LOWER

   LIGHTS

  Alan Jones, Editor

  (734) 942-7956

A few years ago, while I was living in Kentucky, I bought a cordless phone. The reason that I bought that particular phone was because of the $5 rebate that came with it. This rebate made the phone cheaper than the other phones that were comparable to it.

I placed the rebate claim form on my desk where it soon found itself buried and lost. One day when I was cleaning my desk I found it and I decided that I would mail it in. As I picked up the claim form, I noticed written in bold capital letters- "IMPORTANT- TO QUALIFY FOR THIS REBATE YOU MUST:"- so I read the conditions. I needed my original sales receipt. Amazingly enough I had already found it. The receipt and the claim form were still together on my desk. But, I discovered that I had to have the UPC from the box in order to get the rebate. I figured the box had been thrown away and so I stopped preparing the claim form.

Later, to my surprise, I found the box and cut out the UPC. I laid it with the claim form and my receipt on my desk. "I’ll get it out later", I said to myself. "I have until the end of April to get it in." Once again the desk swallowed my paperwork. I found it again on April 28^th (a Friday) and, thinking it was not too late, I started to prepare it. But, on close examination, I found that all claims must be received by April 30^th (a Sunday). The form had to reach Michigan by the deadline and so I was sunk. Instead of a rebate, all I had left was an illustration.

We can understand that my rebate claim would have been rejected without a receipt and a UPC, or if it had been received on or after May 1^st. All conditions of an offer must be met in

order to receive what is promised. God has offered man salvation through the blood of His Son Jesus (Col 1:19-22). This offer is conditional, however. And, it is unreasonable to believe that God will give us the salvation that He has promised if we have not qualified for it by meeting all of His terms.

Many go through life ignorant of what God’s conditions are because they have not read the terms, they have misread them, or they have been deceived about them. God lays down these conditions in order to be saved from sin: (read them for yourself!)

1. Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (John 8:24)

2. Confess your believe in Jesus with the mouth (Romans 10:9-10)

3. Repent of your sins (Luke 13:3)

4. Be baptized (immersed) in water to wash your sins away (Acts 22:16)

Which of these conditions can be left out and the blessing of salvation still received? None of them. Many would say baptism. But it is no more possible to be saved without baptism than it is to receive a rebate without a UPC if it is required.

The saddest story will be told about those who understood the conditions of salvation, but put it off until the deadline of death (Heb 9:27) or the com-ing of Jesus (1 Thess 5:1-10) made it impossible to take advantage of the offer. Knocking on the door of heaven after the deadline will do the same amount of good as my turning the rebate form on May 1^st. It will be too late. The offer of salvation has expired! (Mt 25:10-13). Won’t you meet God’s terms and qualify for salvation before it’s too late?!!

SEEING GOD IN A WATERMELON

"Once, when I was going to Columbus, Ohio, I stopped to eat in a restaurant and ordered a slice of watermelon. I took the seeds home with me to plant in my garden.

That night a thought came to my mind. How many watermelon seeds would it take to make a pound. The next day I weighed them and found that it would take about 5,000 dried seeds.

A few weeks later, I planted just one of the little seeds. Under the influence of sunshine and shower, that little seed had taken off its coat and gone to work. It gathered from somewhere two hundred thousand times its own weight and forced enormous weight through a tiny stem and built a watermelon. On the outside it has a covering of green and within that rind of white and within that a core of red; and then it had scattered through the red many little seeds, each one capable of doing the same work over and over again.