Tag: Jesus

THE WORST

By Rick Mathes

1 Timothy 1:15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.

The first year I quit drinking I won a sales contest trip to Acapulco Mexico with my wife Trish. Our first night in the hotel I called Alcoholics Anonymouso and finally reached someone who could speak English named George. He picked us up and took us to a roofless shabby building in a bad part of town. Immediately, I had fellowship with about 50 others whose higher power was Christ. I couldn’t understand a word they said but when George drove us back to our hotel and we were safely in our room, we knew we had been with sinners saved by God’s grace as we were.

Every nation, age, sex, or degree of education knows the horrors of sin and the hell that is its reward. When we look at this cosmos with the eyes of Jesus, we are all created in Him image and likeness. Sin is the culprit that separates the people who only want to love each other and to be loved.

I don’t have a happy childhood remembrance. When Daddy God puts His arms around me and says, “I love you Rick” I can’t express my joy without happy tears. I was the worst and maybe you were too. I am so blessed that you don’t know the sins I have committed as the Lord does.

When you repent you go from sinner to Saint: a caterpillar to a butterfly. This conversion is a holy awakening of your slumbering soul to a renewed vitality you have never experienced before. As a penitent, you are in a special class of citizens called Christians. Paul was the chief of sinners, the worst and He became the greatest of Apostles.

Beware of false assurances of salvation. You can’t be half-saved any more than you can be part pregnant. You must be all His or you are not His at all. Also, you can’t save yourself. Follow the horror stories of the Church of Rome (Inquisition) and you will have the model for the stairway to hell.

Nothing but grace can make you feel you have done more good than bad you are going to earn heaven. It isn’t going to happen. You can remain being the worst and if you have no conviction to beg our Lord’s forgiveness, you are probably right. You are the worst and you have no hope of heaven. That position would terrify me, how about you?

THE WAY

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.

Jesus said, “I AM the Way.” He didn’t say “I know the way,” or “I have the way.” He said, “I AM the Way.” How can a person be a concept? Well, my take on this is the Word is the Way and the Word became flesh in Jesus. The essence took on form in His person. Incredible! The Way became flesh and dwelt among us.

What a needed way His is. Satan has a wide way to destruction in any direction you may choose to go in. They are all marked, “THIS WAY TO HEAVEN.” His way is a new ay for the lost. It’s like stepping out on a different planet. I know from my own born-again experience. The path I followed at that time was an unusual way because He said, “It is finished.”

The way was not under construction. It was a highway to heaven. Oh yes it had its speed bumps and pot holes but all the travel difficulties are there to keep the way clear and safe for we souls to ascend into glory when the last hour draws near. There is no excuse for you not to travel the Way to Him.

Now this is a very personal way because He put your name on the street sign in glory. Think about that! You have your own road that was named for you alone. It can’t get much more inviting than that. It’s a very safe way because the pathway is lined with angels on both sides of the curbs. They are standing at attention ready to protect you at the very command of Jesus. He was made a little lower than angels and in heaven as on earth, so are we when we are justified and sanctified. They stand ready to serve us!

Did you notice that it is not a toll-way so toss your change away because you don’t need it on this free-way. The price has been paid for you to travel it so start your journey today. Consider: What more could you ask for? It’s free and so is the blessing.

You know that the walk you have been taking has been rocky and without direction. It’s all a matter of paying attention to the traffic lights and street signs. Get on your knees and take a look at the green light Jesus has given you. And while your there, did you notice whose name in on the one-way sign?

THE TRUTH

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.

To tell you the truth, your health or lack of it is entirely in the hands of the Lord and He will use wither to further His efforts to restore you to His image and likeness. His only interest in you is for you to worship and enjoy fellowship with Him and He will use all the means possible to accomplish His only desire for you.

He can use wealth or poverty for your existence. This includes fame or infamy. It makes absolutely no difference. Jesus is a jealous God and will not let anything stand in His way of looking up instead of out for approval and applause.

There is no truth unless it conforms to the name of Jesus: Jesus, Jesus , Jesus, there’s just something about that name.

The learning curve includes the earnings one receives from letting the Holy Spirit expand and exploded the Word of God to your understanding. A worm turns into a butterfly, black and white turns into living color, you were blind and now you see: this is the yield on your investment in Bible study. The mind is a terrible thing to waste!

Your knowledge of the Word brings you into direct conflict with the culture you are raised in or have made your lifestyle conform to. The battle begins when the light or rather enlightenment illuminates the wasteland of ignorance you too often cling to in defense of your obstinacy and dogged determination to remain Satan’s clutches on sin and its counterfeit enjoyments.

