Jarrin Jackson is an America lover who love’s Jesus more. He brings the Gospel into politics where it clearly belongs. In this episode of his show, he discusses the goodness he sees in what Trump is doing and some of the badness he sees in what’s going on around us in the world.
Category Archives: The Gospel
The Most Important Message
For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
– The Bible (John 3:16)
God’s Message to Us
The Bible is not a normal book. It claims to contain a message that God wants man to know, and there is no reason to not believe what it says. It tells us that God created the universe, and when He did, He made it to be a perfect place. There was no death or suffering. All of the good things we see in nature and more existed at that time. On the new earth, God placed all kinds of the creatures as well as the first two humans. He made a garden for them to live in, but He also gave them a test. He put a tree in the middle of that garden and commanded them to never to eat from it.
Satan’s Story
God also created angels, and at one point, some of them rebelled against God. The leader of the rebellion was the most beautiful creation that God ever made named Lucifer. Not long after man was created, Lucifer, now called Satan, decided to see if he could convince man to go against God too.
Satan took on the form of a snake, and tempted Eve to eat from the forbidden tree by causing her to doubt God and think independently of Him. God had warned Adam and Eve that if they ever did choose to eat from the forbidden tree, they would die. Satan was successful in tricking Eve into eating from the tree. Even though Adam wasn’t tricked, when Eve ate it and gave it to him, he decided to go along with her and eat it too. The perfect world that God had created was then cursed by God because of what Adam and Eve did. That’s why things are so bad for us today.
Man’s Fall and Future Hope
God had put man in charge of the earth, but man decided to disobey God and as a result, God kept His word and brought death into it, but instead of killing Adam and Eve immediately, God killed an animal and gave Adam and Eve clothes and allowed them to die slowly. He said that even though Adam and Eve would get old and die, He was going to save mankind and heal the whole earth someday through one of their descendants. Adam and Eve believed and started having kids!
Our Separation from God
The Bible goes on to tell us that as the population of mankind grew, they began to sin so badly that God was disgusted and decided to destroyed the whole world with a flood, but, keeping His promise, He reserved one good man and his family alive to repopulate the earth. Even after that, their descendants kept disobeying God to such a degree that God forced them to separate from each other by confusing their languages. This divided the world into different cultures. The resulting genetic separation is probably what caused such widely different looking humans. In all of this, God was still following through on His promise to Adam and Eve, but the child who was to save mankind had not yet been born.
God’s Plan to Save Us Could Not Be Stopped
Satan, however, was doing whatever he could to stop God’s plan from happening. He may have thought he defeated God when Adam and Eve sinned, but God had a plan and went right around him. He may have thought he won when God decided to destroy the world with a flood, but God saved Noah. He may have even thought that he won when he made Noah’s descendants go against Him, but God still worked it out.
Then the Bible follows the history of Israel. God decided to pick out three men: Abraham, his son Isaac and his son Jacob. Out of these men, God literally generated a new country that He named after Jacob, whom He had renamed Israel. He also chose a piece of real estate in a land called Canaan, destroyed the existing evil descendants of Noah who lived there and put Israel’s descendants in their place, but Satan could see what was happening and got right to work. By his scheming, he tempted Israel to become just as evil, if not worse, than the Canaanites were before them. Once again, God punished them, but once again, God went right around the problem.
God’s Plan is Revealed
Unexpectedly, after Israel had been occupied by the oppressive government of Rome, God sent an angel named Gabriel to a poor Israeli girl named Mary, telling her that she was going to have the promised child. Gabriel explained to her that this was not to be a typical child, but would actually be God Himself, and to prove it, she would get pregnant without the help of a man. That’s exactly what happened, and she gave birth to Jesus. To spread the word, thousands of God’s Angels were sent to announce the coming to the most unlikely segment of Roman society, Jewish shepherds! God was aware of what they were capable of, however. They went and told everyone what they saw and didn’t rest until they found this promised child. God knew what He was doing. Satan, however, got the leader of the time to kill all of the Jewish children in the region, but God gave Mary’s husband, Joseph a dream, and they immediately left to Egypt, once again escaping Satan’s attempt to stop God’s plan.
What Jesus Did for Us
You can imagine the life that Jesus must have lived after that. He would do something, but Satan would try to kill it, only to have Jesus go right around it. The Book of John in the Bible is important reading at this point. It tells you some of the details of this time in history. The fight to secure the salvation of the human race was coming to a critical moment.
