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  • Follow After Me 9 – Exhortation from an Evangelist

    Follow After Me 9 – Exhortation from an Evangelist

    John 20:27b  “Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!”

    REPENT! Isn’t that your first impression of exhortation from an evangelist?

    What is the mission of the evangelist? Is it not to get all of those sinners to come to Christ?

    Yes. It is.

    For if any man love another, is it not the duty of every Christian to seek the lost and to show all the true and lasting love of Christ Jesus, who won our own hearts to eternity?

    Matthew 12: 30 “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.  31a “So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven—

    The evangelist has a passion for it – a passion to win new souls to the Lord. Yet there is more to it – much more – even for you and for me, my fellow believer, dear follower of Christ.

    Exhortation the world may think is a loaded gun of scripture pointed squarely at the non-believer, but nothing could be further from the truth of the Lord’s teaching.

    Exhortation is for the Christian – for the wavering believer, at times certainly for you and for me, dearly beloved brother and blessed sister in the Lord.

    Hebrews 12: 25 Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One who speaks to us from heaven!

    [ctt title=”‘Exhortation is the trumpet of the church to every faithful Christian.” tweet=”‘Exhortation is the trumpet of the church to every faithful Christian.” coverup=”9FReL”]

    The church stands as watchman of the faith and sentry of scripture awake to the word of the Lord.

    Ezekiel 33:

    The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, speak to your people…

    7 “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8 If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul…

    13 Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has done he shall die.

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    Believer, do you trust in your own righteousness over your faltering faith in the Cross of Christ – the resurrection and return on the clouds of Jesus?

    Should the church not call out to our wayward to repent?

    Therefore return, o wayward christian, to the truth of scripture and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. For I am a watchman looking near to the clouds of heaven and here to the embrace of your soul beloved by our Lord.

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     17 “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just,’ when it is their own way that is not just.

    18 When the righteous turns from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it.

    19 And when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he shall live by this. 20 Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”

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    Are you, fellow believer or confessor of your own wickedness, prepared that the Lord would judge YOU according to your ways?

    Jesus confronted those who held onto their own righteousness, the fine leaders of the religious community, the preachers with not one regard for the Living God:

    Matthew 23:28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites!”

    These false preachers are always seeking to lead the faithful away from the Cross of Christ! How unlikely are these worldly wise men and leading women to admit to the existence of God and the authority of the Lord.

    Galatians 6:12b They don’t want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save.

    The Evangelist of Bunyan describes these worldly hypocrites well:

    The man that met thee is one Worldly Wiseman, and rightly is he so called; partly because he savoreth only the doctrine of this world, (therefore he always goes to the town of Morality to church;) and partly because he loveth that doctrine best, for it saveth him best from the cross: and because he is of this carnal temper, therefore he seeketh to pervert my ways, though right.

    Are you convinced by false christians to keep Christ silent? Are you told to be tolerant of false gods by preachers of darkness cloaked as whitewashed tombs? Is your faith rooted in scripture and grounded in the truth of Christ’s death, resurrection and return?

    Sound the trumpet, says the Lord; for the Day of the Lord will come unexpectedly!

    Repent, christian in name only, to the only One by whom your soul may be saved: Christ Jesus!

  • Follow After Me 8 – Carnal Ones

    And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal.

    For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? – 1 Cor 3:1-3 NKJV

    How we would put ourselves above others. How we make comparison to another saying, “I am a Christian and you are a sinner,” while church-goers sometimes remain as carnal as anyone else.

    Outline of Biblical Usage

    1. fleshly, carnal

      1. having the nature of flesh, i.e. under the control of the animal appetites

        1. governed by mere human nature not by the Spirit of God

        2. having its seat in the animal nature or aroused by the animal nature

        3. human: with the included idea of depravity

      2. pertaining to the flesh

        1. to the body: related to birth, linage, etc
    Strong’s Definitions (Strong’s Definitions Legend)
    σαρκικός sarkikós, sar-kee-kos’; from G4561; pertaining to flesh, i.e. (by extension) bodily, temporal, or (by implication) animal, unregenerate:—carnal, fleshly.

    Yet the Apostle cautions us that we do not know as much as we might think. We do not act as if we are mature in Christ Jesus, who set before us a perfect example and within us a desire for the spirit and not the flesh.

    We are torn in our new faith: young in the spirit, yet mature in the flesh as were we before. Our guilt now burdens us, though carnal things continue to do, sin which formerly did not bother our distracted minds. And seemingly to make our guilt worse, sermon after sermon convicts us of our continued love of the flesh.

