The Lost Mandate of Heaven, Part 1D [Ideas Series, #4]

1 Thessalonians 1:9

"For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;"

As stated previously, the word repentance is used to express the spiritual transition from sin to God.

Do not mistake penitence for repentance. They are NOT the same. Penitence signifies pain, grief, distress, rather than a change of thought and purpose. Thus Latin Christianity  has been corrupted (the Catholic Church being the main perpetrator) by erroneous thought of presenting grief over sin rather than abandonment of sin as the primary idea.

Repentance is that change of a sinner's mind which leads him to turn from his evil ways and live under the grace that Christ provides for all who believe in Him (Rom. 8:1-10). The change wrought in repentance is so deep and radical as to affect the whole spiritual nature and to involve the entire personality. The intellect must function, the emotions must be aroused, and the will must act. Each person needs to understand sin as unutterably grievous; recognize the divine law as perfect; and acknowledge that he himself comes short or falling below the requirements of a holy God due to sin (Job 42:5,6; Psalms 51:3; Romans 3:20, 23).

There may be a knowledge of sin without turning from it as an awful thing which dishonors God and ruins man. The change of view may lead only to a dread of punishment and not to the hatred and abandonment of sin (Exodus 9:27; Numbers 22:34; Joshua 7:20; 1 Samuel 15:24; Matthew 27:4).

There is a type of grief that issues in repentance and another which plunges into remorse. There is a godly sorrow and also a sorrow of the world. The former brings life; the latter, death (Matthew 27:3; Luke 18:23; 2 Corinthians 7:9,10). There must be a consciousness of sin in its effect on man and in its relation to God before there can be a hearty turning away from unrighteousness. The feeling naturally accompanying repentance implies a conviction of personal sin and sinfulness and an earnest appeal to God to forgive according to His mercy (Psalms 51:1,2,10-14).

The whole sacrificial system was intended only to point out the infinite mercy of God to fallen man, in his redemption by the blood of the new covenant. What a picture! Mercy is a matter of the heart; that is, God's heart. It can be said that the heart of the Lord is mercy.

An Illustration

Suppose you go home, and you find that while you have been at work, your child has gone to your private drawer and stolen $5 of your money. You go to him and say: "Did you take that money?" "Yes, I took that money," he replies. When you hear him saying this without any apparent regret you won't forgive him. You want to get at his conscience; you know it would do no good to forgive him unless he confesses his wrong.

Suppose he won't do it. "Yes," he says, "I stole your money, but I don't think I've done wrong." The mother cannot, the father cannot forgive him, unless he sees he has done wrong, and wants forgiveness.

Reader, can't you see you're in the same predictament as that little child? Yes, you are! Are you troubled by that thought? Sinner, why don't you repent?

A test: Is it your sin that stands between you  and Christ?

It isn't, really. It's your own will. That's what stands between the sinner and forgiveness. Christ will take all your iniquities away if you will let Him. But, you've got to humble yourself before the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, and admit you're a sinner and ask for pardon. Men are so proud that they won't acknowledge and confess before God.

Don't you see on the face of it, if your boy won't repent you cannot forgive him, and how is God going to forgive a sinner if he doesn't repent? If God allowed an unrepentant sinner into His Kingdom, there would be war in Heaven. You cannot live in a house with a boy who steals everything he can lay his hands on. You would have to banish him from your house, right?

 

A Consideration of the Local Incarceration Rate

Facts about Washington State Offenders in Confinement

Number of Prison Facilities ..................................................................................12
Number of Work Releases Facilities..................................................................16

Total Offenders in Confinement ..................................................................17,838
Offenders in prison ..........................................91.9%.................16,391
Offenders in work release................................. 3.8%....................... 679
Offenders in out-of-state rented beds ............ 0.0%............................ 0
Offenders in in-state rented beds.................... 4.3%....................... 768

Prison and Work Release Operational Capacity ..................................16,837
Total operational capacity in prisons ........................................16,158
Operational capacity in work release capacity .............................. 679

Percent of Population to Operational Capacity
Total Prison Confinement Percent of Operational Capacity.................. 101.1%
Work Release Percent of Capacity ............................................................. 100.0%

Gender
Male.....................................................................................................................92.6%
Female .................................................................................................................. 7.4%

