MISSION CRITICAL
(See the Study
Guides Menu for 2 study guides)
This will be a
very special week as it corresponds to our Lord's last week and His death on
the cross. Many Bible Students will partake of the emblems with a service after
6PM on Wednesday evening. Then 9AM Thursday will correspond to the time of
His crucifixion. And next Sunday will
be consistent with His resurrection.
Let me suggest that we not only be aware of these things this week but,
let us reflect on and think about what He wants us to do as we endeavor to
follow in His footsteps.
When thinking
about all this, it dawned on me that many of
the Lord's people rely too heavily on pastors, elders, teachers and
speakers in general, to teach them what they need to know about the Bible.
Of course, speakers
invited to serve a congregation will do their very best to serve the group as
they feel guided by the Holy Spirit.
But the truth is, only a fraction of what one needs to know can be
learned from the pulpit. Any more than this is both a physical and practical
impossibility.
We estimate that
about 75% of what one needs to know
about the Bible must be learned in prayerful personal study. Hence, our title, "Mission
Critical."
Mission critical
was originally a military term. But,
now we hear it used just about everywhere and it generally refers to an item or
items that are vital to the success of a particular undertaking.
With so very many
Scriptures to choose from, I wondered
exactly which ones could be considered Mission Critical. We
know there are things God wants us to know which cannot be taught in
short sermons or studies. There are many complex and crucial things that have
to be learned and pondered by prayerful individual study.
So we came up
with a "Mission Critical" list.
Our list is by no means complete nor intended to be complete. And this morning we would like to show how
this applies to personal Bible study? To begin, let’s look at a couple of
Scriptures.
When our Lord was
12 years old. He said “…. I must be
about my Father’s business”(Luke 2:49).
In other words, His Mission or purpose, was to take care of His Fathers
business. And when He began His
ministry at age 30 He began teaching His disciples the things they needed to
know about His mission.
Then after His
death and resurrection and before His ascension, He gave His eleven disciples
three last minute commissions. The one
in Matthew 28: verses 18 to 20 is called the GREAT commission. And it says:
(18) And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All
power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. (19) "Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, (20) "teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the
end of the world (age)."
Notice that our
Lord said “teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded
you." Did He say “please teach
these things?" NO! Did He say, “teach only the things that are
popular?” NO! He said their mission was to teach the things that He has commanded. That word commanded is not a flexible
word. It means DO IT!
As they say in the military,
“That’s an ORDER.”
That was 2000
years ago. And here we are today with
the greatest tools ever for study and teaching. We have inexpensive
copies of the Bible, computers, tape recorders, copy machines, fax machines, booklets, tracts, and E-mail to
anywhere in the world. These tools are available not only for our personal
study, but for public witnessing and teaching as well.
Then we gave a
lot of thought to main stream denominational churches and what they teach. Although it varies from church to church, it
seems that most of them preach salvation over and over. Then after the newly saved
join the church they continue to hear “are you saved?” No wonder they become spiritually
hungry. Could this be one reason why so
many are Biblically illiterate and suffering from spiritual mal-nutrition?
And yes, it is
quite true that the first step to salvation is to believe in and accept Jesus
Christ as your personal savior. So here
we have:
Mission Critical
Item #1 (Belief in Christ Jesus)
We gave you a
study guide listing 10 Mission Critical items that may be found all through the
Bible. But, our thought is that the New Testament teachings of our Lord would
be the best place to start.
Belief in Christ
is not only Mission Critical item #1, but there are 2 levels of Salvation as
our Lord clearly taught in the story of
the Rich Young Ruler. Jesus taught that
there is an earthly salvation AND a higher calling leading to a heavenly
salvation. Not very many churches teach
that one.
This higher
calling in Christ Jesus is accepted only by those who have seen the price,
counted the cost and made the commitment.
Jesus referred to these as His sheep and in John 10:27 He
said:
"My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." (John 10:27)
Our Lord had
disciples then and He has disciples now. You see, the word disciple comes from
the word discipline. Then and NOW the
followers of Christ must exercise discipline at all times. This is why we should concentrate on
what our Lord, Jesus Christ, wants us to learn and know and teach.
Mission Critical
Item # 2: (The Identity of our Lord).
You also have a
study guide for the 7 churches of Revelation.
The first thing our Lord did for each church was to identify
Himself. In today's terminology, He was
giving them His ID!
To Ephesus He identified
Himself as he that holds the seven stars (meaning the seven angels or
messengers) in His right hand. He said
he walked in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, which is to say in the
midst of the seven churches.
