JUDGMENT: Good or Evil Twin!

"All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left."

Matthew 25:32-33

Los Angeles County (California) deputies mistook Ray Nugent, for his fraternal twin brother, Jay, a federal fugitive wanted on bank robbery charges.

County supervisors are expected to approve a $150,000 settlement for Nugent, who spent 13 days in jail after being mistakenly identified as his fraternal twin brother, a federal fugitive suspected and bank robber.

“It was an unfortunate mistake,” principal Deputy County Counsel Roger Granbo told a local newspaper. “This was a very unusual case in which the FBI was looking for this guy, and we had his twin brother in custody.” Granbo said that “once the Sheriff’s Department confirmed he was not the person wanted in the warrant, it took them four days to release him, and that’s why we settled the case.”

“I never really got upset with my brother,” Nugent said. “Anybody can see that we don’t look alike. What really got me upset was that they made me a criminal because of what my twin brother did. They said, if I have a twin brother who did that, I must be like him too. It’s that mentality that disturbs me.” [“Good, evil twin: jail mix-up”; MSNBC/KNBC Channel 4 Los Angeles, November 30, 1999 at http://www.msnbc.com/local/knbc/275230.asp]

When we come before the Judge of judges none of God’s deputies will mistake the sheep from the goats.

No one will stand in the wrong line due to a bureaucratic error; no representative of heaven will appear before reporters to say, “It was an unfortunate mistake.”

And, praise be to God, no one will ever find us guilty by association. Just because we have brothers and sisters who’ve never been bathed in the precious blood of the Lamb, no will ever say to those who have, “If they aren’t then must not be either.”

We are in the hands of Almighty God whose Book of Life is written without error and whose Book of the Dead will clearly separate all goats from every sheep.

Christianity, Illustrations,
Judgment, Religion

SIN: The Most Deadly Virus Known to Man!

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ... "

Romans 3:23

Strains of what is believed to be the most deadly virus on earth have been discovered, British scientists announced recently. Dubbed the "Spanish flu," the virus struck the world in 1918, killing over 40 million people.

Initial examinations of the virus have already provided clues as to what made it so lethal, The London Times reports. The strain of influenza was believed to have become extinct in the 1920s, however a team of researchers has isolated it in the frozen bodies of six young coal miners buried on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen.
Researchers had long suspected the virus might be preserved in bodies buried above the Arctic Circle. Fragments of the virus have been found before, but never in an organ other than the lungs.

Scientists may now trace how the virus spread throughout the body. They are currently working to map the bug's RNA, which should identify what made it so deadly. [By Discovery.com News Brief; November 16, 1999]

Wouldn’t it be fascinating if we could look for and find the bug we call sin? This bug has probably killed billions. Perhaps we could find it in the bodies of those we call sinners – the lost who’ve died? Then we could find out what makes it so lethal and why it spreads so rapidly throughout the body of man. Then we could find a vaccine for it! Right?

Wrong! The Bible already tells us what causes sin and why it spreads so rapidly throughout the body of man. God says it’s a heart condition; He says it’s because of foolish pride and rebellion that we’ve seen countless thousands perish daily in their sins.

Oh, the virus itself and its affects are preserved in the bodies of those who’ve died in their sins. God will reveal them on judgment day. No scientist will be needed to find them, they will be self-apparent.

Christianity, Illustrations,
Religion, Sin

JUDGMENT: Guilty as charged!

"… on the day when … God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus."

Romans 2: 16

The news media reported that Jeremy Strohmeyer – a California teenager who avoided the death penalty by confessing to the brutal rape and murder of a 7-year-old (Sherrice Iverson) in a Nevada casino – was seeking a new trial. Strohmeyer, of Long Beach, California, said his attorney, Leslie Abramson, bullied him into accepting the plea bargain.

Strohmeyer was convicted of murder in a Clark County, Nev., court and sentenced to life in prison a year ago. He has since filed a petition for a new trial.

