The Soul that Sinneth Shall Die

Posted by: YMBBA Ministries | 17 December, 2011

The Soul that Sinneth Shall Die

“Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine:the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ezekiel 18:4)

The godly, Rolfe Barnard, well understood this principle of God. He preached a sermon called The God of the Bible Kills People. This sermon alongside another called Watching Men Die well represents this fierce attribute of God’s just and wrathful will to kill sinners. To be hunted by the arrows of God’s justice, to know that the bow of His wrath is bent, that He hath made ready and aimed His arrows to be drunken with your blood, this is a biblical trauma many don’t know! If sinners do not turn from their sin, what will God do?

“…God is angry with the wicked every day. If he [the sinner] turn not, He will whet His sword; He hath bent His bow, and made it ready. He hath prepared for him the instruments of death; He ordaineth His arrows against the persecutors” (Psalm 7:11-13).

What will God do? God has already bent His bow! He has already prepared the instruments of death! Oh, this generation is nearly mindless that this world is a world of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Would to God this sermon, by Jonathan Edwards, would cause the consciences of America to quake again. Within time, there is a humbling tension within the heart of an Omniscient, Omni-benevolent God, a tension between the love (Ezek. 33:11, John 3:16) and hatred of God (Psalm 5:5) that is beyond the spectrum of our comprehension. What would it mean for a sinner when, at present, “the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36)? That is what is written, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). That is to say, the wrath of God dwells upon, continues upon, or rests upon the sinner. An active will of God, just anger, held from its final satisfaction by the Sovereign mercy of God at tension. The potential of death is near, hovering, ready, and easily released. The wrath of God abiding upon a sinner is as a bow bent and ready, pointed at you [a sinner], and any moment the love of God could release the justice of God that is aiming for your death. Life, righteousness, well being, and the Universe, for the glory of God, will be sustained and satisfied by the death of sinners. Yet till they all die, God’s will to kill men is illustrative through Hosea 11:7-9: “My repentings are kindled together.”

“And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt him. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city.” (Hosea 11:7-9)

Admah and Zeboim are neighboring cities to Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed in their destruction of fiery brimstone. God can, at present, be overtaken with the wrestling of “repentings.” This is a wrestling of contradicting desires to save or to kill within the heart of God. God warns of the possibility of sudden destruction surprising the wicked. “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (Proverbs 29:1) Oh sinner, above you are the eyes of God’s glory beholding your thoughts, words, and deeds, and I plead with you to understand the weight of His watchings.

“And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:15-21)

A sinner would never say within himself, “take thine ease,” if he knew that the wrath of God was hovering over his head like a bent and strung bow, that death is so nigh and every decision is vitally careful, lest you decide against your eternal good and release the everlasting wrath of God upon your helpless and wretched soul. These are the words of the hell-bound man, “take thine ease!” He didn’t know that he had less than 24 hours left in his life before God would require His soul. God said, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”

XMAS & NEW YEARS

Last year I wrote an article/booklet that endeavored to expose the biblical abominations in the celebration of Xmas. It is called “A Case Against Xmas,” and can be read/downloaded at www.XmasExposed.com. Within this biblical study was an analysis of US death rates. The peaks of mortality were outrageously high on Xmas day, the day after, and New Years Day (please view this graph –> Mortality Peaks). Why would people die on December 25-26^th? I urge you, read chapter one of the article “A Case Against Xmas.” In this article I seek to show the biblical evidence that Xmas is blasphemy, that men died in biblical history for the very things committed in the modern day celebration of Xmas, and this is entirely from scriptural application. Blasphemy is not a small crime! God’s wrath, according to the Bible (see Ch. 1), must go forth to slay men on December 25-26th. Arguably, Xmas is the day of the greatest sin in the year.

Why? A sin in God’s name is worse than the most horrific sins outside of or unrepresentative of Jesus’ name. A religious hypocrite is, in action, a counterfeit message of who Jesus Christ is. In consequence, is the damnation and snare of the eternal fate of souls. What is a carnal murderer compared to a spiritual murderer? A man like Joel Osteen would humble Hitler’s twisted pride at the judgment seat. The power of hypocrisy (Matt. 23:2-3, Lk. 12:1) in the name of God is the chiefest of sins, the weightiest consequence, though it is the most unnoticed brutality. Jesus said to hypocrites, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15) Again Jesus said, “But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.” (Matthew 23:13)

These mega Churches, Christian ministries, relationships, and families are an infection of vanity to this counrty, and it would be better that our number be 120. These mega Churches are a clubhouse, a company of sinners who love recreational activities instead of the recreating Deity! These talentless tinkers are in poverty, they love storehouses of comfort and dream of the lottery. The true Church is the Pillar and Ground of the Truth, but these churches are a graveyard of fallacy, a planting with no root. Their steeples are like tomb stones, their churches are funeral homes. Their preaching is a mass murder, a deadly pseudo gospel, and their preacher is a goat herder. They defile their conscience and have a memory of lies that will be regretted in eternal cries. What is every other crime next to the man who devours souls by a false gospel or misleading lifestyle? It is said in scripture that they are like cabals, adulterers, murderers, and fornicators, and they do devour souls!

