A Hymn expresses it well, which with many others, called ‘Old Hymns’ sating:

                                    We’re marching to Zion,

                                    Beautiful, beautiful Zion;

                                    We’re marching to Zion,

                                    The beautiful city of God.

At the CROSS, every Christian starts his spiritual journey to glory, where Jesus is at the right hand of God. Zion is the New Jerusalem, the city that inspired the Patriarchs that were the first that by faith began the journey. It is written: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God! (Hebrews 11:6-10) Jesus did not promise wealth and honour to His disciples, but he did promise an eternal home in Heaven! Heaven is the home God prepared for His children! Jesus spoke plainly to his disciples that He had to leave them, but that He was going to prepare for them a place, where? 

I mentioned these verses at the end of the previous chapter: “In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3) Abraham was not deeply attached to the land where he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, for their heart was filled with anticipation to be at home with the Lord! God would never promise to give a bit of this earth, knowing, as He did, that the earth is doomed to be burned up!

At the martyrdom of Stephen, it pleased the Holy Spirit to show him where he was going. The sight of it filled him with joy so that he really forgot what was going to happen to him. He had but few minutes left yet he saw eternity ahead and the truth of what Jesus promised them. “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look’, he said. ‘I see heaven open and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55-56.)*****

Few references to the exalted Christ mention the seat of power Christ enjoys from the time He sat at the right hand of God. “After He (Jesus) had provided purification for sins, (by His death on the CROSS and by the shedding of His blood) He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven. (God Almighty) (Hebrews 1:3)

In this reference, as in many others we see Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, but when 

Stephen was being stoned he mentions that Jesus was standing. He stood to honour this holy man suffering death for His cause and as He was standing, He was ready to welcome Him to His home above! His body, mutilated was buried, but His soul went to the place that Jesus prepared for Him. This is the glorious assurance of all who die in Jesus, now in paradise with Him, they wait for the day of the resurrection of their bodies, which as that of Christ will be glorified an eternal body. It is not a dream but deeply rooted assurance in all believers in Christ as stated: “Now we know that if the earthly tent (our mortal body) we live in is destroyed (by death) we have a building of God, an eternal house (our new body) in heaven, not built by human hands (made by God) (2 Corinthians 5:1)

The great hope of all believers in Christ is His return to earth, firstly, silently, as a thief in the night, He will come to take His saints, to be where He is. This rapture will be followed by Jesus returning to earth with all His saints, to establish His Kingdom and from Jerusalem He will reign over the whole world of nations until this earth and the heavens come to the end of their allotted time, to be burned up and replaced by a New Heaven and a New Earth.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” (Revelation 21:1.)

Therefore, to be a Christian, which means: ‘a follower of Jesus-Christ’, is not simply living a good life with the level of good moving up and down at man’s will, and according of his understanding of evil and good! Being born in a Christian family or Country does not turn a man into a Christian either! Many people, born or living in the British Iles, would be greatly offended if they were labelled as ‘Christians’. To become a Christian, one must want to become a follower of the Lord Jesus-Christ, it starts with a strong desire to be born again thus becoming a son of God by the agency of the Holy-Spirit a Christian is born of God, by His will. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians tells them that something outstanding has happened to them. We saw in our previous chapter, just what he says about the type of people they were, but something tremendous has happened in their inner being born from above, destined to their eternal home; for they are members of God’s household:

“But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions ~ it is by grace you have been saved ~. And God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realm in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages we might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith ~ and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ~ not by works, (being as good as you can) so that no-one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:4-10.) Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone (verses 19-20.)  To definitely settle this point, the Bible says.

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await the Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus-Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.”

(Philippians 3:20-21.) Meditate on these words, especially those that are highlighted, do not be in a hurry, but slowly, like ruminating, these glorious truths the Holy-Spirit will reveal to your heart; the eternal and glorious position of every believer in Christ!

The conclusion to all these wonderful statements is the fact that no man born by a natural birth can boast of living the kind of life that automatically merits a place in heaven, and be with Christ whom he has never known, or accepted as the Son of God, his Saviour! Francois Mitterrand, a former President of France, said: ‘That he hoped that when he meets God his good deeds with prevail over his bad ones.’ Psychologically it sounds good, but it is not so; No! Something very real and powerful must happen to change a child of wrath into a Son of God, God alone can create from a downright sinner, who has lived without any respect or fear of God, into a saint! That deep change is called the NEW BIRTH. Nevertheless, before that can happen there are steps that lead to this amazing miracle.

FIRSTLY: To experience that change one must hear the Gospel, but there again one must hear the full Gospel; it means a true preaching of the Gospel as Jesus preached it, with anointing of the Holy Spirit. Many people have gone to Church most of their lives and have never heard why Jesus-Christ had to die, never mind those that never entered a place of worship. The faithful preaching of the Gospel will convict a man that he is a lost sinner, by his very nature, each human being is born in sin, and is lost before he does anything good or bad, as such all men are lost sinners. The following verses bear repeating, we can never hear the truth too often, because the truth sets men free, free from all the lies by which the devil has managed to keep men unawares of their spiritual position before God, blind to His love, which He has manifested in His Son, Jesus of Nazareth. As it has been said already: “All men are dead to God”, when God cast Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, he also cast from His presence all those that would be born of him, as the Bible says: ‘Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man (Adam), and death by sin, and in this way, death came to all men, because all sinned!’ (Romans 5:12.) 

