Salvation is Simple, Man Makes it Complicated – Faith in Christ, nothing added, nothing subtracted.

Introduction

God never made salvation a crossword puzzle for scholars and priests. He did not hide it behind stained glass, Latin syllables, catechisms, councils, sacraments, and religious salesmen who always have one more hoop for you to jump through. When the Lord God decided to save sinners, He did it with a straight message a child can understand, a dying thief can grasp, and a broken drunk can believe. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). That verse is not complicated. Men complicate it because they do not like the simplicity of God’s way.

The flesh hates grace because grace strips the flesh naked. Grace will not let you brag. Grace will not let you parade your morality like a merit badge. Grace will not let you cash in your religion as a down payment. Grace shuts your mouth and points you to a crucified Savior. “Where is boasting then? It is excluded” (Romans 3:27). That is why religious men, and yes, religious Christians, keep reaching for add-ons. They want faith plus works, Christ plus ceremony, the cross plus self-improvement, Jesus plus their little list. But God will not share His glory with your effort. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5).

If you want to see how simple God made it, listen to how the apostles preached it. They did not say, “Believe, be baptized, keep the commandments, join the church, persevere, prove it for twenty years, and then we will tell you if you have eternal life.” They said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31). They declared a finished work, not a probation program. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works” (Ephesians 2:8-9). That is salvation the way God gives it, and every time a man adds to it, he is not improving it, he is corrupting it.

1.God’s Way is a Gift, Not a Bargain

Salvation is not a business deal where you bring God your sincerity and He brings you Heaven. Salvation is a gift purchased by blood and handed to sinners who have nothing to offer. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Wages are earned. Gifts are received. God picked that language on purpose, because sinners are born thinking they can pay their way. But the only payment God accepts is the payment His Son already made.

That is why the gospel begins with bad news. You are not slightly flawed. You are lost. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). You are not climbing toward God. You are under condemnation without Christ. “He that believeth not is condemned already” (John 3:18). When a man finally sees that, his hands come up empty, and that is the first honest posture a sinner ever takes with God. God saves the man who quits pretending.

The moment you turn salvation into a bargain, you make it impossible. If salvation depends on your performance, then it depends on a liar, a quitter, a backslider, and a sinner with a bad heart. That is not security, that is insanity. But God built salvation on His Son so it would stand when you fall. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). He authored it and He finishes it, and if you try to finish what He started, you will either end in pride or despair.

2.The Gospel is a Finished Work, Not a Self-Help Plan

The heart of the gospel is not what you do. It is what Christ did. Paul said, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel… how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). That is a historical, blood-and- bone, grave-and-resurrection message. It is not a motivational speech. It is not a spiritual journey. It is a declaration that a Substitute took your place.

When Jesus Christ died, He did not say, “It is started.” He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Finished means paid in full. Finished means complete. Finished means you cannot add to it without insulting it. When a man says, “Yes, Christ died, but you must also do this and this and this to be saved,” he is calling the cross insufficient. He may not say it that way, but that is what he is doing. If the cross was enough, then your add-ons are unnecessary. If your add-ons are necessary, then the cross was not enough. You cannot have it both ways.

That is why salvation is received by faith, not achieved by effort. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). Not with the deeds of the law. Without them. That word “without” is God’s hammer to every religious system on earth. It smashes the pride of church folk who think they are better than the thief, the addict, the prostitute, and the criminal. At the cross, everybody comes as a sinner, and everybody is saved the same way, by faith in the blood.

3.Faith is the Door, Not a Down Payment on Works

Men love to redefine faith into something it is not. They treat faith like a down payment that must be followed by a lifetime of payments or the deal gets canceled. But the Bible defines saving faith as trusting Christ, not trusting self. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47). Everlasting life is not a temporary lease. It is everlasting. If it can be lost, it was never everlasting in the first place.

Now that does not mean grace is a license to sin. It means grace is not a wage. Grace saves you first, then teaches you after. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly” (Titus 2:11-12). Notice the order. Grace brings salvation, then grace teaches. Most men reverse it. They want you to clean up first, then maybe God will save you. But God saves you first, then He cleans you up. That is Bible order.

So yes, God wants holiness, but He does not demand holiness as the price of the new birth. He demands holiness as the fruit of the new birth. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That new creature begins to grow. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes stumbling. Sometimes with a fight. But the growth is a result of salvation, not the requirement for it. If you confuse fruit with root, you will destroy the gospel and replace it with religion.

4.Repentance is Not Paying for Sin, It is Agreeing With God

One of the biggest confusions in the modern religious world is repentance. Some men preach repentance like it is a payment plan: turn from every sin, surrender every habit, change every pattern, and then God might save you. But the Bible does not teach sinners to purchase salvation by self-reformation. It teaches sinners to change their mind about God, about sin, and about Christ, and to believe the gospel.

The Lord said, “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Repent and believe go together because repentance is the inward turning of the heart and mind, and faith is the outward resting on Christ. When a sinner finally quits arguing with God and admits God is right, that sinner is in the posture where faith can happen. The book of Acts defines the direction plainly: “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Repentance toward God is not you promising God you will never fail again. It is you admitting you have failed already, and you are guilty, and you need mercy.

What Does the Bible Say About Being Offended Easily?

Introduction

Being offended easily is one of the devil’s cheapest tricks and one of the flesh’s favorite hobbies. It feels spiritual because it talks about “hurt,” “discernment,” “boundaries,” and “being done wrong,” but most of the time it is just plain old pride wearing a Sunday suit. The offended man is usually the man who thinks he deserves better treatment than he gives. He is quick to quote verses about how others should talk, how others should act, and how others should be “loving,” but he never seems to find time for the verses that tell him to crucify himself.

The Bible does not treat offense like a personality quirk. It treats it like a spiritual problem with a spiritual cure. The cure is not “everybody tiptoe around me,” and it is not “validate my feelings until I calm down.” The cure is a cross, a Book, and a heart that fears God more than it fears people. Offense is often the smoke that comes off the fire of self-love. When self is on the throne, everybody becomes a potential enemy, every disagreement becomes an attack, and every correction becomes “judgmental.”

If you want to know why Christians are so weak, look at how touchy they are. The early saints took beatings, prisons, slander, and martyrdom, and kept on praising God. A modern believer can get knocked off his spiritual feet by a comment thread, a sideways look at church, or somebody forgetting to say hello. The Lord Jesus Christ was “despised and rejected of men” (Isaiah 53:3), and yet He “when he was reviled, reviled not again” (1 Peter 2:23). The Bible has a lot to say about offense, and almost none of it is designed to pamper it.

1. Offense Starts in the Heart, Not in the Mouth of Another

The first thing you learn from Scripture is that offense is not primarily caused by what people do to you, but by what is already living in you. A man can be corrected and thank you, or be corrected and hate you, and the correction was the same. The difference is the heart. “Only by pride cometh contention” (Proverbs 13:10). That verse is not complicated. When pride is present, contention shows up like flies on garbage. Pride cannot stand being questioned, and pride cannot stand being overlooked.

The offended person usually calls it sensitivity, but God calls it self. “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city” (Proverbs 18:19). Notice what happens: offense builds walls, locks gates, and turns simple misunderstandings into permanent grudges. Offense makes you interpret everything through suspicion. It will take a neutral statement and hear insult. It will take a sincere question and hear accusation. It will take a weak brother’s awkwardness and label it malice.

The Bible says the real battlefield is inside. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts…” (Mark 7:21). If your heart is trained to be easily provoked, you will find provocation everywhere. That is why the Holy Ghost does not tell you to control everyone else’s mouth. He tells you to guard your own spirit. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). The offended man is not ruling his spirit, he is being ruled by it.

2. The Bible Gives One of the Strongest Antidotes: Great Peace Through Loving the Book

God does not leave you guessing about how to stop being so touchy. He gives you one of the clearest promises in the whole Bible: “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them” (Psalm 119:165). That is not poetry for a plaque, that is a diagnostic test. If everything offends you, your peace is small. If your peace is small, your love for God’s law is small. And if your love for the Book is small, then the world, the flesh, and the devil will run you like a puppet. That verse does not say nothing happens to them. It says nothing offends them. They still get misunderstood. They still get treated unfairly. They still deal with sinners and with saints who act like sinners. But the Book has set their mind. The Book has taught them how temporary this life is. The Book has taught them how wicked their own heart can be. The Book has taught them to expect tribulation. The Book has taught them that the Lord is their vindicator.

Most “offended Christians” are not saturated with Scripture. They are saturated with self. They scroll more than they pray. They argue more than they read. They quote memes more than they quote verses. So their conscience is trained by the age, not by the Holy Ghost. Then when the pressure comes, they respond like the age: outrage, accusation, withdrawal, and retaliation. But a man who loves God’s words is stabilized. He has an anchor. He has “great peace.”

3. Being Offended Easily Is Often a Refusal to Forgive

A lot of offense is just unforgiveness dressed up as “discernment.” The offended man wants to hold court. He wants to keep the file open. He wants to rehearse the crime. He wants to punish the person emotionally by coldness, distance, or public insinuation. But the Bible does not let you sit there and call it maturity. “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). If you are saved, you have been forgiven a mountain. If you cannot forgive a pebble, you do not understand what God did for you.

The Lord put it in plain language. “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14–15). That does not mean you lose salvation. It means you lose fellowship. A believer can be forgiven judicially at the cross, and still live like a spiritual cripple because he refuses to forgive practically. He is saved, but miserable. He is secure, but sour. He is going to heaven, but dragging hell around in his thoughts.

Forgiveness does not mean you call evil good. Forgiveness means you refuse to be ruled by the injury. It means you hand the gavel to God. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves… for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). The offended man is trying to do God’s job. He wants vengeance now, validation now, justice now. The Lord says, “Let me handle it.” When you refuse that, you are not strong, you are rebellious.

4. Offense Is a Trap Used to Divide Brethren and Ruin Churches

The devil loves offense because it multiplies without effort. One offended sister whispers to another, and now there are two. Two tell two more, and now there are four. Then it becomes “a concern,” then “a pattern,” then a “toxic environment,” and the whole thing started because somebody felt slighted and refused to die to self. The Bible warns you about this kind of spirit. “Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work” (James 3:16). Offense is the seed of confusion. It makes people interpret everything in the worst possible light.

The Lord commands unity, but He commands it around truth. “Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). That means you work at it. You do not quit the moment you feel rubbed the wrong way. You do not make every preference a doctrine. You do not treat every disagreement like betrayal. The offended man will destroy unity to protect pride. He will call it “standing up for himself,” but it is really standing up for self.

The Bible even tells you to avoid people who live off this. “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Romans 16:17). Notice: divisions and offences go together. The offended person becomes a divider

Does God Cause Suffering — Or Just Allow It?

Introduction

If you read your Bible like you believe it, you will run straight into a question the religious crowd loves to soften with philosophy: does God cause suffering, or does He just allow it? The moment you start dealing with cancer, betrayal, prison, poverty, persecution, loss, and the kind of grief that makes a grown man sit in a dark room and stare at the wall, you find out quickly who has a paper faith and who has a Book faith. The Bible does not treat suffering like an awkward mistake in the universe. It treats it like a battleground where God’s holiness, man’s sin, Satan’s malice, and eternal purposes collide.

The trouble is, most people want a neat answer that lets them keep God “nice” and keep themselves innocent. But the Lord is not on trial in His own courtroom. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). The Bible teaches two truths at the same time: God is absolutely sovereign, and man is absolutely accountable. When you drop either one, you end up with either a cruel God or a meaningless world. Scripture gives you a God who is holy, wise, purposeful, and good, while still being strong enough to rule a universe where suffering is real.

So I am going to say it plainly in Bible language. Sometimes God allows suffering He did not directly cause, and sometimes God sends suffering for judgment, correction, or purpose, and He never once loses control of the outcome. He is not the author of sin, but He is the Governor of history. He does not tempt men to do evil, but He will use the evil men choose to accomplish righteous ends. If you want the answer, you have to take the whole Book, not just the verses that match your mood.

1. Start With the Foundation: Sin Brought Suffering Into the World

The first thing the Bible does is put the blame where it belongs. Suffering is not “just life,” and it is not “the way things are.” It is the fruit of a curse triggered by rebellion. When Adam sinned, death entered, and with death came every form of misery that rides on its back. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). That verse is not poetry, it is a death certificate for the human race.

God told Adam ahead of time exactly what the wages would be: “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). After the fall, the ground was cursed, pain multiplied, labor became sweat and thorns, and the entire creation began groaning like something wounded. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” (Genesis 3:17). That is not God being petty. That is God showing you what sin does when it is allowed to run.

So when a man shakes his fist at God and says, “Why is there suffering?” the Bible points to Eden and says, “Because you wanted to be your own god.” The modern world calls suffering an argument against God. The Bible calls suffering a witness against sin. You cannot demand the freedom to rebel against your Maker and then complain about living in the wreckage of rebellion. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7).

2. God Is Not the Author of Sin, Yet He Rules Over a Fallen World

Now here is where people get sloppy. They think if God is sovereign, He must be guilty of everything. The Bible will not let you talk that way. God is holy, and He is not tempted, and He does not tempt. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). So if you are trying to blame God for your lust, your lies, your bitterness, your adultery, your drunkenness, your pride, your greed, you are arguing with Scripture, not with me. At the same time, the Bible teaches that nothing outruns God’s throne. He is not pacing heaven like a nervous manager watching things slip out of control. He “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Ephesians 1:11). That does not mean He approves of all things. It means He overrules all things. God can hate the sin and still harness the event for His purpose. That is what it means to be God.

You see it in the clearest sentence Joseph ever preached: “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Genesis 50:20). The brothers caused the sin. God governed the outcome. The same event had two intentions in it, one wicked and one righteous. If you cannot hold that truth in your hands without dropping it, you will never understand suffering biblically, because you will either make God a villain or make life random.

3. There Is a Difference Between God’s Direct Judgments and His Permissive Allowance

Sometimes the suffering in the Bible is direct judgment, and the Bible says so without blushing. God drowned the world, and He wrote it down. “And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh” (Genesis 6:17). God rained fire on Sodom, and He wrote it down. “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven” (Genesis 19:24). If a preacher cannot preach those passages, he does not believe the Book, he believes a therapist.

God also judged nations through famine, sword, pestilence, captivity, and plague, and He called it His work. “Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6). That “evil” is calamity, judgment, disaster, not moral wickedness. It is the same sense you find in, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). God is not confessing to sin; He is declaring His right to chasten, to judge, to break, and to rebuild.

