Wednesday, March 16, 2022

I Love Cold Refreshing Mineral Water

Luke 16:19-26, “There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”

I Absolutely Love Cold Refreshing Mineral Water!

If you've ever drank distilled water from a grocery store, then you know how empty and lacking of flavor it is. Drinking distilled water ironically produces a dry aftertaste sensation, which I don't enjoy. But mineral water is so delicious and satisfying, because it contains important micronutrients which the body craves and requires to stay healthy.

I almost never drink tap water, simply because it contains many toxins and impurities; such, as fluoride, chlorine and literal rusted metal from the pipes underground. I absolutely love Dasani mineral water, which I buy is large quantities from local gas stations and Walmart. I can buy a large case of 18 bottles for about $5. When I lived on Guam that would have cost $20. I make sure never to run low on mineral water. I drink on average about 6 16.9 ounce bottles each day, kept nice and cold in my refrigerator. THANK YOU God for water, and for a healthy body to enjoy water.

One of the most horrifying thought s which has ever entered into my mind, is the sad realization that billions of human beings are burning in the fires of Hell this moments, unable to drink even one drop of water, suffering in the torments of Hell forever. It saddens me. I know they made their own choices, but they are still people, for which Jesus died on Calvary's cross. Oh how the Devil is a beautiful liar!

Matthew 10:28, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” This is a remarkable passage of Scripture, because it confirms that not only will a damned person's SOUL be cast into Hell, but also some form of BODY. In order for the formerly rich man, who died in his sleep and awoke in the fires and torments of Hell (Greek: Hades), to request a drop of water to quench his thirst, then he logically must have had a BODY. Thirst for literal water is something that only a physical body can need. Most people only think of eternal punishment in terms of the SOUL going to Hell, but Jesus plainly warned that both the SOUL and BODY will be cast into the Lake of Fire forever!

“I saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday and today and forever.” —Pilgrim's Progress author, John Bunyan (1628-1688)

Dear friend, I promise you that one of the worst things about Hell will be the lack of water! I would get saved, if for no other reason, than just to know that I'll be able to drink of the water of life in Heaven. Revelation 22:1, “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Boy that sounds refreshing doesn't it? Cool, clear, refreshing water! In fact, I'm taking a break right after typing this sentence to go drink some COOL FRESHING WATER. Here I go...

Okay, I'm back. Dear friend, we take SO MUCH for granted in this life.

I drink nothing now except Dasani mineral water. I buy cases at Walmart. I thank God for water! Every time that I enjoy drinking cold refreshing water, I am reminded of the suffering once rich man in Hell in Luke 16:19-21, who now is so poor that He cannot even have a single drop of water to quench his dying thirst. Dear friend, that unfortunate man is still suffering in the torments of Hell this very minute! Think about that. It has already been thousands of years, but his suffering continues, and will continue for ever and ever!

Listen dear reader, God is not playing games with you! I often refer to my blog readers as “dear” because you are dear to me. I care about people. I truly do care, which is why I work day and night on my website ministry. It is now 10:53 pm. God knows I am trying to do my best, by His strength. I am far from perfect. The Lord has been convicting me for the past week about something that happened at Walmart recently.

A black man from the street came into Walmart begging people for me. He looked desperate and asked me for some money but I immediately said, “No.” There are people begging for money everywhere in Pensacola, by the hundreds, black and white alike. My neck was hurting bad that day from stenosis and radiculitis (from an old neck injury). As I left Walmart to go to my car, he waited for me in the parking lot and approached me again. I got scared, backed around my cart, and exclaimed: “What the f#ck!” He just looked at me and left. What creeped me out is that he approached me twice. I felt completely justified by my reaction.

