From the Old and New Testament writers, we have been given a warning from the LORD that judgment is coming on those who fail to obey the LORD.
Christians have forgotten what the LORD did to Israel when they did evil things. This message is from the Lord! I spoke to you again and again, but you refused to listen to me. I called you, but you did not answer. The LORD did not spare his Holy Temple, and He will not save our churches. We have put our trust in lies from the pulpit that Christians will not suffer but will escape the tribulation and persecution coming. We have disregarded the commandments of the LORD. We have chosen only the commandments we want to obey and ignore the rest. Not everyone who says they are a Christian is a faithful follower of the LORD. They serve the LORD in name only, while they worship the gods of this world. They do this to make the LORD angry, but they only hurt themselves. They have disgraced themselves. Because of this, the LORD says He will show His anger against us. He will punish us, and no one will be able to stop it.
The LORD has said that we can do all the religious acts we want, but all He wants is obedience. Time and time again, He has promised if we obey Him, He will bless us. The problem is we have not listened to the LORD. We are not paying attention to Him. We have been stubborn and done what we wanted to do. What is sad is that we have been told to keep the commandments of the LORD, but we have not listened. In His anger, the LORD will punish us. Jesus said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. The message to the American Christian is what Jerimiah, the prophet delivered to Israel and Judah, obey the LORD.
James, the Apostle, gave us this message. Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that make war inside you. You want things, but you don’t get them. So you kill and are jealous of others. But you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You don’t understand what you want because you don’t ask God. Or when you ask, you don’t receive anything, because the reason you ask is wrong. You only want to use it for your pleasure.
You people are not faithful to God! You should know that loving what the world has is the same as hating God. So anyone who wants to be friends with this evil world becomes God’s enemy. Do you think the Scriptures mean nothing? The Scriptures say, “The Spirit God made to live in us wants us only for himself.” But the kindness God shows is more excellent. As the Scripture says, “God is against the proud, but he is kind to the humble.”
So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil, and he will run away from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. You are sinners, so clean sin out of your lives. You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure. Be sad, be sorry, and cry! Change your laughter into crying. Change your joy into sadness. Be humble before the Lord, and he will make you great.
Brothers and sisters, don’t say anything against each other. If you criticize your brother or sister in Christ or judge them, you are criticizing and judging the law they follow. And when you are deciding the law, you are not a follower of the law. You have become a judge. God is the one who gave us the law, and he is the Judge. He is the only one who can save and destroy. So it is not right for you to judge anyone. If you fail to do what you know is right, you are sinning.
The Lord is coming soon. Brothers and sisters, don’t complain against each other. If you don’t stop complaining, you will be judged guilty. And the Judge is ready to come! Brothers and sisters, follow the example of the prophets who spoke for the Lord. They suffered many bad things, but they were patient. And we say that those who accepted their troubles with patience now have God’s blessing. You have heard about Job’s patience. You know that after all his problems, the Lord helped him. This shows that the Lord is full of mercy and is kind.
So prepare your minds for service. With complete self-control, put all your hope in the grace that will be yours when Jesus Christ comes. In the past, you did not understand what you have now, so you did the evil things you wanted to do. But now you are children of God, so you should obey him and not live the way you did before. Be holy in everything you do, just as God is holy. He is the one who chose you. In the Scriptures, God says, “Be holy because I am holy.”
You pray to God and call Him Father, but he will judge everyone the same way—by what they do. So while you are living here on earth, you should live with respect for God. You know that in the past, the way you were living was useless. It was a way of life you learned from those who lived before you. But you were saved from that way of living. You were bought, but not with things that ruin like gold or silver. You were bought with the precious blood of Christ’s death. He was a pure and perfect sacrificial Lamb. Christ was chosen before the world was made, but he was shown to the world these last times. You believe in God through Christ. God is the one who raised him from death and gave honor to him. So your faith and your hope are in God
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