To Smyrna He
identified Himself as the first and the last and He who was dead and is
alive.
To the Church at
Pergamos He identified Himself as He which hath the sharp sword with two edges.
To the church at
Thyatira He identified Himself as the Son of God who hath his eyes like unto a
flame of fire and his feet like fine brass.
To Sardis He
said that He has the seven spirits of
God and the seven stars.
To Philadelphia
He identified Himself as He that is Holy; He that is true; He that hath the key of David; He that openeth and no man shutteth and He
that shutteth and no man openeth.
And lastly He
identified Himself to the Church of Laodicea as the Amen, the faithful and true
witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
Wonder how many churches teach that one?
Our lesson from
this should be obvious. It's Mission
Critical for us to know and understand and teach WHO our Lord actually is. And strangely enough, this is one of the
most controversial things we will ever teach.
Some Christians say Jesus is God the Father incarnate in the flesh. Others say he’s the second member of a
Trinity of Gods. Some churches refer
to God as she in order to be politically
correct. But, the most popular WORLD view is to just ignore Jesus and try to make anyone who loves Him feel
uncomfortable or out of step with society.
Let us remember
that Jesus considered it important to clearly identify just who He is. Hebrews 10:7 quotes from the 40th
Psalm. It says: 'Behold, I have come; In the volume of
the book it is written of Me; To do Your will, O God.'"
So, if the volume
of the book, the Bible, is about our Lord then it shouldn’t be too difficult to
identify just who He is. Yet, tradition
has it's own view and few churches teach the true identity of Jesus? It would be interesting to know just how
many Christian brethren are willing to stand up and be counted on this #2
Mission Critical item?
Number 3:
(Works).
Are works
necessary for salvation? Some say all
you have to do is believe. Others say
works are OK but not necessary. What did
our Lord say about works? What should
the Church be doing in this new millennium?
Let’s examine a
couple of quotes from our Lord in Matthews Gospel.
Matt. 23:14 "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore
you shall receive the greater damnation..
Could we imagine
that LONG PRAYERS are acceptable works?
Lets rewind Matthew 23:14 back to verse 5.
Matt. 23: 5
"But all their works they do to be seen of men.
Are extremely
long prayers an example of works to be seen of men? Many are uncomfortable when someone offers a prayer that just
goes on and on.
Teaching is a
very important work! In the case of a
Church or group working together, the things taught to others are the chief
works of that group as a whole. You
see, as a group, they decide on what they will teach to others. We see evidence
of this in the Churches of Revelation.
And the works of each church is what determined whether or not they
received reprimands.
On your study
guide you will see that our Lord had some nice things to say to the church at
Ephesus concerning their works, but he
also had some reprimands.
On the other
hand, our Lord was highly complimentary
of the works of Smyrna. And that
compliment was centered around their knowledge of knowing and teaching the
blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are NOT!
Did you pick up
on that? There are those who claim to
be Jews and are NOT. Not only did our
Lord compliment the church at Smyrna on this, but they received absolutely NO
reprimand at all. Interesting!
And the Church at
Philadelphia received similar accolades.
It seems both of these churches knew there are those who claim to be
Jews but are not, but in reality are the synagogue of Satan. There can be no doubt that this was the
greatest work of these two churches.
And these are the only churches that received no reprimands
whatsoever. The works of these two
churches are a fascinating study, ideal for another time.
Witnessing is
Works. This may be called seed planting
. The disciples of our Lord are privileged to plant seed from time to
time. We should always be alert to
opportunities that present themselves.
It might be a good idea to carry a few tracts or cards or the address of
your Church to pass out when God gives you this opportunity.
And one more
point while on the subject of works. In
Matt. 25:31-46 we have the parable of the sheep and the goats. When our Lord
divided the nations into sheep and goats, He illustrated the works of each
group by how they helped others.
Jesus said I was
naked and ye clothed me, I was hungry and ye fed me. I’m sure all of us would like to do more of this. Helping others is a vital work. Don’t let anyone tell you WORKS are NOT
important for our works reflect our relationship with Jesus Christ. Study and learn this parable well.
# 4: (Rewards/punishment)
Let's go back to our
study guide of the 7 Churches. At the bottom we see REWARDS! Our Lord promised reward after reward to a
group he referred to as “overcomers.”
