Blog | Reproach of Men

God’s Box

One of the subjects that invariably comes up when the judgement of God upon individuals or nations is discussed, is why the LORD God sees fit to leave certain individuals on this earth long after it is obvious that they are condemned and cut off from any hope of salvation.

Now, to be certain, there are those who are indeed cut off from any hope of salvation. Romans, chapter one makes this plain, as does the example of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. It is quite plain that Pharaoh was not going to repent and neither was the LORD going to allow him to repent. This was also the case with Esau when he despised the birthright of having the Messiah come through his lineage. The operative rule for this is Jeremiah 17:9-10 which states:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

Thus, according to what was in Pharaoh’s and Esau’s hearts, they received the due reward for their attitude toward the LORD God and the things of God — the LORD cut them off. Yet, the LORD also left them on this earth. Although, Pharaoh did not make it as long as Esau did, he still lived a considerable length of time. Yet, the question remains: Why did the LORD let them continue to live?

There are two answers to this question. The answers to both questions require an understanding of how the LORD uses the evil nature of man for judging man, and the sovereignty of God and how far that extends.

In the first instance, we do well to understand that the LORD God does not have to raise His hand (so to speak) against someone who is utterly rebellious against the law of God. The reason for this is that there are plenty of wicked men who love nothing more than to destroy someone else for a variety of reasons. All the LORD has to do is give His permission for wicked men to act against another, and it is done. There are specific instances of this in Scripture. Of the many that exist, I will only use two to illustrate. The first is the judgement of Ahab, the wicked king of Israel.

And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would prophesy no good concerning me, but evil? And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee. (I Kings 22:18-23)

In the above incident, all the LORD had to do was allow the lying spirit (a devil) to give the wicked prophets of Israel the words to say to convince Ahab that he would be victorious at Ramothgilead. The false prophets were all too happy to say what Ahab wanted to hear, and Ahab was all too willing to believe it. In fact, both Ahab and the false prophets got angry at Micaiah for telling them what they did not want to hear. Unfortunately for Ahab, Micaiah was quite correct, and Ahab died in battle the next day. Thus, all the LORD did, was allow the devil the leeway to do what devils love to do, and allow the false prophets and Ahab to say and do what they loved to do, which is tell lies to each other.

In the second illustration, the LORD brings judgement upon Edom (the descendants of Esau) for their lack of compassion upon Israel in the day of judgement of Israel. It is notable how the Lord does it.

The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning Edom; We have heard a rumour from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle. Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised. The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? (Obadiah 1-3)

All the Lord had to do to have Edom judged, was allow the heathen nations around Edom (Teman) to despise Teman and determine that they needed to destroy Teman because of the arrogance of Edom and the way Edom viewed everyone around them. By the rest of the passage, it is plain that Teman thought it was unconquerable, and had an attitude to match. It became unbearable to the nations around them, and the LORD allowed it to be the impetus for the destruction of Edom.

So then, that (in a nutshell) covers one of the reasons why the LORD God allows wicked men who are cut off from any hope of salvation to continue on this earth. The second reason will probably be a bit more disconcerting to some.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of the LORD God is His sovereignty and how that works. Most people think that sovereignty means that the one who is sovereign must immediately call into account anyone who works against them. While that may be true for men, and particularly those who are unsure of their control of events, that is assuredly not the case with the LORD God. The LORD God has no such concerns about His ability to control events, or foresee the future. As pertaining to this, the LORD has made it plain in His word that He certainly knows the events to come.

(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. (Romans 4:17)

And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. (Deuteronomy 31:16-19)

And indeed, though the children of Israel had not yet departed, they certainly did, and moreover, they did everything the LORD told Moses they would do, and the LORD did every thing He said He would do in response. Thus, the question of events to come is not an issue with the LORD God. He sees all time all at once, and differentiates every point in time from every other point in time.

Moreover, there is no place where one may go to escape the LORD God and His judgement. In the Psalms, David was express in understanding this:

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. (Psalm 139:7-12)

Yet, this is not all, in Isaiah, chapter 40, the LORD endeavors to teach us that this physical world and all that is in it, are less than nothing to Him.

Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. (Isaiah 40:12-17)

Now, if all this physical world is counted as nothing, and less than nothing in the sight of God, what will all the physical universe add up to — seeing He created it all with “let there be. . .?”

Thus, even when those who refuse to acknowledge God and refuse to obey Him pass off this earth into eternity, they have not escaped the LORD there either as Christ made that expressly plain in John, chapter 5:

For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. (John 5:26-29)

So it is when the Lord Jesus Christ orders those in the graves to come forth for judgement, they will obey. Even Hell will give up the those who are there as Revelation, chapter 20 clearly states.

