Beloved Family… Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of Gospel appeals given by a great variety of modern day preachers and teachers. Many, although sincerely given and well-intended, were what I would call ‘seeker friendly appeals’ that are intentionally reduced or ‘watered down’ to be compatible with the current level of pop culture. Their aim is to ‘resonate’ with the habitual sensibilities, tastes and interests of the hearers, to insure they will feel welcome, safe, and unthreatened. But, because so much effort is exerted to try to make the appeal come across as, friendly, non-threatening and appealing, the presenters are often, unwittingly, unfaithful to the Truth, Reality and intent of Almighty God!
I say this because if you look at the way the Lord and his original apostles and disciples approached this, you’ll see a very different attitude and mode of operation. Try this on for size:
“In those days, John the Immerser came proclaiming in the wilderness of Judea, “Turn away from your sins (Repent), FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS NEAR!” For he is the one Isaiah the prophet spoke about, saying,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of Adonai, and make His paths straight.’”
“Now John wore clothing from camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were being immersed by him in the Jordan River.” (Matthew 3:1-6 TLV, Emphasis added)
In Matthew 4, John was finally imprisoned prior to his execution. So his work of preparing the way for the Messiah’s coming was finished. Then Father commissioned His Word made flesh to begin His earthly ministry. And Yeshua began by saying the same thing to the people that John used to say:
“From then on, Yeshua began to proclaim, “Turn away from your sins (that is, repent of your self-adoring radical independence from God), for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!” (Matthew 4:17 TLV, Emphasis added)
So… how would this message come across to today’s people, who are convinced that they are ‘okay just the way they are?’ In Scripture, you never see God’s messengers saying, ‘Ask Jesus to come into your life’, as is so often said today. No, they use a completely different approach:
“But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducee’s coming to his immersion, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit worthy of repentance; and do not think that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father!’ For I tell you that from these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire!” (Matthew 3:7-10 TLV, Emphasis added)
John’s task was to prepare the way for the long-awaited appearance of Israel’s Messiah! And what he meant by ‘repenting’ drove many of his first century Jewish contemporaries to submit themselves to the ritual of immersion, by which they publicly admitted they were helplessly sinful and desperately in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. But after Yeshua’s arrival, the New Covenant required people to be immersed into the One God had sent to serve as Humanity’s Redeemer and Covenant Champion:
“While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul traveled through the upper region and came to Ephesus. He found some disciples and said to them, “Did you receive the Ruach ha-Kodesh (Holy Spirit) when you believed?”
They replied to him, “No, we’ve never even heard that there is a Ruach ha-Kodesh.
“He said, “Into what were you immersed?” They said, “Into John’s immersion.”
Paul said, “John immersed with an immersion of repentance, telling the people that they should believe in the One coming after him—that is, in Yeshua.”
When they heard this, they were immersed in the Name of the Lord Yeshua. And when Paul laid hands upon them, the Ruach ha-Kodesh (the Holy Spirit) came upon them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. (Acts 19:1-6 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Dear ones, how does the Gospel that requires people to admit that they’re hopelessly trapped in the Serpent’s Sin Trap ‘sell’ in our modern society? And how many of those who flock to ‘seeker-friendly’ churches really understand that the Biblical Gospel requires them to give their faith, trust and obedience… exclusively… to God’s Living Word made flesh? Are they being helped to realize what saying ‘yes’ to Yeshua’s summons is actually going to cost them?
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it!” (Matthew 16:24-25 NASB, Emphasis added)
How many self-asserting people of any nation and culture and century, including ours, will go for something as self-effacing as this when they first hear it? Consider those who populate every level of our politically correct, self-adoring, ‘cancel culture’ and ‘trend setter elite class.’ If anyone should dare to approach such a prosperous, educated and power-hungry crowd of modern day people to broach the subject of what Yeshua requires of them, would there be any ‘takers’ among them? How many would feel compelled to collar the disciples in their midst, and beg to be shown what they must do in order to be saved? I suspect there would not be many.
Why? It’s because all unredeemed people are, by nature, totally disinclined to acknowledge God and His Reality. So they lash out at anyone who dares to come around and speak to them about their state of Sin, and corrupt hearts, and God’s inescapable, inevitable and impending Judgment against Sin!