Jesus lived in a way that made every other human look bad. He followed God’s commands, the ones that He gave to Israel’s children when He formed their nation. Unlike all the rest of them, He didn’t fail and on top of that, He pointed out the failures of others. Jesus wasn’t trying to just make people feel bad, He just knew that a person who doesn’t want to be saved, can’t be saved. If you are happy with the fact that you are sinning and don’t care that you are going to be punished for it, you won’t be willing to accept your way out of punishment. God had given man free will up to this point and He continues to do that now. If you don’t admit that you do things that God hates, you won’t be thinking clear enough to accept your salvation!
Without really understanding what they were doing, the Romans and the Jewish leadership conspired to kill Jesus. I really think that Satan thought he did it this time. Not only did Jesus die, He was tortured to death by God’s own special people, along with the leadership of the Roman government. Once again, however, this was all part of God’s plan.
God Wins
Jesus did die and for three days He was put in a tomb in Israel, but on the third day, He resurrected Himself and walked out of His tomb, never to return. When you look back at the Bible, you discover that God had planned this from the very beginning. The concepts were symbolically placed in the history of the Bible. Israel had prophets that predicted it, and Jesus himself even predicted it. Jesus, by his obedience to God beat death itself by coming back from the dead.
The Bible says that it was God’s plan to win back all of mankind by taking the punishment for Adam and Eve’s sin Himself. He did that as Jesus. If you are willing to admit that you are part of the problems we have on earth and simply believe that Jesus has already paid the price to keep you from punishment, you will not suffer that punishment.
What Jesus Saves Us From
That brings up the issue of punishment. What is the punishment that Jesus was saving people from? For that I need to quote something that Jesus hasn’t said yet. You heard that right. The Bible speaks of things that haven’t happened yet. There are things in it that are still happening. Jesus is still getting around Satan and Satan is still trying to stop Him. You and I are now in the middle of this. This is what Jesus will say in the future:
He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.” He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
– The Bible (Revelation 21:5-8)
That lake of fire that burns is what we call Hell. That’s God’s jail and it’s permanent. The death we usually talk about today is just the first one. After that, those who haven’t accepted Jesus will have to go to court and then it will be too late to change. This is why this message is so important.
Your Choice
If you will believe in Jesus now, before you die, you will be saved from the second death. The section of the Bible called “The Book of Revelation” that I just quoted from, also tells us that we aren’t at the end yet. When the end comes, God will change the whole earth, transforming it from what it is today. This world will contain only the good things again and none of the bad things. God will destroy all of the bad things. If we don’t accept God’s way for a human to become good, we will have to be destroyed with the rest of the bad from the old world. So, please take this seriously and choose to depend on Jesus now because you don’t know when you will die.
If you have chosen to trust in Jesus’ payment for your sin by his death, I encourage you to do these four things:
1) Tell God right now. Pray to Him by just talking and telling Him you accept what He has done for you. He is everywhere and can hear you.
2) Tell someone else that you believe. Start by just telling them, but I encourage you to make it “official” by getting baptized. Have another Christian perform this ceremony in order to show others that you have accepted this.
3) Read the Bible and pray as often as you can. God has provided us everything we need to grow as Christians in the Bible and Satan is here and he will be after you now. God’s message is like a weapon against Satan. Just like we need to believe the Bible about being saved from Hell, we need to believe it about everything God has said. Satan will try to stop that in order to keep you from influencing other people, so we need to stay focused on the truth. Get an e-copy of the Bible’s book of John right here.
4) Get together with other Christians on a regular basis. The Bible says that we were meant for each other. Although there are many troubles, even between Christians sometimes, a whole life of joy awaits us as we experience God’s love together. We will not accomplish God’s work alone.
If you trust in Jesus in this way, you are a Christian. You have nothing to worry about because God has forgiven you and you will be with me and all of the other Christians on the New Earth someday. Thank you for listening to this message.
What the World Needs Now
Can you imagine a world with a perfect economy; one without theft or deceptive practices? Can you imagine a world without a single war? What if people cared for each other instead of fighting and stealing from each other? What would it be like if everyone was given respect? What would it be like if slavery was completely gone? What would the world be like if everyone simply told the truth?
