December 7, 2008

Judge Not - Or Not?

Matthew 7:1

This church has been faithful over the years to preach the truth of the prophecy made by our Lord Jesus Himself in Revelation 2 and 3 about the church age and its various incarnations, and more to the point, the fact that we are dwelling in the unfortunate Laodicean age. We have been over it and over it, and I don't see any need to try to establish this again today. But we're going to build on it a bit.

Even without the benefit of the Lord's words, we can see the sickness all around us. When you see Christianity represented on the news, in television and movies, or any other worldly venue, assuming the forum isn't outright hostile; assuming they're trying to portray Christians objectively or even positively, what is actually presented is quite disturbing.

Christendom today--and I'm endeavoring not to use the words "the church," because that's something quite different, actually, although the temptation is there; it's a mistake I'm too used to making--Christendom today is portrayed as a self-help club, a motivational brotherhood that can help you live a better life and enjoy it. But there's no accountability; the morality WITHIN this self-help club is statistically the same as it is outside the walls. And the GOD of this Christendom... well, he's quite a character. Likable guy.

Let me tell you about the god of western Christianity via my own childhood. About the time I was born my paternal grandmother, who had been unmarried for almost two decades, remarried. Got herself a truck driver who treated her very well. He was good to her children and grandchildren. In fact, he was like Santa Claus to us. We all loved him. Curious thing about him, though, was that my new grandfather never seemed to actually MOVE. When he wasn't working, he could only be found in one place--in an overstuffed easy chair in front of the television. The television only played five shows—The Price is Right, The Dukes of Hazzard, Hee Haw, Benny Hill, can't remember what the other one was. The man had an uncanny ability to find one of those five things on some channel at any time of day. He ate in his big chair. He napped in that chair. I never saw him once get up to go to work, or even go to the bathroom. Occasionally he wasn't in the chair, but usually he was, and I don't believe I ever once saw the man in a different location. I guess that's why my grandmother loved him. Finally a man who never did anything--like smack her around--and a man who never went anywhere--and therefore would never get up and leave her in the middle of the night and never come back again. In her experience, an unusual find.

When I was very young, I remember the delight in going to visit him. "Come sit up on Papaw's lap," he'd say, and when I would, he'd reach and set a punch-bowl full of candy in front of me. "Eat some of Papaw's candy." I did NOT need to be encouraged to do this. The candy bowl was always there, and it was in reach, so we were always tempted to just grab some and run, but you never got candy without his permission. That was a cardinal rule. And he was always happy to give it, so no worries there. I'd sit on his lap, get some candy, stuff my cheeks full of it, let him hug me, and then I'd scurry off to do my own thing. All the kids and grandkids loved him to death. But I'm not certain any of us really RESPECTED him all that much. I mean, how well do you respect a guy who never does... anything? I remember my little brother once saying that when Papaw finally passed on, we could call a taxidermist, have him stuffed, set him back in his chair, and nobody would ever know the difference.

Man, that's funny.

And the man has become sort of a byword in my own life. I've used his archetype in fiction, in illustrations (witness today), in jokes. My Papaw Jimbo. Yes, even the name is funny.

Finally he did pass on. I don't guess they actually had him stuffed. No, I rather suspect that my doddering old Papaw Jimbo has realized the dream of all Caesars and Pharaohs and saintly old buddhists. He's passed from this life into the divine. Yep. He's reached Godhood.

Because I've been to quite a few churches, even in this area, and from the best I can tell, everyone's praying to him.

They don't call him by his proper name, but I'm pretty sure it's him they're praying to.

This nation, and the industrialized nations around us, absolutely loves its god. As long as we're getting what we want. If we don't get what we want, we curse his name and we pout and we're generally unpleasant. But as long as we do, we just love god. What a sweet old guy. But I'm not sure we really respect him. And I'm not sure if, at the end of the day, we really care whether he's still alive, or if he's just a stuffed figure with a plastic smile who's been wedged into his heavenly throne. Because at the end of the day, what we really want is some candy out of the big bowl and some non-threatening affection, and then to be left alone.

The gospel of Jimbo Christ--the god who gives you candy and expects nothing from you. The gospel of the god who never goes anywhere or does anything. And that's good--he's not a god with the power to hurt you or the will to leave you behind. He's a god you're free to love in his presence and snicker at behind his back.

