go to battle on your behalf. Heed these words that were breathed by God into the spirit of those who wrote for Him. He will never let you fall so low that He cannot lift you up and restore you to carry the flame of your salvation.

The fruit of the effort is obvious as it orders your steps to walk as Jesus would, not as earthly sons of the devil with his smoldering footprints. So it is our responsibility to heed it, to know it in our heads because when, an actual Bible may not be handy.

Once the guidance of His words is ingested, so to speak, they need to be digested; that is it needs to be stowed in our hearts. The effect is a rush of joy unspeakable and we have a strong desire to immerse ourselves in its wisdom.

By preaching the Word, its reverse effect is that we will desire it passionately and displaying its truth in our lives. So strengthened we can give hope to others and sow it in the world.

The light of His countenance illuminates a life to live by becoming easier to understand. It’s practical value lies in our using it’s wisdom in the strength of His resurrection. God’s will becomes clearer as we suffer for it. This persecution, which is sure to follow, is our yardstick and abandonment in Him.

The closer we get to Jesus and the more His words become ours, the better we will perform in battle. The Word convicts, converts, cleans, cures, confirms and consecrates our body, mind and soul for the constant battle within us and the one yet to come.

THE MINISTER

By Rick Mathes

Colossians 1:25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God,

May we as minister love, trust and worship Jesus. This can be a difficult task to accomplish. I can speak for me that I fall short in all three of these critical categories of our ordained duties. There is expectancy on a minister’s life and discharge of responsibilities toward his sheep.

The main issue for God’s spokesman is to reflect Christ; to be a little Jesus clothed in our skin. He certainly cannot be the light because it matters not how brightly the sun shines among blind men. He is through charged with illuminating, blossoming and planting  the seed of election and predestination.

On the whole we sheep have a very anemic announcement of God. Our shepherd must impart understanding of the Word to us. We need to have a clear interpretation of God Words. What has the Father disclosed to us and what obedience to His commands does he expect. Most pastors as I have mentioned, forth-tell or rather blossom the Word exegetically. I parse a verse, light the flame and let it explode to manifest God’s glory. Scriptural interpretations and understanding is an enormous flash-bang that quickens the Holy Spirit and imparts life to that breeze that God first breathed into my wings.

His glory is manifest in pointing to our Savior with instruction, prophesy, and inspiration. This enables us to step into the pulpit with much determination and patience. Proclaiming the name of Jesus is our centerpiece of calling and anchor of our faith. We need to reach into their gut, grab his heart and point to Jesus.

C.H. Spurgeon suggests that we relax, disturb and relieve our audience with the God-breathed message of salvation. Our great short coming is that in our acknowledgment of God we must live our lives on God, live with Him and rely on no one else. Once this step is taken, there is a turning back to basics. We must press on!

THE MESSAGE

By Rick Mathes

Romans 10:13 (NASB77) ¹³  for ” WHOEVER WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”

What is the message of salvation?

William Grede: “Freedom as we understand it in America is not an economic discovery. It is not even a political discovery. Freedom in the last analysis is a religious discovery.”

We believers are saved and free of the culpability, complicity and fault of guilt the moment we put our face in the mud, the blood and the tears at the foot of the Cross and cry out, “Lord save me!” Our fall from grace, lapse and errors rebound to the height of His Excellency instead of our level of incompetency. All adversity, woe, grief and misery vanishes as the “Son” rises over the doom and gloom of Lucifer and his moron demons.

This message of salvation is offered to every nation, country and democracy. It has no preference to sex, gender or orientation. Everyone who calls on His name and confesses Him “as” Lord will be saved! No rank, status or position is barred. Don’t’ stir the coals on cultures because the community or race soul is born in is as precious to Jesus as yours is to you. No character defect or regard to reputation for integrity is in consideration for a heart breaking over the offenses to Jesus. Sins are incorrect, illicit and bad: the killed God’s only Son. Think about your sins nailing Jesus to that death stake. He’s reaching out His bloodied arms as far as they will go and showing you that He loves you that much. How can you even dream of missing the message?

What is the message of salvation?

In begins and ultimately ends with faith in Jesus. Faith is the conduit that grace flow through: the greater the faith, the greater the flow of grace. It is immediately followed by the realization of sin’s offense to God and the confession and repentance thereof. Forsaking sin is the birth of holiness. Your relationship to sin is the window to the love of you have for your only Savior. The more you hate the sin the more you love the Lord. The supernatural response is to pass it on: discipleship. Everyone needs to hold on to a Paul to learn from and drag along a Timothy to pass it on to.

