The Narrow Path to True Discipleship
The path to genuine Christianity is through a narrow gate that few find, not because it is physically restrictive, but because it demands costly commitment. Many religious activities and outward displays of faith—even miraculous gifts and prophecies—cannot substitute for true knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit’s work of conviction and call for genuine repentance marks the difference between authentic faith and mere religious observance. Without this deeper work, one’s spiritual house, though impressive on the surface, may collapse when tested by life’s storms or the final judgment.
Automatically Generated Transcript
[00:00:00] We’re entering into the narrow gate if we’re following Jesus’ advice because there’s two ways that sometimes religion, religious people, even us as Christians who are more than just religious, tackle what it is to be a disciple of Christ. Discipleship, which is how the Gospels describe what Jesus came to be doing amongst us. Discipleship is what the Gospels is meant to deliver. It is the publication of the Gospel that is the topic of the four discipleship books that begin our New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And here as we’re reading from right at the end of the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus gives us very strong advice. Enter into the narrow gate. I looked up the word narrow and the actual word that’s used for there is a Greek word stenos. And you
[00:01:11] know into our English language there’s come a use of that word. I’m very familiar with it because at one time I had a heart operation and they were tackling arteries. One of the problem of people’s arteries is that they get narrowed and the narrowing is due to all sorts of scum and plaque that develops in them and when they shut down sufficiently you have a heart attack and sometimes die. That’s the word stenos. But here it’s being used in a positive way in Jesus mind as he seeks to teach us about discipling and he says enter by the narrow gate. The implication is that there are other gates that you can get drawn in through and the big contrast he makes here is for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. So immediately my ears are
[00:02:20] pricking up to try and understand what is the narrow gate and why is the other one wide and what sort of discipleship are we doing. Those who enter into the broad gate are many. The people getting in the narrow gate are few. The narrow verse 14 for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few. Immediately there’s a contrast that set up and I’ve been talking about this these last Sundays about discipleship between whether or not you aim to make it deep when you’re in church, when you’re in Christian ministries or whether you aim to make it sufficiently open that you’ll catch more people. Most of the churches and even our Baptist churches around the city have to make decisions that are really based upon first of all which do we
[00:03:26] chase the numbers or the depth. Now I want to say first of all that this is not really Jesus talking about communication or levels of growth. We’ve just seen our kids run off downstairs and I would be very upset if they gave them a heavy dose that you get because they’re children and you naturally adjust your communication not only to the language use that’s appropriate but also to the development that the people of the receiving end are at. And so in the case of churches there are some churches which operate at what might be looked at as shallow if you’re used to sitting in a doctrinal sort of church but that’s not a bad thing if the people who are there in the district are going to understand. I have to confess in Sydney in one of my churches I had a
[00:04:29] good friend who used to help me with cars but he said to me Jim I have to go somewhere else because you go over my head. We had the University of Macquarie University up the road and we had a whole lot of students who were a major audience and so I understood and that’s a question of development of thinking or of the lifestyle that you have the terms that you used to and I’m not listen to me I’m not addressing that difference that every congregation has to decide. And the decision as to how deep you go depends one on another issue that I’m getting to in a moment but also depends upon the people that come along and the people who are teaching. You would be a stupid bunch if you pressured me to keep on the shallow because I’m not good at that but I do have a whole
[00:05:31] host of theological training by which I’m able to bring to you what I do these Sunday mornings. It’s not the question that we’re addressing but there’s something else about narrow, stenos and deep that Jesus is getting at here. We need to bring it out which is what we’re doing this morning. There is has been in the history of the Christian world particularly in the Western Christian world that will be Europe and Great Britain and United States and NASA New Zealand tacked on. Not really but there has been a history of revivals that have happened again and again and the revivals have often been accompanied by a shift to things that are more deep but that shift to the depth hasn’t just been the case of a different style of delivery or a different attitude to how much