Why does the LORD God leave those who are wicked here on this earth long after all hope of their salvation has passed?

Just where will the wicked run to? Where can they go to escape the judgement to come? The LORD God is not worried – they are not going anywhere. This is God’s box — and no one gets out of it.

Blog Upgrade

Did it Saturday evening. (No, I won’t go into what that makes me for doing it on a Saturday evening!) It was an interesting experience, particularly when I viewed the blog in the browser after finishing it, and refreshed the browser – and no posts whatsoever, no links, no calender, no categories, just the theme! Just a little disturbed, I went to login and that worked okay. Then a new screen telling me I had to upgrade the database.

Did that. It told me it was successful. That’s good. I then opened a new tab in the browser and revisited the blog. After refreshing the window, everything came back. Big sigh of relief.

Now we are running WordPress 2.3.3. Quite a few different options and upgrades from the older version that I was running.

However, this post would have been done last night, but the web host I use had a failure of the MySQL server about the same time I went to publish this post. You can just imagine my surprise when I received a white screen with the message “Cannot connect to database.” Uh, okay. That’s not what I call good. Tried to go to the blog. Not happening, same message.

I logged into my hosting account and tried to reach the MYSQL Administrator and could not go there. Called the host “We are experiencing heavy call volume at this time.” Hung up.

I’ll bet. I think I’ll go to bed.

Checked it this A.M. and the blog worked fine. Somebody (or sombodies) had a long night. However, they made sure that it came up as quick as possible. Which is why I use them (plus they’re very helpful when you call, and not rude like some folk).

New website launch

I have built a new website for Faith Baptist Church in Harrison, Arkansas. You are invited to go there and take a look. Your comments are also welcome.

The URL is www.fbch-ar.org

I was holding off announcing its launch until an issue with the domain name pointing was resolved, but I do not believe that will be an issue.

Enjoy the site.

One little note: Due to the type of domain redirection (stealth), the pages will not validate. The validator will attempt to validate the frame the page sits in and not the page. It will fail every time.

Update: I finally migrated everything over to the new platform and moved the Domain www.fbch-ar.org to its rightful account and everything is pointed correctly and working. thank the LORD for small miracles. The stealth redirection is no longer in effect.

What happened to America?

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end; And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.(Deuteronomy 8:10-20)

In America, we have forgotten from whence we came. We no longer read the Declaration of Independence and understand the import of its words. No, they are the words of a fairy tale to us, without much meaning at all. The phrases and sentences carry no weight, though they should, as the words declare the heart and intent of a people who understood from whence all blessings flow.

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, . . .”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, . . .”

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The words are plain, and the meaning clear. For the first time in a very long time, a people appealed to the LORD God of Heaven and earth for their liberty. Make us a free nation.

Like the first generation to enter the land of Canaan, early America appreciated what the LORD had done for them. For a time they were the wonder of the world. When France tried to emulate the American revolution, absent the LORD, their revolution failed to produce the same blessings. It should have been a lesson for future generations.

However it wasn’t, and like the children of Israel, a people arose that knew not the LORD:

And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger. (Judges 2:10-12)

And so, like Israel, we too have provoked the LORD to anger.

Now, I know that there are those who say that we have nothing in common with ancient Israel, and what applied then, does not apply today. However, there could not be a greater error made than to assume this to be the case. The following passages of Scripture, which were first preached to Israel in the Wilderness, applied to those nations Israel was about to dispossess by the commandment of God. The message given to Israel was to inform them that they were not possessing the land due to their goodness, but due to the utter wickedness of the Amorites, which the LORD detailed.

When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God. For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do. (Deuteronomy 18:9-14)

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. (Leviticus 18:22-28)

The listing of sins is far more extensive than this. It is simply that these are the most egregious of the things done by the nations in the land of Canaan. However, if you have read the above passages, which of these has America not done? Which of these has America not condoned under the guise of “personal liberty?” It is sad, for the Founders of this nation would blanch at the thought of the government condoning any of the above listed sins. It is not that they didn’t occur in this country during the time of the Founders, they did. However, these things were condemned and frowned upon, and the practitioners of such driven out. The Founders would have never conceived of condoning the killing of an innocent unborn child simply because the mother and/or father find the child to be “inconvenient” to their lifestyle. Thus, we added yet another abomination to the long list of things the LORD will not pardon.

Yes, this last one — abortion, is particularly egregious to the LORD God. When we allow the killing of the innocent for the convenience of the guilty, we justify the wicked and condemn the just. The Lord Jesus Christ made it very plain that little children hold a special place in the sight of God:

Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 18:10)

It was this particular sin, the killing of their children, that finally provoked the LORD God to remove Israel out of His sight and send them into captivity for 70 years.

