Enjoy Eternal Life Now — 1
The Gospel of The Kingdom of God. Episode 36
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Today, our first course is the words of our Lord Jesus served from John 3:16
— Joh 3:16
(16) “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
In the first man, Adam, the entire human race was doomed to perish.
Our ultimate end was everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
But God — But God — Who is rich in mercy, for His great love with which He loved us, such that while we were His enemies, being the children of the devil by nature, He gave His only Begotten Son as The Ransom for us from eternal damnation.
Praise The Lord! Glory to God! Alleluia!
And whosoever believes in His Son, is saved from spending forever in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, is delivered from the lake of fire intended for the devil and his angels, and in its stead, he or she, regardless, receives eternal life.
Praise The Lord! Glory to God! Alleluia!
In John 6:47, our Lord Jesus reaffirmed that the bridge which translates us from our destined eternal death in Adam, and brings us unto life eternal is to believe in Him:
— Joh 6:47
(47) Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes on Me has everlasting life.
He stated emphatically, that the only condition to receive This Free and Unspeakable Gift of God is to believe in Him.
Whosoever believes in Him — that He is The Son of God — is not going to get eternal life, BUT has everlasting life.
However, He also revealed unequivocally the fate of any who would not believe in Him in John 3:17 & 18:
— Joh 3:17–18
(17) For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.
(18) He who believes on Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed of the only-begotten Son of God.
Whosoever heard The Gospel of The Son of God, whosoever caught a glimpse of the light of the glory of God revealed in His Son, and chooses to cling to his/her evil works of darkness, rather than embrace The Light is forever lost.
Simply put, the only sin that keeps unregenerate man on the track to eternal perdition is not to believe in The Name of the only Begotten Son of God as his/her Salvation.
John the Baptist reechoes and amplifies the words of our Lord Jesus in John 3:36:
— Joh 3:36
(36) He who believes on the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him.
And at the close of The Gospel written by Mark, our Lord Jesus repeated His words in Mark 16:16:
— Mar 16:16
(16) He who believes and is baptised will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.
Whosoever would not believe The Gospel of The Son of God is condemned. He/she is forever doomed with no possibility of reversal.
Going further in our journey of eternal life, we will take three witnesses of those who believed The Gospel unto eternal life.
For our first witness, we will look to the rock from where we were hewed. We will look to our father, Abraham.
It is written of Father Abraham in Romans 4:1–3:
— Rom 4:1–3
(1) What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? (2) For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
(3) For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”
Father Abraham believed God’s word and it was assumed as righteousness unto him.
Back then, this imputed righteousness gave him The Sure Hope of The Resurrection unto Eternal Life.
This Hope, Who he looked forward to, and Who he rejoiced in, became a reality for him when our Lord Christ was raised from the dead, and Father Abraham, with all those who believed the word of God under the Old Testament, and we with them, were all raised up from the dead with The Lord unto life eternal.
Praise The Lord!
Our second witness to the truth that eternal life is received simply by believing in The Son of God is heard in Mark 15:37–39:
— Mar 15:37–39
(37) And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.
(38) And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
(39) And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.
The Roman centurion believed and consequently proclaimed that The Man on the cross was The Son of God.
Thus he fulfilled the condition given by our Lord Jesus to receive eternal life. And so he received life eternal.
Our third witness to our Lord’s assertion that we receive eternal life by believing in Him is an eloquent testimony to the truth that God will be found in His Son by those who seek for Him with all their heart.
God deploys His resources from Heaven and He moves those on the earth to gratify the heart desire of whosoever diligently seeks for Him.
We should note that the emphasis here is on those who seek for Him, and not those Who seek for His Hand.
Our witness is a eunuch, of great authority under Candace queen of Ethiopia, who had journeyed to Jerusalem to worship the living God.
However, his pilgrimage to, and his religious activities in Jerusalem, The City of God, could not fill the vacuum that was his heart.
His soul-thirst was unquenched.
On his way back home, he was still inwardly empty.
And so he was searching the scriptures.
But he could not understand Who he was reading about in Isaiah 53:7 & 8.
In response to his heart cry, God dispatched His angel who relayed to His servant God’s directive as to where he should go.
Phillip the evangelist arose and went to the deserted road between Jerusalem and Gaza as he had been instructed by the angel of The Lord.
In obeying, he kept a divinely arranged appointment with “the seeking heart”.
When the servant of God caught up with the eunuch, he asked him if he understood what he was reading in the book of Isaiah the Prophet.
The Ethiopian responded in despair, saying, “How can I except someone guides me?”
The whole story in its entirety is written for us in Acts 8:26–40.
However, we will join the evangelist’s conversation with the Eunuch from verses 35–38:
Verse 35:
— Act 8:35
(35) Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto
him Jesus.
He proclaimed to him that The Person He was reading about in the scriptures is Jesus, The Son of God.
Furthermore, Evangelist Phillip must have quoted to him the words of our Lord Jesus written in Mark 16:16:
— Mar 16:16
(16) He who believes and is baptised will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.
That the evangelist quoted these words to him is evidenced by the eunuch’s question written in Acts 8:36:
— Act 8:36
(36) And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptised?
The ensuing response and subsequent action is written for us in Acts 8:37:
— Act 8:37
(37) And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Phillip baptised him in water, and they were parted from each other by The Spirit of The Lord, with the Ethiopian rejoicing in The Lord as he continued on his journey back home.
He received eternal life by believing and declaring that Jesus Christ is The Son of God.
Now, seeing that we are all mutually agreed, as we might suppose, that believing is the, not a, but the critical precondition to pass from eternal death to eternal life, it is therefore expedient that we refresh our understanding of what it means to believe.
What does it mean to believe that Jesus is The Christ of God?
The Apostle of our Lord Jesus wrote to us what it means not to believe in 1John 5:10:
— 1Jn 5:10
(10) He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself; he that does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness which God has witnessed concerning his Son.
The implication of disbelieving God’s testimony that Jesus is His Son is that such a person has made God out to be a liar.
In other words, he has equated The God of truth with the devil, who is the father — the source of all lies.
Simply put, he is calling God a liar to His Face.
In his warning to us about not renouncing our belief that Jesus is The Son of God, the Apostle Paul describes the heart condition of the unbelieving one in Hebrews 3:12:
— Heb 3:12
(12) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
The Apostle calls one who had believed, and later denies that our Lord Jesus is The Son of God as one with an evil heart.
And he concludes by saying that he/she has departed from The living God.
So what does it mean to believe in The Son of God?
John the Baptist tells us what it means in John 3:33
— Joh 3:33
(33) He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.
To believe is to acknowledge in our hearts that God’s testimony that Jesus is His Son is true.
It is to agree in our hearts that what God said is true. To believe is to admit that the word of God is truth.
At this point in our journey of eternal life, we will break and go home with the words written to us by the Apostle of our Lord Jesus in John 20:30 & 31 and its mirror image in 1John 5:13:
— Joh 20:30–31
(30) And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book:
(31) But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
— 1Jn 5:13
(13) These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Amen.
“Enjoy Eternal Life Now” Continues in Part 2