But most suffering is not God dropping a hammer from heaven on a specific person for a specific sin. Much of it is God allowing a fallen world to operate, allowing men to reap what they sow, allowing Satan to rage, and allowing natural consequences to do what they do. The Bible teaches both. So when you see suffering, you do not play prophet and start accusing people like Job’s friends, because God rebuked those men for talking like they knew what they did not know. “Ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath” (Job 42:7).

4. Satan Causes Real Suffering, But He Cannot Touch You Without Permission

If you want to understand suffering, you need to stop pretending the devil is a cartoon with a pitchfork. He is a real enemy, and he loves pain. He is called “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). He is called “your adversary” who “walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). That is not poetic language. That is warfare language. Some suffering is straight satanic oppression, temptation, accusation, and assault.

But here is the part that keeps a Bible believer from losing his mind: Satan is on a leash. In Job, the devil could not even touch Job’s property without God’s permission. “Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand” (Job 1:12). Then later God allowed more, but still with a boundary: “Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life” (Job 2:6). The devil is vicious, but he is not sovereign. God is sovereign.

That is why a Christian can say something that sounds insane to the world: the devil may be the immediate cause, but God is the ultimate Governor. If God allows the trial, it is because He intends a purpose that the devil does not understand. The devil thinks pain is an ending. God uses pain as a tool. Joseph’s pit became a palace. Job’s ash heap became a testimony. Paul’s thorn became power. You do not have to like the tool to trust the Carpenter.

5. God Uses Suffering to Chasten His

Christ, the Crushing Stone

Passage: Daniel 2:44–45
The final kingdom belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ — premillennial reign confirmed, amillennial lie exposed.

Introduction

Daniel 2:44–45 is where God stops letting men “reinterpret” prophecy like it’s a piece of poetry and forces them to face the plain, brutal, glorious truth. The Holy Ghost says, “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44). That is not some invisible feeling in the hearts of believers. That is a kingdom set up, in time, in history, “in the days” of real kings, after real Gentile dominion has reached its final stage. Then Daniel says that kingdom “shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms” (Daniel 2:44). That is not a slow missionary influence. That is conquest. That is Christ smashing the world system.

Religious men hate that because it ruins their little systems. Postmillennialism wants the church to convert the nations and bring in a golden age. Amillennialism wants the kingdom to be “spiritual,” meaning it’s real but never visible, always somewhere else, always explained away, never allowed to mean what the Old Testament prophets said it would mean. Daniel 2:44–45 demolishes both delusions. God says the kingdom is set up by the God of heaven, not by the church. God says it is set up in the days of kings, not in some timeless abstraction. God says it consumes all other kingdoms, not coexists with them. And God says the Stone is cut out “without hands” and smashes the statue until nothing is left but chaff (Daniel 2:45). If that is not premillennial, then words do not have meaning.

This passage is not a theological option on a menu. It is the climax of Gentile dominion and the announcement of the King’s dominion. It tells you who wins, how He wins, when He wins, and what is left afterward. And if you are a Bible believer, you read it with a smile, because the world may be iron today, the toes may be forming, the clay may be mixing, the Beast may be preparing, but the God of heaven already told you the end. The end is not a council. The end is not a vote. The end is not a treaty. The end is Jesus Christ, the Crushing Stone, taking back what belongs to Him.

1. “In the Days of These Kings” and the Time Marker God Built In

Daniel does not say God sets up His kingdom “in the church age” as a vague spiritual concept. He says, “in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom” (Daniel 2:44). That phrase pins the event to a specific time frame, connected to the kings represented by the toes and the final stage of the image. That is why the Stone hits the image on the feet. It is the end of Gentile dominion, not the beginning. It is the final confederation, not Babylon’s head of gold.

That time marker matters because it destroys amillennial fog. Amillennialism loves to float everything into “already but not yet” abstraction, where the kingdom is everywhere and nowhere, present and invisible, fulfilled and still future, depending on what the interpreter needs to dodge the plain text. Daniel doesn’t float. Daniel anchors. God sets up the kingdom in the days of those kings, after the statue has reached its final form. That requires a future, visible intervention.

It also refutes the idea that the kingdom came fully at the First Advent. Christ came the first time and was rejected. Israel did not receive the kingdom then. The nations were not consumed then. Rome was not shattered then. Satan was not bound then. The world did not become the Lord’s kingdom then. The church did not reign on thrones then. So if a man tells you Daniel 2:44 was fulfilled when Jesus preached in Galilee, he is not reading the passage. He is rewriting it. 2. The Kingdom Is “Set Up” by God, Not Built by Men

The verse says the “God of heaven” sets up the kingdom (Daniel 2:44). That statement wipes out the arrogance of every movement that thinks the kingdom is achieved through human institutions. The church does not set up the kingdom. The God of heaven does. And He does it in the days of kings, which means He interrupts the existing political order and replaces it. Men do not vote it in. Men do not negotiate it in. Men do not “evolve” into it. God establishes it.

That is why the Stone is cut out without hands. God’s kingdom is not carved by human chisels. It is not produced by social reform. It is not manufactured by seminaries. It is not implemented through political strategy. The Lord Jesus Christ returns and takes the reins. “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 2:6). That is decree, not democracy. And Psalm 2 is explicit that the nations rage against it. The kingdom is not welcomed by rebels. It is imposed by the rightful King.

This is the great correction Bible prophecy brings. It tells believers to labor in gospel work without confusing gospel work with kingdom establishment. We preach because souls must be saved. We disciple because saints must grow. We contend because truth matters. But we do not imagine we are building the kingdom described in Daniel 2:44. That kingdom is set up by the God of heaven at the return of the Son of God, and any doctrine that makes the church the kingdom-builder ends up flattering man and diminishing Christ.

3. “Break in Pieces and Consume” Means Conquest, Not Influence

Daniel says the kingdom “shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms” (Daniel 2:44). That is violent language, and it is supposed to be. God is not describing a peaceful transfer of power where the nations politely yield to Christ. He is describing the end of rebellion. He is describing judgment. He is describing the King coming with a rod of iron. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalm 2:9). That is the same vocabulary as Daniel, and it is the same event.

This is why postmillennialism collapses. Postmillennialism needs the nations to be gradually Christianized so that Christ returns to a world already mostly obedient. Daniel says the opposite. Christ’s kingdom consumes the kingdoms of men. The Stone smites the image and turns it into dust. “Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together” (Daniel 2:35). Together means all at once. That is not gradual influence. That is sudden destruction.

And do not miss the final statement: “it shall stand for ever” (Daniel 2:44). Human kingdoms rise and fall. Christ’s kingdom is permanent. That permanence requires removal of competitors. God does not allow rival thrones to remain. Christ does not share sovereignty with rebellious systems. When the King returns, He does not become one more player in the global order. He becomes the global order. The world will not be “improved.” It will be replaced.

4. Daniel 2:45 Identifies the Stone and the Nature of the Strike

Daniel explains the dream to the king and says, “Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold” (Daniel 2:45). That sentence is not merely interpretation. It is the divine identification of the event. The Stone is supernatural in origin. The strike is total in effect. The metals are shattered in one judgment. Nothing human survives.

The Stone is not the church, because the church is built through hands and labor, preaching and sacrifice. The Stone is cut out without hands, meaning it is Christ coming in divine authority. And the Stone does not convert the metals. It breaks them. That is important. Religion always wants to turn judgment into improvement. God calls it breaking. God calls it consumption. God calls it

Christians Who Want a Crown Without a Cross

Glory comes after suffering, not before.

Introduction

There is a brand of Christianity in this generation that wants the applause of heaven while living like the world. It wants the crown but not the cross, the reward but not the reproach, the shout but not the shame, the resurrection power but not the dying daily. It wants a Savior who carries everybody and a Christianity that never cuts, never confronts, never crosses the flesh, and never costs anything. That religion sells well, fills buildings, and makes men rich, but it does not make saints strong. It produces Christians who are offended by trials, confused by opposition, and shocked when obedience gets expensive. They thought the Christian life was a cruise ship. God wrote it as a war. “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12).

The Bible never promised you a crown for smiling in a pew. It promised you a cross for following Christ. It never told you that suffering means you missed God. It told you suffering often means you hit the target. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come down here to show you how to avoid pain. He came down here to show you how to obey the Father when pain is the price. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). That verse wrecks the soft religion of comfort. If the spotless Son learned obedience through suffering, what do you think God is going to do with a spoiled Christian who thinks holiness should be convenient?

So this essay is for the believer who keeps trying to crown himself in the mirror while refusing to crucify the flesh in the closet. It is for the church crowd that wants victory without battle, reward without labor, revival without repentance, and glory without suffering. God’s order has never changed. The cross comes first, then the crown. The grave comes first, then the resurrection. The suffering comes first, then the glory. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12). Not if we pose, not if we perform, not if we complain, but if we suffer.

1. The Cross Is Not Optional

The first thing the Lord said about discipleship was not comfort, it was a cross. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). That is not a suggestion for the extra dedicated Christian. That is the entrance requirement for following Christ. Deny yourself means your feelings do not get the vote, your pride does not get the microphone, your appetite does not get the steering wheel, and your convenience does not get to be king. A cross is not a decoration, it is an execution. You do not carry a cross to improve your life. You carry a cross to end a life, the old life that wants to run the show.

This generation has been trained to treat the cross like jewelry and treat the Christian life like a social club. They hang crosses on walls, wear crosses on chains, put crosses on logos, then live like the devil Monday through Saturday. They want Jesus as a brand, not Jesus as Lord. But Jesus did not die to become your mascot. He died to become your Master. “Ye are not your own… For ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Bought people do not get to rewrite the terms. The cross means God gets to tell you no. The cross means God gets to offend you. The cross means God gets to put His finger on what you love and demand you surrender it.

And the moment you accept that, you find out why so many Christians are weak. They are trying to live a crucified life without crucifixion. They are trying to walk in the Spirit while feeding the flesh. They are trying to have peace while refusing repentance. They are trying to have power while avoiding the price. The Lord said it plainly, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it” (Luke 9:24). A crown without a cross is a lie. It is spiritual theft. It is trying to cash a check you never earned.

2. The Crown-Now Gospel Is a Counterfeit

Any message that promises you the crown now is a counterfeit gospel for carnal people. It sounds good because it strokes the flesh. It sounds spiritual because it uses Bible words. It sells because it promises what sinners already want. But it is the same lie Satan used in Eden: you can have the blessing without obedience, the reward without submission, the glory without God’s order. The devil always offers a shortcut to the throne. He even offered it to Christ. He showed Him the kingdoms of the world and said, take them without the cross (Matthew 4:8-10). Christ refused because He will not reign without righteousness and He will not take what the Father has not given. The shortcut is always satanic.

The crown-now gospel produces Christians who measure God by circumstances instead of Scripture. If the bills are paid, they think God is good. If trouble comes, they think God failed. That is childish. The Bible says, “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). The Bible says, “In the world ye shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). The Bible says, “Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you” (1 Peter 4:12). Not strange. Normal. Expected. Scheduled. So when a preacher tells you God’s main job is to keep you comfortable, he is not preaching Christ, he is selling a product.

The truth is that God will let you hurt because He loves you. He will let you be pressed because He is shaping you. He will let you be opposed because He is proving you. If you could get everything you wanted with no resistance, you would never pray, never fast, never study, never repent, never depend on God, and never grow. You would become a religious spoiled brat with a Bible in your lap and hell in your heart. That is why God says, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord… For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12:5-6). The crown-now gospel hates chastening because it hates anything that crosses the flesh. But the Father does not raise soldiers with candy and cartoons. He raises soldiers with discipline.

3. Christ’s Pattern Is Suffering Then Glory

If you want God’s pattern, look at God’s Son. The Lord Jesus Christ is not only your substitute, He is your example. He is not only the Lamb who died for you, He is the Captain you follow. And His life had a clear order: humiliation, then exaltation. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus… he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him” (Philippians 2:5-9). The word “wherefore” matters. Exaltation came after humiliation. Glory came after obedience. The crown came after the cross.

Paul understood that order and preached it without apology. He said the Spirit testified that bonds and afflictions waited for him (Acts 20:23), and he did not treat that as failure. He treated it as normal Christian service. He called his sufferings a fellowship. “That I may know him… and the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). Fellowship means participation. It means you are walking where He walked. The American church wants fellowship dinners and conference selfies. Paul wanted fellowship with Christ in suffering. That is why Paul had power. Weak Christianity hates suffering. Strong Christianity uses suffering as a ladder to deeper communion with Christ.

And when believers complain that suffering is unfair, the Lord points them to the cross and says, look again. You were not promised fair. You were promised faithful. You were not promised easy. You were promised eternal. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory” (Romans 8:18). Notice the comparison. Present suffering, future glory. That is God’s

Whosoever Was Not Found - Revelation 20:15
Individual Accountability - Not Group Condemnation

Introduction

Revelation 20 ends with a sentence so plain a child can read it, yet so heavy it can crush a man’s pride like wet paper. “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). That is not poetry. That is not symbolism. That is not a devotional thought to print on a coffee mug. That is a courtroom verdict followed by an immediate execution. It is the last word of God on the last judgment of the lost, after a thousand years of Christ’s reign, after Satan’s final revolt, after the last deception, after the last fire from heaven. When you reach this verse, you are not dealing with religion anymore. You are dealing with the Judge.

The modern pulpit hates this verse because it destroys the two idols of the age: sentimental theology and collective excuses. The first idol says God is too “loving” to judge. The second idol says guilt is always somebody else’s fault, society’s fault, your parents’ fault, your church’s fault, your trauma’s fault, your government’s fault, your “system’s” fault. Revelation 20:15 does not argue with your sociology. It does not care about your narrative. It does not consult your therapist. It does not check your denominational paperwork. It says “whosoever.” It says “was not found.” It says “written.” It says “book of life.” It says “cast.” It says “lake of fire.” That verse will not bend for you.

And the fear of it is not that God will condemn people in groups like a tyrant with a quota. The fear of it is the opposite. The fear is that He will deal with you as an individual, with your own name, your own record, your own light rejected, your own conscience violated, your own sins committed, your own Christ refused. “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). You can hide in a crowd on earth. You cannot hide in a crowd at the great white throne. You will not be “one of the unfortunate masses.” You will be you, standing there with nothing but the truth.

