A great Article by Ron Graham

That None Should Perish
By Ron Graham

“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” Ezekiel 18:23. Are you wondering why Jesus is tarrying and not retuning right now for His Church? The answer is stated above by God Himself. God takes no pleasure in knowing the wicked perish.

God knows who will come to a saving relationship with His Son Jesus and who won’t. Each day that passes is another day that someone becomes a new creation in Christ and will join the rest of us in the Rapture. You and I can’t see all those who are being saved on a daily basis, but know this, not one day passes that there isn’t rejoicing in Heaven because someone has accepted Christ as their savior.

Think back, if you will, to the day you were saved, I’m sure most of us who are born again can remember that exact day. Now go back one more day, what if the Lord would have come for His Church on that day? Where would you be right now? I’ve often asked myself that same question whenever I sit and ponder why He tarries. It’s humbling to come to the correct conclusion of just why Jesus hasn’t returned yet. There are still those who will be saved, and thank God for that.

I have many family members and friends, as I’m sure many reading this commentary have who still need to come to the truth of the Gospel of Christ. My prayer is that all of those I’ve mentioned would be saved before it’s too late, but I know there’s a time coming in the very near future when God will not allow any more time to pass. That’s a sad thing to contemplate when we know so many aren’t ready. We rejoice in the fact that the Rapture of the Church can happen at any moment, but what about all those who have continued to reject Christ to that point?

“For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” Romans 11:25. Although we don’t know how long it will take for this complete fullness to occur, all the signs point to it happening very soon now. God alone knows who those individuals are who will make a profession of faith in Christ before it’s too late. Perhaps the next person you approach with the Gospel of Christ will be that last person God is waiting for. We should all appreciate the fact that there is an exact number of people who will be saved before Jesus Christ pulls His Church out of harm’s way, and only God knows that number.

“Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water,” 1Peter 3:20. God waited 120 years after telling Noah to build the Ark for that evil generation of people to repent. We know, historically, God sent the flood to destroy them. Why? His patience had run out. Only eight people were spared the calamity that befell earth.

God gave the Assyrians four-hundred years to repent; He stayed His mighty hand and allowed Israel to become slaves under Egyptian rule. Alas no repentance from the Assyrians was forth coming so God finally freed the Israelites and instructed them to take the land of the Assyrians and put them to death. Israel, by disobeying God and not wiping out the Assyrians, were given a “thorn in the flesh” as the Assyrians continually harassed and warred against them.

God sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn them of the coming wrath of God. They repented and God stayed His mighty hand. In time Nineveh returned to the evil it once embraced and God finally followed through with His promise and wiped out that once great city.

We know that the Israelites were time and again disobedient to God, and God chastised them for their disobedience. They would return to fellowship with God for a while but only to fall back into their old wicked ways and down would come the hammer again. “The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked,” Nahum 1:3. The Israelites are Gods chosen people, the apple of His eye, but they too are running out of time.

Through all this rebellion it’s obvious God is longsuffering, and patient. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9.

Old Testament or New our God is always the same, and He’s patently waiting to accept His Children into His Kingdom. But one day that patience will run out, and then the Church will be raptured. Left behind will be all those who tried God’s patience to the furthest extreme, basically pushing the envelope just a mite too far.

Life doesn’t need to end that way for anyone. But there needs to be a change in people’s hearts, a change of mind and of direction for those who are perishing. Today we see coldness in the hearts of many in our society. The uncaring, unfeeling people with one intent in mind–it’s the pursuit for that gold cup of wealth and prosperity to the exclusion of all else. Why is it so very important to obtain so much wealth that we can’t begin to spend it, just to leave it behind when we die? God on the other hand is waiting for us to lose interest in earthly riches and pursue the riches that can only be spent in Heaven. Where is your treasure?

Jesus is waiting for everyone who is procrastinating to come to that point where they turn from the love of self, riches, and fame, and turn to the love of God. How long will He wait? Those who have made it their purpose in life to disparage God’s word, or to completely disregard the warnings of their pending destruction are increasingly playing with fire, the Lake of Fire that is. People have turned their backs on God to live a life of debauchery, fornication, homosexuality, greed, hate, malice, you name it. If it isn’t something God’s word promotes as righteousness then it is an abomination to God. Yet He’s patient to wait for those who seem to be stuck in these lifestyles to come out and begin a new life in Christ.

