ETERNAL TREASURE - DYING AND BEING ALIVE

Life in the Old and New Testaments is a choice to obey God’s word and live, and death is a choice to disobey God’s word. Adam and Eve did not obey God’s word and died. Jesus obeyed God’s word and lives for evermore. The same choice is before us. Will we live or will we die? Will we be like Adam and Eve and choose to disobey God’s word and die? Or, will we be like Jesus and choose to obey God’s word and live?

Before entering the Promise Land, Moses challenged Israel with the same choices. “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days. . .” (Deuteronomy 30:19, 20)

When we hear the Gospel, repent of our sins, and ask Jesus Christ to save us, we experience a new birth. The new birth gives us another opportunity to live and not die. Instead of following Adam and Eve as we did in our first birth disobeying God’s word and dying, we can choose to follow Jesus Christ, obey God’s word, and live.

Daily we are confronted with choices to obey or to disobey God’s word, to live or to die. While a choice to disobey God’s word can be forgiven, the consequence may cause others to disobey God’s word, die, and never live. Both obeying and not obeying involve others.

Jesus commanded us to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all things that he commanded us (Matthew 28:18-20 NIV). We make disciples by obeying his word. A choice to disobey God’s word is a misunderstanding of the life that comes from obeying God’s word.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were told to worship an idol and disobey God’s commandment or die, they chose to die obeying and live forever rather than disobey, live, and being dead (Daniel 3:1-18). There is an enormous difference between living and being dead and dying and being alive.

On the Voice of the Martyrs web site, Coram Deo wrote of the 40 Brave Soldiers for Christ: Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire in A.D. 320. However, Licinius, who controlled the Eastern half of the empire, broke allegiance with the West and continued to suppress Christianity.

When Licinius demanded that every soldier under his command sacrifice to the Roman gods, the forty Christian men of the “Thundering Legion” refused. Their general, Lysias, had them whipped, torn with hooks, and then imprisoned in chains. When they still refused to bow down and give up their worship of God, he ordered them stripped of their clothing and left in the middle of a frozen lake until they relented.

A warm bath was poured for any who would give up their convictions. The men prayed together that their number would not be broken. However, as it grew dark, one could not bear the cold any longer and ran to the warm bath.

One of the guards who had watched the forty brave soldiers sing to Christ became angry that one would give in to Lysias’s orders. His anger turned to conviction, and then his conviction turned to faith. He tore off his clothes and ran out on the icy lake, fulfilling their promise to be “forty brave soldiers for Christ!” The forty died together that day. They understood the difference between living and being dead and dying and being alive for ever.

Robert P. Holland