GOD’S GUARANTEE OF PROTECTION
By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
How good is God’s guarantee of Forgiveness,
Healing and Deliverance? Does He always keep His Word? Is He totally honest,
trustworthy and dependable? Does He really care for us all? And, why should He care
about us? The answer is an emphatic “Yes, He does keep His Word. And He does care
for us, because He created us in His own image and because He has already
provided for our Eternal Salvation!
The Holy Bible is His letter of love and mercy to us and proof of His
great compassion and salvation. It is the title deed to our forgiveness and
eternal inheritance! It is our compass to right living and together with the
Holy Spirit, the roadmap to victory over sin, sickness, fear and the devil!
“If we
confess our sins (to Him), He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). “He that believeth on the
Son of God hath the witness in Himself: He that believeth not God hath made Him
a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of His Son.
“And this is the record, that God hath
given to us eternal life; and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son
hath life; and he that hath not the Son, hath not life.
AND THIS IS
THE RECORD!
“And this is the confidence that we have in
Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: And if we know
that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we
desired of Him.”
(1 John 5: 10-15)
Herein lies the secret to receive answers to our prayers! It revolves
around our relationship with God. How well do we know Jesus Christ? Through
absorbing His Word and getting to know Him intimately, the Holy Spirit gives us
a word of faith that we have reached Him. When we know that, the answer
is forthcoming!
By going back in history, we have the record of God’s faithfulness by
the fulfillment of His prophecies. Almighty God warned Adam and Eve
what would happen if they disobeyed. Their willful sin of disobedience and
rebellion brought swift judgment upon the human race.
He warned the antediluvian world that if they kept on
sinning, there would be consequences and there were. God sent the flood that
destroyed everyone except Noah and his family. The same happened
to Sodom and Gomorrah with terrible consequences. He warned Lot
and his family to flee from the coming judgment, with the injunction that they
must not look back to Sodom.
Lot’s wife disobeyed and looked back. Judgment
was swift and she immediately turned into a pillar of salt. Recently, archeologists have discovered that pillar of salt near the Dead Sea.
The Lord promised Abraham a land
flowing with milk and honey. He obeyed
and gave himself unto God’s plan. God gave him the land of Palestine. (Genesis
3: 1-5). Three thousand years ago, King David built Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel. God remembered His promise to Abraham! And today, God is
using a tough plain-speaking man, President Donald Trump of the United States
to turn the tables on the enemies of the Jewish Nation!
ISRAEL IS GOD’S
TIME PIECE!
It has been said: “Israel is God’s Time
piece and Jerusalem is His second hand.” I agree with that! The Word of
God states that Jerusalem is the “apple of His eye.” (Deuteronomy 32:10)
God warned the Jewish nation to turn away from idols, and
to return unto Him and His Laws or He would scatter them to the ends of the earth.
They disobeyed and spent the last 2,000 years roaming the earth, driven
from country to country.
Then in 1948, after the most terrible
persecution and the Holocaust where 6 million Jewish people were slaughtered, Almighty
God returned them to their homeland. God destroyed Adolf Hitler and the German
Nazi Nation!
And
in 2016, God came their defense again by raising up an intelligent and spiritually
alert businessman who would bless Israel. President Donald Trump kept
his promise to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem their Capital
City, and to drain the corrupt swamp in Washington.
GOD PROMISED A
DELIVERER!
In the Garden of Eden, God had promised
a Deliverer who would die as His Paschal Lamb for the sins of the world: “And I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her SEED;
it shall bruise (crush) thy (satan) head, and thou shall bruise
His heel.” (Genesis 3: 15).
Isaiah prophesied that the Deliverer that
God would send, would bring peace to hearts, healing to sick bodies and
forgiveness of sins to all who trust in His Name and obey His Word! More than seven
hundred years before His advent, Isaiah prophesied:
“Surely, He hath borne our sicknesses and
carried our pains: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are Healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and
the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquities of us all.” (Isaiah 53: 4-6)
JESUS FULFILLED THEM ALL!
When Jesus came, He fulfilled those prophecies to the letter: “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me: because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good
tiding unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” (Isaiah 61:1)
Everywhere Jesus went, He preached the Gospel of God’s salvation of
mercy, love and deliverance! He healed the sick, suffering and afflicted, and
He raised the dead back to life!
“And there was delivered unto Him the book of
the prophet Esaias, and when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed me to preach the
Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance
to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised.” (Luke 4: 17, 18)
AUTHOR OF ETERNAL SALVATION!
