Luke 13:6-9 · Repent or Perish
6 Then Jesus told this story: “A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and
again to see if there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed.
8 “The gardener answered, ‘Sir,
give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and I’ll give it special
attention and plenty of fertilizer.
9 If we get figs next year, fine. If not, then
you can cut it down.’”
What are Your Thoughts?
Do You Think – That Jesus’ Story of this
Helpless Fig Tree?
Do You Believe It Is Cruel and Unjust?
Within this Parable of the Fig Tree,
Jesus Is Telling Us That - ‘IF IT DOES NOT
BEAR FRUIT, THEN IT WILL BE CUT DOWN.’
So, To You – Does That Sound Like a Loving God?
You Know --- He was Telling Those Within His
Days As He Is Also Telling Us Within Our Own,
That We Are RESPONSIBLE FOR As Well As EXPECTED
- TO Bear Fruit,
And For MAKING A DIFFERENCE
In Our YESTERDAY!
In Our TODAY!
And In Our TOMORROWS!
We Are TO BE Soldiers Of the Cross, And To
Batter Down The GATES OF HELL!
So, How WELL Do YOU THINK That We ARE DOING IN This
WAR For Christ?
Christianity
is currently around 2.4 billion
Or
31% of the World’s Population
While Islam is currently around 1.9 billion
Or
25% of the World’s Population
But – WHAT ABOUT HERE, WITHIN THE STATES?
Are We Not Doing SO MUCH BETTER?
§ 1990 – 85%
§ 2001 – 81%
§ 2012 – 78%
§ 2014 – 70%
§ 2020 – 65%
GUYS – This Is on OUR, That Is – During Yours
and My IN OUR WATCH!
There Is NO Pointing FINGERS AT ANYONE ELSE HERE!
But – Why ARE WE DOING SO POORLY!!!
Don’t You Also Want to Know
WHY?
TODAY – RIGHT HERE - There are More than 50 Million Americans Who Claim To Be Christian!
SO – WITH THAT TYPE OF A NUMBER 50 MILLION
AMERICANS -
THEN – WHY?
WHY Do We Not Have A Greater Impact Upon Our
Own Society?
Why Do WE Not - MOVE More Lives INTO The LOVING
ARMS of Jesus Christ?
WHY?
I Believe THE ANSWER Is Because We Have Been SO
- Conditioned
To FALL For This NEWER - “CHEAP GRACE”!
But - What on Earth Is this - Cheap Grace?
WELL – FIRST OF ALL, We Need to
Understand That This ‘Cheap Grace’ Is Not of This Earth! And It Is Also Not of Heaven, But Rather, It Is a Product of The EVIL ONE!
YOU SEE – ‘CHEAP GRACE’
Is OUR PURSUIT – or - INTEREST WITHIN A “NEW
– ‘Synthetic’ Christianity Which OFFERS ONLY A FLOOD OF BLESSINGS,
THE RIGHTS OF THE KINGDOM WITHOUT
HAVING
ANY OF THE RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE KING!"
CHEAP GRACE!
QUESTION: IS THIS WHAT YOU CURRENTLY HAVE?
A RELIGION WITHOUT A PRICE!
WITHOUT A COST!!
AND OF COURSE, WITHOUT THE CROSS!
H.G. Wells - Once Wrote an Essay Concerning A Tribe of People Which He
Called
The "Goodness Sakers."
This Tribe Was Well Known In their CUNNING
ABILITY in IDENTIFYING ALL OF THE SOCIAL
TYPE OF EVIL That is within Their Land!
This Tribe Was SO KEEN TO DETECT ALL - MORAL
SHORTCOMINGS!
And WHEN SUCH EVIL WAS FOUND, They Would
ALL GATHER TOGETHER!
And While Doing the Ritual of WRINGING THEIR
HANDS Together,
THEY WOULD BEGIN TO CHANT:
"FOR GOODNESS SAKES!