Hence, even now, only Jesus-Christ can bring men into eternal life and live it in a real relationship with God, by putting sin away through the CROSS! To know all these spiritual realities and be convicted of sin, it is imperative that one hears the true preaching of the Gospel. Every other message is a counterfeit. I know some people that when they heard the Gospel for the first time, went out of the hall or church, angry and could not hear any more the message of truth! Some walked out and never put their feet again in a place of worship, yet some did and, God chose to speak to them in His own way, they become faithful disciples of Christ, and died in Him to wake up in glory!

“We do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age, the devil, has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4: 2-4.)  

The Gospel is a very powerful message born in the very heart of God. It is a powerful light that can shine in the darkness of man’s soul. The devil is the prince of darkness, and through inherited sin, his darkness fills every man, and renders him incapable of understanding spiritual things, he tries everything he can to stop man to hear what God has to say. He has got men just where he wants them, so that they dismiss the existence of God and His love for lost men, it is only the power of the Gospel that can dismiss all the darkness from the soul of man, and reveal to him the Glory of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God. It means that only Jesus-Christ can make God real to lost men and He does it through the preaching of the full Gospel, a Gospel that has not been distorted by the wisdom of unbelieving men. There are evil men in the world, often amongst the most educated, disciples of Satan, mostly erudite and most learned; these men through learning, lost the plot, without any sense of spiritual truths, they have gained an influence over people, they are clever at distorting the truth of God and change it into a lie. The Bible says that:

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of menwho suppress the truth by the wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities ~ his eternal power and divine nature ~ have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made (created), so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1: 18-20.) That is some statement! It annuls a lot of speculations and declares that all men, at some point in their lives, have ignored the obvious and turn against God.

But all the cleverness of rebellious men does not excuse anyone; all are guilty because of their unbelief in God and in Christ Jesus! The Gospel has been preached for two thousand years but, on the whole, men still disregard and treat lightly the warnings of the Holy-Spirit, warnings clearly stated and men of the world still disobey the guidance God offers through the Holy Scriptures! It is just as it is quoted above, “All men are without excuse.” Therefore, and thank God for it, there still remains only one truth, The Gospel. ‘Thy word’ says the prophet, “Is lamp unto my feet and a light upon my path.” (Psalm 119:105.) This word is The Gospel we preach! The apostle Paul writes:

“I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of every one who believes; first to the Jews (since to them was the Gospel firstly preached, by Jesus-Christ Himself and His apostles) then for the Gentiles, (to whom the apostles, who were converted Jews, took the Gospel – and preached it to the whole world) For in the Gospel a righteousness is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith” (quoted from Habakkuk 2:4). (Romans 1:16-17)

To most religious systems, preparing men for eternity, seems so simple: ‘Do your best and you will be alright’ What a cop out! The endless array of religions past and present, prove one thing that is important, and that is that men believe that there is a hereafter, and that they need someone bigger than them, it also proves that their theories do not work, for they are so many ways but not none lead to Rome, so to speak, not one gives a clear solution about eternity. So, what seemed so easy, has become very confusing so that most people have decided to believe in nothing, and that, in itself, is just another way of thinking, but it does not annul the fact that man is an eternal creature, and sooner or later eternity and the hereafter disturbs him. But to be sure to arrive at the right place is not as easy as men make it, in fact, it is impossible! The whole scenario is a great confusion, the Bible is true when it says that Satan is the author of confusion! Finally, the Gospel is the only true window into heaven,and it says just how hard it is for man to get there, because it takes the mighty power of God to bring a dead sinner into life, which means that God alone, by His mighty power can save man, from the hopeless hole he got himself into. God’s truth, like the Sun, disperses the fog of human philosophy, hence the truth is the Gospel and the Gospel is Christ, it says that: ‘Through faith in Christ alone man becomes a new creation, God creates in him a new spirit, the Holy Spirit sanctifies him, and makes from the worst of sinners a son of God; that is some POWER!

