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Jesus Christ took away the sins of the entire world: past, present, and future, never to be
remembered by God again.  He died for all, but you have to accept the pardon that He
paid with His life.  Going back some time ago, I remember reading an article about this
prisoner somewhere in the southern United States who was pardoned. He was granted a
pardon by the governor but he refused to accept it. He would not accept the pardon at
all.  His friends took it to court because his friends wanted him out of jail.  The judgment
was that yes, a pardon could be granted, but it wasn’t valid until it was accepted by the
individual.  Likewise, there’s a pardon for every sinner on this earth, but you have to call
for it by faith before it becomes yours.  In other words, you have to accept and trust
Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior and what He accomplished for you, a sinner, on
Calvary’s cross.

Romans 6:23 says,  “For the wages of sin is (spiritual) death, but the gift of God is eternal life in
Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The apostle Paul summarizes the subject by presenting these
vivid contrasts:
1. Two masters – sin versus God
2. Two methods – wages (works) versus free gift(grace).
3. Two aftermaths – spiritual death versus eternal life.

Notice that eternal life is in a Person, and that Person is Christ Jesus our Lord.  All who
are in Christ have eternal life.  It’s as simple as that!

Do you want the joy of a personal relationship with God? Do you want to be confident that one
day He will take you home to heaven? Here are four essential truths you need to know.

Our Delemma: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).” We are by nature
sinners who stand guilty and condemned before our Creator and Judge. In our thoughts and
actions, we have disobeyed His perfect standards.

Our Inability: “The wages of sin is (spiritual) death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord (Romans 6:23).” We are helpless to save ourselves. Forgiveness is a gift to be received,
not a reward that can be earned (like trying to be good person or through our own efforts).

Our Saviour: “God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).” Because of His love for us, God provided salvation through His
Son, Jesus. He became a member of the human family at Bethlehem, lived sinlessly, and died on
the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.

Our Response: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God
had raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). Salvation is an individual matter
and requires a personal response on the part of anyone who wants to be saved. All who
acknowledge that they are sinners and place their faith and trust in Christ are adopted as God’s
children and their ticket to heaven is assured.

Do you believe this? If you want to begin a relationship with God, you can do so right now by
asking Him to come into your heart and to be the Lord of your life. If you believe in your heart and
want to make this commitment but you are not sure how to put it into words, this may help:
“Lord Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying for the forgiveness of my sins and for offering me
your righteousness and your resurrected life. I now accept by faith your gift of salvation and I ask
you to come into my heart and to be my Lord and Saviour and my very best friend. Through your
Holy Spirit, teach me about your love and grace and about the new life that you have given me.
Please begin the work of making me into the person you want me to be.  Amen”

These words will not save you, there is nothing magical in them; anyone can repeat a sentence. It
is when you believe with your heart and put your faith in Christ Jesus; that’s what saves you.
There is no magic formula in what to say or how to say it but it’s your attitude and expression of
your heart that really counts. If you truly believe in your heart and you prayed this prayer, the
Spirit of God has come to dwell within you forever and you have begun the great adventure for
which you were created as a child of God. You are now born-again with God’s spirit alive in you.
Now, you and I are brothers or sisters in Christ. Welcome to God’s family. Welcome to Christ’s
body of believers. The true Church of Jesus Christ is not comprised of programs or buildings
made with the hands of men, but of Christ Himself within the heart of every true believer. The
Kingdom of God is inside of you and not just in buildings of wood and stone.

Bottom line: All who welcome Jesus into their lives as their Saviour are freely forgiven and
brought into a personal relationship with God (John 1:12). They are now born-again of the spirit –
born from above with God’s spirit now dwelling in them (John 3:8; 1Cor. 6:19). They are now
called “Children of God” and their home is in heaven ( John 1:12).

February 2018
I needed new glasses so while I was having my eyes examined I asked the optometrist this
question: “How did our eyes evolve, what came first” to which she replied, ” What do you mean?”
I told her that I’m not a professional but I do know that the eye is made up of different parts such
as the lens, pupil, iris, cornea, and retina and if the eye evolved what part came first. She said
that the eye parts could not come separately over time but that they all had to come together at
once to make the eye work. I must’ve shocked her when I said, “Well there goes the theory of
evolution which would suggest that the various components of the eye evolved over time.” The
expression on her face was blank – she didn’t know what to say.

Charles Darwin described the eye as one of the greatest challenges to his theory. How could he
explain it? The eye, after all, is simply incompatible with evolution. He simply admitted, “that the
eye with all its inimitable contrivances…….. could have been formed by natural selection, seems,
I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree” (On the Origin of Species, 1909, page 190).