To the first church He said: "… the overcomers would eat of the
tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God. To the second He said, "the overcomers
would not be hurt of the second death." To the third church He said, " the overcomers will eat of the hidden
manna and will be given a white stone and in the stone a new name."
When He came to
Thyatira He added a few more words about the overcomers. Our Lord said “He that
overcometh AND keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he will rule
them with a rod of iron.” Obviously a
special reward. And, He said, “I will
give him the morning star.” Are there
two morning stars? Which morning star
is our Lord talking about? More
homework and personal study.
And to the
overcomers of the Sardis church, He promised white clothing and said, “I will not blot out his name from the book
of life, but I will confess his name before my Father and before His
angels.” To Philadelphia He said, “to
Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall
go no more out. And I will write upon
him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God which is new
Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from my God and I will write upon him
my new name.”
But this wasn’t
all. To the Loadicean overcomers He
said, “I will grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame, and am
set down with my Father in His throne.”
Turning now to
the rewards for sin, the Bible tells us plainly what the wages of sin are.
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Sin is the
transgression of God's law. Since the
wages of sin is death, we need to understand God's law. Jesus made God's
law quite clear. He said:
Matt. 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great
commandment. (39) And the second is
like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (40) On these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets.
We think it's
Mission Critical to know that the wages
for breaking these laws is DEATH. We
think it's vital to settle the age old debate of where the willfully wicked
will spend eternity. Millions of
Christians say these will be consciously tormented in burning flames for ever
and ever. Luke 16:19-31 is the main
Scripture used to document this concept.
Question! Is this scripture a parable or an analogy? On the contrary, there are many who believe
that the incorrigibles will simply be destroyed NOT tormented.
Mission Critical
item #5 (Faith).
Paul said our
value to God is dependent on our
faith. I know that sounds strange. The documentation for this is found in
Romans 12:3. Using the Living Bible
Paul said:
ROM 12:3 TLB As God's messenger I give each of you God's
warning: Be honest in your estimate of yourselves, measuring your value by how
much faith God has given you.
This is
particularly revealing. Paul is saying
that we can measure our VALUE by how much faith we have been given. Contrary to public opinion, our value is not
in our accumulated wealth nor is our value dependent on how well we can expound
the Scriptures. Neither is our value
reliant on how beautifully or how long we can pray in public or anything of the
kind. Paul says our value is measured
by how much faith we have.
One might say,
"Well, fine! How do I increase my
faith?" Hey that's a good question.
And as always the Bible has the answer.
Again Paul says in Romans 10:17:
So then faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
One might say,
"How do I hear the word of God? Is
He going to speak to me in private? Or
is He going to speak to me thru a preacher or teacher?"
The answer is
"Yes, maybe all of these."
But our teacher must be the Holy Spirit of God. We should study the Bible on our own making
it a part of our everyday life. Just
like one watches a newscast every day, one must study his Bible every day. In doing this the words of God are
programmed into our subconscious mind.
Then these words from our subconscious
will be played back to our conscious mind at every given opportunity.
According to Paul we will be hearing
the Word of God and that will increase our faith and consequently our VALUE to
Him.
Remember how
often Jesus said, "Oh ye of little faith." He wanted His disciples then and now to have more
faith and Paul tells us how to get it.
Perhaps we can
think of faith like a muscle. We keep
our muscles in top shape with exercise.
And the same thing is true of faith.
Everyday we need to exercise the faith we have and in turn God will give
us more faith.
Each one of these
Mission Critical items is a detailed study within itself. A years work? No! A lifetime is more like it.
And so far we've only considered 5 very important items to study and
learn and teach. These are not items to
give lip service to, not items to bend around and shape for political
correctness or items to appease those who have other beliefs. These are NOT items to ignore, but items
critical to OUR chosen Mission. And:
this requires
patience which is Mission Critical item #6.
There are 33
verses in the New Testament alone containing the word patience. We can easily
see this is a subject on which we could have a seminar for several days. But perhaps the one Scripture that sums them
all up is Luke 21:19 which says:
In your patience
possess ye your souls.
Truly patience is
vital to our mission in the service of the Master. Consider this:
James 1:4 But let patience have her perfect work, that
ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
Going back to the
Church of Thyatira in Revelation 2:19 our Lord said,
"I know
thy works and charity and service and faith and thy PATIENCE…."
Yes, patience is mentioned
in our study of the Churches so it's Mission Critical. More personal study!
We need to hurry
along and move to Mission Critical item #7
-- Repentance.
