Eyes Wide Shut :: By Sean Gooding

Isaiah 56: 10-12

“His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.”

I pray that you are doing well in this whole Corona Virus and the restrictions that are imposed. We continue to see the fight between those who understand the freedoms that are being removed and those that want to impose further restrictions. We can see how many of us blindly follow the instructions of the Government without asking why. Yes, there are some persons who are seriously affected by this virus. My wife works in a nursing home, and there are other persons that I know that also work there, but the vast majority of people who get this virus recover, and many who have it do not get sick at all. Yet, the Governments of the world have shut down our lives for the sake of not spreading this virus, and it is not working.

All day long we are bombarded by celebrities and companies that remind us that we are in this together, we are all one family, and just stay home. But this is not true; we are not all one family, we are not in this together, and people can still go to buy alcohol and marijuana but not to the church. This is a joke, and many of us are getting played. It is our duty as citizens to ask the Government, “Why”? It is our duty as citizens to protect our freedoms and to make sure that those freedoms are there for our children. It takes one generation of idle watchers to drop the ball.

Are there people who are very sick and who need the care? Yes! Are there vulnerable parts of our society that need to be secluded and taken care of? Yes! Are there millions of healthy people who are sitting at home doing nothing? Yes! Just this week the idea of a universal guaranteed income was floated by persons in the US Government. The idea of paying people not to work. We have already seen incidents of this during this virus where the people could go back to work with the Government subsidy.

In my case I was put back on my company’s payroll and required to work from home and to track my work. I have to submit a daily work report at 4:30 pm each day or call my Managers throughout the day to report my work. But many have refused to go back on the payroll, so to speak, because they make more money on the current Virus subsidy than they do at work. It was revealed last week in an article in one of our local papers that the Government intends to review all the applications at the end of this pandemic, and those who could have gone back to work will be required to repay the subsidy.

Those of us who are Christians should know what the Bible teaches about work. In 2 Thessalonians 3:10, Paul, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, wrote this:

“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”

We need to be careful that in trying to protect people, and we should, and we do, that we take away the idea of personal responsibility. We can give people the information they need to help themselves; but, somewhere along the way, they have to take personal responsibility. Could you imagine if your doctor called all the fast food stores and told them not to serve you because you have heart disease or that you have high blood pressure? People die every day of all kinds of diseases. We die; that is a part of the human condition. That is the one thing that makes us all even – death.

Further, be wary of persons who are two-faced. A certain billionaire wants to help us by mandating a vaccine for all (in an apparent attempt to save lives). This same billionaire also believes that we are overpopulated and that more of us need to die. He has repeatedly made the case that the planet is overpopulated, yet he and his wife are not volunteering to commit suicide and lead by example. What they mean is there are too many of ‘us’ living on the planet. Yet, in the same breath, they propose a mandatory vaccine to save lives.

The Bible says this ‘fresh water and salted water cannot come from the same cistern.’ Either they want to save lives or they want to kill the rest of us, but they can’t do both. They want us dead.

A certain Prince, the heir to the throne of the UK, has been quoted with the same idea of overpopulation, and on and on we can go; we are expendable. We who love the Lord are the most expendable; why? Because we can see the truth, and the Holy Spirit has our eyes open, and we keep pushing back.

The passage in Isaiah that we are considering is God describing the rulers of Israel. They are asleep at the wheel of the nation. They are blind to the things that are coming. And, I want to be clear, not every leader of every little town and village is reeled in on the New World Order. No, but there are a few that are, and they are the ones dealing with public policy. This is not rocket science if you read the Bible and study prophecy; but for many newer Christians and those that do not understand the end times, or those that do not have pastors that teach about the end truthfully, it is hard to see what is going on.

There are two kinds of leadership we see here, three really that have emerged:

One understands that there is a real virus that is killing people and that there should be precautions taken with the most vulnerable, and we should manage everyone else and deal with breakouts on a case-by-case, location-by-location basis as they arise. But we need to restart the economy and get people out and doing once again, gradually at first and then widespread. The Government cannot arbitrarily take people’s freedoms indefinitely.

The second kind of leaders are deliberately seeing how far they can take their powers of control and restrict the people before the people snap and push back. Some have even restricted protesting; this is dangerous. Free people have the right to protest their government’s decisions as long as they do so peacefully. There are very harsh restrictions, and some Governors and Mayors have threatened to not just stop a church service but to shut the facility forever so they can never meet again. Parents are not allowed to take their kids to the park, even if they are the only ones in the park. Here where I am, in southern Ontario, my wife needs a letter to show that she should be out of her home for her job since she is a PSW. People are technically not allowed in their cars by themselves; this is tyranny.

