The Fire

These latter days are days of fire;

The flame engulfs the world entire;

And Satan rules; but there is One

Whose purposes are not outdone…

In hell’s abysm, long ago,

The flame was kindled, and it’s glow

Has daily since been stoked and fanned

By a fireman who has shrewdly planned

The ultimate defeat of grace,

And the grim destruction of the race.

Behind the gleam is a whirlwind’s breath,

A searing blast that burns to death,

It sweeps the multitudes away,

But… only the stubble, wood and hay!

After the blast, the gold’s still there,

In heavenly luster, pure and rare.

God’s saints have ere been tried by fire,

They humbly brave the tempter’s ire,

The flames of lust and greed and hate,

And passion… hell’s most luring bait;

When tried and tried and tried again,

They come forth purer, stronger men.

By fire and whirlwind set apart…

The consecrated, pure in heart.

Though seven times hotter the flame be made,

They walk therein, all unafraid,

For it is there, in the furnace heat

That they their Lord and Savior meet.

The chaff and hay will soon be gone;

When fire and wind at last have done

With faithless men, and churches cold,

And false religion, and false gold…

God’s purpose in this last day flame

Is men that glorify His Name!

–James Troyer

After that Jesus adds the words, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is
coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God;
and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath
He given to the Son to have life in Himself.”

As yet He does not speak of the second resurrection, that is, the resurrection of the body, which shall be in the end, but of the first, which now is. It is for the sake of making this distinction that He says, “The hour is coming, and now is.” Now this resurrection regards not the body, but the soul. For souls, too, have a death of their own in wickedness and sins, whereby they are the dead of whom the same lips say, “Suffer the dead to bury their dead,” — that is, let those who are dead in soul bury them that are dead in body.

It is of these dead,
then — the dead in ungodliness and wickedness — that He says, “The
hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God; and they that hear shall live.” “They that hear,” that is, they who
obey, believe, and persevere to the end. Here no difference is made between the good and the bad. For it is good for all men to hear His voice
and live, by passing to the life of godliness from the death of ungodliness.
Of this death the Apostle Paul says, “Therefore all are dead, and He died
for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto Him which died for them and rose again.”

Thus all, without one
exception, were dead in sins, whether original or voluntary sins, sins of
ignorance, or sins committed against knowledge; and for all the dead there
died the one only person who lived, that is, who had no sin whatever, in
order that they who live by the remission of their sins should live, not to
themselves, but to Him who died for all, for our sins, and rose again for our
justification, that we, believing in Him who justifies the ungodly, and being
justified [made just] from ungodliness or quickened from death, may be able to attain
to the first resurrection which now is. For in this first resurrection none
have a part save those who shall be eternally blessed; but in the second, of
which He goes on to speak, all, as we shall learn, have a part, both the
blessed and the wretched. The one is the resurrection of mercy, the other
of judgment. And therefore it is written in the psalm, “I will sing of mercy
and of judgment: unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing.”

-Augustine, The City of God

Jesus said:

“I am come that they might have forgiveness, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

Is that really what He said?  No, of course not.

Forgiveness of committed sins does not save a man from his sins, in the same way that washing the mud off a pig does not save the pig from getting dirty again.

Only the life of Christ, His blood transfused into us, can save us from the corruption of spiritual death, which we all inherit.

The blood of Jesus gives life into the human spirit once again.  With Life Eternal now in us, we can be saved from sin.

That is why Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life!”

Saved from sin by the blood!

Deut. 12:23

This is a potent little phrase, taken out of one verse.

How is a man saved?

By the blood, of course.

What does “saved by the blood” mean?

Salvaged by the life of Christ!

Christ saves (salvages, rescues from ruin) me by putting his blood (life, Spirit) on the altar (my heart), thus cleansing it (purging, catharizing) it from sin and self.

His life conquers my death!

Ok, the picture is falling together in my mind.  As soon as the Lord opens my eyes for a few pieces that are still missing, I hope to be able to post here the complete story of redemption (purchasing back a lost possession-again by the blood, life, of Jesus) and salvation by grace (I didn’t deserve His Spirit that freed me from the power of sin, it was a free gift!)

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should not take away (remove from the heart) sins, but the blood (life of Christ poured into me) could indeed sanctify my selfish heart!

More later, God permitting.

My latest book is finally finished enough to post it online. It needs another edit to take out some typos, but you can download a pdf of The Birth, Life, and Death of the Bohemian Revival, or read it in html online. At present, I do not have all the html pages built, but hope to within the next week or so.
The pdf is 3.5mb, and set up so that it can be printed out in a booklet form, although it is too large to neatly make a booklet.
Here is the back cover.

Sword or pen?

You see two men, armed to the teeth, warring for righteousness.
One is looking left, the other right (on purpose, for the composite I made).
They are real historical figures, etched as a relief in stone.
On the left is John, on the right is Peter.  No, they are not John and Peter the apostles.
They are men you likely never heard of- John Zizca and Peter Chelcicky.
John and Peter hailed from medieval times, in the early days of the 1400s.  Both of these Bohemians-now called the Czech Republic-had a zeal for God, and a desire that the church of Jesus recover from the Roman Catholic apostasy.
John picked up his sword to defend against the Catholic crusaders.  Peter picked up his pen.
See the above picture.
One-eyed John Zizca was a formidable man to war against.  Five times he and his peasant warriors repelled Catholic crusaders who had come to squelch the “heresy” that Read the rest of this entry »