Fear God .( Luke 16 v 19-31)

 Last time we considered v7 of Psalm 121,'The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil,and praise God He does,let us'thank Him for  looking after us, especially from evil that could destroy us. The verse does not stop there,for it goes on to say,'He shall preserve thy soul',how important is our soul? our Lord Jesus said,Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.Rather ,be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell',( Matthew 10 v28)We place great value on our bodies,and so we should,unfortunately the majority of people stop  there.They put all their efforts into preserving their bodies to the exclusion of their souls.Our  Saviour reminds us that our souls are eternal and to neglect them has grave consequences and He mentions what that means.Barnes  writes the following,'Men hath no power to injure the soul,the immortal part. The body is a small matter,in comparsion with the soul ,Temporal death is a slight thing, compared with eternal death; but to fear God, who can destroy both soul and body forever in hell'.

Preserved. (Psalm 121)

 A man I met recently told me he read Psalm121 everyday,I can appreciate that,because it is a wonderful Psalm.I often pray the words of v7,which reads ,'The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall presetve thy soul'.I was caught up in a scam recently,believe me anyone can get caught up in a scam. I was just to pay for somthing,but I drew back,I could just as easily gone through with it, but I didn't,I believe Lord answered my prayer,and preserved me from  those evil scamers .His word is true ,He will preserve us from all evil.I am 81 yrs of age,I have done a fair amount travelling,and God has preserved me,how have I  lived this long?,the answer is God, preserving me,remember our times are in His hands Psalm 31 v15.One writer say's ,it conveys the belief and all events within it are in God's control'.

                                                     '  All the way my saviour leads me:

                                                       What have I to ask beside?

                                                      Can I doubt His  tender mercy,

                                                      Who through life has been my guide?

                                                      Heavenly peace ,divinest comfort,

                                                      Here by faith in Him to dwell!

                                                      For I know whate'er befall me,

                                                      Jesus doeth all things well.' (Words Fanny J. Crosby.)

The hidden things. ( Genesis 3 v 8)

 There are two verse I  would us to consider,the first one is Numbers 32v23,and the second is Luke 8 v17, the first has these words in it ' You may be sure that your sin will find you out'  we read of a man called Achan,who disobeyed the Lord by taking something he should not have taken,and in the end his sin was found out,and he suffered for it as God judged him.Joshua 7 v 18-25.A person on the internet comments, 'This verse is a reminder us that sin has consequences,and cannot be hidden forever ,'Hidden sins will find us out.' Let us remember that hidden sins are not hidden from God ,who sees all things,and knows all things,and  will judge all things.The next verse Luke 8 v17 was spoken by our Saviour ,it reads,  'For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed,and nothing concealed that will not be known or be brought out into the open'.Those  things that are hidden within us,are the lies we have told ,the dirty deeds we have commited .Judas Iscariot is the prime example of what our Saviour is talking about.he pretended to be following Jesus,he possible thought  ,that there was a pot of gold coming to him,at the end of his life instead all he recived was to take up his cross.I know a pastor who had immoral hiddeness in his life,but the hiddeness was discovered,he lost his job ,his reputation,and has brought shame on his family.I write this with great sadness,although you do not know him,do pray for him and his family,don'tt judge.

Beware of the devil's trap (2 Corinthians 2 v11)

 In 1 Timothy 3 v 7 Paul warns those who desire to be leaders in the Church ,of the danger of falling into the devil's trap,also in 2 Timothy 2 v26  he mentions this again. Our first parents fell into the devil's trap when they heeded what the devil said,since then the devil continues his evil actiivity  luring people into his trap.The unsaved are very vunerable in being  sucked into his trap ,through there sexual desires,there are millions of people are trapped in pornography,others are trapped into delusional thought patterns as regards gender.Others he catches through their pride there is a a spirit of pride in all of us,and the devil knows that,and he takes advantage of that.Wherever the devil see's a weakness,he will take advantage to trap us and bring us under his destructive power.There are Christians who in their hurtful pride  hold unto unforgiveness ,this makes them prisoners,so they will live with that,it is very painful to live with.Even the most Godly people can be lured into the devil's trap,people like David,and his son Solomon ,they both were caught in devil's trap,David escapted by his repentance,there is no evidence that Solomon did.