The essential problem for Darwinists is how so many intricate components could have
independently evolved to work together perfectly when, if a single component didn’t function
perfectly, nothing would work at all. Scientist Francis Hitching tells us, “that if the slightest thing
goes wrong en route – if the cornea is fuzzy, or the pupil fails to dilate, or the lens becomes
opaque, or the focusing goes wrong – then a recognizable image is not formed. The eye either
functions as a whole, or not at all.”

Charles Darwin should have considered two passages in the Bible. “The hearing ear and the
seeing eye, the Lord has made them both,” wrote King Solomon (Proverbs 20:12).

The same can be said of the brain, nose, palate and dozens of other complex and highly
developed organs in any human or animal. It would take a quantum leap of faith to think all this
just evolved. Yet that is commonly taught and accepted. What I have a hard time wrapping my
head around is that out of nothing comes everything – all the things we see in this world – the
plant kingdom, insect kingdom, animal kingdom, sea creatures and the birds of the air all
evolved from nothing. Evolution is not science – it’s science fiction. Somehow from nothing we
get everything. Think! Be honest. Does this make sense > time+ nothing= everything.

Still don’t believe in creation? One needs only to look carefully at any living creature to gain
some concept of their enormous complexity. For instance, if you have a pet, consider the
complexities that must be involved enabling that “package of matter” to move around, play,
remember, show signs of affection, eat and reproduce. Yet, even with all of modern man’s
accumulated scientific and technological knowledge, advanced tools, and experience today, we
still could not construct a similar living pet from carbon, calcium, hydrogen, oxygen, etc. – the
pets basic constitutent parts. Yet, all the chemical information needed to construct your pet is
contained in a tiny speck (the fertilized egg cell).

Doesn’t that just boggle your mind that somehow evolution can do this (create something from
nothing) while we with all our modern advancements that we’ve made in physics, biology and
chemistry, cannot. This just shows you the myth of evolution – that dead chemicals somehow
produced the first living cells out of nothing. This is why I call evolution a religion. It would take a
lot more faith to believe in evolution than it would to believe in God’s creation.

What did Jesus mean when He said, “You must be born again (John 3:7)?” Nicodemus, the religious leader to whom Jesus was speaking, asked if that meant being a baby a second time. Jesus explained that He was talking about spiritual rebirth (vv.5-8).

We need to be reborn because we are spiritually dead and separated from God at birth. Our sin nature has separated us from a life giving relationship with God. We all have sinned by violating His perfect moral standards (Romans 3:23), and so we all are guilty and deserving of God’s judgement (John 3:18-21).

What every person needs is the forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus made possible through His sinless life, His sacrificial death on the cross, and His resurrection. Spiritual rebirth occurs when a person exercises genuine faith and trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord (vv. 14-18). At that point a believer experiences God’s forgiveness and a radical transformation at the very core of his being (2 Corinthians 5:17). Born again is the beginning of a whole new life where the spirit of God is once again living in us just as it did in Adam when he was created, before he fell into disobedience and sinned against God. Simply, we have been reconciled to God through His Son, Christ Jesus.

Above all else, we must realize that it’s impossible to please God without a life-changing personal encounter with Christ. This involves recognizing that we need a Saviour, excepting the gift of salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9), and trusting in Jesus as our only hope of being right with God now and living with Him forever (Romans 6:23).

My question to you is: “Have you been born twice”? If not – take that all-important first step. Put your trust in Jesus now and be right with God!

Bottom line: Because of Adam’s disobedience, all men and women born into this world are separated from God (Rom. 5:12). But because of God’s great love for of us, He did something to repair the broken relationship caused by disobedience or sin. He sent His Son into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). Jesus Christ, God’s Son, died to take the penalty that we deserve. He made it possible for us to be restored to God. Now, all those who recognize their need of salvation and welcome Christ into their lives as their Saviour are freely forgiven and brought into a personal relationship with God (Jn.1:12).

There is no greater gift in this world that I can give you than in sharing with you the good news of the life-transforming gospel, the good news of Christ Jesus and what He accomplished for you on Calvary’s cross. By His sacrificial death on the cross, He forgave you of all your sins – past, present and future and is now reconciling you to God; opening the way into the presence of your Creator by demonstrating to the world the indispensable and glorious fact that God loves man and wants to have that relationship with man. This is why God created us in the first place before sin and spiritual death entered into the picture when Adam and Eve were deceived by God’s adversary, Satan; into disobeying God.

