Do You Call Yourself Christian? :: By Dave Hubley

(There is a special message at the end of this article for those who might happen to read this and do not have Jesus in their life and are looking for peace and a way to better understand the present-day insanity and confusion.)

By no means is this article meant in any way other than to urge those who call themselves Christian to examine themselves to see if they truly are, as is commanded by the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul.

“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Can’t you see for yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you— unless you actually fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

I recently had somewhat of a shock in speaking with a gal that I had assumed to be a very solid Christian sister.

I am not prepared to say that she isn’t a Christian, as it is not my call to make. It is between her and the Lord Jesus; however, it was disquieting to realize that she had either never truly accepted Jesus, or she had wandered into one of the more devious traps that Satan has laid for believers who have been side-tracked by the world: that is, reliance on human-centered knowledge and interpretation of world events from those very limited and convoluted sources. She held a view about God’s chosen people that was very antisemitic and patently unfair, not to mention unwise.

She is by no means the only person to profess to be a follower of Christ who has evidenced this weakness. It appears to be very common in this modern age of “information availability” and “worldly wisdom” that is not based on God’s Word.

What I speak of is this:

  • Failure of professing believers to read and study the Word of God every day.
  • Reliance on “conservative” weblogs, websites, and other sources on the internet being run by people who often claim to be Christians but who evidence only “worldly fruit” and very little evidence of knowledge of God’s Word.

This encounter put me in mind of the very real need that we have to closely examine whether we access our knowledge first as a Bible believer and also diligent Bible reader, and then as a Weblog watcher/reader, or do we just put our trust in the opinions of possibly unsaved personalities who often evidence that they are without the sure foundation of ALL of the Word of God.

Have you found yourself wandering away from or perhaps never having committed to reading the Word of God and receiving His Wisdom and Discernment, thereby enabling you to put on His full (Ephesians 6:13-17) armor so you are protected from the deception and lies of this worldly system?

I am no Bible scholar and not an educated man (in worldly terms), but I do read and study, first and foremost, God’s Word. I have also asked God for His Wisdom, His Discernment, and His Knowledge and for Him to gift me with a proper understanding of His Word and its unfailing Truth. As promised by Him, He has blessed me with these blessings in accordance with my ability to understand them.

This is through no special skill or ability that I have in and of myself. It is available to anyone who asks for it and believes that God will keep His Word.

“Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).

I take this caution very seriously as well:

“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3).

It is God’s Wisdom and Discernment, found through the study of God’s Word, that enables otherwise blind people to see through the false teachings so prevalent in every aspect of everyday life in these present times.

Whether the deceptions of the deceivers are intentional or unintentional, God’s gift of discernment is still necessary in order to separate Truth from untruth. Far too many of these “conservative” website hosts profess the name of Jesus but illustrate no real understanding of the Word of God or of understanding His nature. As a result, many of them are knowledgeable in terms of worldly politics and have a conservative bent, but their knowledge is often restricted to that area.

As well, being led by worldly wisdom without Biblical understanding results in putting hope in sinful human leaders who are flawed and compromised by this world system. It is this very trap that will lead to the most devastating period in history – the rise of the man of perdition, the antichrist, and the resulting 7-year Tribulation period, ending in the very real battle of Armageddon that the Bible has prophesied for 2000+/- years.

There are some conservative pundits who even promote taking a drug that purportedly “puts you in contact with long-lost relatives” and other such obvious connections to sorcery and the occult. This is an area that God is quite adamant in forbidding any contact or practicing of and reveals that consequences are terminal for those who actively participate in any form of it.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in those who are genuine followers of Christ will convict them of their sin and cause them a great deal of discomfort if they do not stop. But if they continue in this practice, it is fair to say that their claims to be saved by the blood of Christ may well be a case of self-deception. This is not just an opinion of mine but is clearly taught by Jesus Himself:

“By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16).

Now to the crux of this article.

I sound a warning to those who call themselves Christian but leave the unopened Word of God on a shelf and instead focus on human-based, extra-biblical sources for analysis and understanding of present-day world circumstances and conduct.

As an example, you will never be able to accurately understand the following if you are not biblically literate:

  • The current Muslim hatred of Israel and the resulting war(s).
  • The real reason for the destruction of America and the world’s hatred of it.
  • The mindless hatred of Jews without cause by so many different peoples.
  • The global increase of violent and catastrophic storms, floods, earthquakes, and other natural (and man-made) disasters.

These are just a very few of the world events that are currently on everyone’s everyday radar and are frequently the catalyst of comments such as, “Why is this happening?”

The “why” can be well understood but not without the presence of the Holy Spirit as the “interpreter” of these times.

I urge anyone who claims the Name of Jesus Christ to consider these things, and if you are convicted of this condition, repent and truly commit to Him and His Word first, and then you will be able to stand up under the present-day circumstances.

In the Special Message below are the conditions that God has set for genuine reconciliation and salvation to Him through His Son.

I pray you will make the effort to evaluate, commit, or recommit to Him and spend the time so necessary to a Godly understanding of this out-of-control world.

The special message I promised you:

For anyone who may read this article and has not trusted in Jesus Christ and therefore has no hope or peace in your life.

You can have hope. You can have the peace that Jesus has promised to all who have made Him their Lord and Savior. The peace that passes understanding.

It requires that you come before God on His terms and that you do so in your living years.

And, what are His terms according to His Word?

  • Genuine repentance (turning to God instead of continuing to reject or ignore Him).
  • Confession of sins (that you are a sinner and acknowledge that to God).
  • That you understand that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
  • To acknowledge to God that you are unable to pay that debt.
  • Belief that Jesus Christ paid your death sentence for you on the cross and rose from the grave three days later, conquering death, just as He promised.
  • To believe that Jesus is the Way, the only Way, that God has established by which humans may be saved from the consequences of their sin and rebellion.