Your unsaved friends, those hell-bound hounds of deprivation gnaw on you like a bone until you are stripped of all your true friends which are ony found in the Church of God. There is no such thing as objective truth apart from Jesus. He is certainly the only Way, Truth and the Life.

 

SAVED

By Rick Mathes

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

Those that are helpless are hopeless. It is a lonely place to be when no one cares and there is no place to turn. I know; I’ve been there. I came to a place where suicide was the only option I thought was left open to me. I can’t describe what I call my dark side. It is terrifying to be in the midnight of self-destruction and the seconds are counting down.

Guilty! Guilty says the world. Innocent echoes the heavens. “I said Guilty!” shrieks the devil, “Innocent!” insists the Son of God. “I paid the price on the Cross; they are mine and mine alone.” Death stung Jesus and died never more to have a claim on anyone who confesses Jesus is Lord and live their life as though Jesus were Lord. It takes both our head and heart.

Sin is the venom of the Serpent that killed God’s Son and boy is God angry! The wrath of God has been building up for a long, long time and when He unleashes hit, you will beg for Him to have mercy on your greatest enemy. It will be more horrible that your worst drug infested nightmare for those who give Jesus the finger.

The misery and pain of the final solution in hell will be blistering burning, smoldering flesh that never ends with no hope or relief. It is not a good idea to refuse our Lord’s offer of salvation and confess that Satan is your lord. I would strongly advise against that position.

So many needless souls that are captives of alcohol, drugs and self; Can’t you see the depairing lives of those who waste their lives by struggling in the sinking sands of temporary thrills and counterfeit fun. The smell of stale bear and urine, the 3am leftover date, the blackouts and the shamed loneliness of the morning after pays the toll on that highway to hell.

The lost have no other name to be found but the name of Jesus. It is both the messenger and the message that resonates through the entire known universe. Neither Pope; Imam nor the devil can claim to be the way, only Jesus. There will be a hotter place in hell for all three by Paul’s very words when he said, “If anyone teaches you anything but that which we have taught, let them be anathema (go to hell)!

I’m sorry Rome, Mecca and Jerusalem but that is what the Bible teaches.

SAVED FROM

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 1:21 (NASB77) ²¹  “And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins.”

Many unbelievers wonder what you are saved from when one is born again. I considered I was already in hell so dying and going to hell couldn’t be any worse so I didn’t care. I had the Roman Catholic mentality that if I do more good than bad I will be ok. Well Jesus knew the truth and I praise Him to this day He saved me.

The question still remains, “What are we saved from?”

We are saved from the guilt of sin When you repent and leave that sin at the foot of the cross the guilt will evaporate because that sin against God doesn’t exist anymore. God will never see it!

Weare saved from the power of sin. The Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will want the Lord’s blessing more than you want the sin. When that happens, Satan’s temptations have no effect on you.

We are saved from the presence of sin. We don’t enjoy being with sinners or being in a potentially sinful situation also, those who live in the darkness ae repelled by our light.

We are saved from the consequence of sin. This not only means the flames of hell will never touch us but that our quality of life will get better and better as we resume more proficient at avoiding sin.

We are saved from the love of sin. The sin you have is the sin you love more than Jesus because if you didn’t want the sin than you do want the sin, you wouldn’t have it. It really is that simple. The more you get to learn of and receive the love of Jesus the more you will fear offending Him.

Lastly, we are saved from the practice of sin. Sinners naturally sin. Believes supernaturally don’t sin. Could Jesus sin? Yes He could in the flesh sin because He was a man just like we are. But with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, He was “able not to sin.”

The same thing happens to us. We’re saved are saved from Satan’s grasp when the Holy Spirit claims us as His own. We are then able not to sin. The process of sanctification has begun because we ae in the pursuit of holiness.

SAVED BY WORKS

By Rick Mathes

James 2:17 (NASB77) ¹⁷ Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

Did the title get your attention? I’ll bet it did!

We as evangelicals are so adverse to the word “works” that we really don’t get a handle on how important getting His business done is. So look at it as the works of God or the works of man: in the Spirit or in the flesh.