WHY DOESN'T SOMEONE
DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS?"
Do You HAVE This ‘CHEAP
GRACE’?
Let us Go Back to Our Scripture for Today
Did You - Clearly UNDERSTAND Jesus’ Parable?
Listen As I Try to Explain it
“A MAN -
That Man Which Jesus Is Telling Us About Is
GOD The Father!
GOD THE FATHER PLANTED A FIG TREE
IN HIS GARDEN -
That Is, God the Father
Planted You And I
Into His Family Garden!
He Accepted Us as His Own.
GOD THE FATHER PLANTED YOU AND I
INTO HIS FAMILY GARDEN
AND (THE FATHER) CAME AGAIN AND AGAIN –
TO SEE IF THERE WAS ANY FRUIT ON IT
But Why Did He Continue to Come
Again and Again and Again?
It was Because He Wanted to Watch Us
The Father Wanted to See Us
As We Began to Blossom for Him.
He Wanted to See Us Growing in Him.
He Wanted to Watch Us
As We Brought Others to Him.
He Wanted to See IF We Were Accepting Him?
IF We Were Really Accepting Him as Our God?
He Wanted to Watch the Fruit GROW
Where We Became Part of HIM!
BUT THE FATHER WAS ALWAYS DISAPPOINTED.
FINALLY, THE FATHER SAID TO HIS GARDENER –
The Father Said to Jesus
‘I HAVE WAITED THREE YEARS,
AND THERE HASN’T BEEN A SINGLE FIG!
CUT IT DOWN.
IT’S JUST TAKING UP SPACE IN THE GARDEN.’
Did You Hear What the Father Said?
He Did Not Say,
Prune It!
Cut It Back!!
Shake It Some!!!
NO! He Said, Cut It Out!!! And Throw It
Away!!!
BUT JESUS THE GARDENER ANSWERED,
‘FATHER, GIVE IT ONE MORE CHANCE.
LEAVE IT ANOTHER YEAR!
AND I WILL GIVE IT SPECIAL ATTENTION
AND PLENTY OF FERTILIZER.
THEN IF WE GET FIGS NEXT YEAR, FINE.
IF NOT,
THEN YOU CAN CUT IT DOWN.’”
YOU SEE - It is WE – You and I, WE ARE THE WHO.
WHO – HAVE – BEEN – CALLED TO ACT! TO DO - SOMETHING!
You Know –
We Are Not Required to Figure Out, WHY There IS Hunger within this world, But we
Are Asked to Do Our Part In Feeding the Hungry!
We Are Not to Figure Out: WHY Sometimes Good Healthy
People - People With Families
YOU SEE - It Is Not UP TO US To Try to Figure
Out – WHY Bad Things Happen to Good People, But We ARE CALLED TO - BE THERE To Bring
Comfort And To Supply Both Material And Emotional Support To the Living!
NOW – HERE IS THE THING –
IF EVERYONE Swept In Front of Their Own Doors, Then The ENTIRE – THE WHOLE WORLD Would Be
Clean!
JUST IF - EVERYONE Swept In Front of Their Own Doors,
NOW - Think About That for JUST A Moment!!!
IF Each person Is doing Their Own Personal Best – Telling Others of Our Faith
And With All of Us Being Linked Arm-In-Arm Together
With other people
Who Are Also - Doing Their own Personal
Best, In Telling Others Of Their Own Faith
THEN – DON’T YOU SEE THE HOW
GREAT - THINGS
ARE MOST ASSUREDLY
TO BE ACCOMPLISHED!
WE ARE NOT CALLED
TO HAVE THIS - CHEAP GRACE!
BUT WE ARE CALLED TO HAVE
“GOD’S HOLY GRACE!!!”
AND MY FRIENDS, THIS AUTHENTIC TYPE OF GRACE, IT ALWAYS
COMES WITH A PRICE!
