General Articles

1 Thess. Lesson 3, Dangers from your Own Countrymen :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR7

Chapter 2:10-20

“You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; 11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. 13, For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. 14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus.

“For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God and are contrary to all men, 16 forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, so as always to fill up the measure of their sins; but wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. 17 But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. 18 Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? 20 For you are our glory and joy.”

Over the past few weeks, we have seen stark changes to the political and relationship landscape here in North America. As one of my dear friends put it, “Who would have imagined that we would be seeing the rise of communism in America in our lifetime?” He is right, and the fruit of this terrible philosophy is death, lots of death to those that stand for the truth and freedom. The Gospel, however, is still unchanged, and people’s need for the Gospel is unchanged. Jesus is still in charge, and the plan for the New Millennium is moving forward unabated. It is more and more important that we, God’s children, keep our focus on the promises and plans that the Lord has for us in His word, His Holy Bible. This is the only security that we have.

As we continue our look in Thessalonians, I pray that you are growing in Jesus and allowing Him to change you as the Holy Spirit forms Christ in us. Paul is encouraging this church to endure, last time we looked at the Gospel, and it is that Gospel that is the very foundation of all we have in Jesus. It does not need to be redone, redefined, or repackaged. It needs to be shared over and over again; Jesus is the only name whereby we must be saved. Don’t get off track, don’t get off message, and don’t get into arguments; state the truth in love and let the Holy Spirit do His work.

Today, we will look more into this letter, and we will see that one of the things that are associated with the Gospel is danger. We have been, well, at least I have been, spoiled here in North America to have been able to serve the Lord in relative comfort and without much risk to me, my family, or the life that I live, and I live a very good one. But that, it would appear, is changing right before our eyes. At times, I feel like a guy stuck on a train track; the train is coming, and I can’t get off. Maybe you feel the same way as well.

Let us take a look at Paul’s words to this church.

  • Walk Worthy of the Lord, verse 12

Paul did not say to walk worthy if the circumstances are good and things are going your way. No, simply walk worthy of the Lord. The idea is this: what does your walk in this life say to others about how God is to you, and who He is in your life? The Lord is Holy; we should be. The Lord kind; we should be. The Lord is loving; we should be. The Lord is merciful; we should be. The Lord was, at times, brutally honest; we should be as well, at times. The Lord was faithful; we should be. On and on we can go, but you can see the picture clearly. Jesus put it this way: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in Heaven.”

No matter the circumstances, even when no one but God is looking, do what is right. In the time that Paul was speaking, the Roman government was still in charge, and they were a pagan government. They did not like Christians, and somewhere in the middle of the first century, Christianity would become illegal. Yet, these Thessalonians were called to walk, to live worthy of Jesus. We are now living in a time when Christianity in North America is coming under attack more and more. There are restrictions on free speech and on what we can say about certain people and actions. If one would be technical, there are some parts of the Bible that would be deemed as hate speech.

Do not let the way that you are treated determine how you live. Seek the Word of God, love the Word of God, read the Word of God, and allow the Holy Spirit to control you. God is still in control, and I know that it does not feel that way often, but He is.

The 4th Commandment tells us not to take the name of the Lord in vain. A few years ago, listening to a Jewish man talk about this, a better rendering should have been ‘don’t carry the name of the Lord in vain.’ Don’t use the name of the Lord to do evil and to do harm. This does not mean that you cannot stand for your rights as a citizen. Paul did; he was the first to point out that he was a Roman citizen when his rights as a citizen were impeded. But he did so with respect for the authority and in a godly way. But he stood nonetheless. We need to find these ways in our modern time, or our children will never know the freedoms that we all too often take for granted.

  • Danger from our Countrymen, verse 14

I heard the Gospel freely as a child. I was saved as a young man via a Billy Graham-style crusade in my little Barbados. My mom was saved at a Billy Graham crusade many, many moons ago. Just a few years ago, I was part of a Franklin Graham crusade here in Toronto that saw the Gospel preached freely to thousands and thousands. The very church that I grew up in was started by the BIMI mission out of the US. I have countless friends that are missionaries all over the world, men and their wives most often, who left the US and went to parts far and wide to freely share the Gospel.

What I am trying to show you is that the Gospel has been freely exported from the US to the world for decades going back to when my mom was saved as a young lady in Barbados. She is about to turn 88 in a month. Yet, here we are, and the Gospel is under attack in the US. The free speech that fostered the growth and expansion of the Gospel is being taken away, and the very Bible that we hold dear is hated.

Paul told the people in Thessalonica that, like him, like Jesus, they would face dangers from their own countrymen. The very people that they loved – that they would pray for and endeavor to share the Gospel with – would be their mortal enemies. We should understand that today even more.