Don’t trust in numbers! Multitudes are always in deception marching in a broad-way band of procession, waving a banner of Christian profession and following generations past who had a sinful, religious obsession. False prophets did always beguile the masses, therefore “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matt. 7:15).

Think of it! The multitudes of souls that go to “Churches” on Xmas day. Most of them scarcely step foot in a Church and desperately need an awakening to their sinful condition, and yet, the Jesus Christ they are indoctrinated with is an imaginary Jesus which caters to their very own sinful lusts. With a good tithe and the pastors smiling blessing, then the people are off to another year of sin. They are “traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Tim. 3:4-5). It would have been good that, on this day, when the lost world of professing Christianity does come for a day of “worship” to give thier nod to God, that they would be awakened with the threatenings of the True Jesus Christ: “I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear HIM, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, FEAR HIM” (Luke 12:5)!

Languish in your sin you’re a rotting soul, and you will be covered in carnivorous fowls to feast on your rottenness like ravening wolves. As corpses attract vultures, so sinners attract false prophets. False prophets feed on the flesh of men through false religion. You must understand that they are commissioned by Satan to make you a deceptive, counterfeit religion. A man of God, beholding this madness, would surely be staggered in emotion and pressed to make some kind of interruptive commotion, and so scare these feverish, feasting, false prophet carnivorous fowls (Ezek. 22:25, Zeph. 3:3-5).

In professing Christianity today “there is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls ” (Ezekiel 22:25). Her pastors and “princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. The just LORD is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame.” (Zephaniah 3:3-5)

January 1^st is another time of great provocation to God because of New Year’s celebrations. A religious reveling that is blasphemy, followed by a false sense of liberty, new years promises, and hopes of a prosperous next year – for this to be the time that their death sentence is executed is a clear message from God. It reminds me of the rebellious partying: “let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32). God is interrupting the very time of their futuristic hoping, boasting, and partying, and this is just what God did to the hopeful man in Luke 12:16-21. Are not these words the epitome of New Year’s celebrations? “And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” (verses 19-20).

“Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.” (Isaiah 5:14)

Are you hunted by hell? Are you hunted by the very mouth of hell, to be swallowed up into the hole of God’s justice? If you are swallowed up, you will remain there until the lake of fire as an object of God’s fierce hatred, only existing to be destroyed forever? “The sinners in Zion are afraid,” scripture declares, and “fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings” (Isa. 33:14)? Will you be vomited out by the good will of God (Rev. 3:15-16), spewed out from the promising love of your Creator (Lev. 18:26-30), only to reside under the emotional distress and torturing experience of what you are in God’s sight? The wicked are in hell because God is there for He alone is the sustainer, creator, and maintainer of justice, righteousness, or truth. The jubilee of everlasting life redounds to the glory of God, truly, but for what cause and triumph? It is an eternity without wickedness, an eternity beginning with the exclamation that wickedness has ceased to taint God’s good creation and habitable palaces. That God, throughout all His good creation, or wherever the sole of His foot would walk, there is righteousness, purity, peace, and godly, God-centered charity. Finally, the wicked “shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:” (Revelation 14:10)

Don’t be carried away in the dream of sinners. Remember God, remember judgment, and remember righteousness! Don’t let the illusion of happiness, the monotony of daily obligations or pleasures steal your attention away from the cries of your conscience pointing you to your Creator! Before your soul is required and “your spirit shall return unto God who gave it,” remember HIM! Before suffering and evil come upon you, while it is yet day and there is still time to repent, remember your God. “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1-7)

The proclamation of the Kingdom of God in a world without God is an illustration of the redemptive power and love of God! The gospel is like the adorning of a beautiful bride, which is, the redemption of sinners from death, sin, disease, pain, sorrow, and tears, to present tense and eternal righteousness, grace, truth, and holiness. The Gospel is as this downloadable message I preached, A Bride Adorned For Her Husband.