In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him. And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servants the prophets. Surely at the commandment of the LORD came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did; And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the LORD would not pardon. (II Kings 24:1-4)

Now, if the LORD did that to His chosen people, what do you think He is going to do to us? After all, its not like we don’t have all history to review and see the consequences for condoning wickedness as a nation.

America, you have forgotten the LORD that formed you.

test post (I’ve been migrated)

New platform test

This post was originally done earlier today when testing the new platform that my webhost implemented. I was testing the blog in this environment, in parallel with the blog in the old environment. Rather than delete the post, I decided to use it as an announcement of the change, and a warning that I am also in the midst of changing registrars. If that doesn’t go well, this website may disappear temporarily. Only in the world of computing can something be there, but not be there. In short, the physical server and disk space will exist, and the logical partition, ip address, directories and files will still exist, but the address will vanish. In the world of computing, without an address, we don’t go anywhere.

We shall see what the LORD allows. If may be interesting.

Internet Explorer — All the joys of having a tooth pulled

Microsoft never ceases to amaze me. Since I build websites (my own and a few others), it is important to me that the site look the same in every browser (well, at least all the major ones). Thus, the fact that IE6 requires its own styles is a pain that I (and every other website developer) could do without. So, when I read that IE7 was “standards compliant” I thought that I could use the same styles that I use for Opera, Firefox and Safari. Silly, naive me. I didn’t research it out enough and simply took the word of some Microsoft apologists (had I known they were apologists for Microsoft I would have never listened), and thought I was done last Friday evening with recoding the mainpages of the site.

Today, I was informed that the pages didn’t float right in IE7 – not good. Thus, enduring the lengthy dial-up download of IE7, I (under duress – but I have to check the pages) then installed it on my wife’s computer. Sure enough – none of the floats were correct. In fact, it had the exact same problems as IE6, just in different directions. Joy. Now I had to have a second IE stylesheet to fix the problems of IE7, and I had to hack a fix for the articles section on every page that has articles.

However, it is done, and all without anesthetic (it would have felt better if I had had a tooth pulled). It does display (mostly) correctly, but I hated having to do it. Once again, Microsoft has proved that they don’t know what their doing.

Have I mentioned that I hate Microsoft products?

Preaching

I have added a new section to the website: Preaching. The Introduction begins with this:

For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21)

It is interesting that the LORD God chose a method of delivering His message to man that the world considers foolishness. After all, aren’t there more effective ways of getting the message across? Surely dramas, movies, and songs all are more effective at influencing people to believe in something?

Well, that depends upon what you are trying to achieve. More importantly, it depends upon what you can perceive about a person, versus what LORD God actually knows about man, and particularly about a specific person. Fundamentally, the method used to reach and influence people does depend upon what you can perceive about them, and their true motivations. In this regard, man is at a significant disadvantage, versus the LORD. The LORD made this very plain to the prophet Samuel, when Samuel went to anoint a king to replace Saul. . . more

Recoding the Website

What a day. Ten hours worth of changing the underlying code of all the mainpages to make a more readable layout that is both robust and easier to update. All this was done to prep for the addition of several new pages that are dedicated to the rest of the ministry.

Now, all I have to do is update the code behind the existing article pages and update the Spanish and German websites and it will all look and function the way it is supposed to. Unfortunately, today’s endeavor was also an interesting struggle with the effects of the browser wars. I originally designed the pages to look good in Opera, and then tested them in Firefox and IE 6. What looked good and worked in Opera, fell apart in IE 6 and didn’t quite function in Firefox. I had to go back and revise some of the code for Firefox and (of course) have an entirely different stylesheet for IE 6. I even looked at it in Safari after the changes, and it looked pretty good there as well.

Now, I know there are folks out there who will look at the site and comment that it is a simple site as far as design is concerned. However, accessibility is the primary aim of this site, with aesthetics not so much a concern. There are two reasons for this:

First, when visitors come to the website, if they are tickled with “eye candy” they will not take the content seriously. Moreover, those who are interested only in having something novel to look at are not really interested in where they stand with the LORD God. My interest is the state of the soul of the visitor. My desire is to see those who do not know the LORD come to know Him, and those who do know the LORD personally; see them grow in the knowledge of the LORD Who saved them.

Second, My Lord and Savior was not “attractive,” and neither was the tabernacle that represented His work to come. Rather, in Isaiah it plainly states that “he hath no form nor comeliness that we should desire him.” Moreover, the tabernacle of the Old Testament was not at all attractive. In fact, it was covered with badger skins with all the beauty of it only seen on the inside (which is the way it is with Christ). Even so, the design of this site should focus the visitor on its content and the subject of that content – the Lord Jesus Christ.

With that, I pray that the new coding makes visiting the site more of a blessing.

