I won’t lie….yesterday’s post was a tough one for me; and I’m not really sure I can even explain why that is. But I think it may have something to do with this reluctance deep inside…that just struggles with coming to grips with how serious this gospel message of the cross is. 

 It’s one thing to read a quaint fairytale and when you are done, you close the book, put it back up on the shelf and continue on with your day. 

 Not so easy to do with this bible of ours, who many I might add, view it as another ‘fairytale’ as well. Now, on the contrary, after I think about it, I guess I should say that it has tragically become all that easy to just read a few chapters a day, close the book, and move on with our day, unchanged and unchallenged. I guess that is why Jesus used that parable of the ten virgins in Matt. 25 to describe the condition of the church in the latter times, prior to His return…and how they ‘all fell asleep’. (5) 

 But even back in the days of Paul’s writing, ‘falling asleep’ (spiritually) must have been common as well. He writes to the Romans saying “it is high time to awake out of sleep ; for our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” (8:11). There seems to be an urgent call to ‘cast off works of darkness’ (sins of the flesh) and walk properly,…making no provision for the flesh and such. (12-14). Now, go make note of Ephesians 5:11-17. Do you see a theme here? 

 If there is one thing that I could say has always seemed to be ‘absent’ in my own spiritual journey and seemingly absent in the ‘church at large’ today…it is the sense of recognizing the serious urgency that is clearly seen throughout so much of scripture. 

 Why would God, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who formed us and knew us before we were even born…leave His place in heaven and robe Himself in flesh, and come and endure the agony of the cross unless there was something serious at stake? How…can we question or doubt the love of a God who loved the whole world so much, that He would pay the ransom with His own life, so that we might be set free? 

 Yet, there it is in scripture for us to see with our own eyes: “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)

 Listen to the tone of the writer’s words in Hebrews 2:1-3 who admonishes us to ‘give more earnest heed to the things we have heard…lest we drift away’…and then asks: ‘how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation’? “Drift”…”Neglect”….? Certainly none of us could ever be guilty of that, could we?

 I have raised this question before and do so again here today…what did those early believers know that we don’t? Why would Paul express grave concerns for those ‘flocks of sheep’, saying he warned them day and night with tears pleading…that they be careful and not be deceived and led astray. (Acts 20:26-31) 

 Why would Paul ‘count all things loss’ and press on and endure physical beatings, stonings, and imprisonments to get this message out to whosoever? A message, given to him by Jesus Himself with the hopes people’s eyes would be opened and that they might turn from darkness to light and be released from the power of Satan and turn to God. (Acts 26:18) 

 My post from yesterday has continued to work on me. Especially that scene with the train cars carrying multitudes to the concentration camps back in WWII. As some of you might know, back in 2010, I was given an incredible opportunity to work with the Dallas Holocaust Museum and photograph a dozen living survivors and their families. This particular subject has always been one close to my heart and something I was very passionate about teaching to my students when I taught school. 

 But never…until this week, had I ever seen the parallel as to how our spiritual enemy, who ‘controls and deceives the whole world’ (1 John 5:19; Rev. 12:9) has ‘train loads upon train loads’ of people that he himself is leading to an eternal hell. (Matt. 25:41). And we seem more preoccupied with ‘singing louder’ to drown out the noise like they did back then in that church I mentioned. (See yesterday’s post) 

 In Revelation, we read where Jesus addressed the ‘seven churches’ and had some sobering words of correction and warning for them. You can read those in chapters 2 and 3. The last letter, addressed to the church at Laodicea has similarities drawn by many with the church here in America today. The same could be said about the church at Sardis as well. (both in chapter 3) 

 He basically is addressing their apparent ‘blindness’ and how they are incapable of seeing their wretched condition. They think they are just fine and dandy, having reputations of being ‘alive’ yet told by God they are ‘dead’, among other things. (3:1-6 and 14-22) 

 Please know, I am not on some mission to cast stones at any congregation or local church. But I have a burning in my soul of a message that God wants us to hear, read, and consider. (Acts 17:11). 