There are people, and the number is growing, that hate Christianity, hate the values of family and love that we hold to. Hate the fact that we refuse to budge on the fact that Jesus is the only way. We refuse to tolerate other religious beliefs as valid; we love the people but cannot condone or agree with their beliefs.

Today, someone pointed out that a ‘Faith Center’ was being built in Europe, and I had not heard of it. I did a bit of research and came across an article from February 2021. In it, the author said that on May 27th this year, there was a ceremony to lay a foundational stone in Berlin to a place called ‘The House of One,’ the fruit of TEN (10) years of planning to build a faith worship center for Muslims, Jews and Christians to worship together. The price tag is 47 billion Euros. Wow, that is a lot of money! But more importantly, how can Muslims and Jews worship the same God? How can Christians and Muslims worship together? The answer is that true Christians cannot. Thus, we will be the enemy. We will be the enemy of tolerance and the enemy of peace, and on and on.

Our own countrymen will be our greatest enemies; we are seeing that right now. The vaxxed versus the unvaxxed, two classes. One is for the people, they say, and the other is a danger to the people. The world is being conditioned to seeing the non-conformers as dangerous. We who defy the new One-World Religion will be the enemy. God help us. In verse 16 above, Paul tells us that they were forbidden to preach the Gospel, and we will be too one day. That day is coming sooner than you think. Can you imagine the greatest exporter of the Gospel in the last century, the USA, making the Gospel illegal? Once again, God help us.

  • Satan hinders our face-to-face fellowship, verse 18

Man, this hit me. I have dear brothers and sisters in the US that I love dearly, and we have not had the privilege of face-to-face fellowship for 2 years or more. We have had limited face-to-face time here as well, even among our churches. We are just getting back to that, and I am sure that they will find a way to stop us once again. Satan hates the fellowship of true Christians. We talk about Jesus, we love one another, and we encourage one another to overcome the obstacles and trials of life. We pray for each other and carry each other, and we are able to comfort one another with a hug, or a hand on the back, or just to sit in silence and hope together.

Jesus warns us in Hebrews 10:25 not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together,” but He adds, “the more we see the day approaching.”

The Last Day, that day is in front of us. We see the One-World Religion HQ being built, the global laws that affect all people. Once free countries are locked down, and the unrest is loud and being heard. Sooner rather than later, the crackdown will come, and these voices will be silenced. The framework for a global vaccine is the foundation for the Mark that is coming. A mark that can be traced and followed to where you are, know with whom you associate, and allow or deny you access to places. Satan is working hard to bring about his last stand against Jesus. We are seeing it; we have front row seats, and we can have confidence that God is in control. He told us what would be happening, and it is.

Look up; our redemption is very, very close. Sadly, a lot of Christians are not blind per se but have a cloudy vision.

Do you know Jesus as your Saviour? Today is the day, that day to be saved. We can see the end clearer than any generation before us, and the time to take advantage of the Gospel is now.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

P.S. I will be away on vacation next week, and there won’t be any Bible study sent out.

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Why God HAD to Create the Universe :: By David Cogburn

Published on: by RR7

We live in an amazing universe created by God. Its vastness seems infinite and almost more than we can comprehend. But here is a good question: Why did God even create a universe in the first place? God is eternal and lives inside eternity, so why go to the trouble of creating something like our universe? The truth is God “had to.” This article will explain why, but first, let me digress a moment.

As we all know, God is a Trinity God existing as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as water can be a solid, liquid and gas helps explain how God can be one God with three essences. We also all know God is a God of love, and this occurs because God “IS” a “Relationship” through the Trinity, and relationship is what brings God His greatest joy. You can only have love if there is free will, which means you cannot have love unless you have the ability not to love.

He enjoys it so much that He decided to create more of it by creating angels to have a personal relationship with Him and with each other. Each angel was created perfect, sinless and holy in heaven. God loves them, and they love Him back, and each one is receiving the “best” God has to offer.

But then the unthinkable happened. Lucifer, God’s greatest angel, decided he, too, wanted to be worshipped like God. He took his eyes off God, put them onto himself, and committed the first sin in the Bible – pride. He rejected what God had to offer. Love is putting others first. Pride is putting yourself first, and Lucifer was powerful enough that his influence with the other angels caused one-third of the angels to also reject what God had to offer. They, too, fell from God’s grace.

God, knowing all things, obviously knew this would occur. It certainly saddened Him to know that His best was not good enough for one-third of His angels, and this appears to be about the time God may have decided to do something “incredibly different.” It’s easy for sinless, holy angels living in heaven with God to know Him and enjoy everything He offers. What would happen if God created a different kind of being to have a relationship with – human beings – whom He knew would sin from the beginning and would not be holy, sinless beings living in His presence and receiving the best He had to offer?