A public baptism publishes to the believer’s community the interior death to sin you have experienced and the resurrection of His Spirit within you. This naturally leads to witnessing the message where this article began.

THE MAN

By Rick Mathes

John 17:5 And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

There is certainly enough extra-biblical information to prove that Jesus was a real flesh and blood man. There is no longer a question of this fact. There are at least two credible physical descriptions of Him and plenty to confirm that He did miracles, died, rose from the grave and had a continued following of those that watched Him rise into a cloud and disappear into the seventh heaven. They were first called Christians at Antioch, the home of Chrysostom and other primitive church fathers.

My blood boils when someone says that Jesus was just a good man. Jesus made many claims that He was God and He accepted worship from His followers. In his book “Evidence Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell, he says that Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic or Lord. There’s neither basis nor room in reasoning that will allow Jesus as just a good man. He must be Lord!

If you haven’t noticed on CNN TV News or Arabic Al-Jezeera News, the world is on course for an inevitable train wreck. We are on a collision course with self-destruction. It is an insult to monkeys to claim we were descended from them!

There is no more hope for world peace apart from the hand of Jesus Christ; The chaos or nations s almost insanity in the fullest definition of the word. We, in America, are in a post-Christian era. The Lord in His permissive will is slowly but surely holding back His protective hand and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our only salvation is in the hands of “The Man” from Galilee. There is no Savior apart from Jesus.

The King is coming as He promised and His chosen are preparing a straight path for His precious feet to tread. He is our Savior, Lord and only God. There is no other truth but the atonement of the last Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The Carpenter is my man’s man. He has the calluses and the scars to prove it!

Look unto the Cross and be healed; Sense pity for His condition, bleeding and dying for our salvation. Watch the mockery of His executioners and the religious who’s who of His day and have faith. He said that where He is we will be and He meant it. This has got to kindle your admiration for Him. He said he would do it and He did.

Look on that man hanging there naked and sense His unique dignity and humility. Nothing has compared to Him since. The completeness of Scripture fulfillment and His purity to the last brath is truth that we may never completely comprehend.

The thief welcomed Him into glory will welcome you. He has your name in the book of life written in the blood of “The Man” and is commanded to open the gates of heaven when you arrive.

THE LIFE

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.

I watched an open heart operation on the television one night and saw the surgeon remove the man’s heart and put it into a pan as a variety of machines kept the patient’s body operational. I was astonished when the doctor reattached the heart and it resumed beating and the machines were shut down so his body would return to life.

It occurred to me that every organ he had could likewise be separated from the body and returned. So I wondered, “Where is life?” It sure wasn’t of this world nor was life any more visible than love, gravity, electricity, etc.

I concluded that we are just animated dust, well composed mud that encompasses a life that is indivisible but with Godly vision can be observed to the image and likeness of God our creator.

We all have a distinguishable form; our facial features, height, weight, skin tone, etc. that is visible and differentiates us one from another. Our essence that is the life of Jesus within us is indistinguishable one from another. In other words, when our dust returns to dust, we all look identically alike. You can’t tell us apart becaue the image and likeness of God is the same for all of us; there is only one God and His image and likeness does not change. He is the unchangeable “I AM.”

In service and adoration to Him we distinguish ourselves one from another by our actions: the effects of our common cause. As we walk in humble obedience to Him we become lesser and He becomes greater until we don’t exist and He dominates our entire being. Now this won’t happen until His glorious return.

In the meantime we must accept that the only life we have is in Him. We owe every heartbeat to His stooping grace and selfless sacrifice on that death stake of redemption. Our overcoming countenance gives us the unmatchable authority to keep the faith, fight the good fight and finish the course of life laid out before us as more than conquerors of the life within us!

 

KISS OF DEATH

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 26:49 (NASB77) ⁴⁹ And immediately he went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him.

We can argue endlessly about predestination and free will and many do to this day. My conclusion is that in the Lord’s divine providence, to please Himself, he became the magnet and we were created the metal. The elect have irresistibly drawn their decisions to him ever since.

I marvel at those who willfully resist His grace while all the time professing faith in the words and works of Christ. From my observation, they compose a large part of the attendance in our entertainment centers we too often call churches. Many are blatantly sinning but have found a comfortable fellowship of carnal Christians like themselves, of like sins. “What is right to me is right” is their unifying banter; devils with masks parading around in counterfeit sanctity with all of the demons in Hell howling in laughter and clapping in approval.

