Defendant: Timothy McVeigh

Crime: Destroying a federal building and killing 168 people with
a bomb.

Verdict: Guilty on all
counts.

Penalty: Death by
injection.

Many people
worldwide followed with interest the trial of Timothy McVeigh. The jurors had a
heavy burden upon them. Based upon the evidence presented at the trial they had
to decide whether Timothy McVeigh was guilty or not. If Timothy McVeigh was
found guilty of breaking the laws of the land then he, as a responsible person,
would be subject to the penalty that the law prescribed:death or life
imprisonment.

There is
another verdict that has been passed upon every individual in the world. The
evidence is in and has been presented before the Judge of all the earth.

Defendants: You and me.

Crime: Sin—moral and
spiritual.

Verdict: Guilty on all
counts.

Penalty: Physical and spiritual death!

For what does
God hold every responsible person accountable? SIN! Every moral sin (for
example, murder, idolatry, adultery, fornication, lying, stealing) has been
recorded in God’s record book. Also every spiritual sin (for example,
pride, jealousy, hatred, anger, envy, greed) has been recorded. God’s Ten
Commandments express to us the standard that God has set. These commandments
are recorded for us in Exod. 20:3-17. The Lord Jesus summed up these Ten
Commandments for us in Matt. 22:37-40:“You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This
is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, You shall
love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and
the prophets.”

This is the
standard that has been set by God. Have you, dear reader, met that
standard? Have you loved the Lord our God with all your heart, soul, and
mind? If you have ever taken God’s name in vain, then you are guilty.
Have you loved your neighbor as yourself? If you have ever coveted anything,
then you are guilty. Have you ever hated someone or stolen something or
told a lie? If so, then you are guilty.

   How Many of Us Are Guilty?

God has
answered that question in the Bible:“Now we know that what things soever the
law says, it says to those who are under the law:that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). “All
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (verse 23). We all have
broken God’s law and are all guilty before God.

      What Is the Penalty?

The penalty is
death and judgment:The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). “It is
appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”
(Heb. 9:27).

   When Does This Take Place?

Death as a
penalty for sin may take place at any age and at any time. “Boast not yourself
of tomorrow:for you know not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1).
We will see later on that it is possible for you to escape this penalty.

The final
penalty for sin will take place in the future at the great white throne
judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). Here is a summary of that judgment:

1. Each sin
that has been committed will be brought before the one standing before the Lord
Jesus Christ.

2. There will
be no defense lawyer to argue against the charges that have all been recorded
in God’s books.

3. Each person
standing before the Lord Jesus Christ at the Great White Throne at this awful
moment will be pronounced:“Guilty on all counts.”

4. Each one
will then be cast into the lake of fire.

Here is what
God has said about that awful time:“And I saw a great white throne, and Him
who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there
was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before
God; and the books were opened:and another book was opened, which is the book
of life:and the dead were judged out of those things that were written in the
books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it;
and death and hell delivered up the dead that were in them:and they were
judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into
the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:11-15). It
is possible for you to escape this penalty too.

         The Good News!

God has
provided a way of escape from the penalty of death and judgment. “For God so
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). God in
His wonderful love for us provided what His justice demanded. God so loved us
that He gave His own beloved Son to die for our sins on the cross of Calvary.
God does the loving and God does the giving. You and I must do the believing.

  How Do I Escape the Penalty?

1. Admitting
that I am a sinner. I must come as a hell-deserving sinner, confessing my sins
because Christ “came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance” (Luke 5:32). “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”
(1 Tim. 1:15).

2. Believing
that Jesus Christ died for my sins on Calvary’s cross. “Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31). “By Him all who believe
are justified from all things” (Acts 13:39).

3. Coming
to the Lord Jesus just as you are. “Come unto Me, all you who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). “Him who comes to
Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

The above is
the ABC of the gospel. Dear reader, if you have not already come to the
Lord Jesus, you may come to Him right now. No matter where you are at this
present time you may simply bow your head and confess your sins to the Lord and
accept Him as your own personal Saviour. God has said, “If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

What Will Happen if You Do
This?

1. You will
escape the penalty of death. Instead of death being a penalty for the
Christian, it will be a happy release from earth to heaven:“Absent from the
body, and present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).

