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Saturday 31 August 2013

Where will you spend eternity?


Published: Friday, August 30, 2013 at 10:14 a.m.

In today’s religious circles, I have attended hundreds of funerals in my lifetime and have never heard of anyone dying and going to hell.
Apparently, according to the people, everyone that dies say they are going to heaven. Proverbs 16:2 says, “All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits.”
Man must always be conscious and aware that God is the great discerner of our thoughts, intents and motives.
The apostle Paul had to address the church at Corinth because evidently their were some who were professing Christianity as their rule of faith. Nevertheless, they were living lives contrary to the Scriptures. He tells the members that it is a fatal mistake to have a divided allegiance.
The following biblical verses explain God’s criteria for those who qualify for the eternal benefits and blessings of the Lord:
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulteres, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind. Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkers, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherir the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of God.”
Romans 6:1-2 says “What shall we say then. Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein.”
Sin is an act when men willfully disobey the commandments of God. Sin means to miss the mark. Adam and Eve, the original inhabitants who lived in the Garden of Eden, were given an opportunity to obey or disobey the commandment of God. The biblical account comes from Genesis 2:15-17, which says, “And the Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
God had designed Adam and Eve to live forever had they not violated the integrity of God’s word. God means everything he says. The devil or enemy of God deceived and persuaded Adam and Eve that God did not mean what he said. However, we know now the consequences for not being loyal to God.
The same kind of fate will befall us. They were thrown out of the Garden of Paradise, and eventually some 900 years later, Adam died naturally.
In conclusion, the prophet Ezekiel sums it up this way by declaring in Ezekiel 18:4: “Behold, all souls are mine. As the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine. The soul that sinneth it shall die.”
Jesus says in Revelation 22:12, “And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”
The Book of Revelation was written to the seven churches in Asia-Minor. Don’t let the Lord come and find you with your work undone.
Bishop Arthur V. Verrett Jr. is pastor of Faith+Dominion and Power Ministries, 129 Samuel St., Houma. He can be reached at 868-2328, 856-0867 or verrett_a@bellsouth.net. Columns represent the opinions of the writer, not necessarily this newspaper.

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