Text: "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward: how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation...?" (Hebrews 2:1-3a)

The salvation of the human soul is a great salvation indeed! What can be compared with it? Where is the man who can fully comprehend it, let alone express it?

So great is this salvation that it required a great Saviour to effect it—- a Saviour in whom the great God was manifested—- a Saviour who was able to open a great way to that salvation, a salvation from great sin, great misery and great shame!

The salvation of God effects great holiness because it is the result of a great outpouring of grace. The great charter of this salvation is God’s great covenant of peace.

So great is the salvation of man’s soul that "the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophecied of the grace that should come unto (us)." It is a salvation of such magnitude that eve "the angels desire to look into" it. (I Peter 1:10,12)

The salvation God has authored is great in its delivery, great in its evidence, and great in its Truth. Since God is the Author of eternal salvation, it is great in its duration, great in its satisfaction, and in its blessings.

It is great in its remission of sin, great in its redemption from sin, and great in its forgiveness. How great is His salvation in its power to cleanse, to justify and to preserve!

This great salvation required great wisdom, and is made possible by great righteousness. It provides a great inheritance.

In time, it is commenced with a great call and is consummated by a great crowning!

"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" To take this salvation for granted—- to consider it not important enough to occupy our thoughts, is to "neglect" it. If the salvation of our soul causes us no concern, is it not foolhardy to say we are "striving to enter in at the strait gate?" Reader, if God’s salvation has not changed your attitude regarding possessions and pleasures, what has it done for you?

The people of God neglect so great salvation when they forsake the public assembling of the saints to worship. When they are remiss in their prayers and lose their appetite for the Word of God, they neglect so great salvation. When they lose sight of eternal values and become entangled in this world’s goods, they neglect so great salvation.

"How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" Every one of the 21 epistles in the New Testament is written to believers. We are here warned that even a child of God is not exempt from God’s chastening. If we neglect it, God will accept no excuse. He will hear no plea. He will provide no power to escape. "The Lord scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." (Hebrews 12:6)

Text: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments." (Exodus 20:5,6)

"People suffer for their own sins." This is true; but it is also a truth of Scripture that people suffer on account of the iniquities of their forebears. Americans for instance, are just beginning to feel God’s judgment for the iniquities committed by our fathers.

Jesus Christ is Lord! A Lord, He is Sovereign of the family. Our fathers, however, surrendered this knowledge and embraced the concept that the state is Lord of the family. This has resulted in a multiplicity of evils, perhaps the greatest of which is the acceptance of the "marriage license." They left the use of the "Marriage Contract" and "Marriage Covenant" and went to the state for its sanction of this God-ordained institution.

The evil of accepting a state marriage license will be apprehended when one considers that on May 19, 1986 at the Community Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, the former State Attorney General, Jim Mattox, told a group of parents, "Your children belong to the state... You belong to the state!" In accepting a state marriage license neither you nor I ever dreamed the Justices in our country would ever maintain that the recipients of a state marriage license would make our children and us wards of the state. State licensure precipitates other evils.

The great profusion of divorces in our society is a direct result of state-sanctioned marriages, for what the state has joined together, the state can put asunder; but "what God hat joined together, let no man put asunder."

Statistics reveal that 50 percent of state-licensed marriages end in divorce, while there is only 1 divorce in over 5000 marriages in which husbands and wives pray together. The reader should not expect to hear this fact from Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News.

On account of recent court rulings against the God-ordained family unit, many preachers of the Gospel are refusing to marry people who bring a state marriage license, and instead are resuming the use of marriage contracts such as our grandparents used.

When our fathers left the knowledge that Christ is Lord of the family, Americans imbibed the lie of the Babylonians that the earth is over-populated. The All Wise God has commanded men to "multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it:" social designers teach that the population of the earth is repressive. Whom are the sons of men to believe?

These "globalists" know it is impossible to control billions of people. Therefore, in order to gain control of earth’s "peoples, and tongues, and nations," if is necessary to preach birth control. God said, "replenish the earth," and He has never rescinded this command.

Jesus Christ is Lord! As Lord, He is Sovereign of the state. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher power." (Romans 13:1) Our forefathers left the meaning of the 13th chapter of Romans and opened a floodgate of evils that now threaten the very existence of our land. The Judicial system has left These United States a nation of men instead of a nation of Law.

There is only One Lawgiver: that is God. If every man has a divinely-ordained duty to be subject to the higher powers, then a man has a "right" to do all the good he can do, but God has not given any man any where at any time the "right" to do evil.