Home Missions

We live in a funny country. I don’t mean that in the way of humor, but that Americans have a funny way of thinking. I say this because I see it every day in the job I have, in the community I live in, and particularly among the Baptist brethren who believe as I do.

What is it that is so strange about the way we think? Consider this: We think it is a commendable thing to feed people half a world away, yet will not attempt to insure that all Americans eat. Now, I know that this is a free country, and you are free to succeed, and to fail. If you succeed, well and good. If you fail, you must bear it. I don’t have a problem with that, and I believe that individuals will never work at anything if we bail them out every time they fail. Rather, what I am getting at here is a set of mind that never seems to want to attend to those immediately about us, yet sees no problem in generously, repeatedly bailing out people halfway around the world.

You know, it is the same with Missions. As a fundamental, unaffiliated, Baptist, I expect for local churches to support missionaries directly through the church that sent the missionary. That way, 100% of the support given is received by the missionary in the field. That is rightly and properly the way it should be. However, this is where the sensible thinking seems to end. You see, there is a heavy bias for supporting missionaries to foreign fields, and little to nothing given in the way of support for missions right here in America. In this regard, fundamental, unaffiliated Baptist churches parallel the rest of American society – we care for those on the other side of the globe, and ignore the folks just down the road.

As one who is directly involved in a home mission, this is disconcerting to me, though I have know it for years. Of course, it was disconcerting when I discovered it years ago. How I found out was through a newsletter put out by a Baptist ministry in the western states of Wyoming and Nebraska. This ministry is one of providing preachers to go through the small communities and towns in the rural West and preach the gospel where there were no established churches, and no Bible preachers. One of the greatest needs they have is the support of churches to accomplish the burden the LORD God laid upon them for the rural people of the West.

It is no different for any home mission. It is difficult to establish a church and conduct a ministry when one works full time, and then conducts the work of the ministry during the evenings and Saturdays, with Sunday dedicated to conducting services.

Why is it this way? Because this is America! Don’t you know, just start a church and they will come! No, I’m not being flippant, or a smart-aleck. What I have seen among brethren is an underlying attitude that somehow home missions will just take care of themselves, and they really don’t need the support a foreign missionary needs. After all, any home missionary can get a job, and provide for his needs that way and conduct the ministry on the side. Yes, that is actually the attitude of many pastors and brethren in this country. It is utterly shameful and really does help the Devil accomplish his purpose of taking this country straight to Hell. There is a decided lack of understanding that America is one of (if not the) most difficult mission fields in the world.

Now, if you read this, and your attitude toward home missions and missionaries is what is described above, I have some questions for you:

Which do you think is the greater sin:

Allowing someone halfway around the world to go to Hell because they didn’t have the gospel preached to them?

Or allowing someone in the town just down the road to go to Hell because you don’t think home missions require support?

If you don’t support home missionaries to plant proper churches in this country; how long do you think it will be before there are not enough proper churches to send missionaries overseas?

And finally, if we don’t work to save our own country, how can we save the rest of the world?

Himself

Occasionally, when I add a hymn to the Hymns page I note it here, particularly if it is a hymn that really ought to be considered as to the message it contains. The hymn, “Himself” is a hymn worthy of just such notice.

This hymn is a contrast, and what a contrast it makes! It contrasts the difference between the “hope so, maybe so, I had an emotional experience” salvation, to the real salvation that is in Christ Jesus. Perhaps this is why it was dropped? After all, how many people out there who profess Christ as Savior also tell of a “I had an emotional experience” salvation? How many, when pressed about their assurance of salvation, cannot be absolutely certain that Christ saved them utterly? How many only think, saying “I think I’m going to heaven. I hope I make it.” that they are truly going to be with the Lord when they die? How many experience no change at all at “salvation” and are just like they were before they were “saved?”

You know, if your salvation was one of those “I had an emotional experience” events, and your assurance consists of “I hope I’m going to heaven,” then I invite you to truly learn of the Lord Jesus Christ, and come to know Him personally. You will never meet a more gracious, more lovely person. He is, as the Song of Solomon says:

His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. (Song of Solomon 5:16)

And, after you come to know Him, place all, not some, but all without reservation, your trust in Him as the full payment for your sins; knowing that His shed blood on the cross paid for your sins once for all. Trust totally that He was raised from the dead the third day, as the Scripture says. Trust totally that God the Father sent Him and His offering to God is a fully sufficient, acceptable sacrifice for sins, once for all. Trust completely that all the Old Testament testifies of Christ to come, as the Lord Jesus Christ explained in rebuking His disciples on the road to Emmaus:

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27)

If you do know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, I pray that you are blessed by the hymn “Himself” and the rest of the hymns on the Hymns page. May you be strengthened in the Lord, and walk steadfastly in Christ.