Race
White ...................................................................................................................71.6%
Black....................................................................................................................18.8%
American Indian .................................................................................................. 4.3%
Asian...................................................................................................................... 3.7%
Unknown/Other................................................................................................... 1.6%

Hispanic Origin.....................................................................................................11.6%

Average Age............................................................................................................. 37.8

Citizenship
United States .....................................................................................................94.7%
Mexico................................................................................................................... 2.7%
Other...................................................................................................................... 2.6%

Length of Sentence
Less than Two Years ........................................................................................15.7%
Two to Five Years ..............................................................................................23.9%
Five to Ten Years...............................................................................................20.4%
Over Ten Years ..................................................................................................24.8%
Life with the possibility of Parole or Release………. ...………………………...11.6%
Life without Release........................................................................................... 3.6%

Avg. Length of Stay for Offenders Released in the past year........ 23.8 mo


As you can see, most of the offenders are very young men, for the most part. The majority of them (12,308 persons to be exact) serve 2-10 years. Does it break your heart that these men and women might leave the prison without knowing who Jesus Christ is? They're in there no doubt for their wrong doing. But, have you stopped to consider that Jesus died for them, too? Did anyone visit them or write them or mailed them a Gospel tract? If they received Christ as their Lord & Saviour in prison, do you wonder whether or not they'll be discipled by someone in their community once they are released so that they stay on the straight and narrow? Do you think someone out there cares about them? And, how many of them did not get connected to a local New Testament, Bible-believing church once released?

The worst kind of bondage is sin. There is no prison worse than it because it goes with you anywhere you go. To be sure, nothing can be done to liberate you from sin than the blood of Jesus Christ (John 1:29, 36; Heb. 9:22).

Suppose the Governor of Washington finds a great number of criminals in prison, and he goes and says: "I feel bad for those prisoners. They cannot stay in jail any longer." Suppose some murders have been committed, and he says: "I am tender hearted, I can't punish those men." and he opens the prison door and lets them all out. How long would that governor be in his position? Wouldn't your blood boil and you'd be calling out for justice? Men would be the first to raise their voice against that governor. These men would clamor, "These murders must be punished or society will be imperiled; life will not be safe!"

And what about God's justice? Do you think He wants justice for men's sins? Oh, indeed He does!

Yet people believe that God will ignore men's sins. Just glance up Calvary's way. The Judge of the world did not look away at all. Reader, He hates sin, but loves you (Jn. 3:16). It is a hard way that Jesus Christ took for your sins, Friend. Don't go on under that delusion that you can keep on sinning (Num. 32:23). You can't. It is a lie of the devil. I tell you, the Word of God is true, and it tells us "Except a man repent" there is not one ray of hope held out for you.

Now let me say this: You are in a position to be reconciled to God right now. You are not in a position to deny this reconciliation a week, a day, an hour. God tells you now. In five minutes, for all you and I know, you may be in eternity.  Life is but a mist. So now God calls you to repent, and all your sins will be taken from you. May God help you to turn and live.

I Want to Turn From Sin and Live Right!

Sources: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia; Oxford English Dictionary; Strong's Dictionary; WA State Dept. of Corrections Statistic and Report - Quarterly Fact Card (March 31,2012)

The Sweetest Possession

II Corintians 6:16

"And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

What a sweet title: “My people!”

What a cheering revelation: “Their God!”

How much of meaning is couched in those two words, “My people!” Here is speciality. The whole world is God's; the heaven, even the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, and he reigneth among the children of men; but of those whom he hath chosen, whom he hath purchased to himself, he saith what he saith not of others—“My people.”

To wit, Deuteronomy 10:14 states, "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is."

In this word there is the idea of proprietorship. In a special manner the “Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” All the nations upon earth are his; the whole world is in his power; yet are his people, his chosen, more especially his possession; for he has done more for them than others; he has bought them with his blood (Heb. 9:22, 28); he has brought them nigh to himself; he has set his great heart upon them; he has loved them with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3; Jn. 3:16), a love which many waters cannot quench, and which the revolutions of time shall never suffice in the least degree to diminish.

