Exodus 20
1 And God spake all
these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
or any likeness of any thing that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the
earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor
serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children unto the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me;
MATTHEW 3
1 In those days came
John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand.
3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet
Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight.
Father God, make way a clear path in the hearts of
those here today. Open their hearts to hear Your Word and let
it be accepted fully and lived by them in these last days.
Bless us Lord, with your lovekindness, mercy, grace,
patience and understanding. Give us the wisdom to live
your will for today, in Jesus name I pray. Amen
Talking truthfully about how we really are just isn’t
politically correct these days in most churches. But
then again, either is politically correct for a preacher
to let his church know they are
sinners, or they’re worshipping false gods. In
today's society, nobody
wants to hear the truth. They don’t want to hear
anything that may be in the least bit offensive to them.
They all think they are much better than they are in
God's eyes, they compare themselves to another sinner
and say, "I aint as bad as he is." They want
the praise of man. They want the priase of the pulpit,
and they think they have the praise of God. They don't want to be like God
but they want to have His
praise. They are just like the Archangel Lucifer, and
believe they sit on a seat high above God. They all want
to be worshipped and telling them the truth isn’t
worshipping them. It just doesn’t fit into their sinful
and self-deceptive life style.
Most
church’s biggest problem today is the fact that they
want heaven to come easy, and they don’t want to have to
do any work
for it. They have this, ”I’ll come as I am attitude
about getting to heaven. They think they just deserve
whatever they want, and they have decided they want
heaven. I have come here to tell you that you will
not get there with a “I’ll come as I am attitude,” or
just by thinking you deserve it. Cause you don't. You
deserve the Lake of Fire, which you will get if you
don't repent and turn to God. You have to believe in him
to
receive salvation from Him and give your life's control to Him.
If you don’t do this, you won’t be in heaven, you’ll be
burning in hell. I do not want to see that, or even know
you’re in hell. I want you in heaven, all of you, But as
you are, many of you won't make it.
Today's bankers are stealing legally with fees from
those who hold accounts with them. Insiders at the stock
market are buying and selling on classified information
they are receiving. Wall street is making perks their
legal way of stealing. Policemen are shaking down drug
dealers. It seems like the whole world is corrupt. But
you can’t mention it. It offends and if you offend in
this politically correct, or do you prefer incorrect
world,
you will be punished.
The
common dishonest man of today will take whatever he
wants, as his, or whatever he thinks he can get away
with, whether it harms another or not. Today's thieves
seem to have lost the honor among thieves that used to
exist in their world, and we are now living in a dog eat
dog world where only the biggest and meanest dogs can
survive. The false religion of satanism is based on the
theory, "Only the strong survive."
When you are offended, that tells me you are hearing a
truth you don’t want to hear. If you are living in today’s
earthly fashion, you will be offended easily because today’s
earthly society does not like the truth. It cuts too deep for
their soft world. If you study today’s high society people,
you'll find they are highly
offended by the truth. When the truth is told,
it makes those who are not living the truth very angry
at those who told it.
So, if you are offended from this mornings service, you can
blame it on the truth. You don’t like the truth, and don't want
to hear it because it shines the light on your
lifestyle. Please don't blame it on me. The
words I will use today will not be based on whether or
not they offend you. They will be based on what the
Bible says. If that offends you, I didn’t write the
Bible. God
wrote it. You can take it up with Him. I'm sure He’s
waiting to hear from your version of the truth. Maybe He’ll change
his ways for you, like many others have, if it
offends you.
If
you are one of those who has taken the time out from
your busy day of some type of stealing, hustling,
cheating and conniving others to come here and hear the
Word, don’t get angry if you don’t agree or don’t like
it. It’s from God and He is Love, He is the truth, the
perfection, the source of mercy and grace, and He is in charge, and you’re not,
whether you like that truth or not. And…If you think
you’re some kind of god, and the truth should be told
your way, you
are play acting a role you couldn’t possibly fill no
matter how good you think you are.
The real God is in heaven, and you’re not. You don’t
even know where heaven is. When you think you are in some
kind of control, you may be of those you have
manipulated, but in reality, you are not only falsely
worshipping and idolizing yourself as a god of your own making, you
are also deceiving yourself.
God says that you should not worship any other gods
before him, but you do. You have worshiped false gods
every hour of the day all your life. You have made many
other ‘things’ first, before everything, even before
God, throughout your entire life. Do you claim you don't
worship any other gods just because of the fact you
believe a God exists? Satan also believes God exists.
Let me ask you this, have you ever wanted 'something' so
bad that you just claimed it as yours? Even when it
clearly belonged to someone else? Remember that burning
desire, that desire that made you want that
'something' bad enough to do the mind and legwork and just take it from someone else?