1. The Last Line of the Last Courtroom

Revelation 20:11 tells you the setting. “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away” (Revelation 20:11). In that moment, the props are removed. Whatever men used to distract themselves, the sky, the lights, the seasons, the rhythms, the horizons, the noise of life, the commerce, the entertainment, the politics, it is all gone. There is no hiding behind the created order when the Creator takes the bench. The creation itself steps aside. You are left with God and the truth. That alone should make a man stop joking about judgment.

Then the Holy Ghost says, “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God” (Revelation 20:12). There is no “VIP section” at this throne. There is no rich man’s exemption, no poor man’s sympathy card, no celebrity pass, no academic loophole. Small and great stand there the same way, dead and exposed, and the Judge does not ask them what the polls said. He does not ask them what their friends thought. He does not ask them how sincere they were in their delusion. He judges them with books. “And the books were opened” (Revelation 20:12). When God opens books, the talking stops.

That is why Revelation 20:15 is the final nail. It is not God losing His temper. It is God closing the case. People talk about “harshness” as if this is some outburst. It is not. The sentence comes after evidence, after records, after every mouth is stopped. Romans 3 tells you how it ends: “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19). The great white throne is not group condemnation. It is the end of every excuse.

2. “Whosoever” Means Your Name, Not Your Crowd

The word “whosoever” is a sword. Men love “whosoever” when it is in the invitations. “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). They like that because it feels broad, warm, open. But the same God who wrote Romans 10 wrote Revelation 20. And “whosoever” at the end is just as personal as “whosoever” at the beginning. It means any man. Every man. It means the moral man and the immoral man. It means the religious man and the atheist. It means the man who lived in a church building and the man who cursed God in a prison cell. “Whosoever” is God saying, I am not judging a class. I am judging persons.

That one word destroys the whole modern game of hiding behind identities. Some hide behind family. Some hide behind nation. Some hide behind denomination. Some hide behind “I’m not as bad as them.” Some hide behind “we were raised this way.” Some hide behind “everybody in my town believes this.” Some hide behind “my church taught me.” Some hide behind “my pastor said.” The Lord does not put your church on the throne. He puts you there. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10) applies to saved men for rewards, but the principle is the same across the board: God deals with persons. Even in the Old Testament, the Lord said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). He did not say, The group that sinneth. He said, The soul.

And you learn something else from “whosoever.” God is not interested in your comparison chart. Men love to grade on a curve. They want to stand next to a worse sinner and feel holy. God does not compare you to your neighbor. He compares you to His own righteousness. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). If you try to enter that courtroom with “I’m basically a good person,” you have already confessed you do not know what goodness is. You do not know what holiness is. “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). The standard at the great white throne is not “better than average.” The standard is God.

3. The Books and the Book

Revelation 20:12 is specific for a reason. “And the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life” (Revelation 20:12). Notice the plural and the singular. There are books, records, documentation, the details of deeds, words, motives, opportunities, warnings, light given, light refused. Jesus said, “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36). Men talk like their words evaporate. God writes them down. Men forget their lies. God does not forget. Men justify their cruelty. God records it.

But then there is “another book,” and it is not about deeds. It is about life. It is the book of life. That tells you the issue at the bottom of the pit is not merely that a man did wrong. The issue is that he never received God’s life. He remained dead toward God. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). A dead man cannot produce life by doing. A dead man can only receive life by grace. The book of life is the line between the redeemed and the lost. It is why Jesus could say, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation” (John 5:24). If you have everlasting life, you do not show up at this throne to be condemned. You show up at Christ’s judgment seat to have your works tried for reward, not to determine heaven or hell (2 Corinthians 5:10).

That is why Revelation 20:15 is not teaching “group condemnation.” It is teaching personal exclusion from life. “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). Not found means searched. It means examined. It means looked for. Men talk about God being unfair. They do not read what the Bible says. God opens books. God opens the book of life. There is a search. There is a finding. And the horror is not that God is careless. The horror is that God is exact.

Seven Bible Study Questions That Unlock Any Passage

Main Text: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

INTRODUCTION

Most of the “hard” Bible passages aren’t hard because God hid them, they are hard because people won’t slow down long enough to read them like God wrote them. They skim, assume, import their denomination, and then act shocked when the verse does not salute their tradition. The Book was not written to entertain your curiosity, it was written to govern your life. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105). A lamp doesn’t work if you refuse to turn it on, and the Bible doesn’t “open up” to a man who won’t do what it says.

The average Christian’s method is panic reading. He opens the Bible only when life catches fire, then he grabs a verse like a drowning man grabbing driftwood, and he calls that “study.” Study is work, and God expects workmen. “Study to shew thyself approved unto God” (2 Timothy 2:15) is not a suggestion, it is a command, and it was written because God knows the devil can twist a careless reader into knots. A man can sit under preaching for twenty years and still not know what to do with a passage if he never learns how to ask the right questions.

So here is the key. You don’t need a secret code, a new translation, or a guru. You need a set of Bible questions that force your mind to submit to the text instead of forcing the text to submit to your mind. The Bereans did not need a seminary, they needed honesty and Scripture. “They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). These seven questions will unlock any passage because they keep you in the Book, keep you in context, keep you rightly divided, and keep you from the most common traps that wreck Christians in study.

1. WHO IS SPEAKING IN THIS PASSAGE

The first question is simple, and most confusion starts when you ignore it. Who is talking here. Is it God speaking directly, is it a prophet repeating what God said, is it a king writing in distress, is it an apostle teaching doctrine, or is it a devil lying through someone’s mouth. The Bible records truth, but it also records lies that God wants exposed as lies. Satan spoke to Eve, and the words are written down, but that doesn’t make them doctrine for you. “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field” (Genesis 3:1). If you do not identify the speaker, you can end up preaching the serpent like he is the Holy Ghost.

When God speaks, the authority is absolute. When men speak, you must watch the context and the intent. Sometimes a man speaks by inspiration, and sometimes a man speaks by fear, anger, or unbelief. Elijah said, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life” (1 Kings 19:4). That is the language of depression, not the language of doctrine. God wrote it down to show you the struggle, not to give you permission to quit. So you ask, who is speaking, and then you ask, is the Bible approving what is said or exposing it.

This question also protects you from worshipping personalities. The Bible is not a collection of human opinions with God sprinkled on top. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). That means when the Holy Ghost is speaking, you submit. When a man is speaking out of his flesh, you learn from the warning. Identifying the speaker is like putting the right label on the medicine bottle. Take the wrong dose from the wrong voice and you will get spiritual sickness every time. 2. WHO IS BEING ADDRESSED

The second question is the one that destroys half the sermon material on the internet. To whom is this being spoken. The Bible is written for you, but not everything in it is written to you, and if you don’t learn that distinction you will live confused, fearful, and doctrinally unstable. God speaks to Adam one way, to Israel another way, to the Church another way, and to the Tribulation saints another way. A man who refuses to see audiences is a man who will mix instructions until nothing fits.

The Bible itself tells you there are differences. Jesus said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). That is not a “nice thought,” that is a direct statement of audience and mission in His earthly ministry. Paul says he is “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 11:13). If you blur those lines, you will force passages to say what they do not say, and you will take a verse meant for Israel under the law and try to shove it onto a Christian under grace, then wonder why you cannot make it work.

This is why the Holy Ghost tells you to divide. “Rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) means you respect who is being addressed. It will also keep you from spiritual panic. A man reads a judgment passage meant for rebels and applies it to a saved believer, then he lives under a cloud. But the Bible says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Ask who is being addressed, and you stop letting the devil steal your peace by misaddressed mail.

3. WHAT IS THE CONTEXT BEFORE AND AFTER

The third question is what saves you from verse snatching. What is the context. What comes before and what comes after. Most false doctrine is a single verse ripped out of its neighborhood and used like a weapon. The devil loves lonely verses because lonely verses can be made to sound like anything. But God wrote Scripture in sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books for a reason, and He expects you to read like an honest man reads.

Context means you identify the flow of thought. What problem is being addressed. What question is being answered. What rebuke is being given. What promise is being made, and what condition is attached to it. This is not complicated. It just requires humility and patience. “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple” (Psalm 119:130). Notice it is the entrance of words, plural, not one word yanked out like a slogan.

Context also keeps you from emotional interpretation. A man can take a comfort verse meant for a repentant believer and hand it to a rebel as if God blesses rebellion, then wonder why nothing changes. God’s comfort is real, but it is not a license to sin. Read the whole passage. Let it say what it says. Then you will find the Bible is consistent, and the confusion was never in God’s writing. The confusion was in your shortcut.

4. WHAT DO THE KEY WORDS MEAN IN THE BIBLE

The fourth question is where real study begins. What do the words mean, and how does the Bible use them. People define Bible words by modern culture, denominational jargon, or their own emotions, and then they accuse God of being unclear. God is not unclear. The reader is sloppy. The Bible has its own vocabulary, and it defines its own terms if you will bother to look.

Seven Mistakes Christians Make in Bible Study

INTRODUCTION

Most Christians do not have a Bible problem, they have a discipline problem. They own a King James Bible, they carry it to church, they set it on the table, and then they live on spiritual fumes all week because they never open the Book when nobody is watching. Then they wonder why their mind is a battlefield, why their emotions run wild, why every wind of doctrine knocks them over, and why they keep repeating the same sins with different excuses. God didn’t give you the Scriptures to decorate your coffee table. He gave you the Scriptures to renew your mind, feed your soul, correct your path, and arm you for war. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). If you are not getting doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction, then you are not using the Book the way God wrote it.

A Bible believer is supposed to be a student, not a spectator. The Lord never told you to skim, guess, and assume. He told you to study. “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Notice the words the Holy Ghost chose. Study is work. Approved is the goal. Ashamed is the warning. Rightly dividing is the method. If you refuse the method, you invite the shame. Most confusion in Christian living is not because the Bible is unclear, it is because the reader is careless.

So when you hear people say, “The Bible is hard to understand,” what they usually mean is, “I don’t want to slow down, think, compare Scripture with Scripture, and submit to what I find.” The Bible is not hard to understand in the places where it is meant to be obeyed, but it will humble a lazy man every time. If you want spiritual power, you will have to identify the mistakes that keep Christians weak, shallow, and deceived. Here are seven of the biggest mistakes Christians make in Bible study, and every one of them will either steal your blessing or shipwreck your faith if you keep doing it.

1. STUDYING WITHOUT BELIEVING WHAT YOU READ

The first mistake is studying the Bible like it is a museum piece instead of the living words of God. There are people who can quote Greek terms, argue about manuscripts, and recite historical trivia, but they do not believe what the Book says when it crosses their feelings, their tradition, or their denomination. That is not Bible study. That is religious entertainment. The Bible says, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful” (Hebrews 4:12). Quick means alive. If you approach it like it is dead, you will get dead results.

Faith is the doorway to light. God will not pour clarity into a heart that is proud and skeptical. Jesus rebuked the religious crowd because they could read the text and still miss the truth. “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Notice the connection. Not knowing Scripture leads to losing power. People want power without submission, knowledge without obedience, and truth without repentance. It does not work that way.

A man can sit under preaching for twenty years and still be a spiritual baby if he never believes the Book enough to obey it. James said, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). That word “deceiving” is deadly. The worst deception is self-deception. The first mistake is not intellectual, it is moral. The Bible will open up to you when you treat it like God talking, not like a debate prompt. 2. RIPPING VERSES OUT OF CONTEXT AND CALLING IT DOCTRINE

The second mistake is grabbing a verse like a fortune cookie and building a doctrine with no context. That is how cults are made, and that is how carnal Christians justify anything they want. The devil quoted Scripture to Jesus, but he quoted it crooked. “It is written” is not enough if you do not know what is written before it and after it. A verse has a setting. A verse has a speaker. A verse has an audience. A verse has a purpose. Ignore those things and you will make the Bible say what it never said.

The Bible commands you to pay attention to the whole counsel of God, not isolated fragments. Paul told the Ephesian elders, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). All counsel means you do not cherry-pick. When a man only studies his favorite topics, he becomes unbalanced. He majors on hobby horses and minors on holiness. He can argue prophecy and never control his tongue. He can fight about versions and never forgive anybody. That is not Bible maturity, that is Bible addiction.

Context is also how you keep promises in their proper place and warnings in their proper place. A man who ignores context will take tribulation passages written to Israel and put them on the Church, then he will live in fear because he thinks he is appointed to wrath. But the Bible says, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). Context keeps you from terror and keeps you from error.

3. REFUSING TO RIGHTLY DIVIDE AND MIXING WHAT GOD SEPARATED

The third mistake is refusing to rightly divide the word of truth. God wrote one Bible, but He wrote it to different people in different dispensations with different instructions. If you mix Israel and the Church, you will wreck doctrine. If you mix law and grace, you will wreck assurance. If you mix the kingdom program and the body of Christ, you will wreck prophecy. God told you what to do, and most Christians ignore it, then complain about confusion. “Rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) is not optional for a workman.

The Bible itself shows you differences that must be respected. Jesus told His disciples, “But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). Paul says, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 1:17). If you do not divide, you will twist one passage to cancel the other. You will turn the New Testament into a contradiction factory, when the problem is not the Book, it is the reader.

Right division is also how you keep your salvation clear. A man reads Hebrews, ignores the audience, ignores the warning context, and ends up doubting eternal life because he forced Jewish tribulation warnings onto the body of Christ. Then he lives under a cloud, afraid of losing what Christ already secured. The Bible says you are “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13). Either that seal means something or it doesn’t. Right division keeps the seal where God put it and keeps the warnings where God put them.

4. MAKING THE BIBLE SAY WHAT YOUR DENOMINATION ALREADY DECIDED

The fourth mistake is coming to the Bible to prove what you already believe instead of coming to be corrected. That is not studying, that is propaganda. A lot of Christians do not read the Bible, they read their creed into the Bible. They treat their pastor’s opinion like the final court. They treat their tradition like Scripture. Jesus warned about that exact sin. “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition” (Matthew 15:6). If tradition cancels Scripture, tradition is your god.

This is why some people get furious when the Bible is plain. They are not angry at you, they are angry at the Book, because the Book exposes their system. The Bible says, “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). That includes your favorite teacher

Seven Spiritual Lessons From Bible Animals

INTRODUCTION

God did not fill His Book with animals just so a Sunday School teacher could keep the kids quiet with a coloring page. The Lord uses animals like living parables because a man can argue with doctrine, but he can’t argue with a picture that stares him in the face. A sheep doesn’t pretend to be a wolf. A serpent doesn’t apologize for being subtle. An ant doesn’t complain about working while the sluggard sleeps. The Bible says, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise” (Proverbs 6:6). That is God telling a grown man to sit down and learn from a bug.