Such was the infection of the First Church the moment Jesus welcomed His chameleon apostle Judas Iscariot. For purposes known only to Him initially and then revealed in His last hours, Judas was setting himself up for the “kiss of death.”

I can almost feel you recoiling at the thought of Judas betraying Christ with a kiss, a kiss! An emblem of love and devotion; such is the unfathomable depths of evil a soul such as Judas’ could fall to, beyond comprehension.

How long have you proclaimed that you are a Christian and in the fellowship of believers: a year, 5 years, 10 years or more?

How many times have you presented yourself as a devoted follower of Christ in Church services, Bible studies, prayer breakfasts and the like?

How many true believers have been fooled by your acting abilities and blindsided from seeing through to the real you?

Judas had only 11 peers but he spent all his time in good church standing to boldly betray Jesus with “the kiss of death” as you have for neglecting to repent of your sins that killed God’s Son. You need to repent, submit and obey. How do I know you so well? I know me!

You are giving our Lord the kiss of your death, death in the eternal flames of Hell. He gives life but you have chosen death. You will forever be reminded that Jesus loved you, up to the last moment and Satan took a permitted grip on you. You let him. The kiss of death is from the acid mouth of the Devil unless you stop, stand still, turn around and come back to Him.

Kiss the Son lest He be angry!

(With the kiss of life.)

THE INN KEEPER

By Rick Mathes

The journey was so painful on the back of that donkey but Mary took it well so as not to worry her loving and loyal husband Joseph. At times she wanted to scream and turn back or at least stop and rest for a season. But she pressed on to Bethlehem without any security of shelter or help for the child that was soon to join this holy family. The night air was chilly and her painful cry was mostly unnoticed when the water broke and the time edged ever so much nearer. They turned from street to street, house to house without any sign of vacancy. And there in the not too distant horizon was an Inn. At least there they would have a warm dry room and female neighbors to assist in the delivery of the soon to be Son of God.

But no, the Inn Keeper stepped out of the door and said, “There is no room at this Inn.” Joseph pleaded his cause that his wife was about to deliver a child and the time was drawing ever so much closer. The Inn Keeper insisted that he didn’t have any room for them but directed them to a cave that was shelter for many of the locals animals.

Oh, how I would love to meet this miserable soul in glory and ask him if he had any second thoughts about what he had done! Can you imagine how he must feel now, knowing that he turned away the Son of God, his very own Creator and Redeemer!

What could the Lord have said to him when this Inn Keeper stepped into glory? How did he respond? We may never know but I can hardly wait to ask him to step out of the shadows of the Word and make his afterthoughts known to us who are embarrassed for him. Always have room for the Lord in your Inn!

 

THE GATE

By Rick Mathes

John 10:9 ” I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

A prisoner I picked up at a local prison made me stop the car in the parking lot while he got out and kissed the ground. In another case a prisoner to be soon released was postponed and he went berserk, climbed the gate and bled to death in the razor wire. See the convicted felon goes through the gate to serve his sentence and then out the same gate when he is released.

The prison gate is the front door to Satan’s mansion and the Lord’s gate leads to a turns-style on the narrow road to glory. In true life, the shepherd leans across the sheep-fold entrance and with his staff becomes the gate to keep the sheep in and the wolves out.

I thank God there is a gate. Can you remember when you were “just out there” like a dog returning to his vomit? It was a merry-go-round with no beginning and no end: round and round. Now I have a hope in sight and the Good Shepherd is at the door.

It’s our blessing that there is only one gate. Jesus teaches us that He is the only way. Even though Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the God of Abraham, that doesn’t mean you can get to heaven through them equally. God had a Son who is God who said that He is the way, the truth and the life. He said that no one comes to the Father but through Him. He said it, I believe it, and that settles it. Muslims and Jews who don’t confess Jesus as Lord are going to Hell according to the Word of God.

The gate is so wide open to everyone that it is almost busting off of its hinges. The Lord spread His arms out on that timber and said, “I love you this much.” So it is with the gate that is wide open to you right now. It’s a gate with strong hinges that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. How reassuring is that?

You can search all the religions of the world that ever were and you will not find a leader who said he would die and then raise himself up to life in three days and do it!

This gate is the entryway of earth to heaven. There is only one and you only have one chance to go through it when your heart beats its last. I’m not a stupid person. I’m smart enough to know that if I step through this gate and there is no God, what have I lost? But if I don’t and He returns to face me, I have lost everything forever.

