Jesus or Death :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10 Category:General Articles, Sean Gooding

Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Deuteronomy 30: 19-20, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that you and your descendants may live, and that you may love the LORD your God, obey Him, and hold fast to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

The title may seem ominous, but it is as true as it gets without being dramatic. In Romans, we have the spiritual reality; in Jesus and Him alone, we can have eternal life. We are NOT good, and God can only have fellowship with what is good. So, you and I, as sinners, cannot have fellowship with God and be a part of His kingdom. Therefore, Jesus came; God in the flesh to be good for us and to die the death we deserve; and in Him, by faith in His death, burial, and resurrection, we can have eternal life.

But in Deuteronomy, this is a physical call. This is a call to the nation of Israel as they are about to enter the Promised Land. Shortly, Moses will die, and Joshua will be the new leader. A new generation of adults will walk over the Jordan and enter the land of Canaan. God reiterates the Ten Commandments to them and calls them to a life of separation. They are not to marry the people of the land, and they are not to take on their religious practices.

We see this in Deuteronomy 7: 2-4, “And when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you to defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, because they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you.”

There was no settling, no appeasement with these heathen religions and their people. There was no tolerance and no acceptance as far as God was concerned. Now, there are times when they would convert and were accepted. We see that with Rahab in Jericho; she and as many family members as she could fit into her house were saved, and Rahab trusted the God of Abraham and Isaac. If this happened, then, of course, the Canaanite folks would be accepted. But Israel was not to make any room for their religions to come in and compromise. Sadly, they did compromise. See Numbers 33:54-55:

“And you are to divide the land by lot according to your clans. Give a larger inheritance to a larger clan and a smaller inheritance to a smaller one. Whatever falls to each one by lot will be his. You will receive an inheritance according to the tribes of your fathers. But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they will harass you in the land where you settle.”

These pagan religions will not sit idly by and let the people of God exist. Instead, they harassed and killed many Jews. The entire book of Judges is about what happened to different tribes in Israel because they did not wipe out the Canaanites, the Moabites, and the other persons there. They subjected their children to slavery and poverty because they stopped obeying God. As you can see, the people of Israel eventually incorporated the pagan rituals, including child sacrifice, into their practices.

What does this have to do with us here in North America and the Western worlds? We have appeased the Muslim world in the name of peace, and now they are taking over places in Europe and the UK, and they rule these places. I saw where they have their own police, their own nightly patrols, tell British women how to dress, where to go, and they stop people from entering their areas.

In one very public situation, the police arrived at a home to find two 13-year-old children scantily clad in a home with 7 Pakistani men, and they arrested the girls for being drunk. The police stated that they were in fear of being called ‘racist’ as the reason for NOT arresting the 7 ADULT men in the home with almost naked female children. This has caused an outcry in the UK, but to no avail. The level of appeasement has risen to allowing grown men to rape young girls, and we do nothing. This is also happening in North America, and it will continue to grow. Our political leadership is more concerned with the feelings of the immigrants than the safety of our women, and especially young girls.

The next level is that here in Canada, our government is doing all it can to disarm us, the obedient and tax-paying citizenry. We will be left defenseless should an armed uprising take place. And make no mistake; the police are NOT coming to help you. We have chosen death over life.

In our last election, 41% of our citizens chose death rather than life. They do not understand or see that they will die first. They will be the first to be disillusioned and speak out, thus, as the ‘useful idiots’ they are, they will die first. Canada has allowed more than 800,000 people into the country as immigrants since January 2025, which is equivalent to nearly replacing the population of New Brunswick, which is approximately 975,000.

As a nation, we have abandoned Jesus, and the other option is death. I have no problem with allowing immigrants in (my family and I are immigrants) and that we allow them to practice their religion, but they should not be allowed into office; we should not change our ways to allow them more and more influence. If they do not want to become Canadian, then we can note that, and they are still welcome. But what we have done is to abandon the Judeo-Christian values that built the free world, and we have doomed our children, especially our girls, to be slaves in their own country.

Go and study Iran and truly look and see what is happening in Europe and the UK. If Jesus tarries, we will begin to see a lot of violence here in Canada. Our elites, who think they are inoculated by their money and power, are in for a rude awakening.

Oh Lord, please come quickly and rescue us, we plead.