The third group of leaders know that we have to reopen the economy, they know that things have gone too far, but they are paralyzed by fear of the ‘what if’? What if I open the economy and people get sick again? Let me ask this: what if people get sick with something else? What do we do in the next outbreak?

There will always be a good reason to take away our freedoms as far as the Governments of the world are concerned – We, the ignorant unwashed, cannot be allowed to go on unchecked. We need our ruling class to guide us and help us to live. We need their wisdom and guidance to be able to live our dull lives and to have any life at all. These are the tenets of the NWO found in the Georgia Guidestones:

  1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
  2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
  3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
  4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
  5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
  6. Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court.
  7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
  8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
  9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
  10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

In Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, God stated that the fact that mankind had one language would empower them to do anything they wanted. So, the Lord confused their languages. But notice the third tenet: to unite humanity under one language.

However, the most telling tenet is the very first one. At this point in our history, we would have to kill off more than 7,000,000,000 people on the planet. In 1980 when the stones were erected, the population of the world was 4.4 billion, so they still wanted to get rid of almost 4 billion people. I will bet you that they want to get rid of us and not them – the world does not need us, but it needs them.

The fourth tenet says they want to rule with tempered reason. Do you think it is a tempered reason to want to kill 80% (at that time) of the world’s population? No, they want us to live with tempered reason; they can run off and do whatever they want whenever they want to.

Sadly, many of our leaders have grown up away from the Bible. Sadly, many of our churches really don’t teach the Bible any more. We have little empowerment lessons that tell us how to get the most out of this life and how to live our best lives now. But the Bible tells us that there is a real and deliberate warfare being waged all around us. Like the Pharisees, the political/religious leaders of Jesus’ day, they sound so pious and religious, but they were and are angels of death. Jesus called them “white sepulchers” (Matthew 23:27) – they look and sound beautiful on the outside, but inside they are full of death. In a world that is all about death, the people who talk about life are the enemy. You and I are the enemy.

  • The Lord’s churches that call out the warning, Jesus is coming, are the enemy.
  • We who tell them, these people are not your salvation, Jesus is, we are the enemy.
  • We who warn people that Jesus is the one who came to set us free; all others are here to bind you and hold you, are the enemy.
  • We who want all others to read while the government tries to dumb down our kids, are the enemy.
  • We who homeschool or send our kids to small Christian schools to be taught the Bible, to be taught to think, to read, to infer, to know the truth, we are the enemy.
  • We who teach the people that God did create us and it is to Him we will answer to, we are the enemy.
  • We who believe that a baby is precious from conception and made in the image of God, we are the enemy.
  • We who understand that God stopped a one-world system in Genesis 11 because it was intrinsically evil, because man is evil, and so we oppose the NWO, are the enemy.
  • We who accept the Bible as the Word of God, the absolute final rule of life and existence, we are the enemy.
  • We who understand the Bible to teach right and wrong, that there is sin and we are all sinful, we are the enemy.

If we are not the enemy of the system that denies God, kills innocent babies, worships the creation and denies the Creator, defied God and denies Jesus, then we are no better than the blind, lazy and greedy watchmen from Isaiah 56. We are like the Laodicean church, one that is lukewarm; we look churchy but we don’t want to make a difference; we are just along for the ride. Live and let live, we say. They do their thing and we will do ours, but we don’t want to cause a conflict, we don’t want to lose our privileges, and we don’t want to step outside our boundaries. God forbid that we should lose our tax exemption because we did the right thing.

Somewhere along the line, the Lord’s churches decided that only the evil and corrupt people should be in government; and rather than fight, rather than Godly men stepping up and saying, not on my watch, we ran away with our tails between our legs into our prescribed areas, and there we have remained. Now we are wary of people who say they are Christians and then enter politics. Sadly, we have allowed them to be outnumbered.

How is it possible that in a nation of about 130,000,000 voters in the last US election (according to Wikipedia), where many still claim to be saved, that more than 50% could vote for a Party that openly kills babies; they murder full-term babies without any sign of remorse, claiming that they kill them in the name of women’s rights. It amazes me (I am of mixed heritage; Black and White) that colored people vote in a Party that supports Planned Parenthood, an entity established by Margaret Sanger, for the purpose of killing Black people. It was originally called the Negro Project; and even today, a large portion of babies killed are Black babies. In some areas there are more Black babies who die in the abortion clinics than are born in the hospitals.

