Prior to the Word’s coming to earth as Jesus of Nazareth (Jn. 1:1-4,14) His prophets wrote about His unusual, uniquely special, obedient people who were His spiritual lights who proclaimed and obeyed His Law the midst of the religious darkness in which their Israelite brethren and their Gentile neighbors lived.  One of His saints’ identifying characteristics was their fear of Him (Isa. 33:6).  They feared God and therefore obeyed Him.  Moses, writing in Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 14:2 and 26:18 referred to these people as God’s peculiar “treasures.”  Jesus of Nazareth was also one of God’s treasures.  We are reminded in Hebrews 5:7 that, as a man like all other men, His prayers were heard, not because of Who He was and not because of His faith, but because of what He DID–“He was heard because He feared” the One to Whom He prayed.  As Jesus shows us, fear of God and obedience to Him go hand-in-hand.

Following His short human life on earth, Christ’s apostles wrote to and about the spiritual descendants of those God-fearing, God-believing, God-obeying “holy men of old who spoke (and wrote) as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21).  As with His saints of old, God calls His New Testament saints His “treasures.”  In Luke 12:34 He noted that one’s “treasure” is that which fills one’s heart/mind.  GOD’S HEART/MIND IS ALWAYS FILLED WITH HIS “PECULIAR TREASURES” whose hearts/minds are filled with His Word.  In Romans 2:5 the Apostle Paul proclaimed that one day God will reward His peculiar treasures with glory, honor, peace and eternal life (vss 7.10).  It is important that the reader emulates the character and life-walk of those “peculiar” people whom God calls His “treasures,” for it is they, and only they who will rise to meet His Son in air at His Second Coming, who will then descend to the Mount of Olives, enter Jerusalem, establish the Kingdom of God, rule the earth for 1000 years, then rule the entire universe forever, including the “Peculiar Galaxy” named NGC 2608.  Read God’s Very Elect: Future Caretakers of the Universe.  Use “Caretakers” as your key word.

The Apostle Paul describes these future galaxy-hopping saints in the second chapter of the Book of Romans.  In verse 6 he tells us that the Lord will “render unto every man according to his DEEDS,” not his faith.  James 2 tells us that faith without WORKS (DEEDS) is dead faith, which accomplishes nothing (vss 14, 17,18,29,24,26).  The works/deeds he is referring to are those which make the saint a “peculiar treasure” in God’s eyes.  In Romans 2:7 and 10 Paul describes the type of works/deeds that will produce eternal life.  They will consist of “continuous WELL-DOING” and “GOOD WORKS.”  In verses 8 and 9 he describes those who will receive “indignation, wrath, tribulation and anguish.”  They are those who are “contentious (toward God) and do not OBEY the (His) Truth, but rather obey (do/work) unrighteousness.”  Note that one creates personal righteousness by obeying (DOING/WORKING) God’s Truth/Word.  In John 17:17 Jesus said that God’s Word and His Truth are one in the same.  Note also that Paul is writing to and about those in God’s church who, as the Scriptures repeatedly point out, must manifest righteousness in order to receive eternal life.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:6 that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed for they will be filled with righteousness.  Note that hungering and thirsting accomplish nothing unless one eats and drinks that which is designed to fill him with righteousness.  James tells us that spiritually eating and drinking God’s holy food and drink (doing works/deeds commanded in His Word) is necessary in order to be filled by Him.  A starving person can starve to death while sitting in front of a feast, all the while knowing that consuming it will produce physical life.  The choice of physical life or death belongs to the starving person.  HE MUST EAT AND DRINK WHAT IS PROVIDED IN ORDER TO LIVE.  By consuming God’s Word and obeying it one is “continuing in well-doing” and “doing good works.”

The Apostle John had much to say about the works-righteousness-salvation connection which the Institutional Church summarily rejects.  For example, he wrote in 1 John 2:29: “If you know that He (Jesus) is righteous, you know that every one who DOES (WORKS) RIGHTEOUSNESS is born of Him” (is converted, not saved).  “Let no man deceive you; he who DOES RIGHTEOUSNESS IS RIGHTEOUS, EVEN AS HE (JESUS) IS RIGHTEOUSNESS” (1 Jn. 3:7).  If personal righteousness created by doing righteousness is not necessary, why is it mentioned in God’s rule Book?  In Matthew 10:22 Jesus tells us that he who maintains righteousness/holiness until the end of his life will (then) be saved.  Notice that the person, not God, must do the maintaining (“enduring”).  Jesus added in 25:46: “… only the righteous will enter into eternal life.”  In Romans 6:5:21 and 6:2 Paul states that SALVATION IS THE END RESULT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS.  Jesus said in Matthew 4:4 that in order to live eternally man must live (this life) by (obeying) “… every WORD that proceeds from the mouth of God”–the Holy Scriptures.  In 1 John 3:8 John states: “He who sins (works unrighteousness) is of the devil.”  The Apostle Peter stated that “ONLY THE RIGHTEOUS WILL BE SAVED, and they just barely” (1 Pet. 4:18).  Where does this leave the “only believe” crowd who call themselves “sinners saved by grace?”

Satan, through his false prophets, has blinded the minds of billions of salvation seekers.  Because their minds are filled with church doctrine designed to scratch their ears, they reject God’s Truth even when it is shown to them in their own Bibles.  In the continuous life or death war between God’s Word and man’s word about God’s Word, God loses/ Satan wins/ man dies.  L.J.