BROTHER, SISTER, PREACHER, PASTOR!!! What type of message would you preach if you were preaching to future martyrs or persecuted Christians. Would it be soft and nice with lots of fuzzy promises of a wonderful life here on earth with all they could ever ask for, never telling them the truth of all Jesus asks of them to be His true disciple, never confronting their sin, hypocrisy or lukewarmness? Are you preaching with any type of fire the full counsel of the word of God so as to burn into the heart of the people the real truth about God to make sure if they would die today they would have a heart prepared to meet God? Christian will you be able to say what Paul said when you stand before God at the Judgment Seat of Christ?
Acts 20: 25 NKJV “And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. 27 For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.
Hard stuff? Yes! It has to be said this hard truth because the time will come when we might be or those we are preaching to might be confronted with the decision, live and renounce God or die and stay with Jesus. What will we all stand on then? The TRUTH OF THE WORD OF GOD AND OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS or sinking sand and eternal damnation?
2 Timothy 2:12 NKJV If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us.
Titus 1:16 NKJV They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
Today so many Christian’s or maybe I should say church goers can’t even stand in the face of a little office, family or school mate persecution. Many are constantly falling into sin and living a yo yo life of up and down and in and out with God, denying Him with their lifestyle. This should not be so.
Romans 1:16 NKJV For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
Romans 2:4 CEV You surely don't think much of God's wonderful goodness or of his patience and willingness to put up with you. Don't you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him?
Yes, the good news of what Jesus Christ did for all of humanity is good and yes even great news. But how can you give good new to the lost accept they are shown they are lost and damned to hell by the wrath of God? It is no different than telling a person that you have a cure for cancer when they didn’t even think they had it. Good news yes but not really relevant. Then you have the person that has been told they have cancer and then you tell then you have a cure. Bad news first making the good news very relevant and personal. Why should a sinner who of which many are enjoying their sin for a season turn away for it and receive Jesus? Why? To escape the wrath to come. This message worked for Jesus and His disciples. This full and complete good new message worked to convict sinners in the 17 and 1800’s through John Wesley, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney and the few who are preaching the fullness of the true gospel message today. Why has there been no real church growth in decades in the American and western world church? Any growth in most churches today is transfer growth which means people leaving other churches and going to new ones. Why no real growth and the stats prove it? So few true conversions of sinners repenting and being saved from the wrath to come. They say a prayer after maybe shedding some tears but can you find them in a month still in church following hard after Jesus being discipled? I can tell you as I only boast in God’s power to save. I was the first one in the parking lot when I was first saved even beating the pastor there. Nothing could keep me out of Church. I wanted God and to learn as much as I could about Him. Now I know there are the few who are preaching the full truth and are making disciples as I am speaking to the church worldwide. These I am not talking to.
Listen to what Oswald J Smith said in his book ""The Revival We Need" written in the 1920's but is still representative of what is mostly preached today in the 21st Century Church.
