A Backward Step

 

 

Some believe in a rapture:

A secret catching away,

And a seven-year tribulation

That can happen any day.

 

The church will be snatched away

The Jews will be left behind,

Theirs will be to evangelize

During those perilous times.

 

Three and a half years of peace

Followed by very harsh times

That will drive many a person

Out of his distraught mind.

 

But Jesus will rescue the Jews

And all that become saved,

All Israel will be saved in a day

By the one they downplayed.

 

Next on these believers’ list

Will be a following millennium

And Jesus will rule from Jerusalem

After the seven-year tribulation.

 

The temple will be rebuilt

And sacrifices will be reinstituted

And during this thousand-year reign

The Law will be reconstituted.

  

To some this is a backward step

And an ignoring of the cross

On which Jesus shed his blood

For the guilty and the lost.

 

A return to the beggarly elements

Is how some see this view

Especially since the Church comprises

The Gentile and the Jew.

 

But God gave a promise

To the nation of Israel

And God must ensure the promise

He made to His chosen people.

 

Some appear to forget

Christ was the promised fulfilment

And to save us from our sin

Was the reason he was sent.

 

Christ once for all sacrifice

Would just go by the way

And to me it doesn’t seem likely

That we will see that day.

 

 

God was in Christ Jesus

Reconciling the world to Himself

And there is no other way

For one to obtain spiritual health.

 

Regarding that backward step!

No, not a chance!

Jesus is the only way

For both Jew and Gentile to advance.

 

I believe the millennium is now

And Christ is on the throne,

The kingdom of God has come

And His subjects are not alone.

 

2 Corinthians 5:17

 

Therefore, if any man be in Christ,

He is a new creature:

Old things have passed away;

Behold, all things are become new.

 

2 Corinthians 5:21

 

For he hath made him to be sin for us,

Who knew no sin;

That we might be made the righteousness of God

In him.

 

Hebrews 11:16

 

But now they desire a better country,

That is, an heavenly:

Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God:

For he hath prepared from them a city.

 

 

Hebrews 12:24

 

And to Jesus

The mediator of the new covenant,

And to the blood of sprinkling,

That speaketh better things than that of Abel.

 

It would be a backward step,

If you see what I mean,

To go back to the types and shadows

Of the Old Covenant scene.

 

Stewart Russell © August 13, 2021 

 

 

Salvation and Its Jargon 7

 

 

 

Jesus is our mediator:

The only one between God and man,

He mediated for us a better covenant

As was the Father’s plan.

 

Our “conviction” was through the Spirit:

The conviction concerning our sin

And in repentance of our wrong doing

We submitted our life to him.

 

Remorse is not “repentance”

These are not one and the same,

Remorse is simply a person’s way

Of responding to his or her pain.

 

Repentance on the other hand

Is a Godly sorrow for our sin,

God shows us where we are wrong

And we turn right back to Him.

 

There is true and false repentance

True is when we turn away from sin,

False repentance is of the world

And death is all the world will win.

 

Stewart Russell © June 2018

More than A Collection of Books 8

Titus like 1^st and 2^nd Timothy is another pastoral epistle

This time highlighting godliness and good works,

Paul suggests there is a misapprehension of true grace

If the believer from godliness and good works would shirk.

Philemon is another book of just a single chapter

About the slave Onesimus who fled from his slave master,

Philemon was that master who was sought after by Paul

To receive Onesimus back since he was a brother after all.

Hebrews is an enthralling book about the faithful crew

But it starts out with Jesus the Son from the Father’s view,

Later on he’s shown to be a better priest that Aaron

And the initiator of a better covenant; not the old but the new.

James places great emphasis on the testing of one’s faith

Declaring a faith with out any works must be considered dead,

He talks about the tongue and wisdom: the true and the false

And gives an exhortation on patience as the way we should be led.

1^st Peter deals especially with suffering in the Christian’s life

Including slander, ridicule and the prospect of prison and death

Relationships between believers and others are highlighted

As well as the acceptance of the gospel by which we are blessed.

2^nd Peter raises the issue of the increasing false prophets

Already bringing in destructive heresies and licentiousness,

They mocked the idea of the coming judgment

And gave rise to immorality and gross wickedness.

1^st John is replete with incidences of extreme opposites

Like light and darkness, love and hate, the truth and the lie

The Gnostics erroneously professed to know the truth

But denied that Jesus is God and that Christ actually died.

 2^nd John admonishes to beware of those who spread error

Particularly the type regarding the Person of our Lord,

While the Apostle rejoiced that the children walked in truth

He implored that we compromised not but receive a full award.

3^rd John focuses on the behaviour of three characters:

The first was the godly Gaius whom John wished to prosper,

The second was the dictatorial Diotrephes who received him not,

And the third was faithful Demetrius to whom he gave honour.

Jude admonishes believers to contend earnestly for the faith

 The faith that was once delivered unto the saints,

Ungodly men had crept in denying the only Lord and Christ

And who were trying the grace of our God to taint

The Revelation of Jesus Christ by John to the seven churches

Encourages us wait with patience as we look for Christ’s return,

It teaches the folly of living for things that will soon pass away

And warns rejecters of the Saviour of their doom on judgment day.

Stewart Russell © March 2017