That Party should not be able to get one vote from anyone who claims to be a Christian. But they do; millions of professing Christians vote for a Party in the US and for the Liberal Party here in Canada who literally hate them. How blind can we be? We are woeful watchmen; instead of warning the people and telling them the truth about what is coming, instead of telling them that only Jesus can bring the Utopia that the NWO wants to try to bring in, we help to vote in the wolves who want to kill the sheep.

We, I include myself here, like to blame the political leaders for our decline, but we, the Lord’s churches, are the watchmen appointed by God. The Lord’s churches are the ones who are to be light in this dark world. The Lord’s churches are to be leading the way to truth and not a party to the lies. The Lord’s churches are to be bastions of life and not agents of death. We should be helping people to see the hope that Jesus came to buy for them in His blood; we should be showing them that Jesus is who and what they are looking for. But we have become rainless clouds, as we see in Jude verse 12.

People look to us for hope, they look to the Lord’s churches for answers, and we give them nothing. Worse, we give them platitudes and lies that cannot help them. We don’t tell them that sin is the issue and Jesus is the ONLY answer. We don’t tell them that unless a man is transformed by Jesus from the inside that he is hopeless.

Is the Corona Virus real? Yes, it is. Are there people dying? Yes, they are. Is the NWO trying to see how far they can condition us before we push back? Yes, they are. Are there good leaders who are trying to do things to diminish the spread of the virus but also respect the freedoms of the people? Yes, there are. Should God’s people be wide-eyed and buried in the Scriptures? Yes, we should. We should be sharing the Gospel, serving and helping all we can. Let us be faithful watchmen, awake, alert and warning the people that the enemy is not just coming, but he has established his tents right in our midst. And while he appears to be an angel of light, he just wants to kill you.

Next week we will get back to Romans. This was on my heart as I set about to write. Jesus is coming soon; if I never meet you here, I’ll see you in the air.

1 Thessalonians 4:17, “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

God bless you,

Pastor Sean Gooding

Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

What about that Crown of Righteousness? :: By Tom Tillman  

  Paul wrote to Timothy, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.    I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the Crown of Righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim 4:6-8).

Why is it called the Crown of ‘Righteousness’? I thought we all (true children of God) have been imputed the complete Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ… “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor 5:20-21).

If every true believer has been imputed the complete Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, then this special Crown must represent some other extra Righteousness in addition to the ‘regular’ Righteousness we all received at the moment of Salvation, not that there’s anything at all regular about the absolute, perfect Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Maybe the Crown of Righteousness is for those who are extra good Christians… for extra righteousness. But I thought the Bible says that none of us do good, that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags… I’m confused….

Let’s look for clues in another letter from Paul: Romans 4:2-3, “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness….”

Ahhh… now we’re getting closer… Does Paul mean that this Crown is reserved for those who believe God? Believe what? Maybe the Crown of Righteousness has to do with believing something other than our belief unto Salvation. Paul says that it is reserved for all who have believed in His appearing, but even more, all who have loved His appearing.

‘Big deal,’ you say… ‘Everyone believes that, don’t they?’ No, actually not… many don’t and possibly most don’t. This Crown appears to be reserved for those who love His appearing, for those who anxiously watch and wait for His coming, in the clouds, at any moment in the Rapture.

Why should a Crown, one of God’s most precious rewards, be reserved for believing fervently in the Rapture? Because believing in the Rapture often results in persecution. Think about it. Those who believe in the Rapture are tempted to keep that information to themselves because not only do unbelievers mock and insult belief in the Rapture, but often, even more so, other believers disbelieve and even hate the doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church.

Belief in the Rapture, actually loving His appearing, is something additional to our Faith unto Salvation. One does not need to believe in the pre-Tribulation Rapture to be saved. Our faith unto Salvation was a gift from God. Most of us would agree that at the moment God put that saving faith into our hearts, the moment He turned the light on, in our hearts, we couldn’t not believe… we couldn’t help but believe, any more than we could disbelieve our own existence.

But regarding belief in the Rapture, that particular faith is not taught in Scripture to have been a gift from God. After we were saved, we had to choose to believe in the Rapture, sometimes against an onslaught of mocking persecution, even though, to us who recognize it, it is as clear as day.

The truth of the Rapture is found throughout Scripture. Therefore, God considers that specific belief in His Word, that faith, in the face of persecution, to be worthy of a special reward, the Crown of Righteousness.