The problem with modern Christians is they want “deep” truth while ignoring the plain truth sitting right in front of them. They want to chase charts, podcasts, and personalities, while God is saying, “Look at the lamb. Look at the lion. Look at the dove. Look at the ox.” There is nothing shallow about God’s object lessons. The Holy Ghost can teach you more through a sheep and a shepherd than a seminary professor can teach you in a year of lectures if that professor doesn’t believe the Book. Jesus Christ Himself preached with animals and nature because truth is not impressed with your vocabulary.

So this is for the Bible believer who wants practical spiritual instruction with teeth in it. These seven animals are not random. Each one is a mirror. Each one exposes something in you. Some of them comfort you, some of them rebuke you, and some of them warn you. And if you are honest, you will find yourself in every one of them at some point. God’s creatures become God’s classroom, and the man who refuses to learn from the Lord’s lessons stays childish, proud, and easily deceived.

1. THE LAMB AND THE LESSON OF SUBSTITUTION

The first animal God uses to teach you is the lamb, and the lesson is substitution. A lamb is innocent, harmless, and defenseless, and that is exactly why God chose it as the picture of the Saviour. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he did not say, “Behold the philosopher,” or “Behold the moral example.” He said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). That is blood doctrine, not sentimental religion. God’s solution for sin was not education. God’s solution for sin was sacrifice.

All through the Old Testament, the lamb is tied to the blood. At Passover the Lord said, “Your lamb shall be without blemish” (Exodus 12:5), and then He commanded the blood to be applied, because the issue was not sincerity, it was satisfaction. God said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). He didn’t say, “When I see your good intentions.” He didn’t say, “When I see your church membership.” He said, “When I see the blood.” That is substitution. Something dies in your place so you can live.

That lesson will keep you from two deadly traps. It will keep you from pride, because you can’t brag about being saved when your salvation required a slaughtered Substitute. And it will keep you from despair, because if the blood paid for all your sin, then the devil’s accusations are just noise. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14). The lamb teaches you that God does not forgive by pretending sin is small. He forgives by judging sin in a Substitute, and that Substitute is Jesus Christ.

2. THE LION AND THE LESSON OF AUTHORITY

The second animal is the lion, and the lesson is authority. The modern world tries to turn Jesus into a tame religious mascot, but the Bible presents Him as a King with a roar. The Scripture says, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed” (Revelation 5:5). That Lion is not begging for votes. He is not running for office. He is not asking permission from culture. He has prevailed. That is authority.

A lion does not negotiate with prey, and Jesus Christ does not negotiate with truth. He speaks with final authority, and that it’s why the world hates Him. The world will tolerate a “Jesus” who never corrects anything, but it cannot tolerate the Lion who says, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). When you are struggling, you need that Lion. When you are afraid, you need that Lion. When your mind is full of chaos, you need the sound of a King who is not confused.

The lion also teaches you something about spiritual courage. Most Christians are bold in safe environments and cowardly in public. They’ll talk tough around friends and go silent around enemies. That is not lion behavior. The Bible says, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1). That boldness does not come from personality. It comes from being right with God and grounded in the Book. The lion teaches you to stop living like the devil is king. He isn’t. The Lion of Judah is.

3. THE SERPENT AND THE LESSON OF DISCERNMENT

The third animal is the serpent, and the lesson is discernment. The first creature in the Bible to speak to man was a serpent, and he spoke lies wrapped in half-truths. “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field” (Genesis 3:1). Subtlety is Satan’s art. He doesn’t usually come in a red suit with horns. He comes in a friendly voice, a spiritual tone, and a question mark aimed at the Word of God. “Yea, hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1) is the devil’s first sermon, and it is still his favorite.

The serpent teaches you that temptation often begins with conversation. Eve didn’t fall by tripping. She fell by listening. She entertained the dialogue. She let the serpent frame reality. That’s why the Bible commands you to be watchful. The devil will use media, friends, religious talk, and even “Christian” teachers to plant doubt. Paul warned, “I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted” (2 Corinthians 11:3). Notice where the serpent works. He works in the mind. That’s why a Christian who neglects Scripture becomes easy prey.

Now here is the part that will correct shallow thinking. Jesus said, “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). He is not telling you to be wicked. He is telling you to be alert. A wise Christian does not assume everything labeled “Christian” is safe. A wise Christian tests spirits, checks doctrine, and watches fruit. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). The serpent teaches you that discernment is not optional. It is survival.

4. THE DOVE AND THE LESSON OF SPIRITUAL TEMPERAMENT

The fourth animal is the dove, and the lesson is spiritual temperament. God uses the dove as a picture of purity, peace, and the Holy Spirit. At the baptism of Christ the Bible says, “The Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him” (Matthew 3:16). That is not an accident. A dove is not a vulture. It does not feed on rot. The Holy Spirit does not feed on filth either. If you want fellowship with God, you do not cultivate garbage in your mind and call it liberty.

The dove also teaches you about peace. When Noah sent out the dove, it returned with “an olive leaf pluckt off” (Genesis 8:11). That was a sign of restoration after judgment. The world chases peace through distraction, but the Bible says peace is a fruit of the Spirit, not a product of circumstances. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace” (Galatians 5:22). If you are always stirred up, always offended, always agitated, always looking for a fight, you may be zealous, but you are not walking like a dove.

And the dove corrects the Christian who thinks harshness is strength. Some people mistake a bad attitude for boldness. Jesus said to be harmless as doves, which means your spirit matters. Truth without love becomes cruelty. Love without truth becomes compromise. The dove doesn’t weaken the lion. It balances the lion. The believer needs courage with

The Cross Demands a Choice

You either bow to it or stumble over it, but you can’t ignore it.

Introduction

The cross is not a decoration, and it is not a slogan, and it is not a sentimental symbol for people who like religious jewelry. The cross is God’s public execution of man’s pride, and it is heaven’s announcement that your righteousness is filthy rags, and it is the sharp edge where eternity divides. Men want a Christianity that is soft enough to cradle their ego and broad enough to include their sin, but the cross will not cooperate with that program. The cross does not negotiate. It does not ask how you feel. It does not adjust itself to modern taste. It stands like a wooden verdict in the middle of history and forces every soul that passes by to decide what they will do with Jesus Christ. “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). That verse does not leave room for neutrality. If you are perishing, it is foolishness. If you are saved, it is power.

Most people try to avoid decisions that cost them something. They will postpone, compromise, redefine, rationalize, and distract themselves so they never have to bow. But the cross is a decision you cannot escape. You may ignore it in your mind, but you will meet it again at the judgment seat of Christ if you are saved, or at the great white throne if you are lost. The cross is the hinge upon which God swings His wrath and His mercy, and you do not get to walk around it as if it were a piece of furniture. The Lord Jesus Christ did not hang on that tree to become an inspirational story. He hung there to pay for sin, to satisfy justice, to crush the serpent, and to save sinners who could not save themselves. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). That is not poetry. That is payment.

And here is the part that offends modern religion: the cross does not merely invite you. It confronts you. It says you are guilty, you are condemned, you are helpless, and you need a Savior outside yourself. It tells the moral man that his morality cannot erase one sin. It tells the religious man that his religion cannot wash away one stain. It tells the intellectual that his education cannot answer death. It tells the rebel that his rebellion is suicidal. The cross demands a choice because it is the place where God settled the issue of sin, and you either receive what Christ did or you reject it and bear your own judgment. “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already” (John 3:18). Already. That is the present condition of every man outside Christ.

1. The Cross Exposes the Real Condition of Man

If you want to know what God thinks about human nature, look at the cross. God did not send His Son into the world to congratulate mankind. He sent His Son because mankind was lost. The cross is proof that man is not basically good. If man were basically good, he would not have murdered the only sinless man who ever lived. Yet when God walked among men in perfect holiness, the world cried, “Away with him” (John 19:15). Religion conspired with government, and the crowd demanded blood. That is not an accident of history. That is the revelation of the heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9).

The cross also exposes the bankruptcy of human righteousness. There were plenty of religious people standing around Calvary. There were priests, scribes, Pharisees, and a man with a title nailed above his head. And yet the only man on that hill who could save them was the one they were killing. The cross says you cannot climb up to God by effort, and you cannot scrub your conscience clean by rituals. “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight” (Romans 3:20). No flesh. That includes the most faithful churchgoer and the most disciplined moralist. If the law could save, Christ did not need to die. But He died, because you cannot.

And the cross exposes the seriousness of sin. Men treat sin like a mistake, a weakness, a preference, a personality trait. God treats sin like a crime. Sin is not an inconvenience; it is treason. Sin is what put nails through the hands of the Son of God. You can measure the ugliness of sin by the price required to pay for it. If sin could be dismissed with a shrug, God would have shrugged. If sin could be erased with a self-help plan, heaven would have published one. But sin required blood. “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). That is why the cross demands a choice. It tells you sin is deadly, and you must either take God’s remedy or die in it.

2. The Cross Declares God’s Holiness and God’s Love

Modern religion likes to talk about love while ignoring holiness. But at the cross, God’s holiness is not softened; it is satisfied. God does not overlook sin. God judges sin. He does not pretend justice doesn’t matter. He fulfills justice. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Wages are earned. Death is not an accident; it is the paycheck of rebellion. And the cross is where God poured out His wrath on sin without pouring it out on the sinner who believes. He judged sin in the body of His Son. “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). That sentence is not sentimental, but it is salvation.

At the same time, the cross is the loudest declaration of love in the universe. Not the love of a soft grandfather who winks at sin, but the love of a holy God who pays the full price to rescue rebels. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). While we were yet sinners. Not after we improved. Not after we proved ourselves. Not after we deserved it. While we were sinners. The cross is love that bleeds, love that suffers, love that endures, love that pays.

And this is why you cannot ignore it. If you ignore the cross, you are ignoring the only place where holiness and love meet without contradiction. The world wants love without judgment, but that is not love; that is indulgence. The world wants mercy without holiness, but that is not mercy; that is corruption. At the cross, God remains just and becomes the justifier. “That he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). That is divine genius. God does not lower His standard. He meets it in Christ. So the cross demands a choice: will you trust what God provided, or will you cling to your own broken system?

3. The Cross Divides Humanity Into Two Camps

Men love the middle ground because it feels safe. But the cross destroys the middle ground. It creates two camps: those who bow and those who stumble. Scripture does not blush to say it. Jesus Christ is “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence” (1 Peter 2:8). Not because He is rude, but because He is righteous. He offends pride. He offends self-righteousness. He offends religious hypocrisy. He offends the idea that you can save yourself. He offends the world’s love for darkness. The cross is the offense because it says salvation is by grace, through faith, in Christ alone.

The same cross that saves the humble condemns the proud. Not because God enjoys condemning, but because pride will not come. The cross says, “Come empty.” Pride says, “I must contribute.” The cross says, “Believe.” Pride says, “I will do.” The cross says, “Receive.” Pride says, “I will earn.” That is why Paul said, “Where is boasting then? It is excluded” (Romans 3:27). The cross leaves no room for you to brag. A man who bows at Calvary has nothing to boast about except the blood. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).

The Jubilee Misapplied

Leviticus 25:8–12

Introduction

The Year of Jubilee is one of the most hijacked passages in the entire Old Testament. You can’t mention “Jubilee” in modern Christian circles without somebody turning it into a money sermon, a debt-cancellation fantasy, or a political platform. Preachers use it like a spiritual crowbar to pry open people’s wallets or to push a social program. They talk about “your Jubilee season,” “your financial breakthrough,” “your release,” and they preach it like God wrote Leviticus 25 to guarantee modern believers a clean credit report. But the Bible never uses Jubilee that way. The Year of Jubilee was not given to the Church, it was given to Israel. It was not an economic ideology, it was a covenant statute. It was not a socialist dream, it was a prophetic type. And it was not designed to produce a utopian society, it was designed to protect God’s land allotments, restore God’s inheritance order, and point forward to the day when God restores Israel nationally in the Kingdom.

Leviticus 25:8–12 defines the Jubilee plainly. “And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee… even forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound… in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land” (Leviticus 25:8–9). The Jubilee wasn’t announced by a motivational speaker. It was announced by a trumpet on the Day of Atonement. That alone tells you it is tied to redemption and covenant, not mere economics. The Lord continues: “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you” (Leviticus 25:10). People love to quote “proclaim liberty” and stop there, as if that’s the whole story. But in context, liberty was specifically tied to Israel’s land, Israel’s servants, and Israel’s inheritance. It was the resetting of a nation God personally planted in a land He personally owned.

The Church has no covenant claim to Palestine. The Church has no Levitical land allotments. The Church is not under Mosaic civil law. The Church’s inheritance is “incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven” (1 Peter 1:4). So when modern preachers take Israel’s Jubilee statute and make it a financial freedom plan for the New Testament saint, they are not “applying” Scripture. They are misapplying it. They are stealing Israel’s promises, twisting Israel’s types, and using them as bait for carnal ears. The Jubilee points to something far bigger than a bank account. It points to a King, a Kingdom, and a national restoration that has not happened yet. And if you don’t rightly divide that, you will turn a millennial prophecy into a modern hustle.

Chapter 1: The Jubilee Was a Land Statute, Not a Feel-Good Season

The first doctrinal anchor in Leviticus 25 is ownership. God does not begin by talking about money. He begins by talking about land, rest, and His authority. “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me” (Leviticus 25:23). That verse destroys every modern attempt to make Jubilee a universal economic policy. The Jubilee only makes sense in a context where God owns a specific land, assigns it to specific tribes, and then regulates its use through covenant law. Israel’s land inheritance was not a private capitalist free-for-all and it was not a socialist redistribution scheme. It was a theocratic stewardship model rooted in the fact that God owns the land and Israel occupies it under covenant.

Modern believers do not live under that covenant arrangement. We are citizens of heaven, not a theocratic nation-state. The Church was never commanded to enforce Jubilee laws in the Roman Empire, and the apostles never preached Jubilee as a financial reset. If the Jubilee was meant to be preached as a Church-age economic program, Paul would have told the Corinthians to blow a trumpet every fifty years and cancel debts. Instead he told them to work with their hands and provide for needs (Ephesians 4:28), to pay what they owe (Romans 13:7–8), and to give freely, not under compulsion (2 Corinthians 9:7). That is not Jubilee. That is Christian stewardship under grace.

