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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.
²He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.
³He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.

…

¹¹As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
    your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
    ever preserve me!
¹²For 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.

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

…

¹⁷As 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

April 3, 2016
Follow After Me -6-Pliable christians

Warning! ‘Coexist’ & ‘Tolerance’ are tools of false teaching, unscriptural paths away from the truth of Jesus Christ as our only Lord and Savior.

Pliable ‘christians’ follow Christ quickly

So many churches full of tradition but not worshipers. So many ‘christians’ full of themselves but not the LORD. Pliable christians are dazzled by the picture of heaven, but are unwilling to sacrifice their sin before the Cross.

Luke 9:

Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus

²³And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. ²⁵For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? ²⁶ For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.”

Oh, how we long for the kingdom of God! Heaven, as we may imagine it (as opposed to scriptural description).

2 Corinthians 5:2 New Living Translation (NLT)

²We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.

Jesus is in fashion again! OR Jesus is out of fashion again. Some had been invited to hear our fresh music at church. A preacher with his hand out promises falsely, you can have your best life now. Then after a while, for some unknown reason, these new christians seem to have disappeared. They were pliable christians who listened for a while and hung out with the church crowd. Jesus was doing something for them on Sundays. What happened to their ‘faith’ in prosperity?

When did they stop coming on Sunday? Where did they go? Maybe they decided another church would be better for them. No one hears from them again.

John 12:25 New Living Translation (NLT)

Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.

Although the Gospel is Good News to the lost, the truth of the Gospel is bad news for those who reject the cross. Some engage Jesus for a while.

Yet pliable christians follow you or follow a smiling preacher or follow a worship entertainment or follow a guaranteed giving. These are fed hope for this life by doing church for a time. Pliable christians then fall away when asked to deny themselves, rather than to deny Jesus, the Christ of the Living God.

Do you deny yourself to worship the Lord?

Have you suffered at least some verbal abuse because you mention that Jesus is your Lord? Are you ashamed to mention that you worship the Lord every Sunday and have real loving relationships with our fellow souls of your local church?

Everybody wants to get to heaven… just ask anybody. Jesus tells us that heaven is only attainable through Him. Challenge anyone trying to find himself with that one.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. – John 14:6

The scriptures speak of heaven and the Lord Jesus coming down, yet the pliable ones fear public opinion of mortal men over the judgment granted to the Son of Man, Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4

The Coming of the Lord

¹³But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁵For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁶For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.

We would all be pliable christians if heaven were so easily attained as to not require Christ’s Cross.

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This is the seventh of my posts, “Follow After Me,” from which we will take a break in preparation of Lent and Easter in the year of our Lord, 2016.

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February 5, 2016
Follow After Me -5- Obstinate

Obstinate Anti-Christs leading our Cities of Destruction

U.S. Presidential Politics seem to offer us daily portraits of obstinate stances poised against godliness.

Are these last days of the 21st century after Christ so different from in Jesus’ day? Are politics and leadership in the U.S. and other powerful countries not just as corrupt as ancient Rome and captive Jerusalem?

I want to retell a somewhat familiar story of an encounter with God. The main character believes God. He worships God. He leads his family in worship of God. And, like everyone else, he struggles with all of the day to day issues of work, community and dealing with strangers as a witness to the Lord. In fact, he has a heart to save others and lead men to living more godly lives.

Genesis 18

And the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth 3 and said, “O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant…

¹⁶Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way…

²⁰Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, ²¹I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”

Abraham Intercedes for Sodom

²²So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. ²³Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? ²⁴Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?

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What is Abraham trying to do?

Sodom is the city where his nephew’s family lives. Further, Abraham likely would have done business with travelers to and from Sodom. Abraham shows a love and concern for his neighbors that asks the Lord to save their city. (Wouldn’t you try to save your family and people you work with?)

Abraham’s negotiation with the LORD continues:

²⁵Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”²⁶And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Negotiations continue…

(UN-united nations of today also delay the inevitable by negotiations.)

³²Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” ³³And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

Abraham’s nephew Lot and some of his family were the only ones saved from the judgment of Sodom. Yet they hesitated to leave their comfortable life in this sinful place.

Genesis 19:

¹⁶But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. ¹⁷And as they brought them out, one said,

“Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”

¹⁸And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. ¹⁹Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.

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Yes, even Lot, beloved nephew of Abraham seems obstinate enough to stay in Sodom and die by the judgment of the Lord.

I will suppose that you are now past this resistance, but like Abraham you would like to save other beloved friends and family.

Other than yourself, who would you most like to be saved?

Whose soul is so beloved that you cannot bear eternal life without them?

A family member? Your brother or sister? A dear friend? Even your beloved wife or husband?

You may have turned toward Christ, having one foot out the door of this world while looking back toward one who holds you in your place of hopelessness.

“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62b

In fact, you want this beloved person to change… to follow Jesus with you. Why will this beloved one not join you in looking to Christ for forgiveness and eternal joy?

They are obstinate to remain in their sin. Our beloved old friends of this world (including beloved family members) seem to become more of an anti-Christ, than a tolerant one of every other religion and sin at the mere mention of the Name of Jesus Christ, who is now our Lord.

Therefore, we have a difficult personal choice to make which is not different than the hard choices of those first follows after Jesus who witnessed his miracles, sat on the hillsides and experienced the love of God Incarnate first hand.

Luke 14:

The Cost of Discipleship

²⁵Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ²⁶“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

What does this mean? For Jesus seems to be saying to hate those who love me.

It means that your salvation is a personal choice. You choose Jesus alone. You choose Jesus above all others.

My wife cannot carry my cross for me. My dear friends whom I have known for years cannot save me and regrettably, I cannot save them.

Only Christ can save sinners like you and me. Only Christ can save sinners like our family and friends.

One cost of discipleship is that obstinate anti-Christs will turn against you

You love them. They are beloved family and long-time friends. Mention Jesus Christ and they accuse you of all kinds of things which go against the world of the flesh they crave. It is nothing new. The Messiah of of the Jews was rejected, as were the Prophets before Christ Jesus.

Jeremiah 20

I have become a laughingstock all the day;
everyone mocks me.
8 For whenever I speak, I cry out,
I shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long…

10 For I hear many whispering.
Terror is on every side!
“Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
say all my close friends,
watching for my fall.

You think, ‘I don’t want to spend eternity without these obstinate beloved friends and family.’ Yet they will not listen; in fact, they oppose you. Your choice is between a beloved one and our loving Father God who has saved you through the grace of the only Son, Jesus.

We must obediently turn our backs on this world of destruction and the perishing flesh of many beloved obstinate souls.

To be continued

NEXT: Pliable ‘christians’

February 2, 2016