God is working and appealing in love now, as the tears that He shed before the destruction of Jerusalem. Hear the words of a loving Savior on the eve of judgment:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!” (Luke 13:34)

“And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” (Luke 19:41-42)

If you are a Christian you know the sorrows of Christ. God has raised up into His resurrection many persons and ambassadors of His nature, personality, and message, that all the world might “behold, all things are become new” (2 cor. 5:17). They are, in person and message, vibrant testimonies of the message of His love. These persons (Christians), do live for, weep over, and bear a holy anguish over this world of sinners near damnation. They do feel the hurt of the message they preach but dare not diminish or corrupt the strictness of God’s judgment against sinners.

Abominations are everywhere in this world, therefore the righteous have no ease. The nations seek paradise and retirement, and at enmity to them, the saints bear the baptism of death. Think of the great contradiction of saints and sinners! The one, a majority, seeks the welfare of life, a promise of many days, the hope of a sustainable environment, and a wealthy retirement. The other, an unhidden, interruptive minority, has visions of judgment burning and energizing their heart, that “the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). Therefore they number their days, neither trusting nor seeking many, having a heavenly hope to be spent and expended as a bold witness. The one, the majority, seeks to escape every memory and sting of death. Therefore the cinema is filled with the emotion of a life well lived. Movies are haunted with death’s near and untimely touch, and excited with a fantasy of men heroically overcoming an early grave. The other, the minority, is sent to testify to the majority, to turn them from vanity – that they must go to a spiritual grave to be saved, crucify their present days, and all this to escape a second death.

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)

The testimony of a loving God to a world abiding in His wrath is the messengers of Christ (Christians) that are clothed “in Christ” (Rom. 8:1, 13:11-14, Col. 2:6)! Christians seek the salvation of sinners! In this goal they do exhaust themselves. Through physical service, relationships, vocational obligations or opportunities, family ties, and vocal witness they do exhaust themselves, and when physically depleted their soul is still burning with the lamplight of prayer for a lost world. Even if their body collapses in exhaustion after a day’s deeds done, there is an inexhaustible love still burning and for a night of prayer they are still yearning. The light of the darling love of God cannot go out, and whenever the flesh is weak the spirit is still willing. As it is written: “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved” (2 Corinthians 12:15). A Christian is constrained by a painful love (2 Cor. 5:14), a pursuing and living Savior, and they do burn in the fire of His passion.

Think of the greatest or most gripping sensation on earth! A near death experience, the underwater beauty of a famous scuba dive, or the sensation of a cinema experience where you are carried away in the climactic experience you are seeing on film. These, dull in comparison, cannot be compared with the sensation, the spiritual apprehension, or open face beholding (2 Cor. 317-18) of the living person of Jesus Christ in our heart, emotions, passions, and person. We don’t follow a religion but we live and walk in a Person: Jesus Christ. He suffered for, preached to, served, and died for sinners, bore the whole penalty and pain of their just punishment, and now lives in many sons for a worldwide appeal before final and irreconcilable judgment. He loves us, and loves you in us. “When we were without strength” (Rom. 5:6) and “while we were yet sinners” (Rom. 5:8), “He first loved us” (1 John 4:19) and is loving you.

Painful Love

So many deceived, how can I be consoled (Rom. 9:2-3)? Strangers, the world, and my dearest adamic friends… the alarm is bold. Going through life, many works I multitask, but the breath of God does show the monotony as a mask.

Time slips away in a perpetual bask as I am confronted by a ceaseless task (Mark 16:15), That by some endeavor, and before the END, pleading and preaching might eternity unmask (2 Cor. 4:18). My heart breaks in unrest; I am moved and distressed…

Oh to gather the condemned from vanity! To bring them nigh to Christ, even to His chest, That they would be the Chiclets under His wing and upon His breast (Luke 13:34), That they would cease from pleasure and smiling (2 Tim. 3:4), and know what is best.

“The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.” (Psalm 10:4)

Stadiums of souls circle to behold, Sports and fame, and for the world they’re sold. Their hearts are dead and cold; they know not the rest of the Saviors fold. Of His face they are unaware, the joy of His Kingdom they do not share, though nothing on this earth could nearly compare (2 Cor. 3:17-18). Happy merry-making and pleasure without God (Psalm 147:10), these rags of menstrual blood they do applaud (Isa. 64:6).

Oh such love that seizes upon my soul (2 cor. 5:14), it is like a wound, a pain, a breaking, Christ-life role (Gal. 2:20). My mind does meditate what I might do, seeking salvation for this one or two. I imagine suffering a thousand crucifixions just for you, that for you these blessed words might be true… “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

To me, in Him, a thousand deaths do seem small (Php. 1:8), I earnestly hurt that you would hear the gospel call. Oh, I wish a sinner could behold it all (2 Cor. 4:4)… Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)