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Amongst the many emails and media requests we receive on a weekly basis was this recent little diamond in the rough: “Just read the Huff Post release, really tells us where we are at in the end time act. Also, it should affirm to you folks that you are correct in your beliefs. The Lord said it would be this way. Stand tall for Christ. Jack.”
Indeed, Jack. You see what is happening all around you, and you know that these are the signs of the times, and that The Lord did say that it would be this way. Consider the scripture: … as it was in the days of Lot…the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
AND, The Holy Spirit, through Peter, gives a sobering reminder to men of every age that Sodom and Gomorrah went down the way it did, at the hand of God, to be an object lesson to men of every age. Consider the scripture: …turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly. The inhabitants of those cities were set forth for an example. What kind of example? Complete annihilation, utter conflagration. Every newborn baby – every old man. Wiped off the face of the earth in flaming fire – and each one drop-kicked into hell to suffer the vengeance of ETERNAL fire. An example to those that after, or men of any and every age, from that point forward unto the day of the coming of the Lord, that if you live your life in callous defiance against God, openly and notoriously living your life in a manner that God Almighty himself labels as abominable, then God does NOT love you, that you are headed for hell, and that God puts a distinct difference between those He condemns and those who He delivers.
Consider the Scripture: And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. The Lord God delivered Lot, a man who He had chosen in the counsel halls of eternity as the apple of His eye – a man infused with the grace of God – and a man whose sin the Lord had therefore determined not to behold. Wicked men have hardened hearts toward this grim, sobering, eternal prospect – that God will destroy most men, sending them to hell for eternity, but save some men – not of their own merit – but by the imputed merit and righteousness of Christ, whose blood was not shed for all of the sins of all of the men (or else there would be no one in hell), nor for some of the sins of all of the men (or else all would still go to hell, the blood of the Lamb not being efficacious to was a man’s sin clean) – but for all of the sins of some of the men – Those Jacob’s who have been eternally juxtaposed in the spiritual realm against the Esau’s.
And there are those of you who have been given an understanding, at least some light on this day, of the doctrines of grace, and can therefore see some of the indicia that we are indeed in the last days and that these things are coming to pass before our eyes. So these people reach out to us from time to time, as Jack did. We receive emails, calls, tweets and letters every day from those who seem to have been given an understanding of the Quarrel of the Covenant and its prize. To all those who think to themselves that they fear God, and seek to keep His commandments – keeping themselves unspotted from this present world, we say greetings.
And now we say to all of you, from Jack who sent in the recent email, to all those others who have encouraged us, applauded us, felt a like-mindedness or a kinship to us, or have acknowledged the accuracy of our Biblical positions, despite wave upon wave of serious moral opposition: Go with us, the way is good. But do not be deceived: do not be deceived into thinking that, because you agree with us, but you live differently, or in a manner or place that keeps you from daily, ministerial, face to face communion with the church, that you will receive any good things from God. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
What does it mean to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction? Fatherless and widows, like the poor and the stranger, are all scriptural metaphors for God’s elect. To visit means to minister, to help, to comfort, to instruct – and there is no way to visit them in their afflictions from long distance, let alone see their affliction in the first place. Don’t be deceived into thinking that you can cheer from the sidelines, and that God will give you a reward. The Lord was clear. Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. Mal. 3:16 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
There is a continual communion, a provocation, that each of God’s elect is responsible for bringing to the table: the benefits of such communion are tremendous – not the least of which is in acknowledging it as a commandment of God – this is how He describes the lives of His elect – not how we, outside of His grace, would twist and contort the Bible to land in a spot where we vainly convince ourselves that we can serve the Lord God Omnipotent acceptably from the sidelines.
Get to the church. Go with us the way is good. A prime example that God gives us in scripture of a man who had a good temporal life situation, but who rejected it in favor of living amongst, helping, and receiving the spiritual benefits of the people of God is Moses. He was raised as the grandson of the most powerful man alive – the King of Egypt, which, at that time, was the wealthiest, most powerful, and most ‘advanced’ society the world had ever known. As the grandson to the King, Moses had the best of everything – food, education, entertainment – and had the brightest of futures laid out for himself if he would just ‘go with the flow’. Instead, Moses rejected his life of opulence, favor – his life of comfort and convenience – in favor of being amongst his people, even if, and especially because, of their afflictions and his God-given need to help them. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.
Don’t be deceived – There isn’t a life circumstance that goes beyond the Lord’s ability to provide for, if ye be His. Do not be deceived into thinking that there is a way to serve the Lord acceptably without:
– Assembling together with His people in the worship of God. (Forsaking the assembling together with those who you have evidence of a Fear of the Lord before their eyes is indicia of surface belief the seed that fell on good ground but had no root in itself)
– Ministering to them daily. (Praising them for what they do, but not helping them in their time of need, affliction, persecution, is indicia of surface belief – the seed that fell on good ground but had no root in itself)
– Giving daily evidence of an orderly walk. (Every one of us is prone to Jer. 17:9 – the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked – and who can know it? – who watches for your never-dying soul amongst those with whom you now spend time?)
– Preaching. (Cry aloud, spare not, life up they voice like a trumpet, and cause the men of this evil world to know their abominations – Isa. 58 and Eze. 16. Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature – Mark 16:15)
All those who seem to have a fear of God before their eyes, and who know we are Biblically accurate, ask yourself – what is it that is keeping me from getting to the church? What circumstance, what fear, what unbelief makes me think that I can stay put, cheering from the sidelines, fashioning a conception of religion that conforms to my comfort, my current lifestyle, my doubt about my God raining manna down from the sky to take care of me in this waste howling wilderness, and still receive the eternal blessings of God?
The early New Testament churches were spread out, and so the need to sojourn to any particular one of them was more of an apostolic or evangelic duty. In this dark day, where is the church of the living God? It is here, and nowhere else that we see. And nowhere else that you see, if you are given eyes to see and ears to hear.
Do not be deceived. Get to the church. Enter while there is still room. Go with us, the way is good.
Amen.