What
do you call that combination of desire and mind and
legwork? Some call it coveting. Some call it worship. You spent all your time gazing at it
and figuring out how you could get it, and then you just took it.
You worshipped it until you coveted it and then you got it.
How long did you have it?
Then,
another 'thing,'
something else, completely different,
caught your eye. You had that burning desire again until
you got it again. Then
another
'thing,
then another, then another, and again,
and so on. After a few times, whether or not you admit
it, you were in bondage to that
desire, telling your mind, to force the legwork, to take those
'things'
you so strongly coveted. That desire was nothing
other than worship of that
'thing' until you
coveted it and took it
as you own. You were, and may still be, in bondage to
your desires of wanting
'things.'
Since you worship them until you covet them and then
take them, they are
certainly more important to you than God. You don’t go
after God like that until you have Him. You only go
after those
'things'
like you do because they give you
the praise of man when you show them off. They make you
feel like you are a 'somebody' in the eyes of the
earthly.
Only when you go after God, as hard as you go after
those
'things,'
will you status
with God. Only then are
you are right in what you seek. But I know it, and you
know it, you don’t go after God like that. But, when God
is ready, He will make you come crawling after Him with more
vigor than you ever had when you went after those things
of your
'desires.'
Up to
now, the only time you call on God is when you’re in a
foxhole and the dirt is starting to bury you.
Even then, you aren’t calling on Him to seek Him, you calling
on Him to use His power to fix the mess you got
yourself into. That’s a foxhole prayer. First, they start
out as little deals with God. God, I’ll do this if you
get me out of this one. He does. But you don’t. Its back
to business as usual as soon as you’re out of your
foxhole. Then later, you get in another foxhole. This
one’s a little deeper. You cry to God again. He takes
care of you again. You do the same as you did the last
time he got you out of the foxhole.
It
isn't too long before the foxholes start appearing at
closer time intervals. It seems like you really have God
working for you. He’s getting you out of one foxhole
after another. Those foxhole prayers are the best thing
you know. However, each foxhole gets deeper. In
next to no time, you are in a foxhole
that's so deep
you
can see the sky. You are buried in your foxhole this
time.
You cry out your loudest foxhole prayer, but God does not
answer this time. He waits. Your
foxhole
is filling up while you
wait on God. It seems like He is not going to help this time.
You begin to worry. You think God has turned on you.
Your hope is sinking into the dirt that is burying you.
It seems like there is no way out. You are almost in a
panic, and then an opening to get out appears, but, you
just can’t climb out. You fall back to the bottom of the
foxhole and the dirt continues to bury you. The foxhole
is deeper than it was before you fell, and you are more
buried. You wait more, becoming very angry, because God is not
jumping when you say jump. You begin to dislike Him
more than before you introduced yourself to foxholes.
Soon you loose what little 'like' you had in God because
He was not at your beckon and call.
After all He’s not
the one who put you in your foxhole. You put yourself
there. You made a decision based on self, or greed, or
something ungodly and its result put you in the foxhole as a
consequence of your own decision, and your own action
that followed your decision. But you believe its God's
responsibility to get you out. After all, He's your God.
Or Let me rephrase that. He's your God when your in your
foxhole. When you're not, you don't know Him.
You
now think you have decided that you've had enough time
in your foxhole, so you call on God again. This time you
came up with a better deal to offer Him if He gets you
out, even though you have no intention of keeping your
end. He helps you out of your foxhole again. You
like Him again are are thankful He helped you, even
though, for now, He is your God and should help when you need it.
You do not want to re-visit that foxhole again. So you
try to do what you think He wants you to do for a while.
Then Satan brings one of those 'things' you cannot be without
to you and it catches your eye and heart again.
You grab for that
'thing' that will bring the praise
of man, again. When you did you grabbed the serpent by the tail.
When the
serpent bites you, and it will, you will be calling on God again. This
time He lets you sit longer. No foxhole, just the poison
from the serpent strangling the life out of you. After a
while, God fixes your serpent bite and you are on your
way again with some belief again. But, only until the
next time you are tempted by another of your lusts. Then
you grab again and fall back into your deepest foxhole,
or get bit by the serpent again.
This time you are left to sit in your foxhole, or fend
for your serpent bite yourself, and enjoy
the fruits of your labor. God does not answer.