Jubilee was not a “season” you claim; it was a statute you obeyed. It was not an inner feeling; it was a national reset tied to land and inheritance. It did not promise everyone wealth. It promised everyone restoration to what God originally allotted. It was designed to prevent permanent loss of family inheritance in Israel. It was not designed to guarantee prosperity regardless of foolish decisions. The modern preacher sells Jubilee as a spiritual lottery ticket. God gave Jubilee as a covenant boundary.

Chapter 2: The Trumpet Was Blown on the Day of Atonement for a Reason

The timing of Jubilee is the first major clue that it is prophetic. “Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound… in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land” (Leviticus 25:9). The Day of Atonement is not about economics. It is about blood. It is about national cleansing. It is about reconciliation. God tied Jubilee to that day because Jubilee points forward to a future national atonement for Israel, when God will restore His people after judgment.

This is why the New Testament interprets Israel’s restoration as future. Paul said, “Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11:25–26). That is not the Church. That is Israel. That is national restoration after a period of judicial blindness. Jubilee belongs to that framework. It is tied to atonement because true liberty is never merely economic. True liberty is spiritual and covenantal. Jubilee was a shadow of a day when God restores Israel and returns her inheritance under Messiah.

People love to quote “proclaim liberty throughout all the land” (Leviticus 25:10) as if it were a political slogan. But in Scripture, liberty without atonement is shallow. If you cancel a debt and the man still dies in his sins, you didn’t give him liberty. You gave him temporary relief. Jubilee’s trumpet was sounded on Atonement Day because God was teaching that liberty is built on blood. No blood, no true release. That is why the greatest liberty ever proclaimed was not in Leviticus 25, but at Calvary, when Christ set captives free by paying sin’s debt with His own blood (Colossians 2:13–14).

So when modern preachers rip Jubilee away from Atonement Day and turn it into a “money miracle,” they sever the type from the doctrine. They take the trumpet but throw away the blood. They shout liberty but ignore atonement. That is backwards. Jubilee is not a financial gimmick. It is a prophetic trumpet tied to redemptive cleansing.

Chapter 3: “Proclaim Liberty” Was for Israel’s Inhabitants in Israel’s Land

Leviticus 25:10 is the favorite verse of people who want to sound spiritual while pushing political ideology. “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” But the verse does not stop there. It continues, “it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.” That is not a universal economic revolution. That is Israel returning to Israel’s allotments. Possession and family in this context are tribal inheritance and covenant identity.

The Jubilee addressed two primary problems in Israel’s national life: loss of land and bondage due to poverty. Over time, a man could sell land because of hardship. A man could become a hired servant or bondman because of debt. The Jubilee prevented permanent loss. It was God’s way of keeping the tribal allotments from being erased by generational poverty or corruption. It

Jesus, Wine, and Alcohol: What the Bible Really Teaches and Why It Matters in 2026

Main Passages: John 2:1-11; Matthew 26:27-29; Proverbs 20:1; Proverbs 23:29-35; Ephesians 5:18

Introduction

People keep asking the same question because the word “wine” in the Bible is used in more than one way, and modern Christians read the Book like it was written yesterday in a liquor store aisle. That is a setup for confusion. You open the Scriptures and you see warnings that sound like God is waving a red flag over the whole subject, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). Then you see passages where “wine” is associated with blessing, harvest, joy, offerings, and even a little medicinal use, and folks think the Bible is contradicting itself. It is not. The contradiction is in the reader, not the text. The Bible is precise, but you have to let it define its own terms and you have to stop assuming that every time you see the word “wine” it means modern, bottled, fermented alcohol.

The second reason people ask is because the most common arguments are emotional and tradition-driven. Somebody will say, “Jesus turned water into wine, so He approved drinking.” Somebody else will say, “Paul told Timothy to use a little wine, so it must be fine.” Then somebody else points out that drunkenness is condemned and tries to split the difference with a so-called moderation doctrine. But the Bible does not treat intoxicants as a harmless hobby that only becomes sinful after an invisible line is crossed. Scripture repeatedly frames alcohol as a deceiver, a corrupter of judgment, a danger to the weak, and a destroyer of families, ministries, and testimony. When God says, “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright” (Proverbs 23:31), that is not a love letter to moderation. That is a warning aimed at the very nature of the thing.

The third reason this matters is because 2026 is not ancient Israel. We live in a culture that markets intoxication as personality, therapy, sophistication, and “self-care.” The alcohol percentage is engineered. The access is constant. The social pressure is relentless. The damage is measurable, and it shows up in broken homes, wrecked purity, wrecked finances, wrecked testimonies, wrecked nerves, wrecked minds, and wrecked churches that will rebuke everything except the “respectable” sins that sit at the table on Saturday night and sing in the choir on Sunday morning. So I am going to answer the question the way the Book answers it, not with excuses, not with loopholes, but with Scripture, common sense, and honest history.

1. What Does “Wine” Mean in the Bible?

The first key is simple. The Bible uses the same word for the product of the vine in different stages and forms. English does it, too. People say “cider” and they might mean sweet or hard. People say “wine” and they might mean fresh juice, fermented drink, or something in between. The Bible languages have the same range. That matters because a man can build a whole theology on one lazy assumption, and the most popular lazy assumption is that Bible “wine” always means fermented alcohol. It does not. That one assumption is the engine behind most moderation preaching, and once you pull that engine, the whole car stops.

The Bible itself gives you a definition that should settle a lot of the noise. “Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster” (Isaiah 65:8). New wine in the cluster is not a bottle of booze. It is the fresh product of the grape. The Book also shows grapes being squeezed directly into a cup. The butler said, “Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh’s hand” (Genesis 40:11). That is not a distillery. That is not a fermentation lecture. That is the vine’s fruit, fresh and direct, and Scripture is comfortable calling that product “wine” language in context. When you learn to read with that in mind, you stop forcing every passage to mean alcohol.

This is why the argument is never settled by shouting the English word louder. The Bible settles it by context. Sometimes the context is blessing and nourishment and harvest and clean joy. Sometimes the context is deception and sickness and woe and shame. The issue is not that Scripture is confused. The issue is that Christians are trying to baptize a cultural habit and then run to the Bible hunting for a permission slip. If a man starts with the desire to justify his glass, he will twist words. If a man starts with the fear of God, he will let the Book speak and he will take the safest path when the stakes are high.

2. “Wine” as Blessing Versus “Wine” as Biting Serpent

God is not against joy. God is against intoxication and deception. There is a difference between the fruit of the vine as God made it and the corrupting use of it as man abuses it. That difference shows up in the way Scripture talks. When God is warning you, He describes what intoxicating drink does to the mind, the eyes, the mouth, the heart, and the feet. “They have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way” (Isaiah 28:7). That is not “they had two ounces too many.” That is the effect of the substance. It bends judgment. It breaks spiritual seriousness. It makes a man careless with his soul.

Then you have the vivid, courtroom-level warning in Proverbs 23. “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder” (Proverbs 23:32). The passage keeps going, and it does not describe a cute evening. “Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things” (Proverbs 23:33). That is lust and looseness. “Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea” (Proverbs 23:34). That is danger and stupidity. Then comes the addict’s lie: “When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again” (Proverbs 23:35). So when somebody tells you alcohol is morally neutral and only becomes sinful after some invisible line, you can hand them the Book and ask them why God talks like this about a “neutral” beverage.

Now put that beside the Bible’s clean joy language. God blesses with harvest and plenty. God gives bread. God gives fruit. God gives good things. The Bible can speak of the vine’s fruit as part of prosperity and gladness without endorsing intoxication. The devil’s trick is to use the blessing language of the vine to smuggle in the curse of the bottle. The Bible never tells a man to pursue intoxication. The Bible never frames intoxication as spiritual freedom. The Bible frames it as deception, bondage, and ruin. The safest reading is the honest one: the Book approves the wholesome fruit of the vine and condemns intoxicating drink as a snare that destroys judgment and testimony.

3. The Wedding at Cana: What Did Jesus Actually Make?

John 2 says Jesus turned water into “wine,” and that single chapter has been used to pressure Christians into drinking for generations. But you have to read what it says and what it does not say. It does not say Jesus drank it. It does not say it was fermented. It does not say He was providing liquor to intoxicate a crowd. It says He manifested His glory and the disciples believed on Him (John 2:11). The sign is about who He is, not about what men want to sip.

Then the steward says, “Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10). People read “well drunk” like it means “drunk,” but the wording is about having drunk freely, not about being intoxicated. More importantly, the argument that “good wine” must mean “strong wine” is a modern assumption. In older usage, and in much ancient testimony, “good wine” can mean fresh, sweet, clean, and not biting. If you have ever tasted fresh grape juice

Redeeming Wasted Years
Awakening begins when a saint refuses to waste another season

Main Passage: “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” (Romans 13:11, KJV)

Introduction

There is a particular grief that only a saved man can feel, and it is not the grief of losing his soul, because Christ settled that on Calvary, but it is the grief of realizing he squandered time that God meant to use. The lost man wastes years and calls it living. The saint wastes years and calls it backsliding, and even when the Lord restores him, he carries the shame of seasons spent half asleep. That is why Romans 13:11 hits like a trumpet in the night. “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep.” (Romans 13:11, KJV). The verse is not written to scare the believer into thinking he will lose salvation. It is written to wake the believer up to the fact that he can lose time, lose reward, lose joy, lose fellowship, and lose opportunities that will never return.

God built the Christian life with urgency in it, because God built life itself with a deadline in it. People talk about time as if it were a river you can wade in forever, but it is not. It is a current that pulls you toward an appointment. The Bible says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12, KJV). Numbering days is not morbid. It is wise. The man who refuses to number his days becomes careless with his soul. He drifts. He postpones. He says, not yet. The Holy Ghost says, now. Not tomorrow. Not after things settle down. “Now it is high time.”

When a saint awakens, he does not merely feel bad. He gets up. He stops making excuses for his spiritual sleep and he refuses to waste another season. He begins to redeem what can still be redeemed. The Bible says, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16, KJV). That is not poetry. That is marching orders. You do not redeem time by wishing the past away. You redeem time by waking up in the present, cutting off the dead weight, and obeying God while breath is still in your lungs. That is what this essay is about, not a sentimental reflection, but a call to get up, get straight, and get busy while the night is far spent and the day is at hand.

1.The Lie of Someday

The devil has a gospel for backsliders, and it is not atheism, it is delay. He does not need a saint to deny Christ. He only needs him to postpone obedience. The devil whispers, you will pray later. You will read later. You will witness later. You will get serious later. And then later becomes never. That is why Paul says, “now it is high time.” (Romans 13:11, KJV). The Holy Ghost attacks the lie of someday. Someday is the cemetery of good intentions. Someday is where sermons go to die. Someday is where Bible plans get buried. Someday is where callings get strangled.

A saint can waste years without committing some public scandal. He can waste years by simply being distracted. He can waste years by drifting into entertainment, comfort, routine, and spiritual laziness. He still believes the right doctrine, but he is asleep to the weight of eternity. He becomes like Samson who “wist not that the LORD was departed from him.” (Judges 16:20, KJV). Samson did not lose his calling in one moment. He lost it in a pattern. He played with sin until he could not tell the difference between strength and weakness. That is what delay does. It dulls discernment. It makes the saint think he can keep sleeping and still wake up strong.

The cure for someday is now. Not legalism, not emotional hype, not a new personality, but obedience in the present moment. When the prodigal “came to himself” (Luke 15:17, KJV), he did not schedule repentance for next month. He rose and went. Awakening begins when a saint refuses to waste another season. The first step is not a grand vow. It is getting up today. It is saying, I will not live another week the way I lived the last one. I will not keep postponing what God already told me to do.

2.Sleep Is Not Innocent

Spiritual sleep looks harmless until you measure what it costs. A sleeping saint is not at rest. He is exposed. He is vulnerable. He is easy prey. The Bible says, “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:6, KJV). That verse is written to believers. It proves believers can sleep. And when believers sleep, the enemy works. He plants bitterness. He plants secret lust. He plants indifference. He plants resentment toward authority, resentment toward responsibility, and resentment toward truth. Sleep is not neutral. It is a battlefield condition.

The tragedy is that many saints confuse sleep with peace. They think calmness is spiritual health. But spiritual health is not a lack of conflict. Spiritual health is alert obedience in the middle of conflict. A believer can be calm because he has surrendered to drift. He is not fighting temptation because he stopped resisting. He is not praying because he stopped caring. He is not witnessing because he stopped seeing people as souls. That is not peace, that is numbness. That is why Paul says “awake.” It is not a suggestion. It is a command.

Sleep also wastes seasons because it wastes opportunities. There are moments God gives a man to speak, to serve, to repent, to build, and to bear fruit, and those moments are not guaranteed to repeat. The Bible says, “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” (Proverbs 27:1, KJV). The saint who sleeps assumes tomorrow will always arrive with the same strength, the same chances, the same open doors. But doors close. Health changes. People move. Time runs out. Sleep is expensive. It spends what cannot be recovered.

3.The Clock That Cannot Be Rewound

Romans 13:11 says, “for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” (Romans 13:11, KJV). That is one of the simplest statements in Scripture and one of the most sobering. Every day you live you are closer to meeting Christ. Whether you are a faithful saint or a drifting saint, the meeting is still approaching. That is not meant to terrify the believer about hell. It is meant to sober him about account. The Bible says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:10, KJV). The judgment seat is not for condemnation. It is for evaluation. It is where wasted years show up as loss.

The world thinks time heals everything. The Bible teaches time exposes everything. The longer you live, the more your choices become your character. The more your habits become your direction. A man can waste a season and tell himself he will make it up later, but the clock does not rewind. That is why the Psalmist prayed, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.” (Psalm 51:12, KJV). David could be forgiven, but he could not undo consequences. He could be restored, but he could not erase the past. Forgiveness is real, but time is still time. Redemption does not erase yesterday, it redeems today.

This is why awakening is urgent. You cannot go back and fix the wasted years, but you can stop wasting the years ahead. God is merciful enough to use what remains. He can turn a late start into a strong finish. He can turn a broken man into a useful man. He can take a saint who has been asleep and make him watchful. But the saint must get honest. He must stop pretending sleep is harmless. He must stop telling himself he has unlimited time. He must live like the day is at hand.