Right from the beginning of His ministry, our Lord brought deliverance
to multitudes of sick and suffering people: “And Jesus went about all
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the kingdom,
and healing all manner of disease among the people.
“And His fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto Him all
sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments and those who were
possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the
palsy; and He healed them.” (Matt. 4:23-24)
Jesus
fulfilled that prophecy. Everywhere He went, He preached the Gospel, cast out
devils and fulfilled the Holy Scriptures!
That God is the author of eternal
Salvation is undisputed. That the Eternal Living One is merciful, kind and trustworthy
goes without saying! That not only is our Lord gracious, good and merciful, but
that He is at this moment more than willing to pour out His benevolence upon
mankind.
His goodness and grandiose largess is proved
by His willingness to save our planet and billions of lost souls who reside
here. That is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, through the fact that in His
goodness and mercy, He has pledged His love to any and all who trust in these promises.
Does God ever fail? Has He ever failed?
Will He ever fail. A Thousand times, No. He cannot and will not ever fail. It is
impossible for God to recant on His pledges and promises to us in His Holy
Word!”
ETERNAL SECURITY FOR
BELIEVERS!
There is eternal security
for all true believers in Christ! All who have invited Jesus Christ to come
into their heart and life, as Lord and Saviour and are serving Him according to
His Word, are born again!
St. Peter writes, “Wherefore
the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: For if ye do these things ye shall never fall.” (2 Peter 1:10).
We are admonished to keep our priorities
right, to give diligence to make our calling and election sure. In other words,
keep our powder dry. Keep our defenses up and follow the Manuel. The Rule
Book is the Word of God, the Holy Bible!
The Holy Bible states, “According as
His divine power that hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and
godliness through the knowledge of Him (Christ) that hath called
us to glory and virtue.
“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great
and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Peter 1: 3, 4)
St.
Peter warned: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that
He may exalt you in due time. Casting all your cares upon Him (Jesus), for He
careth for you.”
“Be sober, be diligent, because your adversary
the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. “Whom resist
steadfast in the Faith…” (1 Peter 5: 6-9). He warns of the sin of Pride and
admonishes us to cast ourselves upon Jesus, knowing that He cares for us. (v.7).
Then, he warns us of Satan, our real enemy,
who walks about like a roaring lion, whom we must resist in the faith of Jesus!
(v.8)
Coming back to our text, we see the
powerful protection program, helping us to stay in the faith of Jesus. To resist
the devil is to stay in God’s Word!
“Whereby are given to us exceeding great
and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine
Nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
The KEY is Christ and His Promises. To be
in Christ we must live in His Word. Lust is the KEY to falling, but Christ and
His promises is the KEY to standing!
THE
BIBLE: YE SHALL NEVER FALL!
“And
beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue:
(keeping oneself pure from lustful things) and to virtue knowledge: and
to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience;
and to patience godliness; and to godliness
brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
“For if these things be in you, and
abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind
and cannot see a far off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old
sins.
“Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence
to make your calling and election SURE: for
if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an
entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1: 5-11)
LOOKING
UNTO JESUS!
Are
we living pure and holy lives, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of
our faith? Are we walking in the light of the Gospel? If not, there must be
repentance and godly fear, and turning back to our Saviour!
The Bible states: “But if we walk in the Light
as He is in the Light, we have fellowship one with another, and the BLOOD of
Jesus Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
“Behold, I stand at the door (of your
heart), and knock: if any man hear
My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he
with Me.” (Romans 3: 20)
JESUS said: “My sheep hear My voice,
and I know them, and they follow Me: And I give unto them Eternal Life; and they
shall not perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My
Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck
them out of My Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-29)
CHRIST IS THE ANSWER!
“And Jesus said
unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven. Behold I give unto you
power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy
and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10: 18,19);
“And He said unto them, Go ye into all the
world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
“And these SIGNS shall follow them that
believe:
In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They
shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;
they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:15-18)
“These things have I written unto you that
believe on the Name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal
life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence
that ye have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He
heareth us:
“And if we know that He hear us,
whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.” (1 John 5:13-15)
This is our Testimony: In Christ, by Christ, through Christ and For
Christ! Faith unchained, truth unfettered, agape love exhibited, mercy
unending, grace amazing, joy infectious, peace unsurpassed, anchored in the
Word of God! Amen.