This is the god of western Christendom. Everyone here probably knows it. And from this fact a couple of serious concerns come to my mind, and I want to begin talking about them today. In brief, the big couple of questions in my mind are, what can we here at Blountville Community Chapel do about this? And are we HERE in danger of this heresy—or even already suffering from it?

The first thought has been on my mind a lot lately. I've spent many Sunday evenings, and a regrettable few Sunday mornings, visiting other churches in the area. Sometimes I just want a fresh take on the things of God. Sometimes I have an inkling that a church has something wrong, and I go to see if I can make things interesting.

I confess, I've done this quite a lot in my own flesh, and not for God's glory, but for the thrill of a good fight. I don't have any excuse for that. I'm just confessing that I haven't done this for the best of reasons. I go to a church, hear scripture interpreted incorrectly or false doctrine preached, and after the service I go to the pastor with my Bible clenched in hand, and I start up a heated discussion. See, I hate to see the Word of God trodden upon, but I hate even worse to miss out on a good fight. Or lose a fight. Or really to lose at anything.

What I've found, though, is that a disturbing number of churches in this area have separated themselves from the truth of the Bible, and are now preaching something vaguely similar, yet entirely different.

Well, I've gotten out of the habit of looking for arguments with my Sunday evenings. This year I've had a lot to occupy my weekends, and who knows, I might have even grown up a bit; I don't know. But a few months ago I was sitting in a Sunday school class and listening to an absolute butchering of the gospel, and my Bible and I jumped into a tussle of sorts with a teacher who was claiming that God was… well… in so many words, Papaw Jimbo. You know, ineffectual, doddering, kindly-but-weak, and just loving on everybody, and judging nobody. Well, I opened the book and explained man's depravity and God's holiness, and in response I got told, "You're not supposed to judge me. Don't judge people. That's a terrible way to live, and you're not allowed to do that. Jesus told us not to judge, and that just seems like such a sad life that you look at people that way."

After growing up in a works-based faith (and isn't that an oxymoron anyway?) I've always been terrified of growing into a legalist; a Pharisee.

I believe a lot of us have that fear. Many of you have, in some capacity or another, been put off or burned by legalists trying to impose their understanding of God on you. When someone acts like I'm not truly saved because I don't wear a suit and tie to church, that bothers me. I don't like being judged by some standard that I don't see in scripture anyway. And I'd hate to think I'm coming off that way to anybody else. Tragically, the heathen culture has picked up on this fear. The most well-remembered scripture verse in all the Bible today is Matthew 7:1. Heathens use it to drive Christians away or to shut Christians up. Imagine that, if you will—the enemy using our own sword against us, and successfully at that. But it happens—all the time.

"Hey—‘judge not, lest ye be judged!" This puts me back on my heels. I don't want to be judging anybody. I don't feel qualified to judge others, and I hate that I've given that impression. So I have to backpedal, explain to my friend that judging isn't at all what I'm trying to do, and my gospel message likely ends up stillborn.

I don't want to judge people. That's what legalists do. That's wrong. I don't want to do that. In fact, the word has grown such a stigma about it, that you just about can't use it in a positive way—not in any spiritual connotation, anyway. Just take a deep breath, and listen to this: "Bob, I'm going to judge you according to God's Word. When I've finished judging you, we'll see whether or not you're a good person." Eww. See? Sounds horrible!

I've been really addicted to Paul Washer sermons lately—I listen to every one of them I can get my hands on, sometimes over and over. One sermon I heard a few weeks ago he was talking around this very concept, and he says, "People really like to say, ‘judge not, lest ye be judged!'" and he gets this wry look on his face, and then he says, "twist not scripture, lest ye be like the devil!" And the audience laughs, and he moves on with his message.

I was thinking, Wait! Go back to that! Talk about that part again! How is that twisting scripture?

