Choose You This Day

Are you one of the hundreds or even the thousands who have been hearing and reading God’s Truth through this Ministry, reading the articles and listening to the sermons studying the Correspondence Course; if so here now, is the challenging choice God places squarely before you?

“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14). These striking words, pronounced by Jesus Christ over 1900 years ago, are being fulfilled now!

Christ plainly said there will be a work of God on this earth, in your day. Somehow, Almighty God has led you into a direct personal contact with that dynamic, prophesied work of God!

As a reader of these articles, and a listener to our sermons, you have been constantly encouraged to prove all things! Don’t believe us, believe your own Bible! Check up on us and prove all things! Listen to us without prejudice to any man, but do not believe the man until you go to your Bible and find out whether or not that man is telling the real truth!

Luke wrote of the Bereans who were “more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind (without bias, prejudice or preconceived opinions) and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). Luke went on to record, “therefore,” as a direct result of their careful checking of the Bible, “many of them believed” (v. 12).

We of the Church of God New World Ministries encourage you to do this very thing! Have you done it? Have you been carefully checking up on these things which you hear, reading the Bible scriptures quoted, proving all things? (I Thess. 5:21).

God says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, a good understanding have all they that do His commandments” (Ps. 111:10). It is through obedience to the ten commandments of God, coming to realize His word is Divinely inspired, and beginning to obey it, that you can grow in true understanding. Daniel was told, of the prophecies of the Bible, “the wise shall understand!” (Dan. 12:10). It is those who are trembling before the Word of God (Isa. 66:2), who really stand in “AWE” OF Him, and who are really studying His word, who will really begin to understand the truth of God!

Whether or not you are aware of it, you are traveling down a one-way street. There is no turning around, no side roads, no escape from that one-way journey. It is the journey of your present human physical life. You, as a living, thinking human being with your own settled “way,” your friends, relatives and associates, your whole routine and way of life, are growing toward an eventual and fateful day.

You are approaching major cross-roads! Along that one-way path is a major intersection. It is a branching of the road! You must now choose, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life” (Deut. 30:19).

God commands: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James. 1:22). Through the apostle Peter, God Almighty issues a stern warning! “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved (if those who are living by every word of God, growing, overcoming, just barely by the skin of their teeth, make it) where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (I Peter 4:17-18).

Yes – the unrighteous just aren’t going to make it! That major cross-road you, personally, are approaching involves how you answer God’s question, “What are you going to do about it?”

Jesus Christ said plainly, “Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3)! Jesus came into Galilee preaching “Repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15)!

Later, on the Day of Pentecost, the inspired Peter said “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Peter explained further, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted (be changed, be transformed), that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).

Jesus Christ commanded us to repent! Repentance means a complete and total surrender of the self will to God! It means total unreserved unconditional surrender! It means far more than “changing of a few habits,” or beginning to “live better,” or making a “decision for Christ!” It means a complete and total shakeup, an abhorring of the self, throwing the self upon God’s mercy, crying out for forgiveness of the selfishness, vanity, conceit, lust, and direct rebellion against God’s and His law. It means, in short, giving yourself completely to God!

Repentance – true repentance is only the first step towards salvation! But, surprising enough, it is a step which hundreds of thousands have unknowingly overlooked, deceiving themselves, and are thus travelling on a path of destruction! There are hundreds of thousands today who, thinking they have “repented,” are going their own way, living in the selfishness and vanity of the human mind, having perhaps “changed a few things” but not living by every word of God, and are headed toward destruction!

False conversion, like a “false sense of security,” is going to lead to sudden death!

Almighty God, your Creator, commands you to repent! If you have come to see the truth of God, and you have come to realize you are a sinner (Rom. 3:23), that sin is the transgression of God’s law (I John 3:4), and you, therefore, are a “law-breaker” worthy of death (Rom 6:23), then God calls upon you to repent! This is that inescapable intersection you are approaching! It is the place in your life where God is going to hold you absolutely accountable for the precious knowledge you have been receiving, and is going to ask you, “What have you done about it?” What will be your answer?

Remember, God commands us all to grow in grace and knowledge (II Peter 3:18)! The way to grow is by a careful, constant study of the inspired word of God! “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). Study the Bible! Study the scriptures of down-to-earth, solid, specific points on Christian living God demands of every child of His! Put yourself into the picture, check up on yourself, and apply the inspired words of God to your own life. Read the many articles posted on this website. Enroll today in our Correspondence Course and our Traditional Christian Doctrine series. Listen intently with your Bible open, looking up each scripture, to the numerous sermons posted on this site. Grow closer to God; make sure you are really repentant! Have you read our article about “WATER BAPTISM”? God has apparently brought you to His wonderful truth. You have come in contact with truth that is hidden from mainstream Christianity. As you stand at the crossroads, which road will you choose?

 
The Church of God, New World Ministries P.O. Box 5536 Sevierville, TN 37864