Men could know the truth if they desired to know it. Sadly, most men refuse to pursue and know the truth made so readily available unto them.
More knowledgeable Christians should never mock or disdain weaker believers, nor should they become stumblingstones toward these brethren.
After Christ removes the church, He will establish the time of Jacob’s trouble. After this, Christ will return as a thief in the night to make up His jewels.
Far too often, the world views children as a burden. In fact, some parents of larger families have been questioned for their strange or foolish behaviour in birthing so many children into the world. God, however, views children differently from that of the world. To the Lord, children are a blessing. They are a reward given by God (Psalm 127:3) and are “as arrows in the hand of a mighty man” (Psalm 127:4). Today, couples are made to feel ashamed for having larger families, but the scriptures teach otherwise. Instead of shame for having children, the Bible says, “Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them” (Psalm 127:5). Not only would this man experience personal happiness, but he would gain such respect that he could “speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:5).
In the Bible, jealousy, similar to anger, is closely associated to a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 29:20; Psalm 79:5; Ezekiel 36:5; Ezekiel 38:19). As man provokes the Lord to jealousy, the Lord responds with judgment. At times, that judgment may be the consumption of the one who provoked the Lord. At other times, that consumption may be directed toward the very thing that the man put before the Lord. Either way, God’s jealousy is a consuming fire (Zephaniah 1:18; Zephaniah 3:8). In one biblical instance, the zeal of a man named Phinehas stopped the consuming fire of God’s jealousy (Numbers 25:11). Men should wisely seek the Lord today in hopes of delaying the fire of God’s wrath and anger upon their nations and homes.
A man who loses hope loses his primary motivation for doing right and living holy. The Bible reveals what men do when they have no hope: “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). If there is no hope in a resurrection, man sees no reason to cease to go after his strange gods (Jeremiah 2:25) or follow “the imagination of his evil heart” (Jeremiah 18:12). If there is no judgment after death, or if the Lord is not soon returning, then the greatest impetus for living the Christian life is lost. Man needs a special motivation to help him to live a life of purity. He should live in purity because He loves the Lord. Yet, the answer lies in the fact that the Lord is coming soon, and man will stand before Him to give an account, and all those who have this particular hope will purify themselves, “even as he [Jesus] is pure.” Hope makes all the difference!
It may appear at times as though the wicked have all the advantage over the righteous, but it is important to note that the LORD has never lost His control of this world. The Bible says of God that His soul hateth “him that loveth violence.” Yet, “The LORD trieth the righteous” and often accomplishes this through the wickedness of the wicked. According to the psalms, the wicked “bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart” (Psalm 11:2), and the Lord allows this to happen. Why? Because He wants to reveal the hearts of those who claim to fear Him. In the end, the Lord will take care of His own but will “rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest” upon the wicked (Psalm 11:6).
Man is not saved by works; however, through the new birth, he is “created in Christ Jesus unto” (Ephesians 2:10) and should be “zealous of” (Titus 2:14) good works. The Lord could easily save a man and immediately take him to heaven, but He chooses to leave man here on this earth to do a work for Him. Though the Lord’s work on this earth is made up of many details, it always includes “the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). Similar to the responsibility to tell others about a known cure for a dreaded disease, every Christian has the responsibility to express to others their knowledge of the cure for the coming judgment of God and how to be reconciled to God.
God tells us in His word that He never intended for a marriage to end in divorce. He desires for one man and one woman to remain together until death parts the two asunder. Divorce would be nonexistent apart from sin (Mark 10:5). Just as God hates sin, He also hates the results of sin. Instead of recognizing God’s true feelings for divorce, men often seek to justify their sinful choices suggesting that God understands and would not want them to remain in an unhappy environment. As sin increases, men’s opinions concerning divorce continue to drift away from God. Years ago, communities, families, and churches frowned upon the act of divorce; however, today divorce has become accepted as the norm rather than the exception. Unfortunately, divorce is not only accepted in the world but readily accepted in the pew and the pulpit.
Marriage involves a relationship between a man and a woman, but what constitutes a scriptural marriage? Scripturally speaking, it is not merely “flesh joining flesh.” This is plain in that a man could marry a wife only to find that she had been unfaithful with another man to whom she was not married (Deuteronomy 24:1; Matthew 5:32). It is also clear that Shechem defiled Dinah, but then asked if she could become his wife (Genesis 34:1-4). The woman at the well had an improper relationship with a man, but the Lord declared that that particular man was not her husband (John 4:16-18). Instead, marriage occurs when God joins a man and a woman (Genesis 2:21-24; Mark 10:9), and it is often established by a ceremony with vows given to each other (Matthew 22:1-13; John 2:1-2).