You see, like I probably do at other places in scripture, I've always just glanced over that part of the Sermon on the Mount. I never really delved into it before. Maybe you've had the same problem. And now I've taken a much closer look at Jesus' words in Matthew 7, and I want to share them with you. Let's look at it together. The Sermon on the Mount takes up the 5th through the 7th chapters of Matthew, if you didn't know. There are plenty of gems of wisdom the Lord offers his people in that sermon. In fact, about half of the scripture passages I was looking for for this sermon ended up coming from somewhere in Matthew 7. I didn't plan it that way. That's just how it ended up. Matthew 7:1-5 says,

:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
:4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
:5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

All right, first of all, what does Jesus say in verse 2 will happen if we judge others? We will receive the same judgment ourselves, right? Now, if you're talking about the fallen nature of man and the holiness of God—the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ—there are only a few things this could mean. First, if we keep telling people that they're lost, then maybe we'll get lost, too! Well, that's unscriptural and it doesn't work. So that's not it. We're not going to newly acquire God's wrath because we're warning other people about it. And that brings us to option two: if we keep proclaiming the judgment of God, then maybe He'll cast that judgment on us! But no, if you're a regenerate believer, God has already judged your sins—in His own Son. Those sins can never be brought to your account again. They've been paid for. They're done. And yet, you know, I believe this is the meaning that most heathens have in mind when they throw this verse into our faces. "Don't you proclaim my sins worthy of hell, cause that makes me uncomfortable. If you do, God says he'll send you to hell to punish you for making me uncomfortable." But that can't happen…

But maybe, as another explanation, maybe Jesus is saying that if we feel the need to wag a finger at people for a particular sin, we need to watch for that sin in ourselves first. And what do you know; the next couple of verses bear out that very thing. This isn't a command against human beings judging others. I've heard several times in my life the notion that only God has any capacity to judge, and that human beings cannot do it. But that's absolutely untrue, and I'm going to show you in scripture today that it's untrue. First, these verses here are a censure against judging hypocritically. In fact, in verse 5, Jesus declares that when we have cleared a beam out of our own eye, we'll see clearly how to remove the mote from someone else's! These verses are, if anything, an encouragement to judge—but to carefully judge ourselves before others.

Romans chapter 2, which I've been studying in depth for the past couple of weeks, is also replete with this thought—that we must beware judging others hypocritically. And yet, by verse 27 Paul has come around to indicate that our very conduct can be an effective judge against the sins of others. "And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfill the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law?"

Just once, I'd like to hear a heathen quote John 7:24 instead of Matthew 7:1. "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." You never hear anybody quote that one. What is righteous judgment? It's in this book right here. It's in this book, and you have to know it, Christian, because it's aimed at the entire world. According to this book, the creator of the entire universe is the righteous judge—it's His standards that are used to determine our worth. He's the only judge that qualifies. And the judge's gavel has already banged down—on the entire world. We've all been declared guilty. Since Adam. Every one of us—you, me, everybody. And that righteous judge has only one sentence for this crime—eternal death and burning wrath—his great and furious anger abiding on the condemned forever and ever and ever. If I tell a person that his sins make him worthy of hell, I am indeed judging. No getting around it.

But what I am judging is that my Creator is righteous. I am judging that Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts has told the truth, I am judging that His Word is true, and I am judging that His justice is coming fast. And I am judging that everyone whose name is not written in the Lamb's book of life has but one destiny, and it is just and holy hellfire and damnation. I am judging that when the Word of God condemns all under sin, it has condemned the people I am talking to and condemned myself along with them, and it has done so rightly.

I am judging that the Word of God is faithful and true when it declares that the God-man Christ Jesus has borne the awful penalty for my sin, and the sin of every man or woman who comes to him, repenting of their rebellion, and falls at his feet. I judge that there is no other hope, for I judge that when God has offered no other hope, there can be nowhere else worth looking. And what is more, I judge that my Lord and my God has commanded me, demanded of me that I share this truth with everyone I meet, whether or not they may already be under His yoke of protection. And I judge now that never again will I allow anyone to silence the gospel I preach by twisting the words from Jesus Christ's own mouth. Never again. Nor, by the strength and the Will of God, do I judge will I ever again preach from this or any other pulpit without laying every soul in the sanctuary under the just and holy condemnation of a righteous God. What a waste of time would any other sermon be!