[00:06:40] information you put in. In fact if you go back to the revivals they all seem to be people far more deeper than we are today if you listen to the Puritan preachers for example and they were anything but shallow. We’re in a generation of shallow compared to some of our pre-cessing generations but there nonetheless have been times of movements of the Spirit where whole communities caught on fire for Christ whole townships came under conviction of sin and repented hard and ran back to the gospel and one person who was gifted of God and led of God to be the instrument to introduce such there were different ones but the one I want to give you a quote from his name was Charles Addison Finney and this particular fellow was had a gift he came
[00:07:39] to the Lord in a desperate way himself and for that moment on went on and pled with people to do the same and this particular fellow everywhere he went people start weeping and repenting. He went to village after village one of which he went got in and started preaching even before he knew what the village name was and he chose a passage that was appropriate to his style of ministry which was Solomon Gomorrah and preached away and the people began to weep and moan and they became into a revival sense of coming back to God many of them had ever been converted in the first place so powerful was Finney’s ministry in that way and as only as he finished up and people began to tell him do you know the name of this city this town he didn’t it was Sodom and he
[00:08:34] preached on Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord brought it as a blow to them deeper than he’d even realized might happen with that sermon but at other times he went into factories and as he walked around and looked at the people something in his gaze made them all break down and repent God had a special place in him God still does those things where he comes on people whom you may think are beyond any capacity of religious people to make any difference you’ve not taken into account the Holy Spirit for the Holy Spirit as Jesus said when he’s about to go back to heaven he said it’s good for you that I go because if I didn’t go the Holy Spirit would not come Jesus recognizing that the era of the Holy Spirit coming in the new in the New Covenant period would be more
[00:09:32] powerful than even Jesus being present if that could be possible Jesus presence I don’t think it let me just add a little note in here he is the authority behind all authorities so I don’t think he was bore but it was more expedient which is the word that he used in the English the translation thereof to his disciples he said that I go away because if I do not go I will not come and if I had the Holy Spirit will not come and if he doesn’t come he went on to say that What he would do, that he will convict the world of Sin. And that activity of the Holy Spirit to bring to people who otherwise have not been sort of aware of all where the land lays spiritually,
[00:10:23] to suddenly become aware and conscious, that under God they weren’t right, you need the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin before people even understand the need to come to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and even if you convince them intellectually and they learn it because you teach well in the schools or in the Sunday school or at home, even if you teach it well and they know it as a fax that’s been taught,
[00:10:50] there is a deeper sense of knowing that conviction of sin when it actually happens. And when you’re involved in Christian evangelism or there you’re involved in church life, The thing for which we need most to pray is for the activity of the Holy Spirit at our church that’s not just people taking on a religious current or people picking up a lifestyle that’s got more religion in it or even true religion.
[00:11:22] But if it’s just something that’s a bit different in the style or difference in the way it’s put, you don’t get any deep results. And when Jesus spoke about enter into the narrow gate, I’ve been thinking what makes the gate narrow is the work of the Holy Spirit that convicts a person of why he, Jesus, came. I love it, I’m always gonna be saying this, Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan’s terrific bestseller around the world for many generations after he died.
[00:11:58] But that beautiful description of there being a pilgrimage that’s made as a pilgrimage to get in the door of Heaven. And that’s pictured as going over a river and getting into the celestial city for the ones walking on the pilgrimage. And the chief character of the story, Christian, it’s a fantastic book because of the metaphor that’s being used. But he wants to get on this road of pilgrimage and do you know that you can be a pilgrim
[00:12:28] actually not know Jesus, and that was the case, although his name was Christian. But he met a person who was called Evangelis, who said, there’s here a very narrow little road to go down. Not many people had he been able to talk to going down. But he taught Christian to go down this road and it led down to where there was a cross. And in front of the cross was a great enormous hole and pilgrim knelt in front of the cross with the hole behind him and while he saw how Jesus died his burden of sin could I lose from his back and fell down the hole never to be seen again and he rose to be a true Christian and to walk the true pilgrimage, it is when you found the forgiveness of sins and you’re going to get into the celestial city because Jesus’ cross is