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

A Chapter of Murder and Miracles (Matthew 14:1-36) :: By Donald Whitchard

Published on: by RR10 Category:General Articles

The fourteenth chapter of Matthew opens with the death of John the Baptist, who had been imprisoned for preaching against the wicked ruler Herod Antipas. His father, Herod the “Great,” had been the “ruler” of Judea from 37 – 4 BC at the behest of Rome and the emperor Augustus Caesar (ruled from 27 BC – 14 AD). Herod had schemed to hunt down and murder Jesus when He was an infant (Matthew 2:1-18). Augustus Caesar was the ruler who issued the decree to tax the subjects of the empire and unknowingly set events into motion that would fulfill the prophecies concerning the arrival of God’s Promised Messiah (Isaiah 7:14, 9:1-6: Micah 5:2; Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 2:1-7).

Herod Antipas, Herod the Great’s successor, who was just as corrupt as his father before him, had taken his brother Philip’s wife, Herodias, for his own. His sister-in-law was now his live-in lover, and John had rightfully condemned it (verses 3, 4).

Antipas desired to have the Baptist put to death, but he knew that if he did so, the people would have initiated a rebellion against him, and Caesar would have stepped in to crush any dissent but also remove him from power and even put him to death for failure to keep his subjects under control. John’s role as a prophet and preacher of righteousness had made him both popular and beloved with most of the public (v.5). Herod’s lust for Salome, along with his foolish decision to grant her perverse request, brought about John’s death by having him beheaded (verses 6-11). It was Herodias who had been the initiator of this horrendous act.

Later, John’s disciples came to retrieve and bury his body. Herod’s fears abounded afterward. He believed that Jesus was John the Baptist come back from the dead and had been given the power to perform miracles. Like Lady Macbeth, who could not remove the stain of regicide from her soul, neither could Herod remove the guilt from his conscience, at least for a time. He soon ignored it at the expense of his soul as well.

The one miracle of the Lord Jesus that is recorded in all four gospels is the feeding of the multitude (Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-14), a demonstration of His authority and compassion. It is also a witness of His power and ability to perform the mighty work of God that His generation had only heard about in the synagogues where the Scriptures were taught and read. Jesus, having been informed of John’s death, went to a quiet place to mourn. His time of solitude was brought to a halt when the crowds had left the cities and went to the place where He was staying.

Divine compassion overruled personal needs, and Jesus met with the people, healing the sick and ministering to them. Here are four points to consider in reading about this and the other mighty works of Jesus.

  • First, He genuinely cares for us, though most others, especially those of notoriety and wealth, do not (1 Peter 5:6-7).
  • Second, in terms of spiritual matters, we can do nothing apart from Christ (John 15:5).
  • Third, this miracle points us to the sufficiency of Christ in all matters (2 Corinthians 3:5). He will always meet our needs (Philippians 4:19), not necessarily our wants. He wants obedient servants, not spoiled brats.
  • Fourth, God works not only by His supernatural power but also through people who are able and willing to forsake the pleasures of the world in exchange for eternal reward (Matthew 25:21; 2 Corinthians 5:10).

In verses 22-33, we read that Jesus spent some final moments with the crowd and then dismissed them. He instructed His disciples to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee while He departed to a solitary place in order to spend time with the Father in prayer.

The boat that the disciples were in began to be tossed about by the wind and waves, which were a constant threat. At the time of the fourth watch, (3:00-6:00 AM), Jesus came to the disciples by walking on the surface of the sea. As the Creator, He has total dominion over all things (Genesis 1:1-31; John 1:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:1-2). The disciples started to panic, believing that they were seeing a ghost. He reassured them and told them to not be afraid.

Simon Peter made a bold request, asking that if Whom he was seeing was the Lord, that he step out of the boat and walk to Him. Jesus encouraged him to do so, and for a brief moment, he was headed to the Lord in a great act of faith, only to take his eyes off of Him and sink into the turbulent waters. Peter called out to Jesus to save him, and He did so, telling the wind and waves to cease their actions.

Jesus got into the boat and gently rebuked His disciples for their lack of faith. This opened their eyes to the fact that Jesus was the Son of God. Today, their testimony is recorded in the Scriptures for us to read, trust, and know that what we are reading is truth and that Jesus Christ is Lord. We are also blessed by the fact that while we have never seen Him in the flesh, He sees us and has given us the faith and belief to trust Him for salvation and true peace.

We will soon see Him when He returns to make all things new as He promised. He can make a new creation out of you right now (2 Corinthians 5:17). Nobody and nothing else will do (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Call on Him today (Romans 10:9-10, 13).

donaldwhitchard@outlook.com

https://ocosbe.org/