75 Question 29 If men won’t obey God’s law, are they saved?

Titus 1:16  “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.”

Faith is not just a belief about the creation of the world nor is it simply knowledge of the relationship between the almighty God and mortal man; it is a way of life.

So then, if this way of life is being treated merely as a theological belief, such as a set of beliefs boxed away in the back of the mind, receiving no spiritual food and having no actual place in life, is it actually faith?

James 2:16-20  “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.  You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!   Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?”

According to James, no, faith without works is dead and a dead plant is no plant just as a person who has stored faith away in the attic of their mind is dead to their faith, living not by the spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:15  “And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

Luke 3:9  “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 

75 Question 28

Back to the previous theme in Question 27, recognizing people by their fruit, would you know a false prophet proclaiming many things in the name of Jesus if you saw/hear one?

Matthew 7:15-20 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.  You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

Do not think that it will not happen, as Christians we are salt and light through Jesus Christ to the world, but Satan hates that, he hates us because we have not fallen for his lies about worldly joy so he tries to deceive us with false Christian leaders.

Look for actions beyond the physical labors that cannot be seen at first glance such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control; these fruits will grow from good plants and with them you will recognize the wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Matthew 5:13-14 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”

Matthew 7:22-23  “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

Galatians 5:22-23  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Galatians 5:19-21  “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

TTSR Power To The Parasites

The necessity of proof for a court case to be legitimate has been thrown out of the window leaving many cases up to a jury to decide who is right based on the words of lawyers and to decide how much the ‘guilty’ party will pay, which I believe is more than just an indicator that the US courts are failing, rather, it says something about the United States in general.

Because justice is no longer top priority, wealth is up for grabs at the expense of the successful, causing a new attitude of parasitism to grow in the minds of thousands (welfare does not help matters any).

Basic fact of history: nothing parasitically infested thrives, succeeds, or lives long, example: near the fall of the great Roman Empire, government hand outs were all that supported the masses of people that had taken to living off the wealth of others just as Americans are doing now.

75 Question 27 How can we love God but ignore His law?

1 John 2:3-5  “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.  Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.  By this we may know that we are in him”

If we love God in our hearts it will show through in our actions, for a son that loves his mother will not take his inheritance and leave her desolate, but will stay near, caring for her through old age.

How much more should we love our heavenly Father who sent His only son to die for our sins while we were still sinners, how much more should love come through in our obedience to God’s law?

No one is perfect or without sin, but when a man continues to live in sin, not keeping God’s commandments, by his actions we know he is not apart of the body of Christ for 1 John 5:18 says “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.”

Matthew 15:6 “He need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.”

Matthew 22:36-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.”

TTSR Gun Control Myths: Part I and II

 Gun control is yet another thing that is nothing new to westerners, neither is the rambling of politicians on the dangers of guns that clearly ignore the historical records of crime raising in areas as soon as gun control laws were put in place.

Why shouldn’t they when criminals are fully armed while the ‘law abiding’ citizens have handed over their one source of defense in exchange for the hope that police will receive their calls for help in time to race in and save the day, at least for those who have a chance to make a phone call.

The real reason the government is issuing all these Gun Control laws is not because guns are dangerous, that is just a ruse, but to gain control over people such that they can say ‘If’ people can have guns, ‘Who’ can have a gun, ‘What’ kind of gun, ‘When’ and ‘Where’ they can use it.

Matthew 26:51-52 “And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”

75 Question 26 Isn’t it immoral for people to have sex with animals?

 Leviticus 18:23  “And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.”

Leviticus is clear that no one should lie with an animal under pain of death (Exodus 22:19), but since that is in the Old Testament, and many Christians believe that the Old Testament laws are of little importance unless they are referenced or decreed in the New Testament, is it still a legitimate law to be followed?

By all means, this sin is absolutely abhorrent, even to many of the worldly it is blatantly wrong, but if Christians needed any New Testament references for this subject, they would be 1 Corinthians 6:18-19 “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.”

The Old Testament is not irrelevant because it holds the laws of the old covenant; its laws are still of importance, even the laws for sacrifice hold historical and prophetic importance.

Exodus 22:19 “Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death.”

Leviticus 18:24-25 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.”

75 Questions 25 and 75 Did Christ Die for All Men? Aren’t there two kinds of salvation?

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

If Christ died for all men as Hebrews 9:26 says he did, then the gift of salvation is free to every man who believes in him, for we know that the price of the sins of the world was paid in full.