This is the first
lesson our Lord taught after being Baptized by John. Following His baptism, Jesus was led by the spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted by Satan. After that the Bible says;
Matt. 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to
say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Here we have the
Lord's very first sermon! It was
…REPENT! Repentance is another long
and detailed study, one that must be dug out on your own. I invite you to study the subject and learn
why our Lord preached repentance FIRST!
And this leads me
to repeat what we said earlier. There
is so much to learn by personal home study.
This kind of study is personal and confidential between you and the
Lord and Paul told Timothy this is
necessary for God's approval. Second
Timothy 2:15 says:
Study to show
thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth.
#8, Know the
enemy.
When asked to
identify the enemy, most will say Satan. And truly he is the enemy of
both God and man. God said to Satan in the garden of Eden:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his heel.
God told Satan
that the woman would have seed who would bruise Satan's head. But God also said that Satan would have seed
who would bruise the heel of the woman's seed.
Many believe that
the seed of Satan are the NON Christians of the world. While this is a plausible thought, we
must not lose sight of the fact that
God said Satan has seed. Was this a
figure of speech or was He talking about real seed? Does this have anything to do with Jesus statement to the
Scribes and Pharisees when He said,
"Ye are of your father the devil…?" Does this have anything to do with the compliment paid to
Philadelphia and Smyrna about knowing that there are those who claim to be Jews
but are not? These are logical
questions to ponder. More study!
And we should
learn exactly who is "the antichrist." This is vital because
"the antichrist" will impersonate Christ and appear on the scene before
our Lord's second advent and will deceive many.
But Satan is not
our only enemy. "The world"
is our enemy with its many unholy traditions and ideals and false promises and
false hopes.
Also, "the
flesh" is our enemy. Like the tree
of knowledge in the garden, which to Eve seemed good for food and pleasant to the eyes, so are many things
that otherwise seem OK. What a
marvelous study one can have on the subject of "know the enemy."
Now #9, Tradition
vs. Truth
Tradition teaches
that December 25th is the birthday of our Lord. Study, logic and reason teach otherwise. One might say,
"What does it hurt to teach this error?" Let me ask, "Does the Bible connect Santa Claus in some way
with the birth of Christ?" NO it
does not! Are we lying to our children
about Santa Clause? Where in the Bible
did our Lord instruct us to teach lies?
We all know He didn't do that.
And neither did He instruct us to teach the traditions of men.
What about
rabbits and eggs? Is that Biblical or is it tradition? Teaching the trinity has
become an untouchable tradition throughout most of Christendom. The same thing is true of hell fire. There is nothing about an apple in the
garden of Eden. In fact, an apple tree
is nowhere mentioned in the Bible. Yet,
it's taught all the time, that Adam and Eve ate an apple and everyone had to
die because of that.
Have you ever had
the feeling that there's a lot more to the Adam and Eve story that we've been
led to believe?
What about the 12
tribes of Israel. The popular traditional
teaching is that all 12 of the tribes of Israel are called Jews? But is that really true? Would it be true to say that Issachar is of
Judah? Was Joseph of Judah? What about
Ruben, and Dan or any of the others.
Did Dan and Ruben and Joseph cease to exist? Yet, in Revelation they
still remain with their original names.
In Matt. 10:5 our Lord charged the 12 saying,
(5)…. Go not into
the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: (6)
But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Yes, there were
lost sheep in Jesus day. Are they still
lost today in the sense that they have lost their identity? Is tradition correct in teaching that all
that remains of the 12 tribes of
fleshly Israel today are today's Jews?
Yes,
tradition teaches a great deal of
error. But truth is truth and we should
never forget that "Thy word is truth." For answers to these
questions, you have more homework, more study.
And number 10 is
to Watch and Pray!
We are admonished
in many Scriptures to keep our eyes open and to observe all things. Did we say change all things? NO! We can't change anything. But we should watch the things happening in
the world and pray that these things will not affect us or cause us to be
politically righteous. Now what do I
mean politically righteous? If one
practices political correctness long enough it will become a law unto
itself. And those who continue to
practice political correctness will actually feel politically righteous in
their own mind. In Jesus day the
scribes and Pharisees practiced political correctness. Our Lord warned His disciples about the
political righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees in Matt. 5:20.
Matt. 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness
shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no
case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus reassured
His disciples both then and NOW with the last three verses of the book of
Matthew and we will close by repeating this GREAT commission:
Matt. 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
(19) Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: (20)
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:
and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
May the Lord add
His blessing to our study of His Word.
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