Follow this syllogism: God is love means God loves. The continuous actions of love then loves, get it? If He wasn’t loving, He wouldn’t be love manifest. Now let’s try the word Savior. What is the effect of the Savior? He is Lord. Lordship obedience naturally follows the grace of our Savior. If the cause is belief, what is the effect? You got it, obedience. And what is the continuous action of faith? Yes, works. Faith produces and precedes the good works of which we were fashioned in the womb by Go to do. So we have then:

 

• God is Love          God is Loving
• Jesus is Savior     Jesus is Lord
• I Believe                I Obey
• Faith                     Works

If you do not love, if He isn’t your Lord, you don’t obey Him and have no good works, it is my judgment that you are going to hell and you don’t even know it. Understand then that there is a difference between saving faith and temporal faith as well as saving works and temporal works. Saving works are the effect of the cause, faith!

Temporal faith is a worldly leap of unbelief that results in indifference and willful ignorance. “Don’t confuse me with facts.” “Well, I don’t care what it says, this is what I believe.” “The Bible contains the Word of God that speaks to me, not the rest.”

Saving faith involves a lot of tears, prayers and unworthiness that drops us to our knees in humility and repentance in the presence of a Holy God. There, at the foot of the Cross, we find true trembling in the pit of our soul in fear of the glory of Jesus we are about to face in judgment.

The witnesses agree of our conscience, the Word of God, the throne of God, Jesus, the Holy spirit and Father God agree and see where your faith has been placed. If nothing else, see where the works of your efforts are leading you. Are the flames drawing nearer or can you hear in the distance the voice of our Lord saying, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

It’s by grace only we are saved that only is His grace when it produces His works

St. Francis of Assisi said it best, “All I want to do is go about the Fathers business and not know it!” That is the works of saving grace!

 

 

ROOTS

By Rick Mathes

Matthew 13:5-6 “And others fell upon the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. ⁶ “But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.

The logic of too many ministers is that if you can get the bodies into the church, no matter they are unbelievers, at least you can expose them to God’s Word. The fallacy of this as I see it is the Church is “the called out ones” not the unbelievers. When you fashion your service to attract nonbelievers, you must give them what they want so that they come back. So most ministers replicate the music, fellowship, and loosened morality of the social clubs and bars the unbelievers are generally fond of. The result is that the gospel is not the center of worship and even when the Word is preached it is watered down and down-graded to where believers are starved. Skinny sheep slip through the fence!

The worldly attendee, or as we call them, carnal Christians (an oxymoron) come to the building they call church it is inevitably a superficial attempt to clothe their sinful lives in acceptable respectability: hogwash. They are quick to flee from words like hell, sin, repent, submit and obey. So these words are carefully replaced with words like gentle, mild, love, fellowship, companionship, etc.

Satan plays on their emotions with mesmerizing and at times hypnotic music and repetitive prayers to put the audience into a trance so they can interpret this service as a Jesus experience or a movement of the Holy Spirit.

It is a counterfeit effort by the evil one to arouse these dupes into a euphoric state so that they can addict them to this ritual and have them sign a generous check to perpetuate this synagogue of Satan.

They follow their “Holy Ghost bumps” and seek excitement form church to church and never bond to a pastor that follows the Master. It is one giant wasted, shallow effort to heal their hurts. No relief and a knowing addiction to high powered music, charismatic preaching, pretty girls and business contacts. The world has infiltrated and apparently conquered the carnal church. Fundamental conservative Christians are becoming extinct and that tells me that the Lord is near; nearer that we think.

ROMAN ROAD

By Rick Mathes

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

There is nothing more exciting or fulfilling than leading a soul from the flames of hell to the throne of grace. The road to salvation is well traveled in the Epistle to the Romans. Let’s walk that road together.

MANS NEED: Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

If you say you are without sin you are lying. No matter how hard we try the devil always finds a way to get his nose into our tent; even when we are praying, evil thoughts creep in, no stopping Satan. I am so ashamed when I sin, even the small sins because I have droped the ball and embarrassed my Lord with what little faith I have. I am truly sorry Jesus.

SINS PENALTY: Romans 6:23 for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When you play with a snake long enough, it will bite you: you can count on it. I pretend that I am soaked in lighter fluid and I do all I can to keep away from a lit match. As they teach in AA, you aren’t hit by the caboose it’s the engine that gets you: the first car of the train. You have three choices: 1) You can jump off of the tracks and be saved, or 2) you can stay on the tracks and get run over, or 3) you can think about it and get run over!