But I then later realized that he had seen my hat which says “Jesus” and “John 3:16.” I was wearing a sweatshirt that day which read on the chest: “Stedfast in the faith.” He likely figured that if anyone was going to help him out, it would be a person of Christian faith. I felt so bad. Why didn't I witness to that man? What an opportunity I missed that day. I overreacted in fear and anger, tired of people begging for money all the time everywhere I go. But the Lord has been convicting me, that: “There but for the grace of God go I.” I know I can do better. Hell is real. I don't have to give them a lot of money, but I can witness to them and hand them $5 at least. That is much better than how I poorly responded as a Christian.

Many of these people are addicted to drugs, I know. I really need to find a better place to live, I know. But until that times comes, I choose to love the unloving and share the Gospel with them. I want to love everyone as Jesus would have loved them if He were here. You know, the Bible does in fact call us “AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST to this lost and sinful world. Did you know that dear reader? 2nd Corinthians 5:20, “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.” Literally, Jesus has appointed us to represent Him in His stead while He is away in Heaven. What a great responsibility and privilege! Matthew 5:14, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”

In Romans 8:32 we read, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? I love that Bible verse! Our dear heavenly Father promises to FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS in eternity. In our rotten American society, nothing is free today. NOTHING! Just to drive to Pensacola Beach costs me a $1 toll each time, plus taxes and fees. Just to take my own money out of the bank at any ATM costs me between $2.50 to $5.00. Many news websites (e.g., New York Times, Washington Times, et cetera) won't allow you to view their website unless you pay money to subscribe. Forget that! I'll just go read the news elsewhere. Their writers aren't that good!

Many local churches are charging 5$ for Wednesday night dinner at Bible study, which costs them about 50 cents worth of food. Where is that money going? Campus Church at Pensacola Christian College shamefully charges $10 to learn how to be a better witness for Christ. Everybody has their hands out for money these days. Thankfully, Romans 8:32 promises that God will “FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS in Heaven, to those who love Him (i.e., every redeemed child of God). I don't know how our rewards figure into that. I mean, Jesus told us to lay up for ourselves treasures in Heaven (Matthew 6:19-20). So if God freely give all things to every believer, then why would we labor to earn rewards in Heaven. My thinking is that God will give all things necessary to be content in Heaven to every believer, but there will be special rewards for those who labored diligently for the cause of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. What a day that will be! There won't be any property taxes in Heaven. Amen. There won't be any federal, state nor local taxes in Heaven. Hallelujah!

My friend, God loves and cares about you so much, but there are laws and rules which cannot be violated. A lot of people fail to understand this fact. For example: God loves you, but if you climb up and jump off a tall building, you are going to have a really bad day! You are either going to die, or wish you had. The law of gravity cannot be broken. We live in a world of all sorts of laws! There is the law of physics, and the laws of thermodynamics, and the law of God. John 10:35-36, “If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?”

God doesn't allow unbelievers to go to Hell forever because He hates them or doesn't love them, quite the contrary, God does love them very much. God sent His only begotten Son into the world to die for THE WORLD (John 3:16). Christ gave Himself as a ransom FOR ALL (1st Timothy 2:6)1st John 2:2, “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Jesus Christ died on the cross for all mankind. Anybody who says differently is contradicting the plain teaching of the Scriptures.

The reason why God allows unbelievers (i.e., the wicked) to perish into the fires of Hell forever, is simply because THE SCRIPTURE CANNOT BE BROKEN. There must be justice! Sin is a crime against God, and all sin must be paid for. God would be unjust and unfair if He let some people slide for their offenses, but punished others. That is what wicked men do, succumbing to favoritism, nepotism (favoritism toward family and close friends) and other injustices. Justice is a law of the universe. The statue of Lady Liberty is blindfolded, because justice is supposed to be blind (unbiased). Sadly, justice in human courts is often partial and corrupt, influenced by brides and political power, amounting to “JUST US” instead of true justice. But God sees and will reckon ALL injustices in eternity, guaranteed (Hebrews 4:13). You have God's promise of it (Ecclesiastes 5:8; 12:13-14; Romans 12:19-21; 1st Thessalonians 4:6; Romans 14:10-12).

