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Forgiveness without repentance is permissiveness

Forgiveness restores relationship, prevents you from holding a “grudge”, and eliminates the need to take “revenge”.

However, forgiveness does not mean to restore trust. Trust is earned.

If a person has been abusive or untrustworthy, we can and should forgive.

However, don’t leave yourself in a vulnerable or dangerous situation – that would be foolish. Forgiveness does not mean that you need to be a doormat.

So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

Col 2:16-19

We love to have our ego “petted” when people comment on how open minded and tolerant we are.

We get such a charge out of this, we forget to ask, “Does God approve of what I believe?”

No, antichrist will perform miracles and deceive many. (Matthew 24:24)

Anything that contradicts Scripture is not from God.

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:8-9).”

Charles Blondin, AKA The Great Blondin, was a 19th century French acrobat and tightrope walker. In 1859 he became the first person to traverse 1100 feet across the 160-foot high gorge beneath Niagara Falls on a tightrope. In a demonstration of his skill, he then did it several more times including being blindfolded, pushing a wheelbarrow, wearing stilts, and carrying a man on his back.

After demonstration of his skill it is easy for many people to believe that Blondin could cross the wire with a person riding on his back.

It is a totally different thing to be trust him enough for you to be the volunteer to be carried on his back across the chasm…

Folks hem haw around when confronted with “how can you say yours is the right way and condemn everyone else to hell”

The thing is, it is not about you or me. It is about the truth of God’s word. It will not be my beliefs and standards or your beliefs and standards that we will be judged by.

It is God’s standard that we will be held to on that day. He has revealed His standard in scripture.

Don’t respond and try to defend “your point of view”, just refer folks to God’s word.

My confidence is NOT in myself, “my beliefs”, or “my way”. It is not about me at all.

Instead my confidence is God’s Word and what truth God has chosen to reveal to us through scripture in a way we can understand.

Don’t hem haw around, remember, this is your opportunity to present the Gospel.

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

(Picture courtesy of my daughter who completed it as a project for her Bible class)

Salvation is NOT an experience…

Granted some people may report that they had some life altering experience or great emotional upheaval when they were saved. That is all well and good for those who have had an experience.

The thing to avoid is putting your faith in “experiences”.

The problem comes when:

1) People don’t think they were saved because they didn’t have an experience

-or-

2) People think they are not saved because they do not continue to “feel” saved.

How do you know you are saved?

Because the Bible tells you so!

All you need is to put your trust in what the Lord has told us!

I hear a lot of folks say that it is wrong to “cause divisions” by pointing out something that is “wrong” or be “negative” in any way.

These folks will get in your face and say “the bible says to ‘mark them which cause divisions'”.

Unfortunately, this is a classic example of taking a verse out of context and not even quoting the entire verse…

Romans 16:17
Now I beseech you, brothers, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned; and avoid them.

Notice that the ones who are causing divisions are the ones spreading false doctrines or teachings contrary to the simplicity of the gospel, not the people who are telling the truth.

“Mark them” means to point them out for the purpose of avoiding them.

We are admonished in the Bible to “prove all things and hold fast to that which is good” (1Thes 5:21). We can test any teachings using the light of scripture. We are then charged by scripture to point out those who teach false doctrine so that people will know to avoid them.

This is neither “positive” or “negative”, it is just sticking to the truth.