If every man can be saved, and every man knows of God as Paul says in Romans*, then man is utterly without excuse when he faces his Creator in judgment.

So then, is there another kind of grace, a common grace that God gives to all people, even unsaved, as the life they are now living on the earth and as the joys that all men receive at varying degrees?

*Romans 1:18-23 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

1 Timothy 4:4 “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,”

Hebrews 9:26  “For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

TTSR Aborted Knowledge

Abortion is nothing new these days since the masses have accepted that it happens and although many do not agree with it, they are powerless to fight against it because, thanks to regulations and the media, nothing is taught about the termination of infants even though sex is freely taught, images included.

The sad truth is we have been taught so little that many people, abortion doctors included, do not even know what a baby looks like before it is born, much less the morbid methods of performing a “late-term abortion”, one of which includes pulling the child out feet first, decapitating it before the head comes out, inserting a vacuumed into the mother and sucking the brains from the severed head to collapse it^[1].

Now that the above sentence has ‘moved’ you, you can see how we have been mislead into believing there was only flesh in the womb or that abortion methods are 'safe'.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dilation_and_extraction

http://www.abort73.com/

TTSR Law On Trial

You may think that the system of a double standard justice as it pertains to ethnicity is long gone, but it has managed to come back with a change of tactics, as can be seen in the four cop shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York City where a man described by a bystander as suspicious was shot when police officers, who also considered his behavior suspicious, thought the black square object he pulled after his retreat was a gun and even more so when one of the investigating officers fell backward. 

It was discovered that the officer had not been shot but had lost his balance on the stairs and that the supposed gun was Amadou Diallo’s wallet; none of these dismal circumstances that lead to the cops grave misunderstanding seemed to interest the media or the big shots that were quick to point the finger and take the side of the fallen African immigrant to inflate their own popularity.

As the story gained publicity, the media twisted the story into a cold blooded murder by 41 bullets, a number that is not surprising considering their were four police officers that did not stop shooting until the threat that they thought had opened fire was down.

75 Question 24 Isn’t faiths in Christ the gift of God?

2 Timothy 2:24-26 “And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, table to teach, patiently enduring evil,  correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”

“God may perhaps grant them repentance” means that repentance is a gift from God, therefore, is not faith in Christ a gift from God that we cannot attain by our works but from God, who chooses who shall be given the gift and who will be snared by the devil?

James 1:17  “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

If so, is faith a gift too?  If not, is it a work that can be done to receive salvation from God after he has given us a spirit of repentance, making salvation attainable through works?

If faith is not something we ourselves do, an action, then it must be gift from the Father, but then, that would make both repentance and faith gifts from God making salvation solely from Him, without us having the choice to ‘do it’ or not, in other words, we do not choose salvation but God chooses it for us.

2 Peter 1:3  “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,”

Titus 3:5  “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,” 

Personal thoughts on life perspectives

It doesn’t have to be our way all the time; sometimes we need to stop looking at self, our decisions and what ‘we’ are working toward and look to the Father for His direction.  He will never lead us into a place without purpose or good.  Please stop thinking about yourself and look around.  See the people you impact, whether you are a help to them or the one gaining the help.  There is give and take in every relationship and you must be a giver, a generous giver.  Don’t hold back because “no good thing has” our Father in heaven withheld “from us”.  We might say, “That’s not true. That sports car would be good for me and I don’t have it.” God does not see as we see and a sports car might distract you from your family or eat up money that needs to be saved for a later purpose.  There are times when we should step back, look at the bigger picture and how what we are doing right now fits into that.  Your priorities change when the short term becomes a piece of the long term because that new wallet you’ve been looking at appears relatively unimportant compared to the new house you are going to have in a few years.  The shallow relationships that will be gone in a year or less look pathetic next to the marriage God has for you.  The learning you are doing now is one step on the road to your carrier that must be accomplished but is not life long or do or die.

Focus on the important things while you are still able to make a difference for yourself and those around you.  

75 Question 22 and 23 Isn’t God’s grace irresistible and His will absolutely sovereign?

Daniel 4:35  “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

2 Timothy 1:9  “Who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,”

God in His sovereignty has dominion over all things, that includes us, our decisions and actions but He does not micro manage our lives; so then, does He make His chosen elect accept His gift of grace because if someone is chosen by God how can they choose contrary to His will?

Proverbs 1:23 “If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.”

The word “If” is key because it refers to a choice and a choice wipes away any pretenses of grace being forced upon us or us being ‘programmed’ into having a relationship with God.