There is a saying in Las Vegas that applies to eternity. What happens in eternity STAYS in eternity. Once one-third of God’s angels fell from His grace inside eternity, there is “no way” for them to ever receive redemption and have their sin forgiven. God’s eternity is a perfect, holy, sinless eternity, and no sin can dwell there. Thus, God had to create a place inside eternity that was separate from where He dwells; this is why He created hell.

The Bible seems to show that once God creates a sentient being like an angel or a human being that He does not allow an eternal “annihilation” type of death to occur where you die and don’t exist anymore. It is an eternal “separation” type of death, which is actually far worse than an annihilation type of death. And since there is no physical death in eternity, there is no way to have “someone” die and pay the price for your sins, like in the case of angels. This is why Jesus said it is better never to have been born than to be born and end up not being saved.

The name of the game for everything is ETERNITY, period. Everything revolves around God, and life is not about some temporary 100-year life span on earth; it is about eternity with God or separated from God. How important is everything we do while alive for one second on earth compared to infinite trillions of years in eternity, and especially WHERE we live in eternity?

So now we get to the question of why God “had to” create a physical universe.

The answer is as simple as the nose on our faces. He had to create TIME, and that’s what the universe does. It creates TIME, which is temporary. Obviously, God does not need time, but when He decided to create human beings –knowing they would fall from His grace at the beginning and that all of humanity from that point forward would be born spiritually dead with a sin nature – God HAD to make sure we were not created and born with a sin nature INSIDE ETERNITY. What happens inside eternity “stays” inside eternity, so He had to provide us “time” to come to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ so that when we “do” enter eternity at our physical death, we enter “eternity” either saved through Jesus or not saved without Jesus.

Now, let’s sit back for a moment and try to contemplate what God has actually done. We know from His word that His plan has always been to spend eternity on earth with us human beings, so it appears He creates this incredible infinite-type universe for one main reason – to give us “time” to know Him and be saved, and that would mean this WHOLE UNIVERSE was created for one MAIN reason – for US and just us.

Just about everyone, it seems, believes in extra-terrestrial aliens, and most of them think of them as aliens from other planets. But the best answer is they are demonic and come from another dimension vs other planets. We know from Genesis that at one point, some of God’s fallen angels were allowed to become visible and have relations with human women to produce the Nephilim, the giants of the Old Testament. The Bible says the end times will be as they were in the days of Noah, so demonic beings becoming more and more active these past few decades could easily explain what is going on.

But surely, God would not create a universe as vast as ours for only us, would He? Why not? We know from His word that His plan is for His saved children to spend eternity on “earth” with Him forever, and we also know from His word that not only is this what happens but also when that happens.

After Jesus comes back and rules our planet for His millennial 1,000-year reign, Satan will be released to gather up his great multitude of people who have rejected Christ with their sin nature during His millennial reign. They are destroyed, and then we have God’s great White Throne judgment in which all unbelievers of all ages will be judged and be separated from God forever in hell. It is THEN that the sinful human race is over with. God ends up creating new heavens and a new earth in which the New Jerusalem in heaven comes down onto the new earth. There is no more sin due to no more mortal human beings, and we spend eternity with God just like He planned all along.

But here is another good question: God created perfect, sinless, holy angels inside eternity where there is no sin. Why would God now want to create a whole different kind of being in His image that “is” sinful, cannot live in His presence, will have to live our lives in this sinful universe, and have to fend for ourselves due to sin?

In heaven, God takes care of “everything” for us. We will want for “nothing.” On earth, WE have to provide everything for ourselves. We don’t live in God’s presence, but He’s still here, watches everything we do, and has given us His word, which explains His plan from the beginning to the end. It explains everything we need to know about how to live our lives from every perspective. Best of all, how to come to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him through Jesus and go from being spiritually dead for all eternity to being spiritually alive for all eternity.

Time is a paradox. It is the greatest blessing God ever gave us and also the greatest curse God ever gave us at the same time. With “time,” the greatest blessing is that we can become saved for eternity through Christ. And it’s the greatest curse because “time” destroys “everything.” Nothing in the whole universe can survive time, including the sun, moon and stars, as well as ourselves when we physically die.

What is the greatest difference between us sinful human beings and God’s holy angels? The difference is the GREATEST thing that God has ever done, and this appears to be the MAIN reason why God created us in the first place. It certainly pleases God when His angels serve Him, but angels do not have to have “faith.” You don’t need faith in heaven. There is symmetry in the Bible, and we know that one-third of the “saved” angels fell from God’s grace. And the symmetry is that it also appears from the Bible that approximately one-third of the “lost” human beings will be “saved.”

ALL human beings are born LOST and are spiritually DEAD. It appears all religions think you are saved if you do enough good works. However, you could be a Mother Theresa 1,000 times over, and you are still spiritually DEAD without Jesus, who paid the price to remove ALL of our sins. The name of the game on entering eternity is sin or no sin. It’s as simple as that when it comes to heaven and hell, and ONLY God could remove our sins by sacrificing His Son Jesus on a cross to pay for our sins.

