NEVER GIVE UP!

I heard a young Evangelist give an awesome testimony last night about when his grandma was saved.  It made me cry and it made me want to dance around the room :-).  I’ll tell it as best as I can recall.

As a young boy the Evangelist prayed for his grandma’s salvation every Sunday in Sunday School and continued to pray throughout his adult years. She remained uninterested in the things of God and she never went to church. Then one day, when she was in her 70’s, she called him on the phone and asked him to come over.  He thought she just wanted to visit and was going to cook him some breakfast like she always did, but he said there was no aroma of anything cooking as he walked into the house.  

His grandma looked at him and said  …

I am old and I am dying and I have rejected God my whole life.  I don’t want to go to hell, I want to get right with God.  Do you think there is hope for me?

The Evangelist opened his Bible and explained God’s Word and the way of salvation to his grandma.  She said to her grandson …

Can I do this now, can I get saved now?

And so, in a little house somewhere in the mountains, his weeping grandma became a child of God, another soul came into God’s Kingdom, and the angels in heaven rejoiced.  

That night the Evangelist was scheduled to preach in a church.  His grandma wanted to go with him and asked him to pick her up.  When she was in church that night she walked up to the front of the church and gave testimony of God’s saving grace.  She testified of her newfound faith and said …

If God can save me he can save anybody.

Two or three months later she went home to be with the Lord.

Hallelujah!

It makes me think of my mother who was saved in her 80’s after many long years of praying for her and witnessing to her.  I knew she was saved when I heard my her unexpectedly witness to my father and tell him …

You need the Holy Ghost too if you want to go to heaven with us.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Hallelujah!

Amazing grace how very sweet the sound!

Luke 15:10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

More on … SALVATION

GOD’S OUTCASTS

When we embrace the cross we can often feel like outcasts, but the Lord has a particular care for His scattered ones …

James 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings.

Matthew Henry

Note here, It is often the lot even of God’s own tribes to be scattered abroad. The gathering day is reserved for the end of time; when all the dispersed children of God shall be gathered together to Christ their head. In the mean time, while God’s tribes are scattered abroad, he will send to look after them. Here is an apostle writing to the scattered; an epistle from God to them, when driven away from his temple, and seemingly neglected by him. Apply here that of the prophet Ezekiel, …

Thus saith the Lord God, Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come, Eze. 11:16.

God has a particular care of his outcasts.

Let my outcasts dwell with thee, Moab, Isa. 16:3, 4. God’s tribes may be scattered; therefore we should not value ourselves too much on outward privileges. And, on the other hand, we should not despond and think ourselves rejected, under outward calamities, because God remembers and sends comfort to his scattered people. III. James here shows the respect he had even for the dispersed: greeting, saluting them, wishing peace and salvation to them. True Christians should not be the less valued for their hardships. It was the desire of this apostle’s heart that those who were scattered might be comforted—that they might do well and fare well, and be enabled to rejoice even in their distresses. God’s people have reason to rejoice in all places, and at all times; as will abundantly appear from what follows.

James 1:11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

Matthew Henry

For this reason let him that is rich rejoice, not so much in the providence of God, that makes him rich, as in the grace of God, that makes and keeps him humble; and in those trials and exercises that TEACH him to seek his felicity in and from God, and not from these perishing enjoyments.

PERSECUTION

2 Timothy 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Barnes …

Let those who have never been persecuted in any way, inquire whether it is not an evidence that they have no religion.

If they had been more faithful, and more like their Master, would they have always escaped?

And may not their freedom from it prove that they have surrendered the principles of their religion, where they should have stood firm, though the world were arrayed against them?

It is easy for a professed Christian to avoid persecution, if he yields every point in which religion is opposed to the world. But let not a man who will do this, suppose that he has any claim to be numbered among the martyrs, or even entitled to the Christian name.

Wesley …

All that are resolved to live godly –

Therefore count the cost.

Art thou resolved?

In Christ … shall suffer persecution – More or less.

There is no exception.

Either the truth of scripture fails, or those that think they are religious, and are not persecuted, in some shape or other, on that very account, deceive themselves.

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

RELIGIOUS BUT LOST

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

At God’s bar, a profession of religion will not bear out any man in the practice and indulgence of sin; 

Gill …

… that only such who are faithful dispensers of the word shall enter into the joy of their Lord. Such do the will of Christ’s Father, and so his own, which are the same, who fully and faithfully preach the Gospel of the grace of God; who declare the whole counsel of God, and keep back nothing that is profitable to the souls of men;

who are neither ashamed of the testimony of Christ, nor afraid of the faces of men; but as they are put in trust with the Gospel, so they speak it boldly, with all sincerity, not as pleasing men, but God, and commend themselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God: such as these shall have an abundant entrance into the kingdom and glory of God.

Matthew Henry …

Those that go no further in Christ’s service than a bare profession, he does not accept, nor will he own them in the great day. See from what a height of hope men may fall into the depth of misery! How they may go to hell, by the gates of heaven! This should be an awakening word to all Christians. If a preacher, one that cast out devils, and wrought miracles, be disowned of Christ for working iniquity; what will become of us, if we be found such? And if we be such, we shall certainly be found such. At God’s bar, a profession of religion will not bear out any man in the practice and indulgence of sin; therefore let every one that names the name of Christ, depart from all iniquity.

BE NOT DECEIVED, GOD IS NOT MOCKED …

Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

“the God we have to do with can easily see through all our disguises, and will certainly deal with us hereafter, not according to our professions, but our practices.”

Barnes …

No zeal, however ardent; no prayers, however fervent or long, no professions, however loud, would impose on God. And to make such prayers, and to manifest such zeal and such strong professions, while the heart was with the world, …

Alas, how much mockery of God like this still prevails! How much, when people seem disposed to make God believe that they are exceedingly zealous and devoted, while their heart is truly with the world!

Matthew Henry …

As there are two sorts of sowing, one to the flesh, and the other to the Spirit, so will the reckoning be hereafter.

Those who live a carnal, sensual life, must expect no other fruit from such a course than misery and ruin. But those who, under the guidance and influences of the Holy Spirit, live a life of faith in Christ, and abound in Christian graces, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

Note, Those who go about to mock God do but deceive themselves. Hypocrisy in religion is the greatest folly as well as wickedness, since the God we have to do with can easily see through all our disguises, and will certainly deal with us hereafter, not according to our professions, but our practices.