Joe is a Christian who has talked with John before.
Today we met at a local retailer and got on the bus together and sat next to each other at the back of the bus.
John started his hustle, trying to get girls to pimp and make money from. Trying to get girls pregnant. Promoting “adult” entertainment, etc.
He did acknowledge that after a near heart attack recently, that limitless weed smoking is not a good thing. Smoking is indeed a health hazard. Joe the Christian urged John to repent of his pimping and promoting sex as an entre to prosperity economically.
John wanted to close off his ears to the good news “noise.” He rejected the law of God so he could not hear the hope of eternal life. He did not want to be honest about the consequences of his sin. As a result, John missed the hope of eternal life yet again. He heard enough of the warnings about God’s wrath to know that he deserved it.
The last I had a chance today to really speak to his heart: John was still hardened to the call to holiness.
How many people are going to hell simply because they repeatedly reject the invitations to get right with God. They know they sin. They know that God is calling them to repent but they keep postponing repentance. They pretend that there will always be another day to do the right thing.
Today is the day of salvation. If you know you are sinning, admit that to the Lord and turn away from your selfishness.
Jesus is waiting just a little bit longer. Your sins will find you out. Your lust, your theft, your lies, your selfishness, your adulteries and curses will all be exposed on judgment day.
It says in Isaiah and is quoted in part about John the Baptist:
The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make straight in the desert[a]
A highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be exalted
And every mountain and hill brought low;
The crooked places shall be made straight
And the rough places smooth;
5 The glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
(Isaiah 40:3-5; cf Luke 3:4-6)
In other words, a prophet would come who would go before the Messiah and prepare society to receive her king. Whenever a king comes, the earth must be prepared lest he have any trouble. Better he ride on a horse and bring deliverance than that he ride on a mule and His people suffer judgement. … at least that was the Jewish perspective of the time. Yet on a mule he had to ride in order to fulfill prophecy. Humble he came, over the rough roads of Galilee, Samaria, and Nazareth.
Jesus later called all of us who are saints to engage in the same work that John did: lowing mountains and raising up valleys. No longer should the valley of the shadow of death be as dreadful for those whose hearts are lifted up to the Lord. No longer should the mountain top experiences lead us to arrogate ourselves against the Lord. Instead, we will walk upon a smooth path. Each person who walks with Jesus should help ease the way by going before others who follow them in the way of Jesus.
Are you leading others to Jesus or away from Jesus? Are you choosing to follow Jesus are walk away from Him? When you see others follow Jesus, do you try to put a stumbling block in their path or do you seek to smooth their path by encouraging them? Hopefully you are among those who cultivate faith though love.
Jesus later said in his own ministry that faith does exactly this, it prepares the way for the faith of others. To quote Jesus:
Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:20-21)
Later we read this:
And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:20-22)
Friends, could Jesus have been any clearer? He wants no obstacle to our faith! Heaven has come to earth. This is what Christmas is about. Now earth must make way for the Kingdom of Heaven to spread through out the earth so that none should perish but all should come to repentance. While Scripture is clear that this all is not “all” without exception, but all without distinction should respond to the Lord. Poor & rich, Jew & Gentile, slave & free, male & female, civilized & barbarian, near & far … ALL will be represented before the King of Heaven.
What chasm lays between you and God? If you will but perpetually pray in Jesus name, that barrier can be overcome.
As Paul testified to the Ephesians:
Jesus Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. (2:14-18)
If you need proof, look at how Nick Wallenda overcame fear and walked with the Lord across such a chasm on the path to victory:
If a chasm like the little grand canyon cannot interrupt him from worshipping the Lord God, why should the little troubles you face keep you from crying out continually to our Savior, “Lord, have mercy!” He is listening. Cry out to Him now! Jesus will save you. Jesus alone.
If you have chosen to follow Jesus today, feel free to email me at: mertaka (at) everybody-dot-org .
There he goes, up from the river, into the back country. Nobody knows what happened other than what he says. He reports conversations with the devil.
Later, he would go into his hometown and speak about the Messianic Kingdom, in terms of fulfillment.
He refused to be a leader even when people wanted to make him one.
He chose to treated like a shepherd: despised, yet dealing with ravenous wolves.
He cared so much for those he tended to that he neglected to sit down for dinner. He was always talking about God and even talked about dying an early death, to the discomfort of his friends.
He knew those who hated him, but he still loved them.
He spoke against powerful leaders, yet was unafraid.
He promoted his mission shamelessly claiming that he would never leave his followers to the end of the age … and then he left … or did he?
This Jesus whom I talk about constantly is the Lord and Lifegiving Spirit.
Some run after visions in the wilderness only to chase this spirit or that spirit.
Others run after this denomination or that denomination.
A few claim to be the messiah themselves.
Personally, I am obsessed with the Man & Messiah: Jesus, Y’shua, Issa.
I cannot force him on anyone, but nor do I intentionally try to hide him. He has infected me with joy and I hope that that spreads to others. Sometimes I laugh at myself or the situation I am in, it is hard not to. Christ has conquered it all! Jesus really is King!
I lost my mind when I thought he was coming back in 3.5 days. Actually, he didn’t. Don’t worry, if you are reading this, you still have an opportunity to repent.
However, many people mistake the pictures of Christ for Jesus himself. They imagine Jesus to be a pleasant teacher who talked vaguely about intangible realities.
Actually, Jesus talked about life and death. He talked about sex and the dangers of sex outside the context of marriage. He talked about the risks of anger on your future. He talked about the failure of the day’s best religious trends to conquer the human heart.
Jesus claimed to be God.
He said, “Be before Abraham was, I am.”
A prophet is not just someone who confronts the age or opinion thereof, rather, a prophet is a God-guided & commissioned person whose words match the Life of Jesus and who emulates the life of God in their own walk.
I cannot claim to be a prophet, but I know that Jesus was more than merely a prophet.
He seemed confused to his family. His followers seem confused to the world. We face all kinds of difficulties, but those difficulties will be overcome through the blood of Jesus.
WHAT?? Human sacrifice is needed to cover our sins?
Yes. A particular sacrifice. A sinless sacrifice. A virgin’s sacrifice. Jesus.
No other way is available. We must tell the world about this. It must be told. We must tell everyone we can. We will seem like the village idiots when we confront sin. We will seem confused when we are so severe on self. We will seem stupid when we resist the ways of the world. But God’s confusion is more clever than the scholarship & psychiatry of the world.
Which will you choose?
Humanistic therapies & thoughts that lead to hell.
OR
Hope from the Father that leads to Heaven.
I once asked a young man what NOT following Jesus was costing him.
His answer: Sanity.
How true that is. Not following Jesus costs you your sanity. You are crazy not to follow Jesus. Mental illness is all rooted in sin. Why is the Western World increasingly dependent upon worthless physicians? Because of sin.
Yes, you and I are sinners. We need Jesus to heal us.
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