Articles
Death Bed Repentance
Death Bed Repentance
By Paul R. Blake
An erring Christian who decides to wait until he is dying to confess his sins has no promise of forgiveness. How can he possibly make an honest untainted repentance? In point of fact, he has tried to exploit what he sees as a loophole in God's second law of pardon by choosing to sin as long as he can. He is no different from the man who says to himself, “I will sin tonight, and in the morning, I will repent and be forgiven.” Because the man waiting for his deathbed has no intention to bring forth fruit meet for repentance, his confession is meaningless. I would tell any man who is intentionally delaying his repentance that he has little hope if he waits for his deathbed to repent. This is a form of tempting God. Consider, if an un-baptized sinner confesses Christ on his deathbed, can he be saved without baptism? No, he must keep the command to be baptized. Likewise with the erring Christian who confesses on his deathbed; he cannot keep the command to “bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” He is just as lost as the un-baptized sinner who merely confesses Christ's name on his deathbed. The moral of this story for erring Christians: Stop tempting God, confess your sins, and straighten up your lives.
Books "Missing" From the Bible?
By Ethan R. Longhenry
In recent times we have seen an explosion of material alleging that the Bible that we have is not complete. Many theories have been advanced that speak of all kinds of other books that were "banned" from the Bible, "taken out" of the Bible, and other such ideas, and that such was done by the Catholics in the fourth century. These ideas, which have been circulating for some time, have received renewed interest on account of the popularity of Dan Brown's book, The da Vinci Code, the movie based on the book that has recently been released, and the recent unveiling of the discovery of the "lost" Gospel of Judas. Many television channels, taking advantage of the popularity of this subject, have aired stories involving professors and some "authorities" from various denominations talking about these various books and calling into question the validity of the Bibles we possess. Perhaps you have heard something about these stories, read some of the information, or perhaps have seen the movie or the television shows. Maybe you are wondering: were there books taken out of the Bible? Can we trust the Bible?
Unfortunately, the subject matter at hand is rather obscure and most often left to the academic community, and involves a lot of names and people from days gone by. We will try to make some sense of this matter now. We should first say that yes, there are books claiming to be gospels or letters of Apostles or other such works that were written in the second through fourth centuries. These books are not present in the Bible.
It is important to note, however, exactly why these books are not present in the Bible. They are not present in the Bible, not because they were banned from it or taken out of it by some conspiring Catholics, but because they were not written by the Apostles, and more often than not, were written by a group of heretics called the Gnostics.
The Gnostics were people who mixed Greek philosophy and Christianity and developed a religion unsuitable to either. On the Christian end, they were roundly condemned even in the New Testament on account of their denial that Jesus was really a man, that He really died, and that the God of the Old Testament is the one true God. We can read about such matters in 2 Timothy 2:16-18, John 1:1-18; 1 John 1:1; 1 John 4:2-3; and 2 John 1:7, where both Paul and John teach against the ideas that the resurrection was past and that Jesus was not born in the flesh, both concepts present in Gnosticism and featured in the various gospels and other works attributed to them. We can see why, then, the Gnostic writings were rejected.
These "missing" books were never really missing; we knew of their existence because the early Christians who opposed them would write about their beliefs and the books they were writing.
In the end, we must recognize that these books are not in the Bible because they have no right to be in the Bible. They were not written by inspired men, the majority of them were written by people who were trying to advance views contrary to those found in the New Testament, and they were rejected on the basis of sound deliberation, and rejected as soon as they were written. Let us not be disturbed in our faith because of these books, and we can be confident in the truth of the Bible.
“Attend the Church of Your Choice”?
Jesus did not die for "the church of YOUR choice. He died for the church of HIS choice. We may not like the Bible's answers, but the Bible's answers are always right. The Bible does not say one thing to you and another to me. If we don't hear the same thing, the problem lies in the hearing. (Bill Brown, via Bible Answers)
A Moments Wisdom
--Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.
--Speak as little as may be of thy neighbor or of anything that concerns him, unless an opportunity offers to say something good of him.
--A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake, as by never repeating it.
--Doubters invert the metaphor and insist that they need faith as big as a mountain in order to move a mustard seed.
--The sun, with all those planets moving round it, can ripen the smallest bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else to do. Why then should I doubt God’s power?
--Why didn't someone tell me that I could become a Christian and settle the doubts afterward?
--The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.
--Let men laugh, if they will when you sacrifice desire to duty. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.
--The only good thing that can be said of an egotist is that he seldom gossips about other people.
--Envy slays itself by its own arrows.
--As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.
--When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.
--The defect of equality is that we only desire it with our superiors.
--The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity.
--He who has no vision of eternity has no hold on time.
--Learn to hold loosely all that is not eternal.
--Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
--Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.
Upcoming Sermons
4/23/23 AM - “Open My Eyes that I May See”; PM - “While I was Busy Here and There”
4/30/23 AM - Telling the Truth to Myself; PM - Guest Speaker: Doug Sanders - On This Rock
5/7/23 AM - Noah’s Ark and the Lord’s Church; PM - Worship in Song: Congregational Choice of Songs
5/14/23 AM - How Far Will I Go to Break with the World?; PM - How Far Will I Go to Find Jesus?
5/21/23 AM & PM - Gospel Meeting with Kent Heaton - May 21-26
5/28/23 AM - How to Recognize a Faithful Christian; PM - Isolating the Saints
