O' Death, where is thy sting?

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15: 55-57, KJV 1769

Like it or not, we all have a scheduled appointment which we will not miss. We won't be early, and we won't be late. We will be there on our appointed time.

Why is it that one person at war can be next to a another that is killed or a lone survivor such as Juliane Koepcke who survived LANSA flight 508 plane crash in 1971, while the other 91 on board perished? She fell almost 3 kilometers from the sky, strapped to her seat and still survived 11 days in the Peruvian forest.

Mrs Koepcke isn't the only one to have survived a parachute less free fall. Vesna Volovic, a Serbian flight attendant in 1972, Alan Magee -an American Airman in 1943 and also a British Airman named Nicholas Alkemade in 1944. Again, this begs the question of why did they survive what is a certain death?

Our answer is; that it wasn't their time and only the Lord knows because they had work to do. Eventually, they died on their appointed times.

“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23 KJV 176

Assurance of Salvation

It took me 46 years until I understood this. And it really shouldn't have taken that long had I got into my Bible and aligned myself with the right teachers. Not teachers that told me what I wanted to hear but teachers that told me the truth from the Inerrant Word in the Holy Scriptures.

The most important words came from our Lord Himself....

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes on Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and will not come into condemnation, but has passed from death into life." John 5:24 KJV -2016

And other scriptures in the Bible speak clearly of assurance.

"He who believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he does not believe the record that God gave of His Son.

And this is the record: that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God." 1 John 5: 10-13 KJV-2016

"And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Ephesians 4:30

There is nothing we can bring to the table. There is no purgatory to purge oneself of sins, no indulgences or one time prayers. Jesus did all the work in our redemption on the cross. We either accept Him or reject Him.

And if we accept Him, it will be evident in our fruits.

A criticism I've often heard is can Hitler be saved? The answer is yes, Jesus can save and forgive anyone He pleases. However we can know with utter certainty that Hitler wasn't saved for he was an anti-Christ. And his work was evident in the Holocaust.

Another thing I hear is about how "so and so" says he or she is a Christian but lives a wicked life. How on earth can they be saved? And the answer is that, they're not Christian. As evident in their fruits. Just because someone says they're saved doesn't mean they are. God knows our hearts and the hearts of men are deceitful. You cannot serve two masters.

Because the flesh is weak, we must lean on the Lord to help us daily in our thoughts and in our actions, but know this. You cannot save yourself. I want to leave you with the best teachers of scripture preaching about assurance.