12/31/07 – 52LAW - “A Solemn Appeal“– Part 1
 
Victory Ministries International presents:
Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts
Treasures of awesome truths from God’s Word
and facts that affect you!

Hello!  This is Richard Vaughn

Today’s message is “A Solemn Appeal” Part 1

Before we begin, let us seek God’s guidance, “Heavenly Father, as we 
begin this most important study pertaining to the solemn appeal you want me to make to Your people; I pray that You bless those listening today with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, so that we may understand how Satan has deceived the Christian world into believing so many lies, that have lead to many critical deceptions in the understanding of Your Word. We pray for wisdom, knowledge and understanding so that we may live in the center of Your revealed will, as we ask in Jesus Name, Amen.”

Right now, I continue to keep my pledge, to cry aloud and spare not, to lift up my voice like a trumpet and to show God’s people where they are transgressing God’s law.
Are you listening this morning; not with your hearing, I mean listening with your understanding? If you are then stop what you are doing right now and come by your radio and sit for today’s message. Eternal life is too important to risk losing and most Christians will no matter how saved they think or feel they are. The pastors are teaching what you want to hear, but they are not teaching what God would have you to know and understand. If you are listening in South Hill or if your are listening in Lawrenceville and you’re either getting ready for church, or you’re working in the hospital or you’re working at a correctional center, or you might even be an inmate; or maybe you’re listening to this broadcast on Wednesday in Blackstone and your having lunch; whoever you are and wherever you are, stop what you’re doing right now and come close to your radio with your Bible in hand and a pen and paper at your side. God has given me a special message for you today.

It is important that you know who I am and what I am about. My name is Richard Vaughn and I am 69 years old. I was raised a Methodist, but at the age of 21 I learned of and came to Jesus Christ. God opened up my darkened understanding with the light of truth. Now 48 years later, I am a pastor in a church in South Hill, Virginia, I preach and teach on three radio stations and I have a prison ministry in which I am in contact by mail with 25 inmates at various prisons around the Commonwealth of Virginia every week. Everything I do is for the honor and glory of God. I do not receive any money for compensation whatsoever for anything that I do as that would be a violation of my conscience. I have only one desire and goal and that is to get Christians out from under the grasp of Satan and into the ark of safety before the end of probation on this world.
 
So I am telling you to please, for your soul salvation’s sake, listen carefully to these broadcast messages on the Solemn Appeal.

Everyone to day is busy. I mean they are so busy that oftentimes they can not accomplish most days what they set out to do. They have no idea as to how life was so much simpler just 60 or more years ago. There was time for family worship and families ate dinner together and many households had a family altar. Many churches taught some truth from God’s Word and people attended church regularly. 

All this changed in the subsequent decades as the scripture written in 1 Peter 5:8 was being fulfilled, “…your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”  The reason of course is given in Revelation 12:12, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” 

Do you understand what that means? The most intelligent being of all the created beings, the one who has been an advanced student of human nature, is out to destroy and secure the eternal loss of every human being, especially those who believe in Christ. He’s not very concerned about the majority of Christians because he knows full well that he has almost all of them, including your-self, on the broad road that leads to destruction. He has most Christians believing the deceiving doctrines that have been handed down by way of tradition, that have no foundation in the Word of God.

But his venomous hate is especially directed towards those who revere and keep all of God’s commandments. Who are they? They are described as the people who will be living in the time of the end, just before Jesus comes, and they will be identified two ways.  Read about it in Revelation 12:17, “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Now let us examine that verse closer. “And the dragon (that is Satan) was wroth (that means he is exceedingly angry) with the woman, (In the Bible a woman represents either God’s pure church or Satan’s corrupted Christian church – in this case the woman is God’s pure church) and went to make war (the battle is for the mind and your worship) with the remnant of her seed, (the remnant is the last end of something. Just like a remnant carpet is the end of the roll, so the remnant here is God’s pure church living in the last days) which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. 

There you have God’s end time church described as both keeping the commandments and having the testimony of Jesus Christ. You may ask, well just how important is it to be keeping God’s commandments? Listen now, because this is where most Christians are deceived. The answer is that if you are breaking even one of God’s commandments, and have no desire to change, you will most certainly be lost no matter how convinced you may be that you are saved. And that goes for you pastors as well.

Here is the proof from God’s word. Jesus Himself said in John 14:15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Now notice, He is setting a condition with the word “IF.” He follows that conditional statement with what He will do if you comply by keeping His commandments in verses 16, 17. “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”

Do you understand that receiving the Holy Spirit who leads you into all truth is conditional on keeping God’s Ten Commandments? You may say I have the Holy Spirit. But friend if you are following error, you have a spirit leading you but not the Holy Spirit which leads to all truth in God’s Word.

Here is further proof from God’s Word that if you are not keeping God’s Ten Commandments, you will be lost. John is addressing the statement Jesus made in John 14:15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”  

He wrote in 1 John 2:3 “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” Did you hear that? John wrote under inspiration that we prove we know Him by keeping His commandments. So what does John say if we are not keeping all of God’s Ten Commandments? The next verse, 1 John 2: 4, “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Did you hear that? Do you understand why I have titled this sermon today “A Solemn Appeal?”

This is not my words. This is God’s Words that Satan has blinded your understanding with. Most of you will regard this with indifference and won’t make any changes in your life. But there are a few of you listening that are going to change your life and begin to really follow God all the way. That verse 4 said in the clearest language possible, that if you say you know Jesus and are not keeping the Ten Commandments; then you are a liar and you do not know the truth.

What happens to liars? Revelation 21:8 tells us. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”  All liars will be lost and that is the truth from God’s Word. Are you sure you want to be a commandment breaker. On the authority of God’s Word, if you are breaking even one of God’s commandments, you do not love Christ, you do not know Christ and you are a liar that will be lost. Not my words, God’s Word.

And when it is eternally too late to do anything about it, look what lost Christians will say to Jesus, by Jesus’ own words, in Matthew 7:21, 22.   “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” Keep in mind that Jesus is talking about Christians because it is they who call Him Lord. What is the will of the Father? David wrote it in Psalm 40:8, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” It is keeping the Law that is found in God’s Commandments that is God’s will. Going on now in Matthew 7, verse 22 Jesus gives us a list of all the wonderful things that Christians who thought they were saved did, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” In other words they were sure all the wonderful things they did would surely gain them a place in heaven. But Jesus tells them in the next verse why they are lost. Matthew 7:23, “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”   If you by choice fail to keep God’s commandments you are a worker of iniquity. He cannot save you because you had un-repented, un-confessed sin on your record.

1 John 3:4 defines sin as the transgression of the law and Romans 6:23 says the wages or payment for sin is death, and that is speaking about the second death. Remember this, Christians that keep the Ten Commandments do not do it in order to be save. They keep them because they love Jesus and are saved.
Well time is up for this week. Next week we will continue this most crucial subject, A Solemn appeal – Part 2. Have your Bible ready again next week as I want you to study along with me. This program is not for entertainment. Awesome Truths and Amazing Facts is here to help you to keep from being lost. 
If you would like to worship with seventh day Sabbath-keepers, come to the Victory Everlasting Gospel Church at our new location at the Hampton Inn Conference suite in South Hill, VA at the exit 12 interchange of Interstate 85. We meet at 9:15 am each Saturday the Lord’s Day and we will be meeting there until out new building has been completed, hopefully by early February 2008. 
Until next week, Jesus said in John 5:39, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me”. Even so, come Lord Jesus.