You think it will be like this forever. You become
desperate and scream out His name in desperation. You
beg and call Him and ask Him to help you again. He lets
you sit helplessly. You become more
desperate and call again. Same result, no answer. You
call again, and again, each time becoming more desperate
until you realize you are hopeless. You can do nothing
about your situation. It is all up to God. You now know
for sure that your fate is in God’s hands. But God is
not answering. He is ignoring you. You think over your
past broken promises to Him and how you did not fulfill
any of them. You realize God is not mocked and you are
deceived if you think you can mock Him like you thought
you did.
Now
you are in fear. You are in panic. Where is God now that
you really need Him? You desperately call Him. He hears
you but He makes sure, only as God can, that you know He
is not ready to help you. Could it be because you are
not ready to be honest with Him? So, you sit in your
foxhole, or with your serpent bite, or whatever it was
this time, for some more time and think about what you need
to do to get God to help you.
Even in your dilemma, it’s still all about you, but
there is only a little part for God in there. It’s all about
you getting out of the mess you got yourself in, and
God’s part in this is getting you out of it.
This is still not good enough. God does not answer and
you stay in your foxhole or tending your serpent bite.
If your sin has put you again in a foxhole, instead of
you getting a serpent bite, there are bugs and worms who smell you
and are now are coming your
way you investigate the stintch. There is a bug and worm for each act of selfishness
you have committed. A bug and worm for each act of evil
you committed. A bug and worm for every ungodly thought
you've had. Those bugs and worms are quickly coming your
way. They have travelled a great distance to visit you,
and they will be awful hungry when they get there. The
closer they get to you the better your stintch smells to them.
Now, the bugs and worms that represent each of those
acts and thoughts that you believed you had gotten away
with are looking you right in the eye. They have big
sharp teeth with wide opened mouths. You are in your most desperate condition
now. You are helpless. You are almost ready to do anything for God if He
will get you out of your bug and worm infested foxhole.
But the fact is, you have to pay for your actions and
evil thoughts of the
past, and time for payment in full is very close to
being collected.
God
can get you out whenever He wants, if He wants. But,
right now, He doesn’t want. He will let you sit in your
own stintch, in your own bug infested
foxhole until you do something to make Him have a desire to get you out.
Your time clock is running out. You are going to be the
best
supper these bugs and worms have had in a while because
they love stintch. There is only
one thing you can do to make Him have a desire facing the direction of
getting you out of your foxhole before you are eaten
alive.
John the Baptist told you what you need to do. It was
the purpose of his ministry. He called it repentance.
Now, that’s another subject that isn’t politically
correct these days. I guess there has to be sinners to
have repentance. Where have all the sinners gone? You
just can’t find them when repentance is mentioned. But
anyway, If you want out of your foxhole, you have to ask
God to forgive you for not believing in Him, and you have to
turn away from the wicked thought patterns that keep
turning you away from Him and guiding you to these
foxholes. Another
words, a one-hundred and eighty-degree turn with all your
heart, all your soul, and all your mind yo put Him
first, before anything.
Only
after you humbly turn back to Him will you receive His forgiveness,
and God will take you out of your foxhole. And…after you’re
out, if you turn back to your old sinful ways, and
return to
the path you were on, there will be a deeper foxhole
filled with much bigger bugs and worms with bigger
and sharper teeth just waiting for you. So, your best
option is to repent and become a new creature and stay
that way. You
better do it now, because the kingdom of heaven is at
hand. Your time for being what you were is up. Hell will
be calling its people home,
soon.
Narrow is the path to
heaven. Walk the narrow path and do not stray left or
right or you will be off path, Repent NOW!!! It may be
your last chance before hell's hearse comes and gets
you. Heaven is at hand and hell is right outside your
doors. If you walk through the doors
you will be walking right into hell.
So, mister Big Shot, what are you going to do? You have
to make a choice. You can go to hell, or you can repent?
Your time to repent has come and will pass if you don't,
and the kingdom of heaven is at hand, Make yourself ready
for the
way of the Lord, Make your paths straight. Stop
worshiping your idols and start worshipping the Almighty God who
created you…or you are surely going to destroy yourself.
If you want to get holy, you have to go where it’s holy.
The Alter of God is as holy as it gets. Bring yourself
to His alter, believe in Him with your heart soul and
mind and you will have repented. Repent and you will be on your way to heaven. You don’t want the
alternative. The alternative is the never ending fire
and the gnashing of teeth, and screams, worse than the
bug infested foxhole.. The fire is
never extinguished. It’s forever. Come to Jesus and let Him save you from the fire. If you
don't let Jesus save you now , He will judge you on the last
day.
Lord, I pray you give all the sinners in this service
the courage and strength to come before you in
repentance, and I ask you to forgive them and restore
their righteousness when they do. In Jesus' name I pray.
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