If these things sound good to you, I want to tell you that this new world is coming, but first I want to warn you about something. You need to know that there are very popular movements that attempt to answer these questions, but that will actually lead to even more pain, suffering and hatred. The answer is not “The Great Reset”. It’s not “The Green New Deal”. It’s not socialism or communism. These are deceptions and many things like these have been tried before and have produced even greater evils than they claim to end.
This world is at war. I’m talking about an epic spiritual war that’s invisible to the human eye. Evil powers are fighting with good powers and evil is being challenged and as a result, it has become more open and vicious in its attempts to subvert you.
The evil powers are trying to tell you that man can solve man’s problems by man’s efforts, but this doesn’t make sense. If man caused the problems, how can man solve them? If man is the source of hatred, how can man become the source of love? If a few men couldn’t solve the problems of a few, how can all men solve the problems of all? What sense does it make to increase man’s well-being by the elimination of man? How can the same man who harms people with technology be trusted to control people with it? How is it that being intolerant of intolerance is more tolerant? These things don’t make any sense. These are lies and this is how the evil powers operate. They get you to self-destruct. They confuse you and cause you to fear so that you will seek them and become enslaved to them. They are attempting to control you and I don’t want you to become another one of their victims.
The solution to our problems is found in one place. It’s God’s Law.
If everyone would simply follow God’s law, peace would immediately begin! King David’s excitement over this amazing proposition is obvious in Psalm 119. Listen to a little bit of what he said:
“Your testimonies are wonderful,
– Psalm 119:129-136
therefore my soul keeps them.
130 The entrance of your words gives light.
It gives understanding to the simple.
131 I opened my mouth wide and panted,
for I longed for your commandments.
132 Turn to me, and have mercy on me,
as you always do to those who love your name.
133 Establish my footsteps in your word.
Don’t let any iniquity have dominion over me.
134 Redeem me from the oppression of man,
so I will observe your precepts.
135 Make your face shine on your servant.
Teach me your statutes.
136 Streams of tears run down my eyes,
because they don’t observe your law.”
Jesus summed up the law in a beautiful way. Here’s what He said:
He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind;Deuteronomy 6:5 and your neighbor as yourself.”Leviticus 19:1828 He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
Luke 10:26-28
God’s law is the answer to all of our human problems. If you and I would only follow these laws we wouldn’t even need a government at all! The ultimate form of liberty is for each man to follow God without the need for human government. It is a lie that we need to have a powerful government that directs everything we do. Our problem is much worse than simply turning everything over to a centralized human government. Our problem is that we can’t control ourselves! We are completely out of control and one out-of-control human can’t possibly save another one. All we know how to do is to enslave each other.
If the only way to solve the world’s problems is to follow God’s law, then there is a very serious issue keeping us from happiness. Perhaps you know what it is. If you don’t, then I suggest that you attempt to obey God’s Ten Commandments today and come back and read the rest of what I have to say later. Try to follow just the last one of the Ten Commandments which is the one to not covet what someone else has. That’s a serious command. Coveting is what causes war.
What we all learn as we attempt to follow God’s Law, is that we can’t actually do it. It looks easy, it sounds easy and it isn’t hard to understand, but for some reason, we can’t even get through a day without failing! This proves what the problem really is: man can’t do good! If you still don’t think this is true, keep trying… you’ll be back. You are the problem.
If we want to live in a good world, we must find a way to live according to the perfect ideal that God has shown us in His Law. Thankfully, there is a way.
God not only gave us His Law, He also gave us His Son and then He gave us His Power! Allow me to explain.
It’s impossible for you an I to follow God’s law because we are evil. God’s Law tells us that we got this way because our first parents decided to disobey God’s law. Ever since then, we’ve all been doing it. Now we have another problem. God’s law says that those who break it are to be separated from all that is good forever. That makes sense doesn’t it? Those who do good shouldn’t have to put up with those of us who don’t should they? That’s why God had to give us His Son.
Jesus is God’s Son. This is a hard thing for us to understand, but the Bible says that Jesus is God just as His Father is God too. This means that He is perfect and not confined to our sin. When He was here, He followed God’s law and proved that it could be done by a man. That did two things. It demonstrated how beautiful human life could be, and it condemned us all to hell because we don’t do it! But Jesus, instead of just condemning us, died in our place taking the punishment for our failure to follow God’s law. This was an acceptable spiritual exchange and it clears those of us who accept it from the law’s punishment.