Considering all that I have highlighted concerning the Gospel is worthy of your attention, the Gospel is the way to peace with God through the blood of Christ.  Yet God’s immense love for sinners, as revealed through the Power of the Gospel, is of no value to anyone unless one hears the Gospel preached in the power of the Holy-Spirit, and is led by Him to believe in Christ. It is such preaching, that alone creates the faith necessary to salvation, there has to be an assent, a consent and a commitment to Christ, God’s word must be heard and acted upon, so I say it again: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus-Christ and you will be saved’! From that moment the miracle happens! “But what does the Lord say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is the word (Gospel)of faith we are proclaiming (or preaching): That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’ (Romans 10: 8-9)

It is clear, that the first thing a sinner is confronted with, when he hears the Gospel, is that amazing person, this God-man, Jesus-Christ and His sacrifice on the CROSS. The anointed preaching of the Gospel brings a deep conviction of sin, and brings a soul to confess with the mouth that ‘Jesus is Lord’ (Jehovah or Yahweh) and unless, from the heart ‘he believes that God, raised Him from the dead, he cannot be saved. We see it in the book of Acts when the apostle Peter addressed the crowd, to which he said: “

Men of Israel Listen: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, and wonders and signs, which God did among you through Him” (Acts 2:22.) All this is done to bring every man to confess his faith in Jesus-Christ and the right confessions about Him, are absolutely essential, to prepare him for the great change that faith in Christ brings to one’s life, which is the New Birth! Jesus Christ is Jehovah, God and Creator, whom we call Lord or ‘Yahweh’ meaning ‘I am that I am’. The ever-existing eternal God, who said plainly to the Jewish critics; ‘Before Abraham was born ‘I am’ at this, they took stones, prepared to stone Him, because he declared that He was God(John 8:58.) 

No man can take such a step without the conviction of sin and that he is a lost sinner, that conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit, it proves that salvation is totally the work of God, from beginning to the end! 

SECONDLY : When God is drawing a man to Christ, for He alone can, the Holy-Spirit confronts him with this man, this God, ‘Jesus Christ’ and guides him to make certain confessions about Him, which are essential to salvation. Inevitably the second important step for such a man is to face the CROSS and all that happened on it. A man, under conviction, begins a journey that may last a very short time, or few days even few months.  John Banyan testifies, that after eighteen months of straggling, He found peace with God. He wrote a wonderful book, called ‘The pilgrim’s progress’, reading it helps one to discover just how well he understood the way of salvation, the pilgrimage of Christian, it is step by step, trusting fully in the Lord! 

A faithful preacher like Paul, preached the CROSS, for it is there that a sinner encounters his true self, and finds what the love of God really means, and how horrible is his life in sin. He must face the fact, that it was for him that Jesus the Son of God had to die on it, to free him, a sinner, from the power of sin and assure every repentant soul a true, lasting, and eternal forgiveness of sins; those of the past, present and future! It is from the CROSS that springs all the blessings of the New Life, offering a new start for anyone that will believe in Christ and accepts Him as his Saviour! No one can ever know that he is saved and accepted by God, unless he confesses that Jesus Christ is His Lord!

So, WHAT Peter preached on the day of Pentecost was the Gospel. The Gospel is the Good news that reveals to a guilty humanity, lost in sin, that GOD loves to save sinners. Everything we need to know about God is found in Jesus Christ, He is the true revelation of the character of His Father, our God, all about His life on earth is written in the New Testament, and nowhere else. The Old Testament and the New Testament reveal the True and only God, who created the world, rules it and seeks man who fell out of His favour. The Gospel teaches all that God was prepared to do to restore an undeserving sinner into a new walk with Him. The Question that arises is this: How much does God love?

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and Only Son that whosoever (Jew or Gentile) believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16.) There comes with it, a demonstration and so the Holy Spirit adds: “God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8.) At the CROSS God has shown what He had to do for sinners before he could ever call them to His Son Jesus-Christ and be saved. Because of all that Jesus did on the CROSS all the elect are saved, but each one has to wait for God’s timing, some are not yet born, but God knows those that are His, some are already in heaven with Christ, others by His power live their lives on earth in the midst of trials and victories, and there are those that shall be saved!  But it is only when God begins to reveal Christ, and all that He has done to save him, that a cold heart, warms towards Him. Jesus said: “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that He has given me, but raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:38-39.) “No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I shall raise him at the last day.” (John 6:44.) So, to know Christ’s love is paramount. His love becomes very real as a man is drawn by God personally, to experience the convicting work of the Holy-Spirit. The Love of God is fully revealed in His great GIFT to the world. “He gave His one and Only Son.” On the CROSS, “Christ so loved us, that He gave Himself for us.” (Ephesians 5:27) and “This is how we know what love is; Jesus-Christ laid down His life for us.” (1 John 3:16)

When we consider the general attitude of the world to God, by the ‘WORLD’ I mean all the people that are rebellious to Him, rebels, unbelievers who not only disobey God but often even curse Him. Although God is their creator and of the planet they live on, they disregarding His Sovereignty, unthankful they do everything their evil heart tells them to. Everything and everyone belong to Him, hence He has the right to legislate how men must behave, and charge them for their sins as He will. Nevertheless, the CROSS reveals that in spite of man’s general attitude to Him, God has not stopped to seek him, He does it purely by His grace, which means that no-one deserves His attention and the pardon of sins which He provided through Christ. Grace is the love of God in action! It was not easy for God, to send His Only Son amongst evil men, knowing fully well what they would do to Him and with Him, but God is not vindictive, His love is not like human love. 

