Driving to work takes about thirty minutes each way. Rather than “cuss and discuss” the wonderful driving patterns of some East Texas drivers, I try to use this time for intimate conversations, praise and honor to my Heavenly Father. Best part of all, I know He is always there, hearing what I am saying and singing to Him. I will be the first to admit, I am not a star performance singer, but I know His word encourages us all to sing praises to Him. (all emphasis mine – ESV Bible)

Psalm 95:1-2; “O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord all the earth; Sing to the Lord, bless His name, tell of His Salvation from day to day.”

Psalm 104:33; “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.”

Psalm 105:2; “Sing to Him; Sing praises to Him; Tell of all His wondrous works.”

Colossians 3:16; “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom; singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

These are just a few verses in His word that invites us to sing praise and give glory and honor to our Heavenly Father, Creator of the heavens and the earth. The entire book of Psalms is a work of several authors, and especially King David. There are joyful Psalms, sad Psalms, Psalms seeking guidance, Psalms seeking forgiveness, and just about every other aspect of life that we face every day. Some may say the Psalms are ancient and do not apply today, but God’s words are as fresh as if just written for us.

There are 150 Psalms, and it is by far the longest book in the Bible. Psalm 118 is the midway point of all 66 Books of God’s love letter to us. Verse 29 states, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His steadfast love endures forever!” If our Heavenly Father did not care all that much about our singing praises to Him, He would not have put this wonderful book in His message to us.

Our God loves us more than we can ever understand. What so-called man-made deity would ever send a part of himself to suffer and die on a cruel cross so that we could have a true pathway to him? (John 3:16-18). Our Jesus left His throne in Heaven to allow Himself to be a human – lower than the angels – so that He could cover our sins with His pure and precious blood. He is the only “human” ever to have lived, or that ever will live, a pure, sinless life so that the Father would be able to accept His perfect sacrifice for us. No sacrifice that we could ever make would be worthy of just one drop of blood shed by our Savior. Also, He could have changed His mind at any point, and we would all still be hopelessly lost.

Because of what Jesus did at Calvary, we have a covenant available from God the Father. All who receive and accept the gift offered by His Son will be saved. All who refuse the gift will be separated from Him, and their eternity will be the Lake of Fire (Hell) with Satan and his demons forever. The amazing part of this is, we are given the freedom to choose our eternal pathway for ourselves.

All so-called man-generated gods are said to demand their followers worship them, and no one can ever be certain if they did enough works or offer enough prayers to have paradise.

This is absolutely against God’s will. Romans 10:9-13 gives what we must do to be assured of a place in Heaven. Without adding anything to this, the steps are: admit we’re all sinners in need of a Savior, and believe that Jesus is the only Savior there is. Also, have faith that He died for us and was raised by the Father to conquer sin and death for all who will accept Him. Finally, the action on our part that we must do is to call on the name of the Lord to save us, and He will do so as promised in Romans 10:13. Yes, this is the ABCs of Salvation, and it applies to everyone.

What’s obviously missing here is having to do “works” to “earn” our redemption. To say we could even do anything other than receive and accept Jesus would be an insult to His sacrifice for us. If we had 100% of all this earth’s so-called treasures, we could not “buy” one second of time with Him (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Just a couple points here: there are not many ways to Heaven, and all “religions” do not worship the same God. Jesus is the only way to the Father as given in John 14:6 and Acts 4:12. Also, for true believers, who have accepted Jesus and thus have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, there is no condemnation for them (Romans 8:1)

The hardest part is to get away from the world’s faulty thinking and to have faith and believe God’s word is true. Satan’s goal is to convince us all that the Bible isn’t true and that we should just accept the “pleasures” of this world. God will not be mocked, and Jesus knew that through the human sin nature, more will accept Satan’s lies and end up at the Great White Throne Judgment than those who will accept Him and be saved.

Once we have received Jesus, we have the “Blessed Assurance” of a home with Him, prepared by His hand (John 14:1-3).

