1 Thessalonians 5:8 "But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation."The contestants have a map and a destination. They know how they are to get their reward. With diligence and perseverance a vehicle will be at a certain point to take them home. Although 21 days are up and the end of the journey is near, they are safe, but not saved. They have the "hope of making it" to their extraction point, but many obstacles still remain before they are saved from everything out to outdo them!
Before they can be extracted they must travel through much terrain to get there. The forces of nature have put up roadblocks: sharp stones, extreme temperatures, foul weather, snakes and alligators, rats and insects and hateful talk between the two contestants.
In life it may not be 21 days, but our days are numbered. We too have the map, Holy Scripture, we know our extraction point and that it will take us home, but so far only some have only the "hope of salvation". We must finish the obstacle course; a race against time with evil darts thrown all the time to confuse and confound.
Hebrews 12:1b "...let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us..."This "race before us" is making it to our extraction point while darts are thrown all the way to the finish. Every step is a weight; a sin that can defeat us! Since we're spiritually naked it becomes necessary to clothe ourselves with what is there. As we travel naked we depend on God to supply. What is it that we need? The whole armor of God!
Ephesians 6:11 "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.These pieces of armor aren't seen to the eye. They are provided by God for free for the asking to enable believers to make it to the extraction point with a hope of safe delivery home. The wearer of this armor is still naked, but no longer afraid! Fear is manageable because "trust" is in that third person who is always there with the pair!
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints..."
In case of emergencies, the pair in Naked and Afraid, can call on the director to provide in an emergency in case of life-threatening calamity. Christians can call on God! He's the ultimate Director and he's got the wardrobe for the drama. What do people do when in danger. Most pray! If we pray sincerely prayers are answered if it's God's will. What is God's will for us all?
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."The jungle we've been dropped in without any clothes, substance nor shelter is this life! We remain here for a given spell. Only God knows. For some it is 21 days, but because of their innocence, they are flown right to the extraction point where they are taken to safety. Those who die in their minority are taken to heaven. For the rest of us, we are given a PSR (Primitive Survival Rating). God calls it faith! However, it is not of ourselves, but a gift of God. We can't brag about our own PSR, but we can brag that God empowers us with a PSR which is sufficient for the believer to make it for whatever duration; even 120 years and thereafter!
Our PSR, or faith, is measured by three factors: believe, trust and reverence. The scale goes all the way from doubt (no faith) to God's faith (that no human being can approach). There are those participants "without faith", with "little faith"," faith as small as a mustard seed", "with great faith", "faith to move mountains" all the way to the "faith of Abraham" who was the ultimate survivalist to whom we're all compared. My own PSR is "strong belief", "much trust" and "entire reverence". However, because I fail to show much love, my faith, although strong, is not demonstrated. God would give me a PSR of 6.1. However, even us with a low PSR, with the whole armor of God, can make it to the end! (Romans 6:18 above).
Let's move on to he last day; the day we are to be extracted! In this journey all will be extracted. We all make it to the extraction point. In the television show, extraction always means "safety", but someday, someone will die, even though safely extracted. For our journey, everyone dies at the extraction point for that's what extraction is!
Hebrews 9:27 "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"Some believe that Christians will never be judged! Many think that only those who's names are not in The Book of Life will be there on Judgement Day. However, we shall all be judged! Those whose names are written in that book shall be judged "innocent" of all charges because the Judge blotted out the evidence. While "naked and afraid" we dressed ourselves with God's armor. The fiery darts thrown by the antagonist were deflected and we sometimes were injured, but we made it!
Most will be judged for what they didn't do! Because they had no or a low PSR, the fiery darts stung badly and they tried to make the journey unassisted. They depended on their own abilities and leaned on their equally weak partner. They never found shoes and walked on barbs their entire stay. They never sought armor and daily were stung with the sun's rays. A cancer developed and they slowly withered away and never called on The Director, even as they were dying! The duration of their life they existed Naked and Afraid!
So even after all participants make it to the extraction point, they're still naked! However, once The Director determines where their home is, they shall be taken there! If "home" is heaven, God will cloth them and give them a room in a mansion, so to speak. That is their reward for making it "naked and afraid", but not alone! Their PSR is evaluated on Judgment Day and these few will be evaluated with high marks! They ran the race and made it. They persevered until the end because they were clothed in God's armor!
However, there are those who are Naked and Afraid, but remain so, especially on Judgement Day! Yesterday in Part 1, Genesis Chapter 3 painted a picture of Judgement Day. Adam and Eve stood before God and God found them guilty as charged, but had mercy on them even though they made many mistakes in their short journey. I believe that because of God's grace, that Adam and Eve, fully clothed, now live in a room with a fantastic view, overlooking the River of God and that Tree of Life they ignored in the Garden! I believe that after they tasted the darts of Satan, they started wearing whole spiritual armor along with those non-protective fig leaves. Those leaves were merely symbolic of God's armor because some of that exposed flesh was covered.
