Thursday, July 24, 2008

A life for Christ Jesus?

First things first, I am not writing this post to expose K Swift, because I personally do not know her. I pray her family be comforted during this time of grief. The reason I am writing this is to speak on some biblical truths on the death of those who we see living in sin. Am I saying that K Swift was a sinner? I am pointing the Christian to be honest about the lives of those people around them. What I mean is let’s stop playing games like everybody is going to heaven when the Word of God teaches otherwise.

What I do know of K Swift is that she was a popular 92Q Baltimore Club DJ that had a love for hip-hop and club music (
click here for article on her death). She had an accidental death which currently investigators are looking into whether she had alcohol in her system before she jumped into her pool at a late night party at her home. Rumors have been flying saying K-Swift was drunk when she dove into her pool. Supposedly no one recognized that she had not come back up because they were drunk as well. Whether that is true or not, I do not know. I’ve listened and danced in the clubs as well before, and such a lifestyle is not Christian nor glorifying to the Lord Jesus Christ.





Check out this You Tube clip and tell me if this is not so Christians? (I pulled this from the radio's YouTube Clip, if there's any offensive language or images, please forgive me)





Now, let’s jump into the scripture.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
(Matthew 16:24-26)

Clearly we see in verse 24, Jesus Christ describe the process of coming after Jesus Christ. A person must deny himself first, take up his cross second, and then follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The transliteration of the greek word for deny is aparneomai. This means to deny utterly, that is, disown, and abstain. Now, looking at the YouTube clip and reading the article, do you see such a denial? See the bible is very clear what a true Christian’s life look like. A good example of denial of self can be found in this scripture:

And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
(Luke 19:1-10)

Wow, Zacchaeus, showed his denial of his former ways in verse eight of Luke 19. His profession as a tax collector was no a well liked one. Zacchaeus was a sinner who renounced his sinful ways obeying the scripture in Leviticus 6:1-5 and Psalm 41:1. He denied himself.

So what happens to the person who does not do so? Simple, they do not receive eternal life, they go to hell. Don’t believe? The scriptures give us a great example:


There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
(Luke 16:19-31)

Does that open your eyes as to where you end up not following after Jesus Christ the Lord? Hell is real, and many are going!

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
(Matthew 7:13)

Since we see that the Lord does not play around, we should look at death as a serious matter. I believe we all have that question in the back of our mind when someone we know in sin dies. Did they go to hell? Well according to scriptures, if they were not a believer by their death, they are in a waiting place of torment until God’s judgment. When K-Swift died, and by looking at her YouTube clip, did a similar thought came to mind? People can say, “don’t judge and you don’t know?”. This is what I do know.

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
(John 3:1-21)

And this:

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
(Hebrews 9:27-28)

People are dying and hell is where many are going. Is Jesus Christ your Lord? Oh yes, I am debauched and filthy too, and should examine myself. The point is Christians, we have many around us dying and living the lives not worthy of the Gospel. Let us allow God to work in us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us obey the scriptures and live as the Word says we should live (Matthew 5:13-16). I leave you with this scripture. God bless.

Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul. Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live? Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.
(Ezekiel 33:1-15)


5 comments:

  1. I can't say what happened with regards to the death. But that video was offensive and sexually suggestive and no christian in their right mind would be in that environment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. True, so very true. I do know of many professing christians who feel that is okay!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello.

    at the risk of sounding nit-picky...

    Hell (as an eternal dwelling of the damned) is a teaching, like purgatory, that has no basis in scripture. It is a tradition that has become orthodox, but scripture as in most cases runs contrary to traditional viewpoints.
    Consider John 3:16 ... "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that as many as believe in Him may not PERISH but have Eternal Life."

    Life is a gift ... we are not owed life, but we each have it for a time. But it is inherently TEMPORARY ... having a beginning and an end. The doctrine of hell depicts no end ... no "PERISHING" ... but continued and unending conscious torment.

    In reality, to accept the very Life of God is to be made alive by His life ... a Life that is unending and unbeginning .. .ETERNAL. To reject that Life is to remain temporal ... having no Eternal destiny.