The otherness of God ( Romans 11 v 33 - 36)

'The otherness of God',what does that mean? I will share with you what I  have read,'God is so pure, matchless and unique that no one else and nothing else even come close.He is all together glorious ,unequallied in splendor and unrivallied in power. He is beyond the grasp of human reason,far above the reach of men,far above the reach of even the loftliest scentific mind'. He is infinite,His being and greatness have no limitations.Three qualities of God,He is 'All knowing/All powerful/ Supremely good' hopefully that gives you a degree of understanding of the,'Otherness of God'.Pharaoh said to Moses and Aaron ,'Who is the Lord,that I should obey Him',so spoke a man considered a god,in his blindness and arrogance . In Isaiah 55 v 8-9, reads,'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord.As the heavens are higher than the earth,so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'.People don't accept what the Bible says about God,they stand as judge and jury when they talk about God,but Job wisely and humbly said,'Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,things to wonderful for me to know'(Job 42 v3)

                                                          'Before the mountains were born

                                                          or you brought forth the whole 

                                                          world, from everlasting to

                                                           everlasting You are God.'

                                                                     Psalm 90 v2

Not a practicing Christian, Luke 8 v1ff)

 I asked a man was he a Christian,he said he was,but he wasn't a practicing Christian,I asked him what he  meanth by that?,he replied he didn't go to church.  This all happened as I was having my covet jab,so I couldn't say to much.It is obivious by saying that he was not a practicing Christian, raised the question,is he a Christian? Can one be a Christian and not be a practicing Christian,?I don't think so, I know there are people who follow Christ a far off, for one reason or other, being hurt by other Christians,a tragedy,or unbelief .In Luke 8 our Lord told the parable of the sower', He tells how the seed fell on different ground ,some fell on the path,some fell on rocky ground.some fell among the thorns,and some fell on good ground. The seed that fell on the pathway didn't last long,they are like people who heard the good news,but that's about all they did,there is hearing and then there is listening,and  Satan takes advantage,and that's it.The next one,the seed that fell on rocky ground,yes they were tempory believers no depth.Next we have the seed that that fell among the thorns,the thorns represent many things. worries, riches and pleasure,and sadly they fell away.Last but not least,the seed that fell on the good ground are like people who responed in a positive way, Hendriksen describes them as those,'who kept clinging as to what they had heard.and produced a crop; for example,love,joy,peace,longsuffering,kindness,faithfulness, meekness,self control. (Gal 5 v22-23),unto their own inner joy,the conversion of souls. and God's glory'

Not the genuine article.( Luke 8 v17)

There was a song that was very popular years ago,written and sung and by Conway Twitty 'Here is part of it, 'People  see us everywhere,they think you really care.But myself I can't deceive,I know it's only make  believe'.We can easily fool people by the appearance we put on ,that doesn't tell the real story.An  extreme  example of that was Judas Iscariot nearly everyone thought he was a true follower of Jesus,even His friend  but he wasn't,but we have to add he didn't fool Jesus (John  13 v 21) Many thought Hitler was the answer to their countries problems ,he pretended to be,in the end he was'nt. King David lamented over a supposed friend he trusted who turned against him (Psalm 42v 9)There are many who put on a religious front, but  that's all it is,in some ways they are only pretending.they are not genuine. There are  many people who  tell their wives or their husbands how much they love them,yet are involved in adulterous affairs.Their are fathers who appear to outsiders to be a wonderful parent,yet he is abusing one of his children.Likewise there are husbands who appear to everyone as being a wonderful husband ,yet he is extremly abusive to his wife.Judas paid dearly for what he did,the word of God says be sure your sin will find you out,nothing is hidden from an all knowing an all seeing God,one day that veil of pretense will be torn away by God who is holy, on that day there will be no escape,from His judgement,Hell beckons,make no mistake about it,repent before it's to late,its your only hope,call upon Christ to save you.