[00:13:26] right at the heart of that change. I love the Pilgrims Progress. This fellow Charles Grandison Finney, in his testimony, the storyline of how he also got in the door, is interesting because not only does it comment on the fact you’ve got to see the cross and you’ve got to know that Jesus died for you, the Holy Spirit’s involved, but it’s sort of addressing what Jesus was meaning when he said he entered into the narrow gate. I thought I’d get some mileage by looking up the word enter. I didn’t really help my servant this morning, it’s acercomi as the word, it just means into walk. That’s what you do when you enter something. So I was a bit disappointed. I can’t make a big point out of the meaning of the Greek there, but when I got to the word narrow gate, I suddenly realised that that statement, that’s a clause, it’s called an enter. That statement entered by the narrow gate has a meaning that
[00:14:32] the narrow gate puts on the enter. The narrow gate, why is it called narrow if it’s so narrow that you can’t fit through? It’s a useless gate. I don’t think they’re trying to say there’s a gate that you’re going to somehow squeeze through sideways. Why is it called a narrow gate? Narrow gate because the decision to go through is going to cost you and is difficult to get a lot of people to take. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. That’s the alternative to have an easy way to get people in the door and many go in there at. Those that enter it are many. So the real narrowness that calls for an entering that’s difficult is the facts of what is asked. Enter into the narrow gate. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard and many a person has looked at
[00:15:40] the call to come to Jesus and then along a little voice comes. Not necessarily a little voice but occasionally sometimes it’s an understanding that they suddenly realize to step through that gate is going to cost them and it’s the costliness of discipleship that makes that entering hard. Now my title for the sermon today is the idea that it’s risky to have shallow discipleship or another way to word it is I wanted to talk on the dangers of shallow discipleship whether it be personally that we don’t make much of the claims of Jesus or whether it be decisions by you’ve watched the children how many people they got at church in their Sundays according to the numbers in the Sunday schools it’s always bigger than the number in any given service but
[00:16:49] it’s where they take the number they got at a given morning is how many actually went to Sunday school and had a fellowship but the rationale that they use there was one that would be difficult at first for people who wanted wanted to go, and their family just have one hour. Where the kids go to Sunday school, they go to church in your wizard home to do what you’ve got else to do on the Sunday. But it was a decision to ask their people a bigger ask to have to give two hours, or two and a bit, whatever it turned out to be.
[00:17:26] That’s the sort of decision that you make when you’re prepared, even though it’s going to cost you with less people living up to it, that it’s the thing that Jesus would be talking about. Now, having lived over in Dallas and seen that, and coming back here, and there’s a movement in Australia to really have smaller asks on Sundays, so that some churches deliberately, I know you could probably work out this if you try it hard, I knew a church where I think they had five services. But what they did on purpose is have the same message given each one,
[00:18:09] which certainly disciplined people to only come to one. There’s a movement in Australia by large in the churches for there to be a slackening of what Sunday asks of Christians. And it puts on us, who lead, whether or not we will go along with that, because we might get more numbers. But we’re really choosing one that is less narrow, whether you’d call it broad, like Jesus is saying, you can decide. But there is a danger that he’s going to tell us of, of shallowing down the discipleship. Now, I need to acquaint you that this is indeed discipleship,
[00:19:03] and that it’s not just my idea. I don’t want you to go out the door and say, well, Jim is calling it all discipleship, but we don’t have to use that word. So I brought a big cannon. It’s heavy. Now, this is the gospel according to Matthew by Leon Morris. And if ever there was an Australian commentator scholar that pretty well all evangelicals admire, me included, it’s Leon Morris. On any given volume of commentary he writes,
[00:19:35] I will try and get my hands on. And Leon Morris comments. And in his comments, he comments about Matthew 7. I’m not going to read you all’s reads of it. But in Matthew 7, and it’s on a verse page that I’ve written down here somewhere, he comments about what Matthew 7 is all about. And page 173, and if I put my glasses on, it’s a phenomenon of the last five years, to put glasses on to read Leon Morris.
