Don’t go wandering aimlessly through life filled with sin, take the direct path for eternal life to Jesus Christ. He not only offers forgiveness of sins, but a new whole life for the here-and-now. Trust and obey Him as your Lord. Enter at the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the path that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in that way. But strait is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to life and few there are who find it.
God is the “Just Judge” of the universe. He judges based on a standard of righteousness. That means he judges the heart. He sees your thoughts, your motives, your intentions. If you think earthly judges are strict, get ready to stand before the Righteous Judge, the Lord God.
The Formula for eternal life is simply to humble yourself before God, and turn to him for mercy and trust in Jesus Christ (His life as a perfect substitute for your sinful life, and His death as a perfect substitute for your death) as your savior. The Bible says the wages of sin, is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus said I am the Way the truth and the life and no one comes to God except through Him. There is no other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved. His name is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus Christ, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus said, not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, only those who do the will of my father which is in heaven. Jesus said, “many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and have we not cast out demons in your name, and have we not done many wonderful works in your name?” and Jesus said, “I will say to you, depart from me you worker of iniquity, I never knew you”.
Prepare the way to your hearts for the Lord make the path straight and clear. Remove every hindrance of sin and obstacle of impurity by falling to your knees and crying to God, for mercy. God is rich in mercy.
Once again, God’s goodness and mercy is expressed to you. God’s kindness comes to you, by the preaching of His word. It is God’s goodness and kindness that should lead you to repentance. Godly sorrow over your darkened, sinful condition should lead you to repentance. This is a repentance that'll stick. Repentance is when you turn away from your sin, and turn to God for mercy. God stretches out His arm of salvation to you in the message of Jesus Christ. Oh I know this isn’t somewhere you’d ordinarily come to here the message of the Gospel, but God sends a street preacher to you.
Life is valuable, even precious. You may not think of it this way, but you put your life on the line just to come here to this location. Just driving in your car, could mean your life. They put seat belts in cars for a reason; accidents happen. At any moment, the Lord could require your life, are you prepared to meet your Maker?
Hebrews 9:6 says it is appointed for man once to die, and after that comes the judgement.
Acts 17 says God commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by the man Christ Jesus, having furnished proof of His qualification to judge by raising Him from the dead.
Titus 3:5 It is not by works of righteousness that we have done, but is is according to His mercy that he has saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of His Holy Spirit.
Romans 13:14 directs us to clothe ourselves in the righteousness of Christ.
Jesus Christ came to earth 2017 years ago as the ‘Lamb of God’. He was the sacrificial lamb upon whom the sin of the world was laid. He willingly gave His life as a ransom for His us.
Jesus said you must be born again. He said unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. That’s good news. Why is that good news? Well it’s good news because Jesus didn’t say, unless you’re a good person, you cannot see the kingdom of God, because if he’d of said that we would’ve all been disqualified. There is none righteous no not one. There’s no one who understands God, there’s no one who seeks after God. They have all gone astray, each to his own way. We are all unprofitable to God. All of your mouths have become like open graves (and I’m not talking about your breath, although you might consider a tic tac.) Just kidding. Seriously though, you have death coming out your mouth (as if it were a grave), you strengthen the hands of sinners in their sin. You cheer ‘em on like they’re the seahawks in the super bowl.
Back to Jesus statement, you must be born again. The reason we must be born again, is because our first birth was a failure. Yup, each and every one of us is stillborn spiritually. Spiritually, each and every one of us was an abortion. The bible says we are all initially dead in our trespasses and sins. We’re born alive physically, but dead spiritually, that’s why we must be born again. This concept of the new birth or second birth or being born-again is so appropriate and it is indeed such good news, because think of it this way… Think about when your mom gave birth to you. You didn’t have anything to do with it you were just there and you were ready to come out. Your mom did all the work. It’s the same with being born again, God did all the work 2017 years ago by bleeding and dying on the cross and coming back to life three days later.
I want to talk for a moment about the sovereignty of God. This means God rules and reigns over all. He is sovereign; in other words, there’s nothing that happens outside of his will.
He has complete authority over us. We will all answer to Him. He makes the rules, we follow the rules (or we break the rules). Just as in life, you break the rules there are consequences. God will mete out justice. There will be a judgement day. God exercises dominion over all, and even if you think you can get away with doing your own thing, your own way, God will be just. Justice will be served. There will come a day when you bow the knee to him. I pray you do that now, willingly. Do it before it's too late. Now is the acceptable time, today is the day of salvation. Get right with God. Be reconciled to God. Submit your will to His.
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