Man was created by God in the beginning as a perfect, sinless being. The first man Adam and his wife Eve both walked and communicated intimately with God in the garden of Eden, located in the middle eastern area near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Satan and his evil spirits, though, having rebelled and being cast down to the earth, tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God. They were told by God that they could eat of the fruit on any tree in the garden of Eden, except for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because they would eventually die. Satan, in the form of a serpent, came into the garden and told them they would not die if they ate the fruit, but instead would become as God and be able to know what God know.

From the beginning, Satan lied to Adam and Eve, and he has been doing so ever since. Today, he is still deceiving mankind, but not in the form of a serpent. He and his minions are unseen principality spirits, rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness - more commonly known as demonic forces. As we know, Adam and Eve believed the deception of the serpent Satan, and disobeyed God by eating of the fruit of the tree. This was the "original" or first sin - disobeying God's divine command. Had this not happened, man would still be living in perpetual paradise without aging, without sickness, without child-bearing pain, without death, without harsh weather, etc. All these things can be understood by reading the first few chapters of Genesis. From this point on, God had an elaborate, divine plan to provide a sacrifice and recompense for the sin each man is born into, so they could avoid eternal separation from him.

So with Adam, sin or disobedience of God entered the world. Satan gained a foothold from then on, and since Adam and Eve, every single human being born has been born into sin. The world since Adam until Noah became so utterly sinful that God said he wished he had never created man. God raised up Noah and his family, because they were righteous, and destroyed all life on earth with a worldwide flood that lasted forty days and nights. Noah and his family, though, were still born into sin as was everyone since Adam, but God allowed them to survive and repopulate the earth. This they did, and there was a dispersion of humanity from the tower of Babel built in modern-day Iraq that moved mankind from the middle eastern area into the other parts of the earth.

The Lord desired to raise up a group of people that would worship and obey him, and if they did, he would bless them and their land while they were on the earth. To accomplish this, God made a covenant with Abraham, who was the first Jew, who were also known as Hebrews. In this covenant, the Lord made many promises to the Jews, one of which was "the Promised Land", an area where the Hebrews would settle, live for God and have a land that was sovereign to them for eternity. Through these Jewish people, God would eventually send his only Son to the earth. One of the Hebrew kings, named David, was to be the seed from which Jesus Christ would originate.

Part of the covenant with the Hebrews required them to make sacrifices of bulls, goats and lambs on the altar of their temple for the sins of the Israelites. Remember that the original sinners were Adam and Eve, and God, through the Hebrews, provided a way to fellowship with him, and have their sins forgiven. Over the years, the Hebrews disobeyed God's commands and were taken into captivity many times, out of their Promised Land, Israel. Part of God's divine plan was to send a Messiah to once and for all put an end to the sacrificial blood offerings for their sins. In order to accomplish this, God sent his Son to be a perfect, sinless Lamb just as the lambs for sacrifice in the temple were. God's Son was prophesied in advance for many years by Hebrew prophets, and the Jews were told to look for this man. He would be their Messiah, would be killed, and would rise from the dead.

Jesus was conceived by the Spirit of God inside Mary, a chosen and blessed woman, and he was born in Bethlehem just as the prophets foretold. During Jesus' ministry on earth, he chose disciples who followed him in his ministry, learning his doctrine and witnessing his miracles. Most of the Jews, however, rejected the message of Jesus, and were so blind that they didn't realize that the prophesied Messiah was actually living and breathing before them. The Jews sent Jesus to a brutal death on a cross of wood, a gruesome crucifixion that paid the price for all the sin of mankind.

After Jesus' death and burial, he was miraculously raised from the death three days later by the power of God Almighty. This is the foundation of the Christian church, and Jesus told his disciples that he was going to heaven to prepare a place for those that choose to believe in him. But he promised that he would come back a second time to the earth, this time to execute judgment on those people on the earth who refuse to accept his death and resurrection. Until then, the mission of the disciples was to spread the good news about Jesus Christ to everyone everywhere...good news that a man came to earth and freely gave his life so that everyone who simply believes in him can have eternal life! The old covenant was done away with, and better covenant with better promises was brought by Jesus Christ. In the Bible, Hebrews 9:15 says it like this:

What follows is a summary of the message the disciples were to tell everyone:

So, the message of his disciples, which has carried on even until today, is that you have a choice to make. We all must make a simple choice to accept God's sacrifice of love for our sins, or to reject it. Acceptance means an eternity in heaven in the presence of the one who created you and everything around you. Rejection means eternal separation from him, because no sin is allowed to enter his presence. In fact, this eternal separation will be in hell, a place that God designed ONLY to punish Satan and the angels who followed him in his rebellion. Hell is a place of fire and torment that is difficult to imagine, but was never intended for human beings. Unfortunately, Satan, an eternal being, has continued to lie to mankind throughout history, and many souls have been lost forever in this place of torment.

Let's think about eternity. Close your eyes and imagine hell, a place of fire, flame and torment. Then imagine yourself there, trapped in a sea of burning lava, your body burning but you are not dying. Thoughts are swimming through your mind, like "Why didn't I simply accept Jesus when I had the chance?!" Place your finger over a flame, and feel the pain when you leave it there for just a few seconds. Now, imagine your entire body engulfed in flames for a full hour, then a full day. Realize as this is going on that there is NO escape....there is no dry land or water to get to in this place...only fire and lava in all four directions. Then try to fathom that you must stay there, trapped and burning with tormenting thoughts for an entire year, for one hundred years, for ten thousand years, for one million years, for one hundred billion years. When that one hundred billion years is over, realize that eternity has not yet begun. In fact, if one million more periods of one hundred billion years pass, eternity still has not even yet begun. Time is not a factor in eternity, you must realize, it is a never-ending phenomenon. As your mind is desperately trying to comprehend how long this is, you are probably finding that this is impossible to imagine. Yet it is true, and it will happen to all those who do not accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

This eternity of hellfire and torment can be avoided if you will simply ask God to forgive your sins, change you, and help you to start living a sinless life in his presence and with his many blessings. Salvation from sins is not just "fire insurance" with an eternity in heaven. While we yet live our lives on earth, Jesus promised his believers many temporal blessings. He has left with us his Spirit he called "The Comforter", who will guide us when we earnestly pray and seek to know God through a personal relationship with him. When we do this, Jesus promised he would bless and protect us. God desires a relationship with you, with everyone, through prayer and reading his words. He said he would send his Spirit to comfort us and to guide our actions if we live according to his teaching.

God's plan was to raise up a new nation of believers, his "called-out ones" or church. The called-out ones are simply a body of believers who have all accepted Christ's sacrifice for this sins and are living according to his words. Unfortuately, there have been many divisions of this "church" since Christ left the earth, and each division has adopted their own belief system based on different interpretations of the Word of God. Many of these divisions believe that you are saved by good works, or by other gods or methods. However, this is in contradiction with God's stated plan, that you are saved by his grace, through your faith, by belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Any good works you do AFTER this will add to your rewards in heaven, but good works without salvation is not enough.

Think again about an eternity in hellfire again...forever and ever, torment that never ends. This is not your destiny. If you are reading this and have never come to salvation of your sins through Jesus Christ, you will be held accountable for your decision today, either to accept the message or reject it.