Yes! There is Good News! 12.14.18

Well of course there is “good news.” It is all around us. There is joy and there is happiness and there is a merry heart for all who will believe!! God tells us through Moses, “The word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” Jesus Christ died for you and for me that we might be reconciled to the Heavenly Father; that is good news. We had been reckoned as sinners as the result of being descendants of our first father and mother: Adam and Eve. But thanks be to God for the life we are offered through the Son of God!

May we level with each other through the confines of these words; without this sacrifice of the Son of God, we have no hope!! As I mentioned last week, we will have perhaps 70, 80 or 90 years to enjoy physical life (the only thing we, as human beings, know), and then we die. Or as the scripture in John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” If we do not believe, we perish!

This is quite interesting because our God (the one and only God) is offering to us, free of charge, an extension of this life we have been experiencing and yet this extension is in no way to be compared to some overtime period in a field of sports – this is life eternal!! It is interesting because most people on this earth do not accept this idea. Let us bring that closer to home – most people in this country of ours do not accept this idea. What about in the state of Iowa, the county of Shelby or even this local community of ours? How about those of you reading this newspaper – do you accept this idea?

In our previous article, we paid a short visit (through a vision of the Apostle John) to the throne room of God. We were in Revelation chapter 4. John was permitted to see things that he, frankly, had no words to describe. Throughout the book of Revelation, John uses metaphors, similes, and analogies to try and get across the idea of what he saw. The Apostle Paul had a similar experience that he mentions in 2 Corinthians 12:1, “I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.” Paul, one of the foremost servants of God in the New Testament, was not permitted to tell of his experiences when in the “third heaven” that is, the place where God dwells.

Then we find Moses, one of the foremost servants of God in the Old Testament, spending time in the presence of God. Moses was not permitted to see God’s face but was allowed to experience that presence. When God came down in the cloud on Mount Sinai, Moses bowed his face to the ground and worshiped. And when Moses came down from the mount into the camp of Israel, his face had a radiant glow. The scriptures say that the people were afraid to come near him!! (Ex. 34:8 & 29-30)

My friends, think upon these things and until next time, remember, we have good news all around us.