    To perish is to be UNFORMED to nothing .. and those that receive the second death to be made no more will have no thoughts to realize they have received it or not. Thoughts perish with the perishing

    The serpent said: "You shall surely not die." ... and the church has been repeating the refrain, even when such teaching goes against the most popular verse ... John 3:16.

    Perish means perish. Don't extrapolate a counter-scriptural dogma from the Lord's parable of Lazarus. That wasn't the point of the parable. Read revelation and see that even Hades, itself, is destroyed in the fire.

    Consider this:
    1/14/06 - From God the Father
    ...Shall I, even I, torment My beloved, they who are tormented continually by he who is, and has, torment in his vesture? Satan is the tormentor. ... Become, again, a child of God, and learn to walk uprightly, leading others into love, by love, not fear.MORE of this letter about unbiblical "hell" HERE

    18 reasons why in a single verse

    Theological Myth - Unending conscious torture

    ReplyDelete
  4. Don't mind a little nit picking. Thanks for your comment. I disagree. Check out this link from Let Us Reason:

    http://www.letusreason.org/Doct12.htm

    ReplyDelete
  5. 2Pe 3:10
    But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

    AMEN!

    There is coming a "last day" as it is written, in which "heaven and earth will pass away" or "be destroyed." The point is that the punishment is beyond the duration of those punished. It is like a man given 5 consecutive life sentences ... we are smarter then to think that such a man will automatically live five times as long then before his sentence. Rather, we intuitively know that he will not last until the duration of the sentence. So, when I read that there will be an "eternal punishment" for the damned, I do not believe that the damned have the eternal life needed to last in a perpetual conscious state nor withstand the fire longer then anything else in creation. Nor do I think God so cruel as to torment them until the time of breaking, and then waken the faint and mend their wounds so that He could torment them again, and once they break from that torment to bandage again and awaken them again just so that He could torment them some more. Surely, this is not consistent with any of scripture, yet that is the implication of saying that they will "suffer everlasting conscious punishment." Nor is it logical to say that those that LACK eternal life, will somehow be able to live eternally!?!?

    This is also typified when people use Mark 9:43-48 as support for the conscious torture notion - " 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." Is this Jesus' way of saying that everyone in hell is indestructible? Of course not, He is saying that the Fire is indestructible, NOT those thrown into it ... Likewise it is the worm that does not turn, not those subject to the worm that supposedly have enough substance to satisfy a worm that does not turn for ages and ages endlessly having enough to feed a worm that does not turn. That is not only counter to logic, but it is counter to what Jesus just said right before: "hell, where the fire never goes out." (verse 43)

    This error is also perpetuated by the mistranslation of this support passage: 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 "They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power"

    In Dallas we have a monument called the "eternal flame." It isn't really eternal, but for argument's sake, lets say that it really is. Now, if I take a blade of grass and put it in the fire, does the blade of grass become eternal or is it destroyed?

    This is quite obvious. The eternal fire does not make everything eternal that is exposed to it ... Rather the eternal fire destroys everything that is not likewise eternal.

    Hence, when one reads in scripture about everlasting destruction, one should not assume that whatever is destroyed becomes everlasting. That would be illogical and counter-intuitive. However, that is exactly what Christians are saying when they talk about unending conscious torture.

    Essentially, I gather that a prevalent myth is saying that every soul is indestructible / immortal and has everlasting life ... even those in the Eternal Fire subjected to the damnation. HOWEVER, immortality and everlasting life is a promise of the Gospel. What an empty offer that would be if everyone already had that! Christ's accomplishment on Calvary would have been in vain.

    "Fear the One that can destroy your soul."- Jesus, speaking of the Father.

    "Fear the One that would torment you til you pass-out, and then awaken you for more torment until you pass out, and on and on without an end. He couldn't destroy an immortal everlasting soul of the damned even if He tried." - Christians, while talking about the Father.

    See the difference?

    ReplyDelete

If you disagree with what has been said, you may comment, yet this comment section will not become a debate forum with me. I read all comments so please as well watch your language. Comments with profanity/evil intent/threats/ads for anti-Christ websites etc will not be published. Thank you for your comments.