Ironworks

          How do I know if I am right with God? The question is simple, but it requires us to put some effort into figuring out an answer.  Since this takes effort, many people will ask the question and never look for the answer. This is an extremely dangerous way to live as you may be blissfully ignorant, but being blissfully ignorant of God’s word can lead to terrible eternal consequences. So, let’s answer the question in short. How do we know if we are right with God? To answer this we should ask ourselves some simple questions. Have You Heard?              The first step in the process is hearing the word of God. I know this seems like taking a step back from answering our serious question, but we have to address the fact that we need to hear God’s word. Logically speaking it all starts here, but as we move forward we need to continue to hear God’s word.           Romans 10:17 (K...

  Have you ever been in a discussion with someone and no matter how much proof you offer to validate your Biblical claims they still reject them? When a religious person is confronted with Scripture that contradicts their traditions, they may call a New Testament Christian a Pharisee. No one wants to be called that, but how do you respond to such an accusation? Moreover, has it ever made you think, “What if I am being a Pharisee?” It is certainly Scriptural for each of us to test our actions against the Word of God (John 12:48; 2 Cor 13:5; James 1:25). So how can we know if we are speaking where God speaks or if we are speaking in the spirit of the sectarian Pharisees? In order to make a fair assessment, we can consider New Testament examples of the spirit of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees Were Self-Righteous The Pharisees were very self-righteous. Consider the prayer of one Pharisee in Luke 18:11-12,  “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee...

  In the last couple of weeks, I became aware of a young woman who made a video on a social media platform venting about a potential employee mocking her for asking for accommodations for her “time blindness.” Time blindness is defined by the Cleveland Clinic as, the inability to recognize when time has passed or to estimate how long something will take. In plain language, a person who is perpetually late to events with scheduled times (i.e. work). As you can imagine, many in the safe confines of the comments section had a field day with this preposterous notion. I realize this might be offensive to those who contend that being late is a medical issue. However, it is noted in the very same article, “Everybody has time blindness at times,” Dr. Manos says. “We all can get caught up in something and get ‘in the zone.’  There are many in this world that suffer from a condition I will call Bible blindness. On occasion, I engage religious people of the “faith-only” system. These...

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.  Mark 16:16  Diagram           Mark 16:16 is one of many passages that confirm that baptism is one of the five steps in the Gospel Plan of Salvation that is applicable to all men. Some observations in the verse include the fact that both belief and baptism are coequals to be saved. The diagram below shows their correlation as well as the order of both belief and immersion for the purpose of salvation. Belief is an absolute prerequisite of baptism, and this is very well explained in the second section of the verse, for it is by disbelief that one is condemned. As noted before, it certainly takes more to be saved than to be condemned.  He____________________________________________________/shall be saved That______________________    /believeth                       ...

But Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah”  Genesis 6:8 The fact of the worldwide flood is instrumental to our understanding of God’s desire to save man. We learn this story from our parents, we discuss it in our Bible classes, and occasionally we hear a sermon mentioning it. Have you considered that this is but one example of how grace, faith, and obedient works are critical in salvation?  Grace  When we look at Genesis 6:8, we see that Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah. The Hebrew word ḥên is translated here as favor but is accurately translated as grace as well. God made an observation that the wickedness of men had caused every thought they had to be evil continually. It was so bad that the Lord changed His mind (repented) that He had made man, and it grieved Him. This is a far cry from the description of the creation being described as good. The choice of sin by each individual disfigures the goodness in which we are all created.  We fully employ ourse...