I know that we should never MISUSE Scripture
To Say what: ‘We Want it to say!
And I know that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
6:12-20, Specifically Concerning ‘Sexual Sin’.
However, When I Read It,
Listen To It –
Listen to God’s Words
So, You Can Hear the Deeper Meaning
The Underlining Truth Within these Words.
And Just Maybe, With Us Approaching It This
Way,
With Us Knowing of The Sexual Sin
Which Paul Is Telling Us Of,
But - Just Maybe, We Also
Will Understand It Better.
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—
But not everything is good for you.
And even though “I am allowed to do anything,”
I must not become a slave to anything.
You say, “Food was made for the stomach,
And the stomach for food.”
(This is true, though someday
God will do away with both of them.)
But you cannot say that our bodies
were made for sexual immorality.
They were made for the Lord,
and the Lord cares about our bodies.
And God will raise us from the dead by His Power,
just as He raised our Lord from the dead.
Don’t you realize that your bodies
are actually parts of Christ?
Should a man take his body,
which is part of Christ, and join it to a
prostitute?
Never!
And don’t you realize that if a man
joins himself to a prostitute,
he becomes one body with her?
For the Scriptures say, “The two are united
into one.”
But the person who is joined to the Lord is One
Spirit with Him.
Run from sexual sin!
No other sin so clearly affects the body as
this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.
Don’t you realize that your body is
the Temple of the Holy Spirit,
Who lives in you
and was given to you by God?
You do not belong to yourself,
for God bought you with a high price.
So, you must honor God with your body.
And I Say, ‘Just As Sexual Sin Bounds
Us Up with The Evil One, So Does All of Our
Other Sinful Ways!
And IF We Are Bounded That Tightly with The
Devil, Then Where Does That Leave Us With
GOD?’
You may have Noticed In Your Bulletins, There
is a Note from Our - District Superintendent, Nate Rovenstine, Which concludes
with these WORDS:
IS NOTHING!
But Our ‘DRIFT’ Begins With Such a WELL-THOUGHT-OUT-PLAN!
And With Such GREAT-SKILL!
And APPLIED SO CAREFULLY!
You See – Our ‘Cheap Grace’
BEGINS - With Us Learning HOW TO LOWER DOWN THE
PRICE, WHICH GOD HAD ALREADY PAID, TO GET US BACK FROM THE EVIL ONE.
You See
·
IF We Lose Site of The Ball
·
IF We Lesson the Depths of What Our Sins
Cost
·
IF We Lesson the Effects Of What Sin Has,
Then Didn’t the Enemy
Already WIN US BACK?
REMEMBER -
ALL YOU NEED TO DO TO DRIFT,
IS NOTHING!!!
By Us Doing Nothing, You know – By Just Hanging
Out.
Maybe Even Having Our Transmissions in Neutral.
Then It Is So Easy For Us to Lose Site of The TRUE COST!
We - So Slowly – But Most Assuredly, We Are Slipping Away from The
FULL UNDERSTANDING Of GOD'S WORK!
We Become So Blinded
To
CHRIST’s TRUE COST
OF HIS DEATH
UPON THE CROSS
And Of the GLORY Of Our Reward Which Is
Available to Us
Through Jesus Christ
WITHIN HIS RESURRECTION
FROM THE GRAVE!
AND IF This Isn’t Our Very First - Step
In Our Journey BACK FROM THE ‘CHEAP GRACE’,
COMING BACK,
IN OUR ATTEMPT TO REGAIN
“GOD’S TRUE GRACE”
THEN IT MUST BE OUR SECOND.
We Must Remember
‘GOD DID NOT MAKE
OUR SALVATION POSSIBLE’ –
But Rather
HE HAS
ACCOMPLISHED IT!”
Here are Just a Few Reasons
of the ‘WHY’
So Many Of Us Within Our Today,
Good People and Bad People Alike,
Are Never Going to Be
With GOD
Within Their Eternities:
1)
Satan has Convinced Us that –
The Only Requirement of Mankind
Is To Be ‘Mainly’ Good.