The most important part of our lives is a choice, and as Joshua said “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and you offspring may live.”

TTSR Love Those Killers!

 You would think that anyone who hears about morbid child killings such as Andrea Yates, the women who drowned each of her five children ranging from age 7 to 6 months one at a time, would be horrified, appalled or angered, but no; instead of feeling those things many of the ‘famous’ and popular people decided to sympathize with the mother murderer saying things like “I felt such overwhelming empathy for her of what it must have been like for her to do that”− Rosie O’Donnell.

Not only do some sympathize with killers over victims, many people in places of power would rather provide for the offender as they did in Britain when two 10 year olds brutally tortured a 2 year old toddler to death and now as teenagers are living freely with their families while costing the British people 2 million dollars to pay for their homes and ‘spending’ money.

It should seriously bother us when more care and attention is given to homicidal killers than to mothers whose children have been forever stolen, husbands who have lost their entire families due to one they loved, or children that lost their lives to one they trusted undoubtedly.  

Ezekiel 23:39  “For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And behold, this is what they did in my house.” 

Psalm 5:10  “Make them bear their guilt, O God;

let them fall by their own counsels;

because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out,

for they have rebelled against you.”

75 Question 21 Could the authorities have acted righteously and released Jesus?

Acts 4:27-28 “For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.”

We will never know the ‘what if’s of history, for we can never go back or completely understand the reasoning behind decisions that were not our own, but with biblical matters, we have the advantage of the Bible and through that we can have a better understanding of the will of God that “works all things together for the good of those who love Him.”

In John 7:30 and John 8:20 we see two instances where the Pharisees would have arrested Jesus but they were not allowed to because it was not Jesus’ time.

Then in John 19:11 Jesus said “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”; the text is clear that the Pharisees could do nothing to Jesus except what the Lord permitted them to do, but in this instance, the time had come for Jesus to be taken and the price of all sins to be paid.

John 7:30 “So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.”

John 8:20 “These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.”

John 19:11 “Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.””

TTSR Justice For Little Angelo

Little Angelo was only eight months old when his father ruthlessly shook him to death over the unsupervised Christmas visit social workers allowed after the many incidents the Angelo family had of harming children, the first of which involving Little Angelo when he was but a few days old he was taken to the hospital for multiple broken bones.

Nevertheless, the social services overlooked the severity of the abuse and, instead of taking him away from his parents to be adopted by one of the many families that long to have a child, which was legal due to the extent of his injuries, Little Angelo’s parents were put through “Family reunification services”; this was the tried and untrue method of helping abusive families change their ways so they could get their children back.

There were multiple warning signs that the social workers ignored until after his father was convicted, probably because they wanted their programs to work so badly, like seeing fear in the little boy’s eyes when the time came for parental visits, bruises on his body after visits, and the fact that his sister had already been taken away from the parents for reasons the social workers disregarded, thus, making them and everyone who overlooked the obvious participants in the crime. 

75 Question 20 How can an unregenerate man accept Christ?

1 Corinthians 2:14 “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

1 Corinthians 2:14 clearly states that those who are not apart of the body of Christ do not understand the things of God such as the Bible, for they are foolishness to them* because they must be spiritually perceived; So how does the unregenerate man receive Christ if he does not recognize him?

It is only by God’s grace that we see things differently and can accept Jesus into our heart** as we are spiritually undiscerning until we are filled with the Holy Spirit.

In God’s mercy, He has given many the revelation of grace*** but He has not revealed it to all for Romans 9: 18 says “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.”

* 1 Corinthians 1:23-24  “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

** Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,”

***Matthew 22:14  “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

1 Corinthians 2:9-13 “But, as it is written,

 “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.  For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.  Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.  And we impart this tin words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

TTSR Penny-Wise On Crime

It never ceases to amaze me how the political left can rant and rave to ‘Cut’ spending that will help people in the process while they do the exact opposite behind their curtain of lies as they have been doing for over 200 years for criminals, trying to get them light sentences if any.

They claim a 5-year imprisonment costs more than $50,000 when five years of “Intensive probation” would cost less than $9,000 but what they intentionally leave out is the cost of criminals let loose upon society which is an estimated $10,000 a year less than the costs inflicted on society such as theft, rape, murder, and the fearful mental threats they represents to the innocent productive people.

Convicts are human leeches; liability incurring leeches that suck up tax payers money, the time of courts, lawyers, and officers, the purity of the young, and the blood of the innocent; all these things the Left would overlook to put their agendas through to look like money saving societal heroes in the eyes of the naive.