The nearest to God’s love could be the love of a mother and even then, it is not as perfect as the Love of God. I heard of a touching story. It happened when a fire destroyed fields after fields of wheat ready for harvest. After it subsided, and men walked through it, one of them just kicked what seemed to be a little mound of ashes, but it was the remains of a hen that gave her life in the fire, for its chicks were found alive under her burned out body! Such sacrificial acts in humans and animals have existed and still do, but they are but a shadow of what it meant to God to sacrifice His Beloved Son, and what it meant for Christ to give His life. It all happened that men like you and me, who have never done any good, often cursing God or simply ignoring Him, loving a life in sin and rebellion, should be so loved to that degree is beyond human understanding, yet God did it, His Son did it, they still do it and seek for you. There was no other way to save you and me from a worthless life of sin, be saved from hell and receive a pure eternal life in return! If there were another way to save you and me, God would never sacrifice Jesus!

Everything that Peter said were facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth and His love expressed 

in the sacrifice of Himself, so that He become ‘the Message, Jesus is the Gospel! Anything that does not speak of the CROSS, and Jesus who died on it is not the Gospel. Peter ended his address with these words: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both LORD and CHRIST.” (Acts 2:36) The rest of His sermon introduces man’s reaction to the inner work of the Holy Spirit. Without the action of the Holy-Spirit no man can come to Christ to be saved. God says: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with lovingkindness” (Jeremiah 31:3.) If you feel drawn to Him, rejoice and go to Him, you might never feel like it again. He says: “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden not your heart as in the days of provocation.” God, the Holy-Spirit, the third person of the Holy trinity, now applies the Love of God the Father together with the love of God the Son, to the heart of the elects, and draws them to Christ with lovingkindness. This is why it is stated:

“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles: ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied: ‘Repent and be baptised every one of you, in the name of Jesus-Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, ~ for all whom the Lord our God will call.’

         With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’ Those who accepted the message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day!” (Acts 2:36) 

Peter was a fisherman, but he never caught so many fish as He did on that day when Jesus made Him a fisher of men, just as he promised. (Matthew 4:19.) The sole purpose of every preacher, called by the Master is to spread the Good news about Him, and make of men His disciples. This great power, converts completely a human being, lost in sin, into a new creature, such power is only found in the Gospel. The Holy Trinity is totally involved in the salvation of the elects, if men fails God will not fail! This change is called the NEW BIRTH; all believers in Christ are born again by the power of God. It is not a special favour to few it is the Holy State of all that in Christ are as created anew and made as perfect as He is.

 The Apostle Paul says: “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans1:18-19.)

It is of great importance to view the state of a sinner as God sees it. People living in Christian countries, as they are called, have a warped knowledge of what the Christian faith really is. The reason for this situation is due to the fact, that people have never heard the Gospel, and that most do not want! They have never even read a small portion of the Bible; they have small ideas of God and are ignorant of what The Gospel really teaches. Fewer and fewer people go to Church and those that do, do not hear what they need to hear; they go there for the wrong reasons. They hear some talk on morality, or how to be a good neighbour and good citizen, which is good, recite the same words every time they meet, but if His teachings are not heard they will never find the way to God and be sure that they are saved and forgiven. 

Hence, if that is all that Jesus came in the world to do, why did He have to die so brutally the worst kind of death? Every other religion, even much of Christianity, seem, to some degree, to spread the same message, but their founders have never had to give up their life for it! This question must be answered, because the reason for the CROSS shows why man is as he is. So, what is really different about Christianity? The difference is Jesus-Christ! True Christianity is knowing Jesus, loving Him and walking with Him. But this privilege of walking with God is a close fellowship with Him, but it is never possible to enjoy this amazing bond, without facing the CROSS and all that happened on Golgotha, and commit oneself totally to Christ. For on it, Jesus destroyed the power of sin, of death and of the devil. At first sight, to the human mind, it would appear as a monstrous defeat, yet the spiritual man has faced himself in the light of Jesus’s sacrifice and experienced His power of forgiveness. On the CROSS Jesus won the greatest victory and with it He has changed the destiny of millions of people!

When Jesus, whom God sent to the earth, to save men by His death, and wash their sins away by His blood, his people rejected Hi; they found nothing in Him that suited their religion and their politics, they grew to hate Him without a cause, to such a pitch that they killed Him for being who He was. But His death brought the final death blow on the whole humanity, since that awful rejection, Jews and Gentiles, bear the weight of God’s wrath who condemned them to an eternal hell. The only way left for men to be reconciled with God and start a new life, is through true repentance and faith in Christ. God raised one people, the Jews, to it alone He related during many centuries. He spoke directly to their fathers, and to them through His prophets, blessing them beyond their worth. To them He gave the Ten Commandments, and by obedience to them, He promised constant success and victory over their enemies. He did so, so that His people might attract the nations to Him. God never had just the Israelites in view, through them He wanted to bless the whole world, as He promised to their patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

But this people became proud and rebellious, by rejecting Christ signed its death warrant and God has rejected them thus they lost their special status, yet to this very day, centuries after dealing so treacherously with their Messiah, they still hate him. Like Adam cast out of Eden, so God cast the people of Israel away from His presence, but just as Adam left Eden with a promise of deliverance, so not only The Jew but the Gentiles as well, are left with a promise of redemption. Now The only way back to God is through Jesus-Christ whom God raised from the dead, and by Him invites people to return to Him and walk with Him in a spiritual relationship. Man needs to see himself as God sees Him, a sinner condemned and dead in sin. God alone can open man’s eyes to the reality of sin and his hopeless state, in it he must realise what sin has done in him, and still does, in all those that are outside of Christ, under the curse without hope and without God. Sin affects every man and it will bring his final destruction, which is the second death, which we already mentioned! But since it is possible to escape from it, why should you, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile, not believe, and be saved? 