“Panic, pit and trap are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass: whoever flees from the sound of panic, will fall in the pit, and whoever climbs up out of the pit will be caught in the trap. For the windows of Heaven are opened and the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken apart, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken utterly. The earth reels to and fro like a drunk, and sways like a hut, its transgression is so heavy upon it that it will fall and never rise again.
“It will come about in that day, Adonai will punish the (demonic) host of heaven on high, and the kings of the earth on the earth. They will be gathered together, like prisoners in the Pit, and will be shut up in the prison, and after many days be punished. Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for Adonai-Tzva’ot will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His elders, gloriously.” (Isaiah 24:17-23 TLV)
Actually, it doesn’t matter which era or century we might consider. To every Sin-corrupted, mortal generation, the Gospel comes across like ‘fingernails scraping across a blackboard’, or a symphony being played with instruments that are completely out of tune! The Sin-loving guilty people of this world can’t stand to consider the warnings God gives of the inevitability of the Judgement that is to come. And many who are charged with the commission to let them know the truth about where fallen humanity stands before God’s Perfect Standard of Righteousness and Truth, will try to escape the wrath and disfavor of their hearers, by ‘watering down’ the Gospel and try to make it ‘friendlier’ and more palatable for the self-adoring complacent, self-satisfied people of this world.
The Holy Spirit’s Ministry of Awakening
People that do not care about God and His Word are, by nature, opposed to any communication that comes from the Kingdom of Heaven! They must first be ‘zapped’ and ripped wide open by a bolt of Divine revelatory ‘lightning’ before they will take notice. The Holy Spirit has to pierce through their outer protective shell of pride and arrogant ego-adoring self-righteousness. Otherwise God’s Light won’t be able to penetrate into their heart of hearts. Only after God intervenes are they able to ‘see the Light,’ ‘get a clue’ and be radically changed by what they hear:
“You know how God anointed Yeshua of Natzeret with the Ruach ha-Kodesh and Power—how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him. We are witnesses to all He did, both in the Judean countryside and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree, but God raised Him up on the third day and caused Him to be visible—not to all the people, but to us, witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God. We ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to proclaim to the people and to testify that HE IS THE ONE ORDAINED BY GOD AS JUDGE OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD (You relay the Bad News first).
All the prophets testify about Him—that everyone who puts his trust in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His Name (Then you follow it with the Good News).” (Acts 10:38-43 TLV, Emphasis added)
Notice how Peter presented the Gospel to pagan Gentiles for the very first time. He focused their attention on God’s Judgment first… THEN… he revealed the Good News. This sequence is very important because of these inescapable facts:
“Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
“But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. But the one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:12-16, Emphasis added)
So God’s written Word makes it utterly clear that, naturally speaking, there are two completely different human races of people in this world. One has already been dealt with and regenerated by God, and the other has not yet believed or obeyed His summons. So there’s total incompatibility between regenerated children of God who are now part of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the ‘sons of perdition’, who still belong to and trust in this fallen, Sin-loving, mortal and corrupt world. The presenter of the Gospel must captivate the full attention and personal absorption of the latter group. They are like a person who believes he’s in an optimal state of health… just before his physician sits him down and shows him the X-rays that prove that a terminal disease is eating away at him from deep within the hidden portions of his body!
Even people of this world who claim to worship and serve some form of god, and who are meticulously religious, and seem to be ‘righteous,’ ‘pious’ and deeply ‘spiritual’ fall into this state of denial. They too take offense, and even become murderously hostile when they hear the real Gospel. A state of total war exists between God and the Kingdom of Heaven… and this fallen, broken, demon-possessed world. So even Yeshua’s Jewish contemporaries were no different. Although they were outwardly very religious, and gave the impression of being spiritually-minded, the Living Word of the Living God hit them between the eyes with ‘in your face’ inescapable Truth:
“Yeshua answered them, “Amen, amen I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now the slave does not remain in the household forever; the son abides forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed! I know you are Abraham’s children; yet you are trying to kill Me, because My Word has no place in you. I tell of what I have seen with the Father; so also you do what you heard from the Father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they replied to Him.
Yeshua said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But now you are seeking to kill Me—a Man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do! You are doing the deeds of your father.”
They said to Him, “We were not born as illegitimate children—we have one Father, God Himself!”