I have reason to believe that everyone sitting here today is a regenerate believer, reborn in the Spirit and justified by the Grace of God. But I could well be wrong. That sort of judging is one I can't do perfectly. But I know what I have been given. I've been called to preach. I hear folks use that phrase to refer to being a pastor. "I've been called to preach, so there's some church around here that's looking for a pastor, and it's ME!" Well, I know what they mean, and that's fine, but if semantics matter, I want to tell you folks that we've all been called to preach. That's what the Great Commission is. So many folks I meet in worship services seem to believe that only a pastor is ever supposed to declare the holiness of God, or the depravity of man. Folks, we're all called to preach that, and at every opportunity. And if I am wrong, and some in this room have not yet submitted to His authority and been regenerated, I pray you're going to hear about the cross from me every time I preach from this pulpit, and I pray regularly otherwise. And if you're a true believer and born again, I daresay that message can only give you joy. I can't imagine a true Christian being offended at the gospel. I mean, why?

But I'm encountering that these days, too. True gospel preaching being met by church-goers with hostility. I don't want to hear that judgmental stuff. Why would any Christian react with hostility to a message of God's holiness or God's righteousness or God's judgment? It's just more reinforcement of how much He has saved us from, and at such a cost. That's a cause for joy!

But as I've said before, church buildings in this country are filled with unregenerate heathens. They're going to hell, and they have no idea. Nobody's telling them. I know that their pastors will come under greater condemnation because their pastors are supposed to be the ones telling them, but that doesn't comfort me any. It just sets the problem back a step. Who's going to tell the pastors?

And I have been given the authority of the Judge of all creation to declare that church buildings are full of the unregenerate. So have you.

You say, wait a minute, there, Mark, we don't have the ability to tell who's saved and who isn't. And that notion is correct, but it's also incorrect. I cannot tell with certainty that anyone here is saved. I don't have that authority. Nobody does but the Judge of the universe Himself. And yet, we all seem to take for granted that, for instance, Pastor Richard is saved. If I were to call that into question, Aaah, I don't know about the pastor. I mean, we can't really know for sure, right? He might be saved, but maybe not… You'd probably be a little disturbed, wouldn't you? Perhaps even a little offended. Why is that? Why do we feel that way? Is it sinful? Not really.

The world's cliché is, "You can't judge a book by its cover." The world sure has the book written on who can't judge. Funny thing is, Jesus said just the opposite. He said, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." He did! In fact, He said it just a few moments after the heathens' favorite scripture passage. Right there in Matthew 7, He did. Verses 16-20.

:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Only a madman or an abject idiot would actually believe that you could find a ripe, healthy apple growing on a rotten thorn bush. Can't happen. It's just common sense. Only a madman or an abject idiot would believe that on a healthy apple tree, where the apple are supposed to grow, instead you have festering worm-ridden figs. Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that men are the same way. When a man or woman comes to an altar and makes a profession of faith, and then goes on living like a demon, only now they're cleaning up and coming to church every Sunday morning before going back out into the world to live like a festering sore, Jesus has effectively told us that we have the discerning power to know what we're looking at—indeed, that only a madman or an abject idiot would believe that we're looking at a good tree—because the fruit is rotten, and a good tree simply cannot manage to produce rotten fruit.

Somewhere in the last half-century or so, we've lost that truth. About 50 years ago someone twisted Paul's words to the Corinthians and came up with the notion of the ‘carnal Christian.' And my, but that notion sure did catch on. But that notion is no true doctrine. It's not scriptural, and it's not historical. Look just a few verses back in Matthew 7, to verse 14. "Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." I know of one church in the area off the top of my head that denies the truth of this verse entirely. Almost everybody's going to heaven, because God just loves everybody! Jesus says nope.

The majority of the world, from the beginning until the end, the majority of people are going to hell. Not just a minority, but a small one, will find their way through the gate (and Jesus tells us that He Himself is the gate). We in this church have a pretty good handle on that fact, I think. But how often do you meditate on the fact that not only is the gate narrow, but the way is narrow, too? You ever look at that? Doesn't get taught very often. There is simply no provision for someone to squeeze through the narrow gate and then go walk along the broad road. The broad road only leads one place.

I believe there are literally millions of Americans today who have come up to the narrow gate, put their hands on it, grasped at it, strained a bit, and after a little unpleasant strain, someone told them they had successfully squeezed through. And so they walked off, confident that all was well, and, whistling a merry tune, they're now sauntering straight into the jaws of hell. Thousands of them fall right into the furnace every day. And they will never, never escape.

