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thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy life. Deuteronomy 30:19,20.
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| To break even one of the commandments makes us a sinner. |
For whosoever shall the keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. James 2:10.
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Why does trouble and suffering come to us?
Although we have a life here, our probationary time as it were, we experience during that lifetime disease, and pain, and many tears, before death comes. This is hard to understand. Why does God give us life and then allow such sorrows to come to us? God knows these questions and He has warned us Himself that in this life we shall have tribulations and troubles. |
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But He has also given us many, many promises of His strength, not only to be able to cope with the pain of this world, but also to be the kind of people who will love Him with full trust through it all.
For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. [Paul had some kind of physical problem] And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:8,9.
And the LORD, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. Deuteronomy 31:8 |
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The Bible says that the ‘wages of sin is death’. What does this mean? Many good and faithful people have died as martyrs - were they being punished?
These are valid questions. The confusion comes because there are two kinds of death mentioned in the Bible. |
- One is the death of sleep that comes at the end of our probationary lifespan. This period was once about 900 years but for us is nearer 70 years. The death of sleep comes when our choosing time is over. God never intended this temporary ‘sleep death’ in His original plan for the human race, but for now, each generation lives, chooses for or against God, then sleeps until Jesus comes the second time. This was the death suffered by the martyrs, or innocent ones who are murdered, or children who die after illness. It does not come because they have done something wrong or are being punished.
- All that sleep in death will be resurrected, some to life but some to another kind of death, ‘everlasting death’. This is the punishment of death. It is final.
- The Bible uses words like ‘perish’, ‘cut down’, ‘continueth not’, ‘destroyed forever’, ‘ashes’, and ‘ceaseth’ to describe this death. Life will end permanently.
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This death, which no one has yet experienced, is called ‘the second death’. It will follow the sleep of death, which is the first death. This second death is the death of punishment, the final penalty for sin. Those who have chosen not to serve God will be killed by fire. They will not come back from that death. They will be obliterated, annihilated. It will be eternal death - death for always. Ashes that return to dust again. There is no life in ashes. The sleep of death, however, is an interim state which comes to us all.
God gives us a choice. Everlasting life and death are moral, spiritual issues. In this life now, we can sow, by our own choice, the seeds of death or, by contrast, the seeds of life. In fact, we can have the guarantee of life, eternal life now. |
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How do we know if we have it? When we have a clear conscience and we know that we have turned our lives round from being scoffers of God or just apathetic towards Him, to loving and supporting Him actively and living to do those things please Him, then we can know that, after the sleep of death, eternal life will |
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