Yeshua said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for from God I came and now I am here. For I have not come on My own, but He sent Me. Why don’t you understand My speech? Because you’re not able to hear My Word! You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the Truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks lies he is just being himself—for he is a liar and the father of lies.
“But because I speak the Truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts Me of sinning? If I am telling the Truth, why don’t you believe Me? He who belongs to God hears (obeys) the Words of God. The reason you don’t hear (obey) is because you do not belong to God!” (John 8:34-47 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Do you see how faithful to His Father, and uncompromising with the sons of Adam, Yeshua always is? He’s willing to risk everything at the hands of unrepentant people for His Father’s sake, and He will never change. One of our earliest FMM website articles is entitled, ‘Naked Before God’ (You can read it if you go to our FMM website, www.follow-me-ministries.org and look for it on the search bar.) In that piece I try to explain the stakes that underlie the Gospel of Salvation and articulate why people, Jew and Gentile alike, ‘shut down’ when the real Gospel of Salvation is presented to them. Here is a portion of what that article says:
“People instinctively recoil and wiggle away from any thought or mention of our personal and corporate Sin. Seldom is it mentioned in polite social circles. Even the intimation that we might not be as ‘good’ or ‘decent’ as we like to think we are, stirs up self-righteous anger and denial within us. But the Truth is: God is not what we choose to ‘think’ or ‘wish’ Him to be. HE IS WHO HE ACTUALLY IS! And He has revealed Himself to us in clear and unmistakable terms.
We cannot make the Reality and Truth of something like the laws of physics go away, or change, by disagreeing with them, or getting angry at them and trying to pass contrary laws and legislate them out of existence. Neither can we make the CREATOR of the laws of physics and the Eternal Reality and Objective Truth and Perfect Righteousness, Justice, and Judgment contained within His Perfect Nature, go away, simply because we find Him to be inconvenient, embarrassing and opposed to our fondest wishes, desires and burning passions!
Sooner or later we will all be forced to come to grips with the objective, eternal, changeless Reality and Truth of the Perfect, Infinitely Righteous and Pure and Holy God. He has clearly revealed and warned us that His Standards and Righteous Judgment are utterly, flawlessly Perfect and Unchangeable! And His impending Ultimate Judgment will measure all of His Creation, including angels and humans, according to what His perfect holy and righteous nature requires.
So our innate humanistic, anti-God tendencies and preferences that many of us cover up by hiding behind an outward veneer of ‘religiosity’ will do us no good, for our denial systems are based on pure demonic falsehood! Nor will our personal well-intentioned subjective wishes, opinions, good intentions or imperatives have any bearing on what He will see or do when He has to make His Final Decision concerning our eternal destiny. God’s Standard of Righteousness is the only one that truly exists! So it is by His Standard that all of Creation will be judged. God will not accommodate Himself to our requirements, nor will He strive to meet our standards! It’s going to have to be the other way around!
Therefore, it will take something far better, far more noble, righteous, and worthy than we could ever be, acting on our behalf, before we could meet God’s Standards. It will take God Himself to save us… only God’s Living Word is able to please and satisfy His Standards. And that is why Yeshua, God’s Living Word, our Messiah, must come into our picture. Coming to grips with the True Gospel of Salvation is a huge problem for us humans because we are, by nature (and by the actual deeds and omissions that reveal our nature) highly flawed, far from perfect… and inherently given to seeing ourselves as radically independent agents!
We are convinced, for some crazy reason, that we are inherently righteous and innocent and noble. Thus, even when we commit egregiously evil shameful deeds and brutal acts against each other, we cannot face or accept the blame we have coming. Instead, we blame society, or other people, or our upbringing, lack of education, or some other external circumstance that forced us to do what we did. It is always the fault of something or someone else… but we can’t ever admit that we are prone to wickedness and evil in and of ourselves. That’s why so many of us refuse to think about these matters, and even become enraged, when our Sin is mentioned in our presence and we’re confronted with it.
But the truth is that, like it or not, we will all give an account before the Divine Tribunal of God’s infinitely perfect, pure, holy and righteous Justice – for everything we were and what we did in this life, with our own minds, wills, imaginations, choices, and bodies. And when that reckoning time comes, there will be no escape. We won’t be able to avoid, deny, laugh off or shrug off God’s Reality. Instead, we will enter eternity, to face and enter into our actual eternal destiny, as soon as Almighty God pronounces His final Word of Judgment over us.
