THE CHOICES OF SAFETY OR DEPARTING FROM IT

KEY VERSES: Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. (Jer 17:5) Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. (Jer 17:7) Nor will (he) cease from yielding fruit. (Jer 17:8f) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. (Jer 17:8-9)

Compare the key verses to the New Testament:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. (Ephes 2:8) Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. (2 Tim 2:9)

  According to 2 Timothy 2:9, grace was always God’s purpose for mankind. In other words, it’s not what we do (works) but what God gives (Ephes 2:8). Grace is the outcome of faith. Is faith the “gift” or is it salvation? Jesus, throughout the gospels said things as “Your faith has made you whole,” “He saw their faith,” “great is your faith,” etc. I always thought that faith is the gift, but apparently salvation is! “According to your faith let it be to you” (Mat 9:29). Therefore, people’s faith belongs to them and that determines their safety or perishing.
  It is imperative to know just what is “faith.” Scripture answers that question: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). What is the unseen? God in Heaven. What is the hope of Christians? Seeing God in Heaven and living there for eternity. Substance is reality. Faith is the certainty that God and Heaven are real!
  “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Heb 11:3). Faith is believing in the creation by “the Word of God.” We know from John that “the Word” is God in the flesh called “Jesus.” Faith means that there are two worlds of two different substances. One world is material, and the other invisible substances. In my book, On the Origin of Man and the Universe, I submitted that what science calls “matter” and “antimatter” are the two worlds. Both worlds have substance, dimensions, and time. They are of different charges making one seen and the other unseen. Heaven is not antimatter, but the invisible. Science had to call it something.
  The word “world” has many meanings, but the ones pertaining to this commentary are, “The earthly state of human existence,” and “life after death.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Scripture indicates that the two worlds were created simultaneously, at least their substances (Gen 1:1). Hebrews 1:3 above perhaps confirms that. There seems to be two worlds of different substances, occupying the same volume, with a gulf of some type between the two. Obviously, the “gulf” would be the charge of the substances – the ability to be translated between the two worlds. Death is gain, according to Paul. Death allows crossing over from one world to another. Hence, Webster refers to the “afterlife.” Not so; death is an ability obtained by grace. The “gift” is safely moving from the seen to the unseen. Faith is the transporting “medium” – “according to your faith, let it be to you!”
  In one of Jeremiah’s passages it says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.” The word “blessed” means “blissed.”  That’s the “gain” to which Paul referred. Translation from turmoil in this world to joy in the next is blissful. Trust in the Lord (faith) allows Christians, upon death, to be translated from a world with time and material, to another invisible world where there is no time consumption. The invisible world has no sun, moon, or stars at the end of time, because only God’s Light will be required to illuminate.
  Grace is receiving something which is not deserved. Sinners deserve to die because they deny their Creator, and assign creation to another object of power. Those with false knowledge create existence through evolution. God (The Existence) is offended when people make themselves out to be the gods who determine the order of things. It is imperative to believe in the creation of both worlds. If a doubter does not believe the Earth was created, how could they believe that Heaven was? When they die, there would be no place to which God could transport them for safety!
  All have sinned and deserve to die. Jesus redeemed our sinful flesh by sacrificing his own on our behalf. That is redemption. Jesus paid the price on the behalf of all mankind. He didn’t have to but he did! None of us shed our own blood for eternal life, and none of us died to save ourselves. As the song goes, “Jesus paid it all!” That was God’s gift to mankind and was not of our own doing. What is it that we do? Have faith. We must believe in God, and that He did what a god would do – Create. We must believe that He has the Power to save, and a place for safety. Therefore, Christians trust that there is an invisible God and that He is visible in Heaven where He still Exists. The visible God is not us, but Jesus – God in the Flesh.
  Christians, by their own reasoning, trust in the Lord. He is their only hope, so to deny the Lord is foolishness. Jeremiah says that the righteous heart will not cease from yielding fruit. The fruits of the Spirit are twelve. The best fruit is love, and the remaining eleven are ways to love. Love is the Greatest Fruit, and by bearing the fruit of love is the evidence of a new creature in Christ, whose death will be their gain, if indeed, enduring to the end with that “good fruit.”
  Hence, eternal life is the graceful gift, but is dependent on the attitude of the person. In a key verse the Lord says, ““Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.” Departure from the Lord is denying God after once believing in Him. That is called apostasy. God does not forsake us, but men have the free will to forsake God. To not be free would be bondage. God does not keep Christians safe by binding them in chains, but breaking the chains of bondage. The obligation of those who have faith in the Lord’s sacrifice of Himself on their behalf is to love their Creator with all their hearts, minds, souls, and strength. If they do not, then they are vain. Loving others is the physical way of loving the invisible God, and showing Jesus from afar that we love his precepts.
  The heart – our attitudes – is deceitful. The propensity to believe deception was implanted in mankind with the original sin. Men are wicked because Satan has cunningly deceived, saying that there is no death. In other words, this is all there is… there is no afterlife, no Heaven, and no hope; then do whatever you will!
  Only the Lord knows our minds. He said that. The Lord searches our attitude to see what our will desires to do. The mind is the controller of our attitudes toward God and others. The Lord know our minds; nothing is invisible to Him! God’s test of where our will lies is in our way and doings. Our way is whether we are willing to please God or not, and our doings are the outcome of the decision processes. Hence, the eternal destiny of all men depends on their will – what they are willing to do in gratitude for God’s grace. God never reverses his grace, but it is dependent on our wills.
  Dr. David Jeremiah said that God loves us and respects nothing in return. That misconception is contrary to all scripture. God loves everyone, but he expects our love in return. It’s not what He sees us do, but what He knows that we willing to do. The epitome of that was Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only remaining son (Ishmael had been emancipated prior to that). It’s not the sins that are damning, but the choice of choosing a life of sin without regard to what God wants for us. God has a plan for everyone, and the only person who can usurp that plan is ourselves. God, with His foreknowledge, knows who will willingly follow His plan and who will not!
  The battle is always present. Satan endeavors by trickery to kidnap our wills. God tests our love for Him allowing Satan to kidnap His children, and whether we submit to the Stockholm Syndrome, wherein sinners fall in live with their Kidnapper and serve him! Rather than being a psychological attraction to the Kidnapper, it is a spiritual one. Those who fall away from their Father, prefer the iniquity of their Kidnapper.
  In summary, we do nothing for our own salvation, but to remain safe, we must do and believe things. Satan endeavors to steal us away, but by living the Word, we can endure to the end, and rather than safety in the physical world, we will be saved in the Invisible World! A Christian cannot be unsaved, but he or she can be unsafe!