[00:20:19] Page 173. And I’m feeling the same. It’s not page 173. I’ve done something wrong. So I’ll just turn to chapter 7. I’ll find it that way. It’s actually page 7. It’s on to do with Matthew 7, verse 13. All right. The concluding section of the sermon, that’s
[00:21:00] the Sermon on the Mount, is taken up with impressing on the hearers. The difference between real and merely nominal discipleship. In four short paragraphs, they’re the verses that follow that we’re doing today, Jesus tells, he calls for wholehearted commitment to himself and denounces spurious discipleship. And he goes on to say how that chapter achieves that. It’s about discipleship, the whole question of the depth of a church and what you aim at. And although there are factors such as the age and maturity
[00:21:50] of the people, which is demonstrated that we don’t do the same thing in Sunday school as we do in the service. But what we do do, and it’s been involved the leadership of the church to say to those that run the Sunday School and they know this, is to say to people that they get to go down and do the teaching, that if they miss worshipping with the rest of the church in the morning to come in the evenings. And the leaders have told us that they’re
[00:22:24] willing for that to be what they ask. Whether the people do it or not, you can’t make people. But we do that because there’s something special about the ecclesia, you’re the ecclesia. And the word means to be called out by God. It means to be assembled. It’s the word they use for assembly. So it’s the ecclesia, call out ones. It used to happen in any town in the ancient world of Jesus era where if someone who was a king
[00:22:55] or someone who was a priest or someone who’s a leader, of whatever sort, wanted to have an assembly he’d call out, whether by a bugle or whether by sending a word, but they were all called to come to the assembly. It was called the ecclesia, and do you know that the early church who met to worship Jesus, although they did it at first in the temple, eventually, that assembly was called
[00:23:20] the ecclesia of the church. Somewhere across history, the word church got to mean the building you did it in, which was a lack of understanding of the original scene. The original scene, S-C-E-N-E, is one where it’s where you’re called together by the person who’s in charge of the leader. That’s Jesus. He’s the one who has called people to be in his church. And if you were to be asked of someone on the street
[00:23:53] as you went home or someone who’s a relative, why did you go there? One answer you can give is because Jesus calls his people to come and worship him, which is what we do this morning, and to listen to him, which is what we’re doing now, through his word because this is his word exposited. It’s not because, I know it works better that if you have someone who’s a bit trained in speech, someone who’s been to college and learns how to give sermons
[00:24:24] and that doesn’t really help as much as they think it does, I have to tell you. But they’re just human things. But what happens when someone’s called by Jesus to be a pastor teacher or to be an evangelist is to be a person that when he speaks is Jesus who’s speaking through it. And when sermon time is on at our church, the people we let give the sermons, by and large, are people who already are recognized
[00:24:56] to be people with a gift so to do because that makes it Jesus talking as well. Or someone that’s seeking to find their gift and we wanna get them a bit of a kick to get going and try them out. But the thing that counts that makes what we’re now doing is not just that I’m really good at speaking because I know the truth. I’ve always been criticized in colleges for not filling out the rules that they have
[00:25:27] in what they call teaching sermons. I don’t even remember that name, but in sermon classes, oh, Jim, you didn’t do the proper thing. And it happened when I went overseas to Dallas and I had them telling me over there, the particular professors of preaching were ones that didn’t like you getting too emotional. So they used to tell me off and say, you got too excited when you gave your sermon.
[00:25:55] They said that’s bad because you might have convinced somebody and we wanna leave convincing to be what God does, not human. I used to go along to when those professors had preaching opportunities in the district because I thought I listened to how they carried out themselves. And not all of them, but many of them were dead boring. And I said to myself, I’ll stick to my own method.
[00:26:26] I had already been preaching and so I had a method that worked for me and it was to pray until God gave me something to say. And then when I became certain that he was giving me something to say, it always got people listening. So when it came time for me to speak in the preaching class and they used to have cameras that would record you and the copy of the record had an extra track with the professor putting in his comments to you
[00:26:56] down behind glass, he’d add in comments while you’re talking. And he’d say, well, you didn’t raise your hands the right way or you started bad or, you know. I sat and did, gave those sermons but one idea was that I prayed and says, God, those students, what do you need them to hear? And when I got something I felt the Lord was saying and I went along, sure enough the professor told me off in his little comments, oh, you’re getting too emotional.
[00:27:28] You’re getting too excited. You shouldn’t do that because you may convince them by your emotion. Now, I don’t think I convinced anybody by my emotion. I think I do get them listening when they know I’m sincere. But they’d walk out of my preaching times and come and tell me, thank you, Jim. The Lord spoke to me. There’s nothing more thrilling when you’re invited
[00:27:56] to deal with the scriptures and to bring the word of God than when someone tells you, God spoke to me. That’s what it’s all about. Jesus is the ultimate authority we haven’t gotten to, yeah, but this passage finishes up about that. All the scribes were meant to be the authorities but in comparison to Jesus, they marveled because he spoke as someone who had authority and that same authority, not mine, but the same authority of Jesus happens in these days
[00:28:29] when we deliver the word of God. And what makes for good discipleship is that when you get Jesus to speak and you do it from his word, and as I’ve said many times, the gospels have got long chapters. Matthew has 28. You could deliver the shorter gospel in one chapter. Why does he bother with 28 of them? It’s because he’s giving them the full quota
[00:28:59] of what Jesus wants them to know. It’s discipleship at death. It’s important for us that we don’t only get people to make a decision and get in the door and say, yep, I’m going to heaven. And then leave them. And that’s what Jesus is talking about here. And he begins to alert folk of things that can drive you in the wrong direction and we’ll go through these very quickly.