In light of that, we can understand why God’s Chosen People and His prophets, and even His living Word incarnate, and His apostles and disciples were (and still are) always getting into big trouble whenever they are commissioned by God to deliver His ‘mail’ to the world. People who don’t want to hear any mention of their culpability and accountability to God, often become so enraged that they want to kill the messengers that won’t stop bringing up the mention of their Sin. And since that arrogant rebellion against God continues, and the selfish, venal, idolatrous world keeps covering its ears, it’s inevitable that there’s also going to be big trouble ahead… for those who refuse to face the Truth concerning the Judgment that God has warned us is surely coming.
“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.” (Hebrews 9:27-28, Emphasis added)
“Since each human heart is full of corruption, who or what can save us from ourselves? Our own hearts and track records testify against us before God’s Perfect Knowledge and Tribunal of Eternal Justice. At that time, this will be the issue: no one, not even those who currently occupy the highest positions in this fallen world, and who despise God’s people and hold them in total contempt, will be able to avoid coming under the Judgment of Almighty God. We will all have to face Spiritual Reality and Truth when death overtakes us.
“So NOW is always the time to deliver the mail. And NOW is the time to have the guts to face facts, and look carefully at how temporal and passing this world, and those who trust in it, really are. It’s time for us to take a good, careful look at our true selves — the selves that the all-penetrating eye of God gazes upon all the time. It’s time to look under your own ‘hood.’ You are so fragile and mortal… like a puff of smoke. How long will you last? Where can you go? Behind what will you hide? Who can escape this perfect Eternal Gaze that knows every speck of truth about us?…”
Disciples’ Job Description: Accurately Presenting The True Gospel
Dear one, there’s much more to the article than what I quote here; but this will give you an idea of the difficulty involved in presenting the true Gospel accurately and in a way that will prove to be utterly faithful to God and what He requires, rather than trying to placate and please the sensibilities of the Sin-loving, complacent self-righteous sons of Adam’s disobedience. It’s vitally important that we pay attention to these matters NOW! The time for this world to be able to get things right with God, is running out!
But now that we’ve entered this very turbulent and confusing and distressing time, we have a wonderful opportunity! What is happening in the world at this very moment is, I firmly believe, the beginning of those ‘birth pangs’ our Lord warned would overtake the world in the Last Days. Everything is beginning to be shaken to the core by cataclysmic, world-rattling events and revelations! We’re experiencing things that, a few months ago, no one would have dreamed could be possible! The ‘rug’ is truly being pulled out from under the whole world’s mental and emotional feet! And because so much upheaval and shaking has begun to take place, tremendous confusion, bewilderment, and profound fear are gripping people (even many who call themselves ‘believers’) by the throat. And their former self-assurance and arrogant smugness is, finally, being shaken out of them, at this time!
Many are being so profoundly shaken, that even the most hard-hearted among us are looking desperately… for comfort… relief… and satisfying answers that will renew hope and restore a sense of peace… and reveal a safe path and direction we can follow in the days to come. Many are realizing that they’ve built their lives entirely upon ‘sinking sand’ and now they don’t know where to turn!
So this is a wonderful opportunity for those of us who are called to serve the Lord as His disciples, to be schooled and prepared to present the True Rock-Solid Biblical Gospel of Salvation! We’re going to encounter many highly distressed people from now on. The Lord is, even now, drawing many stunned people into our spheres of influence! Now we can be and do what disciples of God’s Word are created and commissioned to do. The people with whom we’ll be interacting, can finally be able to realize where they really are! They can see the enormity of the danger in which every human on Earth is truly enmeshed! Now they can see just how utterly bankrupt and without hope we all are in ourselves! We are all utterly incapable of doing anything about this for ourselves, and it’s becoming clearer than ever that Yeshua is EVERYTHING to us!
If we give them the Gospel news in the proper sequence, it will hit them with the proper gut-wrenching heart-gripping impact! And that will psychologically set them up to respond positively to the GOOD NEWS. (I also deal with this important topic in another article that is posted on our FMM website. It’s called, ‘The Gospel of Righteousness.’ If you’re interested in learning more, you can find this article on our website search bar also.)