Being forgiven of our wrongs, takes our punishment away, but it doesn’t really change the fact that we can’t do what is right. That’s where the resurrection comes in. Jesus also came back to life from the dead. This is a fact that “fake news” has been trying to subvert ever since it happened. When Jesus came back to life after dying for our sin, it demonstrated that we have a living hope. By doing this, God can pass the life of Jesus to each person who trusts in Jesus’ death for them. Jesus’ death was a substitute for ours. If we accept that, His life can now be a substitute for our life! Jesus’ life in us produces the desire to follow God’s Law!
There’s still one problem. Even though Christians have the genuine desire to follow God’s Law, they still can’t do it! Listen to what Paul described in the Bible:
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15 For I don’t know what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.
Romans 7:14-15
Just having the deep desire to follow God’s law is awesome, but it’s obviously not enough. What Paul calls: “fleshly” here is the root of our problems as Christians. We have a deep desire to do what is right but this body of ours is giving us different directions. It’s still trying to operate by the old program. The Bible says that this is going to keep happening until we die or our bodies are changed into our new ones.
This is where God’s Power comes in. In the very next chapter of Paul’s book of Romans it says this:
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; 4 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Romans 8:2-4
The way to succeed at following God’s Law today, is to first become a Christian by believing in God’s Son’s death for sin, and then to trust in the Power of the Holy Spirit that is living inside of every Christian. This produces a new world order in us! This new world order has been advancing ever since Jesus resurrected and I’m inviting you to join.
It really is possible to live the life of love and hope that you’ve dreamed about, but this is only the beginning. Our world is still at war and it will continue. Even as more and more of us start living by God’s Law, there will be those who refuse and this calls for true tolerance.
Now is the time for Christians to be patient as we tolerate those who don’t believe yet. Part of our goodness, is for us to suffer quietly while we try to convince others to come to life in Jesus. The Bible says that Jesus is coming back, and when He does, it will all be over for those who don’t believe. Those who don’t believe will be removed so that His Kingdom can be set up according to His perfect law. In the mean time, we get to have each other! We get a taste of what it will be like when everyone lives together in perfect harmony.
Further Study
183 Days in John
If you are a member to this website, you have access to my devotional books. In this one, I take you through the whole book of John. This book records the life of Jesus, showing you the way to believe in Him. I’ve divided this book in to short daily readings from the book of John and then I give you my thoughts.
72 Days in Galatians
Members also have access to my devotional through the book of Galatians. This book is good for Christians who struggle with sin in their lives. This book is all about accessing God’s Power to do good. Join me as we go through Galatians together.
Daily Bible Radio Podcast
I have a daily podcast. I’ve been going through the Bible for about 10 years now. God’s law is big and full of amazing detail. Join me on my daily journey through it.
The Government and the Gospel
If you want to learn more about the effect that God’s Law has on government, read this article. Not only do we have a duty to obey God’s Law, the government does too and that is a big part of making this world a better place.
The Government and the Gospel
The Bible shows us that Christians do have a responsibility to be involved in government. In my article: Exploring the Limits of Civil Government, I explain that Jesus’ commands apply to governments, not just to individuals and because they do, we have an obvious responsibility to inform our governments about God’s law. There’s another important reason for us to be involved, though, and that’s because the government plays a role in our ability to spread the Gospel.
The Separation of Church and State
Here in the United States, a Christian’s involvement in political matters may bring up concerns about “the separation of church and state,” but God calls us to make sure that everything we do and think is based on His word. The separation of church and state is not be taken to mean that the government is supposed to be neutral to all religions. Not only is this not a rational way of thinking, it is an immoral one too. I discuss that in my article: Christianity and the Separation of Church and State.
Both John the Baptist and Jesus Himself came announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of God. These things were very political in that day. It’s true that His kingdom wasn’t going to be coming to earth right away, but there definitely wasn’t a separation between the disciple of Jesus and politics.
Jesus’ clear command to us as His followers, is to spread the Gospel. Some have attempted to use this as an excuse to not be involved in politics, but the truth is that the Gospel is the very reason we should be involved in government.
God’s Moral Law
When I think of the Gospel, I usually think of God’s grace. I think of the fact that Jesus died for our sins and came back to life again so that we could live forever in Him. These are the facts of the Gospel, but these facts depend on whether or not we understand what is meant by “our sins.” Jesus had to die because of these sins. If a person doesn’t understand what his sins are, he could miss out on what Jesus is actually dying for. It is possible that if a person doesn’t understand sin properly, he may not even believe that he has sinned and if he hasn’t really sinned, he doesn’t really need Jesus to die for anything. A wrong view of sin leads to a wrong view of the Gospel and that leads people away from God and closer to hell.