Abraham chose to believe God, in His promises of land, an heir and a future Kingdom, and it was accounted to him as righteousness. When we choose to have faith in God’s Word, regarding the Rapture, when we love His appearing and watch anxiously for Him, living our lives in such a way that we know we will stand before Him at any moment, He accounts that belief in Him, to us, as righteousness but it is a righteousness that is different, additional to the imputed Righteousness of Jesus Christ according to the gift of faith He gave to us which caused us to believe unto Salvation.

That we believe what God has said is precious to Him. He is glorified when we believe Him and act on that belief. Acting on that belief means looking daily for His coming, walking in a manner worthy of the calling with which we’ve been called and always being faithful to share the Gospel with all to whom we come in contact.

James wrote, “faith without works is dead.” In other words, he is saying that true faith always leads to good works but not that faith is created or sustained by good works.

Recall what Paul wrote: “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.” God will not be a debtor to anyone. That is why every good work done for His glory, no matter how small, will eventually be rewarded.

“And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward” (Matt 10:42).

Doing good works is one thing, but choosing to believe God’s Word regarding the Rapture, something which Satan has created such confusion and controversy over, and then to act on that belief by confessing so and living accordingly… that is a whole different level to God and why He considers it worthy of a special Crown.

When we truly believe that the Lord Jesus will come for us at any moment, we will be looking, waiting and watching for His coming, in the clouds, every day and every hour. But there is more; if we really believe so, that faith will lead to certain works: just before Paul tells Timothy of the Crown of Righteousness (in verse 8), he tells Timothy, “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim 4:5). If we really believe in the Rapture, the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds, we will diligently seize every opportunity to tell friends, family and others the Gospel, the true and full Gospel, including the Rapture because time is so short.

Imagine what the five different Crowns in Scripture will be like; obviously, we can’t really. He said, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2:9). Imagine the beauty, the workmanship of His Crowns… perhaps they’ve been crafted by angels.   

Five Crowns are specifically mentioned in Scripture, and maybe there are even more that God has reserved for different works of faith that are special to Him. The five are: The Crown of Life, for those who endure temptation (James 1:12);  The Crown Imperishable, for those who faithfully run their own race (1 Cor 9:25); The Crown of Glory, for all those who faithfully shepherd those under their care (1 Pet 5:2-4); The Crown of Rejoicing, also known as The Soul Winner’s Crown (1 Thes 2:19-20); The Crown of Righteousness, the Crown reserved for Paul and for all who ‘love’ the imminent  appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Tim 4:5-8).  

Some of us will have earned one or two Crowns; others, three or four, while some will have gained five and even more.  When we stand before Him, all of us, the true Church will have received at the moment of Salvation the complete Righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ but we will not all have received the Crown of Righteousness. 

Suppose you are a grandparent with several grandchildren, and you must go away for a time, but you have promised to return one day soon. Suppose most of the grandchildren are always off doing whatever kids find to do, oblivious to your coming or going, but there are two little precious ones who choose to spend every day standing on the couch, in front of the window, just watching and anxiously waiting for your return because they love you and want you. Which of these children would hold a more special place in your heart? Which ones would you desire to reward even more when you return, as those two are first to quickly run into your arms? God feels the same way about His children. Some children love Him more than others do… all are saved, and loved, but some of us will be rewarded more than others.

Obviously, in light of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us, nothing we could ever do could merit any kind of reward whatsoever; we are eternally indebted to Him while anything and everything we could ever do are only filthy rags by comparison. However, because of God’s love for us, His children, He has chosen to reward us with unimaginably magnificent rewards. That’s just the way it is. We should spend eternity in dungeons as His slaves but He has chosen to adopt us as His children: priests, princes and princesses unto God, ruling and reigning with Him for all eternity, wearing crowns of such stupendous beauty, they could only have been designed by God Himself.

Are you anxiously watching, waiting and looking for His coming in the clouds? Have you set your mind on things above and not on things of the Earth? Are you walking in a manner worthy of the calling with which you’ve been called? Are you going out into all the World to preach the Gospel?

He said, “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work” (Rev 22:12). I want to be found serving Him with a loving and grateful heart and to earn as many rewards, as many Crowns, as possible… don’t you? I want to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you’ve been faithful over a few small things; I’ll put you in charge over many great things. Enter into the joy of your Master.”

Keep looking up; your redemption draweth nigh!

Tom Tillman

Hearts of Love Ministries