Four realities the Christ follower must accept.
If you say, “Surely we did not know this,” Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds?
Did you ever read a part of scripture and think to yourself "where did that come from" or "I didn't know that was in there?" That happened to me this past Sunday morning.
We had a guest speaker at Exciting Idlewild Baptist Church, Tom Eliff, president of the International Mission Board as our guest speaker and this scripture from Proverbs came as a surprise to me.
Here is the outline of his sermon with my notes filled in for each point:
There is a compelling reality you must face
Hell is real and lost people are being led away in mass. We don't like to think about it is a reality that thousands are headed to an eternity of dark, loneliness in agony.
There are critical responsibilities you must accept
We should be on a rescue mission, if we really understand what we have been saved from then how can we be so laid back about telling others.
There are calloused reactions you must avoid
You can't fool God and say that you didn't know about the situation, we should not neglect our responsibility by being indifferent.
There is a certain reckoning you must anticipate
We will be held responsible for the work that we did here for God's kingdom.
The passage in Proverbs sounds like it should be in the New Testament, it reminds me of this passage from Paul that he wrote to the church in Corinth:
2 Corinthians 5:10-11 For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body. Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others. God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too.Jesus commissioned us to go tell the world, it's not a suggestion, it's a command and like most commands there is an accountability for our actions. We will be judged on what we did with what we know, it is very clear in this passage in Corinthians that we have a duty to our God and to the people around us. Some of them do not know about the dangers and there are others that have heard about the danger but they have decided to ignore the warning and they need to be told again and again so that maybe they will change their mind.
I need to be true to my mission and be willing to tell others more often than I do about the dangers that are waiting for them.
Help me Lord to be on fire about working for you.