GOD’S PROVISION: Romans 5:8 but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Nailed to that cross His outspread arms spoke, “I love you this much.” What went through the mind of Simeon of Cyrene as he stepped in the bloody footprints of Jesus carrying that crossbeam to the top of Calvary? Was it a word or a look that turned his heart to salvation in Christ’s blood? Something happened because his two sons became the first Bishops of color in the Christian church; and how about Barabbas? (Bar-Abbas) The Son of God died so that the son of fathers could look on and I pray got saved.

MAN’S RESPONSE: Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved;

Admit that you are a sinner once and for all. Quit hiding behind all your excuse. Believe that Christ Jesus is your savior and He will be your Lord. Confess your sins in the mud, blood and tears at the foot of the Cross right now.

Born again is an experience that only a believer can enjoy and one that can’t be explained. If you are, you will know you know, I guarantee it. If not, may God have mercy on your soul!

 

 

 

ROMAN CHURCH AND STATE

By Rick Mathes

Protestantism holds that the church and state are each of divine origin, that each is supreme in its own sphere and independent of each other. Romanism holds that power comes to the state through the church, that the church and state should be united with the church holding the superior position, that the Pope as God’s representative on earth is above all temporal rulers, above all kings, presidents and governors, that it is the duty of the state to maintain a political atmosphere to the Roman Catholic Church supporting it with public money while placing restrictions on all other churches and that the state should do the bidding of the church in punishing heretics.

The continuation of Roman Catholic anarchy an be blamed to the indifference of Protestants and their lack of devotion to their own evangelical message. Protestantism has the truth and can win the battle any time it is willing to force the issue.

1. Marcellus Kirk writes in Christianity Today:

“That there is still a remnant of paganism and papalism in the world is chiefly the fault of the church. The Word of God is just as powerful I our generation as it was during the early history of the church. The power of he Gospel is just as strong in this century as in the days of the Reformation.”

He continues, “These enemies could be completely vanquished if the Christians of this day and age were as vigorous, as bold, as earnest, as prayerful and as faithful as Christians were in the first several centuries and in the time of the Reformation.”

The following are direct quotes form official Roman Catholic Doctrine. Please read this carefully and let the significance of their beliefs really sink in.

1. No man is free to embrace and profess that religion which he believes to be true, guided by the light of reason.
2. The eternal salvation of any out of the Roman Church is not even to be hoped for.
3. The Roman Church has the power to define dogmatically the religion of the Roman Catholic Church to be the only true religion.
4. The Roman Church ought to be in union with the state and the state with the church.
5. It is necessary even in the present day that the Roman Catholic religion shall be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.

It was the Vatican Council of 1870 with its pronouncement of papal infallibility, that sounded the death-knell of any democratic processes in the Roman Church and placed it irrevocably on the road to totalitarianism.

Excerpts taken from “Roman Catholicism” by Loraine Boettner

RHODA

By Rick Mathes

Acts 12:13 and when he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer.

If I were to write a letter to the city of New York and sign it “Rick”, I don’t seriously think anyone would know or be impressed with “Rick.” But if I signed it “The Donald,” they would all know it was from Donald Trump. So it was also when Paul signed his own letters. Everyone knew and respected Paul the Apostle of Jesus; but what about “Rhoda?”

Now I’m sure you would think I was really important if I was written about in America’s history books but I am not and soon my name will all but be forgotten like the dash on my tombstone between my birth and death dates. But Rhoda is in God’ Word, remembered for all eternity and all she did was open the door for Peter. This tells me that although you and I are no big deal here, all we do for Jesus will forever be remembered no matter how small, in God’s Book of Life. Wow!

Like Rhoda, I just want to be a faithful Christian that is true to Christ and an arch enemy of Satan. My old boss hates my guts and trys to make my works for Jesus seem worthless. I know, however, that all I have to do is open the door and He will invite me in to sup with Him. I sure hope Rhoda joins us in that glorious day.

With the demons committed to destroy me, I need to be very careful to be at the door and available when He knocks. I can’t be asleep at the wheel. I need to be alert. Legend has it that when the primitive church met for worship they always had someone stationed outside looking up in anticipation of the Lord’s return. If only today’s church were so expectant! WE have forgotten that the Lord is nearer than you think.

A warm hearted Rhoda is certainly a wonderful example of an active Christian that is obedient and gives no thought to giving the Lord total obedience. Bless her heart she needed the support of other Christians to believe it really was Peter but so it is that the witness of others encouraged us to open the door to Jesus. He stands there and knocks and whoever opens the door will be in a saving fellowship with Him. Thanks to Rhoda, we can learn that even the least of believers can be useful to Him. Is that you? If it is, answer the door will you?