At this point the Bible helps us because it reveals to us how God sees the world and what it is. In the words of the apostle Paul, who writing to the believers in Christ, God shows what men of the world are like in His eyes. Addressing his statement to the Christians he tells them how God saw them before He called them to Christ, for the salvation of their soul. All unbelievers are still in that same position before God, whether they be Israelis or Gentiles:

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those that are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” (Ephesians 2:1-4) 

But to those that have believed, there is a positive position as Paul describes it to those Christians in Ephesus saying to them that they were such sinners as well, but by faith in Christ they have been changed, through repentance they have been reconciled with God. Taken negatively these descriptions, written so long ago, still fit perfectly every unbeliever in the eyes of God today! Whatever you may think of yourself, you are either in Christ or in the world, you are either a condemned sinner or a forgiven one, a child of obedience or a child of disobedience, a child of darkness or a son of God. There is a spiritual heritage from our first father Adam, who by disobedience to God fell to the dictated of Satan, and since all men are his slaves, they were, in a sense, birthed into death and that spiritual death, that happened in Eden, has affected every man that ever lived unto this very day. In Christ Jesus God offers deliverance from all these powers, that master men, and give them eternal life, if they will obey Him and believe in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ!

Having stated the fact that all men are condemned already, however good a man may be or however bad he may be, an upright sinner or a crooked one, he is still a sinner, lost and without God and without hope in the world: “For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.” (Romans 3:23.) But at the CROSS there is the possibility of a new start, because Christ has dealt with everything that is the cause of man’s misery as expressed so often in the previous chapters. The Holy Spirit used the apostle Paul to describe the hopeless state in which lived the Christians in Ephesus, and all others before they were saved; he states also the glorious change that happened to them since they believed in Him! It is all by the grace of God. The death of Christ has taken away every barrier that existed between God and man, so, by Faith in Him, as did the Christians in Ephesus, and every Christian since; all that He calls can believe and will believe. The Bible is a book for the world, not just for few people in the days of the apostles, but it does still offer the same hope today, Christ on the CROSS has opened a new way, a way of deliverance from sin, death and the devil. It is just as He said; “I am the way and the truth and the life, no-one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

So, what applied to Christians in the primitive Church, applies to all believers in Christ today: After having explained the state Christians were in, Paul now says the following:  

“But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions ~ It is by grace you have been saved~. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-8) All Christians in Christ ate set in that august position, it is only the flesh that veils it to the natural eye, and their very special position in Christ can never ne annulled, it is a forever blessing!

It is plain to see that salvation, and all the wonderful things that happen to all those that committed their lives to Jesus-Christ, were not a reward for all the good they have done, life eternal is a gift from God, purely by grace, because of all that Jesus, His Son, has done for those who put their trust in Him! It also states that being saved and right with God, receiving eternal live, is a gift that true Christians receive down here and NOW. When one believes, physically it does not show on him, his outward appearance is just as it was before he believed in Christ, but inside He becomes a New being; he is born again of the Holy-Spirit, He is born of the Spirit and is created a son of God, and is: “raised us with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Not when He dies but when he believes! With such a statement there come few questions. 1: Why has it happen? 2: How has it happened? Why does it happen to some and not to all? Ephesians 1:3.

Why It has happened? It has happened because God planned it that way. Men have their agenda, and because God has got no place in their plans, men remain in this dangerous position, because in their state of unbelief, God does not exist! But men do discover that God has His agenda, and when his plan and will, cut across their schemes, they realise that His will has always the pre-eminence, and eventually all will see that their plans and dreams were built on sand, for in unbelief there is no solid foundation for anything that man may want to do. So, the Bible speaking to believers in Christ says:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus-Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in Him (in Christ) before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sonsthrough Jesus-Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will ~ to the praise of His glorious grace ~ which he has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him (in Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on uswith all wisdom and understanding.” (Ephesians 1:3-8) 

You cannot just read these words and take them as those of another book! They are too important for you and all that wish and hope to reach eternal bliss in the hereafter. It is because of the importance of it, that I have copied an awful lot of relevant verses of the Bible, for if you do not know what God says, how on earth will you be saved? It is because these words may reach people that have never seen a Bible never mind read it, that I make sure they can read important words, from the Gospel, which alone can lead them to repentance, because no one will reach the CROSS AND SURRENDER TO CHRIST on the strength of my words alone, unless there is a scriptural foundation to all the statements I make, all my work would be in vain! I mean thus to allow the Holy-Spirit to witness to the truth and lead the elects to Christ

It is because men do not realise the importance of everything that God says, that the world is in the state it is. For instance, He says in the Bible that all men, apart from true Christians, are damned and judged already, being reserved to an eternal doom, as were all the Christians before they decided, by the grace of God, to walk with Christ through the remainder of their life. Having done it, they have grown to love Him, and God His  Father, who chose them as written above; Whom to know is life eternal. Now there are thousands of preachers all over the world that speak every week from pulpits in churches of different confessions, but only very few will preach the true Gospel! Why? The reason is that they have forgotten the sanctity of the Christian ministry, and they have utterly disregarded the importance of their position. 