Dear friends, can you, by faith, see yourselves in that number? Can you look up to heaven and say, “My Lord and my God: mine by that sweet relationship which entitles me to call thee Father; mine by that hallowed fellowship which I delight to hold with thee when thou art pleased to manifest thyself unto me as thou dost not unto the world?” Canst thou read the Holy Book, and find there the indentures of thy salvation? Canst thou read thy title writ in precious blood? Canst thou, by humble faith, lay hold of Jesus’ garments, and say, “My Christ”? If thou canst, then God saith of thee, and of others like thee, “My people;” for, if God be your God, and Christ your Christ, the Lord has a special, peculiar favour to you; you are the object of his choice, accepted in his beloved Son.

And, if God be for you who then, Reader, can be against you (Rom. 8:31)?

All these things - and more - has the Creator of the universe afforded and lavished on you, IF you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord & Saviour. Otherwise, you are at a lamentable loss, not just for now, but for all of eternity. Don't throw away the sweetest possession of all as if it were trash.

Don't discard the great salvation that the Lord Jesus purchased for you at Calvary! I Want Jesus As My Own!

Now I've giv'n to Jesus everything,
Now I gladly own Him as my King,
Now my raptured soul can only sing
Of Calvary.

Mercy there was great, and grace was free;
Pardon there was multiplied to me;
There my burdened soul found liberty,
At Calvary.

Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan!
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man!
Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span
At Calvary!

Mercy there was great, and grace was free;
Pardon there was multiplied to me;
There my burdened soul found liberty,
At Calvary.

from C. H. Spurgeon's Morning Devotion

All the Men's Presidents

Hosea 4:1


"...for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land."


Good leaders are hard to come by nowadays. Ben Franklin was asked this question at the Constitutional Convention in 1776: “What have you wrought?” Franklin answered: “… a Republic, if you can keep it.”

All this talk of democracy is really not the point of existence for this great nation; it's about it being a constitutional republic. Unfortunately, a piece of paper is just a piece a paper without something to back it up. Money is just green paper without the gold (back in the olden days, anyhow) to back it up. And the Constitution is just parchment without godly leaders and godly citizens to seek and follow the will of the Lord in all things, public as well as private.

Thus, leadership flows top-down as well as bottom-up. Call it the photosynthesis of politics: What oxygen is to humans and carbon dioxide is to plants (thereby making each element inter-dependent on one another), then godly legislation is to the electorate and re-election is to the elected official. Both sides require a need to be informed. Just like a marriage needs God to make it work, both the electorate and the elected official need God to make government (the verb aspect of it) to work.

Consider what George Washington said: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

And, Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying, “I have always said, I always say, that the studius perusal of the sacred volume [ie, the Holy Bible] will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.”

John Adams said: "I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world."

Add to this Bejamin Franklin's statement: "As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and His religion as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see."


Patrick Henry commented: "The Bible… is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed."

There are so many other quotes from Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, James Madison, George Mason, etc.

Here's the point: We once had a simple and good Government. This nation once had good and godly government. Yet, I haven't seen it in my lifetime. A good way to gauge a government's stewardship of its responsibilties is to look at that all-time perennial maker for any civilization: liberty. The less government there is, the more freedom there is. With more governmental intrusion into our public and private lives, the less freedom you'll find.

It doesn't take a genius, rocket scientist, or Nobel peace prize winner to see that America is under siege from the cult of liberalism, where they impose their vision of what a just society should be. Their morals, if you can call them that, are focused on restricting your freedoms in order to push their world view. Friends, this is not freedom; it is group fiat.

They claim that the religious right is intolerant. But, God has given us the freedom to choose between reconciliation with Him through Jesus Christ our Lord (II Corin. 5:19) or rejection of the Almighty's salvation. It is not forced upon them. On the other hand, the Left seeks to remove our beloved freedoms because they believe they know what's best for this nation.

So, if you're for freedom, you cannot be for more government intrusion. The two cannot co-exist. At least not according to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Truly, is government dependence all that it's cracked up to be? I'd rather put my trust in God and let the chips fall where they may. Hey, I think I've seen that on our printed currency!

In the end, the only way to correct our course as a nation is to humble ourselves before the great God who bestowed life and liberty upon us:

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place."     II Chron. 7:14-15

Happy Presidents' Day and God bless America!