G.K. Chesterton put it this way: he said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

And when someone like me comes up to such a person and presents the gospel of Christ to them, they confidently declare, "Oh, I done did that." As if salvation is a flu shot they got once. "I done did that." And if I then call their rotten fruit into account, I get, "Judge not, lest ye be judged!"

Christ gave us the authority to judge fruit—not to make final determinations (yes, this one gets into heaven; no, that one doesn't), nor to judge ourselves in comparison to other people, which I believe is the root of the social stigma we so fear today. But Jesus did call us to recognize the need of the lost and damned for a true Savior, and to declare Him to them!

There is no such thing as a carnal Christian. You have to read all of 1 Corinthians to understand what Paul meant when he asked, "Are ye not carnal?" That's not where our focus is today, but maybe we'll tackle it another time.

In brief, if I were to come into church at the last minute this morning, breathless, and tell you guys, "Ah, you guys will never guess what happened to me on the way to Church! I had a flat tire, and I was changing it, and I got too close to the road, and a 30-ton logging truck was coming by, and I walked right into it. It smashed right into me, flung me about a hundred feet forward, and then it rolled over me. It was intense!"

Nobody's going to believe me. Why would you? Nobody believes that you can have an encounter with something that big and powerful and not be changed. So why do we so smoothly accept that people have encounters with the Creator of the universe and somehow spend years of their lives unchanged? It's not scriptural. It's not even historical—a hundred years ago nobody would have believed it.

I know it could be offensive to us to look at this truth. I just can't do anything else with these verses. Maybe you can; I just can't get around Jesus' words.

The Church—so often in the past I've declared the Church to be carnal, and wicked, and evil, and largely unsaved. But I've been very, very wrong to do so. The true Church, folks, is not perfect. But she is devoted to her husband-to-be. She is fragile at times and yet possessed of the power of God to maintain her grace and dignity. She is broken over sin and grieved at any smirch to her fiance's name. She is united, worldwide, in brotherhood, in truth, and in love. And Jesus loves her dearly. God the Father and the Holy Spirit have been preparing her as a gift to Jesus, the Word of God. And she is a beautiful bride.

And understanding the terms of love and devotion God uses for her, I want to be very careful in the future how I speak about Christ's beloved bride-to-be.

The problem in this Laodicean age is, we don't have a church in crisis or a church that has lost her way, or a church that has become carnal. We have a culture littered with brick buildings festooned with crosses and surrounded with Christian and pseudo-Christian trappings, and yet few if any Christians worship there. They aren't churches—the Church isn't there.

A lot of children growing up in Christian households dream of someday being missionaries. I am confident that God can still raise up missionaries in our town and send them to places where no one has ever before raised the banner of Jesus Christ. But do you know that other countries are training missionaries to come here? In droves, in fact. They're coming here.

Why do you suppose that is? Did they forget to take that left turn at Albuquerque—are they lost?

No. They're coming here because this is the place on earth where missionaries are most needed. Churches in this nation are not only filled with people who have not accepted the gospel, they are filled with people who have never heard the true gospel—at all. One evening, out of morbid curiosity, Clayton and I sat and listened to a broadcast sermon from Joel Olsteen—biggest church in America—47,000 members. Listen to one of his sermons and tell me that any of his near-50,000 parishioners have any idea what the true gospel is. Or better yet, save yourself some heartache and don't listen to one of his sermons. They're garbage. They're a blasphemous man-centered self-worship, and if Olsteen knows the true gospel, he's hiding it, which would be even worse. He's not declaring the holiness of God or the depravity of man. The majority of other churches in America aren't, either.

I keep coming back to Elijah's conversation with God in 1 Kings 19. He basically is saying, "come on, God, I'm all alone here. There is no one else being faithful. And now the bad guys are trying to kill me, too!"

And what does God say to comfort him? ‘I have left me 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.' Seven thousand believers left in the nation. That wasn't a big percentage. Tiny, in fact. But it was 7,000 people. We even meet a few of them. But not many. And I have had cause to wonder, what were all those 7,000 men doing during this time? Well, we have the stories of a few. The king's servant Obadiah was busy hiding some of God's people who were fugitives: a hundred prophets, who were under the sentence of death hiding in a cave. What about the rest?