2. You will
also escape the penalty of judgment. You will be able to rightly say that your
penalty was paid in full by Christ when He suffered on the cross for your sins.
“Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree … by whose
stripes you were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24). “There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

3. Nothing will
ever be able to separate you from the love of God (Rom. 8:38,39).

4. Your future
is secure and as bright as all the promises of God (John 14:1-3).

The Danger of
Procrastination!

“Behold, now
is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2).
Do not put off the salvation of your soul until tomorrow. Tomorrow may never
come for you. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?”
(Heb. 2:3). Come to Christ today and be saved.

            Remember:

“The Lord is
not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is
longsuffering … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).

(From Scripture
Almanac, 1998.)

The execution
of Timothy McVeigh on June 11, 2001 stirred up an unusually high interest in
the afterlife and hell. For example, my next door neighbor came over recently
and asked me if I thought that Mr. McVeigh was in hell. I responded that I
feared that he was, based on comments reportedly made by him shortly before his
execution. My neighbor went on to comment that if anyone deserved hell, it was
Timothy McVeigh. I responded that he was quite correct in saying that Mr.
McVeigh deserved to go to hell, but I rather shocked him when I added that in
actuality we all deserve to go to hell. That opened the door for me to
go through the gospel with my neighbor once again. My neighbor believes in hell
but does not yet grasp the vast scope of those who are deserving of it, namely,
the whole human race (Rom. 5:12-21; 6:23; Heb. 9:27,28).

    What Did Timothy McVeigh

       Believe About Hell?

Here are
Timothy McVeigh’s own thoughts about hell, as reported in The Baltimore Sun
on June 10, 2001:“McVeigh insisted that he has no fear of his execution. An
agnostic, he said he will ‘improvise, adapt, and overcome’ if it turns out that
there is an afterlife. ‘If I am going to hell,’ he wrote, ‘I’m gonna have a lot
of company.’” Timothy McVeigh wasn’t sure about the existence of hell, but
assumed that he wouldn’t make out too badly if there was a hell. It is a fairly
common notion—at least wishful thinking—that one will have lots of company in
hell and that hell will be a rather pleasant place, perhaps even a scene where
people can satisfy all of their fleshly lusts without worrying about being
arrested or made to feel guilty by a fundamentalist Christian.

     What Do Others Believe

           About Hell?

Letters to the
editor concerning Timothy McVeigh’s execution were no more enlightened, as
exemplified by this one in The Baltimore Sun:“I truly believe that the
worst punishment for someone such as Timothy McVeigh would have been a sentence
of solitary confinement with no contact with the outside world…. Dying is
only a needle stick to sleep—some punishment!” This letter is typical of the
belief of many people that hell (or heaven) is what people make of their lives
here on earth, and that there is nothing further beyond death.

While searching
the Internet for other ideas people have about hell, I found a web site devoted
to trying to prove in great detail, in a very scholarly—but misguided—way, that
the notion of eternal judgment in the lake of fire is not found in Scripture
and that everyone will end up in heaven.

  What Does the Bible Say
About

   Hell and Eternal Judgment?

“He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:whose fan is in His
hand, and He will throughly purge his floor, and gather His wheat into the
garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:11,12).

“Enter in at
the strait gate:for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to
destruction, and many there be who go in thereat; because strait is the gate
and narrow is the way that leads unto life, and few there be that find it”
(Matt. 7:13,14).

“Many shall
come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast
out into outer darkness:there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt.
8:11,12; Luke 13:28).

“Fear not those
who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).

“And His
disciples came unto Him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of
the field. He answered and said unto them … As therefore the tares are
gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The
Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His
kingdom all things that offend, and those who do iniquity; and shall cast them
into a furnace of fire:there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt.
13:36-42).

“And when the
king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding
garment; and he said unto him, Friend, how do you come in here not having a
wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants,
Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness;
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 22:11-13).

“His lord
answered and said unto him, … Cast the unprofitable servant into outer
darkness:there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 25:26-30).

“Then shall the
King say unto those on His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…. Then shall He
say also unto those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels…. And these shall go
away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal” (Matt.
25:32-46).

“If your hand
offend you, cut it off…. And if your foot offend you, cut it off…. And if
your eye offend you, pluck it out:it is better for you to enter into the
kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43-48; also
Matt. 5:29,30; 18:8,9).