Because the truth upsets a lot of people, they prefer to say what is nice, pleasant to hear, things that will not offend anybody. If a surgeon hid the truth and a patient died because he did not operate on him, simply because it would hurt him too much, there would be an outcry, rightly so!  Sin like a cancer kills people all over the world and the truth is hidden from them by men who prefer to hide it, fearing the criticism from the pews! What is worse is the fact that most minister, have actually stopped believing in the message of Christ to the world! The great theme nowadays is the love of God, it is said that He loves men too much to punish anyone for their sins, a God which almost gives men ‘carte-blanche’ saying: ‘Please do what you want and don’t fear anything or anyone especially me’; It is often said: God knows that we are human, and He loves us too much to hurt anyone, especially to send one to hell! This of course is a lullaby from hell itself, a deadly drug! There is a judgement day that awaits every sinner, it will be especially terrible for those that have rejected Christ and despised the CROSS!

Because of their abdication from the truth, and since they have to say something, these men have chosen to preach lies, morality or politics, or how Christians can fit in the world, but they will have a bitter end when they meet God, for they have not told people that all men, that have not believed or rejected Christ, are bound for an eternal damnation! Man is dead in sin, condemned and left without hope. This has happened finally when Jesus died on the CROSS! If the death of Jesus-Christ was willed of God and planned by Him, it does not mean that those who did it to Him, and all humanity with them, are not guilty of the most horrendous sin, this sin God will never forgive men, for killing His SON JESUS-CHRIST, unless they repent from the heart, and believe that Christ died for their sins, and is alive today, sitting at the right hand of God.

But the elects have found grace in His sight. The Holy Spirit led them through repentance to the CROSS, the place where every sinner meets his Saviour, and changes direction. The Bible says that God has: ‘Chosen them before the foundation of the world.’ (Ephesians 1:4.) He has done it not because they deserve it, but purely by grace, without any merit on their part, it is to them alone that the truths found in the epistle to the Ephesians apply. It happened because men have to know the importance of all the events that led to and that happened on Golgotha’s hill, the most important one, being the inauguration of a NEW WAY to live, a NEW FAITH to believe, a NEW MASTER to follow!

How has it happened? “In Him (in Christ) we have redemption through the blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” (Ephesians 1: 7-8.) By the preaching of the CROSS of Christ, not just any cross; through Christ’s death and resurrection all the purposes of God have been fulfilled, and the will of God, has been accomplished to the letter, it is by His will that God has exalted Jesus-Christ at His right hand. Jesus having paid fully the redemption of every elect is their risen Saviour, the assurance of their salvation stands forever in and by HIM. The Eternal Covenant is sealed with the blood of Christ and will stand forever. It is all through the blood of Christ! ‘In HIM we are redeemed,’ redeemed from the vein way of living, what is called; ‘The empty way of life handed down to you from your fore-fathers.’ Jesus gave His life, for the life is in the blood, so says the Bible, and by His blood he has washed their sins, past, present and future forever, never to be remembered again

God says: “This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the LORD. I will put my Law into the minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying ‘Know the LORD’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest declares the LORD. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. This is what the LORD says.”(Jeremiah 31: 33-34). On the word of Lord is built the faith of all true Christians; they are now the people of God. The apostle Peter wrote an epistle to Christians and opens his first epistle with these words: 

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To Gods elects, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, though the sanctifying work of the Spirit (the Holy Spirit), for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood. 

Then, further on in the epistle, he continues and tells to these Christians, people that were experiencing great tribulations and have put their life on the line for believing in Christ. The Church of Christ has known enmity throughout her history, in various parts of the world and in different periods, yet Peter found nothing better to encourage them, then to remind them of what God has done for them and who they were in His Father’s heart.

“As you come to Him, the living stone ~ rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him ~ you also, like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, for in Scripture it says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame. (quoted from Isaiah 28:16) Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.’ (or cornerstone) (Quoted from Isaiah 40:6-8) and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’ (Quoted from Isaiah 8:14) They stumble because they disobey the message ~ which is also what they were destined for.

         But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praise of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of god; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 

(1 Peter 1:1-2 - 2: 4-10.) 

The true history of every Christian, of every child of God is the life he lived prior to his conversion, and the life that He lives since through a new birth he has been born into the family of God. As a child of God that life shall never end throughout eternity he will live it in God’s country, in the presence of all the heavenly hosts.

