Are we striving with all our being to love our God and Father Yehovah with all the enabling power of the loving spirit He has given us to do with? Do we as enabled by the Spirit of Yehovah, love our neighbors, who reflect His image, more than ourselves? Do we love our neighbors, as the Lord Jesus loved us when he willing became a sin-offering sacrifice to reconcile us to his God and his Father Yehovah? Jesus gave his all for us, are we giving our all to him? Are we fruit-bearing branches attached to the vine, the Lord Jesus [John 15:1,4-5].
These questions are critical, for how we answer them individually will let us know where we stand in these last days.
Observe the attitude that Noah had before Yehovah caused a flood to destroy all human beings who were living depraved and violent lives.
Genesis 6:9: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
Notice what Jude wrote just a short time after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus:
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our Master and Lord, Jesus the Messiah” (Jude 1:3-4, ESV emphasis added).
Notice what Peter wrote probably around the same time Jude wrote his letter:
1 Peter 2:1-22: …. false prophets also arose among the people [of Israel], just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies [the doctrine of the Trinity, etc.], even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed [as is happening today]. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle [today], and their destruction is not asleep.
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into the pit and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if He did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness [which we should be], with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes He condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly [in these end times]; and if He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard) [as we do today]; then the Lord [Yehovah] knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep unrighteous ones under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.
Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord [Yehovah]. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering death as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime.
They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that, he is enslaved.
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Messiah, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: "The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire."
What Peter has written applies to the sinful attitudes of people that surround us every day. The influences of this world can cause us to stumble and sin, but if we repent we can move on strengthened by the enabling power of the indwelling Spirit of Yehovah and of His son Jesus! We are living in a time, as it was in the days of Noah before the flood and as it was before fire and brimstone fell on Sodom and Gomorrah.
We have been warned about what will take place before the end of this age [Matthew 24] and we need to be prepared spiritually to stand fast, hold fast to the end.
Notice the words of encouragement our God and Father Yehovah gives to those who are His.
Isaiah 2:2: And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Yehovah’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it.
Micah 4:1: But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of Yehovah shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow to it.
Acts 2:17: And it shall come to pass in the last days, said God [Yehovah], I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
These words give us every reason to hold fast to all our loving God and Father Yehovah has given us to hold on to and to go forth giving our testimony to all with the hope that those who hear will turn their lives around to believe and trust in Yehovah and in His son Jesus and accept their rulership in their lives! We can live victoriously enabled by the Spirit of our God and Father Yehovah! May we as His children hold on to His hand as He leads us into HIs coming Kingdom.
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