So, what is it that God really wants from us sinful human beings? He wants to get MARRIED. He wants a BRIDE for His Son. God has set up marriage to be the most INTIMATE relationship there is when TWO become ONE in every aspect. Soul mates, as we like to say. This is why the church is called the bride of Christ. God did something far, far greater than most people, including born-again Christians, even have a clue about. It is such a big deal to God when an eternally lost human being comes to know Him through faith in Christ that He decided to share HIMSELF with us.

In John 14, Jesus tells us, “I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” God the Holy Spirit comes to indwell all born-again believers. We literally become CONNECTED to God in a small way. Think of God as Windows and angels as Mac. Mac is separate from Windows but serves Windows. We are a Windows upgrade or update. We are a part of God now; chew on that a bit. WE ARE A PART OF GOD NOW! As in marriage, we are now TWO become ONE, and this also helps to understand why the Bible says we shall rule over angels in eternity. We have more “rank,” if you will.

We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. God did not share Himself with His angels. It took eternally lost human beings, who never see God visibly and who are not now receiving the best He has to offer, to still come to have faith and love Him through His Son Jesus and become His bride for now and forever. WOW!!! How incredible is that? Of course, we will not truly know what all of this means until we enter heaven.

I used to be concerned that since some angels used their free will and goofed up and sinned, does that mean there’s a chance that I, too, might goof up and sin somehow inside eternity? The answer is that would be impossible for one simple reason: We are connected to God, and just as God would never sin, we will never sin. We will be able to love like God loves, and a myriad of other things too incredible to even know right now. As the Bible says, there is no way we can grasp all of the incredible, wonderful things God has in store for us in eternity. And this is why God wants us to be His ambassadors and share Jesus with others. He wants us to live our lives in a way that shows Jesus to others so that they, too, might desire to come to know Him as Lord and Savior.

One final thought: Let’s look at how God views things from a color perspective. Everything with God represents the color white, which is associated with Holiness, goodness, joy, pleasure, and ALL things good because they come from God, and this is what you have in heaven. God is Light, and white light is a “combination” of ALL colors in the color spectrum, which you would expect with God. In hell, where God does not dwell, everything is the total opposite of what you get with God in heaven, such as darkness because there is no light without God, unholiness, no joy, pain, suffering and torment, and all things bad. Black is the “absence” of ALL colors in the color spectrum. Thus, inside eternity “everything is ALL good with God or ALL bad without God, and it is impossible to combine any part of good with any part of bad.

BUT the universe is Gray. It is the ONLY place located inside “time” that God allows good and evil to co-exist together. Why would God do this? Because the universe with “time” is a sinful universe due to Adam’s sin and our sin natures. And God, knowing He would be invisible to us, does manage to make Himself “visible” in a different way through ALL of His incredible creation and through His holy word in the Bible. “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” is the perfect acronym because God tells us everything we need to know about Him and about everything else.

As I mentioned a moment ago, God wants to get married and have a bride for His Son. But why would God pick as His bride the sinful human race over His holy angels? The answer is simple – opposites ATTRACT. We humans are one hundred percent the opposite of God in every aspect. Angels are too much like God and thus not a good match for a bride.

God, being a God of love, loves and is attracted to ALL human beings as marriage material. But just like us humans, He, too, is only interested in a soul mate who also loves Him back. Opposite attraction works both ways. God is 100 percent the opposite of us, and you would think we would be attracted to Him for that. But the huge problem is that humans have a sin nature that prevents us from being naturally attracted to God.

But because God has revealed Himself through ALL of His creation and through His word in the Bible, many humans DO see Him and fall in love with Him and want to get married to Him since He has made that possible.

As humans, most all of us desire to grow up, find our soul mate to marry, and hopefully have a wonderful and perfect, loving marriage relationship for the rest of our lives with each other. Our sin nature makes it less than perfect, but it seems that marriages between couples who love the Lord and are connected to Him do much better than those couples who do not know Him. Here is the best news: Our marriage to God “IS” the ONLY perfect, intimate loving relationship that is even possible, and it lasts forever. There is no divorce with God.

I am guessing that many of us have never even thought of our relationship with the Lord in these terms, but we will be officially married to Jesus when He comes for His bride at the rapture, which could be super soon. We will go back to celebrate with Him our 7-day/year wedding feast, and then we come back with Him for His 1,000-year millennial reign. If all of this doesn’t get us excited big time, I don’t know what will.

I hope this article has helped to not only show why God created the universe but also to show why He created us, which is to be a perfect, holy, loving bride to His Son and be joined to Him now and forever. There are simply no words to describe how truly GREAT He is, and the good news for us is that Jesus is coming SOON!

Maranatha, Lord Jesus.

David Cogburn

dcogburn789@gmail.com