It’s a scary thought to think of anyone going to Hell. Family members who have come to the erroneous conclusion that there is no God, or that they have been basically good all their lives and so God won’t send them to Hell, heard this lie perpetuated by those who follow Satan himself, and they’ve fallen for it. I know many in my family are living under that same delusion. What a burden this places on the hearts of believers. God’s waiting because He doesn’t wish that any should perish. But how long will He wait?

God is patient and longsuffering, we understand that, but at some point we must also realize He will have had enough. He’s shown us many times through His favored nation, Israel, as well as the other nations that I mentioned previously, that He can and will run out of patience. What will that mean to those who haven’t put their faith and trust in His only begotten Son? For the majority of those individuals left on planet earth to cope, there will be utter destruction as a finale. A few will come to repentance and believe, but most certainly Satan will get the lion’s share.

When we read that God wants none to perish we must realize that it’s not His decision to send anyone to Hell. That decision lies in the laps of each individual on the face of this planet. So many have cursed God because they believe He’s at fault, that He damns people to Hell, that He is unloving and unfeeling. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. That scripture verse doesn’t sound unloving or unfeeling to me, but full of love, God’s love which transcends all love.

God loves everyone in the world, not just those who are already saved. We humans are at fault for our disobedience to God and consequently at risk of eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire. The world blames God for every little stubbed toe, not realizing that it’s God who holds the universe in the palm of His hand. The world portrays God in an erroneous way, and people must come to understand that the world’s view is not correct, and the sooner the better. The sooner the change of mind (repentance) happens, the result will be everlasting. After all tomorrow may be too late.

I know many have a very difficult time believing in a God who has created a place like Hell, but God didn’t create Hell for human kind. God created Hell for Satan and all the fallen angels that rebelled against God. They have no choice where they will spend eternity, but we have. God makes it clear that we must make the correct choice. It takes a little thought, it takes a little understanding, and it takes a heart changed for God. All one must do to be saved is “that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” John 6:29.

The Greek word pisteuo, which is translated “believe” in English, is used in the Gospel of John ninety-nine times. Believing in the One God sent is the only prerequisite for salvation. People have had access to the English Bible for some four-hundred years now. There is no reason except for unbelief and disobedience, that anyone still living should reject the truth of the scriptures. “And He marveled because of their unbelief,” Mark 6:6. Unbelief is a difficult thing to comprehend, even so, quite prevalent in all societies today.

Where do you stand? If you’re a born again believer in Christ that’s wonderful, praise God! But wait just a minute, where do your family members and your friends stand? God won’t wait forever.

God bless you all,

Ron Graham

Happy New Year

Sorry I did not post anything in December. I was compelled to take the month off for health and other more pressing reasons. Thanksgiving day a dear friend was taken to the hospital and within just days was diagnosed with liver cancer and died a couple of days after Christmas. It was so sudden and unexpected that we all are still reeling from the shock of it. It was a wake-up call, though. Life is fragile and can end at any moment. We never expect when we say "see you later," that it may be the last time we ever say it on this earth. I was not able to go home to the U.S. because I had just gotten out of the hospital from yet another major surgery and was unable to travel. I have been trekking back and forth to the hospital every other day for the last month and it will be another week before I am released. I was able to go to church on Sunday for the first time in a month. I went grocery shopping a few days ago also. I am definitely on the mend. The ladies did the cooking for us for a couple of weeks and Tom and I appreciated that very much.

Our pastor and wife will be here on January 13th for 10 days and we are looking forward to seeing them. Alex Coats will be leaving us on the 12th and we so are sorry for that. He has been a real help and blessing to us here in Thailand for the last 3 months. Anne, Carolyn and Pookie are all doing well and working hard. They are a real blessing to us.

I want to thank all of you who have prayed for us and for the many Christmas cards and letters of encouragement that we received. We miss you all very much. Speaking of Christmas. We had a very non-traditional holiday. We didn't exchange any gifts and for Christmas dinner we had hamburgers, potato salad, baked beans and other picnic foods. It sounds really weird, but it was a wonderful, stress-free time and all of us enjoyed it very much. It was so different from the hassle that Christmastime usually is. I liked it so much I may do it again next year. Last year Tom and I had Christmas in November, while our daughter and 2 of our grandkids were here. Christmas has never been "traditional" in the American sense of the word for Tom and our family anyway. We have it when we are together, whenever that happens to be. One year it was in January. That was a great time to buy gifts because everything was on major sale.