You know, I imagine they were people like you and me. They were just trying to live their lives, and be a testimony for the Lord in any way they dared. They were preaching the truth of God to family, friends, people they met, whenever they were able.

But Elijah was the one who helped to change the heart of the whole nation back to God. Why? Because God used him more? Because God just liked him more?

No. Even if those things were true, and I'm not saying they weren't, Elijah changed the heart of the whole nation because he went after the priests of Baal themselves. He stood toe to toe with them, showed them to be wrong in front of all the people, and cast them down.

If our American culture is ever going to be changed, it's going to be changed by men with the courage to stand toe-to-toe with the prophets of
Baal here—the pastors and preachers and Right Reverends filling church buildings around this country and preaching their flocks straight into the jaws of hell.

To turn the heart of the nation back to God, we'll need Whitefields. Wesleys. Elijahs.

I do a lot of hiding behind the notion that God will come back soon. Any day now. And indeed, the doctrine of imminence is in effect—Christ could return for His bride this very day, or this very minute.

Or I could die of old age forty years from now.

I have a hard truth to face, and maybe you do, too—If we are truly groaning over the sins, the rebellion, the evil of our nation; If we grieve every time a courthouse takes down the ten commandments or another state votes to grant marriage rights to homosexuals or another abortion clinic is build with the blessings of federal and state law… if we're truly miserable over those things, then we have to face the fact that we have, in our possession, the very ancient document that can change everything; the sacred words with the power to turn the people around. We've been given the words of life.

And neither Jesus nor any of his Bible-writers ever recorded the admonition that, ‘when we see the end approaching, stop preaching, pack our bags, sit on the porch, and wait for me where I can see you.' No, we're encouraged to be diligent as we see the end draw near. We're encouraged to fellowship more faithfully as the end approaches. We're encouraged to keep up the work assigned to us, for we don't know the hour the Master will return. If anything, we're told to step up our efforts as the end draws near.

But I confess that my attitude is very impure in this matter. When I see yet another church with ICHABOD stamped over the door; when I see yet another abortion law passed; when I hear of another church denomination anointing gay pastors; when I witness the majority of Americans elect a godless baby-killing narcissist President of our nation, there's a part of me that just nods, satisfied, because I know that Christ's return is that much closer.

That attitude is not exactly aiding and abetting the devil in his business, but it's pretty close.

I have the tools to change the entire culture. For that matter, so do you. And you might say, yeah, but God hasn't called me to fight that fight. Okay. But, are you sure?

I guess some of us can be, if we're right in the middle of where the Lord does want us and we know it. But otherwise, how can we know unless we go out there and try?

Because I'm trying to use that excuse too, and in my own ears it just sounds like laziness.

One last word on judging and judgment, and it's in 2 Corinthians 5:10 and 11. It says, 'For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
:11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.'

Now skip down to verse 14: 'For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
:15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.'

Do you really know the terror of the Lord? Does it urge you to persuade men of His holiness and their own wickedness? If the terror of the Lord isn't enough to motivate us to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the lost and dying around us, then maybe it's not terror at all. Maybe we're worshiping the same god they are—kindly old Jimbo Christ with his bowl full of candy. Problem is, no ineffective god like that took the punishment for our sins and died in agony under the wrath of his own father. No god that just loves everybody and doesn't go anywhere or do anything can save anyone from the wrath to come.

We have to tell people the truth.

And as for lost Christendom with its whitewashed graves of church buildings full of lost souls and deceiving pastors, who is going to be the Whitefield or Elijah and carry the gospel to them?

Maybe you.

Maybe me.

May God use us in any capacity necessary to glorify His name and bring salvation to the lost.

And when He calls, may we feel the terror of the Lord and respond.

For we were bought with a price—the blood of God bought your life. God no longer sweetly requests your obedience like a weak old grandfather. Your sacred service is demanded of you.

And right this very minute, as the battle grows to its greatest fever-pitch in history, His imperial voice is calling out names of each and every one of His soldiers and assigning battlefield positions and handing out missions.

Listen…