“There was a
certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared
sumptuously every day; and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, who was
laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that
fell from the rich man’s table:moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into
Abraham’s bosom; the rich man also died and was buried. And in hell he lifted
up his eyes, being in torments, and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his
bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for
I am tormented in this flame” (Luke 16:19-24).

“He who
believes on the Son has everlasting life; and he who believes not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abides on Him” (John 3:36).

“Marvel not at
this:for the hour is coming in the which all who are in the graves shall hear
His voice, and shall come forth; those who have done good, unto the
resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, unto the resurrection of
damnation” (John 5:28,29).

“God … will
render to every man according to his deeds:to those who by patient continuance
in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality—eternal life; but unto
those who are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—
indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish” (Rom. 2:5-9).

“Don’t you know
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived:
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers
of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9,10;
Gal. 5:19-21).

“No
whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater has any
inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God…. Because of these things
comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience” (Eph. 5:5,6).

“The Lord Jesus
shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking
vengeance on those who know not God, and who obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ:who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power” (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

“Whosoever
hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life
abiding in him” (1 John 3:14).

“If any man
worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his
hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out
without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with
fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of
the Lamb:and the smoke of their torment ascends up for ever and ever:and they
have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image and whosoever
receives the mark of his name” (Rev. 14:9-11).

“And the beast
was taken, and with him the false prophet who wrought miracles before him, with
which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast, and those who
worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning
with brimstone” (Rev. 19:20).

“And the devil
who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast
and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and
ever” (Rev. 20:10).

“Death and hell
were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was
not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev.
20:14,15).

“But the
fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and
sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake that
burns with fire and brimstone:which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8).

What an
extensive, powerful testimony is given to us in the Scriptures concerning the
horrors of eternal judgment for those who reject God’s way of salvation through
the sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins!
I have heard people accuse the Apostle Paul of promoting “those awful teachings
about hell-fire.” A man who did not believe in hell wrote to me that he lived
by the words of a loving Jesus rather than by His revenge-loving
misinterpreters. But if we look carefully at the references to hell and eternal
judgment of the wicked given above, what do we find? Out of a total of 25
references, 13 are to words spoken directly by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
and five more are from the Book that calls itself “the Revelation of Jesus
Christ”! (Rev. 1:1,2,5). Only five are from Paul’s epistles.

What Do YOU Believe About
Hell?

Let me now
address the readers of Words of Truth, most of whom, doubtless are true
believers in Christ and students of the Word of God:Do you—and do I—really
believe in hell? No doubt we hold Biblically correct doctrines concerning hell.
But do we really believe that hell is terrible, hell is eternal, and
thousands of people around us are doomed to spend eternity there? Have we ever
had an insight into what it would be like to spend eternity in the
blackness of darkness, completely separated from all one’s friends (contrary to
the beliefs of Timothy McVeigh and thousands others), separated from God, and
from all light and all love?

It is rather
ironic that the sects that claim that there is no hell (for example, the
Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, and the Seventh-Day Adventists) are extremely
active in evangelism, while many people who hold all the right doctrines seem
content to let men and women go on to hell, since they make little or no effort
to change the course of the unconverted.

We must have
compassion on the lost. Where are the “weeping prophets” or “weeping preachers”
or “prayer warriors” for whom the thought of men and women in hell is so
terrible that they will cry to God for the souls of the lost? Let us confess
and judge our complacency. Let us pray for power to overcome inertia, fear,
self-indulgence, and whatever else is holding us back from telling to all we
can their frightful danger.

If we really
believe in hell, let us act as if we believed. Proper doctrine without love,
compassion, and action is a cold, useless thing, as offensive to God as to the
world.

Awhile in the
earthen vessel

The treasures of
glory gleam;

In heaven the
fount eternal,

In the desert
the living stream.

 

And looking on
Christ in glory,

That glory so
still, so fair,

There passes a
change upon me,

Till I am as He
who is there.

 

Then no more in
the earthen vessel

The treasure of
God shall be,

But in full and
unclouded beauty,

O Lord, wilt
Thou shine through me.

 

Afar through
the golden vessel

Will the glory
of God shine bright;

There shall be
no need for the sunshine,

For the Lamb
shall be the light.