Now that I am feeling better, I will try to keep everyone posted on what is happening in my world. Do pray for us. Getting old is not for sissies.

Wonderful Thanksgiving

Yes, we had a beautiful day. We had a meal with all the trimmings for the 13 of us who are here. After the meal which started around 4:30 PM, we had singing, testimonies and preaching. It turned out to be a wonderful day to remember how much we all have to be thankful for. In these troubled times, I am thankful that God is still in charge of the universe and that we have no need to worry o'er the future.

It is hard to compare today to how it was back in the 50's when we grew up. Things were so much saner and safer back then. Today it is not even safe for children to play outside without total supervision. Being out after dark used to be the time to catch fireflies and put them in a jar and keep them until the next night and let them go. Now it's not safe to be outside after dark. Our children, who have grown up in this very dangerous environment, have missed so much. On the street where I live in Texas, children are never seen out riding bikes or playing. Kids go home from school, go inside their houses and you never see them at all. There were 7 registered sex offenders living within one mile of my house last year. And our home is in a nice neighborhood, not a crime ridden slum. Our country has certainly come a long way from God, morality and honesty.

What I am most thankful for is the fact that one day the King of Kings is coming to take us to our real home. It will be safe there. No sin, misery or calamity will we ever experience again. But while we are still here on earth, it will be interesting to watch God work His plan. All we have to do is remain faithful and He will take care of the rest.

Thanks to Beth

Yesterday the group from Jeff's church, Fargo Baptist Church left. It is always a very strange feeling when you get used to having people around and then all of a sudden, they are just GONE! So today has been very quiet. Beth Skeving spent her last full day here in Thailand in our office teaching all of our staff Photoshop. The things she taught us were so valuable. Thank you, Beth for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us. I know that the things you taught us will be put to use right away and for the future also.

While the group was here, passing out tracts, our office staff worked our regular publishing jobs. We usually had the evening meal together and sometimes breakfast too. The group worked very hard and never complained. They distributed over 100,000 tracts while they were here. We appreciate their sacrifice of time and finances to come over here and do what they could to get the Gospel out.

Our staff has been very busy this week getting the Arabic translation of the the book "Good and Evil" ready to go to press. It was the most difficult book that we have worked on so far. Because Arabic reads right to left and not left to right, all the artwork had to be swapped backwards. This caused some real problems, and finally, again with Beth Skeving's help, we were able to swap all the graphics around and erase all the words that were spelled backwards, etc, etc. The Mongolian translation is hopefully finished. It cost $100 US dollars to mail one DVD to Mongolia, so we really hope that we won't have to send another. Shipping from Thailand to anywhere in the world costs a fortune, but $100 for one DVD really put us into serious shock.

Almost the whole team here has been sick with one thing or another for a couple of weeks. I just got over one thing when something respiratory hit. Carolyn, Tom and I passed that around and we all finally got over it, but in the process, Carolyn and I both missed a whole week of work. That really puts a strain on the ministry here to have 2 people down at the same time, but it wasn't just us. When we went to the medical center for Carolyn, the whole waiting room was literally full of people with the same hacking cough that we had. We are all on the mend now and are back at work.

The cool season in Thailand has finally arrived. It is a real blessing to not have to run the air conditioners all day everyday. For the next 3 months, we will be delivered from the oppressive heat and for that I am very thankful.

I want to thank Anne, Carolyn, and Pookie for allowing 5 ladies to live with them for 2 weeks. It was crowded in their little townhouse and I really appreciate their willingness to share what accommodations they had with the group from Fargo.

Mongolian Good and Evil

Well, we hope that today was a momentous day in our personal history. We think we finished the Mongolian translation of the book "Good and Evil." I say "hope" and "think" because until the final proofing is done and the book is printed, there is always the possibility or even the probability that there will need to be additional corrections before the book is printed. However, we have been working on this project for many months now and we are really ready to see it in print. Pray with us that it is ready to start rolling off the presses.

Tom and Alex are coming home tonight from the Burmese border after meeting with several translators who are working on various projects. Tom and I are spread pretty thin, so we are so very grateful for the folks who are volunteering their time and skills to help us over here. Alex is from Maryland, Anne is from Pennsylvania, and Carolyn is from Tennessee and all of them are doing a wonderful job helping us with the many projects that are before us. We also have 3 Thai employees that are worth their weight in gold. They all consider their work ministry, and they work very hard.