People must all be able to see the hopelessness and bankruptcy we’re all mired in. Only then will they admit that self-improvement and self-redemption are impossible to achieve. And they’ll appreciate and welcome and embrace the One who actually is willing and able,to cover and stand for us all as our Invincible Champion and Redeemer. THEN… the world will understand the Gospel in its true light and rejoice accordingly. And it will be overwhelmed with gratitude to God and fall at the feet of His Son and marvel at God’s amazing Mercy, Faithfulness, Wisdom and Lovingkindness.
“With the faithful You show Yourself faithful; with the blameless You prove Yourself blameless; with the pure You show Yourself pure, and with the crooked You show Yourself astute.
“For You save an afflicted people, but You humiliate haughty eyes. For You light my lamp; the Lord my God illumines my darkness. For by You I can run at a troop of warriors; and BY MY GOD, I can leap over a wall.
“As for God, His Way is blameless; the Word of the Lord is refined; He is a Shield to all who take refuge in Him. For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a Rock, except our God, the God who encircles me with strength, and makes my way blameless?
“He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and sets me up on my high places. He trains my hands for battle, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have also given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand upholds me; and Your gentleness makes me great. You enlarge my steps under me, and my feet have not slipped.” (Psalm 18:25-36 NASB)
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:3-6)
So dear ones, I offer an analogy for you to consider. It will help you grasp the gist of what needs to be conveyed, and what the proper sequence of the presentation needs to be:
First The Bad News… THEN The Good News
Imagine that the Lord has placed you aboard that doomed ship, the Titanic, while it is steaming along on its first and final voyage. You’re the only passenger onboard that has been made aware of the fact that when it recently brushed against that fateful iceberg, a gaping tear compromised the hull far below the water line. Thousands of gallons of sea water are rushing into the lower portions of the already doomed ship. And you know these two utterly important salient facts:
- The Titanic is sinking and nothing can stop what is already happening (The Bad News). But you also know this:
- A rescue ship has been dispatched and is now in the same vicinity. It is named, “The Kingdom of Heaven” (The Good News). It is very near to where the Titanic is!
As you make your way through the first, second and third class portions of the Titanic in which most of the passengers and their attendants happen to be, you realize that no one is aware of the mortal danger you’re all in. They have no clue about what is taking place below the waterline. They naively and blithely believe the ship is ‘unsinkable’ so they’re going about their personal routine voyage occupations as if everything was perfectly normal and okay on the ship!
Under these conditions, they’ll become very upset if you interrupt them and try to tell them about rumors of bad, discomforting news. So, it will be ridiculous for you to run around pounding on doors and screaming at anyone you encounter on the various decks that: ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ In truth, that is very good news, but those around you will think you’re a crazy nut for running around proclaiming that… UNLESS… they understand WHY this bit of information is so important and gloriously good! They must first realize they’re on a doomed ship and sinking rapidly… THEN… when you announce the presence of this wonderful rescue ship that is approaching and ready to take all of you to total and glorious safety, they’ll thank God that you cared enough to come and tell them!
If people have no clue that they’re aboard a sinking ship, they’ll believe the propaganda they keep hearing that the Titanic is absolutely unsinkable! And as long as they’re in that frame of mind, why in the world would they care whether or not there was another ship in the vicinity? They’d regard you as an unwanted pest… an unbearable nuisance… and continue to trust in the ship they assume can’t possibly fail them!
So you must make sure they deeply and totally understand the BAD NEWS! So you definitely don’t encourage them by telling them they’re welcome and okay just as they are. You compel them to stop what they’re doing and start paying attention to the funny vibrations that can be felt in the deck floor under their feet. And you get them to notice how much slower than normal the ship is now moving, so they begin to realize that something is very wrong! They must begin to realize what is happening beneath the water line! And if you succeed in that, they’ll finally realize they’ve been trusting in a doomed hulk! AND THEN… when you tell them about that other ship being ‘at hand’ or close by, they’ll heave a sigh of relief and kiss your hand with gratitude, because they now clearly see you’re offering a ray of real hope of being saved from the certain doom that has already begun to wrap its tentacles around them all!
Now, when you announce the news about ‘The Kingdom of Heaven’ being nearby, your announcement isn’t considered to be a rude interruption of whatever amusements they may have been enjoying at the time. You won’t have to coax or order them to leave their first class cabins and salons and other luxurious amenities! They will instinctively respond to your news with sudden terror… followed by unspeakable joy, elation, relief… and… an urgent haste to find a place on one of the lifeboats so they can abandon ship as quickly as possible!