Step through the gate for an experience you won’t soon forget!

 

THE FIRST STEP

By Rick Mathes

John 11:39 (NASB77) ³⁹ Jesus said, “Remove the stone.”

When our Lord stood before the tomb of Lazarus, He commanded, “Move the stone!” He could have had that bolder crumble to dust with a word, blast off into outer space with a wave of His hand or produce legs and have it walk off into the wilderness but He didn’t. He told the onlookers that they needed to take the first step and then he would unleash His power and let it flow in life giving power only God the creator could accomplish. He chose us from eternity and will love us throughout the length of forever but we must put our foot forward like metal attracted to a magnet and take that first step.

Put one shaking foot out and do it: go forward in your weakness and sin. This trembling faith took Peter back to the boat in his limited understanding and slender hope of faith. It is a gift we cannot buy nor borrow. Our total essence and form is totally for His good pleasure, only. Our hands are empty as we humbly approach the throne of the King with the faith He gifted us with. We bring nothing but as a consequence of His blessings we step up in repentance, submission and obedience in the power of God the Holy Spirit.

We come to Him in prayer, broken by the confession of our sins. How hard is it to look Him in the eyes with all the love we have for Him and recite one by one the horrible sins we chose in spite of His life and sacrifice for us.

Even our praises fall short as time after time pride crawls up in our ego and we swell with self-pride. The very pit of our being is diseased, polluted, worn out and worthless.

It is at this point when our knees hit the ground and our heart beats with His once again. When we are laid flat out on him and our face is in the mud, blood and tears of those that went before us, we can’t fall any further. Now at our lowest we finally experience and understand His strength.

What a friend we have in Jesus as He puts His hand out, we lift up our heads and move out in the rest of the steps we need to take that we might fight the good fight, keep the faith and finish the race. Our first step is all He is waiting for so that He might walk the rest of the way with us.

The gates of hell cannot prevail against us, He will never give us more than we can handle, He will always provide us a way out, He will never leave nor forsake us, no one can take us out of His hands and where He is we soon will be. You can take these promises to the bank!

There will be only one set of footprints on the path to glory and they won’t be ours. They will be his because it was He who carried us because we had the holy boldness to take the first step. Take your first step right now and let Him lift you up and carry you the rest of the way. AMEN!

 

TEMPT OR TEST?

By Rick Mathes

Luke 4:2 (NASB77) ² for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days; and when they had ended, He became hungry.

The barren desert of the deserted is the devil’s natural habitat. Dry, dusty, forlorn and desolate is the garden of Satan. It’s a place of howling tomb stones covering the suffocating caskets of those encased in a liquid inferno of hysteria, chaos and insanity personified in estreme.

Satan can’t make you forsake Christ but he can attack unexpectedly with the circumstances that weaken your resolve to faithfulness in our Lord. If you just blink and make sin an option, you will eventually exercise that option and cave in to the temptation of counterfeit pleasures.

He attacks you at your weakest point because he knows that that is the shortest distance to the grave because the wages of sin is death no matter how small the infraction. Just a drop of lethal poison in a cold glass of sparkling clear spring water will do and he knows what makes your knees buckle before his smoldering throne. No mercy!

Satan disguises himself in deceitful friendliness. He’s your best friend and favorite neighbor: your spouse and yes, even your pastor. This angel of light, Lucifer, fools even the most cautious because he is the father of lies and you believed him all your life until you met the Way, the Truth and the Life.

The devil’s favorite tactic is to quote Scripture falsely and out of context. He thinks you won’t know the difference because he knows the Word better than you do. His entry level to your fall is doubt which is the opposite of faith. With flagging faith your trust in Jesus fades and you see the power of our own means to mislead yourself and others.

It all stems from the spiritual pride of deceiving others into believing that you are a Christian in good standing when it is nothing more than the selfish ambition to be your own god. This is what caused Satan to fall from glory and it is the temptation he uses to cause you to fall into the undying caldron of boiling fire in hell.

It is my fervent belief that believers cannot be tempted. My logic is that darkness cannot enter light so if you are “born again” the Light of the Savior shines in you and the darkness of the devil cannot invade it. What you experience as a temptation is really a test from the Lord. He has let the devil have a go at you to show all the depth of your faith and love for Him.

So the next time a sin fleetingly breezes through your consciousness, stand against it, say “Depart from me Satan,” resist the sin and then say, “This one is for you Lord!” Pass the test and defeat the tempter.