Come quickly? What role have you been playing to serve others while we're waiting? If you have no idea, GMO is a good place to start. But if you don't qualify there, there are hundreds of other sites that go past your faults and still able to share the Good News. However, make sure that repentance is at the forefront of your life. Here are the links...
Exactly right. Days of Lot and Noah. Riots are spreading so fast at some parts of the world; birds falling out of the sky; thousands of dead fish washed up ashore; millions of babies being murdered while animals enjoy protection status especially if it is considered in the "endangered species" list. It is intensifying. It is rapid.
Amen brother! You're right. I'm neither a historian nor a scholar. However, it is common knowledge that the upheavals of the 60s cultural revolution was a super, major event that paved the way to meltdown of values. Combined with the new technology of the media, the world soon caught up with the trend of disobeying not only parents but also authority.
Read Daniel 12:4 (transportation inventions and explosion of technology/knowledge) and 2 Tim. 3:1-5 (modern generations' lawlessness).
I know these are difficult to take in but go past beyond being offended to being objective. Be ready, be prepared for the last trumpet when it sounds.
American standards vs God's standards,Would someone please inform me if divorce rate among Christians is higher than atheists'? Media is a major factor in the erosion of morality in this country and around the world. Murder, theft, slander, bullying, homosexuality, etc. Then, there's the problem of illigal immigration, out of control lawsuits, rampant obesity leading to diabetes and other diseases, guilt and depression, it seems the entire American culture is now in bondage to drugs, alcohol, to fun and entertainment, out of control spending and gambling. There are too many to mention.
But particular to this discussion is that we Christians have listened to satan's lies that happiness cannot be found in obeying God's Word. Therefore, sexual encounters between unmarried couples (fornication) have infected Christians as well. Sexual diseases have exploded. Since Roe vs Wade, there is approximately 53 million human beings in the womb murdered. Divorce tore the hearts of the children mercilessly. It's brutal. This brings the question � this kind of standards that Christians have adopted, which is foreign to God, I wonder what He thinks of us. If we come face to face with Him before His throne, what would He say?
1 My son, pay attention to my wisdom; listen carefully to my wise counsel.
2 Then you will show discernment, and your lips will express what you've learned.
3 For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil.
4 But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.
6 For she cares nothing about the path of life. She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn't realize it.
7 So now, my sons, listen to me. Never stray from what I am about to say:
8 Stay away from her! Don't go near the door of her house!
9 If you do, you will lose your honor and will lose to merciless people all you have achieved.
10 Strangers will consume your wealth, and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor.
11 In the end you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body.
12 You will say, "How I hated discipline! If only I had not ignored all the warnings!
13 Oh, why didn't I listen to my teachers? Why didn't I pay attention to my instructors?
14 I have come to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace."
15 Drink water from your own well� share your love only with your wife.
16 Why spill the water of your springs in the streets, having sex with just anyone?
17 You should reserve it for yourselves. Never share it with strangers.
18 Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her 'brsts' satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.
20 Why be captivated, my son, by an immoral woman, or fondle the brsts of a promiscuous woman?
21 For the Lord sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes.
22 An evil man is held captive by his own sins; they are ropes that catch and hold him.
23 He will die for lack of self-control; he will be lost because of his great foolishness.
Christians who avoid public worship/church services
Posted : 17 Jan, 2011 01:46 PM
I still cannot fathom why some Christians insist that believers in Christ DO NOT HAVE TO attend church services or "enter a building" to worship. In his or her mind, it is more than sufficient to satisfy this spiritual need inside the privacy of the home.
Is this the result of the so-called "Christians" who fail to read the Bible daily or do daily devotionals? Just wondering.
Hebrews 10 (New International Version, �2010)
Christ�s Sacrifice Once for All
1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming�not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
�Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, �Here I am�it is written about me in the scroll�
I have come to do your will, my God.��
8 First he said, �Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them��though they were offered in accordance with the law. 9 Then he said, �Here I am, I have come to do your will.� He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. 14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16 �This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.�
17 Then he adds:
�Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.�
18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
A Call to Persevere in Faith
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another�and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
26 If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, �It is mine to avenge; I will repay,� and again, �The Lord will judge his people.� 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. 34 You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For,
�In just a little while,
he who is coming will come
and will not delay.�
38 And,
�But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.�
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Footnotes:
Hebrews 10:7 Psalm 40:6-8 (see Septuagint)
Hebrews 10:16 Jer. 31:33
Hebrews 10:17 Jer. 31:34
Hebrews 10:30 Deut. 32:35
Hebrews 10:30 Deut. 32:36; Psalm 135:14
Hebrews 10:37 Isaiah 26:20; Hab. 2:3
Hebrews 10:38 Some early manuscripts But the righteous