“In attempting to convince Strohmeyer to take the plea, Abramson resorted to blatantly emotional attacks, telling him he was guilty, that he deserved to be punished and that he deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison,” according to the petition. A judge will consider his petition Jan. 10, 2000. Abramson said she had not seen the petition and declined to comment.

The former straight-A student blamed drugs and alcohol – and his genes – for contributing to the murder. Strohmeyer, who had been chasing Sherrice around a game room for children, followed her into restroom, where he strangled and raped her.

The Bible says, "… it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

Unlike, the courts of man, at God’s judgment bar there’ll be no appeals, no new trials, no attorney’s pleading, no delays, and no excuses; there will be no drugs, genes, neighbors or parents to blame.

The Bible says, the books will be opened and every man’s deeds, whether good or evil, will be laid bare (Ecclesiastes 12:14); God's decision will be final. No one in Hell will be able to shake a fist at Heaven and claim, “This is a mistake, I don’t belong here!”

Christianity, Illustrations,
Judgment, Religion

BLOOD - O' The Precious Blood!

AS CLEAR AS MUD! [1 Samuel 16:7; cleansing, heart, righteousness]

Rudy, one of the men in our church, took on the job of cleaning and waxing the floor of the ladies bathroom. After stripping the floor, we both marveled at how clean it was compared to its earlier condition. I then had to leave to run a few errands.

While I was gone, Rudy decided to try a detergent cleanser on the floor, just to see if it might improve the appearance even further.

I returned in the middle of his efforts. Half of the already once-cleaned floor was bright and like new, the other dark with grime ... this was the same floor we’d just a short while earlier thought was "very" clean.

Man labors in his efforts to live a clean life ... but the Bible says "there are none righteous, no not one" [Romans 3:10-18]. Man examines himself and says, "I’m not so bad! At least not as bad as so-and-so." But God doesn’t look at the outer man, as we do. What we see with our natural eyes appears clean but what God sees is far from clean.

The blood of Jesus cleanses in such a way that is beyond man’s understanding. That which is stained permanently black from sin is cleansed to pure white. Had we known how truly dirty the floor was in the first place perhaps we would not have been fooled into believing it clean. Were man to know how desperately polluted his sins have made him he would never claim to be "Worse than some but better than most; after all I’ve never murdered anyone or robbed a bank or plundered and raped."


BLOOD STAINED TESTIMONY! [1 Peter 1:19; atonement, power]

A Gideon friend recently told of how their well-known, pearl-white New Testaments were distributed to the Pacific Fleet prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

He also told of how, on a later occasion, the evangelist Harry Rimmer was speaking to a meeting of believers interested in military evangelism. During the speech, Dr. Rimmer displayed his own personal copy of the white Pacific Fleet New Testament.

Following the meeting, a member of the audience tarried to show Dr. Rimmer another white New Testament, one given to his son prior to the bombing of the Hawaiian base ... one stained with blood. The man smiled and said, "Yes … this little book is very precious … it’s … stained with the blood of my son." Dr. Rimmer paused for a moment, then held up his personal Bible and said, "God feels the same way about that Book. He loves [it] too. Its pages are stained with the blood of His Son." [Thanks to Brian Stromsoe, of The Gideons, for recently sharing this vignette with our church.]

Indeed it is; each page of Holy Writ is covered with that precious, precious blood which flowed from pierced and bleeding side of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.


MAJOR FOWL UP! [1 Peter 1:17-19; iniquity, licentiousness, permissiveness, secular humanism, sin]

Except for two weeks out of the year, Geese are federally protected game birds. Yet they're killing cattle. Recently a Virginia Beef Corp. spokesman informed WorldNetDaily (WND) that wildlife protections have resulted in overpopulation of the species; they’re crowding – and fouling – pastures where livestock graze.

WND was told that goose droppings, which carry swine and other viruses, are causing a profusion of stillbirths among heifers. Some 65 calves, valued at about $3,000 each on the market, have been lost this year at Virginia Beef's Louden County, Va., pastures … only one of many such pastures affected.