They must be able to grasp their true situation and understand you are saying: “Wake up! We’re sinking! Drop whatever you’re doing and prepare right now to get off of this dying hulk!” Once they grasp that, they’ll have no trouble grasping the meaning of the rest of the story:
“… For The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”
That understanding has to come before they hear the punchline. And if you take pains to help them understand this, they will be forever in your debt. And then, although they may have heard dozens of ‘Gospel appeals’ in the past and shrugged their shoulders and walked away, now they’ll finally understand what it really means for the very first time! And they’ll be ready to respond with eagerness and gratitude once they ‘get it.’
“Now when Jesus heard that John had been taken into custody, He withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth, He came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This happened so that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled:
“The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, on the other side of the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a Light dawned.”
“From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND!” (Matthew 4:12-17 NASB, Emphasis added)
“Drop everything that will encumber and prevent your ability to escape! Forget all about this sinking hulk and its former amenities. Leave behind the goodies you’re clinging to, before their dead weight pulls you under with the ship when it sinks! Get off of this death trap, NOW!”
Do you see why so many hear some kind of Gospel appeal and yawn, or nod off to sleep, or why others become so indignant and offended and heap their scorn and contempt upon us? Can you see why there is so much ‘backsliding’ among so many so-called ‘believers?’ Many wonder why and how so many decide to backslide and go back out into the world. They can only do that if they still don’t ‘get it’! They still believe that the Titanic is unsinkable! That’s the reason why they think they can get away with returning to it to enjoy the delights it once offered in the past. So please, make sure they understand the bad news first! Know what you are doing when you try to capture their attention! Their Eternal Destiny is at stake!
“God certainly is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For (it seemed to me as if) there are no pains in their death, and their belly is fat. They are not in trouble like other people, nor are they tormented together with the rest of mankind.
“Therefore arrogance is their necklace; the garment of violence covers them. Their eye bulges from fatness; the imaginations of their heart overflow. They mock and wickedly speak of oppression; they speak from on high. They have set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue parades through the earth.
“Therefore his people return here, and abundant waters are drunk by them. They say, “How does God know? And is there knowledge with the Most High?” Behold, these are the wicked; and always at ease, they have increased in wealth.
“Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence; for I have been stricken all day long, and punished every morning.
“If I had said, “I will speak this way,” behold, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children. When I thought of understanding this, it was troublesome in my sight until I entered the sanctuary of God; THEN I perceived their end!
“You indeed put them on slippery ground; You dropped them into ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment! They are utterly swept away by sudden terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, Lord, when stirred, You will despise their image.
“When my heart was embittered and I was pierced within, then I was stupid and ignorant; I was like an animal before You. Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. You will guide me with Your Plan, And afterward receive me to Glory.
“Whom do I have in Heaven but You? And with You, I desire nothing on Earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the Strength of my heart and my Portion forever. For, behold, those who are far from You will perish; You have destroyed all those who are unfaithful to You.
“But as for me, the nearness of God is good for me; I have made the Lord God my refuge, So that I may tell of all Your works.” (Psalm 73 NASB, Emphasis added)
Dear friends… notice also that when the Gospel was presented, as related in the book of Acts, Father’s signs and wonders accompanied and endorsed the proclamation of the Gospel:
“Meanwhile, through the hands of the emissaries many signs and wonders were happening among the people. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. But no one else dared to join them, though the people continued to think highly of them. Yet more than ever those trusting in the Lord were added—large numbers of men and women. They even carried the sick into the streets and laid them on stretchers and cots, so that when Peter passed by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. Crowds were also gathering from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing those who were sick or tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all being healed.” (Acts 5:12-16, Emphasis added)
So… where are the confirming signs and wonders that Father sends to validate the proclamation of His Son in our day? Is that Heavenly Power absent because what is being conveyed is not in line with God’s Truth and Reality? In the book of Acts, signs and wonders gave PROOF that validated the disciples’ testimonies proclaiming that Yeshua was truly alive and present within and among them. The Power of God proved that Yeshua truly is EVERYTHING He claimed to be! Should this not also be the case with us? Are we not called to be the disciples that are to take part in this awesome culminating era that God calls ‘The Last Days?