I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Luke 13:5

Take an apple, cut it open, and put it on the counter.  Leave it there, say, for a week, or a month, and you will notice something. The apple is no longer the apple you left it as, but it is now destroyed.  Further, there is no repairing that apple to it’s original golden deliciousness.  It is now, if you leave it long enough, brown slime, and food for the bees.

This world, like that apple, is broken like that apple.  And, in fact, it was God that broke it for His own justice at the beginning, when the man fell.

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

Mark 16:16

The Bible is quite clear, that those who believe will be saved and those who do not will go to Everlasting punishment (Hebrews 6:2).

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:23

The question of Eternity is righteousness.  We have all sinned, and all fallen short (Romans 3:23), and there is no good thing in us.

Everyone knows that God is love, and many have rightly desired to tell the world the good news.  But, when we do not tell them the “bad news”, when we do not tell the church the “bad news”, that is, that the world is condemned already and that the church can do nothing without listening and following the Lord, we lose our footing in the Gospel.

The bad news was here already (John 3:17).  From the beginning, God created man with instructions, and made him liable for what he did to his brother, his neighbor ().  Even before the law was given, Cain was criminalized for his murder, because God’s truth has never changed, from the beginning!

But, when we see the world for what it is, attractive and yet broken with a fatal bent that causes decay, corruption, and death, we can rightly hate it and everything deriving from it (Luke 14:26), and embrace that divine life from above, the Holy Spirit, and chose to live by Him (Galatians 5:16), instead of by the flesh, which produces death.

The world, that is, the physical creation, is not evil, nor is the fleshly, human body of a man.  These were created, and God called them “good”, even though they are now subject to corruption.  But, rather, they cannot be relied upon, for they will wear out, rust, and fall apart.

But, when we rely upon the Spirit of God, like the Israelites in the wilderness, it was there that their shoes and clothes never wore out, they always had their provision, and they had no diseases (except for the plagues of the Lord).  This, then, is the pattern for the believer.  The nation was separated from the world, Egypt, which fell under the cloud of the angel of death, at the hand of the Lord.  The Israelites fled Egypt, through the sea, and under the cloud.  And, they worshiped at Mount Sinai. The were separated and sanctified by Moses and Aaron, and they, though they still yet lived in unbelief, lived in the realm of the Spirit.  While they were supposed to live there only for a few years while they traveled, because of their rebellion, they continued on for forty, until that whole generation had perished.  Even, then, however, they lived in God’s presence, for Moses prayed that if God’s presence did not go up, that he would not go.

But, the world and all its things are destined to perish with the using.  No thing of Earth will sustain you, or carry you through, either in this life or the Eternal.  And, while we must be in this world, and we do still eat, and enjoy houses, and heat, and clothing, these are promised to us, if we will but seek Him first (Matthew 6:33).

But, there is no salvation in these, and those that look to them will be like them, which will one day be thrown into the fire.

When we can see that even the creation is of such an order, we see that we must have, and do have, a greater savior.  When we fix our eyes on Him, knowing that, like the apple, the world will be nothing at all, we have found the greatest treasure, one that moth will not eat, and thieves can never break in and steal.