In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, we read, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people” (ESV). (All emphasis is mine.)

In the very next chapter, we read, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Today, we’re hearing of more and more so-called pastors who are “tweaking” messages that are intended to ensure the audiences leave with a good feeling about their current lifestyles. Never mind that no true Bible backs what they are saying. It came from the persons in the pulpit, so it must be true – right? Just keep the seats and collection plates filled.

Paul’s statement in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 is what we all should strive for. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me the Crown of Righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

Please understand that there is no one today who is sinless, and this includes even the most “righteous-appearing” people. There has only ever been one sinless human to live on this earth, and He will be the only one all the way to the end of this earth’s existence.

Romans 3:10: “As it is written, none is righteous, no not one.” Going to Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.”

Romans 6:23 tells us, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And this is further explained in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.”

If we are to boast, then we need to follow Jeremiah 9:23-24: “Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts, boast in this, that he understands, and knows Me; that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

Going to 1 Corinthians 1:31: “so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” This is repeated in 2 Corinthians 10:17-18: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.”

Our Heavenly Father has provided us His Holy Word through the Holy Spirit-inspired writers. In 2 Peter 1:20-21, we read, “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever provided by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

When the Father provides us His inspiring words, they’re all worth taking note of. When He repeats words, we need to take special note of them.

We have a loving, forgiving and merciful Heavenly Father that shows us His patience, as He wants no one to fail. He would love for everyone to receive and accept His Son as their eternal Savior so we are able to reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

God will force no one to receive and accept His Son, Jesus the Christ. It’s a free will choice that every person must make for themselves. Satan and his demons are doing all they can to turn souls away from our Savior. Their eternal destiny is set, as they will be cast into the lake of fire forever, which was created especially for them (Matthew 25:41). They do not have a pathway to forgiveness as humans do.

When our Savior said, “It Is Finished” in John 19:30, He was declaring that the sinless blood offering required by our Heavenly Father was fulfilled once for all sin. His pure blood sacrifice reached back to the beginning of this earth’s creation, and goes all the way forward to the end of this earth’s existence. No longer would the blood of animals be accepted even as a temporary offering for sin.

When He arose that third day, He had conquered sin and death for all who would become a part of His precious flock. As our Savior stated in Matthew 7:13-14, this left only two pathways into eternity: the broad wide path leading to eternal condemnation, and the straight and narrow leading to eternal life.

The steps to be on that straight and narrow path are found in Romans 10:9-13. The hard part that Jesus spoke of is to believe that there is nothing else required for our Salvation. They believe there has to be works or contributions on their part to earn or buy their way into Heaven. They do not realize this is insulting to our Heavenly Father.

Actually, the first step is to admit that we’re all sinners and cannot save ourselves. We must believe that Jesus came to this earth as a human, lived a sinless life, and provided the only sacrifice that could totally cover all our sins. Our Savior was taken back to Heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. All who truly call on Him to forgive them and be their eternal Savior will be saved.

Once we have Jesus as our Savior, we will still be subject to sin, and the Father knows this. He has provided a pathway to forgiveness, as found in 1 John 1:8-10: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

We need to strive not to sin, but when, not if, we do, follow the above steps. This does not mean we have a license to just keep on sinning as we did before. Just knowing the pain and agony our Savior went through to give us a pathway to Him should cause us to turn away from habitual sin as much as possible.

The time is approaching when our life on this earth will be over, and either through death or Rapture, we will be with our Savior. We will have new forever immortal bodies, and a mindset like our Jesus, which will not be subject to any sin temptation.

Meanwhile, anyone who has not received and accepted Jesus as their Savior really needs to consider their eternal destination. Once the Rapture takes place, it will become very unpleasant on this earth for any who become a Christian during the Tribulation.

Choosing to become a part of our Savior’s precious flock now would be the most important decision you could ever make. The Father leaves the choice up to you – Choose Wisely!

Shalom!

huebshman46@gmail.com

 

The title of this article is certainly provocative. Why is it provocative? Where do we begin? The universe, of course. The world would say it’s common sense that the sheer size of the universe HAS to have life on other planets, DUH!

