Who Warned You to Flee?

The motive for coming to Christ cannot be to escape Hell! There must be a sincere desire to want to turn to God, to get to know who he really is. There must be an awareness that something is not right in our lives and that only God can make things right. There must be a willingness to hear what God has to say, a thirst for righteousness. This is what I believe John the Baptist is conveying to the pharisees and saduces in Mathew chapter 3 verse 8 when he states "Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance" Interestingly enough he is not telling them to bring forth fruits "of repentance", but rather "fruits meet, or worthy for repentance"... You see there was something in the hearts of these men that made it practically impossible for the Holy Ghost to even bring conviction, which in turn brings forth repentance. The response to Johns exhortation in these mens hearts was religion... John was made aware of their very thoughts as we can see in verse 9.. the argument in their heart was that they were rightfully of the lineage and seed of Abraham.. this was true according to the flesh.. but in heart they were nothing like Abraham. They perhaps felt entitled to this baptism and opportunity to repent, but they were not even aware that there was a need for repentance... they were justified in their own works in their own minds and by their own religious standards.

How about today?

How many men and women come to God in the very same condition of these pharisees and saduces? They come to churches all over this city and perhaps even this country and some of them have religious backgrounds. Some of them have Christian parents, christian friends, and Christian relatives. Many have actually grown up in the church, and they have a sense of what is right and what is wrong. They have a basic doctrinal understanding of heaven and hell, and they even have an inner awareness that lest they change and make things right with God, hell is a real possibility in their future. They have heard of Gods mercy, his loving kindness and long suffering. So they often show up to church meetings and when the preacher is done preaching and he makes his altar call, off to the races they go. Now in some cases these are genuine altar calls by Godly men and women, and there are truly broken and humbled people responding and giving their lives to Christ... Praise God for that!!! But too often nowadays that is not the case. Too often it is simply a case of Mathew chapter 3 verses 7-9 repeating itself all over again!! Nothing but a generation of vipers fleeing from the coming wrath, not warned by God but by their own crafty nature... Somehow deceived into believing that they can mock God. And sadly to say NOT TOO OFTEN, are there men devoted to the cause of Jesus Christ like John was, who hear from God and know how to discern these things, and who have the courage to shout from the top of their lungs like John did.... " who warned you to flee from the coming wrath" bring forth fruits that are worthy of repentance!! NO, instead we have men and women of God all over the world who, dont pray, or spend time praying to God for things that are unscriptual, selfish and sensual! Praying and asking amiss because they ask to consume upon their own lust. There is hardly any talk of fasting, forget reading the word, and when they read they spend so much time trying to fit it into their own agendas that they cant even understand a single verse! And this has been going on for so long now that for years and years altars have been getting more and more full with more and more people who simply have been doing nothing more than "trying to flee from Gods wrath"!! Trying to escape hell, but not wanting to do so the way the bible says to do it. Not wanting to get to know who God is.. Not aware of the emptiness in their hearts, still very much justified in their own minds and hearts. Still unwilling to let go of their religious sense of entitlement to Gods mercy!!! Hellbent on coming to God and expecting that God has to forgive them and let them be. They haven't even born fruit worthy of repentance!! The Holy Ghost has never convicted them of their sins and so no true repentance was really possible. Its even gotten to the point where now many have moved through and up the ranks of the churches and now we have apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers who have never even known the true conviction of the Holy Ghost, they've never known repentance. And they have ushered in nothing but religious powerlessness in the name of Christ to many Churches today.

God Help us to go into the prayer closet and seek Gods face, let us ask God and seek in his word to see if indeed we have repented, or is it possible that some of us have simply embraced a christianity that allows for God to come along on some journey with us and agree with us, and follow us on our life paths and ambitions? O God help us to follow You, agree with You, go on a journey with you, no ambitions, no hidden desires, no agendas, simply one... mathew 6:33 to seek him and his kingdom first, trusting that he will provide all that we need to do so!!!

Amen