FREE: tickets to Super Bowl Game!! Okay, "hang with me here" as we get to that part! :)Salvation BASICS #101:
Wow, I tell you ~ I've been really shaken to the core lately ~ finding it just UNBELIEVABLE how many in the world tell others that, "ALL you have to do to "be saved" is just ACCEPT your 'gift of pardon' from the Lord"
*wham* ~ that's it!!
They bank the ENTIRE SALVATION MESSAGE on John 3:16. While it's an excellent Scripture, no doubt, probably the most well-known in the world, yet why do people so heartily neglect "the rest" of the Bible?
Why can't people understand that REPENTANCE is also a component of the salvation message? {Acts 20:21 I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.]
And..... OBEYING the Lord! {not, obviously, keeping the Mosaic law ~ EIKS!! almost no one could do that} but following the instruction &commands of the Lord given in the NT. {but ooof, you dare mention this ~ and then you get the lecture about how our salvation is not based on "works"} But any real Christian knows there's a ton of difference between trying to work for it (earn it) and merely trying to please the Lord with our lives -- not purposely hurting Him by purposely sinning against Him.
Anyway, someone we know was killed in a horrible car crash last week ~ and again, the message at the funeral was "just believe" and then you're supposedly "saved for all eternity".
MAN!!!! Are some preachers & teachers gonna' have to ANSWER TO THE LORD on Judgment Day for the false teaching they have taught others..... which is leading MANY to the firey furnaces of hell!!
When I look around & see so, sooooo many in the world who teach this erroneous teaching -- it makes me realize just how VERY CLOSE we must be to the rapture!!
I honestly don't know if the 16 y/o girl we knew who died last week was a REAL Christian or not ~ [but I do know her father claims to be a Christian, but then uses the title as a "license to sin"!! :( ] And more than anything, I find myself praying for the rest of the family -- for their true/blue SALVATION. They supposedly have assurance of their going to heaven -- but at this point, it's nothing more than a FALSE assurance. *sigh*
At any rate, I think this church marquee I saw recently sums it up:You cannot live wrong & then die right.Okay, now about those "free tickets"!! If there was a poster that said "all tickets to the Super Bowl are free ...collect yours today" and another that said "Dress code applies ... Shoes and collared shirt need to be worn to enter" then someone who only read the first poster might believe that it was just a matter of picking up the 'ticket" and that's all it takes to get inside to watch the game.
But when they they turn up on the day of the game, barefoot and wearing a t-shirt, they find themselves turned away, because they had not met the requirements of poster 2.
Now Poster 1 did not become untrue, because of poster 2.....the tickets are still 100% free, and available for the asking, but there was something that also had to happen to make that ticket useful to you and that was "change your garment".
So if you had ignored poster two or thought it didn't matter ~ you would be sadly disqualified from the benefits of poster 1, even though a ticket was issued to you at your request.Titus 2
13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
The rapture is a blessed hope to the Christian. Watching for and expecting the rapture is a blessed hope that encourages a person to stay close to the Lord. A person watching daily for the rapture will go on with life but be constantly looking for the return of the Lord each day. This blessed hope also has a purifying effect. A person will not get caught up in worldliness or wrong things if he thinks His Lord could come back at any moment. ~ Alan YuskoThe **RAPTURE** will bring on simultaneous worldwide DISAPPEARANCES
.... it is soooo close now!!