A little faith was shown by small fig leaves. They felt sorry for what they had done and answered God's call in the Garden. However, because of God being just, Adam and Eve deserved some consequences. Their journey to the extraction point was made harsh to test them and because it was harsh all the rest of us have the same tests to make it to the extraction point. However, even with a little faith, we can endure to journey for the allotted time, but with great faith, we, after extraction, are rewarded with different rewards, called crowns!
1 Corinthians 9:25 "And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible."All strive to the extraction point. Some do it for self-aggrandizement. They have bragging rights when they get out. They live for the flesh. The world is their reward and their flesh is their God. When they die all they leave is a legacy soon forgotten. Those who are extracted with a high PSR get different "crowns" for their faith. The first crown is eternal life and they get better from there. Perhaps one may be singing in the choir in the presence of God. We don't know, but with a high PSR we'll soon have some valuable crown!
At one time I had fear of the extraction point. I feared traveling the journey because something horrible would be there when I'm extracted! Many people I knew looked forward to extraction, but I still feared. It's not the journey and the fiery darts that I am to escape on the way to extraction, but where would I be after I'm extracted? In a sense I repeated what everyone before me had lived. I returned to the Garden of Eden, stood there in the tropical paradise, knew that I ate of the wrong fruit and that I had a fatal disease. I was clothed, yet I felt Naked and Afraid!
I was naked because my corruptness was revealed to God who I finally realized saw my nakedness all along!
Romans 2:16 "In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."I've Got a Secret was another television program. However, none of us have secrets. Whatever we do is exposed to the Almighty! He even sees what lies within our hearts!
Matthew 5:28 "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."Our fantasies are revealed to God because he knows that we desire to act on what we think! It may be for the sexual, for power, for prestige, for love or for wealth. He sees the adultery with the god with whom we fornicate! People may have not done the sin, but they want to do what they imagine. For example, "Love of money is the root of all evil" represents all that we place before God.
When we stand wherever it is we stand, or sit or recline, we are posed naked before God. There is no clothing to cover our love for the flesh; our fig leaves have even withered. We're totally naked and transparent to God!
One problem we have with our clothing, even if we're righteous, is that there may be a chink in the whole armor of God. We need to be careful for our eyes are the most vulnerable to the fiery darts of Satan. We can be defeated with our eyes for they report pleasure and beauty to the mind. It's with the eyes that vipers on our journey spit, even from a distance, knowing that without clear vision we can be defeated. As we head toward the extraction point, we need to watch out for those spitting vipers because we may be extracted before we have a chance to put that face shield down lying open on the helmet!
Belief is the first step in having a PSR. There comes a time when we realize that life is hard and we tend to give in to the hardness of it. We become aware that there are penalties for lackadaisical survivor techniques and careless living. When we are isolated in contemplation, it soon occurs to us that we're evil-doers. We feel guilt because the Holy Spirit is trying to aid us in our survival. At that point we're exposed. We stand there naked, and become afraid! "I don't want to be extracted to only go to hell!" we realize. We're like Adam and Eve who stood exposed to God long before us. Because of the knowledge they gained, they knew right from wrong, and felt guilt because of their sin. That guilt was God's grace felt because only the reprobate fail to fear guilt.
When we believe, God's Spirit bestows guilt upon our conscience. That's a tool God gives us to survive the journey and have a positive outcome after extraction. There are two ways guilt can be used. It can be ignored and discarded and fail to be useful to survive our journey; or the guilt can cause us to seek change in our survival techniques. Guilt reorders the importance of things for us to not only make it to the extraction point, but to be safely delivered after we're extracted!
Let me be clear! Before we can repent, it's necessary to feel sorrow. Guilt leads to sorrow and sorrow to repentance. To be saved it's necessary that we do something for our own well-being. We are to demonstrate our PSR with survival skills! We must do critical things such as accepting Jesus. He insures that after we are extracted, we go to a better place. We're saved from dying again ;of living in a worse hell than this journey can ever be!
We have two choices and only one can be chosen: Our vision can be on heaven or we can be delusional and fail to believe that a reward awaits after extraction; or to deny that some die again even after being extracted. The extraction point is death and the second death is the new insertion point. It's foolish to gamble on the outcome of our first extraction only to find ourselves inserted in a worse desert or infested jungle.
I've covered the first Naked and Afraid with Adam and Eve. This concludes a second Naked and Afraid where we face fear all alone, and tomorrow I'll cover the last Naked and Afraid where our partner is gone and we fend for ourselves standing there after extraction, where some will still be Naked and Afraid!
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