    Romans 7:

    14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.

    crushed by guiltGUILT! I do not want to commit the sin I do.

    19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice…

    Along come former friends, family who claim to care for me and co-workers of different belief and they say, “See, you are just like us.”

    Listen to our wisdom learned of this world. Why should you feel guilty to a Law written thousands of years ago? Why not just be moral like most of us? You are smart enough and good enough to decide what is right and what is wrong. Why not return to our religions of tolerance? Why not choose to be as good as me?

    Then you return to the argument of the preacher for repentance, the plea of one who loves you in Christ for righteousness.

    Romans 8:

    5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

    6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

    What will it be then? Carnality? The constant cravings of the flesh?

    • Is it a reward in this life I seek?
    • Or do I look to the hope of the resurrection and eternal joy?

    Is the lasting reward of the love of God in Christ Jesus not worth some suffering at the hands of the wise of this perishing world?

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    12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God…

    18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us…

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    Are you the prey of Satan? Or are you his bait for the snare of the Pit?

    Jesus Christ has saved you! He has all authority over sin and death.

    Let us look to Him who IS now looking over us, Christ who suffered and died for the very sins which burden us before the watchful eyes of the worldly.

    Let us follow after Him, who not only set forth the way, the truth and the life for all who willingly bear the weight of his Cross, but Christ Jesus our Lord who has called us in love in the beginning before time and conception.

    Our Lord has loved us before the knitting of our flesh in the womb and the spirit of life flowed though our beating heart for Him.

    “This woman is a sinner,” you say. “That man is a carnal man,” you say.

    And with the smile of Christ’s love you hear in the answer of a beloved of the Lord,

    “I know. That was once me. But now I am saved in Christ Jesus, my Lord.”

  • Follow After Me 7 – Despondency

    Follow After Me 7 – Despondency

    When we last looked at a view of a Christian following after Jesus we had met one of many pliable Christians. Perhaps you saw a few of these unfamiliar faces in church Easter Sunday. (Perhaps you are one of them.)

    We get inspired to join the crowds following Jesus with a commitment not unlike those who laid palms before the Lord then shout ‘crucify him,’ a few days later.

    Our faith and spirit are lifted in a brief moment, then disappointment deserts our hope and brings us down into our despondency of futility. The same Prophet Isaiah who predicted Christ speaks the word of the Lord:

    My servants will sing for joy, but you will cry in sorrow and despair. – Isaiah 65:14

    Have you not sung of the great joy of the resurrection? Yet as soon as you turn from the path near to our Lord you falter in despair and cry out loud in sorrow that the Lord has not brought you through the slough of despond.

    Are we not often, my fellow brief believer, caught in the bog of our own view of the world the Lord has made when apart from the company of other believers for twenty-three other hours of Sunday and six other days?

    From the Easter service we venture back into the thick darkness of this fallen world and quickly stumble into the bog of hopelessness from which our hearts had been lifted for a time.

    What now, we ask? What now, even though I am trying to follow after Christ?

    Bunyan explains the doubtings of the new believer. … it is called the Slough of Despond; for still, as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arise in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place: and this is the reason of the badness of this ground. 

    Compared to the glory of the resurrection, compared to the joy of Christ’s victory over sin and death our daily walk in the old mire of our sin cause our hearts to bear a sluggish weight of sin we have never before considered.

    Yet by the mercy of the Lord we have a great hope the moment we look forward rather than quickly back toward our sinful inclinations left behind.

    From the garden of despair

    And the slough of despond

    We cry out to the Living God.

    He hears the hopelessness of our plea.

    He answers the longing of our prayer.

    His mighty Hand

    His gentle touch

    Will embrace the heart

    Of the broken.

    His love reaches even

    To the depths of the darkness.

    Psalm 40:

    I waited patiently for the Lord;
        he inclined to me and heard my cry.
    2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
        out of the miry bog,
    and set my feet upon a rock,
        making my steps secure.
    3 He put a new song in my mouth,
        a song of praise to our God.

    …

    11 As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
        your mercy from me;
    your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
        ever preserve me!
    12 For evils have encompassed me
        beyond number;
    my iniquities have overtaken me,
        and I cannot see;
    they are more than the hairs of my head;
        my heart fails me.

    13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me!
        O Lord, make haste to help me!

    …

    17 As for me, I am poor and needy,
        but the Lord takes thought for me.
    You are my help and my deliverer;
        do not delay, O my God!

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

    According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…

    In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials..

    1 Peter 3:3,6