 

Undimmed in
that wondrous vessel,

That light of
surpassing love

Shall illumine
the earth in its gladness,

And shall fill
the heavens above.

 

All, all in His
new creation,

The glory of God
shall see;

And the lamp
for that light eternal

The Lamb for the
Bride shall be.

 

A golden lamp
in the heavens,

That all may see
and adore

The Lamb who
was slain and who liveth,

Who liveth for
evermore.

A carpenter is
a builder, a constructor. It is a most useful and honorable calling. Our
blessed Lord worked with His hands at this calling, and has thus honored all
true labor. His countrymen, who saw no beauty in Him that they should desire
Him, used it as a term of reproach:“Is not this the Carpenter, the son of
Mary…? And they were offended at Him” (Mark 6:3). But our blessed Lord was
not only a carpenter at Nazareth; He had built the world—the whole vast
universe was the work of His hands. Through His atoning sacrifice upon the
cross, He has laid the foundation—“the Christ, the Son of the living God”
(Matt. 16:16)—for His Church. This is a holy temple for the abode of God
through the Spirit, and destined to be that for all eternity in the city to
which the Church gives its name—“the Bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Rev. 21:9), “the
city that has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). Thus
in all His works, our God with His Son shows us the divine dignity of the labor
of the Carpenter.

In Zechariah,
the prophet is shown a number of visions and symbolic scenes to impress upon
him both the condition of the remnant who had returned to the Lord and the
remedy to meet that condition. In the vision of the four carpenters this is
brought out in a striking way. “I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold four
horns” (Zech. 1:18). These horns are the Gentile powers—from the four corners
of the earth—who have scattered the people of God, and are still threatening
them. “And the Lord showed me four carpenters” (1:20). These are the remedy,
those who are to overcome and drive away the threatening powers of evil.

Notice that it
says, “I … saw … four horns.” It requires little discernment to see
evil and threatening danger. It is easy to see—and to be occupied with—the four
horns. We can all criticize and dwell upon the dangers, the failures of the
saints. But the Lord is the one who shows us the remedy. “The Lord
showed me four carpenters.” What is the power by which the inroads, the
oppression of the enemy is to be met? How shall we combat those four terrible
horns?

Naturally we
would say, by other horns; we must meet force by force, we must smite with the
sword. But what do we see in the midst of the carnage of the enemy’s power?
Carpenters, builders-up of that which is good, strengthening the things that
remain. This is how the Spirit of God puts it before us in the Epistle of Jude.
Evil, false profession, pride, and iniquity were coming in like a flood; all
seemed to be in ruin:“But you, beloved, building up yourselves on
your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the
love of God” (Jude 20,21). They, and we, are called to carpenter work, to the
quiet, steady, persistent construction of that which cannot be moved.

The application
is simple, individually and collectively. We are not to be deterred from going
forward with constructive work. Do temptations, difficulties, or failures
confront us? Let us be found quietly going on with God’s Word, feeding upon it,
storing our minds with it, learning more and more of its blessed fullness. Let
us seek to feed and to shepherd the sheep, to seek to help the need among the
saints. How great the need of pastors, of builders, among the saints. May the
Lord stir us up to these things, that we may see His work prosper, even in most
difficult times.

(From Words
of Truth, Vol. 5.)

 

We will be
blessed, I believe, by considering Christ as “The Carpenter.” His work is so
far superior to all other carpenters in greatness, quality, and quantity that
this title, “THE Carpenter,” is indeed His alone. Each thing He has made brings
glory to Him and shows us something of His wisdom, power, and knowledge.

The question,
“Is not this the Carpenter?” was asked out of astonishment upon hearing His
teaching and seeing His miracles (Mark 6:1-6). They thought He was out of His
place to be teaching instead of being at the carpenter bench. But was He not
building through His teaching? His words, if believed, cause the person to be
made into a new creature. Was He not building by doing miracles? This was
repair work, which a carpenter does at times, in healing the sick and raising
the dead, as exhibited in the previous chapter, Mark 5.