Does religion matter? Well, it really doesn’t. It’s not about buildings, denominations, rules, traditions or ceremonies – it’s all about a true relationship with the God of the universe through His Son, Christ Jesus. There’s really no “religion” to it! Just true faith from the heart in Christ Jesus and what He accomplished for you on Calvary’s cross. It’s all of what He did for you and not anything you will do; you can just cling to His rightousness. (Please read Rom. 8:8-11; 2 Cor. 5:21)

Let me ask you: Have you ever thought about the eternal destiny of your soul? You haven’t! Then, let me give you some biblical facts. Jesus said, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul (Mark 8:36-37)?
Jesus was conveying to us the great importance of the value of the individual soul which is beyond the worth of money or possessions.

What good are the influential friends, all the popularity, fame and riches when your body is 6 feet under the sod and your soul is burning and being tormented night and day for all eternity in a place reserved for Satan and his demons called Hell or Lake of Fire. ( Rev. 20: 10)

Your soul/spirit is eternal and long after your body is dead, your soul/spirit will live on eternally in either Heaven or Hell. (See Ecclesiastics 12:7) Every human being is on a journey to eternity. There can be no turning back and no way to miss this appointment.

The Bible says, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment (Heb. 9:27).” The sad thing is to face death alone without God, and then to be judged and doomed to eternal torment forever because of rejecting the Savior, Christ Jesus. We know that physical death is a certainty and so is God’s judgment that follows. Your eternal salvation is the most important thing in this life. It doesn’t matter what you‘ve accomplished if you lose your soul in Hell; you lose it all. There is nothing in this world that is worth losing your soul for. Your soul is worth more than the whole world and everything in it. Your soul is the part of you that is going to live on forever and ever throughout all eternity. Jesus says concerning eternity, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life (Matt.25:46).”

Both Heaven and Hell will last forever and ever (Matthew 25:46). Both are eternal and everlasting. The vast majority of people are living their lives as though they don’t believe there is going to be an eternity. Satan has deceived and lulled these people into a state of complacency. Scripture clearly states, “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10).” Every one of us have two appointments that have already been made for us and that we will definitely keep. These two appointments: physical death and God’s judgment cannot be canceled – we will keep them. The Bible says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end is the way of death (Proverbs 14:12).” Our feelings are not a safe guide, but only the Bible is. We must not make an error concerning our eternal salvation and following what “seems right” to us, or that we “feel in our hearts we are saved.”

We will not have a second chance on the Day of Judgment to make things right. You have to get it right in this life. We are told in Amos 4:12, “Prepare to meet your God.” On Judgment Day we will be either prepared or unprepared. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. We cannot hope or wish our way into Heaven. Life is all about choices! Choose wisely as your eternal destination will be determined by the decisions you make. Love Oscar

The Kingdom of God is seen in Scripture in several different aspects. When Christ came to the earth the first time, He offered a literal kingdom to the nation of Israel. The Jews wanted deliverance from the Roman oppressors, but they did not want to repent of their sins. Christ could only reign over a people who were in proper spiritual relationship to Him. When that was made clear to them, they rejected their King and crucified Him. Since then, the Lord Jesus has gone back to heaven and we now have the Kingdom in mystery form (Matt.13) – it’s a spiritual kingdom where Christ Jesus (God) living in us when we as believers except the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. This means that the kingdom does not appear in visible form. The King is absent. But all who accept the Lord Jesus Christ during this present age and acknowledge Him as their rightful ruler, and thus are subjects of His kingdom. In a coming day, the Lord Jesus will come back to earth, set up His kingdom with Jerusalem as capital, and reign for a 1000 years. At the end of that time, Christ will put down all enemies under His feet and then deliver up the kingdom to God, the Father. That will inaugurate the eternal kingdom, which will continue throughout eternity.

Another reason to believe that the Bible is the truth, you only have to look at its historical and geological accuracy that have come to light in recent years. With virtually every turn of the archaeologists spade, we have evidence for the trustworthiness of Scripture. Down through the ages, many have doubted the historical accuracy of the Bible. Yet modern archaeologists have repeatedly unearthed evidence of the people, places, and cultures described in the Scriptures.