The Word ‘Lord’ is the surest foundation. The Lord says: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.” L.H. Edmonds declares it perfectly in his hymn:

                  My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed;

                        I trust the Ever-living One, His wounds for me shall plead.

                        I need no other argument, I need no other plea,

                        It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.

                        My heart is leaning on the Word, the written word of God.

                        Salvation by my Saviour’ Name, salvation through His blood.

Thus, is set forever the redemption, the hope and the assurance of eternal life of all believers in Christ, their sins are forgiven never to be remembered! 

“It was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your-forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1: 18-19.) 

“Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28.)

“I am the good Shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me ~just as the Father knows me and I know the Father ~ and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life ~ only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord, I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:14-18.)

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus-Christ laid down His life for us”. (John 3:16.) It is not only what one believes that determines one’s eternal security, but it is WHOM one believes in, therefore the Word says: “Believe on the LORD Jesus-Christ, and you will be saved ~ you and your house~” (Acts 16:31.)

So, it is in the Eternal Home of God, in Heaven, before time began that the salvation of every elect has been decided upon, but it is also in God’s time that the Holy-Spirit applies it to the person God has chosen unto salvation. So, it is worth at this stage to repeat the words that reveal so perfectly the state of a sinner prior to his conversion, and his state after his conversion, already stated partially on page 2. It is written to people who have become Christians, because all Christians were at one point in their lives lost in sin and dead to God! These statements may offend some self-righteous sinners! But why should it, since they too may have been chosen of God, and in His time they too will believe.

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit that is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us (Christians) lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts, such as sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry, anger, malice, slander and filthy language, hating and being hated. Like the rest, we were, by nature objects of wrath”. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

Then the great change happened by God’s intervention.

“But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions ~ it is by grace you have been saved ~. And God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realm in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages we might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith ~ and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ~ not by works, so that no-one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:4-10.) Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone (verses 19-20.)  To definitely settle this point, the Bible says.

Remember that these words apply to Christians. “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus-Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.”

(Philippians 3:20-21.) Redemption will then be complete!

If this is not true of you, why not? I have taken a lot of time, to bring to your attention what faith in Christ is, what it does in those who have believed right now, how it works and where faith finally leads to. I have had to explain that what happens to believers is not just something that has made them just a bit better, no! They have been completely directed into a new way of life, by a New Birth their life has changed, for Jesus delivered them from a life planned and directed by Satan! That is what salvation really means!  A moral change can happen in any religion. I have also seen men facing themselves and not liking at all who they were, then they suddenly decided to change and they did, but they lived the same life. They changed so much that people wondered what could have happened to them! But what happens to a man that becomes a Christian is a real and therefore unforgettable meeting with Jesus-Christ, who alone can bring new life to a spiritually dead man, a man with no hope whatsoever of changing himself. This good man changed so much, and that in itself is good, but what I am trying to say is that he still died the death of a sinner, because that man never changed towards God and died as a rebel, as an unbeliever.

The Gospel has to do with God, and what He decided to do before the world was made, to bring sinner from darkness to light, from death to life, from Satan to Himself. True Christianity, is reconciling men with God. God is angry with a rebellious world whose way of life is directly, as we have read, under the spirit of the age, inspired by  Satan who because of sin, masters men to do what is directly against the will of God; men reversed for destruction on the day of His wrath. For God will judge the ungodly. God has revealed many times through the Bible, what His wrath can do to the world, by the flood, to sexually immoral places like Sodom and Gomorrah. God punished individuals who rebelled and contended with His will, the earth opened up and swallowed them up, others perished in battles by a direct act of God, like King Ahab and others who have gone too far in their pride and arrogance. But He also saved millions who by His grace have been drawn to Christ their Saviour, and at the CROSS in repentance started a new road on which they walk with God.

We all live in the same world and its history shows that in every generation people have mocked God and those that are His. It is a natural attitude of lost men towards those who dare to believe in the Lord and fear Him. Jesus said that His disciples would be hated, persecuted and that some would even lose their lives, He did say it to them while He yet lived with them, He said that if men hated Him without a cause, so they would also hate them, what He said to them then He says it also now to all who follow Him, but Jesus also said that in the midst of it, they should rejoice and be glad because hateful men only prove, by their very hatred, that those they hate belong to HIM. 

How do you feel towards true followers of Christ, I do not say ‘Christians’, because most people that are called Christians do not belong to Him, and as such nominal Christians have also been cruel to the true disciples of Christ. History repeats itself for as the Jews persecuted the Lord and his disciples so the, so called Christians, have and still do persecute the disciples of the Lord. I know of converts to Christ who have been thrown out by their own parents and siblings when they believed in the Gospel, others have lost their jobs and been ostracised from friends and neighbours, this happened in my own life time, so it is not that long ago! I have myself been smacked in my school by a priest for refusing to pray to Mary! We know of believers that are openly hated in many countries, even today, and some are murdered for their faith in Christ. 