We may well be
astonished and be in awe as we think of this Carpenter who came into this world
His hands had made. They ask in Mark 6, “What wisdom is this which is given
unto Him, that even such mighty works are wrought by His hands?” Those
wonderful hands did their greatest work when they were nailed to the cross of
Calvary. And there He did the work He came into this world to do—to save
sinners. For all eternity we will marvel and praise Him for that work. He
defeated the world, sin, and Satan and satisfied a holy God about our sins.
From that cross He cried, “It is finished.” Nothing can be added to that work
and any who try to do something to save themselves are saying that His work was
not good enough. How serious such a charge is to Him who “has done all things
well!” God was satisfied with His work and raised Him from the dead and seated
Him at His own right hand in heaven. If God is satisfied, we should be too.

We read that
those who asked the question that day, “Is not this the Carpenter?” were
“offended at Him.” They would not own Him to be more than a mere man. But He is
THE Carpenter, the Creator. For “all things were made by Him, and without Him
was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3). In creating, He did what no
mere human can do—He made from nothing. It is by faith we understand this,
“that the things that are seen were not made of things that do appear” (Heb.
11:3).

His first act
of creation was angels, it appears, for we are told they shouted for joy at the
creation of the world (Job 38:7). Then in Genesis 1 we have three creative
acts:the creation of matter in verse 1, the creation of the soul in verse 20,
and the creation of the spirit of man in verse 27. It is man’s spirit that
makes him in the image of God, for “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). Man is made
of all three—body, soul, and spirit. Man’s soul is different from an animal’s
for it is never dying:“For God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life
and he became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7).

Isaiah 45:18
tells us that God created the earth not in vain but to be inhabited. But we
find in verse 2 of our Bibles, after the original creation of verse 1, that the
earth became “without form and void.” So the Carpenter went to work and in six
days remade the earth for the good of man. This remaking is a beautiful picture
of what He does in saving a precious soul from perishing. The Spirit of God
moves and gives light to the soul. Then fruit is brought forth in the life.

Another thing
God made was woman out of a rib in Adam’s side. A deep sleep had to fall on him
for her to be made. So Christ died so that His bride and wife—the Church—could be
made. The Lord Himself declared, “I will build My Church” upon the solid rock
foundation of His own name—“the Christ” (Matt. 16:16-18). To do this He “gave
Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25). Each soul who believes on Him is added to His
Church (Acts 2:47). It is called His “body,” for it displays His every
attribute and is controlled by Him who is the Head of the Church (Eph. 1:22).
It is called “the house of God” for His order and care are manifest there. And
it is called His temple, for praise issues forth from it. Think of the
thousands upon thousands who have been saved since the day of Pentecost, when
the Church was formed, who are part of the Church. Each one also, in Himself,
is a special creation to do good works (Eph. 2:10). And each one is specially designed
with gifts to function as a part of the Church for the good of all. Some day
soon all will be displayed to be “admired” as we show Christ to the world (2
Thess. 1:10).

View
the vast building, see it rise;

The
work how great! The plan how wise!

O
wondrous fabric! Power unknown!

That
rears it on the “Living Stone.”

Very soon the
last stone will be put into that building. Then He will call us home to that
place He has gone to prepare for us. At the cross He began the preparations for
that place and now from the glory He continues to prepare that place for us
(John 14:1-3). He also is now teaching those who are saved through His Word in
the power of the Spirit of God and thus preparing us for those many mansions of
the Father’s house. When He takes us there, the Carpenter will again work. For
He will change our physical bodies to be like Christ’s own resurrected and
glorified body (Phil. 3:21). That body walked through closed doors and ascended
into heaven, and so will we in our bodies fit for glory.

Dear reader,
are you made fit for glory or are you yet perishing in your sins? God made you
in His image so that you could be in His presence. But like Adam, you have
sinned and only through Christ can you be part of that new creation through
faith in His work on the cross. We urge you to avail yourself of that work by
trusting yourself to Him.

Do not be like
those who “were offended at Him.” This is the result of not believing on Him
and not owning Him to be the Lord of all. He owns all He has made by right.
Only man and the fallen angels will not give Him that place as Lord. How
foolish, for some day soon every knee will bow to Him (Phil. 2:10). Is it any
wonder that the Lord Himself “marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:6)?
His creative works alone will make men without excuse (Rom. 1:20). Why spurn
such love offered to you in your need? Bow your knee now and the Carpenter will
make you a “new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17). Also, you will have “a house …
eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1); there you forever will adore “The
Carpenter” and His wonderful works.

(From Scripture
Almanac, 1988.)