ZION B-BC NEWSLETTER. [ A Publication of the Zion Faith Bible-Believing Church, Kpeyegyi, Abuja.] Vol.7. 29-09-13. Punishment Is Kept In Store For The Wicked! During the last week, some insurgents in Pakistan, invaded a church congregation and bombed about sixty-eight persons out of existence and without remorse posted the dastard act on internet. Similarly in Kenya, another group stormed a Shopping Mall and killed over three scores of people from different nationalities. All over the world similar heinous crimes are being committed on daily basis while it seems the villains are getting away! Let us encourage ourselves that no sinner will ever go unpunished. The Word of God says, “Don’t be misled; remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it; a man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows! If he sows to please his own wrong desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and he will surely reap a harvest of spiritual decay and death; but if he plants the good things of the Spirit, he will reap the everlasting life which the Holy Spirit gives him.”[Gal.6:7-8; Living Bible, Paraphrased]. Is God too kind to punish sinners? No! “God is a judge who is perfectly fair and He is angry with the wicked every day. Unless they repent, He will sharpen his sword and slay them. He has bent and strung his bow and fitted it with deadly arrows made from shafts of fire. The wicked man conceives an evil plot, labours with its dark details, and brings to birth its treachery and lies; let him fall into his own trap. May the violence he plans for others boomerang upon himself; let him die.”[Ps.7:11-16; Living Bible]. Prophet Micah, in Chapter Six, verse 8, King James Bible, says,”….He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God?” No one is ignorant of sin. All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God; and definitely, the wages of sin is death. Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire which conceived gives birth to sin, and when fully grown, results in death. Beloved, God is no respecter of persons; all those who have killed by swords, guns, bombs, arsons, gang rapes, murders, armed robberies etc. if not apprehended and punished on earth will not escape God’s ultimate judgment; for if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment, He will definitely not spare them! [2Pet. 2:4]. I have heard some people refute the second-coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the day of judgment, known in scripture as, ‘Day of Vengeance of the Lord’, vehemently in ignorance, but the truth is that, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”[2Pet.3:9-14; compare, 2Thess.1:6-10]. In other words, the al Quaeda, al Shabab, the Boko Haram terrorists and the Tuareg rebels of this world, according to God’s sovereign will, still have the opportunity of salvation provided they repent; but it is clear that many will not be saved! [Rev. 21:8]. The wicked people did not attain their evil status right from birth, but passed through a gradual process of ungodly parenting, peer group pressures, untenable government policies, coupled with mal-administration, deprivation of basic amenities of life, unemployment and the constant provocation, intimidation and subtle invitation to vanity, by the looters of the commonwealth, who flaunt ill-gotten riches and wealth with reckless abandon, in the society. Daily statistics of universal crimes and criminalities can be reduced to the barest minimum with the concerted efforts of all nations through the election of credible leaders who would harness the latent human capital resource of the youths, and channel them to positive ventures that would upgrade the sanctity of life and terminate restiveness. The army of unemployed youths, literate and illiterate, in any nation can be likened to a time-bomb waiting to be detonated. An adage states that, ‘an idle mind is the devil’s workshop.’ To correct this dangerous trend of societal imbalance, all God-fearing and visionary elder citizens, are hereby challenged to train their wards and the youths in the way of the Lord and simultaneously demand for righteousness, uprightness probity and accountability at all levels of government activities as a starting point and handing over the entire issue into the hands of the Holy Spirit, who will take absolute control of this precarious situation. Amen. Please look forward to more divine revelation in the next episode of the Zion B-BC Newsletter. Iam, Yours sincerely,Dr. David B.A. Olufon, Resident Pastor and Editor.08058436756 08098194390.g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com