When people refuse to be governed by God their children will suffer the oppressive government of men. Our fathers supported the idea that men have an inherent right to practice evil. Now, we, their children, are beginning to experience the frightful dimensions of sex education, pornography, adultery, and sodomy.

Our fathers knew the judgment of God, that they which do such things are worthy to die, yet they refused to "bear the sword" against them. Now we are facing the judgment of God brought upon us by herpes-infected, "Aids"-carrying corrupters of society.

Christian psychologists even encourage onanism.

In Augusta, Georgia, families of another era gathered to worship, and established the Presbyterian Church United States, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Presently, this city is witnessing 1800 pending cases involving incest.

Six months ago, a doctor in Texas related how that the Lone Star State reported 5 cases of "Aids," and how he himself was treating 250 cases!

In 1913, our fathers rejected a God-ordained system of banking --a system predicated upon metals that God had created precious. Instead, they accepted a system devised by men. The Federal Reserve system is predicated upon "debt," and it claims it has been able to "monetize" debt.

We, the children of our fathers, are told our country is in debt 5 trillion "dollars." According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago this is only a "book entry," and that "Intrinsically, a dollar bill is just a piece of paper." If the "money" we use is imaginary, is not debt" imaginary as well? How can there be such a thing as public or private debt? How can we "pay" for anything?

God forbids His people to live by debt. "Owe no man anything" –neither custom, honor, tribute, etc. For this reason, He established 7 years as the maximum time for indebtedness. "The borrower is servant to the lender" (Proverbs 22:7),and God wants His people to be free.

The Federal Reserve System has instituted the evil of the graduated income tax as the means by which to "regulate" the paper "money" in the land.

The list of iniquities committed by our fathers grows and will continue to be borne by their children in succeeding generations. Today we sell our land to foreign investors, but what birthright will we be able to leave our children? Will we not join our fathers in crying out "Our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

God commanded "Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds, lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown and the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled." (Deuteronomy (22:9) Yet, fathers have tampered with seeds of fruits and vegetables, as well as with the seed of fish to produce hybrids which are not natural seeds and which therefore cannot reproduce.

Listen! "And God said, ’Behold I have given you every bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall he for meat." (Genesis 1:29) God did not give man hybrids to eat.

God will visit our children with famine as He has foretold in the book of Revelation.

When king Hezekiah was warned by the prophet of God’s coming judgment, he declared, "Good is the word of the Lord seeing it is not in my day." (Isaiah 39:8) Our fathers have adopted this same attitude: "It is a good thing if it does not come in my days." We are the children of our fathers, yet I fear our children will one day exclaim, "Woe be unto us that we have had such fathers!"

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Text: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well." (I Peter 2:15,14)

If Christians are to submit themselves to every ordinance of man, is the Law of God not to be submitted unto? Or, is God pleased when we submit to the ordinances of men, even to those that serve the lusts of men? Perhaps God is pleased with every ordinance men make!

The context clearly addresses the subject of "ordinances" to men God has endowed with authority, and not only to a king as the supreme authority among men. This verse therefore cannot be disallowed on the grounds we have a republican form of government instead of a monarchy. What, then, is to be said of the phrase, "every ordinance of man?"

Peter and John were commanded not to preach in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They answered, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." (Acts 4:19; 5:29) Then, they ignored the injunction. Yet, in a similar case, a pastor in one of the Southern states was issued a "gag order" and was expressly told he would not be allowed to preach that Sunday. The pastor thought he was obliged to obey man rather than God who had called him to preach.

But what is to be said of the command, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man?" Scripture is the best commentary on Scripture, and we find a similar phrase in Ephesians 5:24: "As the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." In everything? An improper understanding of this verse had led many Christian counselors to adopt the notion that if we are commanded to do wrong by anyone in authority, God will hold only the higher authority responsible for the wrong.

NONSENSE! Such an interpretation is utterly without Scriptural foundation. Such was evidently not the understanding of Amram and Jochabed who were not afraid of the king’s commandment but hid their infant son, Moses. Nor was it understanding of Daniel who continued still to pray 3 times each day, even though he knew the law of the king was signed that forbade worship of any God but himself.

What, then, is the proper duty of a wife—of a Christian to civil authorities? Again, Scripture is the best commentary on Scripture, and the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Colossae "Wives, obey your husbands as it is meet in the Lord." Colossians (3:18) This, then, is the meaning of the parallel passage in I Peter 2:13,14. When the Apostle wrote, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man," he obviously meant Christians are to be obedient to civil authorities "in the Lord," or until time as when to obey their ordinances, one would have to disobey the Law of God, or "the Highest power."