But The Truth Is Found in Isaiah 64:6 (NLT)
We are all infected
and impure with sin.
When we display our
righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we
wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
2)
Satan Has Convinced Us that –
Following God is Not Only Boring
But It Also Has Too Many Rules.
But Romans 8:5-8 Tell Us Differently. (NLT)
“Those who are dominated by the sinful nature
think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit
think about things that please the Spirit. So, letting your sinful nature
control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind
leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It
never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still
under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.”
3)
Satan Has Convinced Us that –
It is not Necessary to Be Serious About Our
Faith,
Even By Having a Casual Relationship
Is Intimate Enough.
But we find God’s Truth In Deuteronomy 6:5
(NLT)
“And you must love the Lord your God with all
your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.”
And NOW – Here IS A
Teaching From Our Lord WHICH WE MAY USE TO UNDERSTAND THE LIES OF SATAN.
John 8:44-48 (NLT)
(We Need to Take Note of what God Tells Us of
Who We Are Without HIM!)
“For you are the children of your father the
devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the
beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the
father of lies. So, when I tell the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me!
…
And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t
you believe me? Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God.
But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.”
We Need to Understand That
The devil is in
control of this world
And he so well dominates mankind.
The devil does this
so well
THAT MAN DOESN'T
EVEN KNOW
THAT WE ARE BEING DOMINATED!
And The Hard TRUTH
of It Is –
We, You, and I are Natural Enemies of God!
And By Just Looking at
the Figures
Christians Dropping
By 20% of All Americans
In Just the PAST 30 Years,
Doesn’t that Paint the Picture That
We Must Also Be –
Willing Participants,
And We Must Be Enjoying It?!?
BUT – Here is Another TRUTH Which Is Hard to
Take:
Sin doesn’t come upon you.
IT JUST REMAINS IN YOU.
We ALL HAVE A SINFUL NATURE!
So, When You Begin to Wonder
“Why did Christ have to die on the cross?”
It Is Because – God’s Rath Upon Us
IS - JUST - THAT - GREAT!
That JESUS CHRIST IS THE ONLY ONE
WHO CAN BEAR THE FATHER’S RATH
AND CONQUER The DEATH OF SIN!
And the Reason WHY Satan
Is Gaining So Much Ground
Is Simply Because,
We Don’t Take
The Cost of Our Sins
Seriously Enough!
Using John, the Baptist’s Own Words
REPENT!
REPENT!
REPENT!
But Here Is ‘The GOOD NEWS’!
What is impossible for man
IS TOTALLY POSSIBLE BY GOD.
God can make –
What is dead,
He can make it alive.
For God Bought YOU With a High Price.
So, You Must Honor God
With How You Live Your Life.
TODAY - We Are Not Comfortable with
The Concept of God’s Accountability
Of The Church!
Maybe it is True.
‘Cheap Grace’ Is All That We Want.
But – I Believe It May be Wise
If We Would Go Back
And Read Why Jesus Said:
·
That Sheep Will Be Separated from Goats,
·
Tares Will Be Tossed into The Furnace,
·
And This Fig Tree –
o Will Be Cut Down and Why.
‘Sir, give it one more chance. Leave it another
year, and I’ll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer.
If We get figs next year, fine.
If not, then You can cut it down.’”
SO - What Are YOU Doing with
Your EXTRA TIME?
Maybe It Is True!
Maybe Many of Us
Have Settled for Imitation ‘Cheap Grace’.
Maybe There Just Isn’t Many of Us
Who Even Know
What It Means to
Pick Up Your Own Cross
DAILY - and Follow Jesus.
Maybe We Too
Will Be Cut Down
And Thrown in the Fire.
What Are YOU Doing with Your EXTRA TIME?
Where Does Your Heart Lie?