In the modern campaign the evangelist calls upon people to accept Christ, and rightly so. But oh, that we could hear sinners calling upon Christ to accept them! People take salvation today in such a cold, formal, matter-of-fact, business-like sort of way, that it appears as though they are doing God an honor in condescending to receive His offer of Redemption. Their eyes are dry, their sense of sin absent; nor is there any sign of penitence and contrition. They look upon it as a manly thing to do. But oh, if there were conviction! if they came with hearts bowed down, yea! broken and contrite, came with the cry of the guilt-laden soul: "God be merciful to me a sinner!"--came trembling with the burning life and death question of the Philippian jailor: "What must I do to be saved ?"--what converts they would be! But in our Twentieth Century Evangelism such is not the case. Men are urged to be saved before they know they are lost, to believe without being convicted of their need. The fruit is picked before it is ripe, and of course the work is bound to come undone. If we are to get Holy Spirit Fruit, God must prepare the ground, the Holy Spirit must convict of sin before men can truly believe. It is right to tell people to believe when God has done His work in their hearts, but first they must feel their need. Let us wait until the Spirit of God has done His part before we say: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Let us first see the signs of conviction as in the case of the Philippian jailor. And when their anguish is so deep that they are forced to cry aloud: "What must I do to be saved ?" then we will know that they are ready to be exhorted to trust and exercise faith in Christ, but not until then. "There is
another Gospel, too popular in the present day, which seems to exclude
conviction of sin and repentance from the scheme of Salvation; which demands from the sinner a mere intellectual assent to the fact of his guilt and sinfulness,
and a like intellectual assent to the fact and sufficiency of Christ's atonement; and such assent yielded, tells him to go in peace, and to he happy in the assurance that the Lord Jesus has made all right between his soul and God; thus crying peace, peace, when there is no peace. "Flimsy and false conversions of this sort may be one reason why so many who assume the Christian profession dishonor God and bring reproach on the church by their inconsistent lives, and by their ultimate relapse into worldliness and sin. The whole counsel of God must be declared. 'By the law is the knowledge of sin.' Sin must be felt before it can be mourned. Sinners must sorrow before they can be comforted. True conversions are the great want of the times. Conversions such as were common once, and shall be again, when the church shakes off her lethargy, takes hold upon God's strength, and brings down the ancient power. Then, as of old, sinners will quail before the terror of the Lord."--J. H. Lord.
I suggest every preacher read this book as well as "Passion For Souls" if you can find a copy. "The Revival We Need" http://www.gospeltruth.net/OJSmith/revival_we_needch5.htm
2 Timothy 3:1 NLT You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. 5 They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that! 6 They are the kind who work their way into people’s homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires. 7 (Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.) 8 These teachers oppose the truth just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses. They have depraved minds and a counterfeit faith. 9 But they won’t get away with this for long. Someday everyone will recognize what fools they are, just as with Jannes and Jambres.
2 Timothy 4:1 NLT I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he appears to set up his Kingdom: 2 Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. 3 For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will reject the truth and chase after myths.
These are the last days at least the beginning of the last days. If you would open your eyes you would see this happening all over the world. It might very well be
the reason most of the church has no power and witness to the lost. Especially in the US where I live the Church has almost no voice or any influence in our nation even though this nation was founded by Christians and for God. I heard a well known prophet say recently that the evening news and the cable news networks are the churches report card.
Have we compromised so much the of truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that there is very little difference between us and secular humanity today? Yes, I said us. I am a part of the Body and if I don’t come with the answer to the problem then I am also a part of the problem. I am judging myself least I be judged.
1 Corinthians 11:31 NKJV For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged
1 Corinthians 5:12 NKJV For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”
2 Timothy 3:16 NKJV All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
I am not being critical but truthful and making a righteous judgment and only with the Body of Christ. This is not unto commendation but to bring correction with the word of God for our good and the good of lost humanity. My heart is to see all soundly saved, serving Jesus Christ as Lord, bearing the fruit of the Spirit, walking in holiness while being a Godly witness to all those around them.
We must preach the fullness of the truth of whole counsel of God or stand before God and be judged for all those that weren't saved or fell away because of our weak message and half truths. Are you innocent of the blood of all those who are
lost that you have preached to because you have told them the whole truth about what God is really like in the fullness of His deep love and His horrible wrath?
Are you innocent of the blood of all those who are church goers and Christians telling them what a real disciple looks like and all Jesus will ask of them? My brother and sister if we or those we disciple aren't taking up our cross daily, denying ourselves, abstaining from sin and the lusts of this world, walking in holiness and the Spirit by the grace of God now, we nor our disciples surly won't stand up to temptation and let alone torture or death.
Revelation 6:9 NKJV When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
Revelation 12:11 NKJV And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
The church needs to prepare a generation to meet Jesus. Some might meet Him in the air while coming up and out of the grave or alive and some might meet Him through spilling their blood as a martyr. Are they ready to love not their lives unto death?
We must all now preach a salvation message, a Gospel and a Jesus that people will give their life for literally. Depending on where you are preaching they might possibly be slain for the word of God. Well they will have a relationship and testimony that will hold up in the face of death and against Satan himself?
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