So, what is my “Heavenly Medley”? It’s made up of parts from three different hymns that, for me, inspires me to get closer to Jesus every day. They are: (1) Child of the King by Cindy Walker, 1961. (2) What a Day That Will Be by Jim Hill; and (3) The King is Coming by Bill and Gloria Gaither, 1993.

“Oh yes, Oh yes, I’m a child of the King. His royal blood now flows through my veins; and I, who was wretched and poor now can sing; Praise God! Praise God! I’m a child of the King.”

“What a day that will be; when my Jesus I shall see; and I look upon His face; the One who saved me by His grace. When He takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land, what a day, glorious day, that will be.”

“O the King is coming; the King is coming! I just heard the trumpets sounding; and now His face I see. O the King is Coming; the King is Coming! Praise God, He’s coming for me!”

My particular choices may not be the ones that would inspire everyone, and that’s perfectly fine. They draw me closer to my Lord. I would encourage everyone to find what is good for them to have a closer relationship with Jesus. For some, it may be only the old standards; for others, it may be the newer praise songs. Whatever inspires each person is what’s best for them.

The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. This world is not going to get any better no matter what all the false prophets are saying. Our Jesus will be calling all true believers up to meet Him in the air very soon. Please be ready! “Jesus is coming soon; morning, night or noon.” It would be a terrible tragedy for anyone to miss His taking us out of here so we can avoid the coming wrath/tribulation.

No one has sinned enough to not be able to be forgiven. The unforgivable sin is to not have Jesus as your Savior when you take your last breath on this earth. He is never too busy for anyone who truly calls on Him. Right now would not be too early.

Maranatha (Come, Lord Jesus) and Shalom (peace).

Huebshman46@gmail.com

We’re going to take a little expedition into the land of speculation today based on a couple of intriguing verses in Scripture. The account of Judas Iscariot is a tragic one, and we wonder how such a man could do what he did in betraying Jesus Christ. There are clues, however, that perhaps give us further insight into this man’s beginning and end.

I came across this idea through an article by Terry James of www.RaptureReady.com, who had read a short book by a British theologian named Arthur Pink called The Antichrist. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003FMV4E6/). The proposition that Pink put forth was that Judas Iscariot and the future Antichrist are somehow one and the same.

How could this be, you ask? Rightly so. There are two primary verses that brought Pink to this conclusion. The first was from our reading today of John 17:12 (KJV), in which Jesus is praying His high priestly prayer:

“While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.”

Note that Judas is referred to as THE son of perdition. Other translations like the ESV and NIV say that he was the son of destruction; however, it’s the KJV that shows us the connection we’re exploring. In this verse, Judas is not simply A man of perdition, but again, THE man.

Why is this interesting? In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Paul writes about the Antichrist:

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.”

Once more, the KJV description calls this coming man of iniquity THE son of perdition. Other translations describe Antichrist as the man of lawlessness. Now, the comparison could break down here because, in the Greek, two different words are used for perdition/ destruction/ lawlessness. In John 17:12, the word according to Strong’s #684 is apóleia. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, the Greek word is Strong’s #458, which is anomia. Does that cause this discussion to fall apart?

Apóleia means “destruction, ruin, loss, perishing; eternal ruin.” Anomia means “lawlessness, iniquity, disobedience, sin.” Apóleia has the sense of being cut off or completely severed. Anomia conveys the idea of an utter disregard for God’s law. With these two meanings, although not identical, which one desires to see in a comparison like this, they certainly describe these two individuals in a similar way. These were/are two men deeply against God and utterly lost.

The descriptions of how Judas died seem to vary but can be reconciled. Matthew 27:5 says:

“And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself.”

In contrast, Acts 1:18 tells us:

“Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out.”

The apparent contradiction can be resolved if we think about it. Judas hung himself in a lonely place. If the discovery of his body took several days, it may well have been that in the hot Judean sun, his body swelled with gases and burst if the hanging rope broke or was cut.

The interesting verse that follows the death of Judas in Acts 1:25 (KJV) is one that causes one to think:

“That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.”