[00:29:26] Verse 15, beware of false prophets. Now back in the early days, there were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, pastor teachers or pastors and teachers. But there were people who said, oh, I’m a prophet and they would try. And some of them were people that seemed to have chorismas and we get folk listening. But it’s possible for there to be a false prophet who comes to you in sheep’s clothing,
[00:29:58] mean they look so harmless. But inwardly they’re ravenous wolves. What makes them wolves is the falseness of the prophecy. This is not only where you sometimes get people who stand up and say I’ve got a word from the Lord that’s not, but it’s also people who simply try and teach you another way. And you’ve got to, if you’re not to be a person who’s drawn aside to a shallow discipleship, you’ve got to be aware that there are some discipleships that are leading you in the wrong direction. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly ravenous wolves. You’ll recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes? Obviously no. Figs do you get a amount of thistles? Obviously no. So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the disease tree,
[00:30:57] that’s another way, it’s the wrong tree, bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a disease tree bear good fruit. And you can tell by the result of the shallowness of discipleship, that it’s not something you better trust. Every tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, which is a biblical way of metaphor for judgment, thus you’ll recognise them by their fruits. Now it’s interesting, I’ve got the title, The Danger of Shallow Discipleship, and then this next passage from verse 21 on, it elaborates this. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. In other words, not everybody who actually, as far as the rest of us observing is concerned, who goes through whatever’s necessary to show themselves to be a Christian, in some cases
[00:32:08] that means that they come forward at the appeal, or it might mean, depending on how your church runs that they get baptised and do what’s asked. It’s not just the physical social response to what was seen being asked, that necessarily means that someone actually gets in the door. You don’t put your trust in, oh, I went forward. You don’t put your trust in, I’ve been baptized, it’s a good thing to be baptized and you do Feel rather glad that you did when you do. But you don’t put your trust in the humanness of the response. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven,
[00:32:54] but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. The real test that you’re actually in the door is that you’re making some distance, making some progress in doing what God wants you to do. To be a Christian means that Jesus is Lord, but it’s not just a wording that you say or a wish that you have. It’s what your life acts out in the end. You say, Jim, you’re making no room for when we might slip up and fall. No, I’m not, because the Bible also
[00:33:34] speaks about there being forgiveness for Christians who confess their sins. This does lead to the question, because some of the verses says, God will remember your sins no more, but I’m saving it up for all of our evening messages. How it is that the eternal God who can do everything also says he can’t remember your sins. That’s for a future message. But the truth of the matter is the facts that you fall, God has catered for.
[00:34:06] And so I will show you the verse that saves you from the danger of shallow discipleship in verse 23. Then I will declare to him, I never knew you, the acid test being not that you made the proper response you think, but that you came to know him, know him as Jesus, have come into a relationship with him. As a person comes to Christ, gradually the assurance of that correct relationship grows. And it’s something that’s just a fact, when you’ve been a Christian for a while,
[00:34:44] you know that you know him. He’s been in your life. You’re not afraid of eternity, because you know Christ. Don’t put your trust in that you went forward at the appeal of one of the evangelistic crusades. A lot of people get to become Christians, that way I’m not against them, as you know. But it’s not your outward response seen by people, or even thought of by you. That’s why sometimes it’s better in church life
[00:35:20] not to keep giving a call. My church in Dallas, they gave on every service. And the people go forward. But I know for a fact from there, that didn’t mean they all got in the door. Some of them were trying to get in the door, but had to find out what it really meant to repent and come to Christ. Thankfully, their Sunday school classes used to work on that.
[00:35:44] Anyway, it’s not because you also get to have a charismatic gift. And in the Pentecostal part of the evangelical church, there are churches where they do know the Lord and put their panties, okay? And I’m not speaking this morning, saying that they’re wrong and everything. I’m just saying that the fact of people beginning to speak in tongues, or think they do, is not a very secure test that you’ve got the Holy Spirit.