 This is not about trying to provoke or create some hyper emotional reaction ‘in the moment’ like some churches can be guilty in doing. You know,- sing one more verse after that threatening message and see if we can pry them loose from the pew and get them down to this altar. 

 But there is the case to be made that if we are ‘asleep’, then we need to be aroused and awakened. We are admonished to “exhort one another DAILY…lest we be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin and depart from the Living God.’ (Heb. 3:12-13). Jesus Himself expressed concern over widespread sin/lawlessness that would contribute to the hearts of many waxing hard/cold. (Matt. 24:12) And anyone…can ‘drift’ if they are not paying attention, which we are admonished to do as well in Heb. 2:1 & Col. 3:2 

 And if you are continuing to ‘practice sin’ then according to Jesus, you are a ‘slave to sin’ and then told that a ‘slave will not abide in the house forever’. (John 8:34-35) You are on that ‘train of captivity’. This…sobering piece of news was sandwiched in-between the promise that we might ‘know the truth’ and that the truth ‘would set us free’. (32,36). And that is what ‘captives’ need more than anything…freedom. 

 One of the things I was always struck by when reading and studying the Holocaust, was the apparent ‘passivity’ of the thousands upon thousands of Jews who were forced out of their homes, corralled in temporary ‘ghettos” until loaded on to trains with countless cattle cars that took them to the concentration camps where so many faced their gruesome deaths. 

 Sure, there were small groups of resistance that sprung up and those who did make attempts to flee and escape Germany and Poland during that time period. But when you see films and photos and pour over documents …the most just seemed like docile ‘lambs…being led to the slaughter’. I have often pondered such a scenario taking place in our country today and frankly, it is hard to imagine. There would be so much uprisings and rebellion and fighting …we certainly live in a different day and time period. There is such a fierce and independent spirit that exist in people today…I doubt highly so many could just be forced out of their homes and duped into boarding trains with little resistance. 

 And yet….and yet…while that scenario seems highly implausible today…in the natural realm…that is pretty much what has happen in the ‘spiritual realm’ if I can use that expression. The ‘god of this age’ has blinded the minds of those who are perishing’. (2 Cor. 4:3-4). This spiritual foe who ‘deceives the whole world’ (Rev. 12:9) and has this ‘world under his sway or influence’ (1 John 5:19), has ‘taken them captive to do his will’ (2 Tim. 2:26; Acts 26:18). Multitudes have been and are being…’swept away by the floods’ of darkness and deception that Jesus foretold would happen prior to His return. (Matt. 24:37-39) and they don’t even see it. (Dan. 12:9-10). It is all a part of the great ‘falling away’ which Paul wrote of in 2 Thess. 2:3 and this happens because people no longer have a ‘love for the truth’ (9-12) 

 And here’s the ‘kicker’ : Most church people would look at all ‘those sinners’ on the outside who don’t attend church’ as the blind and clueless victims. I hate to be the one to inform you of this, but that is something we might want to re-examine because I believe the scriptures are telling us something different. Whose people are ‘destroyed for a lack of knowledge’? (Hosea. 4:6) 

 I know…this all sounds so dark and gloomy and unsettling and unnerving. In fact, it would be much easier to not even ‘think about this’. Let’s just turn the praise music up…sing a bit louder…quote some scriptures and get that good loving feeling back. Who needs all this negative stuff. This kind of talk makes people uncomfortable. Surely there have to be some more uplifting verses in the bible to make people feel better about themselves, are there not? 

 You know what I have discovered? Once you get in to the ‘ark of abiding in His presence’, Jesus is pretty good about doing that Himself for you. There is ‘fullness of joy in His presence’. Where the ‘Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’. “Perfect peace have they whose minds are stayed on Him.’. 

 Joy…freedom…and peace…are all the byproducts of abiding in Him. And we don’t work our way or sing our way into that place. We stretch out are hands…like Jesus did on the cross…and ‘die’ as we surrender our entire hearts to Him. 

 And then…He begins a new work in making you a new creation.

"Examine yourselves...as to whether you are in the faith. test yourselves. Do you know know yourselves that Jesus Christ in in you? Unless...indeed you fail the test?" (2 Cor. 13:5)