RCCG JESUS EMBASSY

Jesus Christ is our Peace with God

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What does God's Word say about:

Alcohol - Cigarettes & Tobacco - Drug-Taking in General?

"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN." LUKE 2:13-14
Nearly everyone knows what the angels said when Jesus was born, but very few have come to know the PEACE that God has promised us in His Son. Instead everyone we meet is worried and anxious and uneasy about something - some more than others. This is how God's Word says the world will be.
"For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun? For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity." ECCLESIASTES 2:22-23
"Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." JOB 14:1
"Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth." ISAIAH 24:17
God has given us the way out in His Son Jesus:
"For unto us a child is born ... and his name shall be called ... The Prince of Peace." ISAIAH 9:6
"The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, PREACHING PEACE BY JESUS CHRIST: (HE IS LORD OF ALL)." ACTS 10:36
But instead, all through the ages, men have preferred to turn to other things to take their minds off their problems and relieve their tensions; nowadays the most common method is through all sorts of chemicals - DRUGS - taken artificially. This includes the drugs ALCOHOL (strong drink), NICOTINE (smoking tobacco), and all sorts of TRANQUILLIZERS (some people regularly use headache powders and tablets, to 'pick themselves up'), as well as the illegal and more unusual drugs (marijuana, heroin, and so on). Of these only alcohol was sufficiently common in Bible times to be mentioned in the Bible itself; here is what is WRITTEN IN GOD'S WORD:
PROVERBS 20:1 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."
PROVERBS 21:17 "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich."
PROVERBS 23:20-21 "Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags."
PROVERBS 23:29-30 "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine."
God intends that we understand what alcoholic drinks do: they DECEIVE and MOCK those who drink them, causing woe and sorrow and sickness.
PROVERBS 23:31-35 "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again."
What a picture of the effects of strong drink! Aside from sickness and 'hangovers', alcohol brings about irresponsible behaviour, violence, moodiness, and so on, often resulting in road deaths, crimes of passion, broken homes, poverty, and the rest. It causes so many problems, yet to escape these problems people turn back to it! How foolish!
PROVERBS 31:6-7 "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more."
Anyone who thinks about it will realise that strong drink is no solution to anything, and that alcoholics are in a desperate plight. But what about moderate drinkers and 'social' drinkers? Does God mind if we have a little drink every now and again?
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10 "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? BE NOT DECEIVED: neither fornicators ... NOR DRUNKARDS ... shall inherit the kingdom of God."
The Greek word for 'drunkard' means A DRINKER OF STRONG DRINK. NO-ONE WHO DRINKS STRONG DRINK SHALL INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This is God's Word. (The so-called 'wine' that Jesus drank was 'new wine', which means fresh grape-juice that has not fermented.) ALCOHOL is a POISON - and the same applies to all the other things mentioned earlier - NICOTINE and the other drugs. Even if there are no immediate medical effects, all of these things produce a frame of mind where the person becomes more and more dependent on chemicals for 'kicks' and so-called 'happiness' - and in the long run, if not before, the body will suffer. Everyone knows nowadays what a filthy habit smoking is, and what terrible effects it has in the bodies of people that are bound to it. Our bodies are not our own: God will judge all men for the way they have treated them:
2 CORINTHIANS 5:10 "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."
ROMANS 14:12 "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God."
Once again, DON'T BE DECEIVED. Don't let anyone tell you that God's Word is wrong. The time is fast approaching when Jesus will return to judge the earth. REPENT NOW!
LUKE 21:25-27 "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth DISTRESS OF NATIONS, with PERPLEXITY; the sea and the waves roaring; MEN'S HEARTS FAILING THEM FOR FEAR, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory."
The whole world will be troubled - God says so. Even now, people everywhere are searching for peace, and cannot find it - WHY?
ISAIAH 48:22 "There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked."
God shows us the way to find peace: "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (ROMANS 5:1). He came to preach peace to us, "and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (HEBREWS 2:15).
DON'T LET SATAN BIND YOU TO ANY HABIT-FORMING DRUG FOR THE SAKE OF A PHONEY, CHEMICAL 'PEACE'. There is only ONE WAY:
JOHN 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: NOT AS THE WORLD GIVETH, GIVE I UNTO YOU. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
The world tries to give us peace through alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and so on; and none of these things last, and all are in some way harmful. Jesus gives us His incomparable peace by the power of His Holy Spirit dwelling within. There can be no substitute.
EPHESIANS 5:18 "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT."

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"... REPENT, and BE BAPTIZED every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall RECEIVE THE GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST." ACTS 2:38
If a sinner is to be saved, God's plan and pattern of salvation which He has laid down in His Word must be fulfilled in all points.
JESUS CAME TO GIVE US LIFE, HIS OWN LIFE. He says to YOU:
"The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." JOHN 10:10
God's Word says in ISAIAH 64:6 - "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags ..." This is what God says of you, speaking through his prophet!
And in ROMANS 3:23 "For ALL HAVE SINNED, and come short of the glory of God."
"REPENT YE THEREFORE, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ ..." ACTS 3:19-20
ROMANS 8:9 "... If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
JOHN 3:5 "Jesus answered ... Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (The evidence of receiving God's Holy Spirit and being born again by God's Spirit is in ACTS 2:4; ACTS 10:44-46; ACTS 19:6).
THERE IS NO COMPROMISE WITH THE WORD OF GOD!
Compiled by Pentecost Revival Centre, Ballarat, Australia, approx. 1968-1972.