For many ages now, the people of God have been asking, “how long?” This question suggests a longing, a longing for the Lord to set things straight.
It has been said that an individual is not truly ready to live for the Lord until he is willing and ready to die for Him. As a believer, one should not fear death.
It takes a person with strong conviction to be willing to die for a cause. However, the one martyred is not necessarily a mature and complete Christian.
There is one murder that far surpasses every other murder ever committed. That particular murder occurred when Jesus Christ was crucified.
Many who understand the wickedness involved in murder fail to realize that the scripture also warns “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.”
The people of God are to be a people full of the love of God, and as such, they should place the utmost value upon the lives of the innocent.
Capital punishment is not confined to the Old Testament and is not done to the exclusion of God’s grace, but rather as an act of God’s just judgment.
The Lord permits no rivals. In Isaiah 43:11, He said, “I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.” Yet, there is a battle on the horizon that will bring all matters to a head. The Antichrist will sit in the temple of God claiming to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). He will torture the people of God (the Jews) and blaspheme the name of God. He will set up his image and demand that the people worship him (Revelation 13:14-15). This peak of idolatry and blasphemy will lead to the culmination of God’s jealousy when He returns to judge the world (Revelation chapter 19).
Every true and honest Bible student readily confesses that the Bible identifies the Jewish people as the people of God. Unfortunately, the Jews repeatedly provoked the Lord to jealousy. In judgment for their indiscretions, the Lord promised to move the Jewish people to jealousy as He showed His favour unto a people “which are not a people.” According to the apostle Paul, this was fulfilled when the Lord turned to the Gentiles offering them salvation through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 10:19; Romans 11:11). This jealousy was not to be permanent. One day the Lord will again turn back to the Jewish people after the Rapture of the church.
Every person has done sinful things for which he was ashamed even prior to salvation (Romans 6:21). Some of those things are so wicked that the apostle Paul would not even mention what they were (Ephesians 5:12). The life of a Christian was never intended by God to be that way. According to verse 5 above, the Christian life is to be a life void of shame. This type of fulfilled life is only possible when hope is present for “hope maketh not ashamed.” Yet, every Christian must come to understand that hope is the outcome of a sometimes lengthy spiritual process. Here is the biblical sequence. If one properly endures tribulation, he learns to have patience. Patience, in turn, brings experience, and experience brings hope. All these things work together in the life of the believer to keep him from living a life of shame. There is truly no shame in a life lived with hope!
