October 30, 2022

…always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you… 1 Peter 3:15

The truth of the Good News is the most encouraging, uplifting message there is to hear in our sad world. From Genesis to Revelation, God’s love is expressed through Creation and continues in His promise to cleanse and restore it from the ravages of sin and death. Our hope lies in the perfection of the pure character and intentions of Him who created us in His image.  

God’s warning to Adam, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17) was also an expression of His love, for He did not want His people to be separated from the Source of life. Satan seized upon God’s words and contradicted them saying, “You will not surely die.” (3:4) The words of Satan are actually an accusation of dishonesty towards God’s character. They have been believed by the majority of people ever since. It is the notion of “inherent immortality” of the soul. “Souls cannot die,” they say. But we are reminded by the LORD through the prophet Ezekiel: “the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20). Paul reminds us that “the wages of sin is death…” in Romans 6:23. Apart from grasping the horrendous reality of death, the glory of the rest of Paul’s statement is diminished or obscured: “…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 2 Timothy 4:1-4