The Call Is Urgent, Today Is The Day of Salvation

As long as a person is alive here on earth, he or she has a chance to be saved. It is imperative that we understand this, and place is not given to confusion or slumber by the suggestion that there is a post death chance for repentance and salvation of the soul. Now is the accepted time:

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2 Cor. 6:2 Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

None of us is promised tomorrow.

Heb. 3:15 Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.

Salvation is always through faith in Jesus, whether you are Jewish or Gentile.  Belief in

Jesus is the only way (“… no man comes to the Father except through Me” – John 14:6).

The message that will save everybody, whether physical or spiritual Israel, is received by faith (Eph. 2:8-9).

“Without faith, it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6) was the message Jesus gave to

Paul for every Gentile and Jew everywhere, and in Rom. 11:22-23, Paul made that very clear.

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There is nothing in the teachings of Christ that presents us with a second chance of repentance after Jesus’s second coming and taking His elect to be with Him forever. In Luke 17, Jesus Himself painted a picture of how it will be, based on the time of Noah.

Jesus will appear with the sounding of a trumpet which all must hear and come back to life, whether wicked or righteous. Those alive until then will be transformed by Jesus into the spiritual state, separating the righteous from the wicked to be with Jesus as long as is necessary for everything associated with Satan (the world system) to be destroyed. Finally will come the restoration of the new heaven and new earth (see 2 Pet. 3:13).

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Our Judge is Perfect

We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 10; Rom. 14:10). Every work will be brought into judgment (Eccl. 12:14). The Lord judges with perfect fairness: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25), delighting in righteousness, but also in mercy:

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Jer. 9:24 “… I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.

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None of us is righteous; we have all fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:10, 23). All of us deserve condemnation. But God in His mercy has sent His Son not to condemn the world but to save the world, so that through belief in His Son we may be delivered from condemnation (John 3:17).

God Is Not Willing That Any Should Perish

We are commanded to take the full light of the Gospel to every person, God being unwilling that any should perish but that all should come to repentance:

2 Pet. 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

How Shall We Escape If We Reject So Great A Salvation?

Again, today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart but take heed of what is said:

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Heb. 2:1-4 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?

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As it is written (Heb. 9:27 (KJV)), “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”.

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Evaluation Questions & Answers​

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1. Jesus committed His life to Scripture and admitted therein as true. Looking at Noah’s time, narrate the order of His second coming.

   • Order:

     • Normal life: eating, drinking, marrying, buying (Luke 17:26-28).

     • Sudden appearance: “Son of Man revealed” (Luke 17:30).

     • Trumpet (1 Thess. 4:16): all hear (Matt. 24:31).

     • Resurrection of the dead: “dead in Christ rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16).

     • Transformation of the living: “changed” (1 Cor. 15:51-52).

     • Catching up of the righteous: “to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17).

     • Judgment on the wicked: (2 Thess. 1:7-9), “destroyed them all” (Luke 17:29).

     • New heaven and earth (2 Pet. 3:13).

   • As Noah’s flood, so Christ’s fire (2 Pet. 3:6-7).

2. In apocalyptic books like Revelation and Daniel, numbers are ideas. What does the number “one thousand” mean, reading Rev. 20:1-7?

   • Ideas, not calendar: Apocalyptic numbers are symbols. 1000 = completeness, fullness of time, God’s perfect reign. “A thousand years as one day” (Ps. 90:4) and “one day as a thousand years” (2 Pet. 3:8).

   • Proof that 1000 is symbolic: If “1000 years” meant a literal 1000 years, Satan would be totally inactive for that time. But Rev. 20:7-8 says he is released after the 1000 years and deceives the nations again. That does not fit a literal 1000 years.

   • What it means: “1000 years” means a long, complete period that God has set. It is the time between Christ’s first and second coming – the Church Age. Right now, Christ reigns from heaven (Eph. 1:20-22), and believers reign with Him by trusting Him, (Rev. 1:6, Rom. 5:17). Satan is bound from stopping the gospel from reaching all nations. At the end, he is released for a short time, then Christ returns.

   • First resurrection = born again (John 5:24-25; Eph. 2:1, 5-6).

   • “Thousand” = between first and second coming. We are in it.

   • “I saw Satan fall” (Luke 10:18).

   • There is no future millenium for Jews. They are saved now or never, “if they do not continue in unbelief” (Rom. 11:23).

3. According to 1 Tim. 1:3-5, what is the charge of the faith of Jesus Christ which is the aim of the divine training in faith, which cannot be complicated by genealogies?

   • Love from a pure heart, good conscience, sincere faith (1 Tim. 1:5).

   • Not: “endless genealogies… disputes” (1 Tim. 1:4).

   • Charge: Teach the Gospel that saves NOW (1 Tim. 1:3-4).

   • Genealogies: “Jews get a second chance under the Antichrist”, “tribes of Israel are evangelized in tribulation”, “Daniel’s 70th week for Jews.”

   • Avoid these teachings. Why?

     • Blindness in part has indeed come to Israel (Rom. 11:25) but the gospel is what saves, and must be preached to all nations. Do not complicate simple faith (Heb. 11:6, Eph: 2:8-9).

     • Jesus’s victory is not veiled (2 Cor. 3:14).

     • No genealogy saves: “do not think to say ‘Abraham our father’” (Matt. 3:9).

     • Aim of training: Love (1 Tim. 1:5) -  not timelines.

4. Our prayers must not seek to harm anybody who is alive now in the flesh. We have this lifetime chance guided by the Holy Spirit, pending the dispensation of fire to come. True or False? Why?

   • True. “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. The Son of Man did not come to destroy but to save.” (Luke 9:54-56)

   • “Love your enemies, bless them… pray for those who spitefully use you.” (Matt. 5:44)

   • “Bless and do not curse.” (Rom. 12:14)

   • Why: One lifetime chance (Heb. 9:27). As long as a person breathes, they can repent. The Lord is “not willing that any should perish.” Praying harm is closing a door that God left open.

   • Fire dispensation comes hereafter (2 Thess. 1:7-8), not by our prayer now.

   • The Holy Spirit guides us to intercede (Rom. 8:26-27), not curse (Jam. 3:9-10).

   • Saul persecuted the Church. The Church prayed. Saul became Paul (Acts 9:1-19). If the Church had prayed fire on Saul, we would have no Romans, no Galatians, no you.

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​​​Prayer

Father, thank You for letting me know that the Christian Church has no second ark, no second chance and no second Israel but Christ, and that today is the day to have Him (2 Cor. 6:2, Heb. 3:13).