4.The Grace That Restores the Wreckage

If this essay were only a whip, it would crush men. But Scripture does not only convict, it restores. God does not call a saint to wake up so He can mock him for sleeping. God calls him to wake up so He can use him. The Bible says, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give

God Doesn’t Need Your Opinion, Just Your Obedience

Submission beats speculation.

Introduction

This generation is drunk on opinions. Everybody has a take, everybody has a platform, everybody has a “thread,” everybody has a commentary, and everybody thinks their feelings are a form of authority. Men will argue for three hours about what God “really meant,” and never obey one plain sentence He actually said. They will debate Genesis, mock Revelation, psychoanalyze Paul, and rewrite the words of Christ so they can keep their darling sin and still claim the name of Christian. They will discuss theology like a sport and treat obedience like an optional accessory. But the Bible never taught that God saves men so they can become religious philosophers. God saves men so they can become servants. “Ye are not your own… For ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Bought people do not get a vote. Bought people get orders.

The first sin in the universe was not adultery, drunkenness, or theft. It was self-will. It was “I will” against “Thou shalt.” It was a creature deciding he would be his own authority. That is why rebellion is so serious. It is not merely breaking a rule. It is challenging the throne. “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Samuel 15:23). Witchcraft is trying to control reality through another spirit. Rebellion is trying to control your life through your own spirit. Both say the same thing: God will not rule me. And that is why God does not need your opinion. He demands your submission. “Submit yourselves therefore to God” (James 4:7). Not negotiate. Submit.

Speculation is cheap. Obedience costs something. Speculation lets you feel spiritual without being sanctified. Speculation lets you talk like a Bible believer while living like a worldling. Speculation lets you criticize everybody else without dealing with your own heart. But obedience changes a man. It humbles him. It breaks him. It makes him useful. “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). God would rather have one obedient saint than a thousand loud opinions. Submission beats speculation every time.

1. The Bible Is Not a Discussion Board

God did not give you the Scriptures so you could run a debate club. He gave you the Scriptures as the final authority. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God… that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Notice the destination. Not furnished unto all good opinions. Furnished unto all good works. The Book is not given to increase your argument skills. It is given to straighten your walk. If a man reads the Bible and comes away prouder, louder, and meaner, something is wrong with him. The Bible humbles a man who believes it. It does not inflate him.

The modern world treats truth like it is negotiable. “My truth” and “your truth” and “their truth.” That language is straight from hell because truth is not personal property. Truth is God’s property. “Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). If God’s word is truth, then your opinion is either aligned with truth or it is a lie. There is no neutral ground. The Bible says, “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans 3:4). That includes you when your opinion disagrees with what God said.

A Bible believer does not sit in judgment over the Scriptures. He lets the Scriptures sit in judgment over him. The Book is a sword, not a pillow. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword… and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The Bible does not ask your permission to convict you. It cuts. And when it cuts, the right response is not, “Well, I see it differently.” The right response is, “Yes, Lord.” 2. Saul Proves That Partial Obedience Is Disobedience

King Saul is the poster child for men who think God accepts their “interpretation” of commands. God told him to destroy Amalek completely (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul went out, fought, and then kept what he wanted. He spared Agag and kept the best of the sheep and oxen, and then he had the nerve to say he obeyed. “Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD” (1 Samuel 15:13). That is religious talk. That is church language. That is a man lying with a Bible vocabulary.

Then Samuel delivered one of the sharpest rebukes in all Scripture: “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” (1 Samuel 15:14). In other words, your excuses are louder than your obedience. Your compromise is making noise. You can talk about obedience all you want, but disobedience has a sound. It always bleats. And Saul tried to cover his rebellion with spiritual reasoning. He claimed the animals were for sacrifice. That is the classic move. Disobedience dressed up as devotion.

Samuel answered him with the verse that should be burned into every Christian’s conscience: “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). God does not want your religious performance as payment for your rebellion. God wants your submission. Saul lost the kingdom because he loved his own judgment more than God’s command. “Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee” (1 Samuel 15:23). When men elevate opinions above obedience, they forfeit usefulness.

3. The Flesh Loves Theory Because It Hates Authority

The flesh can talk all day. The flesh loves conferences, podcasts, arguments, speculation, and “deep” discussions that never touch the heart. The flesh loves anything that gives it the feeling of spirituality without the pain of repentance. That is why some people will spend hours studying prophecy charts and never deal with bitterness. They will quote Greek words and never forgive their brother. They will argue over manuscripts while hiding pornography. They will debate Calvinism while neglecting prayer. They are not interested in obedience. They are interested in being right in front of men.

But the Bible exposes the root. “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7). The flesh is not neutral. It is an enemy. And because it hates submission, it prefers speculation. Speculation keeps God at a distance. Obedience brings God close. Speculation lets you remain the judge. Obedience makes you the servant.

That is why the Lord said, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine” (John 7:17). Notice the order. Do, then know. Obedience brings understanding. Disobedience clouds it. Many men do not “see” truth because they do not want to obey it. They are not confused intellectually. They are resistant morally. The light is not the problem. The heart is the problem. “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light” (John 3:19). A man who loves darkness always has an opinion about why the light is wrong.

4. Real Faith Obeys Even When It Doesn’t Fully Understand

Faith is not mental agreement. Faith is trusting God enough to obey Him. Abraham did not get a full explanation when God told him to go. “By faith Abraham… obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went” (Hebrews 11:8). That is submission. That is a man moving with God’s word as his compass, not his feelings. The flesh wants a full map, a guarantee, a comfort package, and a safety net. Faith steps out because God spoke.

Seven Things Jesus Said That Still Shock the World

INTRODUCTION

The world doesn’t hate Jesus because He taught people to be kind. The world hates Jesus because He spoke like God. The modern crowd likes a “Jesus” who is a gentle life coach, a harmless mascot for religion, and a silent statue that never corrects anybody. But the real Jesus Christ in the King James Bible is not a mascot, and He is not impressed with man’s opinion. He did not come to negotiate truth with sinners. He came to declare truth to sinners, and when He opened His mouth, the words landed like a hammer. “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46) was not flattery, it was shock. When Christ spoke, conscience woke up, devils trembled, hypocrites panicked, and the religious establishment started sharpening nails.

The reason His words still shock the world is because they expose what the world tries to hide. The world wants a religion that never mentions sin, never mentions judgment, never mentions hell, and never claims exclusive truth. Jesus did all four. He talked about hell more than most preachers ever will. He told religious people they were lost. He said the heart was filthy. He said God demands repentance. And He claimed to be the only way to the Father. Those are not the statements of a bland moral teacher. Those are the statements of either a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord.

So what follows are seven things Jesus said that still rattle the modern mind. They are shocking because they contradict the spirit of the age. They offend human pride, human religion, and human lust. They cut across politics, culture, academia, and entertainment like a sword. But they also provide life, because “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). If you want a Jesus who never shocks you, you don’t want the Jesus of the Bible. You want a counterfeit.

1. “YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN” (JOHN 3:7)

The first statement that still shocks the world is simple and brutal: “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). Not “you should consider it,” not “it would be good for your mental health,” but “must.” Christ looked at Nicodemus, a religious man, a teacher, a ruler, and told him he wasn’t fit for the kingdom as he was. That shocks people because it demolishes the idea that religion makes you right. The world thinks if you’re sincere, decent, and spiritual, God will grade on a curve. Jesus said you need a new birth, not a new hobby.

This statement offends pride because it levels everybody. It says the drunk needs it, the moralist needs it, the church member needs it, and the preacher needs it. Nobody enters God’s kingdom by pedigree, tradition, or morality. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). That’s not a sermon illustration. That is a divine requirement. It means your old nature cannot be patched up and dragged into heaven. It must be replaced by spiritual birth.

And it shocks the world because it means salvation is not self-improvement. The world loves therapy and self-care because it keeps the self on the throne. The new birth dethrones the self. It makes a man confess he is lost and helpless. That is why proud religious people hate it. But Jesus didn’t stutter. “Ye must be born again.” The world is still shocked because it still wants to enter God’s presence without becoming what God requires.

2. “I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE” (JOHN 14:6)

The second statement that shocks the world is the exclusivity of Christ. “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). That verse detonates every religion on earth that offers another route. The world today worships “tolerance,” which is just pride with a smile. It says all faiths are equally valid and truth is personal. Jesus said truth is a Person, and that Person is Him. That shocks the world because it refuses to bow to pluralism. The world calls that arrogance, but it is only arrogance if it’s false. If Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, then to say He is the only way is not arrogance; it is reality. The doctor who tells you there is only one cure is not arrogant. He is truthful. But the sinner doesn’t want a cure; he wants permission. The world wants a Jesus who will share the throne with Buddha, Muhammad, Mary, science, and self. Christ refused. He said, “no man cometh… but by me.” That is a closed door to every other gospel.

And this is why men try to soften Jesus. They retranslate Him, reframe Him, and rewrite Him, because His exclusivity ruins their spiritual marketplace. But you can’t edit God out of His own Book. Jesus didn’t claim to show the way. He claimed to be the way. The world is still shocked because it wants many roads, and Christ said there is one.

3. “EXCEPT YE REPENT, YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH” (LUKE 13:3)

The third statement that shocks the world is His insistence on repentance. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Modern preaching tries to remove repentance because it is unpopular, but Jesus made it unavoidable. He didn’t tell sinners to merely “accept themselves” or “follow their heart.” He told them to turn. Repentance means you change your mind toward God and sin, and that change results in a change of direction. It is not penance. It is not reform. It is the inward turning that produces outward fruit.

This shocks the world because the world worships autonomy. The world says you have a right to define your own truth, your own morality, your own identity. Jesus said you are accountable, you are wrong, and you need to repent. That is offensive because it puts God above man. The sinner wants God to approve him. Christ demands the sinner come to God on God’s terms. “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15) is not a suggestion; it is the King’s command.

And it shocks the religious world too, because repentance exposes hypocrisy. It’s easy to criticize others while excusing yourself. Jesus didn’t permit that. He said the axe is laid at the root. He said men must turn or perish. No therapy can erase that warning. No church tradition can dilute it. Repentance is the doorway that pride refuses to walk through, and that is why the world still flinches when it hears it.

4. “WHOSOEVER LOOKETH… TO LUST… HATH COMMITTED ADULTERY” (MATTHEW 5:28)

The fourth statement that shocks the world is how Jesus defines sin. “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). The world thinks sin is only what you do with your hands. Jesus says sin starts in the heart. That shocks people because it makes them guilty even when they think they are “good.” A man can avoid the physical act and still be filthy inside. Christ exposed that internal corruption, and the modern world hates it because the modern world is built on lust marketed as freedom.

Jesus went further. He didn’t just condemn actions; He condemned motives. He didn’t just condemn murder; He condemned hatred. “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment” (Matthew 5:22). That means the heart is the battlefield. The world can clean up behavior for appearances, but only God can judge intent. That’s why Scripture says, “For the word of God… is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Christ preached that kind of holiness because He is holy.

Is Salvation a Process or a One-Time Event?

Introduction

The confusion on salvation is not because the Bible is unclear, it is because men are dishonest with the Bible. The flesh loves a system where you can boast, measure yourself, judge others, and keep people on a leash with uncertainty. So they take Bible words like “saved,” “salvation,” “sanctification,” “endure,” and “overcome,” and they dump them into one pot, stir it with tradition, and then serve it as a religious stew that tastes holy but poisons assurance. The result is predictable. You get churches full of people who say they love Jesus but never know if they are His. They are constantly trying to “stay saved,” constantly checking their performance, and constantly living in fear that one failure sends them to hell. That is not Christianity. That is bondage with a cross necklace.

The Bible teaches that salvation is a one-time event the moment a sinner believes the gospel, and it also teaches that God then works in that saved person over time. Those are not contradictions. That is the difference between justification and sanctification, between your standing and your walk, between being born and growing up. A baby is born in a moment, but he grows for years. Nobody says a child was “partly born” for twelve months. Birth happens once. Growth happens after. In the same way, salvation is a completed act of God in response to faith in Christ, and the Christian life is the ongoing work of God in the believer.

So when someone asks, “Is salvation a process or a one-time event?” the correct Bible answer is this. Salvation in the sense of being justified, forgiven, redeemed, and placed into Christ is a one-time event. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). But salvation in the sense of God saving you daily from the power of sin, maturing you, correcting you, and conforming you to Christ is an ongoing work in time. The Devil wants you to mix those two until you cannot tell the difference, because when you cannot tell the difference, he can steal your peace, weaken your testimony, and make you doubt the Book every time you fail.

1. The Bible Says You Can Be Saved in a Moment

When the Bible talks about a sinner being saved, it speaks as a decisive act, not a slow climb. The Philippian jailer did not get a twelve week course and a probation period. He asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” and the answer was immediate and direct: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:30-31). That is not “believe and then prove it for years and maybe you will be saved.” That is a one-time transaction based on Christ and received by faith.

The Lord Jesus Christ said the same thing with eternal clarity. “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). Notice the verbs. “Hath” is present possession. “Is passed” is a completed transfer. The passage does not say he is slowly passing from death to life. It says he has crossed over. That is the new birth. That is salvation as an event.

The Bible even defines the content of what must be believed. Paul said, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel… how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Salvation is not faith in your faith, faith in your sincerity, or faith in your future obedience. Salvation is faith in the finished work of Christ. When that faith is placed in Christ, God saves the sinner then and there.

2. Salvation Is Not Earned or Maintained by Works

If salvation is a process earned by steady obedience, then grace is a lie and the cross is reduced to an assist. But Scripture does not talk that way. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5). Mercy does the saving. Works do not. That verse does not say God saved you because you started doing better. It says He saved you because He is merciful.

Paul goes further and nails the coffin shut on human boasting. “For by grace are ye saved through faith… Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). That is not complicated. If a man could keep himself saved by obedience, he could boast. He could say, “Christ saved me, but I kept me.” That turns the believer into his own savior after conversion. It is pride pretending to be holiness.

The Bible also shows what happens when people try to blend law and grace. “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4). That is not teaching that a saved man loses salvation. It is teaching that the man who seeks justification by law has stepped away from grace as the means of justification. You cannot mix them. Either Christ saves you, or you save yourself. The Bible’s position is settled. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28).