What was his OWN place? What does that mean? Once more, we turn to the Greek and see that in Strong’s #2398, the word is idios. This has the sense of “uniquely one’s own, peculiar to the individual.” Peculiar – unique. When Judas died, was there something special about his death and where he went?

According to Old Testament theology that continued up until the point when Jesus rose from the dead, all who died went to Sheol (Hebrew) or Hades (Greek). There were effectively two compartments in this place we also know as hell. One compartment was for the righteous (saved by OT standards), and the other compartment was for the wicked (not saved by OT standards). Given the description in Acts 1:25, did Judas somehow go elsewhere, or at least to a special place within this domain unique to him as a human being?

We can’t know the answer to that, but if that’s the case, perhaps it is this which also ultimately joins Judas Iscariot to Antichrist. Both are Scripturally called THE son of perdition, i.e., using the definite article, which appears to give the verses the singular, connected meaning. Although the Greek words are different for the use of perdition, they certainly have related connotations. This place that Judas went, if it wasn’t what we expect where a normal death would take one, then where did Judas go? Was there somehow a preserving (for want of a better term) of his soul that kept it in limbo until a future time when it would be reunited with the person of Antichrist?

Apparently, Arthur Pink thought so. As Terry James expresses, and I agree, when Pink describes this situation as one relating to reincarnation, that becomes problematic. We know from Hebrews 9:27:

“And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”

There is no reincarnation. Human beings live once, die, and are bound for judgment. However, what if there is a unique, peculiar case with Judas Iscariot in relation to the future Antichrist? Jesus said about Judas in John 6:70:

“Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.'”

It’s clear that Judas was never saved, given his lust for money and obviously his betrayal of the Lord, but Jesus also says that he was a devil. He wasn’t Satan himself, but the Greek in Strong’s #1228 is diabolos, a “slanderer” and “false accuser.” Judas resembled Satan in mind and will. We also know that Satan entered and possessed him during the Last Supper. Satan will likewise possess Antichrist.

God is sovereign. He does what He will, and He chooses whom He will to accomplish His purposes.

Scripture had to be fulfilled that someone would betray Jesus. Was Judas predestined for this fate? Not necessarily; he continued to have free will that God created him to have. However, his heart was evil, and despite his long association with Jesus as one of the Twelve disciples, it never softened and changed. God knew this in advance. In that context, Judas was always going to be the betrayer.

We cannot know at this time the ultimate truth of any possible connection between Judas and the Antichrist. We see that there are intriguing connections between them. When Antichrist arises, he will deceive many and bring those millions along with him to his ultimate place of residence: the Lake of Fire. Has Judas been kept in Tartarus (see 2 Peter 2:4) in this bottom pit (or abyss) along with the fallen sons of God from Genesis 6 until the coming Tribulation where he’ll become the man of lawlessness in that time?

What an idea! Won’t it be fascinating to learn the truth about this someday! Perhaps from our heavenly home following the Rapture, we as true believers will come to see and understand even a mystery like this. Maranatha!

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Gary W. Ritter is a lay pastor, Bible teacher, and prolific author. His Whirlwind Series comprises three books: Sow the Wind, Reap the Whirlwind, and There Is A Time. These books are contained in the collected volume of the Whirlwind Omnibus. Gary has been given the Christian Redemptive Fiction award for three novels: The Tattooed Cat, Alien Revelation, and for his collaboration with Terry James in writing The Minion Protocols, the third book in James’ Second Coming Chronicles. Earlier this year, Gary released a four-volume set of Awaken Bible Study Notes that comment verse-by-verse through Scripture from a Biblical prophetic lens. He is currently working on a sequel to Alien Revelation and is writing a daily commentary on his reading through the Bible in a year. The intent in all Gary’s writings is to bring a strong Christian witness to what people read.

You can reach him at his website:www.GaryRitter.com or his Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/gritter3390. You can also see his video Bible teachings on his Gary Ritter YouTube channel – look for the fish symbol.