God has made it absolutely clear that there is no one who comes before Him, under His terms, that will be refused.

  • No one: no race, no color, no country of origin, regardless of any previous belief system: no one.
  • No matter what your past sins have been, God can and WILL forgive you because He says He will.
  • Salvation is available to everyone without any exceptions.

If you put all your trust for salvation in Jesus, and Him only, you can follow that prayer up by simply saying, “Thank you, Father God, for hearing my prayer and saving me,” because we can trust Him to keep His Word. He always has. He always will.

“Truly, Truly, I say to you that he who hears My words and believes the One who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed from death to life” (John 5:24).

There are no answers and there is no hope in the world by governments, organizations, politics or politicians. There are only lies and deception. But you can have the Truth and the peace you seek.

The answers are in the Word of God—The Bible. If you ask God, with all your heart, He will hear you.

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Pro Salvator Vigilans

To contact me: canoeman96@gmail.com

A Firm Foundation :: By Sean Gooding

Psalm 119:11

“Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.”

Psalm 119:105

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Matthew 7:24-25

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”

Next year at our church camp, the theme will be Transformed, and the sub-theme is Our Firm Foundation. As I was contemplating this theme and what I might begin to write as we plan the lessons, this lesson came to my mind, and I began to think about my journey in the Word of God, first as a boy, as a young man, and as a minister. I grew up seeing my father and my mom regularly reading the scriptures at home. I saw my dad reading almost daily and my mom often sitting, drying her hair while reading the scriptures. My dad died when I was 16, and my mom re-married when I was 20. My other dad could be seen often reading his Bible at his desk first thing in the morning. He is 84 years old now, and every morning shortly after 5 am, he can be found at his desk with a cup of tea, reading the scriptures.

I have spent a lot of time reading the scriptures over the years. I read many parts of the Bible and even taught through entire books. But it was not until about 4 or 5 years ago that I began simply reading the Bible cover to cover. I still read topics, and along with a church member, I may do a reading for 30 days on a lesson series to help encourage them. But for the most part, I set aside time to read the Bible from cover to cover. I recently finished the cover-to-cover for the 2nd time this year. I did a challenge that my preacher friends and I do for the first 90 days of each New Year, and then I did another read-through.

The idea here is not to embarrass, to hurt, or to boast. Rather, I want to encourage you to do the same. If you have the Bible App, it has several read the Bible in a year plans that you can use. You can do the chronological one that lets you read the Bible in the order in which each book was written, or the one I just finished did a Psalm each day, so by the end, I had read through the Psalms multiple times as well.

Once one reads through the Bible multiple times cover to cover, the continuity of the narrative begins to come into play. One can begin to see parts of each book that mention each other; you can see the prophecies that are fulfilled in the New Testament; and when a verse or set of verses are cited or quoted in the New Testament, they begin to sound and feel familiar, and it becomes easier and easier to understand what was being said.

The Bible is the only firm foundation that we have today. It is the Word of God, and in it, we have the basis for our faith. The Bible offers us truths in history, science, geography, laws of physics, and many other areas while not being a book about any of the topics. We can take facts like the ones often mentioned in Acts about who was the leader, where a certain event took place, or who was involved in an event and find that the Bible is very accurate. We can take a look at Daniel 11, one of the most prophecy-filled chapters in the entire Bible, and then take secular history and see how accurate these prophecies were.

The Bible offers us the truth about where we come from and where we are going. It tells us that we are deliberately made by God and that we have a purpose for which to live each day. The Bible tells us that God loves us, and as we read the Bible, we see that God loves imperfect people from Abraham to Peter. We see that God has been faithful even when His people were not and that when He did have to punish us evil-doers, He exhausted every offer of grace, kindness, and pleading to repent before any punishment was meted out. We see that even in the punishment, there is grace from Noah, to Lot, to Daniel and his fellow captives, and even to today and God’s preservation of Israel in the midst of very hostile neighbors.

We have a firm foundation that is based on the truth of God’s Word. The time is coming and may come sooner than we think when the Bible will be illegal. Have we worked hard to ‘hide it in our hearts?’ No one can erase it there or confiscate what we memorize. The Bible offers us the understanding that God uses broken and fallen men and women who submit to Him and let Him do what only He can do.

The Bible offers us a firm foundation of God’s grace to fallen and broken people who have no hope in themselves, and without His grace, we have only despair to look forward to. Even if this life you had here was the best ever, the one to come without Jesus is intolerable. The opposite is also true; if one has a horrible life filled with hurt, filled with loss, and filled with pain, but you have Jesus as Savior, then this is as bad as it gets and the future is awesome.

This is the kind of foundation that gives us a sure footing. But this only comes when we read the whole Bible and see people just like us, just like me, being used by God. It comes when we see the barnacles on the ‘heroes’ of the faith, and we see the same kinds of barnacles like we have on us. We have a sure foundation to see that God is there in the background making things work for His people, and we see that even if He is silent, He is never off the clock. And if we just keep looking, we will see His mighty hands at work.

Read, study, re-read, and work at memorizing the Scriptures. Find songs that have entire verses of the Bible or that are based on the Bible and learn them. Keep working and knowing the truth, and in it, we have the power to serve the Lord and be sure-footed as we walk here until we get home. Learn to love the Book.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church

How To Connect With Us

Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/

Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca

Join us on Zoom every Sunday (10:30 am) for Sunday Service AND every Tuesday at 8:00 pm for Bible Study: Meeting ID: 700 794 460 Passcode: 032661; https://us02web.zoom.us/j/700794460?pwd=M3NFRG91ZW5Sa2Z3amVyWkFnYXd6QT09