Betrayed by a Friend

https://www.biblestudytools.com/nkjv

What would be more heartbreaking than being betrayed by someone you regularly had coffee with? Let’s take that one step further and say it was someone you were so close to you that you frequently had them over for a meal or just hung out together. Then to have someone like that say bitter words against you or even show cruelty in one way or another would be quite devastating. My heart clenched this morning when I read that is exactly what happened to a dear friend of mine.

My friend knew it was coming but didn’t get vindictive or rude. In fact, he forgave him but I still feel bad about it. My friend’s name is Jesus. Have you heard of him? He was betrayed to the authorities for a crime he was not guilty of by a friend, a friend!  I hope I never do something like that.  Mark 12:20

I Can't Die! I Won't Die!

I hope you have the time or will take the time to read this to the very end because it has a surprise ending.  I do not know the name of the main character in this true story, so for simplicity sake will call her Melissa. Melissa was like many of us in that she went to church and enjoyed the social and spiritual aspects of it, but she didn't think the Bible needed to be taken literally when it spoke of being separate from the world in word and action.  1John 2: 15-17,  Romans 12:2. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/She would occasionally make fun of more conservative Christians and went on her merry way. Although she endured a slow and lingering death, cancer perhaps, she rejoiced in the assurance of being swept up to Heaven immediately after departing this life.

Now I will quote directly from this ancient book Dying Testimonies of Saved and Unsaved: https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Testimonies-Saved-Unsaved-Shaw/dp/1933304324
"respiration grew shorter and shorter and at last ceased and they deemed the spirit already in the embrace of blissful messengers who were winging it to paradise. A fearful shriek! and in a moment they beheld her that they had looked upon as the departed sitting upright before them with every feature distorted.
"Horror and disappointment had transformed that placid countenance so that it exhibited an expression indescribable fiendish. "I can't die," she shrieked, "I won't die!"

Her pastor walked in just then and she screamed, "Out of the door, thou deceiver of men!"
Then died.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven. Matthew 7:21https://www.biblegateway.com/passage

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