3. Justification Is Instant, Sanctification Is Progressive

Here is where the honest Bible student draws clean lines. Justification is God declaring you righteous in Christ. Sanctification is God working righteousness out in your daily life. The first is your standing. The second is your walk. The first happens once. The second continues until you see Christ. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Peace with God is not a reward for long-term improvement. It is the result of justification by faith.

But after a man is saved, the Bible commands growth. The believer is told to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Growth is real, and growth takes time. That does not mean salvation takes time. It means discipleship takes time. Maturity takes time. Victory takes time. Learning the Book takes time. Learning to walk in the Spirit takes time.

This is why the Bible can speak of believers as already sanctified in one sense and being sanctified in another sense. Paul told the Corinthians, “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 6:11). That is positional sanctification. You are set apart in Christ. But the same Bible commands practical sanctification in your conduct. “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). One is what God did to you in Christ. The other is what God does in you as you obey.

4. The Bible Uses “Salvation” in More Than One Sense

Part of the confusion is that the Bible uses the word “salvation” in different time frames. Sometimes it refers to your past conversion. Sometimes it refers to your present deliverance from sin’s power and from trouble. Sometimes it refers to your future redemption, when your body is changed and you are finally like Christ. If you pretend the word only has one use, you will misread half the New Testament.

The past sense is clear. “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling” (2 Timothy 1:9). “Hath saved” is completed. The present sense appears when Paul speaks to believers about working out what God has worked in. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). He does not say work for your salvation. He says work it out, because God is already at work in you. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). That is growth and obedience flowing from salvation, not earning salvation.

The future sense is also explicit. Believers are “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). That is future salvation in the fullest sense, when the body is

Why Do Christians Still Struggle with the Flesh After Being Saved?

Introduction

A man gets saved and expects everything inside him to line up like soldiers at inspection. He thinks the moment he trusts Christ, the old desires will pack their bags, the bad habits will evaporate, the temper will vanish, and the mind will suddenly sound like a hymnbook. Then the first real temptation hits, and he finds out his old nature did not die quietly. It is still there, still loud, still stubborn, and still capable of making a fool out of him if he lets it. That shocks a lot of people because they were sold a fantasy version of Christianity where salvation is presented like a complete personality transplant. The Bible never promises that. The Bible promises a new birth, not an instant glorification.

The truth is that salvation is real, complete, finished, and perfect in Jesus Christ, but God did not save your flesh. He saved you, and the “you” that got saved is the inner man, the soul that trusted the Savior, the spirit that was dead and is now made alive. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). But the body you live in is still the same body with the same appetites and the same weaknesses. Paul said, “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Romans 7:20). He did not say it to excuse sin. He said it to explain the war.

So the question is not whether a Christian should struggle. The question is why the struggle exists and how God expects you to deal with it. The Bible answers that plainly, and it answers it in a way that preserves assurance without excusing sin. God will not let you pretend that grace means you can live like the Devil. But He also will not let the Devil convince you that every battle proves you were never saved. The struggle is real, the warfare is normal, and the victory is available, but it is never found by trusting your flesh. It is found by trusting God’s word and yielding to God’s Spirit.

1. Salvation Changes Your Nature, Not Your Flesh

When you got saved, you did not get a new body. You got a new birth. Jesus told Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). That verse alone crushes a mountain of confusion. The flesh produces flesh, and it stays flesh. The Spirit produces spirit, and that is where the new life begins. You were not renovated. You were regenerated. God did not improve your old nature. He gave you a new one.

That is why the Bible speaks of “the new man.” “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). That new man is real, and it is created “after God,” not after your upbringing, not after your church background, and not after your personal discipline. But the Bible also speaks of “the old man.” “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him” (Romans 6:6). The old man is judged at Calvary, and in God’s record that old man has been sentenced. But the presence of the flesh means you still carry around the old ways, the old reflexes, and the old cravings, and you will have to learn, by practice, to live out what is already true in Christ.

A saved man therefore lives with two realities at once. He is complete in Christ and still capable of sin in the flesh. He is accepted in the Beloved and still has to mortify the deeds of the body. He is a child of God and still has a body that wants to act like a hog in a slop trough. That is why Paul can say, with full confidence, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1), and in the same Bible he can also warn believers, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die” (Romans 8:13). One is your standing. The other is your walk.

2. God Did Not Save the Body Yet, and He Told You So

A Christian struggles with the flesh because the redemption of the body is future. That is not a guess. That is doctrine. Paul said believers are “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). That is why death still happens, sickness still happens, exhaustion still happens, and temptation still happens. Your spirit is sealed, your soul is saved, but your body is not glorified yet. You are living in a temporary tent that leaks.

That is why Paul calls the body a battlefield. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing” (Romans 7:18). He does not say, “Not much good.” He says, “No good.” If you ever want a verse that destroys self confidence, there it is. The flesh can be trained, restrained, and disciplined, but it cannot be trusted. It is not the seat of righteousness. It is the seat of appetite. If you feed it, it grows. If you starve it, it whines. If you pamper it, it takes over. And if you try to make it holy, it will turn holiness into pride.

This also explains why the Christian life is not about perfect circumstances. If God’s goal were to make your earthly life comfortable, He could have done that by removing every temptation. Instead, He leaves you in a world that tests you and a body that pulls on you so you will learn dependence. That is why the Bible says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Sight wants immediate results. Faith trusts God through conflict.

So the war is not proof you are lost. The war is proof you are alive. A dead man does not fight sin. A lost man can be religious, but he is not at war with his own flesh in the spiritual sense because he is still ruled by it. When God saves a man, He puts a new nature inside him, and the moment that new nature shows up, the fight begins. That is why Paul describes it like civil war inside one body.

3. The Bible Says There Is a War Inside You

The Bible does not romanticize this thing. It calls it what it is: war. “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other” (Galatians 5:17). That is not a personality quirk. That is not a phase. That is a constant opposition between two natures with two different appetites. The flesh wants the world, the self, and the easy path. The Spirit wants holiness, truth, and obedience.

Paul describes the same conflict in Romans 7 with painful honesty. He says, “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Romans 7:19). That is a saved man talking. That is not an atheist. That is not a pagan. That is an apostle. And God put it in the Bible so every believer who gets shocked by his own weakness can see that the struggle is normal, and the answer is not despair but dependence.

Notice that Paul does not solve the problem by claiming he is fine. He does not solve it by denying the battle. He cries out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). Then he answers, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). Deliverance is not you learning to be amazing. Deliverance is you learning to lean on Christ. The Christian who thinks he has graduated beyond temptation is about to fall hard. The Christian who knows he is weak is the one who stays close to the Savior.

So if you want a Bible explanation for why Christians still struggle, here it is. God put two natures in one house, and until He redeems the body, there will be conflict. The flesh never becomes Spirit, and the Spirit never becomes flesh. They stay contrary, and you decide daily which one gets the driver’s seat.

4. Grace Does Not Remove the Battle, It Gives Power to Win It

A lot of people misunderstand grace. They think grace means God lowers His standards and pretends you are fine. That is not grace. Grace is God giving you what you do not deserve, and then giving you the power to live what you could never live by yourself. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us

Journey Through the Bible – Leviticus

7 of 100: The Poor Man’s Offering

Leviticus 1:10–13

God provides access regardless of wealth.

INTRODUCTION

Leviticus 1 is not a museum of primitive religion. It is God laying down the rules of approach for sinners who want to stand in the presence of a holy God and not get consumed. By the time you reach Leviticus 1:10–13, the Lord has already shown the bullock offering, the blood at the door, the fire that consumes all, and the sweet savour that rises when the sacrifice is accepted. Now He makes something crystal clear that every generation needs to hear because every generation drifts into the same kind of spiritual snobbery. God does not price the altar like a luxury boutique. He does not charge admission based on the size of a man’s herd, his bank account, or his last name. When the Lord says, “If his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats” (Leviticus 1:10), He is opening the door wide enough for the poor man to walk through.

That does not mean God lowers His standards. That is where people get clever and slip into heresy. God’s mercy is not God’s compromise. The poor man is not excused from holiness. He is not allowed to bring a sick goat just because he is struggling. The same chapter that gives the poor man access also repeats the standard, “he shall offer it a male without blemish” (Leviticus 1:10). That means the Lord is teaching two truths at once. First, God is no respecter of persons. Second, God is no respecter of excuses. A poor man can come, but he must come God’s way. The offering may be smaller in earthly value, but the principle is the same: substitution, blood, fire, and acceptance by God.

This is one of the cleanest pictures in the whole Bible of how salvation works. Rich men do not buy their way in. Poor men do not beg their way in. Everyone comes through blood. Everyone comes by a substitute. Everyone comes to the same altar. And the greatest shock of all, the offering that grants access to God is never measured by the worshipper’s net worth, but by the worth of the sacrifice. That is why the Gospel never says, “Blessed are the rich.” It says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). And that is why the Bible can say, “God hath chosen the poor of this world rich in faith” (James 2:5). Leviticus 1:10–13 is not a side note. It is God preaching the equalizing power of atonement.

1. GOD BUILDS A DOOR FOR EVERY SINNER

The passage begins with a simple phrase that carries a thunderclap of mercy, “If his offering be of the flocks” (Leviticus 1:10). The Lord is acknowledging reality. Not every man owns a bullock. Not every household has the same resources. Some men work their hands raw just to keep a few sheep alive. Some men can barely afford a goat. And God does not say, “Too bad.” God says, “Then bring what you can bring, and come to Me.” That is grace without compromise. That is mercy without bargaining.

This destroys the lie that God is only for the powerful, the educated, the polished, and the impressive. The Lord put the altar at the door of the tabernacle so a man could not miss it, and then He put multiple lanes into that altar so a man could not be blocked by poverty. Later in this same chapter the Lord will go even lower in cost with the turtledoves and young pigeons (Leviticus 1:14), but right here He is already telling you that the altar is not reserved for the elite. The tabernacle is the center of Israel’s worship life, and God makes sure the poor man is not locked out of it.

But do not miss the bite of it. God is not only generous, He is confrontational. He is saying, in effect, that if a man stays away from the altar, it is not because the Lord refused him access. It is because the man refused God’s terms. Plenty of people love to blame God for distance that their own pride created. Leviticus says the door is open, the altar is ready, and the path is provided. The poor man can come, so the rich man has no excuse, and the rebellious man has even less.

2. THE OFFERING CHANGES, THE WAY DOES NOT

The bullock offering in Leviticus 1:3–9 and the flock offering in Leviticus 1:10–13 are not two different gospels. They are not two different plans of salvation. They are the same doctrine shown at two different economic levels. The offering is smaller, but the method stays the same. The worshipper still brings a substitute. The worshipper still identifies with it. The worshipper still sees blood. The worshipper still sees fire. The worshipper still watches the sacrifice become a “sweet savour unto the LORD” (Leviticus 1:13).

That is exactly how God works in Scripture. He will adjust the circumstance, but He will not adjust the standard. He will make a way for the weak, but He will not redefine holiness. That is why the Lord can say, “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18) and still say, “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). The mercy is wide, but the way is narrow. The access is offered freely, but it is not offered casually. God does not accept whatever you feel like bringing. He accepts what He prescribed.

And that is why every modern attempt to invent a new way to God is spiritual treason. Men want access without blood, worship without judgment, forgiveness without repentance, heaven without a cross, and Christianity without Christ. Leviticus will not tolerate that kind of talk. The Lord says you can come with a bullock or you can come with a sheep or you can come with a goat, but you will come by sacrifice, and you will come by blood, and you will come to the altar, or you will not come at all.

3. THE POOR MAN STILL OWES GOD PERFECTION

The flock offering repeats the same requirement that the bullock offering carried, “he shall offer it a male without blemish” (Leviticus 1:10). That is the Lord’s way of cutting off two kinds of religious nonsense at the knees. First, it cuts off the rich man’s pride. He cannot brag because his larger offering does not earn him a better standing with God. Second, it cuts off the poor man’s excuse. He cannot say, “God understands, so God will take my damaged leftovers.” No, God will provide a way for you to come, but He will not let you insult Him with trash.

That phrase “without blemish” is the loudest sermon in the sacrificial system. It is God saying that whatever touches the altar must reflect the perfection of the One receiving it. The poor man may not have much, but what he offers must still be clean, whole, and acceptable. That is not cruelty. That is theology. The altar is not a charity bin. It is a holy place. The sacrifice is not a token. It is a substitute. The standard remains because the standard is Christ. Every “without blemish” animal is pointing to “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19).

This also shows why the Gospel is not a prosperity message. God never said the poor man was closer to Him because he was poor. He said the poor man could come to Him even though he was poor. The Gospel does not romanticize poverty, and it does not worship wealth. It levels both at the altar. It tells the rich man to stop trusting riches, and it tells the poor man to stop trusting excuses. It tells both to trust the Substitute.

4. “ON THE SIDE OF THE ALTAR NORTHWARD”

Leviticus 1:11 says the flock offering is killed “on the side of the altar northward before the LORD” (Leviticus 1:11). God is so specific that He tells you where the knife goes down. He is not vague because He is teaching the worshipper that approaching God is not improvisation. The Lord sets the location, the method, the blood handling, and the burning, because sinners are experts at corrupting worship when left to themselves.

Before God Spoke, the Spirit Moved

(Genesis 1:2-3)

Genesis opens like a cannon shot, but most people only hear the boom and miss the flame. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). That is the statement of creation, the announcement of a sovereign act, the declaration that everything that exists owes its existence to God. Yet immediately after that statement the Holy Ghost pauses the reader on a strange scene that does not match the modern cartoon version of creation. “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). You have ruin, emptiness, darkness, and depth, and then you have the first living action in the Book that is not the voice of God but the motion of God: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

That line is where a lot of preaching skips. Men rush to “And God said” because the flesh loves the loud part. The flesh wants fireworks, announcements, and results that can be measured, counted, and bragged about. But God shows you His order in the first page of the Bible, and He does it on purpose. The Spirit moves before God speaks, and the Spirit moves on the very thing that looks hopeless, dark, deep, and formless. Then, and only then, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). If you want to understand how God works in beginnings, restorations, conversions, revivals, and even judgments, you have to start where the Book starts, and you have to honor the order the Book gives.

The Christian life falls apart when a man tries to reverse God’s order. He wants the Word without the Spirit, or the Spirit without the Word, and both extremes produce confusion. The Bible never tells you the Spirit is an optional accessory, and the Bible never tells you the Word is a negotiable suggestion. In Genesis 1:2-3 you get the pattern that shows up again and again: the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters, then God speaks, then light comes. That is not “hidden doctrine.” That is plain text doctrine that is neglected because it is not entertaining, and because it confronts the proud heart that wants God’s results without God’s process.