Right now almost the whole team is in varying stages of sickness. We had to take Carolyn to the medical center today. The doctor gave her an intravenous (directly into the vein) shot of a strong antibiotic and a steroid for her lungs. Tom, Pook, Carolyn, and I have all had crud and today Anne started feeling sick too. So far, Alex, Nakon, and Bunga have escaped. Please pray that they don't catch whatever this is that is knocking us all down over here. The medical center was full today, and it seemed like everybody had the same cough.

One blessing is that cool season is beginning. Today, I went the whole day without air conditioning. It is so nice to be able to leave the doors and windows open and breath the semi-fresh air. No air within 50 miles of Bangkok is really fresh, but well, you know, you have to take what you can get.

One really funny thing today. The taxi driver who brought us home from the medical center spoke absolutely NO English and I think he only had about 5 teeth, none of them in the front. He kept talking and gesturing and having a meltdown because we didn't speak Thai. It was very funny to watch. I pointed and gestured and he gestured and talked incessantly. I thought I was going to have to beat him over the head to keep him headed the right direction, but we did make it home.

Friends?!?!?

Here are some of our "little" buddies who live here in Thailand with us. One just like this and about this size took up residence in my house when we were gone for a few days a couple of months back. To give you some idea of the size, the tiles in the photo are 1 foot square. Lizzie is about 2 feet long and smells like sewer water. She is a type of water monitor which live around here. Last year a 4 footer was walking down the middle of the street headed to the canal near us. The dogs were going nuts barking, but none of them would go near. They bite and the filth from their mouth can cause life-threatening infection.

Wonderful Saturday

Another blessed, wonderful Saturday is coming to a close. Today was a great day for Tom. He got all the computers tweaked just right and everything is ship-shape in that department and the new server is online and doing it's thing. I am not quite positive what that thing is, but it has to do with keeping everything we're doing over here backed up automatically. Almost everything done here is done electronically, so backups are very important. My day went well also. I was able to rest, relax, read, and write. A perfect day.

The first thing I do tomorrow morning before we go to church is cook 70 eggs. It's not as difficult as it sounds. Two 35 egg omeletts with ham and cheese takes about an hour and 15 minutes from start to finish. Fifteen minutes to break all the eggs and add the ham and cheese and then an hour to cook it. There is a group of 20 people coming to help Jeff from his church in North Dakota. They arrive in the middle of the night as usual. Breakfast is planned for 8:00 AM. I hope they don't fall asleep face down in the eggs!! If they can stay awake long enough, they can fall asleep in their lunch meal which will be at the mall. Good entertainment for the Thai folks watching. There are 10 women and 10 men. Five of the women are staying with my girls and 5 at Jeff and Theresa's house. The guys will stay at what we all refer to as the "Cage." It is a 5 storey shophouse that we rent to store the literature. The 4th floor has been set up for male guest quarters. That's because no sane woman would stay there. It is mostly "rustic." You may define that for yourself. Those of you who have seen it know what its like. In a word, well, there isn't a word I can think of that would describe it properly. BUT--and this is VERY important, it IS air conditioned. This makes up for all the other less than ideal aspects of the place. It has two bathrooms, if you count the one that is cracked off of the back of the building downstairs. I personally don't count that one since I refuse to even set one foot inside. Too scary. However, the men may use it, you never know about men. Jeff at first mentioned putting the 10 ladies in there to share the ONE half way decent bathroom. I couldn't stop laughing-- hysterically. Ten women--one bathroom. Not a great plan. So I volunteered the girl's house and our 4 bathrooms. Tom nixed loaning his bathroom; he is very territorial about his bathroom. So, they are now divided up with 5 girls sharing 3 bathrooms at our place and the other 5 girls sharing 2 bathrooms at Theresa's house. So the guys have the dump, excuse me, I mean the "Cage," sharing one or two bathrooms depending on how brave they are or hygienic they desire to be. I will keep you posted on the progress of the "Bangkok Blitz" which is what Jeff is calling his campaign and on what the girls, Tom and I are doing in the office as well. The group will be traveling, but we will be here in the office, so feel free to e-mail us.