Thus it is true, Jesus has come to divide the world into two entities, those who have believed in Him and are His, from those who do not want to believe, and prefer to remain in their bondage to sin and live in the darkness of a godless world! It is true that outwardly a disciple of Christ looks like everybody else, but they live a different life, they follow a different master, Jesus! They live with a deep hope of a glorious future, and inwardly they are completely different, for they are born of God by the Spirit of God, they belong to Jesus and even if sometimes they do something wrong, and even sin, God deals with them as a Father not as a judge, it does not change their status, because they have been freed from the power of sin and are forever Sons of the Living God, Jesus is happy to call Himself their Brother! They are the family of God, destined for their homeland, HEAVEN!

Let us think back to the things that the Bible says to those Christians in Ephesus, as recorded on page 12. Firstly, Paul says to them that there was a time they were just as everyone else in the world, they all lived like other people lived, they behaved like them, that they were such because of sin and because of this terrible thing, the devil who ruled them and whom they all gladly obeyed. But then he tells them, that God, before the world ever began, had separated them to be His children, and that He fulfilled all that He planned for them by sending Jesus who gave his life as a ransom; to redeem them from the vein manner of living, through repentance and that from thence they began to walk with God. 

He tells them that they were born by the Spirit of God into a new life; having become Christ’s disciples they were forgiven from all their sins and that they had become Sons of God, citizens of the eternal Kingdom of God. Read it again and again, and who knows, if the Holy-Spirit will not warm your heart and draw you to Jesus, He can suddenly start it, and in a moment change you by His grace! No one can grasp and understand the Power of God’s grace. No man can just do that of himself, it is the Holy-Spirit that does it and causes our will to yield to His. If this is how you feel, then harden not your heart, open it to the light and be saved, by confessing Jesus-Christ as your Saviour! There is a chorus of a song that says:

         There’s room at the CROSS for you, there’s room at the CROSS for you!

                         Millions have come but there’s still room for one!

                                  There’s room at the CROSS for you!

There will come a feeling like you have never had before, a lightness of spirit, as the big burden of sin will fall off your shoulders. A real joy will fill your soul for one cannot be born again and not feel it. Your thoughts of God will change, and He will become more and more real. You will feel a love in your heart for Jesus-Christ, and tears will follow, there will come a remorse that Jesus loved you so much that He was willing to suffer so greatly for all the sins that you have committed! All this will not happen in one day, but new feelings will become very real, the power of the new life will thrill your soul, a true feeling of forgiveness, and you will want to thank Jesus for what He has done to you. Above all there will be this awesome reality that you belong to God, to Jesus-Christ and to this great international family!

It is to the people that are saved, God’s Children that John the Apostle writes this:

“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God (whose name is JESUS) so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know He hears us ~ whatever we ask ~ we have that we have what we asked for.

         If anyone sees his brothers (in Christ) commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. We know that everyone born of God does not continue in sin; the one who was born of God, God keeps him safe, and the evil one (the devil) cannot harm him. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

         We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know who is true. And we are in the in Him who is True ~ even in His Son Jesus-Christ. He is the TRUE GOD and ETERNAL LIFE.”

         Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 

If there is anyone who desires to become a follower of Jesus-Christ?  If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that God raise Him from among the Dead, being alive today and being who He says He is, the only Way to God, the only Saviour and if you want Him to become your Saviour? Then pray to Him. Tell Him simply, don’t’ worry about what you will tell him, but be sure, He will listen to you, just tell Him, in your own words, how you feel. Ask him to come into your life, to forgive your sins, and to lead you for the rest of your days.

Believe that the blood of Christ, shed on the cross, has washed away all your sins and that you are saved and belong to Him forever! Pray and read your Bible daily. If you have not got one and cannot get one, read what is available on this website. If you can get one than get one as soon as you can. Start your reading at the New Testament which starts with the Gospel of Matthew. You can read the Old Testament later!

If you have prayed and given yourself to Christ, I WELCOME you in God’s family.

I have chosen the title for this website and called it “THE ULTIMATE VOYAGE” because every human being has to leave this life on the day appointed by God Almighty. Life is spoken of as a ‘way of life’, it speaks of the things one does and how one lives. It is spoken of ‘as a way’, and speaks of the direction one takes and who one follows. When one walks according to the fashions of the world then one walks on the downward path, when one lives the life of a Christian, with Christ as Saviour, then one follows the upward path that leads to glory. One can change one’s life by taking The LORD JESUS CHRIST as Saviour, one can change one’s way of life by following Jesus in obedience to the Gospel, but when it comes to the ‘Ultimate Voyage’, one is facing the day to leave this world and changing then one’s port of arrival is impossible, because it has been chosen by one’s culture which determines how one lives, it also determines whom one has followed during one’s life, the way of the world or Jesus Christ, when the last comes it is too late to change,  thus one’s PORT OF ARRIVAL is hell for those that have not believed in Jesus Christ, or heaven for those that have walked with JESUS CHRIST, and trusted in Him who is the truth, the way the life. So, make sure how you live and whom you follow. You can with all Christians walk with Jesus, step by step you will.

REACH THE GLORY LAND! WHERE JESUS IS!