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.
To steal is to wrongfully and selfishly take something that belongs to someone else and place it amongst one’s own possessions.
Any honest person, however, would have to confess that God hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
Paul’s salutation was so important to him that although he did not personally pen most of his epistles, he personally penned his salutation.
Do you want God's respect? The Lord said, “to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”
All the heartaches and troubles of this life will instantly cease when the born-again believer awakes with the likeness of the righteous Son of God.
The world is driven by self-preservation and self-promotion. Individually, the natural man is guided by self-serving motives. This should not be true of saints.
Often the best way to expose one’s motives involves asking and answering the question “Why?” This question may resurface at the judgment seat of Christ.
The Bible likens jealousy to a weapon. Lives are spared when this weapon rests in the bosom of someone with righteous motives. Yet, when the foolish wield this weapon, jealousy leads to destructive outcomes. The very thing that the Lord possesses to protect His people, His land, and His name, can push the ungodly men into an uncontrollable rage. God’s jealousy protects the righteous and consumes the guilty. Yet, the jealousy of an unrighteous man has consumed the lives of many innocent people. The Bible states that “jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame” (Song of Solomon 8:6). Misplaced jealousy is a most dangerous weapon.
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!