There are billions and trillions of stars and galaxies throughout the universe. To think we are the only ones here seems ludicrous, almost laughable to the world. That’s the way you think when you do not recognize there is a Creator God. They deny the Supernatural and try to force everything to be natural, including the universe through the Big Bang.

So, let’s examine the universe. The Bible tells us Creator God created it. The world says it created itself through the Big Bang and that all life finally began after trillions of years. Let’s stop right here and bring up two things that are so IMPOSSIBLE in the natural that no one can honestly deny them.

One, it is impossible for something to come from nothing, period. It takes something to create something else. Everything “visible” was created by a creator, whether it is the universe or a chair.

Two, it is impossible for nonlife to create life. The universe is composed almost completely of dark energy, dark matter, and ordinary matter, all of which are nonlife. The world has to go out on a mighty long limb to think the Big Bang came from “nothing” and that a nonlife universe can create “all life” – especially human beings who have body, soul, spirit and a past, present and future.

The true common-sense answer of how the universe came into being is by a Supernatural Creator God versus a natural universe on its own. Creator God has always existed, no matter how difficult it is for us to understand that. He not only created the universe but also created all LIFE in the universe.

This article is about biblical verification that there is no alien life in the universe. The world thinks otherwise, and there is a pretty good reason for that. For the past several decades, there has been an ever-increasing number of UFO sightings, now called UAP sightings – unidentified aerial phenomena. There have been hundreds of books, movies and TV shows all about aliens throughout the universe.

The most logical explanation for many of these sightings has to be they are aliens from other planets. However, assuming they exist, a more reasonable explanation is that they are beings from a different dimension, a spiritual dimension, versus another planet.

Genesis 6 tells us about some fallen angels who somehow were allowed to come to Earth and actually mate with women. They produced hybrid human beings known as the Nephilim or “giants.”

The Bible indicates they were so pervasive on Earth that they polluted the bloodline of the human race. Because of this corruption, God brought the flood to start over again with Noah and his family who had not been polluted with the fallen angels’ bloodline.

I bring this up to show these “beings” were here during the days of Noah, and Jesus says in Matthew 24:37-51 NIV, “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. [Jesus’ Second coming] For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

Jesus is saying that similar to what was going on in the days of Noah, so it shall also be in our day right before His Second coming.

It’s interesting that most of us know that we are living in the last of the last days. Many people feel that the rapture, tribulation and Jesus’ Second coming are very near. Over the past few decades, we have seen a proliferation of these UAP sightings. Spiritual beings make more sense than aliens from other planets.

To understand why the Bible shows there are no aliens on other planets, we first need to set the stage. Establishing a proper context helps clarify the answer.

To understand the mystery of the universe, we have to know ONE THING – WHY did God create the universe in the first place? The good news is God gives us that answer in His Word of God Bible.

Genesis 1:1 NIV says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” It also tells us that God’s first creation was His angels. Lucifer, who was God’s highest angel, wanted to be worshipped like God and rejected what God had established. One-third of the angels chose to rebel alongside him and fell as well.

God is eternal and dwells inside eternity. God has no beginning or end. Eternity has no beginning or end. GOD DID NOT CREATE ETERNITY. This means God and eternity are “linked together.” You could also say God “is” eternity through this connection.

There is no sin in God’s eternity. There is no death. Because there is no death, there is no “atonement” for the fallen angels where a sinless life could die to pay the price for their sin.

What happens in eternity stays in eternity. This explains why there is no redemption for the fallen angels. For those of you who follow near death experiences, one of the common comments from many of them is there is a “barrier” they could not go beyond or else they would not be able to return. That barrier is eternity. There is no revolving door between God’s eternity and the universe.

The Bible shows following the fall of one-third of God’s angels, God decided to create the human race. Now we are beginning to understand why God had to create the universe.

Because God knows the future, He knew what would happen after creating the human race through Adam and Eve. He knew they would disobey Him and sin by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. The Bible shows us that God’s plan is to spend eternity on EARTH with us human beings, beginning with Adam and Eve. Eve blamed the serpent Satan for deceiving her and causing her to eat the fruit. Adam blamed Eve for giving him the fruit. They played the blame game.

God then had a conversation with Satan in Genesis 3:15 NCSB, where He said, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike His heel.”

