Friday, May 9, 2014

Jesus' Warning And The Gospel's Urge For Self-Examination



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Introduction
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My greatest concern for evangelical churches is the church. What do I mean by that? The church that I am describing is the people who professes to be Christians, but does not bear any kind of fruit. There are many, or too many, so-called Christians out there who are not living out their faith in a genuine way. I spoke about this concern in this entry, "Judas in the church". I want to revisit this topic, but this time putting our focus on the perspective from the eyes of Jesus. How did Jesus see his followers? What kind of warnings did He give to them? 

Surely, Jesus spoke about this concern in the Gospels. His teaching perhaps has a terrifying effect when I remember hearing one of my buddies said this, "Jesus said not every 'believer' will go to heaven." When he said "believers", I think he's talking about Christians who simply know the language of the Bible, who have intellectual faith, who practice good deeds to be saved, and who commit part-time for God. There are teachings from Jesus that warn us about these matters. I will provide five points with a brief description (I'm sure there's more) of what Jesus explicitly taught, and I invite you to read those passages for yourself. 
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What did Jesus say?
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  1. There are false disciples in the church who think they are saved, but Jesus never knew these people. (Matthew 7:21-23) 
  2. This does not just apply to Christians. There are two gates: narrow and wide. Many choose the wide one, but only a few finds the narrow one. (Matthew 7:13-14; Luke 13:22-30)
  3. When the Word of God is spoken, there are two kinds of disciples who will respond differently. One will hear it, apply genuine saving faith, and do what our Lord commands. The other will hear it, and this being the false disciple, will not do it. (Matthew 7:24-27; Luke 6:46-49)
  4. There are four different types of soil: hardened path, rocky soil , thorny soil, and good soft soil (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23: Luke 8:4-15).
  5. There are false disciples who are not willing to forgive even though they "received" God's forgiveness. Such false disciples who do not offer forgiveness never genuinely experienced God's forgiveness of sin (Matthew 18:21-35).
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Conclusion
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Paul Washer has a viral video that has at least a million views called "The Shocking Youth Message". Washer's tone is very strong and very passionate. Not everyone would like him, but he surely gets his point across. Somewhere in his opening speech, as he was preaching to the youth, he said, "Majority of the people in this room will go to hell." Now, if you're appalled, angry and shocked already, try not to make any further accusations, but go and check out that video.

In conclusion, I will allow John Piper to provide three lessons that we could take away from this entry:
  1. “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; prove yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
  2. “Enter by the narrow gate…For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (7:13-14).
  3. This is not justification by works! This is indispensable evidence of justification by faith—“you will know them by their fruits!”

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