If you are a born-again believer, REJOICE that your name is written in Heaven (Luke 10:20). We have so much to be thankful for. Just something as simple as cold refreshing water nearly everyone takes for granted. Did you know that most people around the world do not have a pure and clean source of drinking water? In Africa they people who drink from the rivers are drinking water with animal and human excrement in it. There is a limited amount of fresh water in the world. I once visited Long Beach, California for a wedding around 1992. I visited the ocean, which I had never seen before. I met a man who was fishing, telling him that I was from Chicago. I'll never forget that he said he wished he could fish in fresh water. I realized something that day—for me, seeing the ocean for the first time, and testing its saltiness, was amazing to me; but for him that was just another normal day, and for him it would have been an amazing thing to visit back where I came from. So we all have incomplete lives on earth.

I've been drinking cold refreshing mineral water all during writing this blog article. I'm on my third bottle! Good stuff!!! The man who went to Hell in Luke 16:19-31 was rich while on earth, yet because he chose to reject the Word of God, dying in his sins without Christ, he became poor in Hell, unable to even get a drop of water. 2nd Corinthians 8:9, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” Dear friend, Jesus was also once rich in Heaven, but He chose to become poor, being beaten and crucified on a cross on earth to pay for our crimes against God. We are all guilty sinners for breaking God's law (Romans 3:19-20). God gave us His law to show us how sinful we are compared to Him, and why we need the Messiah (Galatians 3:24-26). The LAW shows us our need for salvation, and CHRIST provides that need through His sacrifice on Calvary's cross.

I have been made RICH because Jesus became POOR for me. You can have that too friend, if you haven't already received God's free gift of eternal life. Simply come to God as a guilty sinner, and receive Christ's sacrifice on the cross as full payment for your sins. Jesus DIED, was BURIED and three days later He bodily RESURRECTED from the dead for the justification of your faith (i.e., so your faith wouldn't be in vain). These three facts comprise THE GOSPEL (1st Corinthians 15:1-4), by which we are saved if we BELIEVE those facts (Romans 1:16). The choice is yours alone to make dear reader. I don't know about you friend, but I want to be drinking icy cold refreshing water in Heaven. Revelation 22:1, “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

I'll close with this true sad story. I lived on the island of Guam for 17 years. Each year a couple dozen people, locals and tourists alike, drown at sea. I remember reading a sad story one day in the news, about a married couple from Kansas City, Missouri if I recall right. They were married for about 25 years I think the story said. They decided to go snorkeling on the east side of Guam, where the waters can get pretty rough at times. The ocean depth drops off quickly as you leave Guam, descending thousands of feet almost immediately. This causes severe sudden currents at times in the water, pulling the victim into the vast ocean.

Well, as fate would have it that day, as the couple were holding hands and swimming she was pulled under and away by a dangerous undercurrent, but her husband broken free. He survived, but rescuers later recovered her lifeless body from the sea. They came together to Guam, but he flew back to Kansas a widower. For that reason I stayed out of the ocean on Guam. I swam in it a few times in the early years, even went scuba-diving 35 feet down at the Piti Bombhole (literally holes in the ocean floor from World War II bombs), and waded in the shallow water here and there in later years, but I didn't go out by the dangerous reef anymore (after I was knocked back by a wave and cut my hand open on the jagged sharp reef stone). The ocean's tremendous water pressure literally carves the reef into jagged razor sharp rocks.

I don't know if that woman who drowned was saved or not. The important question right now friend is, are YOU saved. If you don't know 100%, beyond any shadow of a doubt that you are going to Heaven when you die, you sure can know! If you have any Bible questions, please email me at the address at the top right of this blog page. I love helping people for Christ! Below you will find a wonderful Gospel tract by Pastor Harry Ironside, which I encourage you to read if you want to know more about getting saved. God bless and kindest regards.



What Is The Gospel?
(a wonderful Gospel tract by Pastor Harry Ironside,1876-1951)

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