Somehow, those we wish to bring the Gospel to, must learn about their sins and the only way for them to learn about them, is to have a proper understanding of God’s laws. A good summary of God’s laws are found in The Ten Commandments, and these laws are clarified even more by the rest of the Bible.
Cultural Immortality
When you consider the need for our culture to understand what sin means, it exposes a pretty wide gap in knowledge, depending on what culture you find yourself in. In some cultures, The Ten Commandments are pretty obvious because those cultures are already well aware of them. In other cultures, these commandments may not only be unknown, they may actually assume the opposite to be true.
In the United States, it used to be quite common for people to know about the actual Ten Commandments. I hope that when you read this it is becoming more and more popular to know them again, but if not, it still exposes a major reason for us to be involved in our governments.
When Government Ignores God’s Laws
There are many reasons why a culture drifts away from God, but a big one is that governments have chosen to ignore God’s laws in the Bible. Some of them purposefully oppose God, the Bible and The Ten Commandments. When this happens, it distorts the people’s understanding of right and wrong. Good things are considered to be bad, while bad things are considered to be good.
I have recently heard famous politicians boast about their efforts to make abortion easier for people to get. Not too long ago, politicians used to say that they were personally pro-life, but that they believed that everyone should have a choice. Things have changed quickly. Abortion went from something somewhat bad, to something you can choose, to something you have a right or even a responsibility to do! This all started about 50 years before this writing when the United States government decided to declare to the people that abortion was good. The Bible clearly says that abortion is murder. It is also a violation of God’s first command to mankind which was to fill the earth. These government actions not only destroy lives on earth, they are leading people to hell by harming the Gospel message.
As I explain in Christianity and the Separation of Church and State, God actually holds governments responsible to enforce certain parts of God’s law, such as the law to not commit murder. It’s true that we have blood on their hands if they don’t, but because they have corrupted the culture’s understanding of what is right and what is wrong, they have also made it difficult for Christians to spread the Gospel.
When a government says something is good and a Christian says that it is bad, the people have a conflict to overcome before they can even say that Jesus died for sin. In the most difficult cases, the Christian finds himself opposing the government just to speak out about the Gospel. The minds of the people are also being perverted as to what is right and wrong causing damage to the Gospel message. Because of the government’s stance on moral issues, people are more inclined to ignore the Gospel and continue in their sinful lifestyles.
When Government Upholds God’s Laws
When a government is acting properly, it punishes people for violating the civil laws found in the Bible. This makes it clear to people that the sin described in the Bible and reflected in their conscience is inexcusable. A person doesn’t have to be arrested for a sin to sense their own tendency to lean that way either. That’s where Jesus’ words have a greater effect for the Gospel. He told us that even if we hate our neighbor, we commit murder inside. The government can’t and shouldn’t be involved in punishing hate crime, but God does use our conscience to let us know when we are doing it. If the government says that abortion isn’t murder, for instance, it creates a conflict with our conscience. A person can still hate their own unborn child with little cultural accountability. They may even harbor a rebellious desire to stop filling the earth as God commanded, and pervert their conscience to the point at which they think it’s a virtuous thing.
Keeping Our Eyes on the Goal
When we do get into government issues, it is important for us to stay focused on our goal. Our focus isn’t on who wins elections. Our focus is on our Great Commission. That being said, we should also not assume that we have no responsibility to the governments of the world. The Bible tells us that we are the salt and light of the earth. Salt and light won’t do much good inside of our church walls. If we don’t participate in teaching our government their responsibility to obey God and promote His civil laws, this will also harm our efforts to obey the Great Commission as well.
Further Study
J.C. Ryle on the Government’s Role
This respected English pastor wrote about the separation of church and state over 100 years ago. Here’s some of what he had to say as it relates to Jesus’ comment to Pilate in John 18:36, when He tells him that His kingdom is not of this world.
Exploring the Limits of Civil Government
When is the government taking on too much? When isn’t it doing enough? In this article, I focus on the what government’s biblical responsibilities are and are not.
Christianity and the Separation of Church and State
What does the separation of church and state really mean? In this article, I explain that the separation of church and state does not mean that a government is supposed to be neutral when it comes to governing according to religious principles.