Ecclesiastes 12:13a. Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
Oh, what a difference between yesterday’s opening and today! Yesterday it was rain, and damp and dark, meanwhile today is bright sunshine on a background of sparkling white! Yes, the snow did eventually come, but thankfully not much. And here is another anomaly of the season. Usually, my driveway is the one filled with all the stuff that’s blowing around in the lane, like the stuff I had to pick up this morning from the windstorm on Sunday. But today, inexplicably, there was no snow in my driveway, while the others around me were covered in the white stuff. Who knows what’s going on eh? Only our Creator, the Lord God Jehovah!
And to prove the point, His word opened this morning on this perfect scripture from the pen of the Cousin Sol, the supposed wisest man ever, who had the whole thing down pat in the early years of his life, but did not keep the Lord’s word as he moved into his latter years. Anyway, he dispensed perfect wisdom to us as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes when he concluded in his search for meaning and pleasure in this earthly life: ‘Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgement, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.’ (Eccl. 12:13.14)
That says it all yes mih bredrin! Our duty on this earth is to reverence God and keep His commandments, for in the day of judgement He will call all of us to account. Moses, the man who gave us the earliest Law of God, said it to Israel thus: ‘Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgements, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it. That thou mightest fear (stand in awe of) the Lord thy God, to keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.’ (Deut. 6:1-2)
It’s as simple as that! The Lord gave us free will so that we would show our LOVE and appreciation by obeying His moral rules. And when we read that last clause up there, ‘that thy days may be prolonged,’ we often take it for a joke, but please remember how in the early days mankind normally lived for several hundred years, and bore children well into what we now call old age, as Genesis 5 points out. Adam bore Seth when he was a hundred and thirty years old and lived for nine hundred and thirty years, bearing children all through that time. (Gen. 5:3-5)
Meanwhile ‘Jared lived a hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.’ (Gen. 5:18-20) Then there was Methuselah, Enoch’s son, who lived for nine hundred sixty and nine years, the longest recorded in the Good Book. (Gen. 5:27) But eventually the wickedness of man became so great that the Lord decided to cut man’s day to a hundred and twenty years. (Gen. 6:3)
And by the time Abraham’s father Terah came around man was only living two hundred and odd years at most. And nowadays we celebrate living for a hundred years as such a big thing. But sin, disobedience to God’s holy law and irreverence to His name has a terrible effect on all aspects of our lives. As the prophet Micah said to Israel many years later: ‘He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to LOVE mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’ (Mic. 6:8)
There is no ambivalence or anything contradictory in that statement friends! It’s loud and clear! And it’s the same thing the Lord has been saying from the beginning of time: LOVE me and obey my law and it will be well with you. But we have chosen the free will that He gave us to do the exact opposite. No wonder the time will come when He will finally call all of us to account; some to receive rewards in heaven, but others to go to the dreadful lake of fire to experience eternal separation with his Satanic majesty.
Remember Bruh Paul’s words to the Corinthians in his second letter. ‘For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’ (2 Cor. 5:10) And if you don’t believe Bruh Paul, then hopefully you will believe Jesus, when he says: ‘But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.’ (Matt. 12:36-37) As always, my fellow believers, Jesus says it plain and straightforward, no beating round the bush for Him.
And at the end, the Good Book even warns: ‘And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.’ (Rev. 20:15) That means it’s ever so important for our names to be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and that can only be achieved by accepting the sacrificial Lamb, Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and living the way He desires of us. Otherwise crapaud smoke we pipe, is lake of fire time. So please listen up now nuh people!. I plead with us, now is the time to come to Christ, for after you die, or He comes back the second time, then it will be too late, and you’re staring hell fire with Satan and his cronies right in the face. Can’t say it plainer than that.
Now, for those of us who have decided to do the right thing, that’s live for Christ and reverence Almighty God, let’s go home declaring (yesss!!!) our Tuesday Mantra, letting the whole world know to whom we belong, lock, stock and barrel. So as one strong and sincere voice: ‘In God’s eyes, I’m not what I do. I’m not what I have. I’m not what people say about me. I am the beloved of God, that’s who I am. No one can take that from me. I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to hurry. I can trust my friend Jesus and share His LOVE with the world. Amen!’
Now, let’s go out and do just that nuh; share the amazing LOVE and friendship of Christ with others, so that they too can come to LOVE and worship Him like we do! Much LOVE!
…free will can either work for you…or against you…get you into heaven…or the lake of fire…it’s your choice…
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