[00:36:12] And I’ve had friends who had pressure on them to speak in tongues and they told me later, I just went yabby yabby yabby, and got them off my back. Also I have to say, I’m not speaking to say that there’s not a gift of speaking tongues in the Bible, and in that church in Ryde, I had people who were tongue speakers who really knew God and had gifts which helped me no end. My prayer partner was one of those people that I first doubted. I thought she was just an emotional Italian lady, but she actually knew God well, and how I found it out was one of my trips to America, and Heidi got grabbed by someone,
[00:36:58] run off with her when she was a little baby, and I had to chase this lady running off with Heidi, and catch up and rip Heidi out of her arms. And anyway, that night where we stayed, I got a phone call that was my prayer partner, and she said I was asleep and God woke me up to pray for you. What happened? I told the story because, of course, they were sleeping when we were in daytime in Atlanta. So I do believe there are people who have gifts, and I’m not knocking. Please don’t go away from here and say Jim is against all charismatic gifts. I’m not. I’m just aware of the fact that they’re not all real, and it’s in an arena where the devil can do some sneaky things. And so don’t count on the facts that you’ve become a good charismatic, and say when you get, and if you get to the time of the great judgment, and the Lord calls you into account, don’t store up ready to say, but didn’t I prophesy in your name? And I cast out demons in
[00:38:12] your name. Some of the Jewish sons of the Jewish leaders learn from watching the Christians, the apostles, about using Jesus’ name, and they had a bit of a practice of casting out demons because Jesus’ name worked. But they got into trouble at one time when a demon-possessed person that they tried to do it, the demons left out, or the man did, and not sure which, onto them, and beat them all up. Now, so don’t trust in your carries martyr as your proof. There’s something deeper, and it is the sense that you belong to Jesus, and he belongs to you that the Holy Spirit gives you, and you just know it. And your life works out as you seek to do his will, and you pray to find your way, and that’s sometimes an experimental thing. But you spent your life trying to do what Jesus leads you to do. You’re safe for the Judgment Day because the judgment’s going to be on the fruits of your salvation, including that Jesus really led you. It’s a shocking thing for some people
[00:39:22] in older age to come to a conclusion that they don’t actually have any evidence of being led to do Jesus’ will. They’ve had a few guesses. They’ve had some senses of obedience, and then they said no and didn’t. But the test time comes at the end. Don’t say you’ve prophesied in his name. Then will I declare to him, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of the old version reads iniquity. Iniquity is that you didn’t do the will of the Father. You broke his laws. You workers of lawlessness. Finally, in this passage in verses 24 and following, the Lord gives an illustration about if you know the information of the danger, smart you are, wise you are, if you do something to move away from that danger. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them not, who doesn’t do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand,
[00:40:40] and the rain fell, and the floods came, and in rivers, usually with the rush, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. So Jesus warns that the danger of shallow discipleship is if you didn’t actually get in the door and know Jesus, that you’ve been lulled into a sleep, and you’re in danger of something happening. Actually, where the illustration applies so much is when people are really happy in where they are with church and with themselves, but sometimes the floods coming can be a terrible thing at the end when a sudden sickness hits, or where a change in society occurs, like in World War II in Germany, and all the people were suddenly put under attack if they sheltered Jews, there was a test, and there were some who, because they were Christians, they, at risk of their own lives, they sheltered Jews, and when they get to the Great Judgment Day,
[00:41:59] Jesus is going to commend them because if not only because they did a wonderful thing, but because they proved they actually were converted persons, they actually were people had him, they actually knew him, and knowing Jesus and becoming increasingly aware of his presence with you and his blessing on you, is the most precious thing in all of life. And even if your rest of your workmates think you’re ridiculous because of this Christian belief you have, when you know in your heart that you know Jesus, it’s the most fantastic thing. And when he comes again and he collects those that are his, there’s not going to be any question that he’ll accept them. I go to prepare a place for you when I come again, I’ll take you to be with myself, that where I am you may be also. Jesus knows the ones who are his. The Bible
[00:43:05] often says that he knows the ones that are his. Do you know him? Then you’re safe for judgment. But don’t let there be shallow discipleship that lets people get included, at least for a little while, till the world catches them into some other thing. Because that is very desperately dangerous. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you in Jesus’ name. I thank you my Father that you care for your children. And I thank you that Jesus had the same love for those who are his. And he gave these stern warnings about shallow discipleship. What makes it dangerous is when the gate is so broad and many people are going in that they go pressed by the company. Everybody makes the step and that’s what they do and they’re happy enough, have friends. But they don’t know you. Oh
[00:44:13] Father, would you by your Holy Spirit do that awakening that Jesus promised? He said it’s expedient for you disciples that I go away because if I don’t go away the Holy Spirit will not come. Well he did, he came. But he will when he comes convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And Father would you bring about a love or awakening time in our days where you waken people up to the danger of not really knowing you and that there may be many in our country who escape that outcome of being people unprepared for the storm of the judgment of God. We ask it in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.