Similarly, federal protection of sin has resulted in the eternal damnation of tens of thousands of American citizens. In recent years representatives of the Christian community have been trying to warn public and private groups about the ever increasing problems associated with the licentious and permissive behavior of our fellow citizens.

Like most birds, sinners have been fouling their own and our nests with government sanction. The absence of moral clarity and its accompanying devaluation of human life has resulted in a holocaust of murders among unborn children. This moral and ethical dysfunction has brought about the eternal loss of an untold number of Americans … at what cost? Just the precious blood of Jesus!

GRIEF/MOURNING: Reserved for Those Left Behind!

Heavy-laden Pebble Droppers [Matthew 11:28-29; Love, Weariness]

Barney Visser lost a son to an inherited illness. It devastated him. To compensate for the grief he wrote and published a memorial booklet in his son’s honor. The book is titled Chad and is authored by “Dad.” In the book Visser shares a poignant illustration concerning the handling of grief; the following paraphrases that ...

Grief is like carrying a backpack filled with pebbles. Each pebble is like an particle of grief. “We must carry that pack the rest of our lives,” Visser says. “There are pebbles in some … pockets we’ll never … get rid of.”

The objective for the grieving is to get through each day, one day at a time, dropping pebbles as we go, and one pebble at a time. If we don’t, we will become stooped and heavy-laden, unable to accept other burdens life has to offer. As time goes on, we will feel the load grow lighter.

[Barry Visser, Chad, © Barry Visser, 1998, p.11]

How Deep Is Your Grief [Revelation]

Watching the second episode of NBC's new mini-serial, Revelations, was not as "edge of the seat" as episode one, but the personal reward was worth the whole television season.

Co-star Dr. Richard Massey, an astro-physicist, (co-star Bill Pullman) is patiently hearing-out a nun he'd just met, when the subject of death comes up. Massey offhandedly refers to his daughter's murder at the hands of Satanists, expressing the grief he feels.

The nun, a close friend of Sister Jo (co-star Natascha McElhone), responds, "Grief is God's way of letting us know the true depth of the love we have for the one over whom we grieve. To the extent we love, that is the extent to which we grieve." [my paraphrase; I refuse to buy a transcript and I don't have Tivo].

This is deep, introspective, and reflective. Think about those who do not grieve when loved ones die; may we say they do not grieve because the did not love? Think about those who grieve deeply and long; may we say they loved deeply and genuinely?

Think now about the Son of God on the Cross of Calvary dying for the sins of the whole world; may we say that the Father grieved perfectly over the death of His son because He loved perfectly? How deep is that love?

TIMES GONE BY! [2 Samuel 12:19-23; other topics - Death, Guilt, Regret]

I was told of a woman who had been hung up on by her best friend; she was so shocked that she sat for a long time just listening to the dial tone. It wasn’t until the phone company determined the line was dead and disconnected her that she broke down and cried.

Some people are like that when they lose a loved one. They just can’t accept what has happened, so they go through each day listening to a line that has gone dead.

Death definitely separates the dead from the living, but some of the living are hanging on for dear life. They evidently regret things said, things not done, or times gone by. It’s not until something breaks their grip on the dead that real crying and grieving begin, and then it’s deep and passionate.

We must understand that it’s before our loved ones die that we must apologize to them, love them, forgive them, and enjoy them … not after. It’s too late after the connection is severed.

Responsibility

Responsibility (as in accepting it) [Galatians 6:3-5]

In the 1998 AFC playoffs, the Buffalo Bills were playing the Miami Dolphins; at a critical point in the game Doug Flutie, the Bills’ quarterback, fumbled the ball when he was blind-sided by a Dolphin defender. In the next huddle, Flutie pounded his chest and yelled, “It was me, it was me!” reassuring his teammates they had not failed, he had.

Here is a multimillion dollar athlete accepting responsibility rather than playing the blame game.