What I am trying to do on this channel is to wake people up to something that is, in fact, very difficult.
Even if it's scary for most of us to contemplate.
I'm wanting you to consider that you may, despite all your defenses to the contrary
be totally lost, or at best, you may be all alone, spiritually, in a world that has lost its way big time.
Over the centuries many countries have adopted a somewhat Christian identity;
giving the impression that Jesus and the Bible and all that they represent
are a major part of what people in those countries believe and practice.
This is most notably true in the United States of America.
This is a country which claims to have been born in the ideals of Christianity.
But reality is that almost no one in all of these countries
really gives a flip about what Jesus taught anymore.
They are formerly occupied now when their families, their jobs
and their religious replacements for all that Jesus and his band of ruffians
represented when he walked this Earth.
If you just want to be respectable and successful
then that fits very neatly with what this new form of Christianity represents.
Some people have been able to make a lot of money out of this version of Christianity
as it is taught in churches all over the world today.
So if that's what you're looking for then this kind of Christianity may be just perfect for you.
But please don't deceive yourself into believing that it's going to make any difference after you leave this life.
Jesus talked about things like having eternal life
but what he said was really only directed at a tiny handful of people.
He said, "broad is the way that leads to death and many there be who walk in it
"but strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life
"and few there be that find it."
He said that it would be much more difficult
to find that narrow way in the world that we now live in, then it was in the days when he walked the Earth.
He called those days (when he was crucified) green days, spiritually.
He said it would be like a dried, dead tree in a world now, just before he returns.
In fact, he asked himself a very sad rhetorical question:
"When the son of man comes, will he find any faith at all left on the Earth?"
I don't think he was talking about just one denomination boldly proclaiming the truth while the others go to hell
or even a single congregation here and there that is sincerely following Jesus.
A best I think he was talking about isolated individuals.
You hear me? Isolated individuals, like Noah.
Maybe not even one such individual in an entire city.
I have experienced it so many times, where I talk to someone
about their personal relationship with the Jesus of the Bible.
You can almost read their minds.
They're thinking about what the pastor or their family or someone else would think of what I'm saying.
I pick up that they want to get away as soon as they can, and back to the safety of their group
where they can look to each other for what to do, and not to Jesus and his teachings.
People just don't know what it's like to stand all alone and not cave in spiritually.
All alone like Noah
Everyone, everywhere, follows the crowd.
The crowds may differ from person to person, but it's still a crowd they're following.
God wants us to have fellowship with other believers if that's at all possible.
But fellowship has become the be-all and end-all of Christian faith these days.
It really needs to start with just you and God.
Or more specifically, with just you and Jesus.
If you can't do that, then you should probably just admit that you don't have what it takes
to walk the narrow way that Jesus has set for his followers.
I mentioned that strait gate a moment ago, and I want to explain. It's not straight like in a straight line.
No, the word used in the Bible is spelled S-T-R-A-I-T, as in straitjacket.
It's another word for "very narrow".
In the ocean, when a ship has to travel through a very narrow passage, it's called a strait.
That kind of strait.
A straitjacket wraps your arms around your body, making you as narrow as you can possibly be.
You lose all personal freedom when you're encased in a straitjacket.
Well, God wants us to give ourselves totally to him in the same way.
Trust him for everything.
I personally reckon the gate to heaven is a turnstile.
You know, those things they have at some railway stations and some sports stadiums
where you insert your ticket, and then it allows just one person to walk through at a time.
You don't stroll into heaven in groups. You do it one at a time, all on your own.
It doesn't matter one bit how big a cheer squad you have in the background.
If you have not got it right between yourself and Jesus
the turnstile is not going to turn.
And if the ticket you've been sold by your pastor or your denomination is not the one that Jesus preached
the turnstile is going to lock, and you'll be cast out;
dropped into hell instead
where there's plenty of room and plenty of company. Is that what you want?
I'm doing what I can to encourage anyone who is prepared to leave everything and everybody else
to follow Jesus.
But in the end, it's really up to you
Do you have what it takes to stand alone with Jesus?
Jesus said that John the Baptist, who lived out in the wilderness
eating grasshoppers and making clothes out of dried camel skins
was the greatest prophet that had ever been born up to that time.
But then he goes on to say that the least person in his kingdom needs to be stronger than John.
This is not a bandwagon way of salvation I'm talking about.
But it's the one that Jesus taught.
And I'm praying that you may be that one in a million who will put God first and leave everything for him.
God is looking for Noahs today; people who are prepared to follow him even if they're the only one.
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I'll be praying for you.
But I ask you to pray for me too: that we'll both be faithful to the end
Thank you.