1. The First Motion in the Bible Is the Spirit, Not the Spectacle

When you read Genesis 1 carefully you will see that the Holy Ghost is not a late addition to theology, and He is not a “New Testament topic” that only charismatics are interested in. He is present at the beginning of the Book, and His action is recorded before the first creative command of Day One is given. The verse does not say, “And God shouted,” or “And God thundered,” or “And God made a show.” It says, “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). That is quiet power, deliberate action, and purposeful preparation, and it happens while the scene is still dark.

The first thing you learn from that is that God is not intimidated by darkness. He does not wait for the environment to improve before He begins His work. The earth is without form and void, darkness is on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moves anyway (Genesis 1:2). That is the exact opposite of how men operate. Men want ideal conditions, favorable circumstances, and supportive audiences. God begins where the void is, where the deep is, where the darkness is, and where nothing looks “ready.” The Spirit moving is God’s way of saying that He can begin His work while the situation still looks like wreckage. The second thing you learn is that God’s work begins in the invisible realm before it manifests in the visible realm. Nobody sees the Spirit moving like they will see light dividing from darkness, but the Spirit’s motion is recorded first because God wants you to know that the outward changes you can see are preceded by inward operations you cannot see. That is why Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). The wind is real, but you do not control it, and you do not schedule it, and you do not understand it by staring at it. You know it by its effects, and those effects come after the unseen movement.

2. God’s Order Is Spirit Moving, Then Word Spoken, Then Light Given

The Bible is not a pile of religious sayings. It is a Book with divine order, and Genesis 1 sets the order early so you do not spend your life trying to make God work the way you want Him to work. The sequence is not complicated. The scene is darkness and waters, and then “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). After that comes the divine command, “And God said, Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). After that comes the result, “and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). That is Spirit, Word, light, and it is not an accident.

That order shows up again in salvation. The Holy Ghost convicts before a man ever truly understands what he is hearing. Jesus said, “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). A man does not come to Christ because the preacher was clever. He comes because the Spirit moved on his heart and made him see what he did not want to see. Then the Word comes in with clarity and authority, because “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Then the light comes, because “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Genesis 1 is not only cosmology, it is God showing you the spiritual mechanics of conversion.

That order also shows up in restoration after ruin. A believer can be saved and still be sitting in a dark place emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and practically, because fellowship can be broken even when sonship is secure. The Lord’s method is the same. He moves first, then He speaks, then He gives light. That is why David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). He knew restoration is not first a change of scenery. It is first the Spirit’s operation, then the Word’s correction, then the light of renewed fellowship.

3. The Spirit Moves on the Waters, and Waters Are Always a Death Context

Genesis 1:2 does not say the Spirit moved on the mountains, or on the trees, or on the animals, because none of that is in view yet. It says, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). That detail matters because throughout the Bible waters are often connected to death, judgment, burial, and overwhelming power. That does not mean water is evil, but it does mean God uses it as a picture. The first major judgment on the earth after Eden is a flood, where “all the fountains of the great deep [were] broken up” (Genesis 7:11). In Exodus, Israel faces the Red Sea like a grave until God divides it, and then Pharaoh’s army is buried under it (Exodus 14:27-28). In Jonah, the prophet is swallowed and goes down into the depths like a man in a watery tomb (Jonah 2:3-6). Water can nourish, but water can also bury.

PRAYER THAT SUSTAINS ENDURANCE

Romans 12:12 — “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;” (KJV)

Introduction

Romans 12 is where doctrine puts on work boots. After eleven chapters of God’s righteousness, Israel’s future, and mercy that shuts every proud mouth, the Holy Ghost turns and says, Now live like you believe it. That is why Romans 12:12 hits the nerve. It is not written to monks hiding from trouble. It is written to blood-bought believers living in a world that hates their Saviour. The verse does not say you will not have tribulation. It says you will have hope in the middle of it, patience under it, and prayer through all of it. “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;” (Romans 12:12). That is a three-strand cord for a Christian that intends to finish.

Most believers do not fail because they do not know the right doctrine. They fail because they do not endure the pressure long enough to live it out. They quit in the dark stretch. They get worn down. They get distracted. They get offended. They start strong, but they do not continue. So the Lord gives you a fuel line, not a motivational quote. Prayer is not decoration on the Christian life. Prayer is oxygen. Prayer is the furnace door where the fire is kept alive. Prayer is the hand on the rope when the storm winds pull. When Paul says “continuing instant in prayer” (Romans 12:12), he is not suggesting a religious hobby. He is commanding a posture that keeps endurance from turning into burnout.

The devil understands this better than most Christians do. Hell does not have to make you an atheist to neutralize you. It just has to make you prayerless. A prayerless believer still owns a Bible, still attends services, still talks about theology, still has opinions, still posts verses, and still loses ground. When prayer dies, hope gets thin and tribulation feels heavier than it really is. But when prayer is steady, endurance becomes possible, not because you are strong, but because God is faithful. “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). That verse tells you exactly what prayer prevents. It prevents fainting. It is not a garnish. It is the fuel.

1. Prayer Is Not a Spare Tire, It Is the Engine

The first lie that cripples endurance is the idea that prayer is only for emergencies. That is how people treat a spare tire. You keep it hidden until the road tears you up, and then you scramble. But the New Testament speaks of prayer like breath, not like a mechanic. “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). That is not a command for the crisis only. That is the daily rhythm of a believer that intends to finish the race.

When prayer becomes occasional, faith becomes fragile. The Christian life is not maintained by a single dramatic moment at an altar. It is maintained by continual dependence. “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2). The Holy Ghost ties prayer to watching because prayer keeps you awake. When you stop praying, you start sleeping with your eyes open. You can still function outwardly, but inwardly you are drowsy, careless, and vulnerable.

A man can preach right and still be dry. A woman can serve faithfully and still be empty. The engine is not your personality and it is not your talent. The engine is communion with God. That is why Jesus told His disciples, “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation” (Mark 14:38). He did not say, Watch your willpower. He did not say, Watch your self-esteem. He said pray, because prayer is where strength is drawn and where temptation is detected before it eats you alive.

2. Endurance Collapses When Hope Is Not Fed

Romans 12:12 starts with “Rejoicing in hope” before it ever mentions tribulation. That order matters because hope is the eyesight of endurance. You do not endure what you cannot see past. Biblical hope is not a mood. It is an anchor. “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast” (Hebrews 6:19). An anchor does not remove the storm. It prevents drift. That is what hope does.

Prayer is how hope is fed when the world is draining it. When you pray, you are not informing God. You are aligning your heart with what God already said. The Psalms show this repeatedly. A man starts in trouble, pours out his complaint, and ends with confidence, not because the situation changed, but because God stabilized him. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God” (Psalm 42:11). That kind of talk does not come from self-help. It comes from communion with God.

A believer who does not pray will interpret tribulation like an orphan. He will think God forgot him. He will assume the worst. He will begin to measure God’s love by his comfort. But the Bible teaches a different logic. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Hebrews 12:6). Love does not mean ease. Love means sonship, correction, and purpose. Prayer keeps you from confusing tribulation with abandonment. It keeps hope alive when feelings are lying to your face.

3. Tribulation Is Pressure, Prayer Is the Pressure Valve

Romans 12:12 does not say “if” tribulation. It says “patient in tribulation.” Tribulation is pressure. It squeezes. It compresses. It exposes what is inside. When the pressure increases, something will give. Either your faith collapses or your prayer life increases. That is why the Lord tells you to pray instantly, urgently, continuously. Prayer is not an escape from pressure. It is how you endure pressure without breaking.

Paul knew tribulation. He did not write as a man who read it in a book. He wrote as a man who lived it. And he teaches you the divine math of pressure. “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair” (2 Corinthians 4:8). That is not positive thinking. That is supernatural endurance. The same chapter tells you why endurance is possible. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). The affliction is real, but the glory outweighs it. Prayer is how you keep that perspective when the moment feels endless.

Prayer is also where anxiety is transferred. God never told you to carry the whole load. “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7). The casting happens in prayer. If you do not cast it, you carry it. If you carry it long enough, you collapse. The Christian who is always snapping, always irritated, always drained, always bitter, often has one hidden problem. He is trying to endure tribulation without doing what God said. He is carrying cares that were meant to be cast.

4. Continuing Instant Means Refusing to Quit

The phrase “continuing instant in prayer” is blunt. It is stubborn prayer. It is persistent prayer. It is prayer that keeps showing up. That is why Jesus told a parable specifically “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). The opposite of praying always is fainting eventually. Fainting is what happens when the heart gives up before the body stops.

Seven Times God Used Ordinary People for Big Things

INTRODUCTION

One of the great lies the devil whispers to God’s people is that you have to be “somebody” before God can use you. He’ll point to your plain upbringing, your weak education, your small resources, your broken family line, your timid personality, and your failures, and then he’ll tell you that you’re disqualified from anything meaningful. That lie thrives in an age obsessed with celebrity Christianity, platform building, and polished image management. But the Bible flatly contradicts it from Genesis to Revelation. The Lord specializes in taking the overlooked, the ignored, the underestimated, and the unimpressive, and then doing something with them that cannot be explained by talent, money, or charisma. That is why the glory always goes to Him and not to the instrument. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

If God only used the naturally strong, the socially connected, and the financially secure, then you could chalk Christianity up to human advantage. But God built His work on weakness on purpose. Paul told the Corinthians that God chose the foolish things to confound the wise and the weak things to confound the mighty, “that no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Corinthians 1:29). The Lord is not hunting for impressive resumes; He’s hunting for yielded hearts. He doesn’t need your perfection. He needs your availability. And when a man or woman gives God a yielded “yes,” heaven can take that ordinary life and turn it into an eternal monument.

So this isn’t a motivational speech about “believing in yourself.” The Bible never tells you to believe in yourself. The Bible tells you to believe God. The power isn’t in your self-esteem; the power is in the living God who “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). God can take a shepherd and make a king, take a widow and put her in the lineage of Christ, take a fisherman and make him a preacher, take a timid man and make him a deliverer, take a persecutor and make him an apostle, take a nameless servant and shake a city. Here are seven times God did exactly that, so you can stop measuring yourself by the world’s standard and start measuring God by His Word.

1. GIDEON — THE FEARFUL FARMER WHO BECAME A DELIVERER

Gideon didn’t look like a hero. When God found him, he wasn’t standing on a battlefield giving a speech; he was hiding. The Bible says, “Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites” (Judges 6:11). That is not cinematic bravery; that is survival. He was an ordinary man trying to keep his family fed under oppression. And when the angel of the LORD called him, “The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour” (Judges 6:12), Gideon’s first response was basically, “Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?” He pointed to his weakness, his clan, his low status—“my family is poor… and I am the least” (Judges 6:15). That’s the language of an ordinary man who has learned to think small.

But God didn’t pick Gideon because Gideon was strong; God picked Gideon because God is strong. The Lord told him, “Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man” (Judges 6:16). That’s the whole secret. God with a weak man is stronger than a strong man without God. And notice the Lord’s method: He didn’t build Gideon’s confidence by flattering him; He built Gideon’s faith by giving him promises and then calling for obedience. Gideon had to tear down the altar of Baal in his own house before he could face Midian in the valley (Judges 6:25–27). God starts the big work by demanding you deal with the hidden idol first.

Then God thinned Gideon’s army until no one could brag about it. The Lord said, “The people that are with thee are too many… lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me” (Judges 7:2). God reduced thirty-two thousand down to three hundred, and then He won the battle with lamps, pitchers, and trumpets. That’s not military strategy; that’s divine mockery of human pride. It teaches you that God does His biggest work through ordinary vessels so the victory can’t be credited to the vessel. Gideon didn’t need to become extraordinary; he needed to become obedient.

2. DAVID — THE FORGOTTEN SHEPHERD WHO BECAME A KING

David’s story begins with being overlooked. When Samuel came to Jesse’s house to anoint a king, Jesse paraded the impressive sons, and David wasn’t even invited to the lineup. He was “keeping the sheep” (1 Samuel 16:11), the dirty job, the lonely job, the uncelebrated job. But God told Samuel, “Look not on his countenance… for the LORD seeth not as man seeth” (1 Samuel 16:7). Man is impressed by height, shoulders, voice, posture, and swagger. God looks at the heart. David wasn’t chosen because he had the strongest body; he was chosen because he had the right inner posture toward God.

David’s “ordinary” years were not wasted; they were training. Out there in the pasture he learned the Psalms before he wrote the Psalms. He learned courage before Goliath ever opened his mouth. He learned faith in secret before he demonstrated it in public. When he faced the giant, he didn’t claim self-confidence; he claimed covenant. “Thou comest to me with a sword… but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts” (1 Samuel 17:45). That’s not bravado; that’s theology. David knew God was real, God was present, and God was bigger than Philistine armor.

And when God used David for something “big,” He didn’t just use him to kill one giant; He used him to shape a nation and to picture the coming King. God made a covenant with David that would culminate in Jesus Christ, “of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne” (Psalm 132:11). That means the shepherd boy’s ordinary obedience had eternal ramifications. God can take the unseen faithfulness of a forgotten person and attach it to a plan that stretches across centuries. David teaches you to stop despising the pasture, because God often anoints kings where nobody is watching.

3. RUTH — THE OUTSIDER WIDOW WHO ENTERED THE MESSIAH’S LINE

Ruth was a Moabitess. That’s not a flattering label in Scripture. Moab came from an incestuous origin (Genesis 19:36–37), and the Moabites were often enemies of Israel. Ruth wasn’t born into the covenant people; she married into a Jewish family and then watched everything collapse. She became a widow in a foreign land with no security, no influence, and no guarantee of provision. That is the definition of ordinary hardship. Yet in that darkness, Ruth made a choice of faith that echoes through Scripture: “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God” (Ruth 1:16). That is not sentiment. That is conversion.

Ruth then stepped into the humble work of gleaning. She didn’t demand entitlement; she worked. “Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn” (Ruth 2:2). That’s ordinary labor with extraordinary faith behind it. And here’s the divine humor: “her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz” (Ruth 2:3). The Bible calls it “hap,” but it isn’t luck. It is providence. God moved a widow’s footsteps to the right field at the right time because He was building something bigger than her immediate survival. Ordinary decisions, made in faith, can put a person directly under the umbrella of God’s larger plan.