100 years ago, many Bible critics were trying to dismiss much of its history as a work of creative storytellers. But in the 20th century, archaeological finds have overwhelmingly supported and verified biblical data. For instance, two of the cities mentioned in the book of Genesis, Sodom and Gomorrah (c.1500B.C.) have been for many years considered mythological. However, recent excavations at Tell Mardikh, now known to be the site of Ebla, uncovered about 15,000 tablets. Some of these have been translated and mention is made of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Skeptics doubted the Bible’s description of King Solomon’s wealth. The archaeologist Henry Breasted, between 1925 and 1934, unearthed the remains of one of Solomon’s “chariot cities” at Megiddo in northern Palestine.

Critics of Scripture also doubted the existence of the Hittites, a people the Bible refers to some 40 times in the Old Testament. For centuries, those who studied the ancient world questioned the Bible because they had discovered no evidence of such a people. But in 1906 archaeologist Hugh Winckler excavated the Hittite capital of Boghaz-koi and recovered thousands of Hittite texts along with the famous Hittite code.

Scientists found evidence of a Biblical flood in the Black Sea. The archaeological evidence discovered by the National Geographic Society provides new evidence that humans faced a new flood, perhaps that of the biblical Noah, thousands of years ago. Man-made dwellings and tools at the bottom of the inland Black Sea prove a massive flood hit the area 7,600
years ago. ( Vancouver Sun, September 14, 2000 ). (True Biblical timingapproximately 5,500 years ago)
A 3000 year old temple used throughout the reign of the legendary Queen of Sheba has been uncovered in Yemen by an international team of scientists. (Toronto Globe and Mail, September 15, 2000 )
For years, critics dismiss the book of Daniel, partially because there was no evidence that a king named Belshazzar ruled in Babylon during that period. Later archaeological research, however, confirmed that the reigning monarch, Nabonidus, appointed Belshazzar as his coregent while he was waging war away from Babylon.
One of the most well known New Testament examples concerns the books of Luke and Acts. A Biblical skeptic, Sir William Ramsay, was trained as an archaeologist and then set out to disprove the historical reliability of this portion of the New Testament. But through his painstaking Mediterranean archaeological trips, he became converted as, one after another, the historical allusions of Luke were proved accurate. Truly, as you can see from just a small sampling of examples above, that with every turn of the archaeologists spade we continue to see evidence for the trustworthiness of Scripture.

Time after time, the descriptions in the biblical record have been shown to be more reliable than the speculations of scholars. You see, the Bible has and will stand the test of time. But the Bible is not primarily a book of history. It is His story, the story of Jesus, God in the flesh, who left behind His Royal robes of heaven to come down to earth to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins and to offer us hope, salvation, reconciliation and life eternal.
Love Oscar

You can ask yourself – “Why did Jesus throw off his Royal robes of heaven? Why did He lay aside royalty in heaven and come to this earth and be rejected by men? Why did He come to be spit upon, be discriminated against, cursed and misunderstood, and losing his life at the age of 33 on the wrong end of a Roman cross.” Why? I’ll tell you why – because He loved you and He love me. With a love I’m not sure any of us will ever understand, until eternity!

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).”

If we learn anything from this one statement it’s this – that God initiated your salvation; you didn’t. God made the first move – He created man and the purpose God had for created man was to have fellowship (relationship) with Him. But, man made the second move – he sinned and blew it, was thrown out of the garden of Eden and lost his relationship with God, his Creator. God made the third move – He sent His Son, Christ Jesus to be the remedy for man’s sin and to reconcile man back to God. Now it’s your move ……….

Love Oscar

Would it surprise you if I told you God hates religion? Someone reading this may be thinking “I thought God invented religion.” Sorry, but God created man and man (with the help from Satan) invented religion. Religion is actually a system made by man that is orchestrated to make him right with God by jumping through the hoops of various sets of rules, regulations and obligations – man trying to reach God by his own deeds and works. No religion or organization has eternal life to give to anyone and there is not one word in the Bible which even implies that we must go through a religion to get to God.

During this era of faith and grace (God’s new will for us), salvation is contingent on our relationship with God, the Father and Jesus Christ the Son, and nothing else. Before the cross, God dealt with man on the basis of obedience to the law. Today, God deals with man on the bases of His love and grace. The reason for the change is that Christ’s death ushered in a brand-new and better covenant for man. Jesus’ death completed the Old Covenant and ratified the New Covenant and freed us from the Law of Moses.

There are basically two choices for believers and nonbelievers alike: Did the universe begin by chance or by purpose and design? Let’s spell out the practical implications: The whole tenor of human life is affected by whether people regard themselves as supreme beings in the universe or acknowledge a super human being whom they conceive of as an object of fear or love, a force to be defied or a Lord to be obeyed. Your belief or disbelief in the existence of God has enormous implications on your view of life, humanity, morality, and destiny.