This is where our sin nature comes from. There are only two seeds needed to create a human being – the seed from the man and the seed from the woman. God just told Satan He is going to come between YOUR SEED (Satan’s) and her seed (woman’s). God has just said that man’s seed has become Satan’s seed following Adam’s sin, which explains why we are born with a sin nature from “only” Adam’s seed, not woman’s seed. Adam was God’s “original creation,” and thus, He alone is responsible for the original sin. God made Eve from Adam.

This also explains why Jesus could not have a biological sinful human father or He, too, would have been born with a sin nature like everyone else. But with the Holy Spirit God as His biological Father, He could be born from a woman with a sin nature and still be born without sin due to God being His biological Father.

So, God knowing all of this in advance, brings us back to His creation of the universe. Remember, God dwells in “sinless” eternity, and there is no way He could ever allow human beings who are born with a sin nature to be born “inside” eternity or we would all be lost forever with our sin nature inside eternity at birth. Don’t forget, what happens in eternity stays in eternity.

So God does something He’s never done before. He creates the universe. Why? Solely for us human beings. God now needs to create a “place” outside of eternity that can “accommodate sin” as well as life and death, good and evil, etc. Think of the vast universe as a small bubble outside of eternity. One of the main purposes of the universe is to create TIME as well as life and death. God knew that He needed a “place” where His Son, God Jesus, could come to and actually die to save the human race.

God also knew that human beings would need TIME after birth to come to know Him. He understood that they would need the opportunity to enter into a personal and intimate relationship with Him. This relationship would be made possible through Jesus, who sacrificed His life on the cross to pay the price for the sins of mankind. Jesus loves everyone. Those who love Him in return – by repenting of their sins and inviting Him to be their Lord and Savior – are saved. He paid the price for all their sins – past, present, and future.

Remember, only no sin is allowed into God’s eternity in heaven. At death, those who belong to Jesus enter eternity free from sin. Those who do not belong to Jesus enter eternity still in sin, which separates them from God. They will spend eternity in hell, a place of torment.

Knowing all of these things the Word of God Bible tells us, it should start to bring about a new understanding of how the universe is designed to fit into God’s plan for the human race.

So, how does this prove there is no alien life anywhere else? Does the Bible say there is no alien life anywhere else? Maybe God created life in other parts of the universe and simply did not tell us about it in the Bible. IF there was life on –  say one thousand other planets – it would have to be life that God created. Would that mean Jesus would have to go to those one thousand planets and die on a cross for them, too? Is that possible? NO, it is not possible for a couple of good reasons, which the Bible directly and indirectly shows us.

First, the Bible DIRECTLY tells us that God’s plan is to spend eternity on Earth with us humans alone and not aliens from other planets. Many believe His plan is delayed for around 7,000 years due to the sin of Adam. The Bible tells us that following Jesus’ Second coming and His one-thousand-year millennial reign, the human race will come to an end following God’s great white throne judgment, and there will be no more human beings and no more sin.

It is at this point that God will create ANOTHER new heavens and earth with NO SIN. God then no longer needs a universe that can accommodate sin, and this is why He creates a new heavens and earth without sin.

We now get to the INDIRECT reason there are no aliens in the universe. Since God is going to destroy our current universe and earth in the future, if there was alien life elsewhere throughout the universe, that would mean they all would be destroyed when God destroys this universe. Does that sound like something God would do? That is a rhetorical question.

Of course, all of these answers come from God’s Word of God’s Bible, which the world at large rejects. The Bible has proven and verified itself as the only book ever written by God. It contains hundreds, if not thousands, of prophecies written in advance of future events. Yet the world largely ignores and rejects these prophecies, doing so at their own peril.

I personally think God created the universe to seem infinitely vast, as it is to show beyond a shadow of a doubt He exists and there is NO excuse for not knowing Him. Scripture verifies this. Romans 1:20 NIV says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

God’s whole plan is to connect us to Himself through the Holy Spirit. The goal is for us to become His bride as we await Jesus. Soon, in the rapture, He will take us back to heaven for our wedding celebration and feast.

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This information and much more is covered in my book – God’s Plan for Heaven, Eternity and the Universe Explained – Conversational Style. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Google it for reviews. Thank you.

Maranatha, Lord Jesus!

David Cogburn

dcogburn789@gmail.com